Showing titles in Sailing & Boating

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.

After sailing 300,000 miles and weathering dozens of storms in all the world's oceans, John Kretschmer has plenty of stories and advice to share. John's offshore training passages sell out a year in advance, and his entertaining presentations are popular at boat shows and yacht clubs all over the English-speaking world. John's talent for storytelling enchants his audience as it soaks up the lessons he learned during his often challenging voyages. Now you can take a seat next to John - at a lesser cost - and get the knowledge you need to fulfill your own dream of blue-water adventure.

Challenged by an expert who said it couldn’t be done, Joshua Slocum, a fearless New England sea captain, set out in April 1895 to prove that a man could sail alone around the world. A little over three years and forty-six thousand miles later, the proof was complete. This is Slocum’s own account of his remarkable adventures during the historic voyage of the Spray.

Chasing a dream is never easy, but if you go far enough, it will set you free. Captain Liz Clark spent her youth dreaming of traveling the world by sailboat and surfing remote waves. When she was 22, she met a mentor who helped turn her desire into reality. Embarking on an adventure that most...

John Kretschmer is sailing’s practical philosopher - as much a doer as a thinker. And that is the overarching theme of this chronicle of a sailing life. Often amusing, sometimes poignant, occasionally terrifying but always inspiring, his deeply personal account is a welcome reminder of the good life waiting at sea. With hundreds of thousands of nautical miles under his keel, John’s adventures have taken him several times around the world.

A couple of quiet weeks sailing the River Severn was the intention. Somehow things got out of hand—a year later, I had reached Romania and was still going. Equipped with his cheerful optimism and a pith helmet, this Australian Odysseus in a dinghy travels from the borders of North Wales to the Black Sea—4,900 kilometres over salt and fresh water, under sail, at the oars, or at the end of a tow-rope—through 12 countries, 282 locks and numerous trials and adventures, including an encounter with Balkan pirates.

Rick's recent appearance on Ben Fogle's New Lives in the Wild chronicled his budget lifestyle and adventures aboard Calypso, and introduced the idea of budget sailing to a whole new audience - an audience who may have never considered the possibility that such a dream could be made a reality, on such a small amount of money. This book is for them and for any experienced sailors who want to cast off the yoke of consumerist yachting and get back to what really matters at sea.

When COVID-19 struck the UK, the government advised the over-70s to "shield" while the country went into lockdown. One old man went sailing instead. Single-handed and self-isolated, retired journalist John Passmore used the pandemic to achieve an ambition that had eluded him for 60 years. For 3,629 miles, he disappeared into a world of perfect solitude, adventure, and adversity, arriving back 42 days later, short of water and with shredded sails, to find himself celebrated on national radio as the embodiment of everybody’s lockdown dream. This is his story.

Introduction to Sailing is veteran sailor Christian Williams’ candid and highly entertaining invitation to boats and the sea. Writing for new sailors of every kind, he evokes the joy of wind and water in an intimate style that begins with dinghies, which he advocates as most fun of all, and continues through cruising boats small and large and for every budget.

Michael Cosgrove had a beautiful family, a successful career, and a lovely Southern California home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At the age sixty, he decided to leave that all behind to sail around the world. In spite of his romanticized vision of rugged individualism and salty tales to share with his grandchildren, Cosgrove quickly realizes that sailing around the world isn’t going to be as easy as he’d imagined.

Joshua Slocum was believed to be the first man to sail single-handed around the world. After a distinguished career, where he worked his way up from cabin boy to captain, Joshua Slocum wrecked his ship off the coast of Brazil. Turning this catastrophe to his advantage, he built a sailing canoe from the wreckage and sailed back to New York. Moreover, he wrote Voyage of the Liberdad, a chronicle of his trip, and earned some literary success.

A "normal" Caribbean hurricane travels from east to west, but Lenny was anything but normal. Spawned south of Cuba in 1999, this late-season storm defied all predictions by moving steadily east toward the Leeward Islands. Eventually building almost to Category 5 strength, Lenny squatted for two days between the Virgin Islands and St. Martin, whipping the ocean with 155 mile-per-hour winds and sixty-foot seas.

Over the course of twenty years of delivering sailboats to far-flung quaysides, John Kretschmer has had innumerable adventures, both humorous and terrifying. In Flirting with Mermaids, he recounts the most memorable of them. He crosses the Western Caribbean with a crew of eccentric Swedes researching ancient Mayan mariners, lands in Aden at the outbreak of civil war, and endures a North Atlantic crossing during which he discovers the existence of Force 13 winds.

I would like to take you on a journey. It’s going to be a journey across many oceans, over a lot of water but very much a journey of the human spirit. This is not a sailing story. It’s much more than that. My seven crew and I participated in the fatal 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race in which 6 men tragically died, 55 were rescued and a number of boats sank. On our boat, for 15 hours, we thought that we had found out how we were going to die. By a slim margin, we managed to survive that incredible cornerstone event in each of our lives.

Across Islands and Oceans is the memoir of 25 year-old James Baldwin and his epic two-year, solo circumnavigation in Atom, his trusty but aging 28-foot sailboat.

What happens when a man of today's overconnected world sets off alone across the Pacific at the age of 71? Christian Williams, a veteran sailor and writer, planned a 6,000-mile voyage as a test of his own seamanship and endurance, and to fulfill a lifelong goal. But he found his focus quickly turning from the surrounding sea to all of us. Is anyone the same person when no one else is there? Do we dare to find out?

When you arrive at foreign shores by sailboat, it's not such a small world after all. Come along with Glen and Julie as they sail around the world and discover that reality is even bigger than the escape they imagined. This breathtakingly personal true story will thrill those wanting to sail off into the sunset or enjoy the wonders of the world from the comfort of home. Escape from the Ordinary reminds you of the unlimited possibilities in life and nudges the listener into thoughts of their own dreams.

All alone for 193 days in his purpose-built yacht, New Zealand yachtsman Graeme Kendall crossed 28,000 miles of ocean, facing some of the Earth's most challenging seas. An enthralling adventure, To The Ice and Beyond will inspire you to live your dreams and to never give up. During his extraordinary solo circumnavigation, Kendall became the first person to sail the Northwest Passage solo nonstop. Sailing east to west, he knocked off the "Everest of sailing" in just 12 days - the fastest recorded. This is a story of determination, meticulous planning, and rugged courage.

Tania Aebi was an unambitious 18-year-old, a bicycle messenger in New York City by day, a Lower East Side barfly at night. In short, she was going nowhere - until her father offered her a challenge: Tania could choose either a college education or a 26-foot sloop. The only catch was that if she chose the sailboat, she'd have to sail around the world - alone. She chose the boat, and for the next two and a half years and 27,000 miles, it was her home.

Legendary account of the author's voyage around Cape Horn in a 32-foot sailboat, sailing east to west (thus the Horn is to starboard, or on the right). This is a notoriously difficult and dangerous passage, especially in a boat this size.