Martyn Murray was finding modern life, with all its restrictions and controls, suffocating. Following years of soul-searching, his father's death triggered him into opening the old logbooks and charts to retrace the sailing trips they had once shared together. He determined to revisit those waters and bring home the freedom of the seas. Falling in love with an old ketch in Ireland, he bought and restored her enough to sail back to Scotland. Over the next two summers he cruised Scotland's W...

An alchemic blend of travel and nature writing that explores the primary dilemma of the 21st century - the conflict of modern lifestyles with the natural environment. This is an account of the author's journey from the Cape to the Serengeti Plains and his search for an answer to the Old Timer, a Kenyan who foretold the end of the wild. Martyn decided on one more trip, but this time without an agenda, without a timetable and without preconceptions: with no purpose other than to know, to fee...

How the mighty clipper ships transformed Australia from convict outpost to a nation.More than one million Australians can trace their heritage to the migrant ships of the mid-to-late 19th century...The story of the Clipper ships, and the tens of thousands of migrants they bought to the Australian colony of the nineteenth century, is one of the world's great migration stories. For anyone who travelled to Australia before 1850, it was a long and arduous journey that could tak...

On Friday 14 June 1968 Suhaili, a tiny ketch, slipped almostunnoticed out of Falmouth harbour steered by the solitary figure at herhelm, Robin Knox-Johnston. Ten and a half months later Suhaili,paintwork peeling and rust streaked, her once white sails weathered andbrown, her self-steering gone, her tiller arm jury rigged to the rudderhead, came romping joyously back to Falmouth to a fantastic receptionfor Robin, who had become the...

By the same author as the bestselling Total Loss this is a new collection of terrifying and compelling accounts of yachts lost at sea. The seven deadly causes of loss continue to take their toll and Paul Gelder has compiled first-hand accounts of shipwreck and sinking caused by Collision Gear Failure Stress of Weather Faulty Navigation Fire Crew Failure and Exhaustion. The moving emotionally charged descriptions of shipwrecked sailors abandoning their yachts at sea will have you on the edg...

Aged just 23, and already set on a life of adventure, Roger Taylor signed up as an able seaman on the square-rigger Endeavour II, bound from Australia to New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. It was the realisation of a boyhood dream. The dream was cruelly shattered when the ship was caught in a fierce tropical storm off the coast of northern New Zealand. For several days, the young crew fought in horrific conditions to keep the ship off the hostile cliffs to leeward. Their efforts were in ...

If you're wondering what Chris Stewart did before he and Ana moved to El Valero, their Spanish farm, here's one of the answers. He took to the sea, landing a job as skipper for the summer, sailing a Cornish Crabber around the Greek islands. It was his dream job - and there was just one tiny problem. He hadn't ever sailed before and had not the foggiest how to start.In a series of madcap and hilarious adventures we follow Chris from a shaky start in Chichester harbour to his epic Od...

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stone Barrington series tells the true story of his journey sailing alone across the Atlantic Ocean.Stuart Woods had never owned more than a dinghy before setting out on one of the world’s most demanding sea voyages, navigating single-handedly across the Atlantic. How, at the age of thirty-seven, did this self-proclaimed novice go from small ponds to the big sea?Now with a new afterword that looks bac...

Sailing, Yachts and Yarns is a selection of British sailing legend Tom Cunliffe's most entertaining, outspoken and instructive writing from the pages of Yachting Monthly magazine. Tom's regular column for this leading sailing magazine gives him free reign to explore a wide range of topics. He has a gift for capturing the magic of sail and finding pearls of practical wisdom in the most unlikely nautical adventures. Sailing, Yachts and Yarns is a wonderful miscellany of wit, wisdom and wonde...

One of Britain's greatest living sailors shares a collection of distilled wisdom, acute observation and fascinating anecdotes. _x000D_This book is a collection of provoking, insightful and perceptive pieces of writing by Robin Knox-Johnston. His forthright and compelling views are based on a wealth of experience and expertise. The spotlight of his steely gaze falls upon the great ocean races and the brave men and women who compete in them. He considers the lessons of seamanship he learned ...

Set sail on a thrilling journey to discover some of the most exciting tales of adventure afloat. There's every sort of vessel from majestic square rigger to humble homemade yacht. Journey around gale-whipped headlands and survive mountainous seas – or turn the page to discover the delights of cruising among the islands of a tropical paradise. The exploits of sailing's greatest names are recounted, along with an eclectic mix of tales that never made the headlines, yet make compelling readin...

"A Gigantic Whinge on the Celtic Fringe" is the story of a circumnavigation of Ireland aboard my 27ft yacht in 2011.From the Firth of Forth I went through the Caledonian Canal and round Ireland anti-clockwise, which many people consider to be the 'wrong way round'. Most, but by no means all of the journey, was sailed solo.On the way I skirted a lot of the bits of what is sometimes called the 'Celtic Fringe'. If you are used to travelling in Britain by road and rail it's eas...