SYC Women’s Group’s – Women’s Boating Skills Weekend

The 7th Annual Women’s Boating Skills Weekend is scheduled to take place at the Portage Bay Main station April 4– 6, 2025. This weekend-long educational and social event features 50 workshops for up to 150 attendees. Click the link for the full 2025 WBSW Agenda_Final schedule. This event is sold out and registration is now closed.

Wendy Hinman will be the keynote luncheon speaker on Saturday April 5 at the Seattle Yacht Club Skills Weekend Taking the Helm.

Wendy Hinman grew up sailing, learning to sail as a child with her family in the Hawaiian Islands, and discovered a love of exploring places by boat that has taken her aboard boats around the globe, both racing and cruising. Her hit book Tightwads on the Loose shares some of her adventures afloat and in this session she’ll share what she’s learned about developing confidence as a boater with her signature humor, examples, and insight.

Once again I look forward to participating in the Seattle Boat Show and selling/signing my books at Captain’s Nautical Supply booth up on the concourse.

Seattle Boat Show January 31-February 8, 2025.

Besides presenting, I will be selling and signing my books at Captain’s Nautical Supply booth on Fridays and weekend days, as well as women’s day on Monday 2/3/24 when women can get into the show for free.

I will be presenting on these dates, times, and topics:

Sunday February 2, 3:15pm Homebuilding a 38-foot Modern Wooden Sailboat

Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox sailed 34,000 miles aboard Velella, a light displacement 31-footer. Drawing on his skills as a professional naval architect and experience gleaned in a circumnavigation of the world in a 40-foot double ender that barely survived a shipwreck, Garth designed his dream cruising boat. Learn about the process they’ve undertaken to build a 38-foot boat in their backyard.

Monday February 3, 12-2pm Moderator, Becoming a Better Sailor Women’s Panel: Featuring a panel of women sailors with various levels of experience revealing how they evolved into the confident sailors they’ve become.

Friday February 7, 2pm Cruising the Inside Passage through BC and Alaska: Get a taste for the possibilities and how to make the most of the time you have to enjoy the glaciers, waterfalls, and hot springs; as well as wildlife including whales, bears, otters and more; and a native culture like no other place offers. This talk will include favorite spots, tips for trip planning, an overview of resources available, and potential pitfalls to help you prepare.

Saturday February 8, 11:15pm Living Without Refrigeration: Living without refrigeration may come out of choice or out of necessity. Even if you have refrigeration, it requires significant power, it can fail, and, of course, not everything can fit in such a tiny space. Wendy Hinman will share the wisdom she gathered during her 7-year 34,000 mile voyage without refrigeration. She discusses how to provision and eat well without refrigeration over extended cruises.

Saturday February 8, 12:15pm Homebuilding a 38-foot Modern Wooden Sailboat: Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox sailed 34,000 miles aboard Velella, a light displacement 31-footer. Drawing on his skills as a professional naval architect and experience gleaned in a circumnavigation of the world in a 40-foot double ender that barely survived a shipwreck, Garth designed his dream cruising boat. Learn about the process they’ve undertaken to build a 38-foot boat in their backyard.

Speaker Bio:
Wendy Hinman has published articles in a variety of publications and is the award-winning author of two hit books: Tightwads on the Loose and Sea Trials. She is a regular speaker at yacht clubs and boat shows around the country and her presentations are filled with examples and infused with humor. She grew up sailing and has cruised and raced in venues around the globe in all sorts of boats as skipper and crew, sometimes winning. She spent seven years at sea, sailing 34,000 miles aboard a small, simple boat and learned the most essential ingredient aboard is a good sense of humor. She and her husband Garth Wilcox are currently building a boat for more cruising adventures. www.wendyhinman.com

For more seminar details, visit:
https://seattleboatshow.com/seminars/

To buy tickets: https://seattleboatshow.com/buy-tickets/

When she’s not presenting, you can find her autographing and signing books at the Captain’s Nautical Booth up on the concourse. Come pick up your guidebooks, tide books and take home some great sea stories.

2023 Edmonds Art Festival
Father’s Day Weekend • June 16-18

10-7 FRI & SAT 10-5 SUN

700 Main Street • Edmonds, Washington

The Edmonds Arts Festival has grown from a small community art fair to one of the most prestigious in the Pacific Northwest, attracting artists from across the nation and Canada. The Festival provides a unique opportunity for patrons to meet artists and purchase their work in a beautiful outdoor setting overlooking Puget Sound. The Festival offers free live entertainment, a juried gallery art exhibition and sale, a nationally-recognized juried student art exhibit, and a hands-on children’s art activity area. Don’t miss this fun festival and the chance to meet local authors and artists.

The Edmonds Bookshop will feature authors of compelling stories you’ll want to take home, including these.

For more details about the Edmonds Bookshop authors at the Edmonds Arts Festival, please visit: https://edmondsbookshop.indielite.org/event/edmonds-bookshop-edmonds-arts-festival

#FathersDay
#giftsfordad
#gifts
#authors
#books
#goodreads

In the March 2023 issue of Pacific Yachting magazine is an article about a scary hiking accident while cruising in Princess Louisa in the wilds of Canada.

Into the Slippery Mist
by Wendy Hinman

“Before hiking, we grinned next to a big yellow sign that read:

“Caution: Access to Trapper’s Cabin. This route is not maintained or signed. It is strenuous and potentially hazardous. The hike to the cabin (elevation 550M) is about 2 hours one way.”

It would be tough, but we were avid hikers, eager to tackle the steep trail.

My husband Garth and I planned a three-week cruise in BC with catamaran owners Laura and Brian. During our second week, Jim and Debbie joined us in Nanaimo from Los Angeles. It was late October, so we urged them to bring warm clothes and be ready for an adventure.
Then news warned of a Bomb Cyclone: a forecasted atmospheric river could intensify into what’s also known as a winter hurricane.”

. . .

What occurred was a scary accident that we were grateful to have lived through, but wouldn’t want to repeat.

I’m very pleased to announce that the January 2023 issue of our online book review magazine “Small Press Bookwatch” features a review of “Sea Trials”.

Here is the review:

Small Press Bookwatch: January 2023
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI 53575

https://midwestbookreview.com/sbw/jan_23.htm#travel

The Travel Shelf

Sea Trials
Wendy Hinman
Salsa Press
http://wendyhinman.com/salsa-press
9780984835034, $20.00, PB, 442pp

https://www.amazon.com/Sea-Trials-Around-World-Bailing/dp/0984835032

Synopsis: A shipwreck might end a dream of circumnavigating the globe. 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.

Critique: A true life story that reads with all the drama of a deftly crafted novel, “Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire” by Wendy Hinman is an inherently fascinating read from cover to cover and will prove to be of special appeal to readers with an interest in real life adventure stories of the sea. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community library travelogue collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that “Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire” is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $5.99).

Editorial Note: Wendy Hinman (www.wendyhinman.com) is an adventurer, speaker and the author of “Tightwads on the Loose” — a popular travel adventure book about the 7-year, 34,000-mile voyage she took with her husband aboard a small violently rocking sailboat during which she alternated between feats worthy of Wonder Woman and Suzy Homemaker. Full of humor and armchair thrills, “Tightwads on the Loose” was selected for the literature program for Western Washington University, won the Journey Award for best true life adventure story and was selected as a top travel book for women.

Wendy Hinman is the author of two books: Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire and Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven Year Pacific Odyssey. Sea Trials focuses on her husband’s family’s experiences, while Tightwads on the Loose looks at her and her husband’s travels. Both are now available as audiobooks. Hinman reviews books for Foreword Reviews.

Q: How did writing Sea Trials, about your husband’s family, differ from writing Tightwads on the Loose, a memoir about the adventures you and your husband had in the Pacific?

A: I wrote Tightwads on the Loose first. In some ways it was easier because I was there and didn’t have to do any research.

Initially I started writing scenes that I most wanted to capture—events that stood out during our seven-year journey around the Pacific. I wrote each scene as a stand-alone and in no particular order.

Once I had crafted scenes that highlighted the journey I shaped them as a whole into a cohesive story arc that linked everything together. I think my lighthearted style built on scenes let the reader feel as though they were experiencing the journey for themselves.

One key thing I realized when I began writing was that for any series of events, it’s possible to shape them into various different stories. With an extended adventure such as this, I had to make a lot of decisions about what to include and what not to include.

There were many places where we had encounters with ships or storms that threatened to turn our floating home into kindling and thrilling experiences with nature or foreign cultures.

I kept asking myself “What is the story am I trying to tell?” From there I made choices that supported my themes and the pace of the story. I also figured if it was fun to write, then it’d be fun to read.

The writing of Sea Trials went faster, probably because I had more experience by then and it had a dramatic, clearly defined story arc. While there’s humor in the story, I didn’t feel as free to joke about someone else’s hardships as I was about my own as I did in Tightwads on the Loose so the voice is more serious.

Q: Of the various experiences you’ve written about, do any of them particularly stand out in your mind?

A: The many intimate moments in nature—frolicking in waterfalls, playing in the rain, enjoying a sunset—remind me that nature puts on an amazing show every day if only we stop to appreciate it.

We visited islands so tiny that maps rarely featured them and met native people who live much as they did thousands of years ago—people content with a simple way of life surrounded by family and community. That left a strong impression on me and changed the way I approach life.

I am glad that I wrote Tightwads on the Loose first because the events in Sea Trials were so dramatic, I might otherwise have considered my own sailing adventure less worthy of sharing.

In hindsight, what I realize both books show is how important one’s attitude is in defining one’s experiences and the outcome. That’s a life lesson that sticks with me.

A couple of events come to mind that demonstrate that attitude is key are an incident when I spilled spaghetti marinara all over the interior of our boat; and then a miserable, wet passage from New Zealand to Fiji during a storm. In both circumstances, when I stopped to consider the absurdity of the situations and saw the humor in them, it made everything more bearable and enjoyable.

Likewise, I think it was humor and optimism among the family members that pulled them through challenging times when they were shipwrecked, sinking, or suffering from scurvy. I don’t think any of us realize what we are capable of achieving until we push ourselves and that’s what makes life exciting.

Whenever I feel dissatisfied with life, I find I need to ask myself whether I just need to readjust my attitude to embrace a challenge. I think of a friend and fellow writer who jokes “Plot twist!” whenever life gets hard.

Read more about Wendy’s inpiration and writing process here as well as discover other great books and authors:
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2022/09/q-with-wendy-hinman.html

Wendy Hinman’s hit book, Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven-Year Pacific Odyssey, details her seven year adventure afloat. You can find it in paperback, eBook and audio, too!

Her second book, Sea Trials tells the gripping story of her husband Garth’s family in a tireless quest to sail around the world despite daunting challenges including a shipwreck, rebuilding a boat on a remote island, and threats from wild weather, pirates, gun boats, mines and thieves, a broken rig, scurvy and starvation. It is a story of grit and determination. Sea Trials has been named a Kirkus Best Book of 2017. And a Foreword Reviews Best Book! And a Readers Favorite! Available in paperback, eBook and audiobook. You can order it here.

As the Seattle Review of Books once said, “Both books are a blast to read.”

Here’s the full quote: “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

Buy from your local bookstore and they can wrap for you!

Now also available in audiobook format from most major audiobook sellers.

Or you can order here:

https://www.amazon.com/Wendy-Hinman/e/B007Z6TRRO

#giftideas #giftsforher #giftsforhim #giftsfordad #giftsformom #giftsforthem #giftsforbookworms #giftsforbooklovers #holidayreading #holidaygifts

“The writing is excellent, the story is captivating, especially since it’s a true one, and the pacing is just perfect.”

“When we combine Wendy’s superb storytelling abilities with the considerable skills of multiple award-winning narrator Eric G. Dove, we get something unique, a riveting narrative that I’m convinced will appeal to readers of all ages: from kids to young adults and grown-ups alike.”

These are the voyages of the 40-foot sailboat Vela and the brave Wilcox family. In 1973, they set off to sail around the world on the high seas. Their four-year-long mission will turn out to be five actually and during this epic journey, they will have to survive a shipwreck, reconstruct their boat on a deserted island and face many more other such trials and tribulations. With two teenagers on board, a ship in need of repair, a tight budget, rising problems, and without the benefit of modern devices such as a GPS or instant communication devices, the kids and the grown-ups have to find a way to make this work.

I love the sea, I am fascinated by boats, and if I wasn’t blind, I think I would have been thrilled to be able to buy a boat and to do exactly what this family does in the book and what Wendy did in Tightwads on the Loose, especially since I live in Oslo, and there are probably thousands of boats anchored all around the fjords. Alas, I am blind, boats are really expensive, and a guess that syncing them is not that hard, so all I am left with are these wonderful stories, some true – like this one, and others fiction, like those from Clive Cussler. Luckily, I still have access to the occasional cruises to Denmark, and hopefully, other countries to whet my appetite for life on the sea.

As I said, above, the writing is excellent, the story is captivating, especially since it’s a true one, and the pacing is just perfect.

Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire is brought to life in audiobook format by established singer/songwriter, fiction author, avid cruising sailor, and last, but not least, award-winning narrator, Eric G. Dove.

Eric is extremely well suited for this audio production. He reads in an enjoyable voice, he perfectly pronounces all the confusing terms that are most assuredly so familiar to those spending their lives at sea but sound as complete gibberish to non-connoisseurs. Eric delivers a pitch-perfect performance, complete with unique voices for each of the main characters, and he also infuses urgency and emotion into the narration exactly when the action on the page requires it. I know Eric is a narrator for a long time now, and he is always professional to a fault. It’s clear that he does what he loves and loves what he does.

Reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe and The Cast Away, Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire is a fantastic audiobook filled with epic adventures, unforgettable events, and remarkable characters. If you like true stories and love the sea or sailing, I highly recommend Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire and Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven Year Pacific Odyssey by Wendy Hinman. Both these books are written from the heart, with humor, with respect, with knowledge and are extremely enjoyable.

When we combine Wendy’s superb storytelling abilities with the considerable skills of multiple award-winning narrator Eric G. Dove, we get something unique, a riveting narrative that I’m convinced will appeal to readers of all ages: from kids to young adults and grown-ups alike.

I hope that Wendy and her husband will embark soon on a new voyage and that she will write about it. I’m always fascinated by true stories, especially when they are so eloquently written.

Read the review here:
https://theaudiobookblog.com/review-sea-trials/