'The Way of a Ship" is one of the few accounts of the last of the great windjammers, who built them, who sailed them, how they were sailed, written by a true sailing ship man - Captain Alan Villiers. Born in Australia, he went to sea early in life, sailed on board small inter-island schooners and huge steel four-masted barques in the Cape Horn trade. Later he captained his own fullrigger, the "Joseph Conrad", on a circumnavigation.
The book contains detailed and well researched information, not reminiscences by newspapermen and writers-to-be, who at best made one voyage as a cabin boy. Therefore it is recommended to anybody who is interested in the technicalities of working a steel windjammer. Also it contains a biography of the "Cutty Sark" and some information about sail training vessels and their uses in the education of professional seamen.