Author Description

Quen Cultra built Queequeg, a 35-foot trimaran, in the barnyard on his father's farm in Onarga, Illinois. He had little money and no previous experience in boat construction, sailing or navigation. He launched Queequeg in the Illinois River, travelled south into Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, and spent three years sailing around the world. They were three years of high adventure, fascinating sights, and a communion with nature that no amount of money can buy the conventional traveller. Quen sailed with friends, and took his time, staying long enough at each port to really sample the local cultures and sights. His first storm at sea was a hurricane, he was rammed by a freighter off Madagascar, becalmed and out of fresh water in the Doldrums, attacked by sharks inside the Great Barrier Reef, and washed up on a deserted coast. Queenqueg's Odyssey is compulsive an epic tale of global circumnavigation.