My Death-Defying Year at Sea

The sounds of a ship in a storm can drive anyone mad. The wind screams through the rigging; the flapping edges of the sails boom like thunderclaps; the fiberglass hulls twist under stress, creaking and popping like joints in old age. A boat is as serene as a sleeping duck when she's in port, but in a maelstrom, she groans and growls as if every seam were coming undone. When I turned 40, I took a year long break from writing novels and built a catamaran on the southern tip of Africa, a boat that I would then take across the Atlantic and the Pacific to Fiji and beyond. It'd been my dream to sail around the world since I was young.

View in Browser  SHOP EXCLUSIVE SUBSCRIBE My Death-Defying Year at Sea The sounds of a ship in a storm can drive anyone mad. The wind screams through the rigging; the flapping edges of the sails boom like thunderclaps; the fiberglass hulls twist under stress, creaking and popping like joints in old age. A boat is as serene as a sleeping duck when she's in port, but in a maelstrom, she groans and growls as if every seam were coming undone. When I turned 40, I took a year long break from writing novels and built a catamaran on the southern tip of Africa, a boat that I would then take across the Atlantic and the Pacific to Fiji and beyond. It'd been my dream to sail around the world since I was young. Read More Pedro Pascal's Sneakers Blend Old-School Cool With Modern Sustainability Of course the coolest guy on television has cool shoes, too. Read More Shows to Watch After 'The Last of Us', If Terminal Sadness Is Your Thing Keep your tears rolling and your jaws on the floor. Read More DeSantis Doesn't See What All the Fuss Over Ukraine Is About Ronald DeSantis' handlers made the mistake of allowing him out of his comfort zone—you know, fighting off public health and intimidating elementary school librarians. Since he's running for president now, even if he hasn't formally declared his candidacy, they let him talk about foreign policy, reminding everyone that he was once considered one of the bigger bags of hammers in the House of Representatives. Read More I Tested Tons of Duvet Inserts—These 3 Are the Very Best Having the right choice is more important than you think. Read More The Quest to Build the Perfect Irish Pub What makes one of the most quintessential kind of bars truly special? We go on a research trip to Ireland with the team behind Dead Rabbit, one of America's best examples of an Irish pub, to find out. Read More The New "It" Producer for Rock Icons Andrew Watt can't say what he's working on. It's mid-December in London, and the record producer behind hits by Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and Post Malone is feeling a little tongue-tied. It's not his news to share, you see. But it's important—"the most excited I've ever been about anything," he says about the mysterious project. The star power of his Rolodex may not have lost its luster for Watt yet, but his high-profile bookings come as no surprise to anyone who's followed popular music in the past decade. Read More Follow Us Unsubscribe | Privacy Notice/Notice at Collection esquire.com ©2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019