Sea Trials
Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire
by Wendy Hinman
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Pub Date 1 Apr 2017 | Archive Date 24 Sep 2022
Salsa Press | Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles
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Description
A shipwreck might end a dream of circumnavigating the globe. Not for the Wilcox family. In 1973, the Wilcox family sets off to sail around the world aboard the 40-foot sailboat, Vela. Thirteen months later, they are shipwrecked on a coral reef, with surf tearing a huge hole into the side of their boat. With years invested in saving money, preparing the boat, and learning to navigate by the stars, parents Chuck and Dawn refuse to give up. Fourteen-year-old Garth is determined to continue, while eleven-year-old Linda never wanted to go in the first place. Can they overcome the emotional, physical and financial challenges to transform from castaways into circumnavigators? To triumph, they must rebuild their boat on a remote Pacific island. Damage sustained on the reef and a lack of resources haunt them the rest of the way around the world as they face daunting obstacles, including wild weather, pirates, gun boats, mines and thieves, plus pesky bureaucrats and cockroaches as stubborn as the family. Without a working engine and no way to communicate with the outside world, they struggle to reach home before their broken rig comes crashing down and they run out of food in a trial that tests them to their limits.
*Sea Trials by Wendy Hinman has been named a Kirkus best book, a Foreword Reviews best book, and a Readers Favorite.
A Note From the Publisher
Audiobook 9780984835058
Paperback: 9780984835034
Audiobook 9780984835058
Advance Praise
Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire was named a Kirkus Best Book by Kirkus Reviews, the elite reviewing agency. Fewer than 2% of all books earn a starred review. Even fewer are selected Best Book of the Month and, fewer still, Best Book of the Year. Wendy Hinman’s second book, Sea Trials can claim all three.
Sea Trials has earned glowing reviews from the national boating press, including Cruising World Magazine, Sailing Magazine, Wooden Boat Magazine and others and been featured in various gift guides. An excerpt was featured in Sail Magazine. With rave reviews from top publications and best-selling authors and readers, it’s clear that this book has popular appeal. The buzz about this talented new author continues to build as she follows up her laugh-out-loud award winning Tightwads on the Loose with another compelling true story of adventure and the stubbornness of dreams. (Also available in all formats.)
Editorial reviews:
"…The author’s expressive writing captures the wonder of being at sea in all its glory… her engaging narrative succeeds in capturing the thrills and frustrations of this intrepid family. Taking in remarkably far-flung destinations such as Christmas Island and the New Hebrides, this exhilarating book should appeal to any would-be explorer who has stood at the prow of a ship and dreamed of the possibilities. Highly readable and sufficiently evocative to sense the scent of sea air in the pages."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review). Selected a Kirkus Book of the Month (April 2017). Named A Kirkus Best Book.
Named a Foreword Reviews Best Book. “A shipwreck might end a dream of circumnavigating the globe. Not for the Wilcox family. To triumph, they must rebuild their boat on a remote Pacific island. Damage sustained on the reef and a lack of resources haunt them the rest of the way around the world as they face wild weather, pirates, gun boats, mines and thieves, scurvy and starvation in a trial that tests them to their limits. A timeless true story of grit and resilience.”
Named a Finalist for the 2018 International Book Awards for Narrative Non-fiction.
"Five stars! Wow! What a story this is. Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire by Wendy Hinman is an incredible tale of bravery, determination, and a strong will to win against all the odds and it is one of the best true-life stories I have read in a long while. The writing is amazing, it grips you from the start and is so descriptive that you truly feel as though you are battling each wave, fighting each fight and traveling every hard mile with the family. You can feel every emotion and I guarantee your teeth will be gritted and your fists clenched at several points during the story as you follow it. The story is fast and brilliantly written and I guarantee any reader will be hooked to the very end."
—Readers Favorites Book Review Winner Readers Favorite Book Award.
"A modern, swashbuckling adventure, Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire will quickly transport readers through a fascinating, light read out to sea aboard the Vela."
—Seattle Book Review
"What a tale! The Wilcox family’s epic ‘round-tripper had me turning pages at flank speed. Wendy Hinman crafts a true-life adventure story as outlandish and memorable as The Swiss Family Robinson, with shipwreck, reefs, dengue fever, gun-toting soldiers, and teenagers who won’t do their homework."
—Bruce Barcott, author of Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, The Measure of a Mountain, and Weed the People and a contributor to Outside Magazine
"A gripping tale of a family's harrowing journey to sail around the world against seemingly insurmountable and deadly odds."
—Robert Dugoni, the #1 Amazon and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite series
“Sea Trials is a skillfully told story of perseverance, ingenuity, and grit. Wendy Hinman is back with another gripping sea saga, one that’s vivid enough to make you feel you’re aboard the 40-foot Vela…or shipwrecked on a reef in Fiji. Hinman’s pacing keeps the story humming along and her eye for detail helps us savor the voyage. Brief, well-placed excerpts from the family’s letters read like gems in a treasure hunt."
—Janna Cawrse Esarey, author of The Motion of the Ocean
"This true story of the Wilcox family is completely riveting and simultaneously insanely frustrating – which means it's a great book! Hinman's attention to little details like family squabbles and disagreements or stop-gap repairs make the whole trip vivid and real and their concerns intense… you are intensely caught up in the family's decisions and dilemmas while they are facing them and can sympathize with their recurrent optimism and desire to achieve their goal. Sea Trials immerses you in the Wilcox's world as you share their great adventure, for good and ill. It is an adventure that, for readers, is well worth the trip."
—San Francisco Book Review
"Hinman’s award-winning books, Tightwads on the Loose and Sea Trials, document both adventures with honesty, humor, and spirit. Both books are a blast to read."
—Seattle Review of Books
"Sea Trials is a captivating narrative, full of suspense and colorful descriptions of the sailing environment. Readers of all ages will enjoy this story and the skill with which it is told."
—Sailing Magazine
"Riveting. It is impossible to put down until the nail-biting end."
—Cruising World Magazine
"In Sea Trials, fans of Tightwads will find the same conversational style, recounting another mix of mishaps, humor, and foreign-port intrigue. Even armchair sailors will feel their hearts race with the Wilcox family in the cockpit of their 40’ Maine pinky, VELA. Hinman delivers another book to let you sail away."
—Wooden Boat Magazine
"The voyage was extraordinary. Hinman brings the same meticulous research and attention to detail to Sea Trials, engagingly drawing readers into the daily trials and family dynamics that shaped the Wilcoxes’ taxing journey"
—Three Sheets Northwest
"Hinman’s storytelling does well to connect her reader to the family’s journey – the ups and downs of sailing on a big ocean (of which there are plenty). The Wilcox’s story is both fulfilling and heartbreaking. One cannot help but become emotionally enthralled by this endeavoring group as they take their knocks and reap the rewards from a life hard-earned in an unforgiving environment."
—Good Old Boat Magazine
"It is exciting and interesting to see the family grow into their sea legs and learn how to live at sea. It is fascinating to be transported back to a time not that long ago when GPS wasn’t even a dream, and digital communication would have solved most of the issues the family faced. Hinman’s book is definitely worthy of a space on your bookshelf for a time when you can enjoy the immersion into the Wilcox family’s adventure-filled trip around the world."
—Northwest Yachting Magazine
“Hinman’s award-winning books, Tightwads on the Loose and Sea Trials, document both adventures with honesty, humor, and spirit. Both books are a blast to read.”
–Seattle Review of Books
Marketing Plan
The author is frequently doing book events and presentations, as well as writing articles to generate interest in this story and related title, the hit book Tightwads on the Loose, about her own seven-year 34,000-mile Pacific odyssey. She is also active on social media and blog posts. Following are a couple of her upcoming events. She will be doing a book signing at the American Library Association Conference in Washington, DC in June 2022. She will also be speaking and selling books at the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend, Washington in September 2022 and the Seattle Boat Show in January 2023. For more information please visit. Wendyhinman.com.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9780984835041 |
| PRICE | US$5.99 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
J. F. A, Reviewer
Audiobook Review: Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire by Wendy Hinman, Narrated by Eric G. Dove
Published by Salsa Press, September 1, 2022
★★★★☆ (4.25 Stars)
Positive!
Audiobook narration:
Commendable effort by Eric G. Dove as he gives voice to dozens of characters and pumps out the excitement and emotion in this challenging read.
-----
"Sea Trials" (2017 /2022) featuring the Wilcox family (Chuck, Dawn, Garth and Linda) is a prequel to author Wendy Hinman's "Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven Year Pacific Odyssey" (2012) featuring Wendy herself and husband Garth Wilcox, the fourteen-year-old boy in "Sea Trials".
I've read and thoroughly enjoyed both books.
PHOTO
<a href="https://imgur.com/teodGbl"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/teodGbl.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
KNKX Public Radio /KNKX.org
// The sailboat Vela with its shattered hull after it was salvaged from a barrier reef in Fiji in 1974 during Wilcox family's first leg across the Pacific. //
A picture says a thousand words! You'd shudder at the image, yet the wounded 40-foot sailboat, patched up (again and again) and spurred on by its undaunted captain and crew, would incredibly sail on for five more years and thousands of nautical miles to circumnavigate the globe, through the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Australia, Bali, South Asia, up the coast of Africa, through the Arabian Sea, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Panama Canal, back to the Pacific, and finally back home to San Francisco.
PHOTO
<a href="https://imgur.com/Ydv3lmr"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Ydv3lmr.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>
// The Wilcox family (left to right): Dawn, Linda, Chuck, Garth, when they returned to San Francisco in 1979, weather-beaten but relieved to be safe, five years after the shipwreck near Suva, Fiji. //
The family sailed under less than ideal, even barebones, conditions, navigating by sextant, the stars and a Timex with a broken rig, a faulty engine which died out mid-trip, and a constantly leaky hull; minimum navigational and safety equipment and sanitation facilities, no radio, no sonar, no GPS or cell service (both unavailable at that time), limited cash, and often out of food.
Some would say that the voyage was indeed an ultimate test of endurance, a tribute to the indomitable human spirit.
Some would say, on the other hand, that the trip was an altogether foolhardy endeavor, rash, reckless, moreso because of the presence of young children. Reading the book, you could feel the despair at times so palpable, particularly when the dad snaps and shuts down cowering below deck while his wife and children struggle, which happens in several intervals.
Big winner 14-year-old Garth Wilcox (the author's husband) forged to toughness by the voyage, who goes on the become a Seattle-based naval architect.
Overall, a fascinating read!
Bonus review:
Wendy Hinman's "Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven Year Pacific Odyssey" (2012) is a very well-produced audiobook to be relish if you can get it.
The first-person narration by Robin Karno is supplemented by a cornucopia of talented voice actors with authentic native accents - Polynesian French, Fijian /Indian English, Bislama, Pidgin English, Chamorro, Filipino and Nihongo, you'd feel you shall have been right on board with Wendy and Garth on the 32-foot "Velella", for the 7-year, 34,000-mile voyage, calling on 19 Pacific Rim countries - then back eastbound across the Pacific for the trip home to the US west coast.
(Link to my review in Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3509918252?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1)
Review based on advanced reading and listening copies courtesy of Salsa Press and NetGalley.
steve c, Reviewer
In August 1973 the Wilcox family sailed their forty-foot vessel “Vela” through San Francisco’s Golden Gate planning to sail around the world in four years. Chuck, Dawn, and their two set off with a mixture of excitement and fear of the task ahead.
This is a wonderfully written account of a life-changing journey. It's honest and open. At times gritty but always real. It’s probably one of the best real-life adventures I have ever read about. They suffered lots of trials and tribulations during their epic journey. They were often troubled by thoughts of giving up but persevered. Not only is this a tale of man's ability to survive against fortitude it's also an interesting travelogue as all the places visited are described then and historically. It works very well. There is so much detail in it that it's not a book to skim-read.
Verdict - A truly wonderful story of ingenuity and determination to follow a dream. A great read for anyone who loves a real-life true adventure tale.
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