Feb. 7/2023: Maybe this counts as progress. The new sailing flick that just dropped on Netflix—True Spirit, a dramatization of Jessica Watson’s 2009-10 solo non-stop circumnavigation—is not actually cringingly inaccurate as to the details and nuances of ocean sailing. They have, for example, done an excellent job of recreating Jessica’s boat, an S&S 34 she...
Jan. 25/2023: You absolutely cannot make this stuff up! The true story of Thomas Tangvald—born and raised at sea, orphaned in a wreck and cast ashore at age 15—is finding traction with both sailors and land folk fascinated by “the freedom one finds in any life close to nature.” As previously mentioned, I have many...
Dec. 6/2022: As mentioned in my last post sharing extra pix of Thomas, the first boat he owned himself was a scrappy little Chapelle-designed scow, Spartan, that he bought in Puerto Rico for just $200. This boat, along with L’Artemis de Pytheas, the boat he grew up on, was destroyed in the terrible wreck that...
Nov. 3/2022: The bomb has dropped, my friends. The new book came out last week and—as of this moment at least—is the Number 1 Bestseller in Amazon’s Aviation & Nautical Biographies category. I urge you to check it out and click BUY here on Amazon (please leave a rating and review if you do!), or...
August 17/2022: In May 2014 Thomas Tangvald raced his 17-foot Puerto Rican “mini-nativo” sloop Buenadaga in Foxy’s Wooden Boat Regatta at Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. This was the popular regatta’s 30th anniversary, so there was a big crowd there. In the photo up top you see Thomas racing the boat singlehanded,...
May 23/22: It’s happening, my friends! My new book is in the pipe, crawling ever closer to the light at the end of the tunnel, and you can now pre-order your copy direct from the publisher: https://www.latahbooks.com/blank-1/the-boy-who-fell-to-shore The scheduled publication date is October 25. Pre-ordered books will ship no later than that date. Don’t be...
Apr. 7/2022: It’s been a long strange trip, my friends—researching, writing, and finding a publisher for this story—but at last it is happening. My third book will be published this coming October by Latah Books. Faithful WaveTrain riders will recall that I first “rediscovered” Thomas nine years ago, in the spring of 2013, while noodling...
I continue to be fascinated by the Tangvald family: young Thomas, who sailed with his young son and pregnant wife from Puerto Rico to Brazil aboard an engineless 34-foot nativo racing sloop and was subsequently lost at sea off the South American coast sailing the same vessel singlehanded in 2014; and his father Peter, who...
HERE'S A HOT STORY from the Where Are They Now Department that blew my mind a bit while I was cruising around in the Spanish Virgins last week. Spotted a feature in All At Sea, a local Caribbean sailing comic, by a young blonde rasta-looking dude about sailing 2,000 miles to windward from Vieques to...
