A Splendid Madness: A Man, a Boat, a Love Story - Hardcover

Thomas Froncek has had a long career as a writer and editor, and now sails a Catalina 25 on Casco Bay and the Gulf of Maine.

A Splendid Madness is Thomas Froncek's story of how he fell in love with boats and became a sailor when he was already well into middle age. ...Froncek brings both an eloquence and enthusiasm to his subject that belies the fact that he's only been sailing for a few years. His insights are fresh and so infused with enthusiasm that he makes them genuinely his own. His sense of place for the Hudson River on which he learned to sail makes for wonderful reading. That which is good in this book is very good. And when this book is very good, it is inspired. --SAILING magazine

A common love story uncommonly well told. --Portland Press Herald/Sunday Telegram

The subtitle of Thomas Froncek's A Splendid Madness says it all: A Man, A Boat, A Love Story. For some reason even he doesn't entirely understand, Froncek decided to take sailing lessons. His new obsession with the sport eventually led him to buy a secondhand boat and learn the ropes on the tricky waves and in the fickle winds of the Hudson. While those who share the sailing bug will probably appreciate the book more (there's a lot of detail about what a financial drain it is), Froncek's descriptions of the passing landscape and his harrowing near misses, as well as his attempt to explain why we suddenly become passionate about something, should strike a chord in any reader. --Hudson Valley magazine