Really enjoyed this amazing sailing adventure. Never want to embark on this type of adventure but the author makes the trip the ups and downs sound like fun ost of the time.I missed. Her first book so will definitely be reading it ,#netgalley#seTrials

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.

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.

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"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.

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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.

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// 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.

Though she was not a part of the epic voyage she writes about, Wendy Hinman does an excellent job describing her husband's family's experience of cruising around the world with little-to-no sea-going skills. (The first thing we learn as they leave San Francisco bay is that they haven't done any ocean sailing before embarking on the trip.)

As a sailor herself, Hinman is comfortable writing about the mechanics of sailing, and her descriptions of far-flung ports of call are no doubt bolstered by her travels with her husband. That connection, however, definitely colors her interpretation of the "characters" and the events, so that the book ends up feeling like a somewhat off-kilter memoir--written with the detail of a personal narrative, but by someone who not only wasn't on the trip, but who has a specific point of view. This would be expected by someone who was there, but as the narrator of a story which isn't hers it is a bit odd.

Garth, her future husband, comes off very well in the story, saving boat and possibly the family's lives on more than one occasion, while the dad seems both stubborn and weak at the same time, and Dawn (the mom), while most often miserable seems to think this is the only way she could see the world, and doesn't ever seem to really wonder about the effects of this grindingly difficult and dangerous life on her children. If you take away the novelty of being on a boat, and leave the lack of ability, physical danger, isolation, food-insecurity and questionable education, this looks like a pretty grim story. But because it's on a boat, it's an adventure!

Eric G. Dove did an excellent job narrating Sea Trials. There are 4 characters in the book, and he had a distinct voice for each.

My very first book to review for NetGalley was Tightwads on the Loose by Wendy Hinman, so I have a special fondness in my heart for her. I have since reviewed over 260 books for NetGalley in less than two years. I really preferred Tightwads, because Wendy was a character in Tightwads and a real spitfire (in my opinion). The book was so colorful and came alive to me with the beauty of her adventure.

Instead of being part of the adventure (the feeling I had in Tightwads), Sea Trials gave me the impression that I was watching/reading footage of someone's vacation slides. I almost wish that she would have chosen a character and written the book from their perspective.

Another thought that kept running through my brain was all the challenges that the teenagers had doing their schoolwork remotely. I kept wondering how Garth and Linda feel after watching children doing schoolwork remotely during covid.

Rounding up to 4 stars, mostly because the families journey was incredible and also because the narrator was stellar.

Thank you to NetGalley for approving my request for the advance read copy of Sea Trials. I wanted to read the book so badly that I requested both the ebook version and the audio version. I listened to only the audio version. Thank you to Wendy Hinman the author and to Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Audiobooks the publisher. Publication date is 1 Sept 2022.