Product Description

On May 5, 1997, when Pat Henry anchored her 31-foot Southern Cross sailboat in Acapulco Harbour, she became the first American women to sail around the world alone. At 56, with two adult daughters and three grandchildren, she is also the oldest woman in the world to have done so. Her voyage began in 1989 and took her through 40 countries, 27,000 miles and eight years. Her longest passage at sea was her first, 36 days from Acapulco to the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. Sailing without sponsorship and with little money, learning as she went, Henry encountered storms, near collisions, fatigue, equipment failures, uncharted reefs, health problems and weeks of solitude in her voyage. She supported herself by selling her watercolours - one reason the trip took so long. At her nadir in New Zealand, down to her last $3, unable to sell paintings, she abandoned herself to despair and considered ending her life by stepping off the boat. But this resourceful and resilient sailor also found beauty, diversity, romance and a network of friendships around the globe. Her solo circumnavigation is a triumph to rival Joshua Slocum's -the prototype for all that have followed. Henry's adventure began with the collapse of her import business in 1988. In debt and suffering a crisis of self-doubt, she moved aboard a 21-year-old sloop to live frugally in Santa Cruz harbour while working in a shoreside graphic arts studio. But Henry's wanderlust soon propelled her out of the harbour for a "brief cruise" to Mexico, and then, impetuously, onward around the world, never fully realizing the magnitude of her undertaking. A voyage of eight years cannot be written as a continuous narrative. Rather, the manuscript is a rich tapestry woven from discrete, chronologically sequential episodes like those in the attached writing sample. Several recurring elements - the author's letters to her friend Kitty; brief, dated logbook entries; and brief transcripts of the Voice of America broadcasts that brought the momentous events of the world into Henry's cabin in midocean -give structure to the narrative. So, too, do the maps that open each of the book's seven sections. Buoyantly adventurous by nature, Pat Henry is also a good storyteller and an admirable protagonist. There is good travel writing here, informed by an artist's eye and an observant student of human nature. Her best writing is in her descriptive passages, whether of people, a marketplace, or a tropical anchorage. Her story will require careful editing for continuity and transition, but the end result promises to be a winner. Illustrated, full-colour endsheets show photos from the voyage as well as several of the vivid waterclours Henry painted of scenes encountered along the way. These delightful paintings tell the reader much about the storyteller.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #443645 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 388 pages

From the Back Cover

A remarkable woman shares her life-changing voyage of reconciliation, renewal, and discovery Teen mother, architect, professor, businesswoman'buffeted by childhood dislocations and "the short, joyous beginnings and long, painful endings in a lifetime of marriages and relationships"'Pat Henry knows a thing or two about survival. But when her once-successful business goes bankrupt, she can't find the will to begin again. In this extraordinary memoir, Henry sets sail instead. Ahead lie storms, despair, romance, and thirty thousand miles'but also a deeper understanding of her daughters, her mother, the father who abandoned her, the loves and hurts of a crowded life, and her own hidden self.

"An extraordinary adventure of self-discovery. Aboard her magic carpet, Southern Cross, she sails the exotic dream of a lifetime, with her readers along as vicarious crew. Under a glittering harvest moon in the South China Sea, she thinks: 'I am the richest person in the world. I'm alive and here to see this sight.' And the farther we sail with Pat, bathed in the glow of our own beckoning dreams, the richer we feel, too." Alan Steinberg, sailor, and coauthor, Black Profiles in Courage

"By the Grace of the Sea caps Pat Henry's remarkable achievements. First she taught herself to sail, becoming proficient enough to circumnavigate the globe on her own; then she taught herself to sketch and paint, becoming an accomplished artist in the process. Now she has taught herself to write, producing a book about her adventures at sea that ranks with those by Chichester and Jack London. By the Grace of the Sea is a powerful and compelling personal account of her battle with the elements plus inner and outer demons while struggling to complete her solo journey around the world. What a book and what a woman!" Willard Manus, author, This Way to Paradise, Dancing on the Tables, and The Pigskin Rabbi

In a personal account as vibrant and adventurous as its author, By the Grace of the Sea chronicles one woman's voyage alone over vast oceans. In May 1989, Pat Henry left Acapulco aboard her little sailboat Southern Cross for a journey that would take her through eight years, forty countries, and thirty thousand miles.

Love for the sea and foreign lands and a thirst for meaning in life were only part of the story. This was an odyssey motivated both by a great yearning for adventure and a profound sense of failure. Henry's journey began with the collapse of her textile import company, a result of flawed personal and professional judgment that left her broke, betrayed, haunted by self-doubt, and spiritually spent. Forced to live frugally aboard her 21-year-old sailboat, she ventured down the California coast to Mexico for a brief trip that moved impetuously onward'around the world.

Her voyage becomes the vehicle through which Henry faces her fears and her dreams, her future and her past. Along the way, she finds new beauty, talents, friendships, and even romance, and is given a priceless gift'the distance from which to repair and deepen family relationships and to reach peace with the choices and abandonments of a tumultuous life.

Battling storms, near-collisions, equipment failure, fatigue, solitude, and a host of other challenges, Henry perseveres to become one of the first women ever to sail around the world alone'and, at age fifty-six, the oldest. First, though, she must confront long-buried demons, and in the final miles she will make the deepest and most liberating discovery of all. . . .

Pat Henry weaves together personal letters and logbook entries to tell her tale with rare honesty, style, and insight. Here is a story not just for sailors, but for daughters, mothers, lovers, and seekers.

About the Author
A born seeker and wanderer, Pat Henry married at 15 and gave birth at 16. After delivering a second daughter, she finished high school near Bloomington, Indiana, and worked at being a wife, a mother, and the principal means of support while her husband went to college. But a conventional life was never in her cards. After divorcing, she earned an architecture degree from the University of Illinois while a single mother; and later toured the country on her motorcycle, ending up in California with 12 dollars. There she waitressed, sold real estate, drafted blueprints, taught at San Jose State University, married again at 30, divorced at 35, lived for awhile in an engineless houseboat in the San Francisco mudflats, and discovered sailing on a friend's 50-foot trimaran, aboard which she sailed first to Mexico and later on a three-year voyage to Southeast Asia. Back in California, she started a business importing a flame-retardant fabric for clothing worn by firefighters. Overcommitted financially, but with success in reach, her business was ruined by the withdrawal of a key manufacturer. Reeling financially and emotionally, she began the voyage recounted in this book almost accidentally, discovering along the way first her talent as a painter, and more recently her ability to write.