Sea Sailing

On December 16, 1842, the US brig-of-war Somers dropped anchor in the New York Harbor at the end of a voyage intended to teach a group of adolescents the rudiments of naval life. But this routine exercise ended in catastrophe. Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie came ashore claiming he had prevented a mutiny that would have left him and his officers dead. Some of the thwarted mutineers were being held under guard, but three had already been hanged at sea.

For thousands of years, we have set out sailing for all kinds of reasons - for battle, for infinite wealth, for the excitement of exploring the unknown, and for escape from the mundane. We have always had a primal relationship with the sea - even those who have never been to sea remain fascinated by the seafaring life and tales of salty adventure. Now in a brand–new series collection, The Best Sailing Stories Ever Told brings together such diverse authors as Charles Dickens, Jack London, John Masefield, Stephen Crane, Herman Melville, and dozens more.

The Greeks invented everything from Western warfare to mystical prayer, from logic to statecraft. Many of their achievements, particularly in art and philosophy, are widely celebrated; other important innovations and accomplishments, however, are unknown or underappreciated. In Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Thomas Cahill explores the legacy, good and bad, of the ancient Greeks. Full of surprising, often controversial, insights, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea is a remarkable intellectual adventure.

She's a fine sailor... and a better witchThe sailing life brings a person close to the elements; it's a life where the unusual is ordinary and the mysterious, even the magical can be downright common. Short handed and with a charter coming up, taking Sira on... on a test basis, you understand, was expedient. She seemed to have a fine knack for boats, and a better one for the elements of the unexpected. She had a closer relationship to them than I could have ever imagined.

Sailing by yourself, out of sight of land, can be invigorating and terrifying, compelling and tedious—and sometimes all of the above in one morning. But it is also a wide expanse of time in which to think. Sailing Alone tells the story of some of the remarkable people who, over the last four centuries, have spent weeks and months, moving slowly over the world's largest laboratory: a capricious and startling place in which to observe oneself, the weather, the stars, and countless sea creatures, from the tiniest to the most massive and threatening.

After sailing 300,000 miles and weathering dozens of storms in all the world's oceans, John Kretschmer has plenty of stories and advice to share. John's offshore training passages sell out a year in advance, and his entertaining presentations are popular at boat shows and yacht clubs all over the English-speaking world. John's talent for storytelling enchants his audience as it soaks up the lessons he learned during his often challenging voyages. Now you can take a seat next to John - at a lesser cost - and get the knowledge you need to fulfill your own dream of blue-water adventure.

‘Quest in the Caribbean’ is the final book in the Quest Series. Wendy and I have learned to become sailors. We thank our lucky stars every day that the sea has been merciful to us. The sea is our home, but it can also be a strict master and unforgiving teacher. We learn our lessons one day and one problem at a time. But more importantly, Wendy and I learn a great deal about each other and what it takes to be good companions on a tiny boat. Compatibility on a cruising boat is the irreplaceable ingredient that keeps the cruise alive. The first chapter of ‘Quest in the Caribbean’ ...

Fed up with an outlaw existence, Calico Jack Rackam swears off the pirate life, but he hasn’t reckoned with Anne Bonny, a woman who would as soon stab a man as give him a good tumble—that is, unless he’s a pirate. Soon Jack finds himself out on the high seas again, with Anne by his side and his men spoiling for action. And when they capture a Dutch merchant ship, they pick up an unlikely crewmate as well, an expert sword fighter and topmast seaman who has a secret: he just happens to be a woman named Mary. Together they cut a bold swath through the West Indies.

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.

Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.

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 ...

It is the late 1700s and America has won its independence. Ships sail across the Atlantic delivering goods back and forth from America and the Caribbean to Europe. English, Spanish, and Dutch ships routinely make the passage from America and the Caribbean to their home ports back home. While these ships have become bigger, faster, and more reliable in the past three hundred years since Columbus landed, one thing still threatens them; pirates. Captain Nonn has a vendetta against the British for what they did to his family; those are the ships he tends to attack with his battle-tested ship, ...

What would a sailing challenge be without green water over the bow and a hard beat to windward? ‘Quest on the Thorny Path’ is the second book of the Quest series. You are now on the feared and fabled Thorny Path. Leave the laid back cruiser hangout of Georgetown, Bahamas behind and hit the big ocean waves for the first time. From Georgetown we take the path less traveled through the deserted and desolate out islands of the southern Bahamas. After a short stay in the Turks and Caicos, our course takes us to the north coast of Hispaniola. Christopher Columbus appropriately named this ...

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.

The Vendée Globe, a grueling four-month sail around the world, traveling through the wild waters of the Southern Ocean, is the most demanding and dangerous sailing race on the planet. In November 1996, 14 men and 2 women competitors set out on this ultimate human endeavor. Godforsaken Sea chronicles their solitary battles to stay alive against 6-story waves, bone-chilling cold, ice-laden seas, and their own physical and mental limitations.

A "normal" Caribbean hurricane travels from east to west, but Lenny was anything but normal. Spawned south of Cuba in 1999, this late-season storm defied all predictions by moving steadily east toward the Leeward Islands. Eventually building almost to Category 5 strength, Lenny squatted for two days between the Virgin Islands and St. Martin, whipping the ocean with 155 mile-per-hour winds and sixty-foot seas.

The author of this unfortunate tale should have known the dangers of the sea, but armed with a little knowledge and a bit too much faith in his own ability, he decided to jump into a boat and sail away. This is the very true story (I’m sad to say) of sailing the yacht called 'Solo' alone. Never having owned a boat before and after only a few weeks trying to learn the intricacies of sailing a small eighteen-foot six-inch craft. The sailor of Solo finds himself two miles out to sea and quietly wondering: what the hell was he doing there?... The plan was a quick dash around the Kent coast to...

A Serial Killer, Sex Traffickers, and Mercenaries in the Caribbean A serial killer is roaming from Florida to the Eastern Caribbean. His victims are women who hitchhike on his sailing yacht. Picking up Dani Berger was his first mistake. After he leaves her for dead, Dani is found by human traffickers, who have their own plans for her. Hitchhiking on sailing yachts in the islands is dangerous, but not as dangerous as the people sent to rescue Dani. J.-P. Berger, her father, is a French arms dealer from Martinique. Two of his friends leave a trail of mayhem in their wake as they track down ...

Tales of adventures on the high seas captivate both sailors and those who stand on the shore and gaze out across the oceans. In this original collection of sea stories, edited by veteran writer Dick Durham, the gamut of human experience is mirrored in a world of tragic shipwrecks and sea monsters, epic races and brave rescues, tall ships and tiny dinghies.

Bound for Distant Seas begins sailing author James Baldwin's epic tale of his second circumnavigation. His story is seasoned by his adventures during his first circumnavigation in 1984-86 as told in Across Islands and Oceans. Alone with little money aboard Atom, his now-engineless 28-foot sailboat, James embarks on his odyssey without the comforts and equipment most sailors consider essential.