good sailing stories.

Curtis66

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Sep 19, 2002
Messages
40
Can anyone recomend some good sailings stories.<br />Nonfiction or fiction..
 

Knoxes

Petty Officer 3rd Class
Joined
Jun 3, 2002
Messages
80
Re: good sailing stories.

"Small Craft Advisory" - Louis D Rubin, Jr. Nice book about the building of a boat. Really good if you know the geography.
 

flashback

Captain
Joined
Jun 28, 2002
Messages
3,665
Re: good sailing stories.

I like all of Patrick O'brien's books. they are about the old war ships in the 1700's.......
 

lorax

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Nov 3, 2002
Messages
134
Re: good sailing stories.

Endurance. True story about Shacklton's ill fated expedition to cross the South Pole. Has to be the most amazing sea fairing story ever told.
 

dakk1

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 22, 2003
Messages
418
Re: good sailing stories.

"Sailing Alone Around The World" by Joshua Slocum is considered one of the classic sailing stories. I still enjoy reading it every couple of years or so.<br /><br />Dave
 

JoeT

Recruit
Joined
May 22, 2003
Messages
1
Re: good sailing stories.

In the Heart of the Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick - True story of the whaling ship Essex (This story was the basis of Melville's Moby ****)<br /><br />The Proving Ground - G. BRuce Knecht<br />1998 Hobart race <br /><br /> Lone Voyager - the extraodinary adventures of Howard Blackburn - Joseph E. Garland<br />Story of Howard Blackburn, a gloucester fisherman who lost all his fingers and ended up doing some amazing things in his life. <br /><br />I second the recomendation of the Endurance. The author of the book I own is Caroline Alexander and it is filled with unbelieveable photos.<br /><br /> ;)
 

Curtis66

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Sep 19, 2002
Messages
40
Re: good sailing stories.

Thanks for the recomendations, I've read Endurance and now have read Joshua Slocums book, and in the process of reading Lin and Larry Pardey's first book (Seraffyn)all very good. Thank's, keep the recomendation's coming.
 

Curtis66

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Sep 19, 2002
Messages
40
Re: good sailing stories.

Also, just ordered The voyage of the Northern Magic looking forward to reading it too..
 

That Boat Guy

Recruit
Joined
Jul 24, 2003
Messages
1
Re: good sailing stories.

Here is a sample of my own sailing story posted at the dingy dock.<br /><br />At anchor, Poquoson River VA. 19 July 2003 <br /><br />This is a superb spot! It's well protected, close enough by bicycle <br />to town with its library and grocery store. The nights are cool here <br />and only one mosquito has tried to bite me since my arrival several <br />days ago. I've been looking for a place to do maintenance on the boat <br />and this is it. The Chesapeake Bay turns out to be the ideal place <br />for it. <br /><br />Unlike most of Florida, the people here are exceedingly nice, <br />welcoming people. I've had 6 people come by the boat, welcome me to <br />the area, offers of rides into town and the like. In many places in <br />Florida there are restrictions on how long you can stay and some <br />places where live aboard boaters are not welcome at all. <br /><br />Treated like gypsies, we take up the gypsy's solution; keep moving. <br /><br />Speaking of moving… I put 12 miles on the bicycle today making a run <br />to walmart. It's not like Sebastian where I could simply walk three <br />blocks and be there, and usually lazily drive those! So the pounds of <br />springtime walmart midnight Ben and Jerry's ice cream runs are being <br />ridden off in long bike ride walmart runs this summer. I make about <br />13 miles per hour on flat terrain. Not bad when you think that it's <br />about half the speed of a bike racer sprinting hard. Nevertheless, <br />I'll not be wearing the yellow jersey anytime soon. <br /><br />About the maintenance and upgrades? I've been up the mizzenmast three <br />times yesterday, hoisting myself up hand over hand, to install a VHF <br />radio antenna. The wire is run at least, but today being Sunday, <br />there was just too much pleasure boat traffic (and attending wakes) <br />for me to risk the climb. On one trip up, the tale end of the line <br />fouled while I was working at the masthead, with no way to pay it <br />back out to descend (oh merde). This is the nautical equivalent of <br />painting yourself into a corner. It took me several nervous minutes <br />of whipping the line around, and even swaying back and forth to make <br />the boat rock a little, to get it free at last; free at last, I was <br />able to descend to the deck, and modify my game plan. <br /><br />I would also like to install the radar, which is brand new still from <br />Pensacola, never installed. Where I'm going there could be fog. I <br />will change the transmission over to the one with the right gear <br />ratio, install a salt water wash down pump, repair the stern light <br />that went out the night before I arrived here and try to get a grip <br />on the organization of all this stuff (the struggle of my life). <br /><br />A boat is a constant maintenance item friends. It's not all the life <br />of Riley out here. And if you wait until your boat is perfect before <br />you set sail… you will never set sail. <br /><br />I'll wait out a cold front that will move thru this week. Continue <br />work on the boat and just continue enjoying this area. Looks like <br />Debrae will bring me charts! J <br /><br />Out of reading material. I bought two jewels for .50 each from the <br />libraries sale rack (Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt and The Sea Came <br />in at Midnight by Steve Erickson). I had absolutely consumed Tom <br />Robbins' new novel, "Villa Incognito". I most relate to Major <br />Stubblefield, who goes on a tirade about the false advertising of so <br />called "Vine Ripe Tomatoes" (which should be "vine ripened tomatoes" <br />anyway -- a grammatical correction pointed out by the good major in <br />the book, and by my friend Bart in real life) and espouses american <br />blind consumerism as a signal of all that's gone wrong here. Well… <br />you have to read it in context I guess. It's a sentiment, which <br />resonates so well with me. Also I was very flattered to see this <br />particular example, since it is an example I've used my own self, on <br />a rant of the same subject in The Tale of the Creaky Cart. Great <br />minds, etc… I've also completed Thomas Pynchon's novel, "Gravities <br />Rainbow". Woof! That's a hard read for a guy with my attention span <br />(about the width of a gnat's *** ). I found out that the novel <br />actually won a Pulitzer prize which was overthrown by the overseeing <br />committee who deemed it "obscene and unreadable". Hmmm, obscene <br />maybe… heh heh. <br /><br />I'll also try to take in a movie. "Pirates of the Caribbean" <br />naturally, and with the theater located in Hampton, that's about a 20 <br />mile round trip on the bike. <br /><br />So where were we… oh yes… leaving Rum Cay, AKA lobster town. <br /><br />We left early in the morning for Long Island again, but this time the <br />east coast of Long Island and into Clarence Town. This time it was a <br />solid days sail. Having scouted a really good path out of our little <br />hole in the wall anchorage we managed to escape without hitting any <br />coral heads. <br /><br />Beginning from the north side of the island as we were, we had a nice <br />reach around the east end of the island, which gave us a just barely <br />sailable close-hulled run down to Clarence Town. Once again we had as <br />many approaches to the harbor as we had guidebooks on board, serving <br />to confuse us worse than if we had just been left to find our own way <br />in. <br /><br />Let me say here that Debrae and I have different ways of looking at <br />things and tackling problems also, which leads to some interesting <br />dynamics at times of stress. Fortunately this almost never leads to <br />bad feelings. Even when it does, they are not long lived, and our <br />friendship has survived. In our community of cruisers there is a <br />tendency to attribute a great deal of mojo to passage making -- the <br />longer the passage the greater the mojo, right up to <br />circumnavigation. However… in my opinion, making landfalls is where <br />the real danger and adventure lies in cruising. Many are the boats <br />that successfully navigate the thousand plus miles between Hawaii and <br />Palmyra only to make an all too literal "landfall" on the reef in <br />Palmyra. Having made dozens of successful landfalls together (many of <br />them with no auxiliary motor), I think it's a strong testimonial to <br />our partnership aboard. <br /><br />A good bit of the situational friction arises from our different ways <br />of dealing with visual information. For instance, having read the <br />guidebooks and charts for the entrance to Clarence Town, I arranged <br />the couple of sketch charts I thought most useful to me, had the <br />binoculars close by and was ready for Debrae with her superior water <br />reading abilities, to take up "rock patrol" on the bow. <br /><br />Before leaving for the bow Debrae reached down and flipped one of the <br />sketch charts right side up. I had had it upside down, thus orienting <br />it to the direction we were going (mostly south). What she couldn't <br />fathom is that I had the other chart book right side up. To me, this <br />was the most useful arrangement and it served me well. To her sense <br />of orderliness it was an affront. When I compared my course, as <br />recorded on the GPS, with the course I had intended, I found that I <br />had steered it exactly. When we returned here on our way to the <br />Abacos, Debrae was at the helm, and when I looked at her course <br />steered afterwards, I found that it was equally good, but with <br />rounded off corners. Where I had zig zagged, she had dispensed with <br />that, and just steered a soft, safe course into the harbor. <br /><br />Clarence Town is one of those post card places that are almost too <br />picturesque to exist. It's also one of the few places where, some old <br />Europe influence in architecture can be seen in the Bahamas, two big <br />churches; one Anglican and one Catholic, built by the same man. I <br />should say that they were built under the guidance of the same man… <br />one Father Jerome, the second church built after his conversion. <br /><br />The architecture that interested me most was the grocery store and <br />the gas station. We availed ourselves of those the next day. <br />Unfortunately there was no coffee ("soon come mon") and I was <br />beginning to get nervous, in a way that the addict will when supplies <br />begin to run low. We also bought some water from the marina that was <br />not good to drink but ok for washing. For drinking water we bought 10 <br />gallons for 8 dollars from the grocery store, transferring from big <br />clear water-cooler jugs, to our battered jerry jugs. <br /><br />A walk thru the village was pleasant. There was a heard of goats <br />roaming around free on the hilly roads leading up to the two <br />churches. There was a tidal lake, with a stream leading to the bay, <br />populated by tropical fish; hermit crabs patrolled the shores. I sat <br />on a coral stone bridge, watching these fish and crabs and sipping a <br />cold goombay punch. It was a pleasant place for thinking, but frankly <br />I was missing the wild trails and cliffs of Conception, where we <br />didn't (thank goodness). <br /><br />The reef there was nice at slack tide but had a real rip to it when <br />the current was running. I shot us a nice little schoolmaster snapper <br />for dinner that was just big enough for the two of us. Nice break <br />from all that lobster. Debrae followed a sea turtle around for a long <br />time while I was hunting and we kept crossing paths. There was this <br />incredible wall of elk horn coral as well as huge patches of fire <br />coral. <br /><br />The locally grown cabbage and the bananas that Debrae bought for me <br />(she hates bananas) at the coop market were so fine. <br /><br />I called Debrae up on deck to watch the big orange sun going down <br />over the town of the two churches. Sipping tea in the cockpit, how <br />civilized. <br /><br />You thought I was making these shorter with that last one… ha! <br /><br />Love <br /><br />George
 

Brian Short

Recruit
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
2
Re: good sailing stories.

The Mutiny on the Bounty, was a great movie, but the book is actually a trilogy. The 2nd installment is about Captain Bligh's amazing journey from where he was mutinied to land. Quite the story, expecially if you like history
 

Curtis66

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Sep 19, 2002
Messages
40
Re: good sailing stories.

Thanks for all your help, I've read some and really liked them. Joshua Slocum was the first, then I read Larry and Lin Pardeys adventure on their first boat which by the way they built, It was called Seraffyn. Then I went on to read Sailing in grandfathers wake, that one was so..so but I enjoyed the parallel accounts from when his grandfather sailed the same route about 50 years earlier. And then there the Voyage of the Northern Magic, this is good reading without all the sailing terminolgy thrown in, well maybe just a little.. Any ways I'm looking for more...
 

dmm

Recruit
Joined
Oct 7, 2003
Messages
1
Re: good sailing stories.

Try Jim Moore: By Way Of The Wind<br />and Herb Payson: Blown Away and You Can't Come Home Again.<br /><br />Both superb - and humorous.
 

Curtis66

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Sep 19, 2002
Messages
40
Re: good sailing stories.

Buying Tania Aebis book now,I've read the rest. There has to be more out there
 

vaccfam

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Jul 13, 2003
Messages
48
Re: good sailing stories.

I am not a reader...usually wait for the movie....but The Proving Ground by G. BRuce Knecht.....I could not put down....<br /><br />Mike
 

JB

Honorary Moderator Emeritus
Joined
Mar 25, 2001
Messages
45,907
Re: good sailing stories.

Hi, Curtis.<br /><br />"Two Years before the Mast".<br />"Tinkerbelle" by Robert Manry<br />"Wanderer" by Sterling Hayden<br /><br />Good reading. :)
 

cjones4@hvc.rr.com

Petty Officer 2nd Class
Joined
Feb 8, 2003
Messages
132
Re: good sailing stories.

I thought for sure I would see this listed as I read this post. But since I didn't:<br /><br />"My Old Man And The Sea" by Davis Hays and Daniel Hays<br /><br /> True account of a father and son's sail around Cape Horn. Great reading. :)
 
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