I must confess that, when it comes to all things nautical, I'm completely at sea. I just can't understand the romance of flying your spinnaker or watching your ticklers, trimming sails or beating up wind. It all sounds like far too much hard work to me.

I blame my parents. A week at sea in the eastern Mediterranean on a school trip as a teenager was obviously designed as a character building exercise but it had the opposite effect on me. While my sailing colleagues were busy building up team spirit, learning how to plot our course by the stars and looking wistfully out to sea, taking in that great expanse of blue and pondering the meaning of life, I spent my time in the bowels of our vessel enthusiastically throwing up.

This exhibition might just banish the nightmare of that character-moulding experience for what is on display simply takes your breath away.

Some 60 works by 11 painters -- some British, some Bermudian -- have been cleverly selected, put together and displayed, creating an eclectic mix that at the same time is easy to read.

Entering the gallery you are immediately smacked in the face by `IOD's Cross Tacking' by J. Steven Dews. Although he only has three works exhibited here Dews is no doubt the star of the show.

Dews is no stranger to Bermuda, exhibiting at Windjammer back in 1992 in a show which the gallery described at the time as its most prestigious exhibition ever. Whether this exhibition tops that I really don't know but the fact that Dews' work can be seen here is certainly a major feather in Windjammer's cap.

Technically Dews is simply superb -- there is no other word to describe him.

How he achieves the effect of bows gracefully slicing through choppy waters -- be they the deep turquoise of Bermuda's surrounding sea as in `Etchells beating up the Sound' or the soupy greys of `Chicane off Cowes' -- seems almost impossible.

But it is not just in his brilliant observation of water that Dews excels.

Both his blustery skies and background landscapes, subsidiary to the main focus of each composition, are also brilliantly rendered. And so too are the boats themselves. Undoubtedly a lover of the sea and sailing, Dews' vessels are majestic, graceful beasts at one with their powerful, challenging and sublime environment. His paintings give sailing novices like myself a better appreciation of what old salts are going on about when they talk of the romance of the sea.

While Dews positively shines, he does not completely take the wind out of other artists sails and there is plenty of other work here that delights.

Stephen Card adopts a different tack to Dews, being inspired not by sailing boats but those glorious old steamers of a bygone age.

Showing signs of rust at the plimsoll line and belching smoke from blackened chimneys, Card's old hulks may lack the smooth lines and elegance seen in Dews' works but nevertheless his canvasses are still packed with romance and nostalgia and are, again, technically very accomplished.

Another artist whose skill has to be admired is Tim Thompson, who has successfully mimicked the techniques and style of old masters. His `Dispatch Cutter and Navy Cutter off Five Fathoms Hole' in particular is straight out of the school of Dutch 17th century seascape painting.

Balancing the discipline and realism of Dews, Card and Thompson are some wonderfully fresh, loose miniatures by Sheilagh Head dotted about the gallery, and some dramatic, almost abstract watercolours by Steven Masters while Jonah Jones and Jon Mills provide adequate support. Not all artists fare as well as the above. Eric Amos's three contributions are put in the shade by his co-exhibitors while Mark Boden's work has a naievity which is probably more unintentional rather than charming. He has yet to develop the polish of the likes of Dews.

Eldon Trimingham III's work here is also a bit of a puzzle. I really couldn't work out `The Grafton' which seems to have been devised by taking Turner's `The Fighting Temerere' and giving it a Daliesque twist.

That aside, this really is a high-class exhibition that is both extremely enjoyable to look at and equally easy to admire.

At a time when the Island's showrooms seem to be sinking without trace the Windjammer Gallery has consistently put on great exhibitions. This is no exception. A must see.

GARETH FINIGHAN Superb: J Steven Dews' `IOD's Tacking', one of three works by the artist on display at the Windjammer Gallery.

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