Christina and Kirby Salisbury: Chance Along: A Wind Worth Waiting For (Floweree, Montana: Biama Books, , 2013)

I don’t know how many of us there are, but there have to be a lot of people who read magazines like “Wooden Boat” and “Messing About in Boats” who dream of building a really big sailboat - capable of making ocean cruises. We pour over plans and think about the layout of a live aboard boat. And then we never really build that boat. A few start the boats and eventually leave an unfinished project among the debris of their legacy. And a very small number of folks start that boat, see it through to completion, and move aboard to live and explore the world.

Tina and Kirby Salisbury really built their boat and Chance Along is both the name of the boat and the memoir they wrote about the process of building. With a poetic and artistic style, a deep respect for sustainability and the power of nature, they have written a superb true adventure story and a compliment to their first book, Treehouse Perspectives.

I admit that I’m a bit biased as I am a Kirby’s cousin and I watched the progress of their boat from a distance. As I was going to school and launching my career, I found small ways to help, melting lead for ballast, helping scrounge some tools and parts that were needed, and mostly observing and listening to the stories of the boat and its progress.

The book is a delightful story and one that every boatbuilder and would be boatbuilder should read.