Lessons and Adventures from a cruising veteran as he learns the ropes

An insightful and engaging account of a young family’s unique voyage through the West Indies that turned a novice cruiser into America’s foremost yachting writer, told with great humour and unflinching honesty.

Nigel Calder – we know him as the boat systems guru, the sailor who explained how to bleed our diesels, balance our electrical systems and understand vector charts. But Nigel did not spring to these lofty heights in the nautical world without earning his wisdom, and Shakedown Cruise reveals just how much Calder had to learn. He started just like us, with little knowledge, but a boatload of curiosity.

Shakedown Cruise is Calder’s bare-all tale of learning to cruise, in which he reveals all his muck-ups, including getting run down by a freighter in the North Sea. Undaunted, Calder charges forward to build a sailing life by finishing off a bare hull and setting off for a world cruise with his wife Terrie (three months pregnant) and their one-year-old child. Their departure doesn’t go as planned, and soon they are kedging off a mudbank and wondering just what they have embarked on. It is a rollicking voyage told amusingly and with humility.

Calder’s tale is a paean to an era of simple cruising, before large, technologically invested boats became the norm. And as you will see, he’s an engaging story-teller.

 

Pub: Adlard Coles, May 2018, hardback 185pp, £20

9781472946713