Three Years in a 12-foot Boat

By: Stephen Ladd

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

This second edition, new and improved, came out in 2019. (Also, this ebook is reflowable whereas the one for the 1st edition was not.) For anyone who dreams of sailing away, it remains a classic memoir of a 15,000-mile solo expedition with a tiny, hand-made boat. Bent on discovery, Ladd ranges from Montana to the pirate-infested coast of Panama and Colombia, across the Andes, down a 600-mile river by night to avoid guerrillas, and through the Caribbean. Robbed, capsized, arrested and befriended, he sails and rows through a tumult of uncharted adventures. The cast of characters: Dieter, mad ex-Nazi on a desert island; Hans, the smuggler who disappears at sea; castaways, prostitutes and fortune seekers. Stow away with a poetic storyteller on a stormy voyage through nineteen countries, on the razor's edge between freedom and fear, loneliness and love.

Casual racism

I didn’t get far, it’s hard with the AI narrator already, but only 5 chapters in he has talked more about sex along his journey than the boat.

AI butchers poetry

I like the adventure, the initiative etc. I’m just not a fan of the AI narration and how it butchers poetry so badly. But it is an interesting story and you do get a performance worthy of the $4 purchase.