My New Zealand Story: Cup Magic product reviews

Wow, I thought that this book wasn't all that good at first, but soon I was proven wrong, and before long, I was hooked! The thing that made me hesitate at first was the fact that the book was written in a diary-like form, in fact, I think that this book was actually copied from a real journal! I was glad that this book was based in New Zealand, and that the story is most likely real, because it just makes me rather proud to live in New Zealand!

I have often looked out at Hamilton Lake and seen people sailing yachts, but after reading this book, I learned that it is not as easy as it looks; hey, I guess you do learn something new every day! It was very cool reading how they made the now famous yacht Black magic; The process is actually quite similar to how they make the bodies of the small aircraft that are used by trainer pilots, building layer up the hull layer by layer on a wooden "plug", which is sort of like a giant mold (no, not the type that grows on food that is WAY past it's best-before date).

I could not resist curiosity, and I typed "Black Magic Yacht" into Google Images, and sure enough, there were several pictures of the Boat, so now I am convinced that what is said in the book is actually real, YAY! I think that this book is something that I will be wanting to read again, it is quite a cool novel, and while it didn't make me lose track of time, it was still quite addictive!

The price is quite good, it matches the quality very well, considering how much I enjoyed the book! My overall opinion on this product is: A, W, E, S, O, M, E! Enjoy reading, you won't regret it!

I really love the My New Zealand Story series. They are like the "My story" historical novel series, but these are all local stories. I'm a big fan of history and I feel that diaries and personal letters are a great way to truly bring history to life for the reader. These books are written in the style of a diary and are usually pretty fun to read.

Mike's diary is written in 1995 and follows his family's involvement in Team New Zealand's bid for the America's Cup with Black Magic. Because of the subject matter, there is a lot about training to sail and sailing terms. I did learn quite a bit about the complexity of boat maker, sail maker and knot tying. I also learnt a fair bit about sailing.

In all honesty, I did find this tale pretty average. I really wanted to like it because I have enjoyed all the others I have read so far. But I'm just not that big on sailing and so a lot of the information in the book was boring. Also 1995 wasn't that long ago for me, and so while that might be interesting to a 21st century person, to me it was only high school.

I'm pretty sure that if you are into sailing, or boats at all you'd like this book. It gives some pretty good detail on how they went about building Black Magic and trialling it at sea. It has a few exciting moments, that do leave you wondering if the ship will make good. And I did feel as much pride as Mike in our efforts. The subject matter just wasn't my cup of tea.