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By the Grace of the Sea : A Woman's Solo Odyssey Around the World
by Pat Henry
Reviewed by Publishers Weekly
With a bankrupt business, pending lawsuits and an audit by the IRS, Henry had plenty of reasons to hit the deck. In 1989 she set sail aboard the 31-foot Southern Cross and traveled the world. Eight years later Henry returned to Acapulco, Mexico; at 56, she became the oldest American woman (not the first, as the book jacket erroneously reports) to complete a solo circumnavigation. Over the course of this memoirish travelogue, Henry emerges as an artist, creating original watercolors of the coastal villages she calls home, mounting exhibitions in galleries across the globe and earning enough money to support her sailing. She also develops a deeper understanding of herself. Indeed, Henry may well be construed as a shining example of midlife reinvention. Henry peppers the text with anecdotes about the political history of each region, serving to right the sinking ship.
Boat Docking: (Close Quarters Maneuvering for Small Craft)
by Charles T. Low (Illustrator)
Elbert S. "Mack" Maloney, USMC, Col. (Ret.), editor and author
"Any boater - well, almost any - can handle his boat reasonably well in open waters. The real crunch comes when he or she has to bring the craft into a pier or wharf. Boat Docking may be a small volume, but it contains a wealth of information on docking and undocking a boat.
"Detailed procedures covering a wide variety of situations are followed by a thorough explanation of the forces and effects of wind, current, and propeller action - even experienced skippers can learn from this book." (Elbert S. "Mack" Maloney, USMC, Col. (Ret.), editor and author of Chapman Piloting)
by Elbert S. Maloney, Charles Frederic Chapman
When Chapman Piloting lands on your doorstep--all 656 pages of it--it's easy to feel daunted. Have faith, sailor. Now in its 63rd edition, Charles Frederic Chapman's masterpiece is a boater's bible. Indeed, one Amazon.com customer raves, "if you could take a class called Boating 101, this would be the textbook." It's more than just a basic text, however; it's a complete curriculum of nautical knowledge, from knots to navigation, docking to distress calls, plus etiquette, protocol, and terminology for powerboaters and sailors alike. Accessible to the beginner, Chapman Piloting is an essential reference for even the most experienced sailor. A necessary component of any nautical library. Highly recommended.
Boating 101: Essential Lessons for Boaters
No boater should leave the dock without reading this unique guide to the basics of boating. Roger Siminoff's decades of experience are boiled down into valuable, even life-saving advice on safety aboard...navigation...anchoring...dinghies...maintenance... sailing at night...and heavy weather.
Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the
John J. Harvey
In relating the heroic role of the John J. Harvey on September 11, Kalman (Next Stop Grand Central) intelligently conveys those unfathomable events in a way that a picture book audience can comprehend. She begins with the year 1931, which saw some of New York City's finest hours: "Amazing things were happening big and small./ The Empire State Building went up up up." She continues with the completion of the George Washington Bridge, then zeroes in on the launching of the John J. Harvey, "the largest, fastest and shiniest fireboat of them all." Spot illustrations show its equipment and introduce the crew (including "a dog named Smokey, who did not put out the fires but had many nice spots"), while views of the New York harbor stretch across a spread. She then fast-forwards to 1995: "New York was changing. The Twin Towers were now the tallest buildings in New York City." But the piers are also closing, so the fireboat rests in retirement. One night, a group of friends decide over dinner to restore the John J. Harvey to its original glory. Next, the volume takes an abrupt turn. White type on a black page announces: "But then on September 11, 2001 something so huge and horrible happened that the whole world shook."
Proving Ground : The Inside Story of the
1998 Sydney to Hobart Race
In The Proving Ground, journalist and lifelong sailor G. Bruce Knecht tells the staggering story of the 54th Sydney to Hobart yacht race--an annual event that is always an extreme test of courage and skill in some of the world's most treacherous seas, but which in 1998 would become the most disastrous race in modern yachting history
Adrift: Seventy Six Days Lost at Sea
On the night of January 29, 1982, Steven Callahan set sail in his small sloop from the Canary Islands bound for the Caribbean. Thus began one of the most remarkable sea adventures of all time. Six days out, the sloop sank, and Callahan found himself adrift in the Atlantic in a five-and-a-half-foot inflatable raft with only three pounds of food and eight pints of water. He would drift for seventy-six days over eighteen hundred miles of ocean before he reached land and rescue.
Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors
Authentic accounts of survivors from the 1500s to the present show penetrating explorations of the moral dilemmas they faced, the personalities of those who survive in desperate situations, and the influence of survivors on society. 50 photos and drawings.
A Voyage for Madmen
In the psychedelic summer of 1968, as Apollo 8 soared toward the moon and the Democratic Convention crashed in Chicago, nine men tried finally to accomplish the sailor's age-old ultimate goal: a solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the world. Nichols (Sea Change) deftly introduces myriad aspects of a voyage that promised "dubious, unquantifiable" rewards. He insightfully contextualizes the endeavor as an offshoot of Sir Francis Chichester's famous 1967 solo circumnavigation (with one stop), which represented to England a "longed-for" heroism. Detailing the British media's successful exploitation of the so-called race, he approaches the voyage as the remarkable result of nine men wishing to outdo Chichester. Nichols painstakingly describes the enormous difficulty of solo navigation in the pre-global positioning system of the 1960s. These "hardcase egomaniacs driven by complex desires and vainglory to attempt an extreme, life-threatening endeavor" used only rudimentary equipment and their wits. Nichols is at his liveliest when describing the only two participants who "were really happy aboard their boats": the French-Asian Bernard Moitessier, the most skilled sailor, whose mystical seamanship brings surprises, and the British Robin Knox-Johnson, who was energized during his journey by the memory of "the Elizabethan sea heroes of his youth." Nichols also delivers a compelling portrait of English Donald Crowhurst, an electronics engineer whose "supercharged personality" wreaked havoc on the entire race.
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