Nonfiction Sailing

*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...

A retired, Canadian firefighter with a dream of adventure sails his new boat from The Virgin Islands to Grenada, and then across the Caribbean Sea to the USA. Picking up his 2 dogs he continues up and down the east coast and across the Bahamas, gaining experience as a dream of circumnavigating the planet begins to form. A true story beginning in 2012, this first half concludes with the Bénéteau 423 being outfitted in North Carolina in 2015, ready to depart for Panama. Dramatic, often moving, or incredibly funny, it is a tale of confronting the unknown, told with heart.

★★★★★ "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 ...

The Unfiltered Truth Behind Sailing’s Greatest Madness The Vendée Globe is not just a race—it is a solitary pilgrimage across the planet’s most hostile oceans, a test of endurance, ingenuity, and raw will. In The Epic Story of the Vendée Globe 2020–21, the drama of the world’s toughest sailing challenge unfolds in all its brutal beauty. The 2020-21 Vendée Globe was supposed to be just another edition of the world’s toughest solo yacht race. Instead, it became a white-knuckle psychodrama of shattered boats, broken minds, and the kind of raw human moments that get scrubbed from...

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.

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.

Born land-locked six hundred miles from the nearest ocean, this is an autobiography of an ordinary man with an extraordinary dream of building a sea going yacht and sailing the world. Opening on the threshold of wild transition in South Africa in the 1970s, the author and his American wife struggle to build a sailing vessel on the outskirts of Johannesburg, whose skyline soon erupts in black clouds of fire and revolution. Through all the struggles of personal relationships, exodus, poverty, sorrow, and loss, the dream of the sail remains constant. As that dream becomes reality, the story ...

Frank Johnson no longer fits in the army. The world he'd built up over twenty years of service to the USA doesn't work anymore, as much because of what the Merge did to him as what it did to the world. Francisco wasn't one for following inconvenient rules, and following the rules following orders, is central to what a modern soldier is. Meanwhile, Francisco, his other self, the other side of his Merge, is trying to do something important. Something that Frank fully approves of, But to do it, Francisco desperately needs supplies and a link back to Earth. So Frank takes his twenty, hocks his ...

Sometimes in life you may get to live some of your dreams. Sometimes in life, you get to step briefly outside of time. Standing on the front gallery on St. Croix, looking across the channel toward distant islands, it’s impossible not to wonder what lies beyond those small shapes on the horizon. On clear days, Tortola and the scattered islands of the British Virgin Islands appear like pearls tossed across the sea — close enough to imagine, far enough to dream about. That curiosity turned into reality when friends Dan and Julie welcomed us aboard their catamaran Kindred Spirit, sailing ...

2024 National Outdoor Book Award Silver Medal Winner “A masterfully curated collection...You don’t have to be a sailor to be blown away by this fascinating, bighearted book.” —Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea, Travels with George, and Second Wind A story as vast and...

Have you ever parachuted in the moonlight and juggled work with play? In 1995, Steve set himself the goal to sail across the North Atlantic. Saint Lucia and the Caribbean island chain were the prize. He had to master sailing in spring Scottish waters, keep up with his military training and undergraduate life. It was hard keeping a romance alive with so many distractions, like landing a gig as a swordsman in a Hollywood movie. There were other commitments—a jaunt to Pamplona in Spain, and a camp in the United States before he could join his crew. How will he get to the tropics and have ...

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.

In the tradition of Sebastian Junger and Linda Greenlaw comes Captain Sig Hansen's rags-to-riches epic of his immigrant family's struggle against deadly Alaskan seas, freezing shipwrecks, and dangerously brutal conditions to achieve the American Dream Sig Hansen has been a star of the Discovery...

From one of the most distinguished admirals of our time and a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, a meditation on leadership and character refracted through the lives of ten of the most illustrious naval commanders in history In Sailing True North, Admiral Stavridis offers lessons of...

In 1895, when Captain Joshua Slocum completed the first solo circumnavigation on his 37-foot sloop, the Spray, no one believed it could be done. This firsthand account of Captain Slocum's remarkable voyage - 3 years and 46,000 miles - is full of adventures, dangers, and triumphs. Stormy seas, hostile natives, Moorish pirates, and even a bizarre meeting with President Paul Kruger of the Transvaal, who insisted that Slocum could never have sailed "around the world," since everyone with the meanest intelligence knew the world was flat, make up the fabric of the most wonderful travelogue of all.

As founder and editor of the highly successful magazine Latitudes & Attitudes, he surveys and comments on the good and the bad, the funny and the sad, the practical and the theoretical of the sailing scene. This collection of his editorials and other writings is full of useful advice, keen observations and, yes, some outrageous comments, the way only Bob can put them on paper.

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.

An exuberant young man, seeking adventure at sea, an elderly couple and a naive young Danish girl add up to nonstop action in this fast-paced sailing story. After departing Charlotte Amalie bay in St. Thomas, VI., the Lima begins her odyssey northward ... through the Bermuda Triangle. "To be sailing offshore is to be free" S.J. Alexander

Winner of the 2020 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award for nonfiction and the 2019 NSW Premier's History Awards for general history ‘Wonderfully researched and beautifully written’ Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan ‘Succeeds in conjuring a lost world’ Dava Sobel, author of...

Brought to you by Penguin. A NEW YORK TIMES TOP-TEN BOOK OF 2024 A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR From New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides, the epic account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, culminating in Captain James Cook's death On July 12th, 1776, Captain...