Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist Afloat

Three Ways to Capsize a Boat is travel writing at its best, crackling with Chris Stewart’s zest for life, irresistible humor, and unerring lack of foresight.

Chris Stewart had a long and eclectic list of jobs. From some of the most glamorous careers--he was original drummer in Genesis--to the more offbeat--a sheep shearer and circus performer--he had done it all…or almost all. So when he is offered the chance to captain a sailboat in the Greek islands one summer, something he had never done before, he jumped at the chance, even though he’d never actually sailed before.

So begins the hilarious and wild adventures of Three Ways to Capsize a Boat. From setting the boat on fire not once, but several times in the Aegean Sea to his not-so-grand arrival in Spetses to meet the owners of the boat (who says it isn’t graceful to plow into the docks as a means of coming to a stop?), Stewart quickly catches the sailing bug.

By the end of the summer, as he is facing the dreary prospect of going back to sheep shearing, he jumps at the chance to be part of a crew to follow Viking Leif Eiriksson’s historic journey across the Atlantic Ocean. From coming to terms with the long, cold nights at sea and unchanging cuisine to battling intense seasickness and managing to go to the bathroom during a massive storm (a lot harder than you’d think!), Stewart keeps his good humor, but learns, in the end, that perhaps the best things in life are worth coming ashore for.