Sailing Classics

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.

Written some 40 years after Moby Dick, Melville's Billy Budd is a moving tale of good versus evil. Set aboard a British navy ship at the end of the eighteenth century, a young, innocent sailor's charm and good nature put the men around him at ease. Ship life agreed with Billy. He made friends quickly and was well liked, which infuriated John Claggart, the ship's cold-blooded superior officer.

Humphrey van Weyden led a privileged existence during his early life, but suddenly finds himself cast into the sea, fighting for survival. Pitted against ruthless captain Wolf Larsen, van Weyden's courage and determination allows him to fight adversity and learn valuable lessons along the way, in this American classic originally published in 1904.

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.

Deadeye. Death at the Classic Regatta. A mystery yacht has washed up on an Antiguan beach and the crew is missing. A blood trace leads to a murder investigation. Michael 'Harry' Harris, a young English deckhand, is charged with the murder of his boat captain. Harry begs the help of the local boatbuilder's fiery daughter, Sylvie Copeland. Together they battle a ruthless Swiss financier willing to do anything to cover up an international conspiracy. Just what happened onboard the yacht that night and will Harry and Sylvie become the next victims? Set in the Caribbean amid its lush backdrop, ...

Life has lost its savor for Mr. Pathurst. New York, fame, women, the arts, have all become tedious. Searching for excitement, he books passage on a cargo vessel sailing from Baltimore to Seattle on a route that travels around the treacherous Cape Horn.

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.

Whether the result of being cursed at birth by a Santeria Priestess, or the result of a radical genetic mutation, Jamie possesses the preternatural ability to dive to incredible depths, and stay at those depths for hours. When, through no fault of his own, Jamie finds himself at odds with the law, he realizes that his only chance to remain free is to take refuge on and under the sea.

This book is a collection of Jack London's short stories about his experiences sailing and seal hunting in the Pacific Ocean during the late 1800s. An additional adventure looks at life along the Sacramento River. A special section describes the different types of sailing vessels, and a glossary helps the listener understand nautical terms.

A lifelong waterman, Jack London (1876-1916) left behind a rich store of bold and beautiful prose depicting life upon the sea, under sail, and in step with wild, often perilous, nature. Featuring an extended Introductory essay by author and sailor Edward Renehan, Make Westing presents the very best of London's nautical prose in one volume for the very first time.