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Manning Up in Alaska
“Wake up, wake up!” Dick yelled to his sleeping wife, as he tore up the floorboards to expose the bilge in their 47-foot sailboat. Much to his shock, he discovered two feet of water rapidly rising, threatening to sink them and their boat. With thoughts of calling Mayday and abandoning ship flashing through his mind, he wonders what a 62-year-old cancer survivor is doing here, facing a life and death emergency. In this true story, meet Dick Drechsler—a fun-loving, hard-working executive—who finds his fast-paced lifestyle abruptly derailed by cancer. When he sees that he’ll be anchored for life to a feeding tube, at first he’s discouraged. Despite some very long odds, he refuses to give up until he regains limited use of his throat. Not willing to postpone his lifelong dream to cruise throughout the world aboard his sailboat, he sets out on a voyage of adventure and discovery.
“Every once in a while a book comes along that you just can’t put down,” says publisher Nick Agro. “Occasionally, you’ll come across one that also inspires you. Dick takes us through the wild romp that is his life, up until the moment he slams into his own mortality. Regardless of whether we’re sailors or landlubbers, he holds our wide-eyed attention with this action-packed tale, as we sail with him, accompanied only by his wife, Sharon, up the coast from Mexico to Alaska aboard the couple’s 47-foot sailboat, aptly named Last Resort.” Dick Drechsler.
Manning Up in Alaska
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The West Advisor
The West Advisor articles have answered boaters' questions and provided solutions to boating problems for more than 20 years. West Marine has compiled one of the Web's most comprehensive collections of technical boating information articles.
