Log of the Molly B

It's Vancouver, Canada in the early 1980s. Greenpeace has just been founded, Bob Geldof has just had his first hit, Ireland is a waste land. Dubliner Pete Hogan finally gets it together to build his own boat, a Tahiti Ketch, an iconic American sailboat design. His dream is to sail away into the sunset and be like his heroes, the famous singlehanded sailors Knox Johnston and Taberly. It does not quite work out like that, but he does build his boat, the Molly B, and sails it engineless and on a shoestring down the coast of California, through the Panama Canal, and across the Atlantic to Ireland, with numerous adventures along the way. Ten years later he sails it around the world. He meets a girl. The boat sinks in the Mediterranean in a storm. Pete is lucky to survive. In short, this is the story of one boat, the 30 foot long Molly B, from building to shipwreck, and the man who lived to tell the tale. It is lavishly illustrated by the author, a professional artist.

"Pete Hogan's passion for the sea and for his boat, the Molly B, comes through on every page, both in his words and in his wonderfully atmospheric ink and watercolour illustrations. His paintings are, like the story itself, full of telling detail, humour, and, in the end, the most stunning drama. An extraordinary memoir!" - P.J. Lynch, award-winning illustrator"

Pete Hogan is a well-known visual artist, who specialises in paintings of cityscape and seascape. The Log of the Molly B describes his days as a boat bum when he sailed solo around the world by way of Cape Horn in a boat which he built himself. For this voyage he was awarded honorary membership of the Royal St George Yacht Club and the Irish Cruising Club. Pete Hogan’s artwork is contained in several public and corporate collections, and countless private collections all over the world.