Sailing at the Edge of Disaster: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Daring Year, is the story of how a bookish teen, and her younger brother are sent by their dominating father to “shape up” on a sail training school ship, where they discover the rigors, joys and triumphs of being at sea. As they scour the decks, learn to splice ratlines, and climb the rigging, they also survive an act of piracy, a near sinking, and being held hostage by armed gun boats. The book chronicles a transformative year in the throes of late adolescence that leads to courage, grace, and a reclamation of selfhood.
ABOUT THE SHIP
Learn more about the history of the Sea Cloud/Antarna and see photos of it now:
The Oceanics School is a documentary David Wayne made about the third year on the Oceanics School, the year after my year on the ship (1972-73).
View a New York Times Article from 1971 about the ship:
If you want to learn more about the legal battle between the Antarna’s owner and the Oceanics School. The case was finally resolved in 2003, thirty-one years after the school was forced to leave the ship in Panama.
PRAISE
This book is a beautiful, high-stakes coming of age tale about survival on an old square-sailed rigger. It’s also a vivid, stirring reminder that again and again the natural world will reduce us to our most elemental selves and allow us to finally see and know who we are.
Sailing at the Edge of Disaster absolutely swept me away. Profoundly observed, richly alive with the rhythms of the sea and young adulthood, and outrageously funny, Elizabeth Garber and her misfit band of at-sea classmates taught me more in three-hundred-plus pages than I ever learned in a landlocked high school classroom. Perhaps the most powerful lesson: sometimes you have to risk it all to truly find yourself. This is a book that lives in the space where adventure, heartache, and possibility collide.
In Sailing at the Edge of Disaster, Elizabeth Garber has an extraordinary tale to tell, one in which she is tested again and again by circumstances that would be unbelievable if they were not true. The aplomb with which she relates this strange, exhilarating ordeal testifies to a very special perseverance. To face such an experience from the perspective of decades is to chance an uncertain reckoning. The candor and wisdom in this book speak to a hard-won grace.
A stunning memoir of a young woman’s life-changing year. Loss of innocence and newfound strength and self-knowledge is gained against harrowing dangers amidst a vivid cast of characters whose lifeworld is a ship at sea. A coming-of-age initiation tale, a true page-turner, a mashup of Outward Bounty type adventure with echoes of Lord of the Flies and Ship of Fools.
Read an Excerpt
Read an excerpt of Sailing at the Edge of Disaster: A Memoir of a Young Woman’s Daring Year, published on Salon.com as the essay, “Drug search in the Panama Canal: How my high school adventure at sea almost ended.”
“Our safe departure for the canal depends on each of you,” the captain told our group of high schoolers in 1972.
Our 1970’s play list for Hippie kids at Sea
These were the songs we heard on the radio, played on guitars, sang, and danced to while Sailing at the Edge of Disaster.
