A book review (Sort of)
Just finished reading Christian’s new book, Philosophy Of Sailing: Offshore In Search Of The Universe, last night which was a sort of sequel to his previous book Alone Together about his first solo too Hawaii in his E-32 III that was of particular interest to me because I own the same model. But the new book although similar in a few ways is also quite different so if you read the previous one then you shouldn’t put off reading the new book because you might think it’s just about another crossing to Hawaii. You might miss getting a peek of the universe.
He again takes us along for the ride but this time we’re more of an invited part of the crew. In fact, the boat gets a bit crowded at times because Christian has also brought along some of his other “friends” like Bertrand Russel, Edmund Husserl, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Friedrich Nietzsche and many more all stored in water tight containers in the V-birth. It was hard to get a word in edgewise! Also along for the ride as part of the entertainment was, of course, Thelonious Monk, who helped pass the time with some “cool” jazz although I would of also have liked to have heard some John Coltrane or Miles Davis too but it wasn’t my boat.
Still it was an educational and informative adventure with someone I consider a sailing master because I’ve only be a sailor for about 18 years compared to Christian’s long life time history on sailboats. The “Preparation” sections were also quite helpful even if you weren’t planning on an ocean voyage. More importantly to me, I was encouraged by the story of a sailor who while celebrating his 74th birthday was soloing to Hawaii. I just celebrated my 67th birthday and although I’m a semi-retired commercial photographer there are still a lot of non-photographic things left for me to do on my bucket list. Christian’s voyage gives me the inspiration and hope that I can cut that list down to size while still telling a good story and at the same time letting us in a little on what makes him “tick”.
So I strongly suggest this book to everyone on the EYO web site and don’t limit it to just those sailors. The book is written in a way that’s more approachable to non-sailors also or at least those interested in sailing even though they may not be planning an ocean crossing. My only beef are the photos. I’ve seen most of them on the EYO site but being a photographer a few intrigued me. There is a photo of the “Williams Brothers” that included Dad and the two brothers. You’ll have too read the book to find out how they were ALL called “brothers”. The black and white images are a bit “blocked up” as they say in my business but that is because of the paper stock used for the photograph pages. So I hope that when the book comes out in electronic form the images are clearer. Maybe you can post the image of the “Williams Brother” here, Christian? I’d love to see what a younger you liked like. Wonderful book and thanks for taking me along to Hawaii. Where are we going next?