At the age of 34, John Pollack quit a prestigious speechwriting job on Capitol Hill to pursue an idea he had harbored since the age of six: to build a boat out of wine corks and take it on an epic journey.In Cork Boat, Pollack tells the charming and uplifting story of this unlikely adventure. Overcoming one obstacle after another, he convinces skeptical bartenders to save corks, corrals a brilliant but disorganized partner, and cajoles more than a hundred volunteers to help build the boat, many until their fingers bleed. Hired as a speechwriter for President Clinton midway through construction, Pollack soon has the White House saving corks, too. Ultimately, he and his crew set sail down the Douro River in Portugal, where the boat becomes a national sensation. Written with unusual grace and disarming humor, Cork Boat is a buoyant tale of camaraderie, determination, and the power of imagination.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    She was going nowhere until her father offered her a challenge. He would offer her either a college education or a twenty-six-foot sloop in which she had to sail around the world alone. She chose the boat and for two years it was her home, as she negotiated weather, illness, fear, and ultimately, a spiritual quest that brought her home to herself....From the Paperback edition.

    The appearance of such a new voice is something of an event, and that's what we'd call the publication of The Voyager's Handbook."--Blue Water SailingThis inspirational and comprehensive manual leads you step by step through every aspect of choosing, planning, and following the voyager's life. Using three example boats representing three cruising lifestyles--Simplicity, Moderation, and Highlife--Beth Leonard helps make your bluewater dreams come true, whether you're sailing on a shoestring or a CEO's pension. Starting with the things you can't do without--an enthusiastic crew, a seaworthy boat, and, of course, money--Leonard offers sage advice on how to select crewmembers who are truly committed to the voyage, how to choose the right boat for you, and how to find just the right approach to financing your voyage and making the most of every dollar spent.Managing life from a floating home and keeping that home livable, seaworthy, and safe requires you to become, among other things, the ship's purser, engineer, doctor, cook, and cruise director. You'll discover how to prepare for these new roles and put necessary equipment and arrangements in place before you untie your docklines. This exquisitely detailed guide also helps you master the skills you'll need to handle a boat at sea with a small crew, includingWeather forecastingPassage planningWatchkeepingHeavy-weather sailingEmergency managementMidocean repairsComplete with dozens of easy-to-use graphs and tables for quick reference, along with the hard-won wisdom of experienced cruisers, The Voyager's Handbook is the ultimate resource for anyone who is planning, preparing for, or just dreaming about a great adventure on the high seas.

    But sixteen-hour days spent hauling heavy cargo aboard tugs and icebreakers along the frozen arctic offshore (not to mention smoking copious amounts of Cannabis indica) can warp a man’s sense of reality. Desperate for real human contact, he tunes the sideband radio to 2182 kHz (twenty-one eighty-two kilohertz), the international distress channel, in the vague hope of finding someone he can save. Soon, though, even the paycheck that fattens his wallet each season isn’t enough to fix his interest. Seine journeys south, but weathers a capsizing that leaves his fellow crewmen dead. Unable to break from his old habits, and haunted by the ghosts of dead shipmates, he flies north for another season. One day, idly monitoring 2182, Seine catches a fading distress call from somewhere out in the circumpolar twilight. A scientist named Louis Moneymaker is trapped alone on an ice floe that threatens to melt beneath his feet. Cobbling together a motley rescue team–the frostbitten Wolf, a six-foot-eight Russian known as Big Man, a tattooed Eskimo nicknamed the Buff, and an intrepid, dark-eyed sailor named Julia–Seine travels farther north than he’s ever gone, determined to save Moneymaker and exorcise his demons in one grand sweep. 2182 kHz combines the white-knuckle adventure of The Perfect Storm with the dark humor and deadpan wit of Chuck Palahniuk to create an absorbing tale of search-and-rescue. David Masiel introduces us to a compelling antihero who is only one step away from either destruction or salvation.From the Hardcover edition.

    With no maps, compass or navigation instruments and rations for only 3 days.

    Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six-foot wooden sloop Spray in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world’s great circumnavigators – Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in maritime history for its courage, skill, and determination.Sailing Alone around the World recounts Slocum’s wonderful adventures: hair-raising encounters with pirates off Gibraltar and savage Indians in Tierra del Fuego; raging tempests and treacherous coral reefs; flying fish for breakfast in the Pacific; and a hilarious visit with fellow explorer Henry Stanley in South Africa. A century later, Slocum’s incomparable book endures as one of the greatest narratives of adventure ever written.

    It matters not, though, for Kane is directionless himself, having just witnessed the Civil War's horrors only to return North with nothing but the clothes on his back and as many dead soldiers' letters as he could carry in his pockets. Aboard the mysterious Narthex, Kane meets a ramshackle crew that includes an eccentric doctor and a three-handed Muslim full of horrifying lore. Kane learns only that they're sailing for the Artic in search of gold or maybe whales. But when it turns out the Narthex's destination is a temperate paradise hidden amidst glaciers–a mythical place–Kane and his cohorts must struggle to survive not only the bleak Artic conditions, but the loosening grip on sanity of an egomaniacal captain and the data-obsessed doctor. With each second that passes, it seems increasingly unlikely any of them will get out alive.

    In December 1944, America’s most popular and colorful naval hero, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, unwittingly sailed his undefeated Pacific Fleet into the teeth of the most powerful storm on earth. Three destroyers were capsized sending hundreds of sailors and officers into the raging, shark infested waters. Over the next sixty hours, small bands of survivors fought seventy-foot waves, exhaustion, and dehydration to await rescue at the hands of the courageous Lt. Com. Henry Lee Plage, who, defying orders, sailed his tiny destroyer escort USS Tabberer through 150 mph winds to reach the lost men. Thanks to documents that have been declassified after sixty years and dozens of first-hand accounts from survivors—including former President Gerald Ford—one of the greatest World War II stories, and a riveting tale of survival at sea, can finally be told.

    In a daring foray, under the very nose of the French Mediterranean fleet, Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage is to sail his tiny cutter close in to the Italian shore and rescue a party of stranded aristocrats from Napoleon's fast-advancing army.

    This completely revised edition takes into account the fresh information that has appeared since the book was first published in 1959, especially that from archaeology's newest branch, marine archaeology. Casson does what no other author has done: he has put in a single volume the story of all that the ancients accomplished on the sea from the earliest times to the end of the Roman Empire. He explains how they perfected trading vessels from mere rowboats into huge freighters that could carry over a thousand tons, how they transformed warships from simple oared transports into complex rowing machines holding hundreds of marines and even heavy artillery, and how their maritime commerce progressed from short cautious voyages to a network that reached from Spain to India.

    Tired of everyday life ashore, Farley Mowat would find a sturdy boat in Newfoundland and roam the salt sea over, free as a bird. What he found was the worst boat in the world, and she nearly drove him mad. The Happy Adventure, despite all that Farley and his Newfoundland helpers could do, leaked like a sieve. Her engine only worked when she felt like it. Typically, on her maiden voyage, with the engine stuck in reverse, she backed out of the harbour under full sail. And she sank, regularly.How Farley and a varied crew, including the intrepid lady who married him, coaxed the boat from Newfoundland to Lake Ontario is a marvellous story. The encounters with sharks, rum-runners, rum and a host of unforgettable characters on land and sea make this a very funny book for readers of all ages.

    As world-girdling sailors who roamed the planet on a pair of small, engineless boats that they built themselves, the Pardeys established their hard-earned reputations by eloquently (and sometimes controversially) telling their stories through a series of best-selling books and manuals, and countless seminars and boat shows. They have been called "the first couple of cruising" and have remained true to their mantra: "Go simple, go small, go now." And after 200,000 miles of cruising under sail, they've demonstrated that the dream of voyaging over the horizon is not only attainable, it's affordable.The children of modest, middle-class families, their message of accessibility into the world of cruising-of taking your own floating home anywhere-has proved irresistible to tens of thousands of sailors. Lin and Larry Pardey became "cruising royalty" not solely due to their impressive deeds but also through their rare ability to share what they'd learned across multiple media. Seemingly every offshore cruiser knows who they are and what they represent.Or do they?In As Long as It's Fun, the biography of Lin and Larry Pardey, Herb McCormick recounts their remarkable sailing career-from their early days in Southern California to their two circumnavigations to their current life in a quiet cove in New Zealand. Through interviews with their families, friends, and critics, McCormick delves deeply into the couple's often-controversial opinions, sometimes-tenuous marriage, and amazing list of accomplishments. As Long as It's Fun is as much a love story as it is a sea yarn, and, like all such stories, it's not without complications . . . which makes it not only a sailing tale but also a human one.

    And it witnessed the greatest naval battle of all time.In 'The Great War At Sea: 1914-1918', the historian Richard Hough tells the story of those naval battles and how they shaped the eventual outcome of the war. It is a history as much of men as of ships; men like Sir John Jellicoe, 'Jacky' Fisher, and Winston Churchill, who together succeeded in jolting the Royal Navy out of its nineteenth-century complacency. The narrative follows the race to war, including the construction of the Dreadnought, the biggest, fastest, most heavily gunned battleship in the world; and against the backdrop of feuds, scheming, and personality clashes at the Admiralty, examines the triumphs and tragedies of the great battles and campaigns. Could the appalling losses have been avoided during the Dardanelles? Was there 'something wrong with our bloody ships' as David Beatty said at Jutland? Why was the Battle of Jutland inconclusive?'A truly excellent history, technical enough for the specialist, handy and well-found for laymen, and since the Silent Service could normally be relied on for its quota of personality clashes and blazing rows, human interest is well-served. So too is drama.' Christopher Wordsworth, The Observer'An admirable book which everyone interested in the history of the war should read' - The Glasgow HeraldRichard Alexander Hough was a British author and historian specializing in maritime history.Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher.

    Midshipman Easy is based on the author's adventures sailing with Lord Thomas Cochrane. This classic seafaring tale is a fascinating account of naval life and warfare, of French prisons and love affairs, and of the midshipman's berth. Marryat's ready wit, unforgettable characters, and true-to-life details have earned him praise from Conrad, Hemingway, and Ford Madox Ford, who called him "the greatest of English novelists."

    Eight months later, his boat was found in the mid-Atlantic, intact but with no one on board. In this gripping reconstruction, journalists Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall tell the story of Crowhurst's ill-fated voyage.