This past summer I had the chance to go aboard the Cutty Sark, a British clipper on exhibit in Greenwich, England. The Cutty Sark was one of the last tea clippers to be built, and was used in the waning days of the Age of Sail. Being inside its hull prompted me to reread Eric Newby’s The Last Grain Race (Collins), an account of Newby’s experiences as an eighteen-year-old apprentice onboard the Moshulu, a four-masted barque built at the turn of the 20th century. The Moshulu was a true windjammer, designed with an iron hull to withstand conditions in the Roaring Forties—the westerly winds that shriek across the southern hemisphere between the latitudes of 40° and 50° south. These were the ships that brought raw exports like guano, grain, ore or wool from Chile, Argentina and Australia up to Britain and the rest of Europe. On this trade route in those days, sail was still faster than steam. I started the book with preconceived notions of what life onboard a windjammer would be like, only to come out more enthralled than before, while also being certain that it was a life that I could never have endured. I hadn’t imagined the hordes of fleas which colonized the cracks within the beautiful teak and other hardwoods of such ships. Details like this, as well as descriptions of the preparation of daily meals, were eye-opening, and I relished them as much as I did Newby’s account of climbing the rigging in gale force winds, 130 feet above the deck. And then there were the interactions with his crewmates. Newby found himself caught up in petty escalations of machismo as well as camaraderie, without having the ability to communicate (the crew used a sort of Baltic pidgin to talk with each other). The Last Grain Race is a classic adventure tale, with just the right dash of ethnography and memoir added to the mix. —Anson Ching