Brave or Stupid cover art

Brave or Stupid

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Brave or Stupid

By: Tracey Christiansen, Yanne Larsson, Calle Andersson
Narrated by: Duncan Hood
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

When you read about someone sailing around the world, it’s usually a dotcom millionaire or a professional adventurer. Brave or Stupid? tells a very different story. It’s an everyman tale about a middle-aged, seasick electrician with no money who suddenly and for no reason decides to sail around the world. It’s the story of Yanne Larsson, a man with a dream born not out of a passion for sailing or a search for identity or the need for a challenge. This is the story of a simple handshake. One of the old-fashioned, ironclad ones.

A casual suggestion over wine with best friend Carl Andersson turns into one of those ideas that just won’t go away. Twenty-four hours later, a handshake decides it. The little details—buying a boat, learning to sail, and saving up money—take five years, but in 2002, the two men leave Helsingborg, Sweden on a three-year voyage that will change them forever. Storms, tropical diseases, drama, love, and comedy—their story is an adventure like no other. Brave or Stupid? is a book for anyone who has ever gone beyond what is sensible and realistic to discover a whole new world outside and a whole new person inside. This is a book for anyone who still believes in the power of dreams. And handshakes....

©2014 Albatross Forlag Ltd (P)2021 Yan Larsson Adventurers, Explorers & Survival Sailing Sailing & Boating Water Sports Adventure Dream

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Good Stuff cover art
Sailing, Yachts and Yarns cover art
Sailing a Serious Ocean cover art
A Race Too Far cover art
Home from Distant Seas cover art
Sailing to the Edge of Time cover art
Swell cover art
Turtles in our Wake cover art
Farewell Mr Puffin cover art
To the Ice and Beyond cover art
Seraffyn's Oriental Adventure cover art
Across Islands and Oceans cover art
Confessions of a Divemaster cover art
One Wild Song cover art
Amazing Sailing Stories cover art
Sailing with Impunity cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
brave funny silly emotional and educational. Wow this book is everything I dream about every night, you feel as though you're with them.
the story of ttwo best friends and there 3 years of hard work, sailing round the world,
fantastic read for ananyone that has dreams.

dreams that come true

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved it all. It was very well written and narrated. I often laughed out loud as the author has a very humorous style of writing.
The narrative brought back many memories for me as I and my family had cruised many of the same places during 11 years as liveaboards on our 40 foot boat, from England to the west coast of America. The details of their voyage are very accurate. I did struggle with the narrator’s persistent mispronunciation of the word quay, as it is pronounced “key” not “qway”, but this is a minor problem as his narration is otherwise excellent.

Fantastic book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great inspiring book for anyone looking to take on the sees. Good narrative, great storytelling. A really enjoyable listen.

Great relaxing listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Nothing to dislike in this review. Awesome to re-live their adventures. Very inspiring as I myself as a sailing novice will spend my first year on my live aboard in the Norwegian Arctic next year.

Inspiring story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It has lit the flame for me!
Well done! In completing your adventure, I hope to have taken on board ( no pun intended) your tips

Great listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I first heard this on a podcast for free a few years ago and decided to buy it again. Great story can listen to it many times over and escape into their adventure

Great adventurous story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved the book. Feels like you are onboard sharing the adventures. Was an interesting listen.

From start to finish this is truly inspirational.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I enjoyed every minute and it has given me the spirit to plan a big trip for myself and my boat 😌

If only

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I had to return this audiobook for a couple of reasons:

1) The narration is ok, if a little "jolly", but there are repeated and jarring mispronunciations. The worst and constant issue was the word "quay", which the professional narrator pronounced "kway" and not "key". As it appears so often it became very irritating. Others included "garçon" being pronounced "garkon" but there were quite a few basic words mispronounced.

2) The story used too many unnecessary similes, like a salad drowned in dressing — whatever flavour they once had was lost in the mess.

3) Some of the stories were embellished and didn't make sense to anyone with even small experience sailing. I have no doubt the author achieved what he did, but some of the anecdotes along the way could not have happened in the way described. One particularly jarring example was describing returning to the marina having bought the new 42' yacht and seeing the Austrian who had purchased their previous 30' boat attempting to rig it. The point of the story seemed to be that the new owner was ignoring their offers of help, whereas they had always gladly accepted the help of more experienced sailors.

It describes the new owner as mixing up 2 ropes and bringing the mast down. The mast on a yacht this size requires a crane or several well placed and organised people to move the mast. It simply isn't possible to "accidentally" bring the mast down without significant effort and consequence. I have no doubt that something may have happened, but it wasn't this.

4) There is a whole section of hyperbole about how property ownership is not all it's cracked up to be and letting go of all this entails, ending in a line mentioning the author had bought a 1 bedroom flat to store his things in. Firstly, this contradicted the previous 5 minutes and secondly means he logically rented this out. Why "bend the truth" about something so mundane?

This means I have no confidence in the rest of the narrative so felt there was no point in continuing.

Spoiled by embelishments and some poor narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.