Customer Reviews

Three Years in a Twelve-Foot Boat

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If you have read Don Starkell & sons' famous book "Paddle to the Amazon", you'll love this one.

Here, Stephen Ladd builds his own boat and then spends a few years exploring around the Earth in it!

The book is well written. Appropriate balance of humor, story telling & introspection.

Readers are definitely left with ideas of boat designs and adventures floating around in their own heads after reading Ladd's account!

If you enjoy reading about people enjoying life - this is a must!

I highly recommend this book. This is a fascinating story. One that makes you feel you are right there with Stephen Ladd on his journey to experience a part of the world in his personally constructed boat "Squeek." Not only did I take this trip with him while reading this book, I also became envious, knowing that I lack the creativity, stamina, and courage to ever do what he accomplished. A traveler who is individualistic, well-read, and an exceptional writer, his journey is a must read for all. I think many Americans caught up in their current lifestyles today could gain insight from this book. I hope that Stephen Ladd sets out on a journey like this again someday. How about it Steve?

Three Years in a 12 Foot Boat starts out with the author designing and building his own design wooden rowing/sail boat. His travels down through the Missouri and Mississippi rivers are only the beginning. His journey along the Pacific coast of Panama and Columbia have him fighting large waves in a boat he was just starting to realize its limits. His capsize off the coast of Columbia has him laying on the top of the upside down "Squeak", wondering if he would survive. His travels across South America are dangerous and humorous at times. He describes his driving trip as a companion across Columbia at night where traffic comes to a halt and everyone just goes to sleep in their cars, still sleeping long after traffic cleared, leaving him to try to awake the drivers ahead. His writings about the people he meets and his motivations to continue on with his trip provides insight into his reasons for embarking the on three year trip. Highly recommeded.

What an incredibly brave thing to do! Have a few thousand saved up, build a tiny row/sailboat on your apartment patio, quit your job, tell everyone, "Later!" and go forth unto the world, with only the simplest of directions on how to proceed. This book captures true adventuring in our times by a man who know what he's looking at, and how to show it to the reader. Combining a concise text with lots of detail, a neat trick if you can pull it off, Mr. Ladd takes on a tough three year tour of the Americas, and lives to tell us about it. I recommend this account of the simple traveling life to anyone who has ever had a desire for escapism. Wow.

Stephen Ladd has written a fun book about an old dream of mine, long trips in small boats. He makes me feel what he felt and particpate in his dream. He makes me feel the strain of rowing for hours and the delight in small successes.

A sailor who can write!

Very little about sailing, and most of what is there displays the author's lack, not command of skill and judgment. It is hard to fathom that anyone would think that average readers are more interested in details of his copulation with a prostitute than they are with the construction and operation of the boat, but apparently, Steve Ladd thought those were the important details to include. A previous reviewer got it right: It's "Dear Diary" with a catchy title. I could not finish it. I skipped around, trying to find some part that wasn't saturated with the author's ego and libido, but finally gave up. If there were some good illustrations on the details of the boat, it would rate 2 stars, but the few line drawings of the boat were all two-dimensional and lacking detail. Part of the appeal of the travelogue is experiencing the trip vicariously. If you want to experience loose women, prostitutes, drugs, vagrancy and the seamy side of just about everything related to cruising, this is your book.

I'm puzzled by the one star reviews of this book. Of course it's everyone's right to have their own opinion, but the reasons given for that opinion are moronic. They think there should be more about sailing?Who promised you a book on sailing? Why are you building your unfounded expectations on what the book is supposed to be into your opinion of the quality of this actual book? The author didn't promise anyone a treatise on sailing. They think the author should be a better person? What does that have to do with the story? Would they rather he lie and make himself out to be a pillar of USA virtue? Ladd has the guts to tell it like it is. He represents himself in an unvarnished light, insensitive, naive, self-absorbed, driven, reckless, and yes, often stupid. But he writes very well, is presumably honest since he presents himself in usually an unattractive light, and had an adventure that none of us will ever experience. He deserves a medal, no two medals for this. One for engaging in such a lunatic venture in the first place and pulling it off, and another for writing about it for us without novelizing it, or putting a shiny gloss on everything. I loved every minute of this book, warts and all, and admire Ladd for his honesty, and excellent writing. The poetry I could do without, but it was so easy to skip, why would it bother anyone? Just move to where the margins get normal again, and you're back on the regular book. If Ladd wants to put his poetry in there, so what. This isn't really a 5 star book, more like 4, but I feel like I need to balance out the idiotic 1 star reviews that reviewed their opinion of Ladd's character and not the book. Very nice work Ladd. I sure wish you'd write another.

I'd compare "Three Years in a Twelve-Foot Boat" favorably to "Addicted to Danger."

In "Addicted to Danger", author Jim Wickwire tells about his most dangerous mountaineering experiences, but he holds the reader at arm's length, as if to say, "Don't you do what I do, it's only for experts."

In "Three Years in a 12-Foot Boat", author Steve Ladd draws the reader into his personal life, his fears and motivations. As a result, "Three Years" interested me and inspired me more.

Join a middle-aged peter pan on his narcissistic adventure, primarily, apparently, looking for young women to seduce.
Another reviewer notes that it's not kind to women. That's an understatement.
Another calls it self-indulgent blather. Yes.

What? You're not a young woman? Lend him a hand along the way and he'll find another way to stick it to you. Does he think you're a boor, he'll write about that. Does he think he catches you cheating on your spouse, he'll write about that. Tell him in confidence about breaking the law or doing something else you shouldn't and he'll write about that.

Normally when I finish a book it either goes into my book shelves or gets passed on to other readers. This one went into the trash. It's a shame, it had so much promise.

What an interesting book.

While this book is in essence a travelogue of Ladd's voyage through some very interesting and dangerous parts of the world it is also a voyage of him as a writer, seaman, and person.

Ladd's book is interspersed with a number of poems and for the first few chapters it is difficult to distinguish the poetry from the prose. I found this hard going and nearly put the book down, however from about chapter 5 Ladd finds a style that embraces his unusual and insightful use of language that paints a vivid and descriptive account of his voyage from all perspectives.

The people and the places visited, especially outside of the US, are unique and unusual and Ladd captures their beauty, poverty and despair as it may be. At times he is lucky to survive and you can feel the anxiety in his writing without this being played up by the author.

Ladd leaves nothing untouched and this may make you cringe when it borders on personal areas that you wish were left unsaid but in its own way this is part of his voyage as a person and the book is richer for Ladd's honesty.