Lin Pardey / Paradise Cay Publications
It’s fair to say that few sailors can write about passagemaking with more authority than Lin Pardey. And true to her life and career as a writer and sailor, her new book is a lively, vibrant accounting of some remarkable passages, including rounding Cape Horn against the prevailing winds with her late husband, Larry, in their 29-foot cutter, Taleisin.
So, in that sense, this latest book will more than satisfy readers who have for decades lived vicariously and learned so much through the Pardeys’ voracious appetite for sailing the world in a small boat and living a life of freedom, creativity, and joy that has inspired so many cruising sailors to make the leap. Together, the pair sailed for 47 years, more than 200,000 miles, to more than 70 countries, in two engineless, wooden boats smaller than 30 feet that they built themselves.
But it is navigating the unknown, deeper life passages that this book is truly about, most significantly the gradual loss of Larry to Parkinson’s and dementia (Larry Pardey died in 2020). “My hero was fading,” Lin writes after she realizes that Larry, though they were still sailing Taleisin, was beginning to feel unsafe and anxious in the one world where he had always been an unstoppable lion—at sea. The burden of the shift in responsibilities in their relationship begins slowly and grows steadily as they face a storm unlike any other.
To experience the loss of a loved one to dementia is to endure a slow, inexorable vanishing. Bit by bit, the pieces that make that person who he is gradually dim and disappear. For someone with a personality as big as Larry’s, the emptiness left behind is profoundly deep. This is the territory of heartbreak, and there are moments in this book that will bring you to tears—not least the moment when Lin realizes it is time to sell Taleisin, who’s been sitting neglected, “a daily reminder of a life that no longer existed.”
But this is also a story of immense courage and love. There’s great power in the juxtaposition of an early chapter—when the pair endures an especially brutal storm after rounding the Horn, and Larry, exhilarated and intensely alive, encourages and comforts a frightened Lin—and later when their roles have reversed, and she has come into a new kind of strength and courage as she cares for him. She attributes much of this courage to Larry and all he had taught her in their lives together.
And, just as her life of more than 50 years with Larry bookends this narrative, so does Lin’s new relationship with David Haigh, an Australian singlehander she meets through a friend. Opposite in nearly every way—even in the boats they sail—the two men possess the inner strength, independence, and passion for the sea to match Lin’s own.
This is a brave book, written by an indomitable woman and sailor, who now at 80 years old continues to live life “all the way up.” It honors the man with whom she shared more than 50 years of that life voyaging the world’s oceans and inspiring generations of sailors. And though it sails straight on into the hardest of life’s passages, it also celebrates the light that emerges when one has had the strength and courage to endure the storm.
Editor’s note: Lin Pardey and Cole Brauer will take the stage together during Annapolis’ US Sailboat Show for a discussion moderated by SAIL’s editors. The pair will explore the spirit of passagemaking, the impact of self-reliance, and the power of storytelling.
Get your tickets here while they’re still available.
October 2024
