Sensible Cruising : The Thoreau Approach

If wisdom can be defined as common sense that has withstood the test of time, then Sensible Cruising is a wise book.

It explains:

Why a sensible cruise is affordable to almost anyone.
Why the boat of choice for most cruisers is under 35 feet.
Why lowering the cost doesn't devalue the cruise.
How simplicity minimizes insulation from the experience.
How to think in terms of how little, not how much, is really required.

Drawing heavily on the philosophy of the sage of Walden Pond, this book is a gentle guide to the art of commonsense cruising which, in hardcover, was one of the 10 best-selling sailing books of all time. Now available for the first time in paperback, Sensible Cruising, a former main selection of the Dolphin Book Club, is more pertinent than ever during this time of economic retrenchment.

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817. He lived as a poet but is best known as a philosopher and writer on natural history. He was educated at Harvard and at various times was a teacher, lecturer, inventor, essayist, and sailor. Encouraged to become a writer by his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, he lived in the woods for two years living simply and writing. His book Walden: or Life in the Woods, is a classic, more loved today than when he wrote it.

Don Casey grew up near Dallas, Texas, far from the tang of salt air. The voyage of Robin Lee Graham published by National Geographic in the late sixties captured his imagination and led him to coastal south Florida. There he bought his first boat, a 27-foot sloop, and began regularly crossing the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. He and his wife still cruise the Bahamas but now for four to six months each year. Their current boat is a 20-year-old, 30-foot ketch.

Don gave up his life of "quiet desperation" to become a freelance writer. He has written for the most popular national sailing and boating magazines, and as a columnist for a regional magazine published in Florida.

Lew Hackler began sailing moth boats in the 40's at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, still a favorite port. Since then he has owned some 17 boats, raced and cruised along the Eastern Coast of the U.S., Bermuda, throughout the Bahamas, in the Virgins, Italy, and on Australia's Tasman Sea. He lived aboard for much of his life, and currently owns a Hunter 30 sloop.

Lew is the author of the unique volume, The Complete Sailor's Log, co-author of Let's Name It: 10,000 Boat Names, and author of a series of children's books about boating and fishing.