Engineless circumnavigators, authors, landlpardey.com
Lin (a 20-year-old bookkeeper, piano player) met Larry (a 26-year-old professional charter yacht skipper) in Newport Beach, California, when he was just starting to shape the oak keel timber for his first offshore cruising boat. Three dates later they joined forces and over the past 47 years have sailed both east-about and west-about around the world on their 24’4″ Seraffyn and later their 29′ Taleisin, both engine-free wooden cutters they built themselves. During their decades of wandering, they worked as a delivery team, did boat repairs and rigging work in 17 different countries including restoring two 100-year-old classic boats. Lessons they have learned from more than 200,000 miles of voyaging are recounted in their eleven books and their five DVDs, the latest being the just-released DVD called Cost Control While you Cruise and Lin’s award-winning memoir entitled Bull Canyon, a Boatbuilder, a Writer and Other Wildlife as well as texts such as Details of Classic Boat Construction: The Hull. Together the Pardeys hold the record for the smallest engine-free boat to have rounded the southern capes against the prevailing winds using traditional means of navigation and with no sponsorship.
Larry Pardey passed away in 2020. His spirit and contributions to the maritime across the globe will be greatly missed.
