The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – All Hands on Deck: A Modern-Day High Seas Adventure to the Far Side of the World by Will Sofrin

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

All Hands on Deck: A Modern-Day High Seas Adventure to the Far Side of the World by Will Sofrin https://amzn.to/41WFX9m A maritime adventure memoir that follows a crew of misfits hired to sail an 18th-century warship 5,000 miles to Hollywood In the late 1990s, Patrick O’Brian’s multimillion-copy-selling historical novel series—the Aubrey–Maturin series, which was set during the Napoleonic Wars—seemed destined for film. With Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Stephen Maturin, the production only needed a ship that could stand in for Lucky Jack’s HMS Surprise, with historical accuracy paramount. The filmmakers found the Rose, a replica of an 18th-century ship that would work perfectly. Only there was one problem: the Rose was in Newport, Rhode Island, not in Southern California, where they would be filming. Enter a ragtag crew of thirty oddballs who stepped up for the task, including Will Sofrin, at the time a 21-year-old wooden-boat builder and yacht racer, who joined as the ship’s carpenter. All Hands on Deck is Sofrin’s memoir of the epic adventure delivering the Rose to Hollywood. It’s a story of reinvention, of hard work on the high seas, of love, and of survival. The Rose was an example of the most cutting-edge technology of her era, but in the 21st century, barely anyone had experience sailing it. The crew effectively went back in time, brought to life the old ways of a forgotten world, and barely lived to tell the tale. Just a few days in, a terrifying hurricane-strength storm nearly sank the Rose, and later, a rogue wave caused a nearly fatal dismasting. And the ups and downs weren’t limited to the waves—with the crew split into factions, making peace between warring camps became necessary, too, as did avoiding pirates and braving the temptations of shore leave. All Hands on Deck is a gripping story of an unforgettable journey and a must-read for fans who adore O’Brian’s novels and the dramatic film adaptation of Master and Commander.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com.

Welcome to the big show, my family and friends, the entertainment scape of podcasting in the sky, the big tent circus of knowledge, information, and just being sexier because you're smarter. I don't know. I don't know how that all came together. I've been working on that ramble improv for a long time, and it just finally all came into that succinctness. So there you go.

All those shows you see me muff it. I finally got it. Welcome to the show, my friends and family. We have an amazing author with an amazing tale. The tale of the high seas, as it were. I think he was a pirate. I don't know. We're going to find out.

But this has something to do with high seas, old ships, and a life on a path less traveled. And what we can learn from that, because I think we all love adventure and stories and all that good stuff, because if you don't, why the hell are you listening to this show? I mean, that's all we have is brilliant authors, brilliant people on the show, and none of them are me, of course. That's why we have them on the show as guests. See how that works?

Anyway, guys, we just launched our new AI podcast. We have a lot of AI automation, generative AI people and authors on the show for years now. We've had them on the show. And talking about AI, all this stuff going on with artificial intelligence, we just launched last night a new silo or what we would call a, I forget what the term is for it, a new, it starts with a V. I is for it. A new, uh, uh, uh, starts with a V.

I can't fucking work. It's Monday people. Give me a break. Uh, anyway, we launched a new show. It's AI podcast with Chris Voss. Uh,

we've, uh, ported a bunch of the shows over there. It's a new vertical. That's the word I was looking for. Um, and, it will be a show specifically designed to interview CEOs,

thinkers of AI and artificial intelligence. So if you get a chance, go search it. You can find it. AI, chrisfoss.com or, uh, the AI,

uh, podcasts with Chris Foss. You can find, we've ported a bunch of the interviews we've already done over there. And, uh, we'll also still be doing those AI interviews on the Chris Foss show. Cause it's the big God beast of all of our podcasts,

verticals, and all that good stuff. So check that out. He is the author of the amazing new book that has just come out April 18th, 2023, all hands on deck, a modern day high seas adventure to the far side of the world. I think there should be like a thing that goes the far side of the world

i can't do that with an echo or something like that so uh we'll fix that and edit no we won't uh will sovereign is on the show with us today and we're going to be talking to him about his amazing uh life and adventures and a story that man i you know there's not a lot of this going around there's a lot of people running on ships on the high seas from uh you know these old ships and stuff we're going to find out his adventures of what he did he's the guy who didn't follow any of the rules instead of attending college after high school he became an apprentice shipwright to learn how to build and restore wooden yachts as an apprentice he studied the mechanics of wooden boats and naval architecture and after completing his apprenticeship he became

a professional sailor, predominantly working on luxury wooden sailing yachts. He worked for years rising in the ranks and eventually became a licensed captain, all while tracking over 25,000 blue water miles as he sailed throughout Europe, New England, the Caribbean, Central America, and the California coast. He sailed some of the most famous yachts in the world and participated in the numerous world-class sailing events, such as America's Cup Jubilee, the Product Classic Yacht Challenge, and the 12-meter World Championships.

And if you're not jealous enough by now, by his story, we have him on the show live. Welcome to the show, Will. How are you? Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm having an awesome Monday morning. And it's awesome to have live. Welcome to the show, Will. How are you? Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm having an awesome Monday morning. And it's awesome to have you. Welcome to the show.

Congratulations on the new book. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs. www.willsofrin.com. Willsofrin.com. There you go. And welcome to the show, Will. So tell us a little bit about your history. Let's talk about your childhood and why did you make the choice to go

into this? You know, it seems kind of weird to be like, hey, wooden yachts, like everything's made of steel and, you know, aluminum nowadays and all that good stuff. Tell us a little bit about what got you down this road. Why did you make the choices you made? So I grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut. Sort of imagine a picturesque John Hughes movie setting scene, suburbia, utopia, clubs. And I didn't really have a direction in high school. I didn't know what I wanted to do. College, there was a lot of looming pressure what I was going to do after. And both my parents had

dropped out of college themselves and gone back later in life and they were very supportive they said you know we don't we see that you don't know what you want to do and we don't want you to just go do that because you feel like you've got to so we would go take these weekend vacations and we ended up in new port rhode island and there was this new boat building school and they they said you know what why don't you um why don't you give it a try why don't you pick up a trade do it for a year if you don't like it we'll still help you get through college but you know you're going to develop this skill set that i mean has been around for thousands of years the world's always going to need carpenters so did you have like a did you as a child did you have an affinity to ships i mean i think we all

kind of do as young men i i agree with you i mean i love popeye as a kid and um um and you like spinach i love spinach i love spinach my daughter doesn't get it we won't hold that against you but go on and uh in high school i, I was making a lot of money as a barback. And a friend of mine, his sailboat got wrecked in a storm. So I bought it from him for a few hundred dollars and tried to fix it up and enjoyed the process. Yeah. There's nothing like a sailboat. Well, there's probably something like, I mean, you've been on big yachts.

But we got a sailboat when we were young that we bought off a friend who'd sunk one and it was so fun to sail and not hearing not hearing the engine being out on the on the water at night when it's quiet and you can see the lights of the city's coming across there's something about it i agree it's it's um you are in control of getting yourself from ad to B. I mean, some in so many ways today, we're just the passengers other than driving your car, but you get on a plane or a train. And I think that's where sailing a ship,

like the ship I sell in the book is so romantic for people because they are the driving force. Yeah. And it's, it's a, it's a work, you know, you got to keep that thing going you got to catch the wind

at the right directions and you know move the oars and and and you know the boom and all the working parts and uh it's it's it's almost like an art form when it comes down to it and it's such a romantic beautiful thing until the wind dies and your engine won't start um but you know sometimes good things happen at those moments. I mean, I was sailing up from the Caribbean and we had three days of no wind. And in the middle of it, whales came up to the boat. Really? Yeah, we just actually donned our snorkel gear, threw some lines in the water and jumped in and I went swimming with whales.

I'm quitting. I'm quitting my job and I'm going sailing, damn it. You're giving me a, I'm starting to question my whole life right now. So you go on this journey and you get into the business. I mean, do you fall in love with it immediately? Does it take a while for it to catch for you? You know what? I fell in love with it immediately.

I had such a hard time in high school. And I don't know, just using my hands, learning how to shape wood and bend it and make these beautiful yachts, which are really just these elegant machines. To me, it was great. But while I was learning how to build boats, I'm living in Newport, Rhode Island, and I start getting invited out to race on sailboats and have fun and which leads to me getting paid and wait a minute once i found out that i could get paid to sail on boats that was it you're like i can get paid for this awesome sauce so then where does it go from there and you tell this tale in the book of course i

think it's yeah would you call this kind of a memoir? Oh, I definitely would call it a memoir. I'd say it's an adventure travel memoir about how and why and where it took me. After I finished my apprenticeship, my first job was to go race over in Europe on a yacht I helped restore. So when I was 21, I was living in the French riviera and racing sailboats and it was great but like all good things the job came to an end when the season came to an end and i returned back to america without a job or home and uh um that put me in a position where i didn't really have too many choices and i needed to uh hop on another boat as quickly as possible so would you call yourself a modern day pirate uh yes i would would you call yourself a modern day pirate?

Yes, I would. I would call myself a modern day pirate for sure. There you go. So how do you get into this? You know, I think maybe a large part of this is the story of what you do with this boat. Tell us about how you get involved with this whole big boat that you end up sailing around. So I end up back in Newport and I've got no job, no direction. And the captain of the boat I'd been working on was kind enough to let me crash at his house. But I think he realized that I was going to milk that till it was dry.

So he sent me down to a tall ship, which is, you know, these sort of old pirate looking kind of ships. And it was literally the antithesis of all my career ambitions, but I had no other options. So I had to do it. And the ship had just been bought by 20th Century Fox. And the first mate offered me a job and said, hey, do you want to get sail to California and make a movie? And those ships have a romanticism too i mean as boys you grow up with thinking about pirates and playing pirates and and and stuff as a kid i remember we

you know we used to dress up and have like fake swords and and uh you know all that stuff whatever you know we love pirates movie i grew up in that golden age, and maybe you did, of Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney. You could ride the big ship at Disney. And so for me, growing up in California, that was a real big fantasy. I remember a few years ago, I went down to Dana Harbor. Dana, is it Dana Harbor? The Harbor. Yeah, Dana Point, the Harbor at Dana Point.

I used to love to go down there and shoot with my camera. But there's a couple big ships down there, I think. And I think they have like a once a year sailing of the big ships, don't they? Yep. And there's just a romanticism. There's a feel. There's a textile to them that's very different than looking at some big steel yacht. And I'm not discounting them.

I'm just saying they don't have that romanticism you know that whole high seas old world you know and there's there's an interesting thing where people use those ships to pioneer you're like they that was it they didn't have motors and gasoline and shit it was like well fuck it we got to use the wind you know well like to what you're to the point that you're saying this ship that i sailed on i mean 200 years ago it was equal it was the most advanced technology in the world it was what elon musk is sending to space today yeah these ships were this is you're going to go across the horizon to a place we've never been and maybe you'll come back yeah they didn't have gps you know you had some idiot with some map that you hope was right.

And, and everybody's got scurvy and you're looking at things through a thing going, I hope we figure out where the hell we're going. And, uh, and you know, back then,

I mean, when Columbus and I guess other people sailed across the ocean, I mean, they really didn't know where they're going. You're just like, I hope we find land somewhere. Eh? Oh,

I mean, when Columbus sailed across, I mean, there was a lot of talk. There was a, uh, know where they're going you're just like i hope we find land somewhere eh oh i mean when columbus sailed across i mean there was a lot of talk there was a a lot of anger building on the ship and he was just kind of like we're gonna get there we're gonna get there we're gonna get there and there's talk about mutiny and a lot of sort of fending every that revolt off and he really was just saying no no it's right around the corner i promise but he had no idea yeah so tease out of some of the ups and downs the it's built as a as a unforgettable journey of gripping story of fans who adore o'brien's novels and the dramatic film adaptation of master and commander you go through a lot of

ups and downs you tell the stories about the book this is no this is no uh this is no simple ride across the water so you go through some shit it's no pleasure cruise i mean try and think of i think the best way to look at this is imagine a modern princess bride set on a giant pirate ship that's 180 feet long and you've got 30 men and women living on the ship together which really sets the scenario up and And when I say living together, everyone's living together, sleeping in the same space, getting dressed together. So decency was expected and there's courtesy, but it's the way the ship always works. So you've got this, we're all colleagues,

but we're also cooking each other dinner or washing dishes or cleaning our bathrooms. And that just set up a great opportunity for us to bond in different ways that maybe most colleagues don't get to bond. Plus you have to get along because if you don't like somebody, you can't leave. You can't just be like, oh, I'm going to leave and go walk across the water. Jesus tried that with the apostles. Most people know that story in the Bible. He's actually trying to get away from those dudes because they're always bugging him and, you know, humping his leg.

And he's like, why don't you guys leave me alone for a second? I'm going to walk on the water. But no, I mean, it's kind of a community of itself, isn't it? Yeah, it becomes a community. And as much as you could try and discourage romantic relationships, that's going to happen. And then, yeah, as you kind of bring bring up we go through some intense experiences we sail through a hurricane strength storm where the ship is really teetering on the edge of sinking and i found out later on that a lot of the senior sailors on the ship really kind of made peace

with god but i was really i was 21 and too naive to realize i enjoyed all the big waves and um had a good time the uh did you meet any sea monsters like i used to dream about in the day when i used to be like moby dick and what was it was the one sea monster katula or oh i got a good sea monster story we are sailing up the coast of mexico at night and we're up in the rig okay because on a ship like this you have to climb up to set the sails and trim them and look down at the water and there's this giant light tube rushing through zigzagging around the ship wow and what it was was it was whales swimming through dinoflagellates with bioluminescence the sort of algae that lights up oh yeah we saw these tubes lighting up at night.

Is that the stuff they have out at Catalina? Yeah. You can go out there at a certain time of year. Yeah. And actually, I think it was three years ago in Newport Beach here, someone had some great footage on YouTube where you could see these tubes of light and water. I always want to go out to Catalina. I love Catalina Island.

I get the weirdest deja vu out there. And I feel so at home on that island more than any place on the planet. And I've always wanted to go out there and see that. And somehow I need to put that back on the schedule. So how many months do you run this, this course of, of,

of taking this boat? So the thing about taking the ship was it was a really fast, aggressive journey. We, first off, when you're sailing a boat, you spend a lot of time preparing it. It's this working machine. You've got to get it in tip-top shape. So we spent two months, everyone working to get the ship ready.

And then the actual being underway was 36 days to get us 6,000 miles. Wow. Yeah. So we started in Newport, Rhode Island, go down to Puerto Rico, Panama, then transit the Panama Canal, and then continue north on the western seaboard until we reach San Diego. Yeah. This is a different kind of job. It's not like my job where I'm indoors and I never see sunlight and I have to take lots of vitamin D.

You know, you're out in the elements, the spray, the salt, the sun, the weather. Absolutely. I mean, I was in love, the sun, the weather. Absolutely. I mean, I was in love with yachts, being a yachtie. I mean, I was excited to wear khakis and polo shirts. And being on a ship like this, it's different. You have to wear a big knife, and you're covered in tar, so it's dirty. It's not like a yacht where you've got autopilot, and everyone's eating ceviche for dinner and having a glass of wine. And there's probably a lot of smell too,

between sea salt and old wood. 30, 30 people and no showers. I gets pretty stinky. Wait, they didn't have showers. We had, you weren't supposed to shower while underway.

Wow. Because there wasn't enough water for everyone to take a shower oh yeah you don't want to get scurvy everyone's got a water drink too i read about that scurvy a few times but uh uh you know i read the rhyme of the ancient mariner too uh which is a great poem um but uh no and iron maiden song as well uh great song yeah that's what that's what got me to read i was like wait this is it sounds like a poem somewhere i dug it up but uh it you know the story of the sea and the adventure and the high seas and i think i think the risk of it is some of the thrill is it i i couldn't agree more there is that absolute risk where you're

out there because you've got to defend on yourself. And also those people that you're not getting along with that are part of your crew members. And in those tense moments, I do have to say when we, when we're, when we're bored and we've got all the time in the world, it's really easy to nitpick.

But when it really came down to those tense moments, differences were put aside and it was amazing to see how people will step up. And I didn't care about the people and like i just knew that i could count on them and that was i think you got to kind of be in sort of one of those dangerous situations to i'd have to yeah i'd have to learn to get along i'd be the guy that end up they'd have a mutiny on me and make me walk the plank or tie me to the mast that would be me i'd be like he's an an asshole. Just send him overboard.

I don't know. Is that still legal? Keel hauling, sending people over? No, unfortunately it's not. But it is still a hierarchy up there. Damn it. Note to self. Maybe I won't get into sailing. I don't know.

We used to do that with the pools in California when we were kids. We played pirates and then we walked the plank. play pirates, and then we'd walk the plank. We'd pretend like the pool diving board was the plank. We'd walk the plank. It's all the stuff you do when you're kids. But, no, there's a romanticism, too. It sounds like you guys go through a lot of adventures.

You document it. It's almost something that could probably be a movie. You know, I think that would be fantastic. I think this would be a hysterical movie. Yeah, we go through all the danger, but then what's neat about this story too is it doesn't take place 200 years ago. It takes place today. So I think it makes it very relatable.

That was the fun thing about the book. When I first saw the cover and they pitched it to me, I was like, oh, this is some old ship pirate story thing. and then you realize that it's in modern day adventures you do this you do this thing and you get the boat to where it's at and um now was this boat that you were running was this a boat that was built to be a replica of the old boats or was it an older boat well so that's that's funny thing the story of the ship in itself is pretty hysterical she was built in 1969 to for the american bicentennial celebration but what's funny about it is is that in order to get the financing to build the ship the bank wanted

to make sure that you know this is a safe investment so they built the ship so long that she could be a restaurant at the dock oh so in a sense you could kind of say we kind of pulled a bit of a john candy and sailed a restaurant to california i mean that'd be fine with me i like food i i think everyone can see that in the camera um so you go through this whole thing do you have to did you cut through the uh panama we did yeah we went through the panama canal on the way to the panama canal we had a big explosion in our rig and that week's experience was called the dismassing where the mass went over and it's uh what's neat too is i've got i'm doing this tour to compliment the book because we had three of us had camcorders on board so i've got all this footage of the storm and then the mass breaking and yeah

mass breaking are not good things i watch those competitive uh those sailors that do the competitive stuff nowadays the billionaire is all on the boats you know i forget i don't know what i don't know what is but i see it all the time and i see those things go over the mass break off and shit. And I'm just like, yeah, that's not going to work out. No.

And then it happens to you in the middle of the ocean. You're kind of going, all right, well, we got to figure it out. There's no one that's going to help. There's no billionaires in sight. Elon Musk is over.

It's not even like the highway. You can't pull the boat over for the night and take a break and take a nap. It just keeps going. And I don't't know i guess nowadays there's good maritime communications where you can call for help if you need to like gps phones or something i don't know yeah there is there's a lot of resources out there but um still you should plan to be self-sufficient yeah but i mean that and that maybe that's what the real character building of this is. We talked before the show in the green room about taking life less traveled and,

and talk to me a little about that, how you feel about, you know, trying to maybe set an example or set an influence to people that maybe they should consider other options in their life. Well, so I didn't go to college. I did an apprenticeship and I got a lot of flack from myack from the kids I was going to school with in high school.

They were all convinced and heckling me, telling me I was making the biggest mistake of my life and giving me an absolute failure. But I didn't. I'm doing great. I mean, I just came out with this book and my life, you know, I've got a great career. Most of my work is actually in architecture these days on land. But my wife's a pediatrician and she had to do the opposite of me. She had to do more school than anyone else. And I hope that I've got a seven-year-old daughter.

I'm hoping that when she's a teenager, she's going to read a story like this and feel good about following her passion. I think continued education is imperative. We should all keep learning, but there's a lot of different ways we can find happiness and success. Oh, most definitely. We had a major shipbuilder on the show one time. He builds all the expensive yachts. I can't remember who his name

was. It was several years ago. We had him on the show and just talking about some of the yachts. You see some of the way these new things are built and the craziness that goes into them but they're beautiful they're extraordinary but i think i think still when it comes down to it's just that feeling of being near the seas and oceans uh you know i've talked about this before in the show i'm i'm an atheist i'm a big believer we did walk out of the primordial soup of the ocean or water, whatever you want to call it. And I feel an affinity for the sea when I go down there. I think most of us do. I think that's why we're

all enthralled. That's why we all want to live by the ocean. We, or water, you know, what the most highest real estate will always be closest to the water. And I think we have an affinity for, um, our mother. Uh, that's my opinion. Uh, and so And so I think that's why we, there's a romanticism to it that we keep coming back to it. Like I used to have all the world, anytime I go to Rome by all the problems in the world,

I would go down to the beach in California and sit on the waters. And within a very short time, I'd realized that all my matters didn't mean shit. Like I'm just like, compared to, you know, these waves that have been lapping on the ocean for eons, or on the land for eons of time, these tiny grains of sand. My problems are one of these little tiny grains of sand. Just pick it up and just look at it and go, yeah, that's all my little life problems right here compared to eternity, the universe. But there's something about it and and and i

think what you're talking what you mentioned the character the character of it being self-dependent being self-reliable being self-accountable and all that is really the probably one of the empowering factors that that make people feel fulfilled i think i I couldn't agree more. I think that, yeah, I mean, going back to where I talked about the passenger thing before, you get onto a ship like this and you get to imagine what it was like to be that explorer 200 years ago. And you're the one who's,

you're the piston that's making the machine work. And there's a great sense of accomplishment that comes from doing this. And I don't know, I feel when I look around today, a lot of people are staring at their phones or not actively participating. And you got to see the world too. I mean, you traveled to some,

you got to see cultures and different. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I went from being a miserably poor apprentice with no money where, wait a minute. If I got on a boat i didn't need rent i had no bills they paid all the food so uh all i needed to do was just make sure i used

my tip money for the bar tab and i was golden but i got to europe i lived in the caribbean central america i mean it was awesome and chicks love sailors i, I think, don't they? Oh, yes, they do. Yes, they do. It's kind of like a Peter Pan syndrome thing. Note to self, I'm quitting my job as a podcast host and going sailing. I mean, even my wife said to me, we met on match.com. And the reason why she messaged me was my profile picture is me on a sailboat. And she thought, well, even if he's a jerk, jerk i mean at least i'll get a ride on a boat how'd that work out uh honestly i told her at

the end of the first date that she was the one and wow yeah there you go did she get a ride on a boat ever she did yeah yeah the first date first date was a ride on the boat with a bottle of champagne, and it worked. My first seven wives that divorced me told me I took them for a ride on a boat, but it was more of a on a boat sort of thing. Anyway, that's a joke, people. I don't have seven wives. I'm not that crazy. But no, this is good. I think if I ever had teenagers, I would just send them boating for their teens.

I think that sounds awesome. I am a little terrified, though, for my daughter because I do want her to do this, but then I don't. The thing is, she loves it when it's really stormy out. So we've got a sailboat here in LA, and we sail out to Catalina. You mean we're talking about Catalina. As you know, it's really stormy out so we've got a sailboat here in la and we sail out to catalina which you know you mean we're talking about catalina it's as you know it's great sail out now unless it's really there's big waves and lots of wind she complains the whole time it's the opposite everybody else wants comsees she wants wow well i mean uh you know there you go hey catalina is so beautiful i used to love to go out on Catalina and sitting on the beach, I would go out at three.

I'm a night person. So I would go out at 3am, 2am and sit on the beach. There'd be no one out there, none of the damn tourists. And just seeing the lights of Avalon and, and the whole Bay and just hearing the waves. It's just incredible. Um, the feeling that's out there. And I, I love love i don't know why i love i love uh avalon so much and and uh the catalina it's weird i i used to go there like

for weekend jaunts all the time just to go there and just wander but it's such a beautiful island i got something fun for you every year i sail out with a bunch of guy friends and it gets bigger and bigger and this year we're actually gonna like turn it into a formal event where it's gonna be a race to catalina we do it in october the first weekend and there's a disc golf course at the isthmus you know what that is disc golf it's like frisbee golf oh that new thing yeah yeah so we're gonna race out on the sailboats and we're calling it the lobster cup because it's opening of lobster weekend so everyone's gonna go dive for lobsters we'll have a bonfire play disc golf drink a lot of beer and have fun that sounds like a riot man that sounds like a riot his sailing is so beautiful and you know not having the motors i mean i love i love the motors

i see those you know those cigarette boats those speed boats they have in florida and shit and yeah that looks like fun uh and speed is fun but there's something about not having the motor and on and just feeling the wave and the wind it's kind of like that moment that i feel when the plane first leaves the ground and you feel it get the wings catch the wind and it becomes airborne i love that moment in flight where where you leave the ground and you can feel the the the air moving beneath you and the wings catch the air and the magic of flight takes into place and we had one of the the boat i the sailboat i got was an old thunderbird from the push it sound and it was designed to plane you know like an 1800 pound fucking lead keel i think it was but it would

plane because it was a flat bottom boat and so it was keel i think it was but it would plane because it was a flat bottom boat and so it was designed that if it hit a speed it would lift yeah that was the funnest shit in the world man that feeling when it would plane that feels so good and the rudder everything's a little vibrating and buzzing yeah it was it was crazy 1800 1,800-pound lead keel, I think it was. It was just insane. But yeah, just a beautiful boat. And one day somebody left the head open and sunk it in the bay. Oh, no, that's terrible. Yeah, evidently it's a little hard to get an 1,800-pound lead keel out of mud.

So there's that. But, you know, it was fun while it lasted. Anyway, anything more you want to tease out on the book before we go well oh well you know i think um one of my favorite things about being a sailor is you've got this great camaraderie and uh that's where a sense of humor and shenanigans come in and i think uh what makes this book a lot of fun too is i was able to reach out to a bunch of my shipmates and get to catch up with everyone and telling the jokes and you're gonna find in this book there's some great bar fights

which sailors right bar fights there you go um and uh you know just some uh we even almost had a run-in with pirates and the silliness of where you're talking about you know how fun it is the romantism is yeah i get to sail on a ship with cannons and we all talked about arming our cannons with screws and nails to defend ourselves from pirates but i've never since sailed on a boat with cannons that's cracked me up yeah i that'd be wild i'd be i'd be screwing with that i'd be like how do we do how does this work now um but no i mean you see the modern day pirates now you know i i sometimes like watching the boat videos where they're god they they have to barbwire the boats now and and uh everything from some of those pirates over there it got out of hand there for a while i think in the 2000 or

whatever yeah yeah it's over in somalia and it was it was interesting to watch and these little guys are in these shitty as boats trying to take on a big boat and it was kind of crazy sometimes but yeah i i think there's this romanticism and story about the high seas you know what you've talked about too is a little bit about team building because you're building a community but you're also building a team that has to be cohesive and and be able to you know uh be you know have have skills and to accomplish tasks. And, you know, maybe what you should do, if you haven't thought of this, you've probably thought of it already, is you should have, you know how these people do these corporate retreats where they try and learn trust building? And, you know, people, you know, what is that thing where they fall into each other and stuff and catch each other or whatever, you know, all those sort of little trust things.

Sometimes they just go smoke a bunch of hibiscus or whatever ayahuasca or whatever in a cut maybe you should build a thing where if you want to team build people have a corporate retreat on you know one of these old boats well you know a lot of these boats do that there's uh when i was uh first getting paid to sail it was in newport and there's the old america's cup 12 meter fleet all these america's cup boats and they all have these amazing corporate programs where you can go there and they charter the fleet out and you have all these sort of corporations where everyone's on board racing the boat together and you're having fun you're drinking beer and you're really racing and then you have a big lobster bake afterwards there you go the only downside is

that one employee that everyone hates we probably'd probably make him walk the plank. Maybe he fell off. Yeah. I mean, that's a great thing about international waters. Seen that movie. All right. Well, thank you very much, Will, for coming on the show. Give us your dot coms one more time.

Oh, yeah. It's willsoffrin.com, W-I-L-L-S-O-F-R-I-N.com. There you go. Will, thank you very much for coming to the show. This has been fun and delightful. Hey, thanks for having me, Chris, and I do hope I see you out in Catalina this fall. I need to put that on my thing.

You have resurrected something I've forgotten through all the crazy stuff I do. I need to go back to Catalina. I do want to go see that season with the, is it the fly fishing? Is it the fly fish? The fish that will actually fly? And the water that goes underneath. I've been,

I've taken the submarine there on Catalina Island and seen, you know, all the undergrowth and it's so beautiful and so untainted. Hopefully it still is. I don't know. It is still drop-de dead gorgeous out there good i mean it's it's to go from nasty ass long beach harbor to uh to there and i you know i the boat experience

is kind of fun but i don't have a lot of fun the way i used to go on the bus boat uh that isn't quite as fun as what you're doing with going with a small boat uh i eventually gave up the bus boat and plus time um and i used to do the helicopter back and forth that is a fucking fun ride in fact i got a few cool stories about that um but we used to do the the helicopters to go back and forth i think back in the day they go like every 10 minutes to 15 minutes i think it was or maybe it's 10 minutes to 15 minutes. I think it was, or maybe it was 10 minutes to fly. I think it was every half an hour.

They do the flying and being able to fly. I recommend this because being able to fly into Canada and Ireland and see everything from that view is really epic. I mean, I'm not, I'm not discounting the boat thing. No, no,

no. It's another perspective. I love that and then being able to fly over the queen mary is is a total boner and uh the the they have two stops they'll do they'll stop at the queen base of the queen mary or the butt of the queen mary whatever you want to call it um clearly i'm not a maritime specialist uh is it the is it the aft of the stern stern stern of the queen mary which is the aft is that it's stern is aft okay all right and the bar at the queen mary's beautiful and and i'll get i photographed the shit out of it i photographed most a lot of the queen mary actually um and

sounds like you're talking about a real person uh well i could be, yeah, that too. So, but the other place it lands, it lands at, it lands at another boat on the other part of the harbor. And I forget what it's called. Two point, no, the two points is on Catalina. But anyway, so one time we're flying out of Catalina and we go to the other boat area. It's a military boat that's there and it's a landing

spot for the other part of, of the Catalina service. And the guy goes, Hey, we're going to go there first and then drop this couple off. And then we're going to go over to the, uh, Queen Mary to drop you off. I'm like, okay, fuck it. You know?

And so the beautiful part was I was pretty fat back then. I still am. And, uh, let's be honest. And so they always make me ride in the front of the bubble helicopter and so you have that whole view that's just fucking epic and they always be like uh yeah with your weight dude we got to put you in the front and i'm like is there a downside i don't know i can't see shit out there and so you can see all the beautiful boats like

yours they're probably going back and forth to catalina island you can see all the beautiful boats like yours that are probably going back and forth to Catalina Island. You can see just everything. It's such a view. And so we landed and he goes, hey, man, I got to pull a stunt to get this thing over the Long Beach Harbor. You know, those big hangers that pull the containers off the ship. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a whole row of them. We got to get over those. And so he goes, buckle buckle up hold on to your

hold on to your pants we're gonna we're gonna do some chop to get over this thing this motherfucker turns that thing into like vietnam mash style helicopterism i don't know even know if that makes any sense but we he literally takes that thing and we're not more than a foot off the ground when he goes into full chop mode and i I'm looking at the, I'm looking at the front curve legs and it's almost like a mash helicopter from the mash movie. And, and I'm looking at the curve legs that are two feet above the fucking ground when we're almost at a 45 degree angle. And he is jacking this shit because we have to get a lot of up chop to be able to clear these things to go over to the queen mary and it was it was frightening and it was exhilarating it was like it was like a drug that i've rarely felt ever and uh we made that chop and i'm sitting there going we're not gonna

make those fucking things we're gonna crash into those things but the way he lifted off it was it was it was just like mash vietnam style man it was some crazy shit that he was doing with that helicopter and and we rode over and then the beautiful part was we got to go what i normally don't get is over the top from the front of the queen mary and back and just being able to see the whole beauty of it the old dome that used to house howard hughes's uh boat or well it was a boat plane um i forget what that was called but it was so beautiful to see so i highly recommend people go on that journey with you uh to catalina it's just it's so wonderful everything is so beautiful

out there except for long beach harbor fuck that shit nasty now you're making me want to do that helicopter ride for sure oh you should man you should it's it's want to do that helicopter ride for sure. Oh, you should, man. You should. It's fun to do. The boat's great. But if you ever just want to go out, and I think it's like a 10-minute ride as opposed to the two-hour ride on the big boat, the bus boat. The bus boat, it's like riding a bus on the water. It's nice.

They got this crazy new high-speed one that looks like a cigarette they like a cigarette but like everyone puts on like roller coaster are you serious yeah i'm dead serious and they get that thing going like 50 miles an hour on the water or something it's insane it looks but it's got to be fun to have like a sailboat in the catalina harbor where you're sleeping on the water i mean it was our pandemic hotel oh really you did that that was the whole thing we would just take take a break i bought the boat with two partners and we just took turns taking our families out to take my daughter out my wife and we'd sail out and just snorkel and anchor the boat and just have a blast damn that's what i should have done during the pandemic man that would have been next one right

i'm always jealous of the guys in the uh in the uh who have the boats in the harbor i'm just like god that would be so much fun. And then, you know, and then there's that, what's that famous story about who's the movie star who fell overboard? Oh, right. But you know, like, what happened to her and there's no evidence and we don't know. Yeah. So I always say, I should

note to self, take your enemies on boat rides in international waters. There you go. Anyway, man, it was wonderful to have you on boat rides in international waters. Anyway, man, it was wonderful to have you on the show. Very fun. Will, thanks for coming on. There you go. Thanks for having me, Chris. This has been great. There you go. And I need to get

an affiliate link for the... Whoever owns the helicopter service, you can pay me a referral fee if he takes the flight. But it's fun to do at least once or twice. It's ride and to see the queen mary in all its glory from above is just epic i have photos of it it's it's epic and i think i filmed it i think it's on the video somewhere i love that ship i mean having brunch on her is just one of the highlights oh yeah have you done the breakfast buffet yeah yeah it's out of control it is that is like out of control i couldn't even do that anymore there was a time where i could and you see a lot of stars there too yeah like there'll

be stars there but it's epic the food and then being in the there's something about that titanic era uh feel and just walking that boat i mean i've spent days on that boat photographing everything and there's probably like i don't know 20 000 photographs i have of that boat some mean i've spent days on that boat photographing everything and there's probably like i don't know 20 000 photographs i have of that boat some of it's just boring and stuff but the bar is the bar is something i always love that big the dining room is beautiful it's just and just that romanticism of it i don't know it's it's it's the whole thing they still won't let me stand on the on the on the end of the tit and scream, I'm the king of the world. I said I was banned from that.

I don't know what that means. It's like every cruise ship captain's nightmare. There you go. There you go. I'm sure everybody thinks that they should do that. And it is fun with our sailboat. When we were, I don't know, I imagine you've done this, but with our sailboat, we used to hang out over the edge. This is long before Titanic. But we used to hang out over the edge, and you would see the water crashing under you in the bow, but you wouldn't see the bow.

And it was fun. And you just felt like you were riding on the wind and the wave. But there you go. What I love is that dolphins love sailboats. They come up, and they catch the bow wave so what i've done a lot is you kind of get down there and you duck under that rail and you try and touch the dolphins when they're that would be awesome man that would be freaking awesome uh so there you go a lot of excitement and fun you're going to have order up the book wherever fine books are sold uh all hands on deck a modern day high seas adventure to the far side of the world by Will Sofran.

Available now wherever fine books are sold. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortuness Chris Voss, youtube.com, Fortuness Chris Voss, linkedin.com, Fortuness Chris Voss, and all those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time. And that should have us out.