In June 1972, the 43-foot schooner Lucette was attacked by killer whales and sank in 60 seconds. What happened next is almost incredible. In an inflatable rubber raft, with a 9-foot fiberglass dinghy to tow it, Dougal Robertson and his family were miles from any shipping lanes. They had emergency rations for only three days and no maps, compass, or instruments of any kind. After their raft sank under them, they crammed themselves into their tiny dinghy.
For 37 days--using every technique of survival--they battled against 20-foot waves, marauding sharks, thirst, starvation, and exhaustion, adrift in the vast reaches of the Pacific before their ordeal was ended by a Japanese fishing boat. The Robertsons' strong determination shines through the pages of this extraordinary book which describes movingly their daily hopes and fears, crises and triumphs, tensions and heartbreaks.Moitessier's notebooks include all the know-how and the 1,001 tips of this legendary sailor, the knowledge he acquired on the water, in meeting with other sailors, during long passages and his many years on various islands. This simple how-to explains why the sea never changes despite the incredible progress of technology.
The Great Lakes were America's first superhighway before railroad lines and roads arrived in the late nineteenth century. This book tells the story of the ships and boats on which the United States, barely decades old, moved to the country's middle and beyond, established a robust industrial base, and became a world power, despite enduring a bloody Civil War. The five sisters, as the Great Lakes came to be called, would connect America's far-reaching regions in the century ahead, carrying streams of Irish, German, and Scandinavian settlers to new lives, as the young nation expanded west. Initially, schooner fleets delivered passengers and goods to settlements along the lakes, including Chicago, Milwaukee, and Green Bay, and returned east with grain, lumber, and iron ore. Steam-driven vessels, including the lavish palace passenger steamers, followed, along with those specially designed to carry coal, grain, and iron ore. The era also produced a flourishing shipbuilding industry and saw recreational boating advance. In text and photographs, this book tells the story of a bygone era, of mariners and Mackinaw Boats, schooners and steamboats, all helping to advance the young nation westward.
Creative Ropecraft is a treasure trove of knots, hitches, bends, plaits and netting. Anyone tempted to try their hand at ropecraft will be able to follow in the footsteps of the traditional seamen who have gone before thanks to Stuart Grainger's clear instructions and very detailed drawings.
In Creative Ropecraft, Stuart Grainger describes how to tie and use a wide variety of knots, both practical and fancy. Here you'll find crown and wall knots, turk's head knots, door knockers, hammocks, mats, netting, belts, cuff links, table lamps, rope-edged trays, and many more. Once picked up, it is hard to put this wonderful book down.Based on the exceptional and fascinating eyewitness account of a seventeenth-century Spanish padre, Dave Horner's Shipwreck is the absorbing and true story of two immense galleons that were lost (along with hundreds of passengers and millions of pesos in treasure) to disasters at sea. Shipwreck is an extraordinary literary adventure which interweaves accounts of the many attempts throughout the past three centuries to recover the sunken treasure, including the recent discovery and salvage of one of the galleons by Dave Horner himself. Shipwreck is an outstanding history of true adventure on the high seas, past and present, which is wonderfully enhanced for the reader with 50 photographic illustrations, six maps, four line drawings, seven appendices, as well as bibliographies of archival sources, institutions, original documents or primary works, and a general listing of thematically appropriate titles for further suggested readings.
Two Years Before the Mast is a classic travel narrative which inspired canonical works like Moby Dick and Sailing Alone Around the World. As he follows Richard Henry Dana Jr. (a Harvard dropout-turned-sailor) on his voyages around North America (encountering racial injustices and struggling through the battered life of a foremast crewman), Rod Scher annotates his tale with critiques, tie-ins to today, and little-known facts about both the book and the milieu of Dana's time.
From John C. Payne, one of the foremost international authorities on marine electrical systems and electronics, comes an easy-to-understand yet thorough treatment of boat wiring and the technical issues facing every boat owner, whether sail or power.
Concise, compact, and fully illustrated for easy reference, Understanding Boat Wiring: 2nd Edition has been fully revised throughout. This guide offers a comprehensive coverage of the following major topics:
From John C. Payne, one of the foremost international authorities on marine electrical systems and electronics, comes an easy-to-understand yet thorough treatment of marine diesel engines and the technical issues facing every boat owner.
Concise, compact, and fully illustrated for easy reference, Understanding Marine Diesels: 2nd Edition has been fully revised throughout. This guide offers a comprehensive coverage of marine diesel engine parts and what they do, checklists for regular engine care and maintenance as well as troubleshooting, and an overview of electrical systems. Text and illustrations address the following major topics:
Two Years Before the Mast is a classic travel narrative which inspired canonical works like Moby Dick and Sailing Alone Around the World. As he follows Richard Henry Dana Jr. (a Harvard dropout-turned-sailor) on his voyages around North America (encountering racial injustices and struggling through the battered life of a foremast crewman), Rod Scher annotates his tale with critiques, tie-ins to today, and little-known facts about both the book and the milieu of Dana's time.
One of the most famous books on yacht design ever written, this reprint includes the last revisions made Skene himself.
New York Times best-selling author Peter Nichols chronicles his and his wife's voyage aboard a wooden sailboat from the Caribbean to England--where his marriage foundered--and his trip back alone, which also became a journey of self-discovery.
1843: Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater's career concludes as he is drawn from retirement and embarks on the paddle-steamer Vestal for a final mission to inspect lighthouses on the west coast of England, where he is faced with a tragic incident and must confront his past.