Adrift

by Tristan Jones

Emerging from the South American wilderness following the harrowing adventures related in The Incredible Voyage, Tristan Jones finally made it home to Britain, where customs officials promptly impound his vessel – the tiny, nearly indestructible SEA DART – because he cannot pay the “import tax.” In his quest to liberate SEA DART, he takes any work he can find, whether it be stoking the boilers at Harrods', regaling TV talk-show viewers with wild stories, or skippering one-day “around the lighthouse” cruises in New York. Ultimately, Jones and SEA DART appear as the honored guests of an Explorers Club dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, then go on to “sail” triumphantly for three days through the streets of New York.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nautical

273 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Arthur Jones, pen name Tristan Jones was a prolific English author and mariner. His stories, mostly about sailing, are a combination of both fact and fiction, and it is rather difficult to tell these apart.
He was an illegitimate child, and was raised mainly in orphanages. He joined the Royal Navy in 1946, and served for 14 years. After ending his career in the Navy, he bought a sailboat, became a whiskey smuggler, and scraped a living sailing the Mediterranean Sea.
After his left leg was amputated in 1982 (a result of health problems and accidents), he resumed sailing and sailed the trimaran Outward Leg from San Diego to London, then across central Europe by river and canal to the Black Sea, and then around south Asia to Thailand.
After the amputation of his right leg in 1991 he only returned briefly to sea, and he lived in Phuket, Thailand, he converted to Islam and took on the name 'Ali'.

Reviews

[David]

Tristan Jones will always be on my Mount Rushmore of authors!

[Sterling Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

love all of Tristan Jones/Trimaran single-hander! tough as nails!