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 30-February 7, 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 2/2/26 when women can get into the show for free.

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

Friday January 30 1pm Cruising Gems in BC: Learn more about some of the great places to visit in BC that you may not already know about.

Monday February 2, 1-3pm 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. Featuring Laurie Anna Kaplan, Karin Stevens, JJ Hoag and Elise Sivilay.

Friday February 6, 12pm 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.

Friday February 6, 2:15pm Preserving Your Relationship/s Afloat: Venturing off in a boat puts new pressures on even well-established relationships. Learn techniques for addressing the diverse needs of a crew and dissipating tension aboard so you enjoy the places you visit and an unusual way of traveling there. She discusses how to find balance in a small, sometimes violently rocking environment, while facing the new challenges that cruising can present.

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.

Listen to the segment here. Wendy Hinman with KPTZ at Wooden Boat Festival.

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 FEBRUARY02 – FEBRUARY10 | 2024

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 2/5/24 when women can get into the show for free.

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

Saturday February 3, 1-3pm Moderator, Offshore Cruising Panel
What does it take to voyage offshore? How do you prepare and cope? Find out from a panel of experts, who have thousands of miles of ocean experience voyaging around the globe. In this group there’s representation of cruising aboard simple and complex boats; monohulls/multihulls; with/without children; various waters, including inland waterways, Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Oceans; cold/warm waters; recent voyages and ones from longer ago; and part-time/full time offshore sailing experiences.

Monday February 5, 12pm Keeping Your Relationship Afloat
A happy crew makes for a happy voyage. Venturing off in a boat puts new pressures on even well-established relationships. Don’t let 24/7 start feeling like a life sentence. Learn techniques for addressing the diverse needs of a crew and dissipating tension aboard so that you can enjoy the places you visit and an unusual way of traveling there. Wendy Hinman, award winning author of Tightwads on the Loose and Sea Trials, shares the wisdom she gathered during her 7-year 34,000 mile voyage aboard her 31-foot cutter as well as years racing and cruising in all manner of boats with her husband and others. She discusses how to find balance in a small, sometimes violently rocking environment, while facing the new challenges that cruising can present and keeping a sense of humor. How to balance diverse personalities and needs aboard.

Monday February 5, 1-3pm Moderator, The Making of a 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.

Saturday February 10, 1-3pm Homebuilding a 38-foot Modern Wooden Sailboat
Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox sailed 34,000 miles aboard Velella, a light displacement 31-footer. Drawing 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.

Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox will be sharing snippets of their boat building adventures about the Garth Wilcox designed 38-foot wooden boat they are building in their backyard workshop.

(Velella, the boat they sailed around the Pacific will also be featured in the show. Here’s an article Wendy recently wrote about Velella and her Legacy.)

Building a 38-foot Cold-Molded Boat Saturday September 10 at 11:30am. Presentation details here.

Catch the inside scoop about people currently building a modern 38-foot cold-molded wooden boat in a backyard workshop. Adventurers Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox spent 7 years sailing 34,000 miles around the Pacific aboard a light displacement 31-footer in which Garth could not stand or sit comfortably. After this voyage with his wife and an earlier one around the globe with his family as a teen, Garth felt he had done sufficient “research” to determine what kind of boat he might want to build for his next voyage. Using 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 Wilcox designed his dream cruising boat. Together with his wife and sailing partner Wendy Hinman, he is building a boat for future adventures. Find out what they are building and why. Learn about the choices they’ve had to make and the process they’ve undertaken to build this boat. You may notice that many decisions and boat features of their new boat were inspired by their little voyager Velella, which will be featured in the festival, along with photos of her construction and adventures.

Here’s more about the 45th Annual Wooden Boat Festival:

Sept 9-11, 2022

Hours: Friday & Saturday: 9 AM – 6 PM, music & dancing ’til midnight; Sunday: 9 AM – 5 PM

Escape the every day.
Adventure along with Wendy Hinman through her books and her engaging presentations that feature vivid photos of exotic locales from multiple offshore voyages and adventures around the globe.

Contact her to arrange a virtual or in person event today. Past events include books clubs, libraries, conferences, yacht clubs as well as business and community service meetings.

Speaker bio:

Wendy Hinman is an adventurer, speaker, and the award-winning author of two books: Tightwads on the Loose and Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire.
Tightwads on the Loose tells the story of her 34,000-mile voyage aboard a 31-foot sailboat with her husband. It has been called a “cult classic,” admired for its unaffected style and refreshing humor, and named a Readers Favorite. Sea Trials details the harrowing round-the-world voyage of a family who must overcome a shipwreck, gun boats, mines, thieves, scurvy and hunger to achieve their dream. It’s a timeless story of grit and resilience. Sea Trials was named a Kirkus best book as well as a Foreword Review best book. As the Kirkus starred review describes, “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. Highly readable and sufficiently evocative to sense the scent of sea air in the pages.” Read the full Kirkus review here. (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/wendy-hinman/sea-trials1/)

For topics and more info, visit http://wendyhinman.com/speaking/

Authors Show

interview with Wendy Hinman

about her adventure travel book sailing the high seas: Tightwads on the Loose.

Don’t miss it! www.authorsshow.com

As many have received vaccines, case counts decline, and we reach the end of Pandemic Lockdown, there’s talk of returning to normal.

But what is normal?

What constitutes normal for us is a series of routines or habits that shape our days.  Breakfast, brushing our teeth, commuting, dinner with friends, concerts, ball games, drinking heavily, exercising, etc. They are things we become accustomed to doing, whether they are good or bad.

When we interrupt our old routines for long periods, for whatever reason, we have a chance to reevaluate our priorities.  We have a chance to start anew and recommit to things that help us grow in new ways.

We can take advantage of the extra space to focus on what we desire most.

Before I left for our sailing voyage, I worked long hours in an office.

Once we departed for our journey, I spent seven years mostly outdoors, communing with nature. My days were filled with frolicking in waterfalls, swimming in the ocean, and harvesting fish from the sea and fruit from trees in the wild.

When I returned to land life after a lifestyle of so much freedom, I couldn’t fathom returning to working in an office environment.

I took that interruption to consider how I wanted to approach life upon our return. I used an aversion to cubicle-filled offices lit by fluorescent lights, and an outdated skillset to grow in new ways. I started working towards a new goal: Writing a book to capture the story of our unusual adventure.

I started with baby steps. I took classes on writing and practiced my skills.

I cultivated a new set of habits and created a new routine to support reaching my goal: I started writing every morning at the same time every day. Soon I had chapters to show for my efforts. I met with a writing group to give myself regular milestones to measure my progress and to obtain feedback and figure out how to refine what I’d written. I attended conferences to learn about the publishing industry and make contacts with publishing people; eventually I had something to show for my efforts: a book I could hold in my hands and share with the world. I am delighted to report that my first book Tightwads on the Loose has been well received.

After I finished writing my first book, Tightwads on the Loose, I was ready for another challenge. I wanted to figure out how to write someone else’s story. I studied, did extensive research, and refined my writing skills. I used habits and routines to make progress on my new story every day. The result was a second book, Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire, which has won even more recognition for skillful storytelling, including a Kirkus starred review and being named a Kirkus best book and a Foreword Reviews best book of the year. Yikes!

Now I’m working on a third book—fiction this time. I’m trying to figure out how to devise a made up story from my imagination. The challenge has been fascinating. Once again, the secret has been to use habits and routine to support making progress towards reaching my goal of completing and publishing this fictional story.

When my first book came out, I realized I needed to develop new skills to help me market the book. I needed to refine my presentation skills because I was getting many invitations to speak. I joined Toastmasters and accepted every opportunity to practice speaking whenever I could. I wasn’t a very polished speaker when I first began, but over time, I have become adept at weathering whatever strange obstacles present themselves whenever I’ve been presenting before a crowd, including interruptions, a city-wide power outage, equipment failure and the like. After so much practicing, I find these curve-balls can’t derail me from providing an entertaining show.

What I’ve realized is that whatever I devote my time to doing (or the habits I incorporate into my daily schedule) produces related results. If I spend time sitting on the couch eating ice cream, I may end up adding a few pounds. Or, if I make a point of writing for a few hours every day, I may have a new novel to show for my time.

During pandemic quarantine, we may not have invented a new app or learned Spanish, or completed a new novel, but that doesn’t mean we can’t begin today. For anything we want out of life, any day is a day we can begin to pursue it in earnest.

Right now, though, we know that we are on the cusp of a period of great change. We have an ideal opportunity to reevaluate our priorities and rededicate ourselves anew to activities that feed our souls. And discard those that don’t.

If I am conscious about choosing what I resume doing after this hiatus, I can take this precious gift of time and preserve it for what is most important to me.

I am taking stock and reminding myself that:

• Dreams become goals;
• Goals become practices;
• Practices become habits;
• And habits lead to results.

I find that I feel most alive when I am actively in pursuit of something that requires me to learn and stretch myself in new ways.

You have probably changed as a result of this pandemic. Forced by conditions beyond your control, you’ve probably adapted in many ways.

As you begin to emerge from your pandemic cocoon, think about how you want to focus your limited energy.  You have an opportunity to proactively consider which habits you want to keep and discard those which don’t help you thrive.

How do you want to grow? What skills do you want to develop?

Every day offers an opportunity to grow in new ways. But an opening like this makes it even more obvious.

Take it.