Thinking up a Hurricane

In the spring of 1977 Frank Stilwell launched Vingila, 17 tons of welded together 11-millimetre steel plates, in Durban harbour. An electrician by trade, Franks experience of sailing amounted to not very much an unpleasant spell on a Scottish fishing trawler as a young man and a brief holiday on someone elses yacht off the coast of Mozambique a couple of years before. Never one to be daunted by a challenge or to be resisted in any way, he took his nine year old twins, Robert and Nicky, out of school, persuaded his wife Maureen that they would all learn how to sail and cope with life on the open seas as they went, and prepared to follow his dream of circumnavigating the world.

Paperback. English. Penguin. 2012. Used.