Boat Survival

Helen Olson and her husband, Elmer, retired in their late forties to sail the Pacific Ocean and Oceania from 1979-1989 on a fifty-foot yacht they built themselves. "Sailing Elysium" is a personal account of that ten-year adventure, as they immersed themselves in the cultures and traditions of the local people, venturing to twenty-seven major stay-overs in twenty-one countries.

Sailing on a boat by yourself out at sea and out of sight of land can be exhilarating or terrifying, compelling or tedious - sometimes it can be all of these things just in one morning. It is an adventure at odds with our normal, sociable lives, carried out floating on a medium wholly inimical to our existence. But the deep ocean is also a remarkable place on which to think. Richard King's enormously engaging and curious book is about the debt we owe to solo sailors: women and men, young and old, who have set out alone.

On Christmas Eve 2013, off the coast of East Antarctica, an abrupt weather change trapped the Shokalskiy - the ship carrying earth scientist Chris Turney and 71 others involved in the Australasian Antarctic Expedition - in a densely packed armada of sea ice, 1400 miles from civilization. With the ship's hull breached and steerage lost, the wind threatened to drive the vessel into the frozen continent, smashing it to pieces.

If you thought sailing the world is an endless holiday of bikinis and martinis, get ready for a bucket-list adventure of a lifetime! Gripping true stories open a window into the liveaboard lifestyle and complex challenges of blue water sailing—where simple decisions have real-life consequences and where the most provocative obstacles live inside a sailor's soul. If you are intrigued by an escape from the ordinary, come aboard as a sailor and two seadogs discover exactly what it’s like to live life sideways. Living Life Sideways Prequel – The Departure Seduced by the sea and enchanting...

Mean Girls meets Life of Pi in this darkly humorous, compulsively listenable teen novel that's perfect for fans of Libba Bray and Andrew Smith. A hilariously dark and twisted story that sparkles with a remarkably fresh voice, The Lifeboat Clique is Kathy Parks' irreverent yet insightful novel about how to survive in the most unthinkable circumstances.

It was one of the strangest sights the Coast Guard pilots had ever seen: a tall-masted wooden ship, the kind that sailed centuries ago, capsizing in the wind and towering waves of Hurricane Sandy off the coast of North Carolina. It looked like something out of a movie - and, in a way, it was. The ship was the Bounty, a replica of a British merchant vessel of the same name whose crew famously mutinied in 1789. She had been built for a Marlon Brando film in the 1960s - and now she was sinking, her 16-person crew fleeing into the sea amid the splintered wood and torn canvas.

The Voyage of The Aegre is a dramatic true account of how a plan to sail a little fishing boat from the Highlands of Scotland down the coast to England turned into a trans-oceanic odyssey for Nick and Julie Grainger. It was the 1970s and their simple wooden boat was equipped with none of the aids modern yachts enjoy. Navigation was by sextant and compass, food cooked on a Primus, and weather forecasting by guesswork.

A true story of courage and survival, South to Alaska carries listeners from the heartland of America to the last frontier... the hard way. Born in the dusty heart of Oklahoma in 1916, 10-year-old Melvin sees a photograph of a cabin in the Alaska wilderness in his fourth-grade geography book and dreams of living there. Nearly 50 years later he builds a 47-foot boat in his Arkansas backyard, launches it on the Arkansas River, and cruises 10,000 miles to Alaska by way of the Panama Canal. Melvin has never been south of the United States/Mexico border.

What was it like when the great Titanic sank? Jack Thayer and Harold Bride were there, and here are their stories!

The Polaris is on a mission to explore new lands, and its crew is eager to bring their discoveries back home. But when members of the advance landing party mysteriously disappear, the remaining adults abandon ship, leaving behind the young cabin attendants and deckhands - none of them older than 12. With whispers of mutiny, a strange tropical illness, and perhaps even a wild beast shadowing them, the young sailors are desperate to steer the vessel to safety.

A quality survival kit is one of the critical keys in prevailing during a backcountry emergency. Survival instructor Tony Nester shares what essential gear to carry and how to design a tailor-made kit to fit your specific needs. Drawing upon the past 26 years of teaching field courses, Nester provides a pragmatic look at the crucial elements that should go into a personal survival kit and the steps to help ensure that you don't get lost in the first place.

In Unsinkable, you will follow Abby into the depths through a gripping and evocative firsthand account that starts prior to her departure, travels through her daring (and sometimes near-death) encounters on the open sea, to her dramatic rescue in the remotest part of the Indian Ocean. Today, when the most productive thing a teenager may do is play videogames, Abby's courage and tenacity shows us all what can happen when we choose to challenge our own limits, embrace faith, and aim for what our critics say is impossible.

Named one of Time Magazine International's 30 most important people of 2005, Maud Fontenoy presents us with a terrific, entertaining adventure story on the high seas as she challenges the Pacific Ocean - a feat no woman before her ever accomplished. Already the first woman to row alone across the North Atlantic, Maud raised the bar to defy the elements, the daunting solitude, and the circling sharks of the South Pacific on her second solo voyage.

Robert et Mary, les deux enfants du capitaine Grant se lancent à la recherche de leur père qui a fait naufrage sur une île inconnue. Lord et Lady Glenarvan ainsi que le géographe Paganel les accompagnent dans ce prodigieux périple.

If you are thinking about a healthy, life-changing, totally immersive, climate-friendly, adventurous voyage, listen to our story: Tales of the oceans, sharing life with indigenous people in remote locations, alternating solitude with deep and joyous relationships, confronting danger, storms, and shipwreck. We survive to tell the story, in a gentle, easy-to-listen to, style.

A couple of quiet weeks sailing the River Severn was the intention. Somehow things got out of hand—a year later, I had reached Romania and was still going. Equipped with his cheerful optimism and a pith helmet, this Australian Odysseus in a dinghy travels from the borders of North Wales to the Black Sea—4,900 kilometres over salt and fresh water, under sail, at the oars, or at the end of a tow-rope—through 12 countries, 282 locks and numerous trials and adventures, including an encounter with Balkan pirates.

Solo circumnavigation of the globe. Fewer than 300 sailors in history have accomplished it, less than the number of people who have climbed Mt. Everest, or even those who have gone to space. In 1990, Istvan Kopar set out to earn his place among this elite fraternity - and to do so with only one stop.

On October 23, 2012, with Superstorm Sandy fast approaching, Captain Robin Walbridge made the fateful decision to sail the HMS Bounty from New London, Connecticut, to St. Petersburg, Florida, believing the wooden ship, a replica of the original, famous Bounty, would fare better at sea than at port. He told the crew that anyone who did not want to come on the voyage could leave the ship and there would be no hard feelings. No one took the captain up on his offer, and this decision would have fatal consequences.

Tired of California's glitzy lifestyle, greed, and urban sprawl, Captain Skip Rowland sells everything to drift and blend in the drop dead beauty of the South Pacific. But before casting-off, his yacht is stolen and set ablaze on a desolate Mexican shore. Skip, recently in the USMC, captures the thieves, sailing later in a new yacht with his son and nurse girlfriend. They accidentally sail into an active military coup d'état, are chased by a vagabond freighter, make love on picture-perfect uninhabited islands, and cross the Tasman Sea to Australia in the worst weather in 100 years.

Buster Boppington and his talking dog have another great adventure - learning about the history of the Titanic!