The more I read these books, the more convinced I am that the ship parts hold my attention much less than everything else. The Fortune of War bore that out for me. I was only very mildly interested in the first half - and O'Brian's just stuffing his sailing with shipwrecks now, trying to drum up interest in any way he can - but the second half is where the story really caught fire for me. Maturin and Aubrey are stuck in Boston, and Aubrey's pretty much confined to bed and so most of the plot hangs on the only reason I'm reading these books in the first place, i.e. Stephen Maturin. He's sneaking about Boston doing intelligence work, no-one is wittering on about ropes or sails or bloody cannons, and I was enthralled until the last 20 pages, where they got back on another boat for another battle and suddenly it was like reading through treacle again, slow and sticky.

"Not to know the odds between a halliard and a sheet, after all these years at sea: it passes human understanding", complains Aubrey of his mate at one point, and six books in I don't understand it either. Birds and spies and wombats are far more appealing, so I'm with the good doctor here, as always.