The Biggest Boat I Could Afford: Sailing Up the U.S. Coast in a Dinghy
Call me Ishmael. Who is John Galt? It was the best of times. It was the worst of times...Western literature is replete with great opening lines. And now it's time to add another: It was all the readhead's fault.So begins 'The Biggest Boat I Could Afford', by New Zealander Lee Hughes, an account of how Hughes sailed a 16-foot Wayfarer dinghy, 2,500 miles from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, up the East Coast by way of the ICW.A couple of years ago, Sheridan House, the publisher of Hughes' narrative, also produced a book titled The Unlikely Voyage of Jack DeCrow by A.J. Mackinnon. At the time I thought it was about as unique a sailing book as you could ever find. Imagine a story about a complete non-sailor who navigates his mirror dinghy across the waterways of England and Europe, spending as much time talking about J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings as he does about seamanship. --Sailing, June 2005Lee Hughes' autobiography of his solo sail 2500 miles up the US coast in a small dinghy, The Biggest Boat I Could Afford, is one of adventure, humor and insight as he journeys up the Intra-Coastal Waterway and learns his seafaring lessons the hard way by trial and error. Hughes' voyage to becoming a real sailor holds many gripping moments, accounts of danger and success, and invites armchair sailors to relish this drama. --Midwest Book Review, May 2005At first sight this seems to be a book for the dedicated dinghy cruiser, actually it is a well written and enthralling account of an adventure by Wayfarer dinghy THE Wayfarer dinghy, Frank Dye's no less.The author in New Zealand bought the boat in the US from Frank Dye who was in England, sight unseen. Adventure enough, some might think, but Lee Hughes knew little about boats and could not sail at all. His first attempt at sailing his own boat was after he had collected the boat, hauled it by truck the length of Florida and started, under outboard, up the intracoastal waterway.The tale of the voyage itself is well told and illustrated by monochrome snapshots. I found this a truly worthwhile read. --Cruising Association, Spring 2005