A review by triscuit807
All Sail Set: A Romance of the Flying Cloud by Armstrong Sperry

3.0

3 stars. This is the story of the teenager Enoch Thacher who in the late 1840s-early 1850s takes a position with Donald McKay's shipbuilding company in Boston as a draftsman. Ostensibly he does it to make money to support his mother (after his father's demise), but he has always loved the thought of ships. Eventually he becomes an apprentice seaman on the first voyage of the clipper ship Flying Cloud which held the speed record from NYC to San Francisco from 1854-1989. To say this is a nautical adventure would be an understatement. It's a rousing adventure, but it somehow failed to wholly capture me (the terminology was just overwhelming) - I think it would make a brilliant film though. Interestingly this voyage is a key trigger in one of the earlier Newberys, Glory of the Seas (Honor Book, 1934). I read this for my 2018 Reading Challenge and my Newbery Challenge (Honor Book, 1936).