Philosophy of Sailing: Offshore in Search of the Universe Kindle Edition

I can do little to improve on the first review posted regarding "Philosophy of Sailing" by Christian Williams. That review is thorough and outlines the content and direction of the book beautifully. I can but tell you how I felt reading it. Mr. Williams' books are of the author's deep thoughts about life, love, and wonder. He sets the books up with expertly done video offerings on YouTube each around 25-30 minutes or so. His entire channel is worth taking the time to review and enjoy. Make sure you "Like" each one! One gets to know Mr. Williams through the videos and his family members too. His videos make it seem easy to sail to Hawaii by yourself. The author is a most experienced sailor yet he does not come across as a know it all and he seems to learn something new for himself on each voyage. The book makes the trip look a bit more complex than his videos as Mr. Williams delves into the intricacy not only of his boat and the ocean but of the complexity of life itself. He sits in wonder of the nothingness and aloneness all around him and celebrates the everything around him that he is part of. He gives his reader the opportunity to think deeply about life and not be afraid to be a bit wrong or incomplete in ones insights. He leaves room for error, review, and shamelessly changing of ones mind as new insights make themselves known. Experiencing life is a grand joy. One of Mr. Williams' deepest insights, though simple, is the need for all of us to forgive as we all need to be forgiven ourselves. It is simple to say but difficult to live out and Mr. Williams seems to have achieved that level of depth in his life. So many books about sailing are technical, how too compositions that leave the reader thinking that they could never know and apply all that is on those written pages. Anything technical in "Philosophy of Sailing" is disguised within an intimate knowledge of the over all human condition and experience. So, you can learn how to sail and how to be more human by embracing this lovely book. I am but a few years younger than the author and his love of sailing, writing, and living has become inspirational to me. He makes me want to buy and rebuild a sailboat, read more good books, smoke a pipe, relax and breathe deeply, and tell my loved ones how much I love them and do so more often. When an author can inspire you to good works with their writtings what more can you ask of them? Christian Williams sails over vastly deep Pacific waters, miles deep. His insights learned over 74 years of living dive equally deep into what we all call life. I highly recommend this book. You won't be disappointed.

Ironically, I finished reading the last chapter of this book while at anchor in Little Scorpion on Santa Cruz Island. Which is about where Christian, low on fuel during his return trip, decides to make pancakes and throw caution to the wind. In this ever-connected, can't leave the phone alone or it might get into trouble if I'm not watching it world, Christian's research is a breath of fresh air and an encouragement to humbly cast off the lines and admit what it means to be (spoiler alert) human.Written by a masterful storyteller and significant man of words. This tale winds, turns, and guides us through a course of adventure and discovery, like a self-steering windvane mounted on the stern of a modest sailing vessel. All the while sharing history, philosophical scholarship, and insights gleaned from a child sailing a pillowcase as a mains'l across the vast expanses of a front yard lawn. And of why we can't, shouldn't and won't abandon omnipresent connectivity, but can utilize tools at hand to find our way across oceans and come home again.Buy this book, cast off the lines...

With Philosophy of Sailing, Christian Williams has created a most interesting and thought provoking book. It is so much more than a journal entry summary of an adventure trip. After I read the first few pages, I actually had to stop and try to understand and research Mr. Williams a bit to try to come to terms how someone with the fortitude to take on big solo sailing routes also had the mental capacity to break down Rene Descartes, Aristotle, and many others and lay it out with humor and humility. He really is a "swiss army knife" of skill sets and life experiences. I encourage everyone to read it but don't pass it along to friends. This one is a keeper.

Christian Williams takes you along as an invisible stowaway on his solo voyage to from LA to Hawaii and back.Along the way he shares details of the at times exciting and at times mundane details of life on this voyage and shares insight into the various preparations. One of the great aspects of his sailing is his insight into his thoughts and his approach to problem solving. He walks you through his ingenious preparations, the discovery and fatigue dealing with broken whisker poles and roller furling lines, the excitement and horror of a heart pounding "collision" with some unidentified object, and the many small doubts and voices that plague sailors (what is that persistent noise? why did I rig the reef line this way? where is chafe occuring? what nuts and pins are loose? do I really need to jibe? do I really need to reef? do I have enough fuel?). Oh yeah, and insight into the comfort provided by Myers rum and Dinty Moore beef stew.Williams packs a box of philosophy books collected over a lifetime into the sailboat and sprinkles insight into philosophy and history throughout the narrative. He ties many of those insights to his life experience and to the experience at hand of sailing alone across an ocean. At the end of the book there is a list of recommended reading that can form the core of a good philosophy library.This book can be read by itself but it also makes a great companion to his first book"Alone Together: Sailing Solo to Hawaii and Beyond" and his many excellent youtube videos.

Beautiful book that has earned a place on my shelf of desert island reads. While I loved the prequel, this second book, with it's emphasis on philosophy and the ineffable - while still being filled with nuts and bolts practical sailing info, and the same wonderful sense of being aboard for the journey - made this volume deeper, richer, and more profoundly satisfying. I was sorry to have it end, and found myself surprisingly moved for a book about sailing. But then, it's not really about sailing, is it? It's about life, and the brief encounters with eternity that Mr Williams so eloquently reaches for and renders beautifully in prose.