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.

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.

★★★★★ "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...

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...

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.

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...

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.

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.

Sailing Upwind is more than just another memoir of a distinguished former naval officer's highly diverse career. This book by Admiral James "Sandy" Winnefeld is also intended to offer useful reflections regarding how he accepted and managed risk along the way, as well as a concise description of the qualities one must develop to become a successful leader. Winnefeld began his career as an F-14 fighter pilot and TOPGUN instructor, commanded an aircraft carrier, and then served in a variety of flag officer billets on the way to becoming the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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.

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 1930, two novice paddlers - Eric Sevareid and Walter C. Port - launched a secondhand 18-foot canvas canoe from the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling for an ambitious summer-long journey from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. Without benefit of radio, motor or good maps, the teenagers made their way over 2,250 miles of rivers, lakes, and difficult portages.

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.

*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...

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?

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.

Set in the remote arctic region of Northern Canada, this book takes listeners on a harrowing canoe voyage that results in tragedy, redemption, and, ultimately, transformation. George Grinnell was one of six young men who set off on the 1955 expedition led by experienced wilderness canoeist Art Moffatt. Poorly planned and executed, the journey seemed doomed from the start. Ignoring the approaching winter, the men became entranced with the peace and beauty of the arctic in autumn.

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 ...

A true story of poor judgment and questionable parenting, but also of friendship and adventure. A cubicle-dwelling nine-to-fiver hatches a secret plan to buy an old Dutch sailboat, fix her up, and return to the Pacific via the Northwest Passage. His wife hopes for a family. Somehow, both dreams are set in motion–simultaneously. Undeterred, they pack a single suitcase, their six pound newborn, and board a flight to the Netherlands. The boat is a slowly-sinking national treasure, her engine a museum piece. If all goes according to plan, they’ll be ready to cross the Atlantic by autumn.