Following Seas, Sailing the Globe, Sounding a Life (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The great American sailor Joshua Slocum may have had little else to do when he began rebuilding the small sloop Spray. He could, however, look back at a lifetime on the ocean as preparation for his remarkable circumnavigation. Beth Leonard attended college and collected a master's degree in business. She could point to a successful international management consulting career, but there was no blue-water sailing on her resume. Like so many of us, Beth felt an itch of discontent inside the corporate suit she put on every day. Unlike most us, though, Beth couldn't resist scratching that itch. Following Seas recounts the story of Beth's transformation from business analyst to expert in the sea, the wind, the sky, the stars and Silk, the boat on which she learns to depend for her life. Over the course of three years, Beth grows into someone to whom Joshua Slocum could tip his hat in sailing fellowship. The dramatic shake-down cruise recounted in the prologue of Following Seas became the first leg of a sometimes tumultuous and sometimes serene circumnavigation. Sailing west-abound, Beth and companion Evans Starzinger pilot silk from the Azores, through the Panama Canal, and into the South Pacific, where the peoples of remote islands play a vital part in the story. How does one decide to leave a career and adopt a new way of life? What will you discover about the new places you see, the people you meet? Most important, what might you discover about yourself? Following Seas tells the story of Beth Leonard's journey of discovery. Why not weigh anchor, sail west-around, and share this journey of exploration yourself?

From the Back Cover

What we do in life is perhaps less important than what it does to us. Beth Leonard's story is about change brought about when she found her American dream rotting from the inside out. It is also about the courage to throw away the power and prestige of an international consulting position and seek a new life afloat, a life intimately in touch with herself, her partner, and her planet. Her graceful prose and imaginative photography pull us through raging seas, exotic ports of call, but it also takes us through her journey of self discovery and spiritual renewal. Following Seas is an exciting combination of travel prose and photographs. --Alvah Simon, author of North to the Light, A Year in the Arctic Ice.

In Following Seas, Beth Leonard takes her readers on several voyage at once--personal, social, and historical. As she says, "The literal voyages across oceans...had become a figurative voyage into the depths of my heart and soul..." As she sails, she absorbs the wisdom and courage of the early voyagers--Christopher Columbus, Captain James Cook, Charles Darwin, Joshua Slocum--and in port, she learns from the perspectives of the many people she meets.We are carried along with Beth and her partner Evans through calms, storms, and days of unbounded joy until we realize, with them, how much the sea can test us and change our lives. --Patience Wales, Editor, SAIL magazine

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Product Details

• Paperback: 10 pages
• Publisher: Tide-Mark Press (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559493704
• ISBN-13: 978-1559493703
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,132,005 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A little too proud, a little too gushy, December 21, 2000

By	Brendan H. Greeley, [e-mail] (Bronx, NY United States) - See all my reviews

There's something very disturbing about this book that reveals itself in the first several pages. Beth Leonard is certainly to be commended for deciding to sail around the world, but she seems to want us to believe that she has discovered the art of dropping out. "She sure was rich and powerful," we are expected to say, "and if she gave all that up, why can't we give up our measly jobs that don't even take us to five-star restaurants?"

She quotes from the logs of Columbus and Cook, in whose wake she is supposed to follow - Beth Leonard, however, is a different kind of sailor. She is not an adventurer, she is a tourist. There's nothing wrong with being a tourist, but there is something inherently offensive about not recognizing it.

She fails to point out, for example, that it is her career, and her companion's, that have allowed her the freedom and capital to purchase and outfit a boat. She talks about saving money to contribute to the boat fund by living on an expense account, but never makes the connection that only by being a consultant could she afford to cut her ties to the world. She has sailed a contemporary version of the grand tour, and is painting it like a long, strange trip. Yet she would be an evangelist to those who don't have the resources of an ex-consultant, to those for whom the choice is not so simple.

What did this book set out to accomplish? They didn't sail anywhere particularly exotic, at least by the standards of other, better, sailing books, nor did they do it in a particularly novel way. "Following Seas," from its descriptions of the Azores and explanations of sailing terms, is clearly written for an audience unfamiliar with world cruising literature.

Anyone with no experience, however, would be much better advised to read any number of better works (for example anything by Lynn and Larry Pardey), that concentrate less on the self (this is how I changed) and more on the craft and the world around it (this is how you do it, this is what I found).

Leonard's prose is tortured and overwrought; she cannot get through a sentence without three modifiers or images, and I cannot get through a paragraph without grunting in annoyance. I got this book as a gift, and I still feel cheated.

20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yuppie tries to discover self, but never finds the world, April 24, 1999

By A Customer

If this book came with a money back guarentee, I would ask for my money. The wonderful cover design, the excellent paper and fancy graphics made me fell that the publishers thought this story was really worth promoting. But any cruising story that states several times that cruising is fixing your boat in a series of exotic places, is definitely dumb. I would not want my cruising partner to read this, it makes the whole thing sound boring. Not one real personal encounter with local people - socializing in this book is just with other sailors from the same social and financial rank. Could have met these same folks at my marina. I though going out to see the world meant really mingling - but then if you have to spend so much time fixing a boat, who has time for anything else? Too bad the writer - who is very concise and clear, did not have more romance in her soul, or more time to get away from her boat.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Understanding the emotion behind sailing and exploring., June 1, 1999

By	[e-mail] (N.Carolina) - See all my reviews

Beth Leonard, takes the reader in a new direction with her book Following Seas: Sailing the Globe, Sounding a Life. It is her real life story of a real average person, who by chance and opportunity took an incredible juorney. Her ability to communicate her thoughts and feelings is remarkable; especially considering this is her first book. I meet Beth Leonard at a presentation of her story and she is not only intelligent but very down to earth. She signed my copy "Follow your dreams, live your passion" She did this. What I really found most enjoyable about her book was it is the first book I have ever read which express the feeling behind sailing. This book is not about sailing, rather the emotions it generates; highs and lows. Enjoy the adventure.