Desperate Voyage

How many mistakes, really bad mistakes, can you make on one voyage and still survive? John Caldwell demonstrates. Starting with the very first day when he sets off alone when he's never handled a sailboat (but he has a book on How To Sail clutched in his hand) and enacts a scene worthy of the Three Stooges right under the eyes of the Panama yacht club, he made a lot of bad moves and even life-threatening decisions. Probably the worst was deciding to pull a large shark onboard because the teeth would look cool on his wall. Even a dead.. ish... looking... shark is capable of doing a lot of damage on a tiny 29-foot sailboat. This one didn't just splinter a lot of woodwork, it took out the engine as well. This led to losing a lot of time in show more the Doldrums and loitering until the hurricane season hit. Even after the shark he kept making show-off decisions... it reminded me of my 11 year old grandson. Such a boy.

Also, the book should have come with diagrams of the boat, its rigging, and sails if he was going to spend such an inordinate amount of space on sailing jargon. And how many times can you describe pumping out the bilges? We understand that the ship was sinking, but we really didn't want to read about it any more than he wanted to pump it. show less

This is a terrific book. It got my attention and I enjoyed it immensely.