Sailing Memoir

You'll be awe-inspired by the heroic efforts of the crew of the Endurance, a ship that battled its way for six weeks through thousands of miles of pack ice while ironically only a day's sail from its destination.

Veteran sailor and writer Christian Williams invites us along once again on a 5,000-mile voyage of discovery around the North Pacific. Equipped with a new boat, a well-stocked toolbox, and the entire history of philosophic thought, he takes us as crew through squalls and calms deep into a laboratory of the universe that exists only out of sight of land. Funny, erudite, and at times deeply personal, Philosophy of Sailing explores who we are and how encounters with the unknown can be a path to revelation and joy.

★★★★★ "It's an extraordinary book and an instant classic." ★★★★★ "One of the finest pieces of writing today... a true masterpiece." ★★★★★ "In his debut travel book Tom Dymond has triumphed. You don’t have to be hooked on sailing to revel in the tales of two young men’s round the world voyage of self discovery." ★★★★★ "I feel as if I have just circumnavigated the world with Tom and James. A great read! Some passages were so funny I had to put the book down to recover." ★★★★★ "Tom writes with such deftness that every chapter takes you to ...

A hilarious travel memoir about a man who moved with his wife, three kids, and two pets onto a forty-six-foot sailboat for a year. He expected it to be a yearlong version of Margaritaville, but what he got was shipwrecks, bad directions, hygiene calamities, and pirate attacks (sort of). Perfect...

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.

The true account of the 2017-2018 solo nonstop circumnavigation by Jerome Rand aboard the Westsail 32 Mighty Sparrow. A testament to endurance and adventure, this memoir recounts what life is like aboard a small sailboat during a 271-day voyage around the globe, alone, and without stopping. One of the greatest challenges of both body and mind, the author will take you onboard during the good times and the bad. As one of only a handful of people to have ever succeed in such a small boat, this story is truly the adventure of a lifetime.

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?

A gripping real-life story of when an adventure goes wrong! Circumstances are rapidly spiraling out of control for ordinary retired couple Desiree and Chris Trattles. What started out as a sailing dream has landed them in the middle of a pirate infested ocean, desperately trying to stay one step ahead of disaster. Four Americans have just been murdered by the pirates; another yacht captured and dragged to Somalia. Are they next? The story opens with a dark night in the Indian Ocean. Desiree is alone and frightened, on watch, while Chris sleeps below. Suddenly, she is caught in the spotlight...

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.

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.

After nearly drowning in Greece, Christine Stovell was determined never to get on a boat again. The sailing kind? Definitely not. Yet when she married a keen sailor and became joint owner of a vintage wooden yacht, she somehow managed to sail halfway round Britain, despite never finding her sea legs. Insightful, funny and raw, Christine’s story captures the joy, terror and wonder of a novice, seasick sailor out on the waves in a small wooden boat. Her adventures have taken her through sleepy backwaters and high seas, from Essex to west Wales and across to France. Along the way, she’s ...

There are many sensible ways to travel around the world. This is not one of them. This is a book about sailing around the world in the most inefficient, illogical, and thoroughly British way imaginable—by making one catastrophic mistake after another, and then calling it “a plan.” Around the World in 20 Mistakes is a painfully honest and extremely funny step-by-step account of what happens when one stubborn human tries to circumnavigate the planet in spite of bad weather, broken gear, seasickness, suspicious customs officers, and a boat that seemed determined to self-destruct at every...

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway), and being something of a nonconformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor.

Stuart Woods had never owned more than a dinghy before setting out on one of the world’s most demanding sea voyages, navigating single-handedly across the Atlantic. How, at the age of thirty-seven, did this self-proclaimed novice go from small ponds to the big sea? Now with a new afterword...

*Now a Netflix film* The inspiring true story of Jessica Watson—an Australian teenager who set out to sail solo around the world! On May 15, 2010, after 210 days at sea and more than 22,000 nautical miles, sixteen-year-old Jessica Watson sailed her thirty-three-foot boat triumphantly back to...

Richard Henry Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 aboard the brig Pilgrim on a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. Drawing from his journals, Two Years Before the Mast gives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.

In this dramatic, immersive, nonfiction, firsthand account of a single-handed sailing voyage, Trammell sails alone in a 30' Dufour Arpege from Jacksonville, Florida to the central and southern Bahamas. Searching for uninhabited islands, blue holes, serenity, surf, natural beauty, and adventure, he encounters all this, as well as foul weather, sharks, at least one near-death experience, beautiful sunsets, enchanting islands, a hermit, friendly sailors, coral reefs, whales, eels, and an old girlfriend.

After accelerating their studies and graduating high school early, two teenagers set off from their hometown in Minnesota to embark on a 2,200-mile canoe journey up the heart of North America. Their destination: the permafrost shores of Hudson Bay. Inspired by a passion for the simple life, where gadgets and schedules are replaced by nature and its harsh beauty, the duo found something that many believe is lost: a true adventure.

In July 1973, Bob Tininenko, his wife Linda, and his brother in-law Jim Fisher set sail from Tacoma, Washington, on a 31-foot trimaran, down the West Coast to Costa Rica. The journey was expected to take a matter of weeks, but 10 days into the cruise, the party encountered a freak storm off the coast of Northern California. When gale-force winds and 50-foot waves capsized their boat, the voyage became a nightmare. For 72 days, the trio was lost at sea. Challenged by nature and compromised by a bitter rivalry, their courage and will to live was put to the ultimate test.

Winner of three independent book awards: NIEA, Readers' Favorites and Beverly Hills Book Awards. Obsessed with sailing, Leslie Nack's larger-than-life Norwegian father has a dream to live on a sailboat and show his three daughters the world. And although it takes years, in 1975 he finally completes his preparation and sets his sights on French Polynesia.