RIDE OUT THE STORM (470 pp.)Roger VercelPutnam ($4).
Ever since Kon-Tiki, the publishing tide has run strongly seaward. And so, apparently, have readers' tastes, with such books as The Came Mutiny, The Sea Around Us and The Cruel Sea, following each other as successive bestsellers. Yet few present-day writers seem interested in following the old Conrad tradition which dealt with the "glorious and obscure toil" of seamen. Of those who do, France's Roger Vercel, author of Salvage, Troubled Waters and a 1938 Book-of-the-Month Club choice, Tides of Mont St.-Michel, is perhaps the best. In...