Patric Ryan

Patric Ryan an artist, writer and professional ship's captain, has enjoyed years of experience writing about, painting, building or operating vessels of all kinds, from skiffs to steamships. An eclectic education in surviving life on the fringe allowed Patric and his wife Dorie to roam about Easter North America looking for the right boat. Patric, however, could never decide what the 'right boat' meant. All boats were interesting. He tried a hand at owning various boats until he found the right...See more

Patric Ryan an artist, writer and professional ship's captain, has enjoyed years of experience writing about, painting, building or operating vessels of all kinds, from skiffs to steamships. An eclectic education in surviving life on the fringe allowed Patric and his wife Dorie to roam about Easter North America looking for the right boat. Patric, however, could never decide what the 'right boat' meant. All boats were interesting. He tried a hand at owning various boats until he found the right hull. Not yet. The current boat is a steel sailing tug. The next might be a 42' wooden schooner. Dorie, with here own eclectic talents, fearlessly plunging into any art form, has been complicit in all these schemes, taking up the trade of sailmaker and woodworker for whatever boat comes off the drawing board, out of the shed or off derelict row. Their accidental association with several Newfoundland ships took them into a new world of experience and introduced them to a way of live many still crave as we rush head-long into a new age of tender technologies, that can't replace the texture of life once provided by being close to the rich earth or discover the tingle of life on the wet edge, pushing the boundaries of ocean travel. It is this element that comes out in Patric's writings. All his books, fiction and non fiction seem to pit the main characters against the sea and machines as a test of character. If one would like to read about the ultimate test of will, nerve and survival, Patric's war epic, The Fogo's War Trilogy takes the worst of mankind in collision with best of man's values and provides the reader with all the elements necessary to restore faith in the human journey. The series, Surviving Well is the Best Revenge, explores the vulnerable innocence of a young man as he naively finds himself in the centre of world conflicts, beginning with the Cuban Revolution, then the Quebec FLQ crisis, and even becomes involved with gun running and the IRA as Ireland heats up, even before the communist unrest threatens the stability of France in the late sixties. Our hero, soft spoken jazz musician Christian James Joyce seems to stumble from one hot spot to another while seeking a different kind of life, on the fringe, ever drawn into the vortex. There is an element of autobiography in all of Patric's work and it is offered in a style that blends humour, irony and the absurd. And isn't that what much of real life is made of, plus serendipity. See less