Profiles

Before I went there, I thought that paradise was reserved for ex-pats and old salts. I thought it was a place you drifted to, eventually, on your sailboat, after the job, the kids and the house were in your wake. 

It all started midway through a cruise on Mexico’s Sea of Cortez when we were having dinner aboard Born Free and Chris of Starship announced: “Anne-Marie [his wife] and I have been talking and she agrees, we should do a partner swap.” An uncomfortable silence followed as I failed to respond.

The 17-foot Old Town sailing canoe that we learned to sail in the 1970s was perfect for camping on the shores of the distant Bahamas. It was small enough for the two of us to lift in and out of the water, but still big enough to carry our camping gear, food, water, clothes and a typewriter. Granted, it did not have enough room to carry us as well. But that is another story.

These 11 small-boat sailors share their stories to prove that bigger isn’t always better, especially when it comes to sailing

When Justin Scott wrote The Shipkiller in 1978, it made the New York Times Book Review list and earned a spot on the International Thriller Writers list, Thrillers: 100 Best Reads, alongside The Odyssey, The Bourne Identity and The Hunt for Red October. TIME magazine wrote, “The saga…is as heady as Francis Chichester’s narrative, with a draught of Melville and a slosh of Josh Slocum.”

Chris White, when I first meet him, doesn’t seem like a guy who maybe, just maybe, is on the verge of revolutionizing multihull rig design. I’ve met a lot of yacht designers over the years, and I know that’s what many of them would be telling me right now, flat out, without any maybes. But not Chris.

Gus Hancock, 73, of Chicago, began sailing with his father in an Old Town canoe in 1950. A deserted beach, a tarp and a campfire were their accommodations during early cruises on Barnegat Bay before they garage-built a 16-foot wooden daysailer. Offshore adventures followed, including Newport-Bermuda races and cruises to the Bay of Fundy in the 1960s. In 1970, Gus crewed on a Cal 37 in the Los Angeles to Tahiti Transpac Race and spent the summer cruising Tahiti, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas and Hawaii.

Ronnie Simpson sold all that he had, and he went. But it was no cakewalk. After I had known him a while, he told me, “I have less than I’ve ever had, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”