Contributing editor Eric Forsyth is an easygoing, humble fellow. If you met him in a sailors’ bar, you’d never guess that the friendly Forsyth has circumnavigated twice and in five decades of sailing he has sailed 320,000 nautical miles — the distance to the moon, and about a third of the way back again!
Naturally all that offshore experience has led to all kinds of adventures and stories and wisdom about how to live aboard and sail to distant corners of the Earth. Now Forsyth has distilled some of that into a one-hour DVD called “The Inexplicable Attraction of Ocean Cruising, My 50 Years at Sea.”
On the DVD, Forsyth talks about how he and his wife Edith, recent arrivals in the U.S. from the U.K., got started sailing in the early 1960s. How they moved toward offshore sailing by buying larger boats, culminating in the Westsail 42, Fiona, that they bought on the West Coast and that Eric spent three years finishing. Sadly Edith passed away and Eric, as a way of dealing with her loss, became more devoted to sailing than ever and decades later still sails Fiona.
On the DVD, which makes use of clips from decades of film and video footage, Forsyth tells stories, like his dismasting in the South Atlantic and how he got arrested in Brazil for breaking customs and immigration rules. He shows a bit of holiday meals and birthday and equator-crossing celebrations at sea, wildlife encountered and more. In 1999 Forsyth was awarded the Cruising Club of America’s Blue Water medal in recognition of his accomplishments. This informative and entertaining DVD is a great way to get a taste of Forsyth’s incredible journeying on the world’s oceans. You can purchase the DVD at www.yachtfiona.com.
