Take a deep dive with us this week on the SHIPSHAPE podcast as we talk to Eric Wiberg, ship captain, maritime historian, lawyer and author of no less than 25 (yes, twenty-five) books. Although, the title ‘adventurer’ will seem much more appropriate once you’ve heard him out! 

Bribing pilots to move boat parts, being in charge of 9 ships by the time he was 25, “meeting guys in bars” and near death experiences all contribute to this story playing out rather more like fiction than real life. All the while, wading through the treacherous waters of corruption and accountability in the seafaring realm. 

Join as he educates us on how far someone can get in the maritime world by ‘winging it’, and just how important he thinks it is to not “be a passenger in life”.

Check out more from Eric at www.ericwiberg.com

Brought to you by SHIPSHAPE

Transcript ——

Farah [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to the Shipshape Podcast, a series of podcasts where we meet amazing people and talk about their experiences, personal, technical and or related to the maritime world. Come and dive in. Dive in, Dive in.

 

Merrill [00:00:42] Today on the Shipshape podcast, we have Eric Weber, captain and maritime historian based in Boston, Massachusetts. The two hosts today are Merrill Charette. I’m a liveaboard on a Ta-Shing Tashiba, 36, in Boston, Massachusetts, and Farah.

 

Farah [00:00:58] Hi, my name is Farah, and I have been a presenter for about 20 odd years now and it’s a pleasure to be with Merrill and Eric today on this podcast on Ship Shape.

 

Merrill [00:01:10] So Eric, how is it going and where are you recording this from?

 

Eric [00:01:14] Oh wonderful. I’m recording it from a nautical club in Rhode Island, and I started in my career as a boat boy here, so it’s especially exciting to be a member and to be able to stay here. It’s kind of like the American dream. You know, you you work at somebody’s estate and then you get to stay in an estate when you’re an adult.

 

Merrill [00:01:32] So you have this whole background of sailing adventure, the amount of books you’ve written, the movies that you’ve been on. But what about the sea attracts you to it?

 

Eric [00:01:45] Sure. I honestly wanted to walk around the world. That was my childhood dream, and I realized there’s all this little stuff that’s really deep and I’m a pretty good swimmer, but even I couldn’t handle that. So I found that I could get on board a boat pretty much by talking my way on board and and that I could go places for free. Eventually I might even get paid. The difficulty was that eventually I was expected to know how to operate the boat. And a lot of the time there was a lag between what I knew and what they expected me to know. So I burned the tip of my finger off trying to fix an engine while it was working, and I would they’d send me to the front of the boat to fix it up, and I’d have to yell back like, What’s a gooseneck? You know, where’s the jib? And eventually, however they normally they learned what an idiot I was after we left.

 

Merrill [00:02:32] Was your family big into sailing?

 

Eric [00:02:35] No. We ran aground and destroyed the first two boats we bought. We weren’t.

 

Farah [00:02:40] When did you get into this, Eric? I mean, what age are we looking at?

 

Eric [00:02:44] Sure. When I was 17, an uncle was in a sort of midlife crisis and asked me to join him. And so I’ll never forget the moment was because my mom’s like a professional athlete. You were never good enough for her. And so we left the harbor, and we were bouncing in the Baltic against these massive seas. But I didn’t know any different. You know, I was from Bahamas. This is in Sweden. And what happened was the captain asked us like if we wanted to keep going. And I was like, Yeah, you know, like, let’s go to like the mainland of Sweden. And these huge ferries were rolling around and they were like turning back and we were like, this little 30 foot boat. And I was like, Let’s go. And we turned back, of course, but I was extremely pleased that I had found something that I just didn’t ever seem to get seasick. And when when we did do the passage out of half the crew were sick and I was one of the only ones at age 17. So and then 18, I was paid to race to Bermuda. And by then I was like, too young to spend four days at sea and then find this gorgeous island on the horizon that almost no one knew about. I was absolutely hooked. So I just finished my 32nd Bermuda voyage. So I really have done a voyage every year since on average.

 

Farah [00:03:58] Wow. I’m incredible.

 

Merrill [00:04:00] What type of boat you sailing on these days?

 

Eric [00:04:02] Well, I’ve never owned one, and it’s kind of like a busman’s holiday. But the last boat was a secondhand 59 foot Hinkley. So I would describe it as a very, very comfortable boat.

 

Merrill [00:04:13] What was your first major trip that you went off on?

 

Eric [00:04:18] When I was a sophomore in college, I sold my books for $382, and I had given up my seat to get a free ticket to Antigua. And I grabbed the free agent and I said, Are you going to get me a job in Antigua? And he said, No, I’m not, because you’re a 19 year old idiot and good luck. I think you should go. And I’m like, But I paid my $25 dues. And she’s like, No, just go up to a dude that looks like a sailor on the airplane and tell him you want to sail with him. She’s like, That’s the only advice I’m going to give you because you’re a nobody and I’m a somebody. So I walked up to this guy and said, You look like a sailor. I want to sail. And it turned out he was like this big navigator build something from Newport. He invited me on his boat. I cleaned the boat out for him, and I lived there for a week until I got a passage to Bermuda. And then from Bermuda I went to Belgium and that was a seven week job. The owner said he would look after me. I got $9 in seven weeks. I lost £35 because he didn’t feed us and the water was rotten in the refrigeration group. One guy tried to stab me twice as he had no cocaine and the woman refused to say to a captain so he wouldn’t talk to any of us. He just took all the food and sulked. For two weeks he missed Bermuda and then he would have missed Europe. Except I told him, like, I’m looking at land. And he said, Why do you say that? I said. Because I’m looking at man and like if you go east from North America for three weeks, you’re probably going to hit Europe. And that’s probably what we’re seeing. And who is that guy was hopeless. So he didn’t there any of to immigration. So eventually immigration in Belgium came after us like and at that point, he gave me I think he just gave me like a bus ticket and dumped me on the side of the road at night in the rain drunk. And I had to, like, hitchhike that newsstand and take it very. When I got to England to go to Oxford, they said there are two months between now July and when you start in Oxford in September, how much money do you have? I said, I have about $15. They said, Where are you going to stay? I said, With my sister and where? And it was a fancy address, Harcourt Terrace. And they’re like, What are you going to do? I’m like, I don’t really know. And then I just go, just enter the country. It was totally it would never happen today. I told them my dad was a diplomat in the Bahamas. They’re like, okay, you know what.

 

Farah [00:06:29] Eric? I have to ask, how did your parents take all this? I mean, you were 17 years old, 18 years old. These experiences.

 

Eric [00:06:35] They my mother being American, wanted to sue him because I took the city of London. My brother in law worked for Ambrose Bank in London, and I took his letter of recommendation, which this Frenchman had scrawled on the back of the napkin, and it said, in French, I give you my best souvenir. I’m like, You prick, I just saved your ass for seven weeks by, like, helping find the boat over to Europe. And I’m your souvenir, and you gave me $9. But the other way, this is a true story. We left Bermuda without leaving immigration. So they said, Eric, come back and back. And the guy shut off the radio. He was a drunk. I thought it was water, but it was vodka. The other guy was a nudist. So I got stuck with these nudists. I was like 18, actually. I’m like, now I might have been attracted back then. So I was convinced they’re going to rape and throw me in the water so I wouldn’t leave my cabin. So they’re banging on the door. We have something really important. I’m like, Yeah, I’m sure it’s really important to you, but I’m not open this door. They’re like, We’re turning back. I’m like, Back where? They’re like, We’ll never make it to Europe. We don’t know where to go. I’m like, Well, if you go to Bahamas, you don’t have to pay my airfare. To conclude the story, I told my parents I was going to meet my brother in Portugal and we were to go backpacking for a month, right? Like every 18 year olds dream. Well, I show up in Nassau four weeks, like 14 days later, and I’m looking for my brother in a nightclub, But I’m like, virtually naked. And I bang into the speakers, so I’m covered in blood and I get thrown out of every nightclub in the country because, like, I looked like I was insane. So I break into my parents house and I bang on their interior bedroom door and I say, Mom, I’m dead. And they’re like, It’s four in the morning. Where the hell is it? And I said, My brother’s name is John. And I go, It’s me, it’s Eric. And there was a silence. And my mother. Since you asked what my mother’s thoughts were, my mother goes, John, you’re drunk. Eric is in Portugal. Sleep it off. So I slept in there is he’s like, Eric, what are you doing here? I’m like, I tried to tell you at five in the morning, like, I’m home. So that was my start in yachting.

 

Merrill [00:08:34] And then you just built a passion off that.

 

Eric [00:08:37] You know, honestly, it’s a fear and passion, I guess. Are the two magnets, right? But the opposite end of the spectrum. I wanted to go places, you know, and when I no longer wanted to go places, I kind of left, you know, I got as far as New Zealand and I say like, I don’t know, 80,000 miles or something. And I was a captain and the boat was leaking. It was kind of stressful. And I thought I thought to myself, it wasn’t accidental. I’m like, like, you can’t be an admiral of yachts. Like, there’s no Christopher Columbus wasn’t like a yacht admiral, like, you know, nor was like Nimitz or any of these guys, you know, Magellan. Like, I’m like, I need something bigger. Like if I want to be, like, important, I’ve got to, like, find important vessels. So that’s when I got into, like, tankers and brokers. I was like, I remember I was in Singapore operating. There were 21 ships in our fleet and I operated nine meeting like I really had operational control over nine vessels. So like we’re all over the world, from Kamchatka to Rosario, Argentina, you name it, or East Africa. And someone asked me what I did once. I was like an American girl, like 20. I was 25 and I started laughing uncontrollably. I’m like, I’m in charge of nine ships. Like I’m sure no right to be in charge. And I’m like, a bit like, don’t ask me how the hell I ended up in this position, but I was so guys would call me up. I’d be a disco Jack. I’d be like, The captain just got arrested. I’m like, Who are you? He’s like, I’m like, dancing at Elvis’s, you know, on my cell phone. And he’s like, Yeah, I like, what do I do? I’m like, Who were you? He’s like, I’m the first officer. I’m like, All right, buddy. Like, just take the anger out and get the hell out of there. He’s like, No, no, you won’t. You don’t understand. I’m the first officer. I’m not the captain. The captain got arrested by the Indonesians at gunpoint. I’m like, First officer, you’re now the captain. Like, Well, anchor, get the hell out of there. And he’s like, Oh, I’m like, Yeah, I would just. Oh, like, we’ll worry about the paperwork later. Just like, he’s like, Where do I go? I’m like, the Straits of Malacca, like towards Bay of Bengal. We’ll figure it out. And that’s what he did. So when you call on a result, they, you know, they always like side with us, right? Because no India, no sheriff from Indonesia or a sergeant in the Indonesian police force ever paid a bloody dime to a London insurer. So when you call one of them like, Hey, our ship got arrested, send us new paperwork by helicopter. I’m sure Amanda, tell us where they’re going to go. You know, it doesn’t matter when you’re a ship owner, you’re kind of like the boss, you know?

 

Farah [00:10:57] I mean, Eric, I have to ask you this. I mean, so you’re a barista, you know, a story, and you write books if you’re a captain. If you were to define yourself, just one word, sum yourself up, what would it be? You know, allowed a sentence. Just a word, an adventure.

 

Eric [00:11:12] Really?

 

Farah [00:11:13] Yeah, I can go with that. I think the amount of stories I’m hearing in one instance, if you were my son, I’d be very worried. But I have let you out of the house.

 

Eric [00:11:23] But first of all, I’m the middle child, so I got to escape. Like I had to go like this name tag. But the other thing is, and this is one of the things that people I don’t think people appreciate and it’s kind of European, but my philosophy is charm is under estimating. I took an airplane from Singapore with a motor cosmic $18,000 to move That motorcade left in 1997. And when I got to Caracas, I needed not a remarkable I gave a $50 bribe to get that motor onto a smaller plane. And it was so illegal that the pilots ran off the plane and started pushing our luggage until they found my motors and realized they’d been completely scammed because they had trouble getting out of the air. I also talk about we entered the cockpit on a flight from Piraeus, Greece, to Mombasa, and the pilot, Nigel, said to me it was Eric Caledonia spring of 91. And Nigel goes, Oh, no. Oh no. And you don’t ever want to hear your barber probably gynecologist or like doctor or airplane pilot say, Oh, no. I was like, What do you mean, Nigel? What do you mean, Oh, no, He’s like, you so cheap in Athens, but it’s so expensive in Mombasa. We have too much fuel and the runway is too short. This is before the Angeliki to the new airport in Greece. So the guy was having trouble, like taking off because they had too much fuel. I was like, Oh, man. I’m like, why did I come to the cockpit? I would have been completely clueless in the back of the plane. But I met a guy in a bar in like Fulham in London the night before who said he knew Nigel, a pilot, you know. And so I got on the cockpit.

 

Merrill [00:12:57] So what I when you refer to charming, what do you mean by that? What makes a person charming?

 

Eric [00:13:03] Well, I have mood swings, so I know the opposite of charming is to be like, mean, nasty, arrogant, demeaning. But, like, charm is, like, just nice, you know? But making an effort to connect with people. Like when I go to security at an airport and I see the guy’s name is Mike Jones Junior, I’m like, Oh, your dad’s name? Michael. And he’s, you know, it’s such a simple thing to do. But he’s telling you that his dad’s name, Michael, right? Because he’s Mike Junior. So you’re like, you know, your dad’s it and that like, immediate, you make a connection that normally gets you arrested. But it just really being nice to people and making an effort like that’s what I learned how to say no problem. And like more languages than I can count Peter apart. Yeah, Monday. Nash I’ve been on a charter like every because a sailor doesn’t know shit about worries landing like he just is dumped in some foreign country Cologne, Tahiti, Ho Chi Minh City boomtown And you got to see your bio, you know, and we’re done by nature. Sailors are naive because the people that you live with are people you can trust because you’re all on the same team. Suddenly you get off the ship in the middle of some or God knows where and you’ve got a lot of money and you don’t look like everyone else. So you’ve got to figure it out really quickly. So you got to lay the truth. I was once jumped by six guys at three in the morning and they said, Hey, man, give us your money. And I said, Guys, if I had money, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to be walking in this shithole neighborhood at four in the morning alone? And drew, of course, no money. And you know what? The guys paid for their uncle to give me a cab ride to the only bar that was open and gave me $20 cash.

 

Farah [00:14:43] Now, let’s not.

 

Eric [00:14:44] Get lucky, you know? But that’s also like, you know, my dad got jumped in high school. He was a Swedish kid with a nice new car, and they jumped him and they said, hey, you know, give us your lunch money. And my dad said, That doesn’t make any sense. He said, You know, if I give you my lunch money, like, how am I going to eat? He’s like, he just fresh off the boat in Sweden, age 16, Santa Barbara High School. And he goes, Tell you what, if you come up with more workable solution, all entertaining because what do you propose makes no sense to me and I reject it. And they said to him, like, you’re not scared of us, are you? And he still can’t remember what they looked like because he’s kind of colorblind. Like he just, you know, he just didn’t see them as a group or anything threatening. He just saw them as idiots trying to, you know, get his money. So, you know, they protected him for the next two years in high school. Nobody could mess with my dad because those guys, he was the only. Colorblind kid in high school, Right?

 

Farah [00:15:34] Well, is incredible. Tell me about your books. Eric, tell everybody who’s listening about your books. You said you wrote 25 books.

 

Eric [00:15:42] Well, yeah. I think I just finished my 45th. I wrote a takeoff on Little Prince.

 

Farah [00:15:47] But just in COVID. Just during COVID 25.

 

Eric [00:15:51] That’s right. That’s right. Yeah, I finished.

 

Farah [00:15:53] Which is incredible, given COVID was around for about a year and a half to two years.

 

Eric [00:15:59] And one of them was a thousand pages and the diaries were 732 pages. So think about the encyclopedia. That’s a thousand. That’s a lot of work. But then the diaries were a pyramid from which I could carve out the diaries of sailing, the diaries of travel, the diaries of Singapore, the diaries, and then the diaries of boarding school. Right. And so the diaries were very and better, at least as soon as I brought the book home for and I put a stack, my dad took all the U-boat books and my mom just grabbed the diaries and took them because we were instructed as children to raid my sister’s bedroom and come out with her diaries, you know. But my parents always said, you know, and this isn’t about money. And I like to say I’ve sort of you know, I’ve given my savings towards publishing books. But what matters is sharing. My parents were middle class. Maybe, you know, they never changed their house in 55 years. They never bought a new car, ever. You know, I never have. But you have to give back. When we came back to boarding school, took spring break, and we all wanted to party and chase girls, whatever. And my parents said, You’re going to work in an orphanage, you’re going to paint a church, you’re going to do something useful instead of just get angry and and chase people around, you know, in your Volvo like it’s, you know. So books to me are way of giving back. And whenever my parents funded a trip when I was younger, they asked me to account. How did you spend your money? Where did you go? Who did you meet? And I got so good at it that Lonely Planet would give me free copies because I would like. I would send my report to my parents, to Lonely Planet, and they would give me a free copy because it just verified or improved the data that they had because it was an unvarnished account. Like I would say, I went to the where every guest house in Taronga, Malawi, whichever Tanzania and I paid three watches or shillings and whatever, you know, this is the one on one day my favorite meal, which is rice and beer. I thought it was beef. I didn’t ask the camels or the giraffes, you know. Every book ends with my son’s name, every single book that I can put on the back cover wherever. And I have another rule, and that is that I have to cry and I have to cry. Writing. And something in the book has to make me cry. It’s not worth writing. And I’m just going to tell one quick vignette. The Guide to Australia told me that his grandfather had fought for Greece in World War Two, and like many people he emigrated to Melbourne, Australia. And I love this story. Well, you may not know, but after the war more people live in Melbourne, Australia. They’re Greek than anywhere in the world except Athens. So the grandfather, right, and as a Swedish guy from Bahamas, was like a Jewish sounding last name, was raised American like, I get it. The old man would walk into a Greek taverna and you know, they would they they stood up. The Greeks stood up. It’s so simple. It’s so simple. And that’s the kind of stuff I write about. If I wanted to make money, I wouldn’t write about an English guy. I go to a café in Melbourne, I would write a book called Titanic and I’d be a friggin millionaire. But it’s the little stuff, you know, it’s little stuff like human connection and sympathy and empathy and and also like all of us are. So what you know, that, that trying to bring it all together and I can’t stand words like the enemy and like the victor and we and us and patriots I can’t stand propaganda I can’t stand it it’s prevalent even today. I just can’t stand it. To me, it’s such bullshit, you know? And I’d rather write a true story about someone with their pros and cons than some bullshit about how somebody is that great. And other people are like, awful. You know, there is the truth is somewhere in the middle, because we’re all great and we’re all awesome. One of my favorite images as a little boy in a rehab in Thailand who’s on a tour of a rehab, it’s supposed to teach the kids, not some drug addicts. Right. And he runs over to one of the inmates and he kneels down and it’s his father. You know, it’s his father. He, like, shows him respect. It’s those are the moments I don’t know that I like. Sorry to get all carried away, you.

 

Farah [00:20:02] Know, I mean, it’s fascinating. I mean, this this leads to another question that’s just come to mind is I know all your books obviously are I represent many aspects of you, your experiences. But can you tell me one book that’s quintessentially Eric, which literally embodies exactly who you are, what you’ve been through, one book which you would like to share with everybody that you say speaks volumes.

 

Eric [00:20:24] It’s a bit irreverent, but I guess as I get older, I write more simply and more to the point. The book is called First 50 and 50. So at age 25, I wrote a memoir about sailing around the world pretty much called Grand World The Wrong Seas. It took me like 100 pages just to get off the ground and then, you know, to start with. And then I played a midwestern religious lady like money to carve out the naughty bits. And she cut out a hundred pages. I’m like, What are what? I’m like, Are you kidding? Like. But she did it. So the book I like the most is first 1550. And my mom had given me my children’s archive. Right. And I just was so overwhelmed because it was like four linear feet of stuff. You know, every report card, every every day, every hour, every book. And I said to my girlfriend, who’s a writer, how am I ever going to finish a book about my son? She likes to joke. She and I are in love with the same person. Yeah. Yeah. It’s that bad. So I said, How am I going to finish a book about myself, like in less than a thousand pages? She said, with all due respect, like, keep it to 50 pages and call it first 50 of 50 and be done with it. You know how to write about is your favorite topic. So in one day I wrote 29 pages, single spaced, and that is the ball 50 and 50. I added a little bit here and there. There are some strong opinions in there visiting religion and all the rest of it, but it is the best encapsulation of the first 50 years of my life that I like to think I learned kind of hard, but fruitful.

 

Farah [00:21:55] That’s amazing.

 

Merrill [00:21:56] So I take it when you hear people say, Oh, you know, I’ll have adventures when I get older, you’re like, No, no, no, that’s a terrible idea.

 

Eric [00:22:06] I have. Forbes said it best when you made it, you’ve had it, you know. But but more optimistically, I am not a perfectionist, and I shouldn’t have clients hearing this. But I have a team in Pakistan and others that they help me. But I’m a closer. It should be done. They say if you want something done right and quickly, give it to somebody who’s busy, Give it to the mother of four children who’s an executive, you know, give it to the guy who’s a sports coach and he runs a company or whatever, people who are busy. And my goal is books cannot be written until they’re finished in public. They can’t be read. And the goal of the book is to be read, and it’s still something I’m mastering or trying to master. But my latest book is 15 pages and it’s a it’s called Island, and it’s about recreating a place of happiness for people who have been through trauma and just observing the world and choosing what you want out of it. And the message is empowerment is and the message is very simple. No one can put you on your knees but you. And in AA, being on your knees has a different meaning. But only you can kneel or bow or you know. And only you should make that decision. And that’s that’s the message is this kind of little prince message, you know.

 

Merrill [00:23:19] So I definitely want to hit on some of the World War two stuff and the U-boats and all the books that you’ve written about that. And for a lot of our listeners, I mean, they’ve certainly heard about U-boats, but the Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continual battle of World War Two, and it really highlighted waste on a massive scale. So could you talk a little bit about that? Maybe What is one of your favorite sea stories?

 

Eric [00:23:47] Sure. I feel a little bit heavy, so I try to be a little more enlightened, but mostly, okay, I’m going to end with the story of an Italian prince and his dog. But to get there, I’m going to explain that almost no one in America realizes that several hundred Italian and German submarines attacked and killed 5000 people in U.S. waters in World War Two. So that’s twice those of Pearl Harbor. And and these are allies that were killed by German attack, direct submarine attack, and then 30%, more than 911. So how do you turn that into something real? So one of the reasons is when through all of back and forth, right. The first the Italians attacked us and one of them, his name was that. You know, I feel everyone kind of knows about the German side. So the Italian isn’t so well-known. So the Italians had the best fleet of submarines in the world at that when the Germans were fighting what we’re doing. And so the Germans wanted that fleet, but they didn’t like the Italian style of battle. The Germans are extremely rigid. You see a ship, you wait, you tell everyone, you wait for them to assemble, and then you all attack that ship in a convoy. And it’s called the wolf Pack. Well, the Italians are like a ship all the time, and the Germans like. No, no, no, you wait. And then you call your other guys and they all attack and the Italians like attack. And they’re like, No, no. So they wouldn’t get it. So the Italians were getting the rearguard action east of the Bahamas to kind of get the ships that the Germans flushed out. And one of them went down to Jamaica. The Italians and the Germans went, it’s not where they didn’t go, it’s where they did. How do you say it’s not where they went? It’s where they didn’t go. The only place the Italians and Germans didn’t go. Was Panama and the North Pacific. As the Japanese add that they had ships and subsequent ships going over the Arctic from the Baltic all the way to Japan. And they had they attacked New Zealand, they attacked Australia, the Red Sea. I mean, everywhere they took an entire oil fleet from the Arctic, they captured the mothership and they were unit wise and they had one of the Norwegian captains speaking and say, Come to Baba. And they all came to Papa. And as they arrived they were kidnaped and, you know, by a German raider. So it was really amazing story. Some of them you don’t hear about because the German was smart enough that if he sang the ship in New Zealand, he would get sunk and die. And the Italians were all over the Red Sea in the Persian Gulf, but didn’t say anything sometimes because they didn’t want to get killed. But the story ends with two men. One is that’s unique is though he was a prince of I don’t think it wasn’t a kimathi. It was another driver. But he was a captain. No, this guy was a cat count. A cargo ventured together and his boat was the. And then he got that solo. So he gets north of the Bahamas and he’s sinking like a ship every day for, like, a week. He’s a total badass. So he wasn’t killing people necessarily, but he was sinking their ships. And then the Greeks and the Italians are yelling each other. But he made one big mistake. The ship was sinking and he thought he’d go in for an attack. But the British fought back on the day Etonian or the Alpha Queen. And so the sub didn’t stop. Soon enough, they went under the water and they hit the ship. You’re supposed to hit the ship with their torpedo, not with your submarine. So the submarine, the nose got all vented then, and it couldn’t. It had to limp back to Italy without firing submarines, any torpedoes, even though they had to, you know, torpedo tubes. So on the way back to Europe is the true story. He had no torpedoes to fire, so he would just like he could have gone straight to the Med or it was in Bordeaux, was better than Bordeaux somewhere. And instead, whenever he saw a ship, he pop up and be like me. And the ships.

 

Farah [00:27:28] Were being.

 

Eric [00:27:28] Attacked. They said, All these, we’re being attacked. They did this so often. The Germans are like the Germans started coming each other because you had every German record. If you want to find every record in English, you can find them. And they’re like, Hey, is that you attacking that ship? I sent you Officer East. He’s like, No, Fredrik, I am so sorry. I don’t know who did it. And you’re like, they’re like, talking to each other. Like, who the hell is scaring these ships? And it was just the Italian kind of having fun. He he kidnaped a kitten off one of the ships. But then the story had a darker ending because when he got back to Italy, the submarine was sunk in the Bay of Biscay, and he was like on land. And they switched sides and he’s like, Dada, you know, I’m a nobleman. And my family have been fighting for the king of Italy for hundreds of years. And I demand an audience with the king, the kings, like, yeah, whatever, man. We just collapsed government. And I’m like, fleeing on a rubber boat on the east coast of Italy. I don’t have time for this. And he’s like, But I demand an audience. I’m a loyal subject, and I just won all these battles in the Caribbean and the Kings like later. And so he took his own life. But the nice thing is they have a submarine now named after Carlo, which I think is on the other story. I know this is a sort of eco friendly podcast, but I was invited to meet with Niccolo. He has a 50 in there, but he’s the reigning prince of demanding to private house, kind of like a castle. And the guy I’m with is his wife runs the Humane Society. Right? So everyone deferential and being fed like cold cucumber slices and mango tea by a Filipino staff and everything seems to be going really swimmingly. But then. But then I lean in, right, to show the camera pictures of a submarine that I needed to know. Did he land in bonds? And I hear this scratching up and it’s like and it’s getting like faster. It’s like nails on marble. And it was it was his German shepherd. And I crossed the invisible line of the Count’s private space or the prince. And so by leaning in with the document, I triggered the dog who I didn’t even know was in like the end of the 400 yard hallway. And he started getting speed. Come on. Like binding. Right. Which is exactly what he did. He got my right shoulder and he’s like yanking my shoulder out and he’s ripped my shirt. I’m bleeding. I’m like, would somebody like, stop this dog? Like? And everyone’s like, But dogs are nice and they never do wrong things. I’m like, What was Tara? And the wife’s in the kitchen going, Everything’s fine, right? No, what? I’m like, there is one. And eventually the prince got him to stop and the dog, like, sulked off. And I spent the next hour and a half in the interview with, like, bleeding the shirt rip and even the cucumber and the mango teeth. Browder did nothing to help.

 

Merrill [00:30:15] Those are some fascinating adventures. You know, you’ve met some pretty interesting people.

 

Eric [00:30:20] To recognize that a tremendous amount of loss on the allied side in U.S. waters. And the reason it was denied is because in order to buy our. Staying out of the war. We appeased, you know, Britain by giving them, you know, all our destroyers for the Atlantic. And in exchange, which we got Bermuda, Bahamas, Antigua with the Newfoundland bases. But the fact is, we didn’t have the capability to wage, much less win a war on the East Coast. And it is the U.S. Navy’s worst defeat ever. It is the worst defeat in the history of United States Navy because we simply didn’t have the tools. And what are the tools we had, you know, were sent overseas. And part of it was FDR cunning ability to keep getting reelected. And he kept assuring the American people that he would never let us get into a major world war. And in order to assure that he couldn’t build up a Navy, couldn’t because then he’d lose the election. So it shows the dark side of democracy, too, right? Because, you know, he sold our security to get reelected. But it’s a very unpopular view to say that. But it’s a fact.

 

Merrill [00:31:28] So, so much knowledge in in maritime. How has maritime changed over time? You know, in a very broad sense. I know that you’re, you know, historian. So you go all the way back, but how have you seen it evolve over time?

 

Eric [00:31:44] I think the word accountability, I think, you know, 30 years ago, a bit more able to sort of be a cowboy. And I think you can still the last bastion of sort of goodness or resistance is the individuals and each port. You have all these multinational IMO and all these different. But if someone in that fort is willing to take your vessel, no matter how crappy it is, no matter how substandard. Look at look at Beirut. A ship blew up. Beirut, a ship filled with ship basically fertilizer. And it blew up because somebody in Beirut, Lebanon, allowed that ship to dock there for a number of years. And it ruined the country’s economy and it ruined thousands of people’s lives. And it killed I don’t know how many, many, many hundreds of people. So if you can find a corrupt person that can let your ship in. Bob’s your uncle. All I’m saying is, and people forget that that’s the hidden weakness of the maritime system, Is it only? Or you buy ammo. And your idea, all these big fancy names, all the big offices in London and Paris, that doesn’t matter where the ship, if somebody can let you into a port to do nefarious bad things or good things, whatever, it’s you really just have to get your way, pass that order. And you know, the brown paper bags filled with U.S. dollars or rubles or whatever, they go a long way. They were a long way 30 years ago. And they go a long way now. No, I just somebody delivered a few bags of cash to somebody in Beirut that allowed that ship to blow up. Right. So it wasn’t free. That ship wasn’t that sitting there for free. Somebody profited from that. So I think were vastly improved. But I think corruption is probably the number one threat to maritime security. I think the livelihood of sailors and so forth is is a lot improved. I think there’s a lot of accountability. For example, nowadays you can track ships movements, you know, most of the time is that you get an E per se. I visit ships every other day. I’ll be going to two ships tomorrow, Boston, and, you know, for seafarers, welfare. So I think that things have gotten a lot, lot better than I mentioned earlier about travel and boarding school, you know, the empowerment that that seafarers have and students have to to highlight bad behavior is massive. But unfortunately, the downside of that is, you know, images from those devices can also be used to blackmail. So so I don’t think there’s ever any ideal, perfect solution that’s foolproof. I don’t think the sea attracts as much criminal behavior as it did 30 years ago. That’s my opinion. 30 years ago in the Bahamas, the drug planes and boats were just the they were more popular than the police. You know, they were so prevalent, which is why it’s so easy to find airplanes in Bahamas, because out of a thousand or so aircraft. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. To them. It’s just drug planes and getting involved in them are going to causing trouble. Right. They don’t see any historic value necessarily.

 

Farah [00:34:41] Eric, how much time do you spend on the water now?

 

Eric [00:34:44] Well, I did just well, so say I go on average about five ships a week, but they don’t report. I did recently do 970 miles in five days from Maine to Bermuda. And I will be spending time in the Bahamas on the water. So to answer your question, I would say less than a mile, you know, between two and three weeks. My son, who’s 15, you know, I want to spend as much time as I can. And I did swear to him that I wouldn’t go back to sea full time. So I compromised. I’m hired by a boat. But I had the honor promise that anytime my son wants to join, he can. And so my son joined me in Bermuda, and it was very meaningful.

 

Farah [00:35:23] So that’s wonderful. Does he have the same thirst for adventure as you do?

 

Eric [00:35:27] He’s a musician, and we just went to a rap concert in Hartford, so. Yes, but it’s channeled into a different direction.

 

Farah [00:35:33] In a different way. Yeah. Do you own your own books as well? No. My answer.

 

Eric [00:35:37] To that was always I’m saying.

 

Farah [00:35:40] If you could pick a boat with all your experiences and, you know, all your adventures, if you were given that opportunity to pick a boat, which one would it be?

 

Eric [00:35:50] I’m not often asked that. To be honest, it would probably be a mid-size comfortable and I hate to say this, but but probably a powerboat or a very comfortable sailing boat. It would not be a speed boat, but there’s a pretty one behind me. And the reason I like that boat behind me is because when everything else screws up and it seems they always do, you could just reach behind your head and pull the sail on, lower it. So I like those the catch and the all the sailing. And the nice thing about a sailboat is very simple. They have no limit on my go venerable to say who I was in Tahiti when he was there. He famously finished this round the world nonstop races to slingshot photos and diaries on the ships. And then he got into bed this day and he’s like, Now what happens? I win this nonstop race around the world. Like, now you go to England and you meet an English queen and English food and look at English women is like he turned around and he went all the way back to Tahiti, one of the half times around the world without stopping to get back to French territory. He was he was raised in Indo-China, Vietnam. But so the nice thing about sailboats is you can sail them one and a half times around the world without stopping as much as he did now.

 

Farah [00:37:03] Fantastic.

 

Merrill [00:37:04] So, you know, if someone was, let’s say, in their teens going into their twenties, what would be one of the tips that you would give them to have an adventurous lifestyle? Be charming. We got that.

 

Farah [00:37:15] One. I’m going to use that.

 

Eric [00:37:17] Honestly. My dad always said things are believe in yourself, which do it your way, but more importantly, have something that you’re special that you can do, whether it’s like cooking or a sail repair or EMT. Every leader is looking for someone with a specialization that they think all of us can be generalists for the most part. But especially when you’re young. Pretty much everyone’s kind of a generalist. But if there’s something you can do, like my dad’s specialty was intellectual property when he was in school. But whatever it is, you know, I make a chiller Swedish pancakes, the only thing I can do, but I’ll tell people I’m cooking the best breakfast ever on your boat, have something special, and I teach them whatever it is, you know.

 

Farah [00:38:03] Something that sets you apart, basically.

 

Eric [00:38:05] Yes. And it’s a skill that you can add, you know, and then develop. And I think those are I think that would be one advice, because you can just take you know, you go on, we can afford to just be a passenger in life. You know, you got to be able to fix a tire in East Africa when a bus broke down, then one, two, three boys would jump off the bus. One would each put a brake under the rear tire so it wouldn’t go down the hill. And the third would like start hammering the engine with wrenches and hammers. You know, everyone had something to contribute and all the passengers would get off the bus and walk to the top of the hill and wait for it to chug to the top. And then we’d board it while it was going down, you know. But everyone had a skill and everyone had something to contribute.

 

Farah [00:38:51] You mentioned earlier on in the interview that you you tend to be moody and so you’d have down days and very good days as well. Can you tell me what is it that you know, you’ve got, even if you’re in a down day and you’re not feeling your best and you are very moody? What is it that makes you get up and get on with it? Every single day, go through all these adventures, write these amazing books, study law, which is, again, not easy. You know, these are all amazing experiences, even through the good, the bad, the ugly. How do you get through it and what makes you get up?

 

Eric [00:39:19] The practical reason is not wanting to be broke.

 

Farah [00:39:23] So story all our lives.

 

Eric [00:39:25] By the end of the day, I’m like, Did I make rent? Like, have I have I earned more than I spent? But one thing that’s and this is if from a personal point of view, I one of the ways that I changed that sort of hangover or downside was by eliminating alcohol, which I’d long to get in prison. And that was the beginning of my new life as a healthy person, mentally and otherwise. And if it sounds like I’m preaching, forgive me, I guess I can’t help it. But when my son was born, or rather conceived, I quit drinking because I never wanted him to see me drunk. And he said to me recently, he said, Daddy, like you’re no fun because I can’t drink because you don’t drink. I said, No, no, you got it all wrong. You’re going to drink, you’re going to party, you’re going to smoke. You’re to do whatever you do. Chase girls, whatever. It’s me. You can call me any time, day or night, any day of the week. That’s the only difference. I’m always going to be sober for you. And that’s the difference, you know? And he said, Oh, okay, that’s better. But for me.

 

Farah [00:40:25] I got my wingman.

 

Eric [00:40:26] Yeah. The biggest fear, to be honest with you, the biggest downer. Of travel to me was waking up on a stranger’s sofa or in a stranger’s balcony or a stranger’s garden or whatever. And and being like alone really far from home. And no one that I knew really well around me and like, being over like the other components were bad enough. But when you throw a hangover in there and like Norway means you spent your money and it’s just it just makes a bad situation a lot worse. I like to joke on a lighthearted note that I never changed a diaper with a hangover. So yeah, yeah, that’s a great way to look at it. But for me, alcohol was something I struggled. I’ve been sober I think, six years and I’ve spent more time trying to get sober than I’ve been. So to me that’s like it’s just so difficult and it’s so like the U-boats. It’s dangerous because it’s like they’re in plain sight, but everyone’s kind of pretending that there isn’t a problem, you know, because alcohol industry is so, so prevalent. But it’s a it’s a real problem that few of us really recognize. And by the way, I have now quit as an intervention officer. When you’re a law student, everyone wants you to like, you know, fix their legal problems. And when you’re so prevalent, what’s it like? Make there are so and so like companion sober. But it’s my little anecdote. There is a law student had her friend call the phone company to sort out a thorny legal issue and the woman said, well, if you’re not Julie, who are you? And the lawyer? The lawsuit said, Well, ma’am, that’s not germane. So for the rest of the phone call, the woman said, Well, Germaine. All right, Germaine.

 

Farah [00:42:04] I’d love to ask you a bit about how you landed up being somebody who has all these amazing nautical adventures. Why not? That’s you move from the marine life and being captain of ships in Singapore to suddenly, you know, studying law. It just just didn’t. How did that happen? And then you went back again to the marine world. How did all that happen?

 

Eric [00:42:25] Well, it’s it’s actually very in Singapore. I was operating them from floor, but I had to be a captain licensed before. But for the record, I haven’t actually operated a tanker as a master. I had a fleet of them and I was able to tell them what to do and then which I had that authority. And most of them were utterly dismayed when they saw I was like a scrawny, you know, 26 year old. They’re like, Oh my God, this is because it was all my talents. Right.

 

Farah [00:42:50] So their fate is in this man’s hands. I mean.

 

Eric [00:42:53] They thought I was a Viking age 60 or something, but the whole purpose of getting them, it was all make sense. The whole purpose of getting the maritime career was because I wanted to be a maritime lawyer. The way it works, I was the night owner of my family and I went to the leading maritime guy in my country, Mr. Jones, like the Counting Crows. And I said, Sir, I want to be a maritime lawyer. And he said, Don’t be like the other idiots and get a law license and then try to muddle through with the maritime. And he said, What you need to do is go operate some ships and tankers and yachts or whatever, so you know your stuff. Then you do your maritime law, then you’re going to be an expert and won’t take you seriously. Bob’s your uncle. He be very successful. So ten years after I had run yachts, run tankers, run whatever, I got my law license and then I passed the bar and then I went to the maritime law firms and the piano production and then the clubs and the insurance. I said, I’m your guy. I’m like, I did. And years I’m really knowledge about all this shit. And they’re like, You spend way too much time in universities and libraries. They’re like, We have no interest in you. We want the guys who’ve been practicing law for basking in years and who are like experts at the law and like you’re not even higher. So basically, if it’s like, if I could, I could wallpaper an entire room with the rejections I got from various law firms. And so I decided to kind of, you know, I was a recruiter. I was good at connecting people, so I was a recruiter. And that introduced me to all the executives. Then I went into then the O8 crash happened, so people were firing on hiring. So they went into media and and then and then I foundered for a little bit and then sort of events and all that. And eventually I got poached into this magnificent, wonderful family tugboat firm where it was just fantastic. And that lasted six years. And unfortunately, movements within the family as a result of the divorce resulted in my moving to a place outside of the Stafford tri state area. But I’ve always kind of lost my own drum. I told someone as I left a recent job, I said, I know you. I said to them, I said, I know you threatened that if I leave this job like I’ll never find another. You know, I’m like, That’s really quaint. There’s something that Al Gore invented called the Internet. And I’m like, I controlled my career, not you and your head.

 

Farah [00:45:13] Absolutely.

 

Eric [00:45:14] You know, the one who hires and fires is me, you know, and most people would be mystified. A common thread. But first in my career and my writing. But the main thread is I grew up in an island in the Bahamas, and I wanted to go to sea and I did. And I don’t see the reason to put my life in peril anymore to do it. 18 times I was nearly killed. A boat hit me in Taiwan. I swam down, was a champion swimmer in the Bahamas, national champion and seven year records in high school. So I think I’m a better swimmer that I am. So I was like, Oh, that boat will get to me. Well, when you’re ten, this is you and a boat. You have like three or four or 6 minutes before that thing. It’s so you’re like, you’re ten and you’re like, nowadays, I was swimming, looking for an airplane last month in the Bahamas. This is what you hear nowadays?

 

Farah [00:46:04] Well, like. Oh.

 

Eric [00:46:06] Like it’s hit you before you come up for breath because it’s got six Evinrude engines, 250 horsepower A that’s like a thousand horsepower. It’s like know, you know, it’s like a super jet. So my point is, I’m lucky to be alive and I don’t want to push it, you know? But, yeah, very fruitful career. The only one that I would consider would make aviation. But the reason I didn’t do aviation is because when things screw up, you have a lot longer to fall. It’s like five feet, and I could swim my way out of it. But airplanes said not so.

 

Farah [00:46:39] What’s next for Eric?

 

Eric [00:46:42] I want to fire my number one client, Mr. Bono, pro bono. And honestly, I need to value my own contribution. You know, my website has 16,000 pages of free research, and I still spend a lot of time each week giving out more. And I just can’t I can’t do that, you know? So what I’d like is, frankly, some kind of agent or publicist that can help me on the business side. There’s obviously I’m no I’m no problem with the content delivery. I do have a problem with sort of negotiating a return on all that. And frankly, I like solving things. You know, I’m hoping to find a very historic aircraft that I like alerting family members. So I’ll probably do that with or without a profit. But I don’t frankly, I don’t know. But it won’t be with conventional wars because I feel I’ve done enough in that respect.

 

Merrill [00:47:29] So as we wrap this up, can you give us the most dangerous C story that you’ve been a part of?

 

Farah [00:47:35] What do you think you would? You are not going to make it out alive. You thought that’s it Might as well say my goodbyes. It’s done and dusted.

 

Eric [00:47:43] Sure, sure. When you look at accidents, you look at a root cause. And in this instance, the root cause of my near death was hubris, hubris, pride. So I’ve been This 23 year old captain of this port is wooden boat across like 8000 miles of the Pacific and a goatee and a cigaret. And I was like, so cool. And we made it right. And then I got to Newport, Rhode Island, and I was in a bookstore. And some guys like, want the keys to like a boat in Antigua and take it back to Newport. I made like a year’s salary in two weeks and all my best friends, we partnered up to Bermuda and I got cocky, right? I hadn’t sailed in the fall or winter pretty much ever or barely. So I took the keys for another boat, which had been in a boatyard for like a year. And the joke was on me is I was like, you know, would you do it right? I’m like, Yeah, sure, I’m an expert. So this thing was just so neglected. It’s like a car that hadn’t had it registered. So we leave Newport, going to Fort Lauderdale, and I’m so cocky. I’m like, Oh yeah, you know, it’s 1100 miles. I looked it up on Google Earth like five grand or get it to you in like a week. Well, total nonsense. Almost no one can do that. You got the Gulfstream against you. You’ve got the October-November, and the boat is a piece of ground. So but it looks nice, you know, so we don’t even get off BLOCK Island and we haven’t gotten any sleep. I picked some kid like off a sailing school that had never really been off shore and he won’t talk to me nowadays. He was so traumatized. And then I had this sidekick who was really eager sailor from Canada, who’s become a good friend, and I was 28. He was 24 and the crew was 21, you know, and it was a disaster. We got I was like, so dumb. I’m like checking the oil and the engine’s been on for like, You can’t do that. I’m like, Oh my God, we’re out of like, foreign oil into the engine. You can’t do that. You’re not.

 

Farah [00:49:33] Oh, my.

 

Eric [00:49:33] God. So moving on. Doing. And so we got into this really bad weather and we this is one of those boats where everything’s Pushpa and and so you can, you can bend the mast back, you can bend the boom down, you can bend everything is push button. So it’s a massive amount of pressure and we’re going to throw it out to wind bay And I’m just like, Oh, we’re just going to go where we’re going to go. Cape Hatteras, whatever. So I wound everything way too tight. I went to bed, I was in my underwear and the kid was at the wheel and suddenly bang and everything all hell breaks loose because we’re banging into the storm and everything is flying around. What’s happened is the boom, you know, the boom has now broken free. And it was like swishing, sweeping the deck. So if you stood up, it would kill you, right? It would knock you. And that’s my first race ever. Guy did get here and he had three neurosurgeons on the boat. They couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together. So I was like, shit. And I’m like 28 years old. I’m like, angry, full of machismo. So I get up in underwear and I grab the lines which are holding the boom, which really isn’t a good idea unless you what you should have done is tie it off somehow, you know, loosen it tight, and you should have put on a life preserver and done all the right things. But it’s two in the morning actually was right before dusk were angry, retired. So I grab it and it wins. Right. I’m getting to the end of the stall, so it swings me off the side of the boat. So here’s the boat and I get swung off. So I figure for that I’m going to come back to the boat and I’m going to let go and look, I’ll be back on the boat. So that’s my thinking. I’m holding on one hand and I grab something on the boat. Like to hold on, but the boom is really damn heavy. So eventually I’m. I go and I let go and I swing out. I’m like, okay, it’s cool, man. I got that. No problem. But every boat has rigging, so the boom does so in knots. And I keep going and I couldn’t hold on. I was like £108 and the boom was like thousand. And so I went in the water in my leg. So that’s not where you want to be. It’s snowing. It’s just it’s New England. We’re 100 miles south of Long Island. Now, even a supersonic jet couldn’t save my life like nothing. No Coast Guard, nothing could save my life. Either of the guys on the boat were going to save me or I was going to drown. Those are the two options. I didn’t even have a so, you know. So then the guy says, Hey, man overboard. So the crew comes in. Unfortunately, I was able to witness what transpired. The crew would become a close friend of mine. We’d moved a few boats and he was emotionally attached to me. So he said I was dead. The captain’s dead, was dead. So, like, the crew had to slap, you know, the guy in the face. And then even I would have had a trouble figuring out what to do next because, like, the booms disconnected and the engine was in reverse to stop the propeller. And I was so insecure as a coward that I hadn’t taught the guys how to start the engine because I wanted to be the smartest son of a bitch on the boat. So they did. These poor guys at 21 years old, they didn’t want to start in a preheated, put a neutral, you know, read it. You know, they didn’t know that, you know. So there I was like trying to save the boat from colliding with itself. And I’m in the water going, Jesus Christ, all this stuff. We put all the safety gear under so many lines for the storm that you couldn’t shake it for you. So he couldn’t tell me anything because it was all last so tight, right? We didn’t want it to break free. So this was a real bad scenario. But luckily they threw a couple of things like seat cushions and, you know, a life ring, a little horseshoe. And I got there and finally out of the storm after about 10 minutes, because I had my watch, the whole ordeal was 6 minutes, which is about the life endurance, 15 to 20 minutes and 56 degree temperature. So they came back towards me. Right. And there it is, like you could see the boat like that. And this is where my training came in handy because the sail passed me and they were about 100 yards away. And you may say, who cares? That’s like a lap of this money. But I knew enough that if I tried to swim 100 yards, I would fail. And the loss of heat from my body, I was already heart reserve. It would kill me. I knew to swim to that boat even though it made sense would kill me. And so I didn’t. I’m like, start the effing engine. So I like to joke that I lost my voice, right? But I would say I’m like, f f f start to kind of scare them. So they started the engine and everything was not according to the man, but the boat bird came backwards against the ocean, against the sea, and against everything there is screaming and all the lines and they came up and they’re you’re supposed to like, attach a cable to the man in the water or the woman, and then carefully watch them using a power pulley system. Total bullshit. They reached out my finger, touch their finger, and we were lit up in the air and I crawled over the boat like naked. And we’re all lying down crying and sobbing. And I thought you were dead. And we were just weeping, like, openly just weeping. And the guy still said he’s traumatized with the idea that I would have been lost. Right? And then they they strip me and into a bed and covered me in cushions and lay me flat, which is you need to let the body flow, the warm blood through the cold light and circulate and then they explode. That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. You’re actually supposed to lie next to the person naked if they’re, like, passed out that way, you give them your warm right, You hug them so that you give them your watch. But I survived. And I’ll never forget when I was sitting on the ocean and there was no hope for me. There was no boat, there was no sight, there was no sound, especially me. A lot of us are visually stimulated, and I had none of that. All I heard was like seagulls and waves. And I thought, Well, this is how we die. Like, there’s nothing manmade. Like, it was so goddamn lonely and so sad and so barren and so void of any life, you know? And that really, really terrified me. And I would have to say that was kind of like a turning point for me, because I was at from that point on, I was a dead man, was like anything I achieved was. Just a blessing or, you know. Does that make.

 

Farah [00:55:33] Sense? Absolutely.

 

Eric [00:55:34] And then that was your article and I got a thousand bucks for it, which is like more than the whole voyage. Right? And they publish. And then at the end of my article, the doctor said the author should not be alive, like the author is clinically dead. I was like, Great. So it definitely gives me and no wonder my son doesn’t want to be a sailor. You know, I took him for a kayak ride at age five and we flipped over because I didn’t figure on the buoyancy factor for two on a kayak. I’d taken the black lab before, and so I hope he doesn’t go to sea. You know, I would like to say when we began the podcast and I know we’re running it up soon, that used to be in the nineties that if you roll the sleeve of a shipping executive, you’d find it tattooed. This is before it was like hip to have a tattoo, like they were actual seagoing mariners. Nowadays you’re more likely to be like a bank CEO or type investor, but back in the day, like you, you kind of had to earn your chops a bit by like going to sea. And and it’s interesting, veteran friend of mine, his dad is a veteran of Vietnam. And he said I said, you go to the P.O.W. at MIA like the what do you call the VFW mall? And his I was 13. And I’ll never forget his comment. He said that this guy had been a dog under Vietnam and he helicopter and he said, it’s been my it wasn’t from New Hampshire. He said, It’s been my experience. The fellows that seen the most combat can’t be found sitting in them. VFW hall. I’m not saying he’s right and I’m not I’ve never served in any military. I’m not making an opinion. I’m saying this veterans opinion. So a lot of the guys that really happened to see I think there is an element of PTSD and humility. And one time we refused to pay. I’ll never get $478 for weather routing yourself Atlanta and halfway across the South Atlantic, the men were from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Philippines and elsewhere. One by one, the captain had each man come up to the speaker and say, My name is Ahmed. I’m from Zanzibar and my wife is Rosa, my daughter Sheila, and I’d like to say goodbye to them. And then my name is Rudy. And so, you know, I’m from India now. My wife is so and I’d like to say, please water the plants and look after my mother. And one by one, they gave lacerations. And, you know, that was for $478. It’s scary. It’s scary. And I’m like aviation, it lasts a lot longer. These guys were up 6 to 8 months.

 

Farah [00:57:56] On the call. That’s amazing.

 

Merrill [00:57:58] So, Eric, where can people find you and read your books and how can people get a hold of you?

 

Eric [00:58:05] Thank you. Mira Primarily on Amazon and luckily since I’ve been publishing since 2006 when I turned 40, almost, you can find it on any of your platforms for Kindle and, you know, paperback and so forth. But my, my page I’m rather proud of is my name Eric Webber I BRG Tor.com and that has all 100 or so articles that are written, you know, the covers of all the books. And with it, without a team supporting me, I would achieve nothing. And that includes, you know, my girlfriend and my former spouses and son. And I just have a benefit. I’m the beneficiary of so many. When we were in the shipping in the headquarters, we used to say we’re the lucky ones who sit at the cash register. You know, we like collective freight and we collect the money and we disperse it. And I feel that way, too, is that so many people help me with each book. A lot of them want to be behind the radar, and then I get to articulate it and share the moment in my books. I was most proud in the U-boats in New England, there were 70 pages of notes because I knew what I was writing was controversial and I wanted to have it backed up painstakingly. Every word somebody could go and read and every year finish a book. I give all my photos, notes, everything printed many feet into an archive somewhere or a maritime college or somewhere so that somebody else can can benefit from that.

 

Merrill [00:59:27] So awesome. Well, it was an amazing conversation.

 

Farah [00:59:30] Thank you for your time.

 

Eric [00:59:31] Thank you for thank you both for for letting me speak. I’m so grateful. And Meryl, congratulations on on your many accomplishments, including the 80. And Sara, what a pleasure. Staying up late on Halloween to listen some middle aged sod blather on about themselves now.

 

Farah [00:59:48] It’s been absolutely incredible, inspiring. I can’t thank you enough and I’m going to go and read the first one. I’m actually going to look up all your books now, one by one. That’s going to be my evening sorted. So you will be plagued by me as well, asking questions. What happened? Yeah.

 

Eric [01:00:04] Thanks so much. This has been a real pleasure. I’ve been looking forward to a very, very long time. Thank you both so much.

 

Farah [01:00:09] Thank you.

 

Farah [01:00:11] This show was sponsored by.

 

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Farah [01:01:02] Welcome back to the Shipshape podcast. Check back every Tuesday for our latest episode and be sure to like, share and subscribe to ship shaped up for our.