As Long As It Takes is about life, achievement, and sailing. It is about growing up and finding goals; about staying the course and minding the heading, and about arriving at places one had only dreamed about.

This book is about the making of Captain William "Bill" Pinkney, about his friends and family, and about his boats, especiallyComittment.

She took him round the world via the five great capes. He was only the 4th of five Americans, and one of 128 individuals to have done so world wide.

William Pinkney was born in Chicago's "Bronzeville" during the Great depression and after many Middle Passages of his own through school, the Navy, and as a business executive, he left Revlon to sail 27000 miles solo around the world on a 22 month voyage in 1991-92. In 1998 he followed this with a historic voyage to retrace the "Middle Passage" slave trade route in a five month round-trip sail from the Carribbean to the US via Ghana and Senegal. He subsequently became Master of the Freedom Schooner, Amistad.