Heyward Coleman

Heyward Coleman has a passion for travel, sailing, and excitement and shares his experiences in his two books: “The Next Port” and "Where the Wind Blows”. “The Next Port” is a true story of how a midlife crisis led him and his wife Charlotte to transform a worn-out hull into a first-class blue water cruiser and then embark on an around the world sailing adventure that lasted 6 years. “Where the Wind Blows” is a prequel that describes how a career crisis led them to take a one-year businessman’s sabbatical that entailed buying a boat in Greece, self-educating their children, and learning to cope with raging winter winds in the Mediterranean. The family agreed that it was the best experience of their lives and it planted the seeds for their circumnavigation ten years later. Heyward’s background includes an MA in Nuclear Physics from Duke University, an MBA from the Harvard Business School, five years as an officer aboard a nuclear submarine, and an intensive business career that began in the oil and gas industry and switched dramatically after his businessman’s sabbatical described in “Where the Wind Blows” into founding an environmental laboratory monitoring nuclear pollution. The one unchanging aspect of his background was the love for travel that he and Charlotte shared, but the limiting factor was travel fatigue. They found that after two weeks they were worn out and yearned for the comforts of home. But in their first sailing adventure they discovered that the boat was home and that their travel became unlimited. What began as emails to friends and family describing highs and lows of their new nomadic life ultimately became the two-book series: “The Next Port” and "Where the Wind Blows”. After the around the world trip, Charlotte declared that she would not cross any more oceans, but their passion for travel and living on a boat remained and they now spend three months of the year cruising the canals of Europe on "Magnolia", their diesel-powered canal boat.