Tranquility: A Memoir of an American Sailor

by Billy Sparrow

Tranquility is the true tale of an impulsive young man who sets sail on a three week voyage in an old wooden boat. When Billy Sparrow shoves off, he believes he's bound on a fair winds and following seas summer cruise that will take him to an island paradise, but he quickly discovers fate has it otherwise. His three week summer voyage turns into an unbelievable never-ending saga. Tranquility is a universal tale of youth told with affection, wisdom, romance and life learning, for landlubber and sailor alike.

From the back cover:
"Tranquility is sure to be a Pacific Northwest classic and required reading for anyone with a love of adventure, romance and the unknown. Honest and thought provoking, funny and tragic, Tranquility is a sea story, a land story, a love story and a life story that will captivate anyone with a stake in the human condition and the courage to risk it all. Set sail on life's incredible voyage with a young man who pursues his dreams to the edge of the known world, and then some. Dear reader, we promise you will be glad you did."

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 2016

Reviews

[Becca Guillote · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun story. He literally does everything wrong you can do with a boat. Plenty to relate to in his stories, especially because he was sailing in my “home” waters. A sweet balance of play, excitement, devastation, drama, even some romance. Some bits seems a bit unrelated to the story, but that is part of the storytelling too.

[Jacqui · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book. The language is beautiful, you feel like you’re right there with him the whole time. Romance, adventure, desperation, hope... it’s all there.

[Kenneth Iltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir recounts the unbelievable but true tale of Billy Sparrow, a young man who buys Tranquility, a 60-year-old, 29-foot wooden sailboat in Seattle. He then embarks on what should be an easy, summer cruise down the west coast to the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. Nothing goes right, the boat leaks, the engine fails, the boat is stuck in mud or sand three times on the Columbia River and finally Billy calls the Coast Guard to get across the Tillamook Bar. Eventually he hauls the boat back to Seattle on a truck.

The sailboat cost $5,000 but Billy ended up spending $30,000 on repairs and improvements. Billy either lives on his boat or in a van over the two-year period covered by the memoir. He never has any money and repairs cars on the side to make a living.

This is one of the best books I have read this year, If you have ever dreamed about buying a sailboat and embarking on a trip to Hawaii, Mexico, Alaska or wherever, read this book first. I will stick with stamp collecting.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book on the recommendation of a friend who knows of my contemplations of renting my home of nearly 18 years and trading it for life on a boat for at least a bit of time.

This is the story of a young man and his life/adventures/nightmares on a boat named Tranquility. His idyllic dreams of restoring a wooden boat and taking it from Seattle to California clash with the hard learned life lessons, reality, successes and many failures.

The story is not for the faint of heart for those of us who dream of adventure. It provides dozens upon dozens of examples of why my day dreams of slipping away to boating adventures may be fool hardy. And yet, like the author, I find that I am strangely undeterred. So much can be learned from the water, the pace of life, and adventures taken rather than feared.

The story ends with the author not having completed his journey to California but instead he ultimately turns north to the San Juan Islands. Since that's where I dream of beginning my journey maybe my adventures await where he left off.

Time, and tides, will tell.

[Bill Koral · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great story, and yes, some times things just don't work out as originally planned.
It's all here, a young mans passion for adventure, failure as well as success, all wrapped up in a few hundred pages of a mans plan to sail his boat down the West coast.. You won't put it down!!

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book about the making of a sailor from the Pacific Northwest, and all the mishaps (so many) along the way. I felt guilty that what made me want to turn page was the desire to learn what else could go wrong.

[Mark Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really really enjoyed this book. Though I’ve never sailed anywhere, it still felt very familiar, as it speaks to every young man’s quest in his twenties to attempt some adventure in his life to find meaning and purpose. We don’t know that the greatest lessons may be our failures.

[Josh Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I oscillated between sympathy and jealousy throughout. I could rant about wordy sentences but I'm grateful for the insights into sailing.

[Ronald · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Tranquility, Billy Sparrow has made a hugely enjoyable and memorable contribution to modern sailing lore, and a poignant warning to young would-be Slocums that the quest for adventure on the high seas is fraught with frustration and danger, especially in the early years.
I, like many a sailor, can relate to the snafus and tribulations Billy encountered almost daily with Tranquility.

My first boat was a leaky 32' double-ended wooden sloop that I naively undertook to sail from Keehi Lagoon on Oahu to Lahaina Maui for her sea trials. As we emerged from the lee of Oahu and rounded Diamond Head into the raucous Molokai Channel, the full force of the northeast trades laid her onto her beam ends, and water gushed up thru the hull along the keel.

I was extremely lucky to have a couple shipmates along. And although we all were "three-sheets to the wind" from the Primo beer we'd shipped for nourishment on the voyage, my mates vigorously bailed while I came about and eased sheets as we scurried back to port. The geyser subsided as soon as I took the heel off her. But the extensive structural repair to make her seaworthy was another tale of woe, and I on a Navy seaman's pay in 1960.

I like the way Billy focuses on the years that Tranquility was the bane of his life, and not so much about his wider sailing career, as it helps to draw the reader ineluctably into the heights and depths of the saga. And since my chosen nautical area is Seattle, Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, and the coastal waters down to San Francisco, I thoroughly got into the minutiae of the story.
I also enjoy the nautical jargon and appreciate that Billy did not burden the narrative with laborious definitions, but left it to the reader to surmise the meaning from context or look up for themselves. Although occasional arcane words sent me to my Funk & Wagnalls, that's always a good thing in a narrative.
And the lyrical flights of fancy when Billy was philosophizing... pure gold!
Well done Mate!

[Zackery · Rating 5 out of 5]

I randomly found this book in a local used book store and snagged it. It was a spontaneous purchase that has proven to be a positive one.

One of my favorite books is Robin Graham's "The Dove". This brought back many of those same feelings during my first read through. I grew to care and worry about the author and the folks he met along the way.

The feelings brought on were different from "The Dove" along with the amount of time the author actually sailed. I was worried the land stories involved with keeping his boating alive would cause me angst but I found to enjoy them. As someone who has taken sailing lessons, the lore of jumping into the boat and crossing the open ocean is always there. It's nice to read books such as this to realize that it is not such a simple reality.

Highly recommend this book.

[Benjamin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic prose and story about an American dream. Tense, electric, heartfelt, and genuine from start to finish. I enjoyed the hell out of this book and was not wanting it to end.