Suzanne Heywood and her Epically Misguided 70's Cruising Parents

[Foiling Optimist]

The Guardian has another article to delight us students of human folly as it manifests in sailing. This is apparently from a forthcoming book by Suzanne Heywood coming out in April, called Wavewalker: Breaking Free

‘Dad said: We’re going to follow Captain Cook’: how an endless round-the-world voyage stole my childhood

In 1976, Suzanne Heywood’s father decided to take the family on a three-year sailing ‘adventure’ – and then just kept going. It was a journey into fear, isolation and danger …

www.theguardian.com

TL;DR, her mom and dad for, presumably the usual reasons, left the UK for nominally a 3 year tour, where they nearly all died in the southern indian ocean early on, but in the usual way, descended into a marginal cruising existing for more like a decade, trapping their children in a sea of massive disfunction. Check out the wildly dubious pirate ship they were sailing in though.

 

[Jim in Halifax]

The Guardian has another article to delight us students of human folly as it manifests in sailing. This is apparently from a forthcoming book by Suzanne Heywood coming out in April, called Wavewalker: Breaking Free

‘Dad said: We’re going to follow Captain Cook’: how an endless round-the-world voyage stole my childhood

In 1976, Suzanne Heywood’s father decided to take the family on a three-year sailing ‘adventure’ – and then just kept going. It was a journey into fear, isolation and danger …

www.theguardian.com

TL;DR, her mom and dad for, presumably the usual reasons, left the UK for nominally a 3 year tour, where they nearly all died in the southern indian ocean early on, but in the usual way, descended into a marginal cruising existing for more like a decade, trapping their children in a sea of massive disfunction. Check out the wildly dubious pirate ship they were sailing in though.

Builds character. And provided fodder for a budding author. Cool boat. HTFU.

 

[Kris Cringle]

The parents should have been jailed for child abuse. Lunatics.

 

[accnick]

That was really difficult to read. Child abuse, pure and simple.

 

[Remodel]

Wow, just wow.

 

[Russell Brown]

I just read "the boy who fell to shore" By Charles Doane. Another story about a cruising family gone bad, except that innocent people died. Very interesting and a little too close to home at times, but I highly recommend the book..

 

[Jud - s/v Sputnik]

Well, after an unusual childhood, she definitely went the opposite direction and achieved the social status of a conventional/respectable upper middle class British life she had craved (complete with the requisite peerage Lady’s uniform, a “fascinator hat”), also earning a PhD and marrying a Lord. Heck ex-PM Tony Blair has endorsed her book! (See Amazon.)

After that childhood, chances are she is not part of the British yachting fraternity…

 

[Bull City]

I read the Guardian piece several hours ago, before seeing this thread, and based on her account, her parents were absolute shits. Here is a 2013 article about her father, Gordon Cook:

I was curious about the father, Gordon Cook, and found this as of 2013:

Cambridge bookseller to sail across world at 76

A CAMBRIDGE bookseller who once took his family on a 17-year sailing trip is now preparing to set sail across the globe again - at the age of 76.

www.gazetteseries.co.uk

The last few sentences are ironic:

"They haven't done too badly without formal education," said Gordon.
"Jon is on his fourth Masters degree at the moment. Sue did a PHD in zoology before being head-hunted by McKinsey's. I like to think I saved them from the British education system!"

 

[SloopJonB]

There was a lot of goofy parenting going on in the wake of the hippies.

At least they didn't name her Sunshine or Windwalker or some other equally stupid name.

 

[_samwise_]

My thoughts whenever I see young kids on a cruising boat, there is just no way to give kids the socialization they need. A few months is fine, but full time? Takes a village to raise a child, not a crew.

 

[Bull City]

There was a lot of goofy parenting going on in the wake of the hippies.

At least they didn't name her Sunshine or Windwalker or some other equally stupid name.

The concept of cruising with young children didn't bother me, nor did the near sinking (although it may have been a bad idea to sail that route), I was more incensed over the abandonment and neglect.

 

[Bull City]

Wait, there's more. From January 2016:

A life on the waves in the South Seas

www.fijitimes.com

In December, 1990, things changed when Wavewalker was involved in an accident. According to Mrs Heywood, the vessel was badly damaged during Cyclone Sina when she was anchored at Musket Cove.

“By that time, I was back in England but my parents were still sailing her. It was a terrible storm and many boats, including Wavewalker, were driven on to the reef.

“This was Wavewalker’s third cyclone. We had one in the Indian Ocean (when we were on Isle Amsterdam after we were shipwrecked), one when we were sailing near New Caledonia and then Cyclone Sina.

“Wavewalker was badly damaged so my parents decided to go back to England to earn money to repair her. They left her, I understand, somewhere near Lautoka.

“It was buried in sand and much of her equipment was kindly stored either by the local harbourmaster or by the police. However, my parents have now forgotten many of the details,” she said.

 

[Jud - s/v Sputnik]

The concept of cruising with young children didn't bother me, nor did the near sinking (although it may have been a bad idea to sail that route), I was more incensed over the abandonment and neglect.

It should be noted, however, that he was awarded The Lady Swathling Trophy for meritorious seamanship, according to the all-knowing Internet

Definitely sounds like a very complicated family, as if she wrote her book to counter her father’s account of the voyage, I.e., an attempt to “set the record straight” about her “imprisonment” at sea. As in the famous movie Rashomon, many differing perspectives on the same event…

 

[Steam Flyer]

I just read "the boy who fell to shore" By Charles Doane. Another story about a cruising family gone bad, except that innocent people died. Very interesting and a little too close to home at times, but I highly recommend the book..

By coincidence, I read that book recently, too... well really, after about the first 1/4 I skimmed the rest. Excellent example of how some people who are very smart in one way are very stupid almost every other way... and often are too ego-poisoned to realize it.

I felt sorry for all the normal cruisers they crossed paths with, and incredulous that either son or dad was ever held up as an example by anybody.

 

[low bum]

I think that hilarious ugly ass boat is his greatest crime. Lots of kids grow up hard and do great. Some are hot housed and adored on a pedestal and die with a needle in their arm.

 

[Foiling Optimist]

It's definitely the neglect and dysfunctional relationship with her mother that jumps out. She was all alone taking care of her little bother with her parents out of the country, in 1986. I am actually the same age as her more or less and I'm pretty sure that in all Commonwealth countries in 1986, that was not a thing.

 

[accnick]

It's definitely the neglect and dysfunctional relationship with her mother that jumps out. She was all alone taking care of her little bother with her parents out of the country, in 1986. I am actually the same age as her more or less and I'm pretty sure that in all Commonwealth countries in 1986, that was not a thing.

That was an unreasonable amount of stress to put on a young teenager, basically alone in a foreign country, with very few resources and virtually no friends for a support system.

Totally unconscionable, no matter how self-reliant she might have been.

 

[billsreef]

I get wanting to load up the family and go sailing. I don't get leaving your young teenage daughter alone to look after her younger brother in a foreign country with no friends or family for support.

 

[Bull City]

Definitely sounds like a very complicated fucked up and dysfunctional family,

FIFY

I think that hilarious ugly ass boat is his greatest crime. Lots of kids grow up hard and do great. Some are hot housed and adored on a pedestal and die with a needle in their arm.

No, his crime was to abandon and neglect his minor children. With regard to your second two sentences, examples abound, but there are usually mitigating or aggravating circumstances, and they do not constitute excuses for abandoning and neglecting minor children.

It's definitely the neglect and dysfunctional relationship with her mother that jumps out.

When it comes to neglect and abandonment, I think the father was equally if not more culpable.

 

[Kris Cringle]

The shame of this story is that the vast majority of families that go off cruising have amazing adventures together that last a lifetime.