Voyaging the Pacific: In Search of the South by Miles Hordern (John Murray, £17.99)

WHAT makes people set off on lone voyages across the world's seas?

What drives them to endure weeks, and sometimes months, upon treacherous waters, with only their radios for company and long nights of solitude with just the stars to light their way?

Hordern conjures up the experience of his voyage from Auckland to Chile and back via the South Sea islands so vividly that one can feel the motion of the boat on the vast ocean and enter into the lone sailor's state of mind.

Ironically Hordern, who was born in 1965, grew up in land-locked Worcestershire. He learned to sail in the tidal waters of the Channel Islands and in a Midlands gravel pit.

His book, about the 18-month voyage, is a compelling read. He makes the reader feel what it was like on the ocean, but is very self-effacing, although obviously a complex character.

He is sensitive to the power of the elements and anticipates oncoming problems by always having his boat in good order before the problems arrive.

He recalls nights inside his cabin when the boat was "running before big seas".

Among his more comical anecdotes of the journey he relates an odd episode in which he made landfall on an island near Chile.

The customs official had to walk outside because Hordern smelled so much, the author admitting he had been in the same clothes for quite some time...

Beverly Abbs