Interesting life, with plenty of death...

Alas, both my local libraries drew a blank. The search continues...

Sea Gypsy is a very evocative book and inspired many sailors, including Larry Pardey, who followed Peer Tangvald's approach and sailed sans engine and cockpit.  Tangvald was one of those larger than life vagabonds who once dominated the ocean voyaging world but seem to be a disappearing breed.  He eventually drowned, along with his daughter, on a reef in the western Caribbean.  He lost two wives at sea, one to pirates and the other being swept overboard in an accidental gybe.  His son, Thomas, who survived the shipwreck that drowned his father and sister, was reported lost at sea (failed to arrive) earlier this year off the coast of Brazil.  Some years after writing Sea Gypsy, Peer lost Dorothea, the vessel he sailed around the world on in that book, some 50 miles out from Barbados at the end of a North Atlantic tradewind crossing from the Canary Islands.  He covered those last 50 miles in a 7 foot plywood pram dinghy, a remarkable feat.  If you want to read the book you'll either have to buy that hard copy or find a library that has it.  That might be even harder to do in the 21st century, where libraries regularly discard old books for new.

Matt Waite wrote:I'm happy to pay for "Sea Gypsy" but can't find an ebook or PDF version of it anywhere on the interwebs. Amazon only have a used hardback.

I have a Kobo rather than a Kindle because I object to the way Amazon tie you in to their format.  I can get Once is Enough from them and also, to my astonishment, a book of poems that Miles Smeeton: Alligator Tales "A delightful collection of short poems for children written by a loving grandfather, an ardent voyager, from every port his yacht Tzu Hang put into in the course of his voyages. Fanciful, and sometimes eccentric, thee poems will delight young and old alike.

Adults and nature lovers, in particular, will also enjoy the amazing Introduction written by Clio Smeeton, Miles Smeeton's daughter who has a passion for the reintroduction of the swift fox."

In addition are such old classics as Small Boat Sailing, by E F Knight, A world of my Own, Gypsy Moth Circles the World, Ice! by Tristan Jones and Practical Junk Rig !  But the classics from the 50s and 60s seem to be in short supply, although I did buy Tinkerbelle.  The good news is that the people who have re-published Edward Allcard's Single-handed Passage, say "Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork."

Let's hope they decide on Sea Gypsy!

Rereading a chapter of VOASI i recalled that Peter Tangvald's "Sea Gypsy" was mentioned as one of Pete's most inspirational books.

I'm a total Kindle convert and recently figured out how to convince the little jigger to convert PDFs to the Kindle format.

Thus, i have downloaded Erik the Red from the JRA library and look forward to reading it on the Kindle.

I'm happy to pay for "Sea Gypsy" but can't find an ebook or PDF version of it anywhere on the interwebs. Amazon only have a used hardback.

Any suggestions?

Matt