A Young Man Sent to Sea

Going to sea as a sailor at age eighteen is not the dream of most college-aged boys, especially those with some privileges in life. Yet for one young man who navigated this path at the insistence of his father, the unlikely experience turned into a wildly unforgettable adventure.

Sent off to sea on the M.S. Grundsunda, an aging vessel with a foreign crew, Long Island teenager Vincent DeOrchis found himself thrown into the excitement of a maritime enterprise involving a motley mix of jobs, sometime dangerous, sometimes funny—with a side excursion of jumping ship in Spain during the late ’60s, only to find himself confronted by life under the Franco regime.

A buoyant mix of emotions, memories, fears, and humor, this experienced sailor’s coming-of-age story compresses tons of life lessons into a concise tale of his transformational, three-month voyage in 1968. From the heart of a man who is now a father, grandfather, and successful attorney, DeOrchis’s compelling memoir proves that the defining events of our youth can serve as a powerful rudder as we set sail toward our destiny.