Blown away - Hardcover

Payson, Herb

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0914814249 ISBN 13: 9780914814245

Publisher: Sail Books, Inc, 1980

Synopsis

In Sea Foam, a 36-foot ketch, Herb and Nancy Payson and their large brood of teenage children cruised the Pacific for six and a half years. They experienced a certain a mount of stark terror, but their delights far outbalanced the drawbacks. The result is Blown Away, a kind of Swiss Family Robinson with overtones of the MArx Brothers. The situation aboard Sea Foam may frequently be desperate but is seldom serious as Herb Payson carries his readers to Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand and dozen sof other islands.

About this title

About the Author

Herb Payson, a professional jazz musician, ran away to sea with his wife Nancy, a cocktail waitress plus four of the six children from their combined families. Over the next two decades, they sailed on three different boats to more than 26 countries, the whole family working along the way to keep their adventures afloat. Herb soon found his voice as a sailing writer and his work appeared regularly in Sail Magazine. His three books, filled with both humor and serious seamanship advice have become classics. When age made sailing less fulfilling, he and Nancy settled in Port Townsend Washington where Herb returned to his musical roots, playing jazz piano

Review

Getting away from it all was not an impossible dream for Herb and Nancy Payson, a California couple: they sold their belongings, purchased a ketch, SEAFOAM, and sailed for the Southern Seas. In their workaday lives Herb was a nightclub pianist and Nancy a cocktail waitress; he was an experienced sailor; she was eager to learn. So they set out with their children, one just 10 years old. And they enjoyed their journeys. When cash ran low everybody went to work: he and a son worked at carpentry in New Zealand: Nancy and a daughter made blouses for a boutique in Papeete and the 10-year-old made tourist souvenirs from coconut shells. The story is a realistic portrait of an adventurous, enterprising family, with enough sailing lore to satisfy most bluewater buffs. --Publishers Weekly

Perhaps the most delightful result of Herb Payson s decision to give up his credit card-cluttered life for one of bluewater cruising is that now he provides sailors (be they armchair or active) with uproariously funny tales of magic and woe. He has been charming magazine audiences with his adventures for several years; here he tells the entire hilarious but often humbling story of his family s move from California to a Pacific-bound ketch in Blown away.

Whether Mr. Payson is plotting a speedy but good-humored exape from a Costa Rican shrimp crew who lust after his two daughters, or recounting an ultra-untraditional but imaginative tropical Christmas celebration, he is wonderfully funny. His writing style is clever and captivating, his observations and character descriptions apt and lively. Though it is often painful to consider his mistakes and his constant battles with a demanding and sometimes difficult boat, one realizes that he is not especially concerned with imparting nautical knowledge, but rather in relating his overall experiences in learning to cruise. And this he accomplishes with an honest account of foolish error mixed with growing awareness of the immensity and value of the family s undertaking.

Unlike many other books of this sort Blown Away can be appreciated simply as a series of entertaining anecdotes to be read while sailing, at anchor or in the living room. One can read this book strictly for its humor and style and enjoy it completely. Or, one can realize that beyond the laughter is a rather honest tale of one family s metamorphous from languor to liveliness-a change often observed in families who successfully establish the sea as their home --Cathy Lush - Cruising World Magazine

Herb s self-deprecation is a wonderful counterpoint to his serious seamanship. Blown Away lets the reader laugh as he learns. A classic comedy of riches. --Sail Magazine

Perhaps the most delightful result of Herb Payson s decision to give up his credit card-cluttered life for one of bluewater cruising is that now he provides sailors (be they armchair or active) with uproariously funny tales of magic and woe. He has been charming magazine audiences with his adventures for several years; here he tells the entire hilarious but often humbling story of his family s move from California to a Pacific-bound ketch in Blown away.

Whether Mr. Payson is plotting a speedy but good-humored exape from a Costa Rican shrimp crew who lust after his two daughters, or recounting an ultra-untraditional but imaginative tropical Christmas celebration, he is wonderfully funny. His writing style is clever and captivating, his observations and character descriptions apt and lively. Though it is often painful to consider his mistakes and his constant battles with a demanding and sometimes difficult boat, one realizes that he is not especially concerned with imparting nautical knowledge, but rather in relating his overall experiences in learning to cruise. And this he accomplishes with an honest account of foolish error mixed with growing awareness --Sail Magazine

Perhaps the most delightful result of Herb Payson s decision to give up his credit card-cluttered life for one of bluewater cruising is that now he provides sailors (be they armchair or active) with uproariously funny tales of magic and woe. He has been charming magazine audiences with his adventures for several years; here he tells the entire hilarious but often humbling story of his family s move from California to a Pacific-bound ketch in Blown away.

Whether Mr. Payson is plotting a speedy but good-humored exape from a Costa Rican shrimp crew who lust after his two daughters, or recounting an ultra-untraditional but imaginative tropical Christmas celebration, he is wonderfully funny. His writing style is clever and captivating, his observations and character descriptions apt and lively. Though it is often painful to consider his mistakes and his constant battles with a demanding and sometimes difficult boat, one realizes that he is not especially concerned with imparting nautical knowledge, but rather in relating his overall experiences in learning to cruise. And this he accomplishes with an honest account of foolish error mixed with growing awareness of the immensity and value of the family s undertaking.

Unlike many other books of this sort Blown Away can be appreciated simply as a series of entertaining anecdotes to be read while sailing, at anchor or in the living room. One can read this book strictly for its humor and style and enjoy it completely. Or, one can realize that beyond the laughter is a rather honest tale of one family s metamorphous from languor to liveliness-a change often observed in families who successfully establish the sea as their home --Cathy Lush - Cruising World Magazine

Herb s self-deprecation is a wonderful counterpoint to his serious seamanship. Blown Away lets the reader laugh as he learns. A classic comedy of riches. --Sail Magazine

About this edition

• Publisher: Sail Books, Inc
• Publication date: 1980
• ISBN 10: 0914814249
• ISBN 13: 9780914814245
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 251