“My vivid memories are alt of he sea.” Keith Beken, sailing photographer extraordinary, never spoke a truer word. The sea lives, pounds and glistens through this biography of a Iife spent on it and beside it, photographing boats of every description, the greal yachts of the past, elegant liners, naval vessels, power boats, tali ships, the racing yachts of today, these boats, and the people who sailed them, live in these pages. All the great sailing events of a century Edward VII and the German Kaiser racing against each other in their mighty yachts, George V racing Britannia in the Big Time, the America's Cup, Uffa Fox's new dinghy designs after the war, transatlantic and transoceanic races, Tall Ships meetings, Cowes Weeks and Round the Island races, all are recaptured here in vivid phrase and living picture. Keith Beken's humorous, vigorous personality, his lively approach to every situation, marooned in the Shetland Islands in the early days of the war, failing to get pictures of Olympic sailing events in ltaly, convey his enthusiasm on every page, action, sparkle, excitement abound. Beken of Cowes is not just Keith Beken himself, it's a family tradition now three generations strong, innovators and inventors in photography at sea. Part of the fascination of The Beken File lies in the story of camera problems faced and solved, from the first sea-going camera built in their chemist's shop last century onwards. His advice on how to get the best camera shots of racing yachts and speed boats comes from expert knowledge of how the boats perform, how the sea behaves, and how the camera reacts, a unique combination of skills which have earned Keith Beken his royal warrant as photographer to HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and his renown as the greatest sailing photographer of them all. There is delight of many kinds for the readers of this book, delight for the eye in the wonderful photographs; delight in the exuberant and vivid personality of the author, and pleasures and deIight in sharing the adventures of a life lived to the full.