Passagemaking
Done Dreaming reminded me of a passage from a book called "Wanderer" (look
towards the end of this posting)

----Sterling Hayden's Sea Stories--------------------------------

Just recently in the May issue of Yachting World Elaine Bunting included a
reference to a little know book author by the name of Sterling Hayden. Maybe
most might better remember his name as a Hollywood movie actor.

I had been wanting to get his book and read it for some time now, but just
didn't get around to it.

Well Elaine's article spurred me on and I discovered I already had his book
"Vogage". I'm about half way thru it, and what an epic tale.

Here's a little preview:
This richly drawn, rousing historical novel is both a tumultuous sailing
adventure and an incisive, epic portrayal of a watershed year at the close of
the 19th century.

The torturous maiden voyage of the enormous steel-hulled four-masted square
rigger NEPTUNE'S CAR drives her crew to murder and mutiny, while her owner's
daughter luxuriates aboard the private yacht ATALANTA. As both vessels arrive
in San Francisco (via Cape Horn in the winter) on the eve of the
Bryan-McKinley presidential election, an increasingly volatile class struggle
threatens to erupt into riot and insurrection.

The gripping story of two ships and their conflicted crews, Voyage also
recounts the first stirrings of the American labor movement and the decline of
the Gilded Age of robber barons.

"A rousing epic.... Big, muscular, profane, cynical, romantic." —Chicago
Daily News

"A rare sort of sheer drive and vitality carries this novel...a raw fury about
class distinctions and privileges... strangely refreshing in our blasé age."
—New York Times Book Review

"A fast-moving, heart-pounding saga...pure pleasure to read." —San Francisco
Examiner

"Scuds through the emotions like a windjammer before a full gale." —Chicago
Tribune

"An elemental smash hit." —Kirkus Reviews

"Solid, masterful writing that ranks the author with some of the giants of
literature." —Houston Post

"Violent, colorful...you keep turning the pages to find out just what in the
name of God is going to happen next." —Boston Globe

"A well-crafted yarn, a narrative of energy and excitement.... Hayden knows
how to tell a story." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A story of extraordinary richness and power.... Sterling Hayden here proves
himself a master novelist. His prose is vivid and brawny, his characters come
to individual life.... At once a magnificent epic of the sea and a dynamic
portrait of turn-of-the-century America." —Publishers Weekly

"Great storytelling...a sensational achievement in the genre of adventure
stories." —Kansas City Star

"Hayden has created many strong characterizations in his story and has woven
in major events and movements of the period.... Voyage is basically a sea
story, but its significance is much broader." —Seattle Times

"A book of savage beauty." —Boston Herald American

"A spellbinder." —New York Daily News

Now I discover that the he had a second book, an autobiography. This is the
one I had in mind originally.

The Ensign, May 1999:
"Webster's New World Dictionary defines wander, as 'to move or go aimlessly
about; to ramble; to roam; to go astray in mind or purpose; to turn away from
accepted thought or morals.' This accurately describes the life of Montaigu
Relyea Walter, later known as Sterling Walter Hayden. His youth was spent
during the depression , when jobs were scarce and money was scanty.

"Although Hayden never finished high school, he did have an inherent love for
boats. At 20, he went to work for Irving Johnson, the owner and master of the
schooner YANKEE, sailing around the world as first mate. While he found most
school subjects difficult, he had no trouble with the calculations necessary
for a line of position using H.O.214.

"At 22, he had his masters papers in sail, and after sailing as crew member
and navigator on the GERTRUDE L. T, he skippered the FLORENCE C. R, an 89-foot
brigantine, to Tahiti.

"Always broke and needing money, he never knew what he would do next. So he
decided to try his luck in Hollywood.

"After years of success, he quit Hollywood at the peak of his career and
walked out of a shattered marriage. During a bitter custody battle, he set
sail with his four children for the South Seas on WANDERER, a stout, true
schooner that was nearly 100 feet long and had a 35-foot bowsprit.

"This autobiography is a superb piece of writing. Echoes of Melville and
Steinbeck resound in this wanderer's tale."

Excerpted from The Times, Georgetown, SC, November 1998:

"I'm put in mind of Sterling Hayden, one of my greatest heroes and the
inspiration for the name of my sailboat. On the morning that his
autobiography, WANDERER, begins, he, his first mate and cook stand in the main
hatch of Hayden's ancient schooner, drinking steaming mugs of tea laced with
aquavit – a Danish vodka known the world over as the sailorman's drink –
toasting the voyage on which they're about to embark. That is, if the ****ed
judge will let them.

"As it happens, the judge says No – tells Hayden he cannot leave San
Francisco on an old Golden Gate pilot schooner built in the 1890s, cannot sail
for points unknown with a handpicked but mostly green crew and his own four
young children, cannot set sail on the voyage he's counting on to put his
wayward life back on course and restore his flagging spirit. And Hayden, being
who he is, casts his docklines anyway and lifts his sails, judge – and the
1950s gray flannel suit America – be ****ed.

"That's how it starts, and by the time it's done – WANDERER being the same
of Hayden's ship and the story of his life – you've had one unforgettable
voyage yourself, under a captain whose words may echo in your mind and whose
attitude may inform your spirit for the rest of your life.

"First published in 1963 and long out of print, Wanderer – one of two books
that Hayden published before his death in 1986 – has been reissued this fall
by Sheridan House, a publisher of maritime books, .... If I had to pick five
books to get me through life on a desert island, Wanderer would be my first
choice; and now that it's been reissued I can do something, as a writer and
reader, I've wanted to do for a long time: tell you about it."

The Wanderer - Sterling Hayden on Life

It is from Sterling Hayden's book on taking his kids sailing. Not just for the
weekend, not just around the Bay as his wife thought, but for a year and
around the world. Called the Wanderer, it is one of the most remarkable books
that I have ever read. It is a bible for a chosen life

******  "To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm
foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine
traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea...
"cruising" it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of
the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage
and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only
then will you know what the sea is all about.

"I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What
these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous
discipline of "security." And in the worship of security we fling our lives
beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and
shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will
yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we
know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a
tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry,
playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in
dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of
purse or bankruptcy of life? *******

Brian Eiland

beiland@usa.net
http://www.RunningTideYachts.com
distinctive multihull expedition yachts

Sterling Hayden was a voyager and in WWII he sailed the Mediterranean for
the OSS.

Ron Rogers

----- Original Message -----
From: "brian eiland" beiland@usa.net
|
| ----Sterling Hayden's Sea Stories--------------------------------
|
| Just recently in the May issue of Yachting World Elaine Bunting included a
| reference to a little know book author by the name of Sterling Hayden.
Maybe
| most might better remember his name as a Hollywood movie actor.

Brian Eiland  wrote:

"After years of success, he (Stirling Hayden) quit Hollywood at the peak
of his career and walked out of a shattered marriage. During a bitter
custody battle, he set sail with his four children for the South Seas on
WANDERER, a stout, true schooner that was nearly 100 feet long and had a
35-foot bowsprit.
"This autobiography is a superb piece of writing. Echoes of Melville and
Steinbeck resound in this wanderer's tale."

"First published in 1963 and long out of print, Wanderer – one of two
books
that Hayden published before his death in 1986 – has been reissued this
fall
by Sheridan House, a publisher of maritime books, .... If I had to pick
five
books to get me through life on a desert island, Wanderer would be my
first
choice; and now that it's been reissued I can do something, as a writer
and
reader, I've wanted to do for a long time: tell you about it."

REPLY
A copy of the original was loaned to me by someone who did pretty much
what Stirling had done. He quit his respectable corporate job and bought
a 105 foot sailing ship down in Mexico and headed north to get back
home. That voyage took over a year.
Evidently the ship had previously been owned by some hippies who had
some wild parties and suspected of smuggling grass - the smokable kind.
After much harassment, allegedly including the planting of fake evidence
on board, the Coast Guard finally arrested the ship in Astoria, Oregon.
During the year long arrest the owner encountered much questioning and
harassment. Finally in exasperation he told the officials to take a
careful look at their security cards that they used to gain access to
secure facilities. In very fine print the name of the manufacturer of
the card and the relevant security system equipment was printed.

Thereupon he said to them. Guess what? That's my company and I still own
it.
There wasn't much they could say about him being a security risk and a
smuggler after that.

While I was in San Francisco visiting a friend, I told him about this
story.
Whereupon he said. I knew Stirling and Spike Africa. Wanna see where we
met?
So off we go to a small jazz café in Sausalito. Turns out my friend's
dad was a long time buddy of Stirling and Spike. My friend was given his
very first drink (at a tender young age) in that same bar while his
father was temporarily elsewhere.

I agree with Brian, both the novel and the autobiography is a great
read.

Arild