By Joel Thurtell

“Plug Nickel” is back.

In fact, the boat named “Plug Nickel” never went away.

But since June 2005, my columns about my adventures with the wooden Lightning sailboat hull that eventually came to be christened “Plug Nickel” came to an abrupt end.

I was sad to stop writing those columns, which numbered somewhere between 55 and 60 by the time I called it quits.

For the better part of six years, I wrote monthly columns about my adventures with Wooden Lightning sailboats in the “Flashes,” a publication of the International Lightning Class Association.

Enough for a book.

Enough, in fact, for TWO books.

That is now my plan — to publish a two-volume set of my wooden boat columns to be titled “Plug Nickel I” and “Plug Nickel II.”

The books will be published by Hardalee Press.

“Hardalee” was the name I chose for my publishing firm back in 2001 at the time I launched “Plug Nickel” the boat.

At the time, it seemed as if I’d just picked the name out of the air. It was a good sailing term: “Hard a’lee!” is what the skipper says when he or she puts the helm over to bring a sailboat about on the opposite tack by turning the bow through the eye of the wind. 

In retrospect, it seems like a great choice of names. “Hard a’lee!” signifies a change of course, switching tacks, a new direction.

That is what Hardalee Press signifies to me.

All my life, it seems, I have yearned to write books.

And, of course, I yearned also to see my books in print.

After many, many attempts at securing an agent, sending manuscripts out to publishers, getting rejection after rejection, finally, my first book was published in March 2009 by Wayne State Uniiversity Press.

“Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River,” is part photo book, part adventure story and part environmental critique, a stock taking of where efforts to clean one urban river have gotten us.

The book was three years in production.

I’m 64 years old. I’ve written a lot of books. If it took three years for me to publish every one of my books, I’d have to live to 200.

Not gonna happen.

The alternative is to start publishing them through my own company.

That is Hardalee Press.

So, you see, I have changed tacks. I’m gonna  take charge, bring these books to market myself.

The “Plug Nickel” series is part of my bigger plan to publish quite a few books that I’ve written.

I’ll write regular updates as I make progress on this book, which I think will interest sailors everywhere.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

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