Buy, Outfit & Sail: A Book for the Frugal Sea Gypsy

I've recently read through Cap'n Fatty Goodlander's recent book: Buy, Outfit & Sail,  not just once, but twice.  If you've ever even remotely entertained the idea of living the cruising life, this book is as good a place to start as any I've found.  Cap'n Fatty dispels the notion that you have to have a lot of money to acquire and outfit a seaworthy boat and sail it around the world.  While many other sailing authors have put forth essentially the same idea, few have done it in such an entertaining way as Cap'n Fatty.

The first time through, I read this book because it was full of new ideas and information that I had not seen all in one place before, and some not anywhere.  For example, unlike most other "how to get started cruising" books, Cap'n Fatty doesn't just talk about what kinds of boats to consider, he explains at length how to find them.  And not only how to find a boat - but how to find one for pennies on the dollar - especially those boats he says have a "ticking time clock" due to the current owner's need to get rid of them now due to various reasons.  And after you find the deal of a lifetime on the right boat, the outfit and the sail portions of this book will put you on course to get your vessel shipshape and keep her that way as you chase the horizon.

I read this book a second time not only to pick up tidbits of advice I might have missed the first time around, but mainly for the sheer entertainment value.  Cap'n Fatty is a natural-born storyteller, and this book is packed with fascinating glimpses of the amazing life he's lived at sea in a variety of boats.  Some of these tales will have you cracking up with laughter and some are so far out there you'll find them hard to believe, but no matter how outrageous the stories, somehow you know that Cap'n Fatty probably actually lived them.

The book is available on Amazon in Paperback or for Kindle.  For more information on this and Cap'n Fatty's other books, visit his website at:  http://fattygoodlander.com/home