Sailing by Starlight is the story of the adventure of a lifetime—in fact, of many lifetimes. In the early 1980s, retired geography professor Marvin Creamer set out to do what hadn’t been done for a thousand years—if indeed it had ever been done at all: Marv and his crew boarded a 35’ sailboat named Globe Star and set out into the frigid Atlantic, planning to sail around the world without the use of any instruments. There was no sextant aboard. No compass. No chart-plotter. No GPS. No radar. Not even a stopwatch. Creamer wanted to prove to the world that it was possible for ancient mariners to have crossed the largest seas, perhaps even sailed around the world, using only their brains, their experience, their sense, and their courage. In attempting to prove his point, Creamer would push his boat and his crew to the limit—and occasionally beyond.
Travel with Creamer as Globe Star sails around the perilous Horn, across the dangerous and tumultuous Tasman Sea, and into an active war zone. Sail around the world with a man who was taken prisoner by an idea, a man obsessed with proving a point, and who would let neither 40-foot waves nor fractious crewmembers deter him.
Sailing by Starlight takes what could have easily become one more nondescript sailing-around-the-world tale and makes it into a thoroughly researched and well-written book that’s as much about problem-solving and strength of character as it is about adventure.
A full and captivating picture of this complex man. . . . Kudos to Scher for writing a book that gives Creamer the voice he deserves in sailing history and that invites all of us to think a bit differently next time we are on the water we love.
Scher does a superb job of making ocean sailing and its terminology accessible and easy to understand for those who do not do it themselves, while keeping the story moving for those of us who do. Sailing by Starlight fills a major gap in sailing narrative literature, relating the story of a man and his phenomenal voyage which have been undeservedly little known.
