Product Description

If you’re wondering what Chris Stewart did before he and Ana moved to El Valero, their Spanish farm, here’s one of the answers. He took to the sea, landing a job as skipper for the summer, sailing a Cornish Crabber around the Greek islands. It was his dream job – and there was just one tiny problem. He hadn’t ever sailed before and had not the foggiest how to start. In a series of madcap and hilarious adventures we follow Chris from a shaky start in Chichester harbour to his epic Odyssey to Spetses (a bucket would have been handy), and then on to the journey of a lifetime – battening down the hatches on a trip across the North Atlantic. It’s a journey crackling with Chris’s zest for life, irresistible humour, and unerring lack of foresight. Dry land never looked more welcoming.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #645 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Review
`A charming and lyrical read, awash with the joy of discovery...' - Rory MacLean, Guardian
--Rory MacLean, Guardian

From the Back Cover
"Possibly the one travel writer who is genuinely funnier than Bill Bryson." The Traveller If you’re wondering what Chris Stewart did before he moved to El Valero, the Spanish farm immortalised in Driving Over Lemons, here’s one of the answers. He took to the sea, landing a job as a yacht skipper, sailing a Cornish Crabber around the Greek islands. It was his dream job – but there was just one tiny problem. He hadn’t ever sailed before and had not the foggiest how to start. In a series of madcap and hilarious adventures we follow Chris from a shaky start in Littlehampton harbour to his epic Odyssey to Spetses (a bucket would have been handy), and then on to the journey of a lifetime – battening down the hatches on a trip across the North Atlantic. Three Ways to Capsize a Boat is travel writing at its most enjoyable, crackling with Chris's zest for life, irresistible humour, and unerring lack of foresight. Dry land never looked more welcoming. "Chris Stewart is one of life's bold originals." Christina Hardyment, The Independent

About the Author
Chris Stewart shot to fame with Driving Over Lemons (9780956003805) – Sort Of BooksÂ’ launch title in 1999. Funny, insightful and real, the book told the story of how he bought a peasant farm on the wrong side of the river, with its previous owner still resident. It became an international bestseller and with its sequels – A Parrot in the Pepper Tree and The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society – it has sold more than a million copies in the UK alone. Chris prepared for life on his Spanish mountain farm with jobs of doubtful relevance. He was the original drummer in Genesis (he played on the first album), then joined a circus, learnt how to shear sheep, went to China to write the Rough Guide, gained a pilotÂ’s license in Los Angeles, and completed a course in French cooking. Three Ways to Capsize a Boat fills in his lost years as a yacht skipper in the Greek islands. Despite the extraordinary success of his books, Chris, his wife Ana, and their daughter Chloë, continue to live on their farm, with their numerous dogs, cats, chickens, sheep and misanthropic parrot.

Customer Reviews

Laugh out loud
I've just read this book and have to say I think it's Chris Stewart's funniest yet. It is a bit of a departure, as he heads out to sea, instead of describing life at home on his farm in Andalucia. But it has all the laugh-out-loud description and self-deprecating charm of "Driving Over Lemons" and his earlier books. And you don't need to be remotely interested in sailing to enjoy it. After all, the book starts with Chris taking a job to skipper a yacht in Greece for the summer, having never set foot on a sailing boat. So it's not all boom-and-tiller talk. More a tale of misadventures. The chapters on how he learns to sail are hilarious: like when he is trying to make his way back up the Solent river against the current, engine full on, with the boat completely stationary while drinkers at the pub on the river bank look on. The descriptions of Greece are equally funny, as his boat catches fire in the midst of the island fiesta. And then there is a complete shift of scale as he embarks on a trip across the north Atlantic, from Brighton to Newfoundland. This gives a real sense of what an ocean journey on a small boat is like and, this being a Chris Stewart book, its absurdities - not least the perils of peeing over the side of a boat in a freezing, force ten gale. All in all, hugely recommended - fun and life-enhancing. More please!

Didn't live up to its reputation
This is a charming book which is well written covering the authors period sailing in Greece and an epic voyage to Newfoundland via Norway and Ireland aboard Hirta, with Tom Cunliffe. But given the reviews that I read, here I was expecting a book that I couldn't put down - it wasn't.There is the odd amusing part but given some of the reviews I was expecting it to be hilarious throughout. It is short, which is good as at the end i was beginning to get bored. My respect did grow for Tom Cunliffe in the book.

far and few, far and few, are the lands where the Jumblies live
I read it in a day, a glorious lazy day in the sunshine with the kids mucking about somewhere, amusing themselves.
A few quotes from the book sum it up best.
"I know people who have never slept a night beneath the stars", we all know them but I don't think I count any as friends.
"And we did what sailors do, which is to go into a bar and drink beer, our faces full of wind and bodies swaying with the memory of the waves", if this sounds like you, then this is a chuckle you shouldn't pass on.