A REAL TRIBUTE

There’s no question that the late Larry Pardey was an unmatched mariner. And that sterling reputation has been burnished with a new, passionate portrait of his life and times. The Real Deal: Larry Pardey, Legendary Sailor and Adventurer is an intimate profile created by Mike Anderson, a video producer and boatbuilder and, more importantly, a longtime friend of Larry Pardey. The crux of the tale is the Pardeys’ voyage to and around Cape Horn, the so-called Mount Everest of Sailing, said Pardeys’ longtime publisher, Paradise Cay. Along with at-sea footage, interviews with a variety of friends and associates, and archival film clips and photographs, the story is narrated via quotes from sailing writer and CW executive editor Herb Mccormick’s critically acclaimed biography of the couple, As Long as It’s Fun.

Lin Pardey—the other half of that famous sailing couple—provided access to dozens of hours of previously unseen video footage shot by her and Larry during their voyages, including from their record-setting engine-free passage east from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Straits of Le Maire and the Horn.

“Mike has done an amazing job of gathering photographs from Larry’s earlier Newport Beach escapades,” Lin said. “And he used some great ones of his own, taken when we were building Taleisin in Bull Canyon, our hideaway in the hills behind Lake Elsinore, California. But best of all, Mike has gathered video and interviews from some of the people Larry encouraged and helped along the path to their dreams. This documentary has definitely caught the sometimes wild, always adventuresome, warm spirit of the man who shared his life with me.”

Released at this past fall’s US Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, The Real Deal is now available from several outlets: It can be downloaded, streamed on demand, or purchased from the Sailing Channel (thesailingchannel.tv); it is now available in the Pardey video collection on Sailflix (sailflix.com/lin-larry-pardey); and it can also be accessed from Paradise Cay (paracay.com).

Larry Pardey kept the stern anchor at the ready aboard the Pardeys’ iconic Lyle Hess-designed Taleisin. The Pardeys launched a generation of dreams through their books and stories.