Showing titles in Water Sports

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.

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.

Humans, unlike other animals that are drawn to water, are not natural-born swimmers. We must be taught. Our evolutionary ancestors learned for survival; now in the 21st century, we swim in freezing Arctic waters and piranha-infested rivers to test our limits. Swimming is an introspective and silent sport in a chaotic and noisy age; it’s therapeutic for both the mind and body; and it's an adventurous way to get from point A to point B. It's also one route to that elusive, ecstatic state of flow.

Tales of adventures on the high seas captivate both sailors and those who stand on the shore and gaze out across the oceans. In this original collection of sea stories, edited by veteran writer Dick Durham, the gamut of human experience is mirrored in a world of tragic shipwrecks and sea monsters, epic races and brave rescues, tall ships and tiny dinghies.

The story of a young couple who, without any prior sailing experience, decide one night over too many drinks that they are going to sail around the world. One year later they are bobbing around in the Bahamas on a 35 foot catamaran teaching themselves how to cross oceans in a small boat. Along their way they meet amazing people, visit locations only accessible by those on their own yachts, become television actors in Australia, minor celebrities in Puerto Rico, and generally have a great time of it all.

Tourists visit popular islands of the Caribbean by the planeload. What they don't see from their resort hotels are the hundreds of out-of-the-way, uninhabited islands sprinkled along the West Indies, from Florida to South America. This alluring archipelago, strung with beaches accessible only by boat but spaced temptingly close together, led Mississippi adventurer Scott B. Williams to embark upon an open-ended quest to see how far south he could go in a 17-foot sea kayak.

The world's first kitesurfing audiobook helps you to learn this incredible sport in the shortest possible time with the least amount of effort. It has been written with the help of 10 world kitesurfing champions, 17 professional instructors as well as other kitesurfing legends such as billionaire kitesurfer Sir Richard Branson and the author Tom Fuller has over 10 years' experience of teaching kitesurfing. The Learn Kitesurfing Faster audiobook helps you to learn even faster by making kitesurfing as simple, clear, and concise as possible.

Here, for the first time, is a complete and chronological account: everything from levitating the dog and navigating by smell to meeting his wife Tamsin through the Lonely Hearts column of Time Out and attempting to run away to sea and raise a family on a 27 foot boat.

When Richard “Frosty” Hesson was first approached by a young Jay Moriarty in 1990, the skinny kid with a sparkle in his eye only wanted one thing from the icon: His help in becoming a better surfer. Hesson, one of the first to conquer the huge waves off northern California known as Mavericks, recognized that the kid “had a vision.” Jay quickly demonstrated a resolve that reminded Frosty of his younger self, pursuing his goal with a seriousness far beyond his years. His attitude and work ethic earned Frosty’s respect and, eventually, his friendship.

Erik and Emily skillfully reveal that it is possible to live big on a shoestring budget while giving their family an astonishing education in adventure, creativity, purpose, and grit. Told alternately by Erik and Emily, Seven at Sea is a portrait of a captivating and resilient family and a celebration of the courage it takes to head for something over the horizon.

At the tender age of 14, Amanda Beard walked onto the pool deck at the Atlanta Olympics carrying her teddy bear, Harold, and left with two silvers and a gold medal. She competed in three more Olympic games, winning a total of seven medals, and enjoyed a lucrative modeling career on the side. At one point, she was the most downloaded female athlete on the Internet. Yet despite her astonishing career and sex-symbol status, Amanda felt unworthy of all her success. Unaware that she was suffering from clinical depression, she hid the pain beneath a megawatt smile.

By age twenty, at the height of the Jazz Age, Trudy Ederle was the most accomplished swimmer in the world. She’d won Olympic gold and set a host of world records. But the greatest challenge remained: the English Channel. Only a few swimmers, none of them women, had ever made the treacherous twenty-one mile crossing. Trudy’s failed first attempt seemed to confirm what many naysayers believed: No woman could possibly accomplish such a thing. In 1926, Ederle proved them wrong.

Narrated in his own voice, in this third book about his travels aboard the 28-foot sailboat Atom, James Baldwin creates an ode to the sea and to those who venture upon her in small voyaging sailboats. The Next Distant Sea continues the memoir of his second adventurous circumnavigation as begun in his earlier book Bound for Distant Seas.

Once an essential skill, the ability to build a clinker boat, first innovated by the Vikings, can seem incomprehensible today. Yet it was the clinker that afforded us access to the oceans, and its construction has become a lost art that calls to the do-it-yourselfer in all of us. John Gornall heard the call. A thoroughly unskilled modern man, Gornall set out to build a traditional wooden boat as a gift for his newborn daughter. It was, he recognized, a ridiculously quixotic challenge for a man who knew little about woodworking and even less about boat building.

The tale of an ordinary boy whose career takes him on a most extraordinary journey, this audiobook begins with Brendan messing about in boats in a sleepy coastal Australian town, and ends with him becoming one of the most successful and respected superyacht captains in the World—the consummate 'Billionaire's Captain'. Spanning two decades and circling the globe, his story intimately draws listeners into the real world of superyachts, their crew and their owners. It is Brendan's love letter to an industry he respects and holds so dear to his heart.

In this revelatory and original book, the award-winning author of the acclaimed surf memoir On a Wave illuminates the connection between waves, addiction, and recovery, exploring what surfing can teach us about the powerful undertow of addictive behaviors and the ways to swim free of them.

NEW RELEASE > Stand-Alone Story of Deception & Murder in Maine A kayaker’s sunrise adventure turns tragic when she discovers a body floating in Belfast harbor. Steve Wilson finds himself entangled in a new investigation when the marine patrol brings Britney Green’s lifeless body to the empty dock next to his boat, Paradox. Britney’s parents refuse to believe their daughter died from an accidental drug overdose and they persuade Steve to uncover the truth. Steve suspects Britney’s puzzling death is linked to a secret she learned while working as cabin crew on luxurious yachts in Fort...

Matt Warshaw knows more about surfing than any other person on the planet. After five years of research and writing, Warshaw, a former professional surfer and editor of Surfing magazine, has crafted an unprecedented, definitive history of the sport and the culture it has spawned. The History of Surfing reveals and defines this sport with a voice that is authoritative, funny, and wholly original.

Aged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her family on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing, a survival story of a child in dire circumstances deprived of safety, friendships, schooling, occasionally drinking water...

In 1968, nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. It was a feat that had never been accomplished and one that would forever change the face of sailing. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death. In this extraordinary book, Peter Nichols chronicles a contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones and electronic positioning systems.