Showing results for "Life" in Sailing & Boating

Over the course of twenty years of delivering sailboats to far-flung quaysides, John Kretschmer has had innumerable adventures, both humorous and terrifying. In Flirting with Mermaids, he recounts the most memorable of them. He crosses the Western Caribbean with a crew of eccentric Swedes researching ancient Mayan mariners, lands in Aden at the outbreak of civil war, and endures a North Atlantic crossing during which he discovers the existence of Force 13 winds.

Two Years Before the Mast is an 1840 memoir by the author Richard Henry Dana. A Harvard graduate, he spent the years 1834 to 1836 as a sailor on a merchant ship on a voyage from Boston to California. The journey took them past Cape Horn on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. Dana provides detailed descriptions of ship life and the technical aspects of sailing. A chapter on California and its inhabitants offers valuable historical insights on the state which was then a foreign land.

The Vendée Globe Race is one of the world’s toughest sporting events: a single-handed, non-stop lap of the planet, with no assistance. The route takes competitors around the fringes of Antarctica, tackling terrifying conditions in the Southern Ocean before rounding Cape Horn. In My Element is the gripping and uncompromising story of Pip’s incredible journey, but it’s about so much more than sailing.

Team Spirit is a gripping account of a race on the edge, and a young skipper's determined journey to victory. The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the ultimate long distance challenge - a 35,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe, contested by amateur crews in identical racing yachts - and the winners are those who keep their focus the longest.

Captain John Whidden was an American merchant sailor who sailed all over the world. He wrote this work in 1908, partly as a memoir, but also to offer a snippet of the “old sailing ship days” before major changes occurred. It is a story of a boy from New England and his various roles on ships from the age of 12 to 37. He documents the changes in the shipping industry over the 19th and into the 20th century.

After a fire destroyed everything they owned, the couple decided to build their own classic sailing yacht and live aboard in the wilds of Scotland - up creeks, in rocky pools, in lovely desolate places whose descriptions would make any armchair traveler ache to go there. They started their new life by felling trees for the timber they needed to build their boat, the first unusual step in their unique story. With a wonderful turn of phrase, Justin's humorous narrative will engage those who dream of living a similar lifestyle.

On 5 September 1984, 18-year-old Geoff Holt dived into an idyllic tropical sea and his life changed forever. A broken neck cut short a promising career as a yachtsman and left him paralysed, with his horizons reduced to an uncertain future in a wheelchair. On 5 September 2007, after a journey of 109 days and 1,445 miles, Geoff Holt crossed the finish line in the Solent and reached the summit of his Personal Everest – the first quadriplegic yachtsman to sail single-handed around Great Britain.

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.

Orphaned at five, nothing held Whidden back from embarking on sea life seven years later. Serving as an apprentice, he quickly proved his worth and earned himself a mate's position by his early 20s. Graduating to third, second, and first office, he ended his career in command of, and having part-ownership of, his own vessel. Ocean Life in the Old Sailing Ship Days records a series of real events from his childhood impressions of rough and ready seamen to his thrilling and brutal experiences of war.