Showing titles in Sailing & Boating

This audiobook is the RYA's official and definitive guide to the Coastal and Offshore exams. It offers a unique insight into what you need to know, how the exams will be conducted, and the skills required. Whether you are going to take either of the exams, or are thinking of it and want to find out what you will face on the day, this is the audiobook that you must have.

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.

Chasing a dream is never easy, but if you go far enough, it will set you free. Captain Liz Clark spent her youth dreaming of traveling the world by sailboat and surfing remote waves. When she was 22, she met a mentor who helped turn her desire into reality. Embarking on an adventure that most...

Normality is so over-rated. Boat life is better. In her debut memoir Narrow Margins, Marie Browne saved her family from financial ruin by moving her long-suffering husband, three children, and a dog on to a houseboat called Happy Go Lucky in search of a less stressful, alternative way of life. Now in Narrow Minds the family find themselves sucked back into normality, they’re pretty much back where they started: horrible house, no boat, and the kids are beginning to threaten mutiny.

John Kretschmer is sailing’s practical philosopher - as much a doer as a thinker. And that is the overarching theme of this chronicle of a sailing life. Often amusing, sometimes poignant, occasionally terrifying but always inspiring, his deeply personal account is a welcome reminder of the good life waiting at sea. With hundreds of thousands of nautical miles under his keel, John’s adventures have taken him several times around the world.

Sailing, Yachts and Yarns is a selection of Tom Cunliffe’s funniest, wisest and most thought-provoking writing from the pages of Yachting Monthly. Tom’s love of language and sense of humour shine through as he recalls the wealth of sinners and saints he has met on docksides from Southampton to South America, Greenwich to Greenland and Newtown to New York. He has a gift for capturing the magic of sail and finding pearls of practical wisdom in the most unlikely nautical adventures.

When Guirec Soudée was 21 years old, he bought a 30-foot sailboat and set out across the Atlantic, despite having only sailed a dinghy before. His only companion? His plucky pet hen, Monique. Guirec never intended to sail the world with a chicken, but after reaching the Caribbean, he and Monique made for Greenland - and emerged from the pack ice 100 days later.

Tania Aebi was an unambitious 18-year-old, a bicycle messenger in New York City by day, a Lower East Side barfly at night. In short, she was going nowhere - until her father offered her a challenge: Tania could choose either a college education or a 26-foot sloop. The only catch was that if she chose the sailboat, she'd have to sail around the world - alone. She chose the boat, and for the next two and a half years and 27,000 miles, it was her home.

In November 2015 Sarah Outen completed her five-year, 25,000 mile journey looping the planet by cycling across Europe, Asia and North America and canoeing and kayaking across the North Pacific and most of the North Atlantic.

Yet familiar though the sea areas are by name, few people give much thought to where they are or what they contain. In Attention All Shipping, Charlie Connelly wittily explores the places behind the voice, those mysterious regions whose names seem often to bear no relation to conventional geography. Armchair travel will never be the same again.

Perfect for fans of Patrick O'Brian, Bernard Cornwell, and swashbuckling adventure during the great Age of Sail. Thiswill be the twenty-first novel in Julian Stockwin's acclaimed Thomas Kydd series. 1809. After his heroic actions during the retreat to Corunna, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is the...

When you read about someone sailing around the world, it’s usually a dotcom millionaire or a professional adventurer. Brave or Stupid? tells a very different story. It’s an everyman tale about a middle-aged, seasick electrician with no money who suddenly and for no reason decides to sail around the world. It’s the story of Yanne Larsson, a man with a dream born not out of a passion for sailing or a search for identity or the need for a challenge. This is the story of a simple handshake. One of the old-fashioned, ironclad ones.

Leaving her garden to the mercy of the slugs, award-winning writer Alys Fowler set out in an inflatable kayak to explore Birmingham's canal network, full of little-used waterways where huge pike skulk and kingfishers dart. Her book is about noticing the wild everywhere and what it means to see beauty where you least expect it. What happens when someone who has learned to observe her external world in such detail decides to examine her internal world with the same care?

Challenged by an expert who said it couldn’t be done, Joshua Slocum, a fearless New England sea captain, set out in April 1895 to prove that a man could sail alone around the world. A little over three years and forty-six thousand miles later, the proof was complete. This is Slocum’s own account of his remarkable adventures during the historic voyage of the Spray.

Over the course of twenty years of delivering sailboats to far-flung quaysides, John Kretschmer has had innumerable adventures, both humorous and terrifying. In Flirting with Mermaids, he recounts the most memorable of them. He crosses the Western Caribbean with a crew of eccentric Swedes researching ancient Mayan mariners, lands in Aden at the outbreak of civil war, and endures a North Atlantic crossing during which he discovers the existence of Force 13 winds.

In 1968, the Sunday Times organised the Golden Globe race - an incredible test of endurance never before attempted – a round the world yacht race that must be completed single-handed and non-stop, going into port for repairs or supplies would mean disqualification.This remarkable challenge inspired the daring to enter – with or without sailing experience. A Race Too Far is the story of how the race unfolded, and how it became a tragedy for many involved.

Steve Haywood has been cruising the inland waterways for 50 years, and has amassed a following of readers and listeners keen to hear about his travelling tales on Britain’s beautiful canals and rivers. Tales from the Tillerman is both his tribute to Britain’s canals, rivers and countryside and a celebration of Britishness in all its eccentric glory. Unlike Steve’s previous titles, Tales from the Tillerman is casting the net wider and drawing from his full 50 years of experience, recounting the many hair-raising escapades he’s had up and down the country.

Team Spirit is a gripping account of a race on the edge, and a young skipper's determined journey to victory. The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the ultimate long distance challenge - a 35,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe, contested by amateur crews in identical racing yachts - and the winners are those who keep their focus the longest.

Come aboard with Heyward and Charlotte as they transform a worn-out hull into a first-class blue water cruiser. Then take off and cross oceans with them, feeling their desperation when equipment failures force ingenious workarounds in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Share the highs of navigating the crystal waters of French Polynesia and the lows of crossing pirate-infested waters in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. Travel ashore with them to places not covered in travel brochures, meet natives untouched by the modern world, and navigate the political waters of Guantanamo Bay.

The Vendée Globe Race is one of the world’s toughest sporting events: a single-handed, non-stop lap of the planet, with no assistance. The route takes competitors around the fringes of Antarctica, tackling terrifying conditions in the Southern Ocean before rounding Cape Horn. In My Element is the gripping and uncompromising story of Pip’s incredible journey, but it’s about so much more than sailing.