Setting Off With Stiff Breezes
A colossal, photographic exhibition through twelve American waters — Nantucket fog, Montana sweetwater, Florida brine, and Morro Bay sunsets.
The book is a colossus. Anywhere it sits will draw attention to it; it will be seen and talked about and opened. It’s more of a painting, but it’s on a table, not the wall. When you flip the page, it creates a small breeze.
A prime collection of Onne van der Wal’s prolific nautical photography career — it spans everything from racing to weekend flotillas to foggy backwater anchorages — the expansive profile of the pages amplifies the effect of the scenes themselves. If you’ve ever been on a sailboat, there is a guttural thump of the wind inflating the sails, the slice of the bow seemingly about to go under, your stomach bunching up a bit when the boat lurches to a side. It’s a visceral feeling that is primordial and ancient. Poseidon is near. Flip to any of the giant pages, you’ll be at sea.
The book is about sailing in America, which is really a history of America and the nation, and is split up by regions (twelve of them!). It’s a unique way to think about sailing, because each of the different regions has a different relationship with the water, a different lore. The chilled air and polo shirts of sailing around Nantucket are different from the sweetwater set against the peaks of Montana, are different from the hot salty brine of Florida, are different from the steady winds brushing the Pacific sunsets of Morro Bay. You can kind of picture who you would meet at the wharf bar.
It’s a photography book, with no words. There are distorting heights and angles from atop the masts of competitive sailboats, evening cruises with friends, quiet drifts into port, intricate webbing of rope and canvas, and doses of tropical adventures.
It’s all quite majestic, as being on a sailboat always is.
