At Any Cost - Love, Life and Death at Sea
by Tangvald, Peter. (1924-1991)
pub. by Cruising Guide Publications, Dunedin, Florida, 1991 -       isbn 0-944428-07-X - b&w photos - epilog by Thomas Tangvald (son of Peter) p. 319-321 - map p. 322 - line diagrams of various rigs p. 323-326. note from publisher p. 327. book has 327 p.
This is the autobiography of Peter Tangvald. In most of the last half of his life lived aboard and sailed a 50 ft. sailboat. He had no auxiliary power, the boat was a pure sailboat.
He wrote a previous autobiographical work Sea Gypsy which was published in 1966. this current book is a complete autobiography from his birth through his death which happened when he shipwrecked in 1991.
His son Thomas survived the shipwreck because he was following in a towed boat, and managed to get free of the wreck on a surfboard.
He was born in Oslo, Norway in 1924 and spent much of his early childhood in Paris, France. With the coming of WWII his family moved back to Norway. His father was in international trade and was a minor industrialist. Peter had some health issues early in life. As he was raised by his mother and a nanny his father did not know of his condition until Peter was 14 years old, whereupon his father bought a boat and hired a man to teach Peter to sail. It was a rigorous program taking up the waking hours of each day for a whole summer. At the end of the summer the instructor got his bonus, and Peter was an excellent sailor in all weather and all conditions.
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In 1957 - 1958 Peter T. sailed from England to California in the 43 ft yawl Windflower where he sold her as he had planned.
He sailed the Dorothea a 32 ft. cutter (built in England in 1934) around the world in 1959 and to French Guiana. This boat sank under him in the western Atlantic.
Tangvald built his 50 ft. L'Artemis de Pytheas in French Guiana and over the next 35 years it was re-rigged many times first as a yawl with sprit main and lug mizzen, then gaff main and mizzen, then gaff schooner. In the winter she was rigged as a yawl with sprit boom and sprit mizzen and no shrouds. The most recent rig (and last one) was as a cutter with a gaff main, jib, staysail and topsail. The Artemis de Pytheas had a very shallow draft and had a centerboard.
~ 2012-05-25~

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