Nonfiction Sailing

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.

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...

★★★★★ "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 ...

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 ...

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.

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...

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.

From the New York Times bestselling author of First Man comes a sweeping saga involving two extraordinary—and extraordinarily different—adventurers who have only one thing in common: the ambition to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat . . . alone. With gripping and insightful prose, James R. Hansen brings to life John Fairfax and Tom McClean's expeditions, from their battle with the elements to their own inner demons. Completely Mad is a nail-biting, epic tale of endurance, and listeners will be gripped until the end to find out who won.

*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...

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 ...

In September 1620, 102 brave travelers and their crew stepped upon a ship called the Mayflower in England. Most were members of a religious group now known as the Pilgrims. They were bound for North America to start a new life. They endured many hardships and made many tough choices. Now the choices are yours. Would you rather suffer from seasickness or from skin sores caused by scurvy? Would you rather have been a crew member navigating the ship in stormy seas or cramped into the living quarters just along for the tumultuous ride? It's your turn to pick this or that!

The Atlantic is only 3,500 miles wide. That’s what makes it so dangerous. Every four years, solo sailors line up in Saint-Malo, France, and sprint—alone—across one of the most violent corridors of ocean on Earth. No crew. No pit stops. No margin for error. Storms compress. Shipping lanes converge. Boats fly at forty knots. And when something breaks, there is no backup. This is La Route du Rhum—the world’s most brutal solo ocean race. In The Narrow Sea, author Julien Peltier takes readers inside a contest where speed replaces endurance and hesitation can be fatal. From the race’s...

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 ...

One boat. One sailor. Zero help. Welcome to the Vendée Globe—the deadliest, most awe-inspiring endurance challenge on Earth that almost no American has heard of. In The Last Horizon, acclaimed storyteller Julien Peltier takes readers inside the world of the solo, nonstop, around-the-world race that pushes human limits further than Everest, spaceflight, or the Ironman ever could. Crossing 24,000 miles of frozen oceans and hurricane latitudes, the Vendée Globe is a battle fought alone—against storms the size of skyscrapers, rogue waves that erase satellite signals, and an isolation so ...

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 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...

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.

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

A guide and the fundamentals of sailing for the young sailor, couple or cruiser family. Wow what a mouthful, but really didn't want to exclude anyone from finding out how awesome becoming a full time sailor can be. We'll be exploring all the basic tools in a condensed, info packed easy to listen to expose topics of: Which boat to buy, their various aspects, the fundamentals of sailing, setups, and navigation. Thank you for joining us on this short journey to a long awaited freedom!

A true story of a March sailing trip from the Florida Keys to the Cheasapeake Bay. Good times and bad times and a gale off the coast of Georgia that almost ends in tragedy. A good read for real sailors and armchair sailors. Color photos are included.