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Also in this genre: Moxie Marlinspike (yes, that[1] Moxie Marlinspike)'s documentary about anarchist yacht-squatting, "Hold Fast" (2007) https://vimeo.com/15351476
Seems unlikely for there to be two different Moxies Marlinspike in any case, but appreciate your confirmation. Indeed his Wikipedia page didn’t need a disambiguation section.
That was a nice video, huge balls on all four in doing this...
I was reminded of this book today when I read some comments here about the popularity of “sailing log” manuscripts.
This one is written by Paul Lutus, of Apple Writer fame.
I've always wished the program was called Lutus Notes.
Paul has come up on HN a lot recently. I didn't recognize the domain and didn't immediately realize this was him.
It sounds like he's had a heck of an interesting life.
That connection makes it even more interesting
Loved the book as well!
lutusp here on HN
Maybe HN will like this, 100 Rabbits.
https://100r.co/site/home.html
It is a mix of sailing, low tech, art.
They also have a "sailing log" book, "Busy Doing Nothing".
I read this many years ago, it is fantastic. The tale is very matter-of-fact, but interspersed with hard-hitting extremely personal bits. It's a great read.
The boat itself is an odd duck, a Pacific Seacraft double-ender, which was only built for a few years. Somewhat similar to the very popular Westsail 32. Many cruising sailors recommend the smallest boat that will do for you. A larger boat is more comfortable, sure, but expenses do not scale up geometrically in boats. A 60 foot boat is not twice as expensive as a 30 foot, it's more like 4 times more expensive.
Other commenters have noted other similar books (Tania Aebi, Joshua Slocum). The Pardeys, Lin and Larry, have many books on this lifestyle as well. All are very good.
I bought a 25ft boat. Wish I got a 17ft trailer sailer! I know I will want a bigger boat, but I seriously recommend going a small as possible, dinghy or dayboat, then a small trailer boat, then when you are sure you are going to cross oceans go bigger. Joshua Slocums Spray was only 36'9. Robin Knox-Johnsons Suhaily is only 32 foot! Both went round the world single handed, the second one non-stop and before freeze-dried food!
In my spare time I message people of means to fund a 100ft carbon maxi sailing campaign to break ocean records at the major offshore events around the globe.(www.msailing.org)
I call it my moonshot, something I spend a few hours on a month, and you'd be amazed how many people actually politely decline.
I wish more people knew the joy and the rawness of the ocean.
I'll bite. How does Gitana 18 and the general continued technological progress in the Ultim class fall short? If you had something to contribute, couldn't you just get involved in one of these projects?
There are worse ways to spend a few hours a month than trying to talk rich people into funding an absurdly fast sailboat
Is the intention to use/charter "Skorpios" which you use on the site or are you proposing a full new program from the ground up?
Sailboats in space. That's the ticket.
Vale Evi Nemeth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evi_Nemeth
Indeed. An excellent sailor, an excellent prof, and an excellent woman.
Joshua Slocum (February 20, 1844[1] – on or shortly after November 14, 1909) was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world. He was a Nova Scotian-born ...
And Sir Robin Knox-Johnston[1] was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world _non-stop_.
The book is worth a read - lots of misadventures and musings.
Oh boy, this reminded me of The Boy Who Sailed Around the World Alone by Robin Lee Graham, which I randomly found and read in my school's library when I was 12 or 13. Still remember it 40+ yrs later.
I too loved this book, though my copy is titled _Dove_ - one of my all time favorites. My dad, who gave me the book, knew Robin during his own solo sailing days, and figured I could relate to a lot of what he wrote about. Sadly I never got a chance to meet him myself though.
There is something wonderfully old-internet about finding a complete 3,5year solo circumnavigation memoir sitting on a plain HTML site
He is a pre-internet guy, used to live in a cabin he built in the mountains, which he ran a long electricity cable to, and kept his backup floppy disks in a fireproof cannister as a guard against forest fires, in the early Apple days when he wrote columns for magazines and programmed Apple Writer.
Always wanted to do this but enjoying land-lubber life a bit too much at the moment. I'd like to think I've built most of the skills (sailing, electronics, mechanics, sewing, rigging, drinking amicably with strangers, radio, cooking, botany, etc.) but am yet to find a wife who's OK with sailing life: maybe just go anyway?
Just go. Maybe you'll meet her in the journey.
Tania Aelbi wrote a good one of her trip.
I’m working towards a solo circumnavigation myself. Love reading about the stories of others.
Right on, where are you based out of and what kind of boat? Cheers from wa state
Reminds me of Tom Neale's "An Island to Oneself" - https://harpercollins.com.au/products/9781775492979
An amazing book - well worth a read - I found a first edition years ago, and hadn't expected it to become quite so valuable.
Luckily you can read the entire book on his daughters site, or at least you could in the past.
Unrelated but similarly enjoyable is: Shrimpy: A Record Round-the-World Voyage - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Acton
There was, a few years ago, a nascent blog and a project by a lone sailor to make some sort of daring, record-breaking solo trek from, like, SF bay to Hawai‘i. This gentleman had christened his extraordinarily tiny craft “Chubby Girl” perhaps ironically, and also named his blog after it, “Chubby Girl Cruising”.
Now for some reason apart from my proclivities as a landlubber hetero guy, I was intrigued enough to follow the blog’s progress as he prepared Chubby Girl and set sail. Sadly, he was nearly immediately turned back, by weather, mechanical failure, or some such.
I was disappointed and, while he apparently took down his blog right away, I continued to poke around to find out if he’d try again soon.
But the terrible reality of the Internet and search engines being what they are, the search term "chubby girl cruising" never again turned up any results relating to sailing or the ocean, and trust me, you don’t want to try it, even with SafeSearch engaged…
Wil Spaul. He's in his mid 70s now and probably won't be trying again. AFAIK you can purchase chubby girl from him - it's still at the Berkeley marine center
A different but equally interesting book about extreme sailing (solo race around the world in the 1960's):
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6055.A_Voyage_for_Madmen
I can't remember when I read this journal, but I credit it with being one major influence in a decision to do something similar. I spent my 20's living aboard and sailing up and down the east coast and wouldn't trade the experience for anything.
Thank you very much! I appreciate the free book, and I love reading about sailing.
piracy is a lot less charming than i imagined it to be. they weren't even singing...
A few years ago I was part of a national-level rescue chain, the chain that starts with a phonecall and snakes it way up through different first responders. The group I worked with were at pretty much the far end of the chain. I am all for people doing great things, but for every great-thing-doing long distance sailor there are a hundred rich idiots. 50ish, got rich, bought a boat and is out on the open ocean ... and something goes wrong.
Fall off your motorcycle and you need a ride to the hospital, maybe an ambulance. Fall off your horse or a cliff and you need some burly volunteers with good knees and strong backs to haul you to the nearest road. A little more extreme, say you are stuck up a big cliff, and you might get a 90-second ride in a small helicopter to the nearest road.
But when anything goes wrong out at sea, from a broken mast to a broken arm, you are in for the deluxe package. It starts with ships in the area diverting towards your position. Then a fixed-wing airplane the size of a small airliner launches to put eyes on you and coordinate the next bit: the granddaddy helicopter, the all-weather one with a winch, night vision, two pilots, two SAR techs, maybe three turbines and four or more blades the length of a bus. Think you are low-carbon because you are using a sail? Don't ask how many tons of fuel are spent keeping that helo in the air. (They often have to make multiple fuel stops during ocean rescues).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_MH-60_Jayhawk https://www.airbus.com/en/products-services/helicopters/mili... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EADS_HC-144_Ocean_Sentry https://www.canada.ca/en/air-force/services/aircraft/cc-295....
My point: Don't romanticize the sea to the point that rich idiots start playing around out there. Always take it seriously and do not ever expect help. Always have backup plans for your backup plans.
Buy the EPIRB BEFORE you buy the boat. Buy the expensive one.
At least when Harrison Ford got rich he started buying and crashing light aircraft. He knew to crash on a golf course so the doctors didn't need to walk very far. (Not a joke. That happened.)
https://golf.com/travel/penmar-golf-course-venice-california...
Something I've read on HN once, and that nailed it for me: in the middle of the Pacific you are further away from any possible rescue than if you were on the ISS.
> He knew to crash on a golf course so the doctors didn't need to walk very far. (Not a joke. That happened.)
The link only mentions that he crashed on the golf course, not why he chose it. (Well, other than "can't make it to the airport, golf course is best alternative"). Personally, I suspect "it's got open stretches of flat land with no trees or buildings" was more of a consideration than "doctors are often found there". :-)
To bring it back around to software, Jack Ganssle, author of several books, articles and seminars on embedded systems programming is the only person I know of who's had an EPIRB triggered three times.
Seems like a good role for a drone rescue ship that targets the EPIRB location.