An interview with Will Sofrin on his book, “All Hands on Deck”

Author Will Sofrin on Rose's helm while Captain Bailey looks on © Will Sofrin

Like many sailors, I have a soft spot a mile wide for tales centering around adventure, wooden ships, and tales of sailing's past. So, when Will Sofrin reached out to let me know that he had penned his first book, All Hands On Deck: A Modern-Day High Seas Adventure to the Far Side of the World, which was published earlier this year by Abrams Press, I accepted his offer to give it a read.

After all, a linesplan of a Herreshoff S-Class that he created 13 years ago hangs in my office.

Some small backstory. Sofrin hit my radar in 2010 when he reached out about a project that he was working on involving creating artistic linesplans of different Herreshoff designs, based largely on plans and materials that exist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum's Hart Nautical Gallery. (Herreshoff, it will be remembered, didn't create linesplans for his designs but instead favored block-carved models, so Sofrin was creating new art based on time-honored designs.)

This struck a chord, and I wrote an article about his project for a sailing magazine. Sofrin nicely sent me my print as a gift after the article was published; I had it framed, and it's been adorning on my wall ever since.

Thinking back, I vaguely remember Sofrin mentioning that he had sailed on a tall ship, but time can be measured in amassed mental dust, and clearly some accumulation had transpired. So, it was a happy surprise that when All Hands On Deck arrived, its cover adorned with a photograph of a weather-beaten, partially dismasted replica of a warship whose likeness hails back to the 18th century.

If you've seen director Peter Weir's film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, you're familiar with this vessel once she was remade into Surpise for the movie.

All Hands On Deck is Sofrin's tale of helping prepare and sail Rose from Newport, Rhode Island, to San Diego, California, by way of the Panama Canal, in the winter of 2002. But rather than just chronical his own adventures, Sofrin researched what life was like at sea back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and he does a nice job of juxtaposing his experiences with historical anecdotes from the days of yore.

And, given the subject matter, Sofrin of course leans in heavily into the Patrick O'Brien canon.

If you love nautical tales that involve tall ships, bold adventures, and big swaths of blue, told through the lens of youth, optimism, and a love for sailing, put All Hands On Deck in your cruising seabag or on your reading list.

I checked in with Sofrin, via email, to learn more about his experiences writing All Hands On Deck, which is now in its third edition.

Author WIll Sofrin woking in Rose's towering rig - photo © 2222

How important was your journey and experience aboard Rose in terms of shaping your career as a professional sailor, artist, MIT professor, and now author?

My experience aboard Rose was both great and difficult for so many reasons. At the time, I had recently completed my wooden boat building apprenticeship at the IYRS School of Technology and Trades, and had just returned from a European racing circuit on a 12-meter yacht, Onawa US-6, that I helped restore. I was broke, didn't have a place to live, and had no other job prospects. I was only twenty-one years old, and I wasn't sure about what came next for me in regard to work and more importantly, life.

I was resistant and procrastinated accepting the deckhand position offered to me. At the time, I was dead set on working on beautiful glamorous wooden sailing yachts, not a tired old tall ship that would demand twice the amount of work at a fraction of the pay I could earn on a yacht. I was even so stubborn that I conditioned accepting the job so long as the ship also offered a job to my friend Jared Lazor, because I was too chicken to go it alone.

My first week on the ship was an intense eye-opening crash course for what I had gotten myself into. The work was hard and the days were long. At that early stage of my career, my woodworking skillset had been mostly limited to ideal work environments that demanded and prioritized perfection over deadlines. The needs of Rose could not have more different. Rose needed me to work fast, and make the best of the limited tools and materials we had available. I had to rapidly learn how to adapt my strengths to meet the needs of the situations I found myself in. Learning how to assess and adapt quickly has been one of the greatest skills I acquired from my time on Rose.

What was it like to revisit your journey on Rose after almost 20 years?

I started writing the book thinking that all of my old shipmates would subscribe to my belief of this endeavor being a good and worthy one. I received positive support from most of my shipmates, some could not be found, and there were a few who chose not to participate. Of the thirty I was able to reconnect with, a total of twenty-two crew members who helped me with writing this book. I had stayed in touch with a handful of my shipmates over the years, and writing this book created an opportunity to reconnect with many of my shipmates who I had lost touch with.

Spoiler alert, there is a romantic component to the book as I begin a relationship with one of the female crew members while under way. Our relationship eventually fizzled out months later one night on Nantucket. We had not spoken since our breakup when I reached out to her seventeen years later about writing this book. Though awkward at first, enough time had passed, allowing us to look back and have a few wonderful conversations about our voyage and our romantic relationship. I wasn't seeking any sort of closure, but having that opportunity to look back and reflect with a former romantic partner was a nice experience I had not expected.

Did you keep a really good journal on the trip, or did you piece the book together from Captain Bailey's log, your memories, and the recollections of your friends? Can you please shed some light on this part of your writing process?

I did not keep a journal. When I decided to write the book, I reached out to Captain Bailey and he was completely on board with this project from day one. Through my luck of timing, he was actually flying out to California to relief skipper a tall ship on the Pacific Coast, so he brought Rose's logbook with him so I could photograph the entries that provided me with a by-the-hour record of where we were and what was happening.

Additionally, three of us had camcorders, and we pooled our footage after arriving in San Diego. In total, we had collectively recorded about eight hours of film footage during the voyage. I also had taken a bunch of still photos and many of my shipmates sent me their photos, which provided me with hundreds of photos from the perspectives of over a dozen of my shipmates. Two crew members shared with me the journals they wrote during the voyage. Every day, an email was sent to our families from the ship, providing an additional date-stamped record. I also conducted a minimum of two recorded interviews with each crew member.

You do an amazing job of putting the reader in your head, at age 21 or so, but I'm curious if you had to do any internal balancing of the truths and insights you chose to share with the knowledge that your daughter would someday read the book?

Anyone who knows me well would probably say that I am not so good about holding anything back. In fact, I probably say too much, most of the time. I remember working on the second to last draft and I read a quote that is credited to Lucile Ball. "I don't think you should write a book until you tell the absolute truth. You can't do that until you're 85, and I don't want to live that long. I've always prided myself on knowing when to get off, and I hope it works out that way."

Reading that quote made me think about how important it was for me to be brutally honest. I was careful to not exaggerate or over embellish. However, I worked very hard to write the scene so the reader could feel what I felt when I was aloft in that storm. I was terrified up there, and I hope that came through for the reader. I think my experience aloft in that storm on a ship like Rose is uncommon today. We had to do that because of the kind of vessel we were on.

Thankfully, modern technological advances have made it so sailors don't need to free climb their rig to furl a sail in the middle of a storm.

You also do a great job of paralleling your experiences on Rose with the experiences of sailors of yore, as written in the Patrick O'Brien books. It sounds like you had read most (or at least some) of the O'Brien books before you decamped from Newport, so how much of this paralleling was a literary device and how much of it was your lived experience?

The experiences I describe in my book are absolutely my own. I have become a fan of O'Brian's work over the years, but I had only read one of O'Brian's books when we departed from Newport.

Beyond O'Brian's books, I have always enjoyed reading books about sailing. One of my favorites as a youth was the book Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl.

While writing my book, I immersed myself in books about sailing because I wanted to learn about how other writers detailed and described their experiences. I also wanted to make sure that I stayed in my own lane so that my book could stand out on its own. Through all that reading, I enjoyed finding parallels between my experience and those written by other authors.

One of my favorite reads while researching my book was Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi.

When you and I first crossed tacks, I think in 2010, you introduced yourself as "the artist Will Sofrin". But in interviewing you before and in also doing some homework, I also know that you worked closely with the Hart Nautical Gallery at MIT, that you have worked restoring yachts, building yachts, and also designing homes and land-based architecture, in addition to writing a great book. For most people, any of these avenues could have been an entire career. How do you change gears so fluidly?

I open my book by talking about how a great sailor must be willing to do anything and everything. They must learn how to be the navigator, mechanic, cook, plumber, carpenter, engineer, medic, teacher, and, most important, the ever-curious student. I live my life that way and I have a mind that never stops spinning.

I have a relentless need to create and produce. Writing this book was my outlet from my daily routines. My writing mostly occurs after [2100 hours] and on average I work on it three to four hours, five nights a week.

What was the hardest challenge you faced in writing your book? Also, how did your overcome this hurdle?

I wanted to make sure that I did my best to ensure I had the facts straight. Early on, I was given some great advice by another writer. She suggested I write the book with an open and flexible outlook, to let the development of the book decide how it should end. This approach prevented my ego from assuming that what I was developing was the best version. Writing and rewriting and rewriting again and again was a mechanism that helped ensure I developed the best way to tell my story.

Once I felt confident that I had nailed down the basic structure and tone of the book, I was free to dive deeper into the many topics covered as the story evolves. At one point, to keep up with the pace of my writing and rewriting, I was reading an average of five books a week.

I always stayed open to the feedback my agent and publisher provided. Beyond them, I reached out to numerous subject experts, which included quite a few individuals who don't mince words. I was not afraid of rejection or disapproval, but I needed to be willing to hear the feedback offered be it for the good or for the bad. I actually get upset when someone says it's good. Tell me the truth, don't sugar coat it! Everything thing can be done better. In my opinion, words of praise only delay improvement.

This was a massive adventure, grand in all respects of scale and commitment. What advice do you have for other young adventurers who are interested in using their own limits?

I think people love the idea of saying they are going to try something new or different, but when actually presented with an opportunity, a majority of those people are too afraid of failing or the discomfort caused by change and therefore miss the moment. When we are young, we have a greater tendency to try new things because we don't have the context know how to consider the risk of not succeeding.

Don't be afraid to get uncomfortable. A muscle grows by tearing the tissue. Looking back on my life as a whole thus far, I feel a great sense of satisfaction when reflecting on the moments and decisions that forced me out of my comfort zone.

Is there anything else about your book that you'd like to add, for the record?

I quickly learned that life on Rose would mean more than having to adjust to the unusual tall-ship culture that was so different from the lavish yachting culture I longed for and had enjoyed in Europe. Through our voyage, I would learn that I was dead wrong about my misconceptions. Today, I am in touch with more shipmates from Rose than any other people from the various crews I have been part of. Sailing a tall ship can be a great opportunity.

www.willsofrin.com