Sailing the Apocalypse: A Misadventure at Sea

Even though I'm not building another Wharram catamaran at present, they are obviously on my mind a lot as they keep coming up as the featured vessels in my fiction projects.  For those of you who may not have seen it on my main website or other blogs, I have a new book out that was just released this past weekend.

Sailing the Apocalypse: A Misadventure at Sea, is the story of a man who is obsessed with the idea of building a big Wharram cat (Tiki 46) to get his family away from what he believes is a country on the verge of collapse. Terry Bailey has done his research and knows the advantages and virtues of a Wharram for his purpose. He greatly overestimates both his boatbuilding and sailing experience, however, and the story becomes a series of screw-ups and misadventures as he forges on with more determination than good seamanship. This book, at 304 pages, is the first in what will be an ongoing series that follows this family's adventures. I think most Wharram enthusiasts, as well as boatbuilders and sailors in general will be able to relate. The full description is posted below the cover image. You can get a copy of Sailing the Apocalypse in either ebook or paperback from the links at the bottom of this post.

Terry Bailey is convinced America is doomed, and the last hope for his family is to escape to sea. 

How far would you go to protect your family if you were convinced America was in imminent danger of collapse? Would you build an underground bunker and stockpile it with weapons and supplies? Buy a cabin in the woods and start growing all your own food? Sell everything off and move to a survivalist’s stronghold in the mountains of Idaho?

None of the above would be enough if you were obsessed with boats the way Terry Bailey is obsessed.Terry has an escape plan to sail to the very ends of the earth; the only real option left to survive what’s coming, according to him. Convincing his new wife, teen stepdaughter and preteen stepson that time is running out, he sells his recently-acquired family on the necessity to build a boat. Two years of hard labor later, Terry has his ship—a huge ocean-going catamaran sloppily cobbled together from plywood and epoxy in their backyard in north Mississippi. 

 

When the ship is ready to launch, Terry christens her the Apocalypse, and the four of them move aboard for good, bidding farewell to life on land along with everything and everyone they had known before that day. There is no need to wait for a disaster to strike, because Terry Bailey has created his own. Now he is about to drag his entire family over the horizon with him. Sailing the Apocalypse is the story of a man who is about to go too far, and is told from the perspective of the twelve-year-old stepson who watches it all unfold as he is swept along for the ride.

Sailing the Apocalypse is available in ebook form from Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. 

You can get the paperback from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  

Both formats are available in the various Amazon stores worldwide as well (UK, France, Germany, Australia, etc.).

More Wharram Catamaran Fiction!

I may not be building a Wharram catamaran right now, but I'm still writing about them.  Some of you may have read my first novel, The Pulse, published in 2012.  If you did, you know that a 36-foot Wharram cat featured prominently in the action.  I have now completed the sequel to The Pulse, and Refuge After the Collapse picks up where the first book ended, with Larry Drager anchored aboard his 36-foot Wharram near the blacked-out and anarchy-filled chaos of New Orleans in the wake of a devastating solar flare.

Refuge will be shipping from Amazon and available at other retailers and bookstores on or before September 23.  I'm posting here to let those of you who still stop by know that I'm having a book giveaway of 10 signed copies to be mailed out as soon as I have them available.  All you have to do to enter to win is sign up for my new email newsletter:

Scott B. Williams Newsletter 

My current work in progress also features a big Wharram catamaran, but is an unrelated story.  I think all Wharram enthusiasts will find it humorous and highly entertaining.  Sign up for the newsletter and you'll be among the first to know when Sailing the Apocalypse is available:

Wharram Catamaran Featured in Novel

As many of you know, I've been writing books for years and now have seven nonfiction titles published, all of them related in some way to the subjects of boats or survival or both.  I have now written a novel, which has been published by Ulysses Press, of Berkeley, California, and has been released in print form this week (the Kindle and other E-book formats will be available on or before July 10).

I wanted to mention this here for those of you who may not visit my other sites, as this novel is a post-Apocalypitc tale in which a 36-foot Wharram catamaran is featured in much of the action.  Here's a look at the cover:

While part of the story takes place in New Orleans and later in the river swamps of south Mississippi, as  this cover image suggests, the other part begins in the Caribbean, where Artie Drager, one of the main protagonists is on an offshore passage with his brother, who is a yacht delivery skipper.  While they are still far from land between Martinique and St. Thomas, a series of powerful solar flares shuts down GPS satellites and all other communications, and destroys practically all complex electronic circuitry.  Artie, who was just visiting the islands on a short vacation, is now cut off from his only daughter, who is a college student at Tulane University, in New Orleans, and is frantic to get back to the mainland and find her after the pulse event.

They continue on to St. Thomas, where they discover that the power grid shutdown is widespread and complete, and leave the yacht there as Artie's brother, Larry, has contracted to do.  In his spare time between delivery jobs, Larry has been building a Wharram Tiki 36 catamaran as his own personal boat, and they make their way to the build site on Culebra to quickly ready it for launch, despite the fact that it is still in primer and most systems are uninstalled.  The big, shallow-draft Wharram cat will have many advantages in this new world of chaos and uncertainty, and confident they can reach New Orleans and find Artie's daughter, they sail for Florida and the Gulf beyond.  Here's a description from the press release from my publisher:

A Compelling Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid
When an intense electromagnetic pulse instantly destroys the power grid throughout North America, there's no guarantee of survival.  And that's what Tulane University student Casey Drager quickly realizes as desperate citizens panic and anarchy descends.  Surrounded by chaos, Casey must save herself from the havoc in the streets of New Orleans.  
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, her father, Artie, finds himself warding off pirate attacks and tackling storms on his Caribbean sailing vacation-turned-nightmare.  Using the stars to guide him toward the states, he wonders if he'll ever be able to find his daughter.  


The first novel from best-selling survivalist author Scott B. Williams, The Pulse is a thrilling narrative of survival amid the violence and disorder following the catastrophic destruction of America's power grid.  "The Pulse reveals what it would take to survive in a world lit only by firelight," Williams explains. "Where all the rules have changed and each person must fend for himself."

I've been wanting to write a novel with lots of sailing action for as long as I've been writing, and now I've finally gotten around to it.  If you decide to check it out, I hope you enjoy it and that you will give me your feedback.  There will likely be a sequel as the ending opens the door for the next part of the story to continue.  Here's a review that was posted this morning on Boat Bits, one of my favorite sailing blogs, which is written by a full-time liveaboard cruiser and former Wharram owner: http://boatbits.blogspot.com/2012/06/pretty-good-book.html