Rowdy

Madsen, a sailing enthusiast from Santa Barbara, Calif., sumptuously and meticulously documents his restoration of a classic wooden sailboat in this compelling if meandering book. The boat, a Herreschoff New York 40 named Rowdy by its original owner, Holland Duell, in 1916, is days away from being scrapped when Madsen rescues it. In researching the boat’s provenance, Madsen befriends Duell’s now elderly daughter, who provides a trove of information about Rowdy, Duell, and the people who crossed their paths. Alas, this information distracts Madsen, who is an able writer but gets lost in details that stray far from Rowdy. Chapters are spent on the marital and business dealings of Duell’s older brother, Sackett. Even more chapters are devoted to Duell’s younger brother, Charles, who transitions from the political sphere of Theodore Roosevelt to producing motion pictures and having a messy affair with actress Lillian Gish. There’s even a chapter devoted to one of Charles’s films, and one-third of the book explores Duell’s WWI service. None of this relates directly to Rowdy, though it is as exhaustively annotated and illustrated as the sections on the boat’s restoration. Madsen does deliver a stunningly detailed history of the boat, including magnificent images, which makes the many digressions easier to swallow. Color illus.[em] (BookLife) [/em]