Sheila in the Wind

When Adrian Hayter set out single-handed from Lymington, England on his 32-foot Albert Strange-designed yawl 'Sheila II', local betting was 7 to 1 that he would get no further than the English Channel. His destination was New Zealand, and the odds were definitely against him. His experiences as a soldier in the dying years of the British Empire drove him to his solitary 6-year quest to reach his homeland under sail. He recounts his foray into celestial navigation, a back-street appendix operation in India, armed escort by Indonesian authorities at sea, and eating barnacles off the hull to avoid starvation. He tries to make sense of the humanitarian disasters that brought him to this voyage. 'Sheila in the Wind' is more than a report of a 13,000-mile adventure; it's a story of the human spirit.