I'm nominating
The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby.
The description from Goodreads, where it has a rating of 4.22 stars from 301 users:
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In 1938 an eighteen-year-old boy signed on for the round trip from Europe to Australia in the last commercial sailing fleet to make that formidable journey. The four-masted barque Moshulu ended up as a dockside restaurant in Philadelphia; the young apprentice went on to become one of the greatest travel writers of this century. The Last Grain Race is Eric Newby's spell-binding account of his time spent on the Moshulu's last voyage in the Australian grain trade.
As always, Eric Newby's sharp eye for detail captures the hardships, danger, squabbles, companionship and sheer joy of shipboard life - bedbugs, ferocious storms, eccentric Finnish crew and all. By pure chance, Eric witnessed the passing of the era of sail, and his tale is all the more significant for being the last of its kind.
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Reviews cited at Amazon:
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'Enthralling - I know of no other book about square-riggers that gives such a lively account of the daily round of men in the fo'c'sle' Sunday Times 'Indescribably pungent ... impossible to read without laughing' Observer 'Mr Newby proves himself to be a first-rate writer ... Years have dulled nothing of the spirit of his first voyage; he gives exactly the feel of working a tall ship in hard conditions; he did not just see these things; he felt and can convey them; the crew of "Moshulu" live, move and are real human beings - and go on living when the book is closed' Times Literary Supplement
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