For many sailors, Lin Pardey is synonymous with self-sufficient cruising. She and her late husband, Larry, famously sailed the world on small, engine-free boats, proving that skill and preparation matter far more than size or technology. Today, Lin continues to inspire, and in this episode, she’s joined by her partner, offshore sailor David Haigh, to share reflections on a lifetime at sea.
In this episode of the Liveaboard Sailing Podcast, Lin and David discuss:
- The mindset that makes long-term cruising possible
- Why seamanship and preparation are more important than ever
- The evolving world of offshore sailing—what’s different, and what hasn’t changed
- Lessons from storms, boat preparation, and years of living aboard
We also talk about Lin’s latest book, Passages, Cape Horn and Beyond, which explores the challenges, triumphs, and lessons learned from decades of voyaging.
Transcript
Annika: In your book, Passages, Cape Horn and Beyond, you recount offshore passages from different periods in your life. Um, how has your approach to offshore sailing evolved over the years?
Are there any practices that you’ve developed, uh, that you wish you’d known earlier?
Lin Pardey: I think the biggest thing that developed through the years is feeling much more comfortable worrying less, imagining the things that could go wrong. I wish, 60 years ago, I’d realized that I would never run out of food.
There’s always something to eat. But in general, I was very fortunate in that, right from the beginning, Larry helped me He taught me to know how to look at a boat and know that the gear was right.
And I’m still to this day, I go around check shackles and check rope ends on David’s boat. Just trying to keep the boat as fit as possible and trying to enjoy it.
Annika: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that’s probably the key, but if you don’t enjoy it, you don’t keep going for decades.
Lin Pardey: That’s right. Well, what I like about sailing that has never changed, there’s always something new to learn.
Sometimes it’s things you don’t like. Sometimes it’s things you really like. sometimes it’s just learning ways to handle the gear better. if you get really involved as I have. It’s a never ending learning situation.
Annika: Yes, I can definitely attest to that, being at the other end of the experience scale.
There’s a lot to learn. So you’ve, as the name of the book suggests, rounded Cape Horn, which is an achievement that most sailors can only dream of. And I’m wondering, what drew you to such a challenging route? And what have been your most sort of profound takeaways from sailing this legendary passage?
Lin Pardey: Well, the reason we chose it was, it was Larry’s dream. I could have avoided it. When Larry said, let’s go back to the Pacific. We haven’t been in the Pacific Ocean for about, eight or nine years by that time. We’ve been sailing around the Atlantic mostly.
And, uh, I said, oh, great, I’ll get out the charts for Panama. And he said, no, I don’t like the tropics that much. let’s sail around Cape Horn. And I just basically laughed and said, you know, Larry, at my age, I was 57 at the time, I said, at my age, I don’t have anything to prove. We’ve done everything, all this amazing sailing, so I don’t need to go around Cape Horn.
His exact comment to me was, at your age, you’ve got nothing to lose . so it was Larry’s dream, and I wasn’t real I was not comfortable with the idea until we had actually gotten down to Argentina. Larry and I sat down and talked about it and made some pretty serious agreements.
insisted that if we were going to try this, although the boat was in excellent condition, and we just completely refitted her for several race weeks in Europe, so that we could race the boat hard, and so she’d look pretty. So we’d gone over every inch of her. We had a whole brand new suit of sails. We had new rigging.
The rigging was two years old, hand spliced. We’d just done it up with Ormiston wire, the very best wire you can get. So the boat was in great shape. But I said to Larry that I didn’t want to tell anyone we were headed for Cape Horn. So that if it was too rough, if I felt really uncomfortable with the idea, we could bail out and never feel like we failed.
No one could say, Oh, I thought you were going to. And that, um, there would be nothing left on the work list when we left Argentina, which was our last provisioning port. And the most profound thing I learned is, by the time we got down to, when we actually left Argentina, Mar de Plata in Argentina, and got down to the Roaring Forties, it was amazing.
It’s just ocean, just like we’ve been across many times. It was just one more, you know, one more interesting patch of water to get through. It, sure, there was difficult sailing, but it was never. As difficult as the sailing we had on the east coast of Australia.
We had some pretty rough weather getting to Cape Horn. But, it was just a case of taking care of ourselves, getting enough sleep. I say that sailors travel on their sleep. Every bit you can get, keeping rested. Keeping warm and dry. The challenges, really, the biggest challenges to me was it was bloody cold.
Annika: Yes, I can imagine that having traveled a little bit in southern Argentina, it can absolutely get cold out there. So obviously offshore passages often mean navigating unpredictable weather like what you had experienced around Cape Horn as well. And the ocean conditions can be quite different in different parts of the world and you mentioned your East Coast Australia trip.
And I’m wondering, is that a time when your seamanship was truly put to the test?
Lin Pardey: Well, I guess you would say that. At one time I was asked to present a keynote speech in a university situation for women, who were coming back to university later in life, and they asked me to talk about adventure, and I thought that was an interesting thing, I sat down and I started thinking about, you The adventurers that I’d had the privilege of meeting through the years, really amazing sailing adventurers, and people who did other adventures, people like Ellen MacArthur when she was young, and, uh, Peter Blake, Sir Peter Blake, and Blondie Houser even, you know, some of these amazing adventurers.
And the discussions we’ve had with them all said the same thing. The biggest concern is not handling things when it gets rough. It’s getting in position to reach your goal, to reach the summit, and have the stamina not only to reach it, but to get down afterwards. But once you’re out there actually facing that storm or facing that ice face or facing that, you know, sheer cliff, you’re so busy doing what you’ve been practicing to do that fear disappears.
You don’t have time. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re truly living. It’s uh, you know, it’s that being prepared to do it and worrying that you won’t be prepared enough. That’s a hard thing.
Annika: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, no, that’s well said. And what an interesting opportunity to, to speak to that kind of group about your experiences as well.
Lin Pardey: Yeah, it was very interesting.
Annika: So, you had to tell me about this East Coast Australia thing you mentioned. What, what made that, uh, sail different?
Lin Pardey: Um, basically, we were expecting, Normally, the weather at the end of October in Australia, on the East Coast of Australia, turns light winds, northerly winds. And, uh, we had gone to visit a bunch of friends up in the barrier reef and go, you know, some sailing experiences up there, and we were headed back to New Zealand, which means fighting against the current to get south.
We expected that. We didn’t expect the very light winds. The season was passing. Cyclone season was getting closer. When we finally got out to the open water where we could shake a course towards New Zealand. We were told the weather forecast was for what they call a southerly buster, which is, you know, southerly, strong southerly coming through, but passing through quickly, with the winds expected to be in the 30 to 35 knot range, turning fair within 24 hours.
So we said, well we’ll go in, you know, we can handle that, we’re out here, we’re not going to turn and go back, we can handle 35 knots of wind. As we came clear of the barrier reef. And out into the Tasman Sea, um, we were hit by a squall line, and then it increased and it turned into a cyclonic depression wedged against a ridge of high pressure.
It was unexpected the Weather Bureau felt it wouldn’t happen . And, uh, it was a squeeze and we had winds up to 85 knots. It’s sustained for, throughout two days, but the biggest problem was the seas were very short because it was wind against current, and we only had 60 miles between us and the Great Barrier Reef, and we were being blown towards it.
Just slightly parallel, but still, it was on, the wind was very worrisome so, we did put the parachute anchor out. We did lay pretty darn well. The seas were never much more than 12 to 15 feet because of the configuration, because of the fetch, etc., etc. But they were very close together and very uncomfortable.
And to make matters worse, Larry did say to me, Lin, strap yourself into , into the windward bunk. But the, you know, we not only have lee cloths, we have straps, like seatbelts. And I said to Larry, I’m fine, don’t worry about me. And, uh, unfortunately, I practiced flying in an enclosed space.
And I hit the stanchion that holds the table, the galley table. And I planted my teeth into the woodwork in the front of the ice chest. And we later had to repair the ice chest. The teeth were okay.
I broke a couple ribs. The story goes on. It just was a horrible, miserable situation. And, um, had I been more careful, I wouldn’t have injured myself. it was just, uh, it was a, we actually talk about it in, um, our Storm Tactics Handbook . It took me 15 years before I ever related that story because it was, it was a real difficult one.
We, we handled it well, if you look at the overall, if I hadn’t, if I’d stayed in the bunk, and the boat wasn’t damaged, and the parachute anchor did its job.
Annika: Yeah, exactly, but still quite an experience. And, uh, but it didn’t scare you. You’re still going. So you and David have obviously done a lot of offshore sailing, and I have to imagine that preparation is key for all that. And I wonder, what do you think are some of the most overlooked aspects of getting a boat and the crew ready for extended passages?
That’s
Lin Pardey: Well, let’s first, uh, introduce David who’s an Australian sailor, and, uh, he, he was just finishing a ten year circumnavigation, we’ve been together sailing for almost eight years now, had some great time sailing around the Tasman Sea.
And when you say the Tasman Sea, it sounds small, but you know, it’s between here and the islands. Everything’s a thousand miles in the Tasman, I always joke. It’s a thousand miles to Fiji. It’s a thousand miles to New Caledonia.
So, The key to preparation, the key to being ready to go, I don’t know, I’ve just been doing it for, we’ve done this together so much. Let me ask David if he has some thoughts on that.
David Haigh: I rig a para anchor. before I do any ocean passage, I only need put it out from the cockpit, the lines will break, and away goes I don’t go on the foredeck. But I, uh, I have only met one other yacht, which does this. Riga Para Anchor. Uh, ready to go. I’ve never used it, I might say. Um, I’ve practiced with it, but I’ve never actually used it um, but it’s a comfort to know that you’re ready.
And you’re not going to go on that foredeck, the most dangerous place you can go when you’re in waves, uh, which are rocketing down upon you. so I just question the people who do have para anchors, and invariably I find they do have them, they just never use them. Um, why they bother to have them if they’re not ready to go.
Lin Pardey: Well, to, to, to add to that, Serafyn had 8 inch high bulwarks all the way around the boat, which made it a lot easier to go, to move around, safer to be on the foredeck.
We were much younger. You know, David and I are sailing together. I started sailing with David, I was in my mid seventies. So, I like the idea that the parachute’s ready to go, from the cockpit. Uh, I don’t, uh, I’m not as agile on the foredeck Or on any deck. So, I agree with him. But, um, as far as the parachute anchor, Larry and I checked it over before every passage.
We made sure all the lines were clear and ready to go on it. Packed it in a way that it was ready to go. And had it seated so it was literally, just open a hatch, grab it, and it’s ready, you know, attach the line and it’s ready to go, so. But no, we did not rig it like David does. Um, but um, I think making sure the whole boat is ready And that is having really, we had, tie downs on every, bunk that had storage under it, keeping the boat ready.
We used to joke and say, Okay, before we go, let’s think about what it’s going to look like after she’s turned upside down. And make sure we’re not unhappy about that. and, uh, yeah, we did, we did adventure into some less friendly seas, more than the average, I mean, across the Atlantic seven times. And, uh, we sailed up to Finland, we enjoyed going where we heard there was a good wooden boat vessel or a good party happening.
But then this other thing is, talking about the parachute anchor, let’s talk about heaving two first. Because, Once you’re hoved to it, it’s a lot easier to set the parachute anchor. So the two work together. But in most of our voyaging, Larry and my voyaging, we hit very few storms where we needed the parachute anchor.
And, uh, heaving two did the job just fine. And people should be practicing that. They should go out and see how good it feels and how to get their boat to lay steady under just the sails. David and I sailed up to New Caledonia last year. It was a year and a half ago. And we were just not enjoying the weather we hit after about four days out.
And we said, the heck with this. The boat doesn’t like it. We don’t like it. Let’s just heave to. And we stopped for 24 hours. And then we had nice sailing again. Being a, I worry when people are afraid to be out there. That so much, they’re so afraid they try to turn on the engine and bash through bad seas.
When just heaving to and letting it pass would make it a nice voyage.
Annika: Yeah, that’s a really good tip. And it sounds like you’re saying be cautious and if not over prepared then well prepared. And also not panicking when they go and get stuff.
Lin Pardey: I think one of the, the worrisome thing one of the questions you mentioned was about all the equipment and everything.
worrisome thing to me is people are forgetting it’s supposed to be a bit of an adventure. It’s not always going to be comfortable. No adventure is always comfortable. And they’re trying so hard to take all the adventure, trying to make everything comfortable and forgetting about make your skills create the comfort.
The comfort knowing that you’ve got a good boat under you and you’ve got the skills and you’ve got a partner that’s going to back you up.
Annika: Right, so a little bit like back to the basics instead of relying all your high tech technology that will tell you everything and more as long as it works.
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Uh, you mentioned New Caledonia there. I’d love to hear more about that. I’ve never heard anyone visiting there.
Lin Pardey: Well, they’ve missed a lovely place, although there’s a bit of, there’s been a bad year for New Caledonia. They’ve had some political Disruptions, but it’s quieted right now. New Caledonia has one of the, has the largest reef in the world that you can sail around inside.
Like 250 mile long surrounding reef. And when we were, I think, we figured out it was 18 miles from the main city in New Caledonia. We never saw another yacht. We had reef anchorages everywhere we could go to by ourselves. And on land, we went up to the Canuck area and we were treated like, you know, special guests.
New Caledonia was a wonderful delight because of one other thing. The, uh, French and the Canuck peoples have come up with wonderful ks through the mountains of New Caledonia. And they’ve, put together some nice maps and David loves tramping, long distance hiking, and he was able to go off for. Four or five days I, you know, rented a car and drove him down to the very south of New Caledonia and he walked up along the mountain tracks and I, we rendezvoused and later went to the north and went through the mountains there and I did some short walks along them with him.
It was just, everything about it was beautiful and fabulous French food and the best bakeries around. So New Caledonia was delightful.
David Haigh: Yes, I’ll just add a little piece there. But in context of wider cruising, I think it is important cruisers understand and prepare themselves for something other than just sailing. You need something else. And, I, I have art. I do painting, and I also do this trekking. Which is easy, and cheap to do,
Annika: yeah, absolutely, you get to experience it in a little bit of a more deeper way as well, rather than just looking at it from the shore.
Lin Pardey: That’s right, that’s right.
Annika: If you can think back to your first offshore passages for each of you, and I imagine you must have felt at least a little bit overwhelmed, and I’m wondering how, how did that all go when you were setting off for the first time on an offshore passage?
Lin Pardey: Larry was a very experienced sailor and he delivered yachts up and down the coast of Mexico California. Yeah, passages to Hawaii and back on big, on big vessels. So he was confident. He was also a professional racing sailor. So you know, he had that experience. So his confidence was very helpful, but I got deathly seasick second day out at even, we had a lot of, we did a lot of sailing together before we headed off on, Seraph and our little boat.
But, uh, and I’ve been two or three. two night trips, but my first four day passage, well, down to Isla, Isla Guadalupe, off of the coast of Mexico, I was on the cabin, so, with a bucket seasick, and I said, oh my god, three years of helping this wonderful man build a boat, three years of dreaming and planning, and I can’t hack it.
And I have to laugh because Larry came and put his arms around, sat down on the floor and put his arms around me and he said, Lin, remember Lord Admiral Nelson got seasick on every voyage he took. But, um. I gradually learned to handle seasickness and get it, I actually got the place where, it rarely, rarely bothered me in the least until about, uh, four days ago I got a bit seasick, a 40 mile passage that Dave and I made up.
We were headed north, intending to go into a shipyard up north. And I got seasick doing exactly what I tell other people not to do. is the minute we got, left, uh, and got out into open water, I decided I had to, uh, sort the whole cabin out, the after cabin out, and make the bed, and get the boat all cleaned up.
If I just sat down and enjoyed the sailing for an hour or two and got my sea legs, I wouldn’t have gotten seasick
David Haigh: And she hasn’t changed. I think that if you prepare too much, then you’re taking away those exciting unknowns. Of course, this is what terrifies people. They tend to fear that somehow or other they’ll be disastrous.
They’re not, and they won’t be if you’ve prepared your boat And you’re reasonably confident in your ability to find where you are, and to pull the mainsheet on, and pull the sheets on, and sail the boat. , but don’t over prepare it.
Enjoy the adventure of being out there.
Annika: Yeah, I like that. Let the adventure unfold, as it will, and, don’t over plan everything so that there’s no room for anything exciting.
Lin Pardey: That’s right. Yes.
Annika: You mentioned a simple electronical setting and now watching various YouTube channels online, there is a lot of focus on gear and technology. And I wonder if it’s sometimes easy to forget about the seamanship. And what do you think are some core skills that everyone should have or master before they’re setting off?
Lin Pardey: there’s a lot of core skills and I feel that, uh, equipment is ruining our sport. And equipment is trapping people. I’ve always felt that. Remember Larry and my motto was always go small, go simple. Because now, David, uh, has a boat that is considered very simple. I find it quite complex, to be honest.
, but do I dislike the gear? Yes. Because it costs a lot of money to keep it running. And, um, in some ways it detracts from the pleasure. But, I’m also aware that age is making it a little easier to not have to be out on the deck trying to take a sight with a So having the, uh, GPS and the chart plotter, it’s handy.
But, I really, really feel people are not learning how to sail their boat. First, because they’re too busy getting all the gear and sorting the gear out, making decisions on do we have this kind of battery or that kind of battery. They’re spending 25, 000 to put in a lithium battery system, because they want to have more electronic gear on board.
And I look at it and I say, 20, 000, that’s two years of good cruising. Several amazing adventures during your couple years of cruising, chances to get off the boat and do something different. I do think equipment is also stealing people’s hands and eyes. And the reason I say that, the more excuses you have to not be out on deck keeping a watch, , The more, less safe you are, I don’t care AIS or otherwise, looking around, seeing what’s around you, feeling the weather.
I know people now say, well, you know, I’ve got weather routers that, you know, I don’t have to worry about the weather as much. Local conditions change. Weather routers can’t tell you what’s happening down to your last 50 square miles. And weather patterns can be different. learning to read the weather happens by being out in it, feeling it, I can tell the change of humidity by the way my skin feels because I’ve been out there a lot in it.
But I find now that I’m using electronic navigation and, uh, having a chart plotter, I don’t get out as much. I’m not out there taking sights. I’m not out there taking bearings and I do miss it.
So, so what are the seamanship skills that they should be doing? I really feel people should be learning to sail in a small boat, and the reason I say that, a boat that’s 20 feet or smaller, the sails actually teach you what they’re doing. Things happen quickly, you can adjust the sail a little bit and feel it.
In a 40 foot boat, no. You can’t learn the real feeling of adjusting sails, how immediately it affects the boat. You can’t, you don’t practice moving around on the boat, you’re not really feeling what a sailboat is. And so you tend to, I meet an awful lot of sailors, who, although they have a sailboat, they really don’t know how to sail.
How to maneuver a boat if the engine quits. How to maneuver it into harbor. You don’t have to be able to take it into the marina, but if you can know how to short tack into a safe harbor and get your anchor down, you have a feeling of security. You If the engine clicks, if something goes wrong with that engine.
So the seamanship is learning to use that wonderful machine that is a sailboat . And then fitting it out so it’s as easy as possible to sail, before you start adding all the fun and nice gear. And I’ll tell you, what is the most wonderful piece of gear you can have on a sailboat that’s modern and electronic?
An anchor windlass that you push the button and it brings the anchor chain up. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world. So. what other gear do we have on Sahula that I like? Like I say, the chartplotter is handy. I’m still like getting all those paper charts, and so does David. Because they help you look at the overall picture.
And that’s one thing wrong with a chartplotter. You cannot look at the grand picture and say, Yes, well, 200 miles on there’s a reef that we really should give a wider berth. Just because we can go near it because we think we know where it is. There just, take time to learn about the weather, take time to learn about how to sail the boat.
It helps get rid of the fear when you do some sailing beforehand. Just head out to sea for three days, turn around, come back and say, Oh, I’d really like to upgrade this or this, you know, I’d like to change where things are stored.
Annika: And of course, sailing in general can be physically and mentally demanding at any age. But I’m wondering, what are your strategies these days for staying present and finding joy, even in the more challenging moments when they arise?
Lin Pardey: I don’t, I just do it. I just enjoy it.
Make sure you stay well rested. Larry said he won the Arond Britain race, he, when he was 35, he was racing with a man who had a 68th birthday, a 69th birthday, as they rounded the Fastnet race together in first place against a fleet of 140 other boats. And he said the, they won it on their sleep.
They made the rule that when you were off watch, you were in the bunk. Even if you weren’t sleeping, you were resting. So, the biggest thing is keeping well rested and making sure that there’s, food to get so that you don’t have to be tired out by trying to chase down the things to cook with. So, just keep, keep well rested and, uh, stay warm and comfortable.
Annika: Yeah, exactly. That sounds delightfully simple. I like it
Lin Pardey: Sailing is simple. Don’t complicate it with all the gear at all. Keep it simple. I think
Annika: that is well said. That is well said. It has been wonderful catching up with you both again, and I’m wondering what is next and where is next for you?
Lin Pardey: Well, i’ve just finished a two and a half year stint of writing book that was one of the most difficult ones i’ve ever written Because it quite emotional And, uh, David urged me to let the world see what Larry and I really were like, and how we handled situations together and how we handled the changes that came later.
So it was a difficult thing to do. And so, but during that time we still kept cruising because, uh, it was very easy to set time aside when you’re voyaging to do the writing. But now I’m really looking forward to having no big project for the next year or two. I still love writing and I’m gonna, I’ve got a list of articles I’d like to write.
I’d like to write an article right now one of my neighbors here where my home base is, is the man who owns and started PredictWind. And he’s a very well known racing sailor, a very experienced sailor. And love sailing. He said, Good seamanship is avoiding bad weather. Well, no. Good seamanship, in my opinion, is being ready for bad weather. Of course you try to avoid it. But the axiom is not, you can’t always avoid it.
So I want to write an article about that theme. So basically, we have, uh, some wonderful plans to voyage to the north of the Great Barrier Reef, which will also put us, in touch with David’s, uh, grandchildren, because they all live in Australia, or some of them live in Australia, but we’ll be closer to them for a bit.
And I want to see the inside of Australia. . So I think it’s quite exciting.
Annika: That sounds absolutely fantastic. Well, thank you both so much for your time. It’s been really great to catch up with you both.