BOOKS of the YEAR
HIGHLAND COWES
BY EUAN ROSS
Occasionally, subjects of importance fall through history’s net, but not often are they of the magnitude presented here, which is nothing less than the history of sailing in Scotland. It is a book of grand ambition and gravitas, topping out at 800 pages. Even the author concedes it would take some bravery to read it like a novel, but as a reference work, it’s a serious, scholarly tome, with forests of appendices and footnotes to prove it. It has to be, as Scotland has been, for centuries, one of the great ship-building capitals; and the Firth of
