Posts by pwsadmin

After bringing the Lillian B. down from Maine in November, she spent the winter in a small marina in Stuart Florida while I attempted to finish and delegate tasks at work. At home, the guest room began to fill up with crates of food, charts, and other supplies. Two weeks before departure, my wife Kay…

The first time I met Dave Dickerson was on the eve of the winter solstice, 2000, on a blustery night in Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts. He and his daughter Heidi were in the process of delivering the Lillian B., then Carpe Diem, from Westbrook Connecticut to Rockport, Maine. They were hurrying northward under the threat of…

Various books stress the value of getting outside one’s “comfort zone” as a means of self-improvement. Part of the rationale of taking an eight-month sabbatical on a sailboat is to literally and figuratively expand my horizons. Unfortunately, the consequence of stretching one’s limits is that it is, by definition, uncomfortable outside the comfort zone. This…

Lillian B. The Lillian B. is a forty-foot ocean going sailboat, a Baba 40’ designed by the renowned naval architect Bob Perry. She is a cutter rig, which translates to a single mast with a mainsail and two foresails. Her stern is canoe shape, to better accommodate following seas. Below decks, she has key amenities…

January 2004: The Pacific voyage of Thor Heyerdahl  in Kon Tiki, Henry Dana’s “Two Years before the Mast,” and Gauguin’s paintings of Tahiti have all been inspirations for the classical romantic dream of sailing the South Pacific, amplified, perhaps by a stereotypical mid-life restlessness. In defense of middle age, my own dream of sailing the…

The Lillian B. Maine to San Francisco via Tahiti 2003 – 2004 Foreword The following is a collection of personal e-mails chronicling the voyage of the 40’ sailboat, Lillian B., from Maine to San Francisco by way of Tahiti in 2004. It has been supplemented with photographs taken by various crewmembers. The majority of the…

This is a blog of the voyages of the sailboat Lillian. The site is under construction.