Charles J. Doane - The Boy Who Fell to Shore: The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Thomas Thor Tangvald

Praise for THE BOY WHO FELL TO SHORE

"Doane has written an engrossing account of this remarkable and ultimately doomed young man, and in the process has given us a sprawling portrait of a remarkable community of bluewater sailors, a tribe of humans who prefer ocean to land."

Mark Bowden, bestselling author of Black Hawk Down and other titles

"Doane dissects the freedom one finds at sea and in any life close to nature, a powerful siren call even to those who will never venture there."

Steve Callahan, bestselling author of Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea

"Lyrical, engaging, and true. Doane reconstructs the searing tragedy, apparent resilience, and ultimate vulnerability of a brilliant young man better suited to navigating the sea than life itself. Its grippinga thriller to the last page, and much more than just a sea story."

W. Jeffrey Bolster, prize-winning historian and author of Black Jacks and The Mortal Sea

"A very thought-provoking read. Thomas was so at home on the sea that shipwrecked his youth, literally and figuratively, that his life on shore became a train wreck, in spite of all his good qualities. His old-school sailing parentage and pedigree was cool, but not cool enough to make Thomas whole, or his story any less heart-breaking."

Tania Aebi, author of the bestselling memoir Maiden Voyage

"In this fast-paced, richly detailed work of investigative journalism Doane invites us into the world of bluewater cruising by uncovering the life of one of its most complex characters. This is a must-read for every sailor and would-be global wanderer."

Prof. Christopher L. Pastore, author of Temple to the Wind and Between Land and Sea

"A fascinating chronicle of the life and voyages of a damaged yet brilliant iconoclast, and a gripping exploration of the dark tensions between minimalism and seamanship, between individualism and egocentricity, and between a storied, demanding father and an ambitious, orphaned son."

Tim Zimmerman, contributing editor at Outside Magazine , co-writer of the documentary film Blackfish , author of The Race

"The tragic life of Thomas Tangvald is like none other. Doane has teased out the tale with skill and tact. He recounts it for us in the raw in this well-researched book."

Tom Cunliffe, BBC broadcaster, yachting journalist and author of In the Wake of Heroes and other titles

"I spent time with both protagonists of this story when my husband Larry and I sailed into Manila onboard our own engine-free cutter, Seraffyn , many years ago. The father charmed and intrigued me. The son, at the time only two years old, stole my heart. This book destroyed any romantic notions I had of the father; it made me almost weep for the son. With its amazing research, amazing cooperation from interviewees, and fine writing, Charlie Doanes The Boy Who Fell to Shore kept me reading late into the night."

Lin Pardey, award-winning voyager and author of Storm Tactics Handbook , The Self-Sufficient Sailor , and other titles

"Charles Doanes latest book is a mesmerizing account of a young man who was born at sea, was at one with the sea, and finally was lost at sea. From the first page you are drawn into the mysterious, terrifying, triumphant and tragic life of Thomas Thor Tangvald. This tale is impossible to put down; you just keep reading until it breaks your heart."

John Kretschmer, author of Sailing to the Edge of Time , Cape Horn to Starboard and other titles

The Boy

Who Fell

to Shore

The Extraordinary Life and

Mysterious Disappearance

of Thomas Thor Tangvald

Charles J. Doane

The Boy Who Fell to Shore:

The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Thomas Thor Tangvald

Copyright 2022 Charles J. Doane

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

For permissions contact: editor@latahbooks.com

Book and cover design by Kevin Breen and Jon Gosch

Cover image used with permission from Greg Bowl

Softcover ISBN: 978-1-957607-06-1

eBook ISBN:

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request

Published by Latah Books

www.latahbooks.com

For Gaston and Lucio

"I see things, terrible things. Its strange. I see you die, but its not you who gets killed. And then you find what youre looking for... at last. But only to lose it all over again."

Hugo Pratt, Corto Maltese: The Golden House of Samarkand

"And now it was that he felt the certainty of changein the weight of the atmosphere, perhaps, or in the very breath of the world. He was in that other island, the one he had glimpsed but never seen again."

Michel Tournier, Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique

PREFACE

Two Questions

DURING THE TIME I spent researching and writing this book, one question laypeople sometimes asked me was how in the world had I ever learned that such a person as Thomas Thor Tangvald even existed? It seemed they could not fathom how a putatively normal person like myself, living an apparently normal life, in a house on land (most of the time anyway), might somehow catch word of such an unusual and enigmatic creature. A boy who was literally born at sea and lived on a sailboat, roaming the worlds oceans, through all his childhood. Who initially had such limited contact with human society he believed for years that most people must live on boats, just as he and his family did. A boy with a genius IQ who mostly educated himself, studying the books on his fathers boat and the natural world of sea and sky that surrounded him. Who was fully fluent in three languages, loved mathematics and physics, and later had little trouble gaining admittance to prestigious universities. Whose early life was scarred by a number of searing calamities, yet who seemed so outwardly resilient these events hadfor a time at leastlittle apparent effect on him. A boy who as a young man, once introduced to modern society and life on shore, saw clearly how it was going astray. Who consequently was fiercely determined to live simply, sustainably, and independently on his own terms. Who in the end disappeared without a trace, leaving no evidence of his fate and more than a few questions behind.

Bluewater sailors who learned of my project, on the other hand, asked me a different question. Had I ever met Thomas?

The answer to that question, sadly, is no, I never did meet Thomas Tangvald. I first sailed into Culebra, a Puerto Rican island that played an important role in his life, in late 1999, a few years after Thomas had last stopped there as a teenager and just a few months before he returned as a young man. I next sailed to the Spanish Virgin Islands in the spring of 2013 and visited both Culebra and its sister island Vieques, about a year and a half after Thomas sailed away from Vieques for the last time. The last time I visited the area, in 2019, while I was researching this book, I was honored to have Thomass wife and two sons aboard my boat as guests.

As far as Thomas and I are concerned, it seems our individual orbits through the Spanish Virgins were roughly coterminous but bound never to coincide. Still I like to think that if only the continuum of our lives were shifted but slightly, I might have spotted him, at Culebra say, anchored out behind the reef at Dakity. I certainly would have noticed hima very striking Rasta-Viking lad with long blond dreadlocks flowing down his shoulders, presiding over a raft of dilapidated boatsand would have been pleased to make his acquaintance.

As to the first question, I initially learned of Thomass existence during the opening phases of my own career as a bluewater sailor. I spent the years 1992 and 93 crewing around on other peoples boats, crossing the North Atlantic from the U.S. to Europe and back, and emerged from this adventure determined to go to sea on a boat of my own. This in spite of the fact that my first transatlantic voyage, aboard a large wooden schooner, had ended in a shipwreck on the coast of Spain. Over the next few years, as I cobbled together a very modest bluewater sailboat and set out voyaging on it, I inhaled large doses of sailing literature. One of the more memorable books I encountered was At Any Cost , an autobiography by Peter Tangvald, Thomass father, published just a few years earlier. The books final pages, written as an epilogue by Thomas, who was then still a boy, are remarkable.