Now that pandemic-related restrictions are easing, travel is on the mind and here’s a book about one option that you may not have considered — a 16,000-mile sailing trip from Maine, down the Eastern Seaboard, across the Caribbean to the Panama Canal, and down the west coast of South America to Cape Horn.
Not the first idea that comes to mind? Too long, too wet, too…dangerous? Well, skip the lessons on using sextants and the correct way to jibe, and grab a copy of Bound for the Horn by Durango-area resident R.J. Rubadeau.
Get ready for a hearty, enjoyable, eye-opening, visceral, never-a-dull-moment armchair cruise. At times, beautiful. At others, harrowing.
In reality, Rubadeau and a rotating cast (of characters) broke the 174 days of sailing over 27 months. But it’s all relayed in seamless, rolling fashion as the pages turn as HOMEFREE, a Morris 51 built in Maine, makes its way relentlessly south. The saga is propelled by Rubadeu’s smooth and engaging prose.
“Twenty minutes later HOMEFREE was on her ear hammering along in white spray over the bow and a steep, short six-foot chop that built from nothing in a matter of minutes. The thirty-plus knots of heavy chilling winds demanded a reef in the mainsail and a handkerchief of a staysail as our brave girl banged ahead clawing for each yard south … Keeping our backsides in contact with our seats took both hands and a couple of well-braced boots.”
Rubadeau makes a convincing case that sailing to and around Cape Horn — in any sailing craft — is the nautical equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. No body of water has more extreme weather. Eight hundred ships have sunk in and around the horn. “If any place on earth has a spiritual essence, a consciousness, a presence in the lives of all sailors, it is here,” write Rubadeau.
The subtitle is Skills for Expedition Cruising so it’s not surprising to find cautionary tales about how to read the wind, set anchors, repair pumps, and tips for riding monster waves. But the technical detail (and jargon) is at a scant minimum. The main skills you need for expedition cruising, it turns out, are a keen sense of humor and an unflappable ability to always assume the next moment may be the worst moment.
Okay, that’s over-simplified. Some of the most engaging passages involve Rubadeau’s contemplations on teamwork, although he is endlessly self-effacing even as temperatures drop, as the storms gather, and as the destination approaches. If you think rounding Cape Horn from the western side of South America is simply a matter of keeping Chile to port and around you go, zoom in on Google maps and check the treacherous network of canals, fjords, and narrow passageways that must be navigated. You might prefer to be working your way up the Hillary Step. You’re not paddle-boarding on Lake Nighthorse in July — that’s for sure.
Rubadeau intersperses other adventures from his life, including years spent living in Unalakleet, Alaska; managing the Iditarod sled-dog race; and, as a youth, biking across country pretending to be an Aussie lad named Shepherd Clarke.
But the central narrative is the southward journey and the stops along the way to navigate bureaucracies, restock the larder, and engage with the locals. In the end Bound for Cape Horn offers the best kind of immersion experience—one where you don’t want the journey to end.
Mark Stevens is the author of The Allison Coil Mystery Series. Book three in the series, Trapline, won the Colorado Book Award for Best Mystery. Stevens also hosts the Rocky Mountain Writer podcast for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. He lives in Mancos, Colo.
