On News Stands Now … in Pacific Yachting magazine March 2023

Posted on March 23, 2023 by admin

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.

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Wendy Hinman at the 2023 Seattle Boat Show

Posted on January 31, 2023 by admin

Wendy Hinman will be presenting again this year at the Seattle Boat Show.

Women’s Panel on the making of a sailor on Monday 2/6, 2023 at 3-5pm.
Cruising the Inside Passage through BC to Alaska on Friday 1/10/2023 2-3pm.

For more about the seminars, visit: https://seattleboatshow.com/seminars/

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.

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Wendy Hinman Q & A with Author Joy Held

Posted on December 9, 2022 by admin

Books By My Friends
Featuring Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire by WENDY HINMAN

Joy E. Held, Nov 29, 2022 publication

Welcome to Books By My Friends, Wendy! Happy to have an adventurer on board today! *grin*

JH: What’s the blurb for your book Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire? (That title is an attention grabber!)

WH: Sea Trials is the story of a family’s epic journey around the globe. Together they overcome daunting challenges–from shipwreck and wild weather to threats from pirates, gunboats, mines and thieves, a broken rig, scurvy and starvation. Glimpses of the fascinating cultures they encounter along the way enhances the suspense and keeps readers of all ages hooked until the “nail-biting” end. * A multi-award winner with rave reviews, including a Kirkus starred review.

JH: What inspired you to write Sea Trials?

WH: Over the years I’d been hearing snippets of the epic voyage my husband had taken with his family sailing around the world and their shipwreck when he was fourteen. Family dinners had been filled with “you remember the time when …

• gunboats forced us to sail across mines in the Red Sea?

• when our pilot Abdul got lost in the Suez Canal?

• the boat starting sinking in Israel?

• mom tried to poison us?

• we ran out of food and nearly starved?”

Such tantalizing anecdotes intrigued me. Then I got possession of the famous letters the family mailed home during the voyage. Hundreds of them. In them was more detail than any writer could hope for. Too much, sometimes. But by combing through them I fleshed out the outline of the story that I’d developed in my mind of the voyage. I asked a lot of questions of family members and took copious notes. What I uncovered was an even more dramatic story than I already knew, and I could hardly believe anyone had truly lived through it. Especially people I knew so intimately. Their story featured pirates, gunboats, mines, thieves, starvation and scurvy in addition to a shipwreck. I also couldn’t believe there wasn’t already a book written about it, since their shipwreck and arrival home hit the papers around the globe. To flesh out their story, I consulted guide books and sailing directions, maps, weather data, and the ship’s log to ferret out the finer details. I read the newspaper articles, listened to the interviews with the family. I started writing and double-checking details with the people who had lived through it. Once I began writing I found my draft came really fast, probably because I’d been thinking about this story for so long beforehand and had so much material. With a rough draft completed, I had them read every word to check for inaccuracies or things that didn’t seem true to their experience. It was a great family bonding experience to write Sea Trials about their journey.

Read more about Wendy’s inpiration and writing process here as well as discover other great books and authors:
https://joyeheld.substack.com/p/books-by-my-friends-9ff

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Audiobook Blog Spotlight on Wendy Hinman’s Sea Trials

Posted on October 10, 2022 by admin

In 2020 I had the pleasure of reviewing Tightwads on the Loose: A Seven Year Pacific Odyssey by award-winning author Wendy Hinman which for me was extremely amusing, written brilliantly with a sense of humor and from the author’s heart.

Now, two years later, Wendy has returned with Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire, a 2017 book that’s now available also in audiobook format.

I’m convinced that this riveting story will appeal to readers of all ages: adults, young adults, and even kids, especially since the audiobook is performed by multiple award-winning narrator Eric G. Dove. The audio production has a runtime of exactly 12 and a half hours, and the publishing has been done by Salsa Press Publishing and Wendy Hinman.

Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire has been awarded Kirkus Best Book of 2017 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.

It has also been named a Foreward Reviews best book of the year and a Readers Favorite. It has earned glowing reviews from Cruising World Magazine, Sailing Magazine, Wooden Boat Magazine, Good Old Boat and others, andhas been featured in various gift guides. An excerpt from it was featured in Sail Magazine.

With rave reviews from nearly every national sailing publication plus best-selling authors and readers, it’s clear that this book has popular appeal. I think that even more fascinating is that the story generated big press coverage at the time of the shipwreck (September 1974) and again upon the family’s return after completing their voyage around the world (in July 1978). The story went out over the AP and UPI news wire services and was picked up in various publications around the world, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and newspapers in Toronto and Geneva, among many others, and a television interview with Maury Povich.

You can imagine that I am very excited to listen to it, but first let’s take a look at the Publisher’s Summary so that everyone knows what the story is about and after that, I will tell you more about our award-winning author and narrator.

About the book:

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 11-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.

About the author:

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.

Wendy is a sought-after speaker who gives entertaining presentations throughout the country at libraries, community centers, and private clubs (as well as online). She writes articles for a variety of publications and reviews books for Foreword Reviews Magazine. She is currently at work on a historical novel. For more information about Wendy, please visit her website by clicking here.

About the narrator:

Eric G. Dove is an award-winning narrator whose career spans over 12 years and 450 titles encompassing numerous genres including thrillers, military fiction, romance, sci-fi, classics, westerns, fantasy, non-fiction, and more. He consistently works with the best publishers in the business, voicing the works of a vast array of authors; Stephen Hunter to Herman Melville, J.R. Ward to Mark Twain.

He is known for his varied and believable characterizations and is adept at virtually any U.S. or international dialect, enabling him to fully distinguish each character, breathing the life into them that the author intended without crossing the hard-to-define line that can turn characters into caricatures.

Eric’s performances become an immersive experience, transporting the listener into the author’s world and ushering the author’s characters into the world of the listener. Among many industry accolades, he was an Audie Award Nominee in 2017 in the crowded “Thriller/Suspense” category and is a multiple Audiofile Earphones Award Winner.

An established singer/songwriter, fiction author, and avid cruising sailor, he enjoys adventuring around the world with wife, Loren and son, Rivers Danger aboard their sloop, Cecilia. Years of sailing on big boats led Eric to the realization that a sailboat stateroom is an ideal acoustic environment for voice recording. Now, he completes numerous projects in his on-board studio while also co-producing, with Loren, their family travel YouTube series, “SailAway”.

I can’t wait to start this new adventure and to take an imaginary epic trip Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire, I already know that Wendy is a terrific writer and Eric a fabulous narrator, so I’m sure that I will have a wonderful time. I will see you very soon here with a full review for Sea Trials but until then, take care, stay safe, and don’t forget, always listen with your heart!

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Check out Sea Trials by Wendy Hinman in all formats

Posted on August 27, 2022 by admin

Posted in Announcements, Books, Media Coverage, Writing | Comments Off

Which Anchor to Choose? An investigation.

Posted on August 15, 2022 by admin

Which anchor to choose? Here’s an article I wrote about someone who tested our anchor along with many others in a variety of conditions and what he discovered. Thanks to Steve Goodwin.

Experienced cruisers work with a local resource who analyzes anchor performance to consider anchor options for their new boat.

This article originally appeared in the May 2022 issue of 48° North.

Choosing the right anchor is a decision that can perplex even the savviest boat owner. A good anchor offers immense peace of mind and can save our boats from ruin. We count on this essential piece of equipment to ensure that our boat will remain in place while we sleep, and that it will be where we left it when we return from an expedition ashore, under water, or out in the dinghy.

Aboard our 8,000-pound 31-foot Tom Wylie sailboat, Velella, we carried a 17-pound, aluminum Spade anchor. Because ours was a light, small boat, we didn’t want to carry too much weight on the bow, yet we wanted an anchor that would be secure in a wide range of conditions during a multi-year offshore voyage. It was our home, after all — small and modest as it was. We also were counting on the 240 feet of 5/16-inch chain that rested farther aft to keep us safe. My husband Garth had read about the Spade’s impressive performance for its weight in Practical Sailor, though the anchor wasn’t widely distributed at the time. In 1999, we ordered one from the manufacturer in Tunisia, hoping for the best. It arrived without incident and turned out to be a good investment.

That 17-pound Spade anchor kept our little sailboat safe over most of the 14 years we owned her. We subjected Velella and her anchor to many intense situations during our seven-year circumnavigation of the Pacific, including storms, typhoons, waves, and docks that threatened to turn our home into kindling. We never dragged anchor over muddy, coral-strewn, rocky, or sandy bottoms. Several years into the voyage, while we were in Fiji in 2003, we noticed some welding cracks on the Spade’s shank. Garth corresponded with the French manufacturer in Tunisia to get advice about re-welding the shank, so we could solve the problem in our remote location. The company immediately sent us a new anchor and it arrived quickly to Musket Cove, a resort and yachting center in Fiji. The new anchor (and the re-welded original we kept for a spare) held us throughout the rest of our 34,000-mile voyage and beyond. We certainly put the Spade to the test.

We’ve since sold our beloved Velella and are currently building a new 38-foot world cruiser designed by Garth (a naval architect) in our backyard workshop on Bainbridge Island. We hope to enjoy many more adventures aboard a larger, 14,000-pound boat. Though our new boat is not yet finished — and, no, we cannot predict exactly when it will splash — we are again considering which anchors will best suit our needs.

Happy with the Spade’s performance, over the last few years we purchased a couple more. We bought a larger Spade anchor (a 41-pound A140 for hurricane use) at a swap meet and a 26-pound A100 for kedging and to use as a spare. But we also still plan to buy another anchor or two. We consider anchors to be cheap and reliable insurance for protecting an important asset — especially one that is likely to be our future home. Because of our previous experience, we realize that an aluminum Spade may not last our entire trip, plus we know a number of people who have lost anchors in various ways during their voyages.

Steve Goodwin discusses the A100 in his video about testing it: #116.

In search of data to help us make a decision, Garth hunted and pecked his way through the internet. In the course of his explorations, he came across Steve Goodwin of SV Panope, who has embarked on an impressive anchor testing regimen. Intrigued, Garth watched many of his YouTube videos and perused the data he’s produced citing the anchors he’s tested, the type of bottom, and pressure he’s subjected them to.

Here’s what we learned. (MORE)

https://issuu.com/48north/docs/may_2022_48n/s/15831854

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Velella: A Boat and Her Legacy

Posted on August 10, 2022 by admin

Posted in Boating, Media Coverage, Profiles, Uncategorized, Writing | Comments Off

Sea Trials coming soon in Audiobook Format

Posted on May 24, 2022 by admin

COMING SOON!!!!

Enjoy Sea Trials: Around the World with Duct Tape and Bailing Wire in Audiobook, narrated by award-winning narrator Eric G. Dove*. The entire family can listen to this epic tale together.

About the Book:

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 11-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.

About the Author:

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/)

Hinman is a sought-after speaker who gives entertaining presentations throughout the country at libraries, community centers, and private clubs (as well as online). She writes articles for a variety of publications and reviews books for Foreword Reviews Magazine. She is currently at work on a historical novel. For more information, please visit: www.wendyhinman.com.

About the Narrator:

*Eric Dove is an award-winning narrator whose career spans over 12 years and 450 titles encompassing numerous genres including thrillers, military fiction, romance, sci-fi, classics, westerns, fantasy, non-fiction, and more. He consistently works with the best publishers in the business, voicing the works of a vast array of authors; Stephen Hunter to Herman Melville, J.R. Ward to Mark Twain. He is known for his varied and believable characterizations and is adept at virtually any U.S. or international dialect, enabling him to fully distinguish each character, breathing the life into them that the author intended without crossing the hard-to-define line that can turn characters into caricatures. Eric’s performances become an immersive experience, transporting the listener into the author’s world and ushering the author’s characters into the world of the listener. Among many industry accolades, he was an Audie Award Nominee in 2017 in the crowded “Thriller/Suspense” category and is a multiple Audiofile Earphones Award Winner. An established singer/songwriter, fiction author, and avid cruising sailor, he enjoys adventuring around the world with wife, Loren and son, Rivers Danger aboard their sloop, Cecilia. Years of sailing on big boats led Eric to the realization that a sailboat stateroom is an ideal acoustic environment for voice recording. Now, he completes numerous projects in his on-board studio while also co-producing, with Loren, their family travel YouTube series, “SailAway”.

Listen to a clip:

Enjoy a sample clip if the day the Wilcox family set off on their epic voyage. They had no idea only 13 months later they’d be shipwrecked on a remote island in the South Pacific. Listen here: http://wendyhinman.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/9780984835058SeaTrialsAudiobookExcerpt_DepartureDay2.mp3

Shipwreck! Listen to what happened when Vela struck a reef off the coast of Fiji. 9780984835058SeaTrialsAudiobookExcerpt_Shipwreck

Link to audiobook listing on Audible:

(https://www.audible.com/pd/B0B221KQ35/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-310293&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_310293_rh_us)

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KSER features Sea Trials Author Wendy Hinman

Posted on April 2, 2022 by admin

Here’s an interview with author Wendy Hinman about her award-winning book Sea Trials, along with Garth Wilcox (the teenaged hero of the story) on KSERfm Sound Living.

Listen to this in depth interview about Sea Trials, with thoughtful questions by Ed Bremer.

To listen to the KSER interview of Wendy Hinman about her first book, Tightwads on the Loose, about her own adventures sailing 34,000 miles aboard a tiny sailboat click here.

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Good Idea Gone Wrong

Posted on March 24, 2022 by admin

“There I sat, covered in paint—and little else—wondering how I was going to get out of this predicament. It had seemed like a good idea. Now, not so much …”

Oops! Sometimes things don’t go as you’d imagine. Painting in my underwear seemed like a good idea … until …

A painting episode gone awry
Read the rest of the article I wrote, published by Pacific Yachting here

(Note: The associated image in the article is a little misleading since this episode is not actually featured in my book Sea Trials.)

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Wendy Hinman