Welcome to Sailing Stories, Tales from the High Seas told week by week.

I'm Andy Schell, host of the popular On the Wind Sailing podcast, and this is the preview teaser

episode of our first ever new podcast, which we're calling Sailing Stories.

The show is going to be hosted by Lee Cumberland, and the first season is narrated by Duncan Hood,

and we're featuring Brave or Stupid, an audio rendition of the book written by Yanna Larson and Kala Anderson,

two Swedes who decided on a whim to sail around the world, having never set foot on a sailboat before.

So, we hope you like the new show, and look forward to the first full episode, which will be coming soon. Enjoy. Enjoy. Bye. ships are the nearest thing to dreams that hands have ever made

chapter one the ghosts of Omaha Beach.

It all started with a handshake. Nothing fancier than that. No contracts with sub-clause

requiring signatures, witnesses, and, heaven forbid, lawyers. It was just a brief clasping

of hands. It was typically Swedish, brief and business-like, a couple of seconds at most, but it sealed

a pact between us that would last more than eight years.

I often look back to that moment and wonder at the events that brought two committed

land lovers to a decision to sail around the world together, particularly as neither

of us knew the first thing about sailing.

In that respect, we bore little resemblance to our intrepid Viking forefathers.

Add to that the fact that I was 40-something years old and had all my life suffered from such

acute seasickness that the mere sight of a toy boat bobbing on a

paddling pool would make my stomach lurch. So why on earth would I agree to a nautical

global circumnavigation with a friend who knew even less about sailing than I did? I grant you that

the events leading to my handshake with Carl may have been fueled by the feeling

of Bonomé that steals over you after a good meal and a bottle of Bordeaux. An excess of wine

...