Random House New Releases - Sports & Recreation - Sailing

A Unit of Water, a Unit of Time by Douglas Whynott

2012-06-06T00:30:00-05:00

A Unit of Water, a Unit of Time
Written by Douglas Whynott

eBook, 320 pages | Doubleday | Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $16.99 | 978-0-307-82034-1 (0-307-82034-3)

In a time when racing boats are mass-produced from synthetic materials, a dying breed of craftsman continues to build wooden sailboats of astonishing beauty. Boatbuilding is an ancient art, and Joel White was a master. Son of the legendary writer E.B. White, he was raised around boats and his designs were as sublime and graceful as his father's prose. At a boatyard in Maine, White and his closely knit team of builders brought scores of his creations from blueprints into the ocean.

In June 1996, six months after being diagnosed with cancer, Joel White began designing the W-76, an exquisite racing yacht. It was his final masterpiece. Douglas Whynott spent a year at Brooklin Boat Yard, observing as this design took shape, first in sketches and then during the painstaking building of the wooden craft.

The result is the poignant tale of both a genius at work and the people devoted to his art. Evoking E.B. White's New England and its salty residents, A Unit of Water, a Unit of Time is a classic portrait of dignity, charm, and humble magnificence-and of a maritime community that keeps a vanishing world alive.

Sea Of Dreams by Adam Mayers

2011-06-22T00:30:00-05:00

Sea Of Dreams Racing Alone Around The World In A Small Boat
Written by Adam Mayers

eBook | McClelland & Stewart | Sports & Recreation; Sports & Recreation - Sailing; Travel - Adventure | $11.99 | 978-1-55199-610-3 (1-55199-610-3)

The biennial Around Alone yacht race (now known as the 5-Oceans Challenge) is the most thrilling adventure in the world for the sailors passionate enough to undertake it. Among the competitors in 2002 was Derek Hatfield, a former fraud-squad Mountie, whose forty-foot Spirit of Canada had cost him almost everything he had. In this nail-biting account of the race, Adam Mayers brings to life the joys and the agonies of racing alone — and the dreams that drive these men and women to sail around the world solo. Watch for Hatfield when he competes again in 2006.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Three Ways to Capsize a Boat by Chris Stewart

2010-05-25T00:30:00-05:00

Three Ways to Capsize a Boat An Optimist Afloat
Written by Chris Stewart

Trade Paperback, 192 pages | Broadway | Travel - Essays & Travelogues; Travel - Europe; Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $12.99 | 978-0-307-59237-8 (0-307-59237-5)

Chris Stewart had a long and eclectic list of jobs. From some of the most glamorous careers – he was original drummer in Genesis - to the more offbeat - a sheep shearer and circus performer - he had done it all…or almost all. So when he is offered the chance to captain a sailboat in the Greek islands one summer, something he had never done before, he jumps at the chance. Ever the optimist, Stewart is undaunted by the fact that he’d never actually sailed before!

So begins the hilarious and wild adventures of Three Ways to Capsize a Boat. From setting the boat on fire not once, but several times in the Aegean Sea to his not-so-grand arrival in Spetses to meet the owners of the boat (who says it isn’t graceful to plow into the docks as a means of coming to a stop?), Stewart quickly catches the sailing bug. By the end of the summer, as he is facing the dreary prospect of going back to sheep shearing, he jumps at the chance to be part of a crew to follow Viking Leif Eiriksson’s historic journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Five months on a small sailboat with seven other people in the freezing waters of the Atlantic would sound like punishment to most people, but not Stewart! He takes it all in stride and always with his unfailing optimism and good spirits. From coming to terms with the long, cold nights at sea and unchanging cuisine to battling intense seasickness and managing to go to the bathroom during a massive storm (a lot harder than you’d think!), Stewart keeps his good humor…but learns, in the end, that perhaps the best things in life are worth coming ashore for.

Three Ways to Capsize a Boat is travel writing at its best, crackling with Chris Stewart’s zest for life, irresistible humor, and unerring lack of foresight. Dry land never looked more welcoming!

“Three Ways to Capsize a Boat” is a charming and lyrical read, awash with the joy of discovery, and Stewart is an immensely likeable narrator…The key to his popularity is his honest and self-effacing determination - as discussed during a mid-Atlantic storm - to live a rewarding life.” – Guardian, UK

Beyond Endurance by Adam Mayers

2008-05-06T00:30:00-05:00

Beyond Endurance 300 Boats, 600 Miles, and One Deadly Storm
Written by Adam Mayers

Trade Paperback, 280 pages | McClelland & Stewart | Sports & Recreation; Sports & Recreation - Sailing; Travel - Adventure | $19.99 | 978-0-7710-5703-8 (0-7710-5703-2)

The August 1979 Fastnet race, from Cowes on the Isle of Wight in the English Channel to the Fastnet lighthouse off the south coast of Ireland, started calmly enough for the 303 boats taking part. The previous two races had been uneventful and none of the sailors, among them former British prime minister Ted Heath and American cable TV millionaire Ted Turner, anticipated anything out of the ordinary this time. They expected a challenge, an exhilarating ride, and three days of top-flight competition. But once the yachts left the shelter of the Cornish coast, they were hit by a storm that gained ferocity minute by minute until it was blowing Force 10 and raising mountainous waves. At Force 10, the wind speed at sea is fifty-five knots, just shy of a hurricane. Winds that strength on land uproot trees and demolish poorly constructed buildings.

Beyond Endurance is the story of that race, which culminated in a night of terror, courage, and split-second reactions, of ferocious seas that forced each sailor either to give up and face almost certain death or to find within himself the extraordinary strength and skill that might, just might, keep him alive. Not all of them made it. Among the survivors were twenty-six men from Canada, Britain, and the United States, whom Mayers has interviewed about what they still call “that night.”

Beyond Endurance is Mayers’s dramatic story of the Fastnet race: its hopeful start, the camaraderie of its crews, the challenges of the earlier cross-Channel races — and the deadly storm that caused the worst tragedy ever to befall an ocean-sailing race.

From the Hardcover edition.

Afloat by Douglas Parmee

2008-04-29T00:30:00-05:00

Afloat
Written by Guy de Maupassant
Translated by Douglas Parmee
Introduction by Douglas Parmee

Trade Paperback, 120 pages | NYRB Classics | Biography & Autobiography - Personal Memoirs; Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $14.00 | 978-1-59017-259-9 (1-59017-259-0)

Afloat, originally published as Sur l’eau in 1888, is a book of dazzling but treacherously shifting currents, a seemingly simple logbook of a sailing cruise along the French Mediterranean coast that opens up to reveal unexpected depths, as Guy de Maupassant merges fact and fiction, dream and documentation in a wholly original style. Humorous and troubling stories, unreliable confessions, stray reminiscences, and thoughts on life, love, art, nature, and society all find a place in Maupassant’s pages, which are, in conception and in effect, so many reflections of the fluid sea on which he finds himself–happily but forever precariously–afloat. Afloat is thus a book that in both content and form courts risk while setting out to chart the meaning, and limits, of freedom, a book that makes itself up as it goes along and in doing so proves as startling and compellingly vital as the paintings of Maupassant’s contemporaries van Gogh and Gauguin.

Near Death on the High Seas by Cecil Kuhne

2008-03-11T00:30:00-05:00

Near Death on the High Seas True Stories of Disaster and Survival
Edited by Cecil Kuhne

Trade Paperback, 448 pages | Vintage | Travel - Adventure; Sports & Recreation - Sailing; Travel - Essays & Travelogues | $14.95 | 978-0-307-27934-7 (0-307-27934-0)

“The wind was blowing at hurricane strength-sixty-five knots and over-and increasing in the gusts to eighty knots. His boat was surfing on waves as high as a sixty-foot, six-storey building. . .Each wave that struck choked and froze him, the icy water working its way down inside his survival suit.” —from Close to the Wind by Pete Goss

In Near Death on the High Seas, Cecil Kuhne collects some of the most terrifying and astounding experiences of sailors confronting the awesome, raw power of the sea. These tales-filled with everyday heroes and survivors-comprise a riveting and often breathtaking collection of extraordinary stories that show the terrible ferocity of the untamable ocean.

Also featuring:

• Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki- the historic and celebrated journey of the Kon-Tiki as it journeys across the Pacific.
• Steve Callahan's Adrift- a solo sailor loses his boat in the Atlantic must survive in a five-foot life raft for 76 days, fighting off sharks with a makeshift spear.
• Francis Chischester's 'Gipsy Moth' Circles The World-the stirring story of a one man's solo sail around the globe at age 65.
• John Rousmaniere's Fastnet, Force 10-in one of the worst sailing tragedies in history, a massive rescue operation takes place amidst sixty-knot winds and forty-foot breaker waves.

Sailing Away from Winter by Silver Donald Cameron

2007-12-11T00:30:00-05:00

Sailing Away from Winter A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond
Written by Silver Donald Cameron

Trade Paperback, 376 pages | Douglas Gibson Books | Travel - Canada; Travel - United States; Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $17.95 | 978-0-7710-1842-8 (0-7710-1842-8)

The perfect armchair sailing guide, with enough detail to set a person dreaming . . .

On July 21, 2004, Silver Donald Cameron and his wife, Marjorie Simmins, set sail from D’Escousse, in Cape Breton Island, toward the white sand beaches and palm trees of the nearest tropical islands. They were sailing an old Norwegian-built ketch named Magnus. Accompanying them was their dog, Leo the Wonder Whippet.

Leo was thirteen. The skipper was an old-age pensioner. His youthful mate was new to the cruising life. Yet 236 days later, with more than 3,000 nautical miles behind them, this distinctly trepid crew rowed ashore in Little Harbour, in the Bahamas, heading for Pete’s Pub, a palm-thatched tiki bar on the beach.

It had been quite a trip. All three had lost fat and gained muscle. They were not in debt. Friends had remarked that the skipper and mate looked ten years younger, and the ancient Leo was capering about like a puppy.
Mind you, there had been bad moments, as in Jonesport, Maine, when the skipper smashed the boat into a wharf and punched a hole in the bow, or the black night off the deadly coast of New Jersey, in a screeching gale with the boat rolling her side decks under.

But there had been plenty of thrills, too: fireworks over the Tall Ships in Halifax Harbour; careening down the East River at ten knots with Manhattan whizzing past to starboard; feasting on hush puppies and grits with chicken gravy in Georgia; enjoying the ancient streets of St. Augustine, and the dazzling opulence of Fort Lauderdale. And then, after crossing the Gulf Stream, the Bahamas, complete with coral reefs crowded with tropical fish, yellow and scarlet and black.

A long way from the snow and ice back home.

From the Hardcover edition.

Sea Of Dreams by Adam Mayers

2006-02-28T00:30:00-05:00

Sea Of Dreams Racing Alone Around The World In A Small Boat
Written by Adam Mayers

Trade Paperback, 288 pages | McClelland & Stewart | Sports & Recreation; Sports & Recreation - Sailing; Travel - Adventure | $15.95 | 978-0-7710-5754-0 (0-7710-5754-7)

Sailing Alone Around the World and The Voyage of the Libredade by Joshua Slocum

2004-02-01T00:30:00-05:00

Sailing Alone Around the World and The Voyage of the Libredade
Written by Joshua Slocum

Trade Paperback, 384 pages | National Geographic | Biography & Autobiography; Travel - Adventure; Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $13.00 | 978-0-7922-6556-6 (0-7922-6556-4)

Cruise of the Snark by Anthony Brandt

2003-11-01T00:30:00-05:00

Cruise of the Snark
Written by Jack London
Edited by Anthony Brandt

Trade Paperback, 320 pages | National Geographic | Travel - Adventure; Sports & Recreation - Sailing; Biography & Autobiography | $13.00 | 978-0-7922-6244-2 (0-7922-6244-1)

Godforsaken Sea by Derek Lundy

2000-06-06T00:30:00-05:00

Godforsaken Sea The True Story of a Race Through the World's Most Dangerous Waters
Written by Derek Lundy

Trade Paperback, 304 pages | Anchor | Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $16.00 | 978-0-385-72000-7 (0-385-72000-9)

"The best book ever written about the terrifying business of single-handed sailing--.  Lundy tells a harrowing tale, as tight and gripping as The Perfect Storm or Into Thin Air."--San Francisco Chronicle

A chilling account of the world's most dangerous sailing race, the Vendée Globe, Godforsaken Sea is at once a hair-raising adventure story, a graceful evocation of the sailing life, and a thoughtful meditation on danger and those who seek it.

This is the story of the 1996-1997 Vendée Globe, a solo sailing race that binds its competitors to just a few, cruelly simple rules: around the world from France by way of Antarctica, no help, no stopping, one boat, one sailor. The majority of the race takes place in the Southern Ocean, where icebergs and gale-force winds are a constant threat, and the waves build to almost unimaginable heights.  As author Derek Lundy puts it: "try to visualize a never-ending series of five- or six-story buildings moving toward you at about forty miles an hour."

The experiences of the racers reveal the spirit of the men and women who push themselves to the limits of human endeavor--even if it means never returning home.  You'll meet the gallant Brit who beats miles back through the worst seas to save a fellow racer, the sailing veteran who calmly smokes cigarette after cigarette as his boat capsizes, and the Canadian who, hours before he disappears forever, dispatches this message: "If you drag things out too long here, you're sure to come to grief."

Derek Lundy elevates the story of one race into an appreciation of those thrill-seekers who embody the most heroic and eccentric aspects of the human condition.

Cathedral of the World by Myron Arms

2000-04-18T00:30:00-05:00

Cathedral of the World Sailing Notes for a Blue Planet
Written by Myron Arms

Trade Paperback, 176 pages | Anchor | Religion - Spirituality; Nature - Oceans & Seas; Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $15.00 | 978-0-385-49476-2 (0-385-49476-9)

The curved lines of a sailing ship resemble the inverted dome of a great cathedral, surrounded not by soot-covered buildings and crowded streets but by a vast liquid wilderness. This physical and symbolic connection is at the thematic heart of Cathedral of the World, a collection of essays in which writer and professional small-boat sailor Myron Arms sets out on a journey both physical and spiritual, seeking to explore what he calls "the primal spaces" and to articulate the sailor's age-old quest to understand his world and himself. Arms, author of the Boston Globe bestseller Riddle of the Ice, weaves the experiences of four decades at sea into a series of reflections that range across half a lifetime and thousands of ocean miles. During these journeys, he takes readers to some of the last wild places on Earth, climbing the hills of the North Atlantic in a full gale, watching the flight of seabirds, listening to the night-breath of whales, and pondering the questions that all such encounters inspire.

What John Muir did for western forests, what Edward Abbey did for the desert, Arms now does for the ocean. In a voice that is reverent, impassioned, and clear-sighted, he celebrates the wilderness he has come to love, mourns its wounds, and demonstrates for all of us its power to heal.

Yachting's Golden Age by Ed Holm

1999-10-12T00:30:00-05:00

Yachting's Golden Age 1880-1905
Written by Ed Holm

Hardcover, 192 pages | Knopf | Photography - History; Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $65.00 | 978-0-679-45488-5 (0-679-45488-8)

More than a hundred breathtaking photographs that transport us back to the lavish, romantic world of sailing and yachting in its heyday at the turn of the century. The pictures -- glass-plate images documenting sail and steam from the earliest days of popular photography in the 1880s up to 1905 -- portray pleasure boats at their most magnificent during the height of the Gilded Age, when the largest and fastest cutters and sloops battled for possession of the world's most coveted sporting trophy, and when every yacht was a one-of-a-kind handcrafted creation with its own personality. We see the Puritan with her breakthrough design (it won the America's Cup) . . . the schooner Casco, which sailed into fame when Robert Louis Stevenson and family chartered her for a six-month cruise of the South Seas . . . the 119-foot Dungeness, owned by Lucy Carnegie, sister-in-law of Andrew.

Here as well are photographs of catboats -- eminently seaworthy and delightfully uncomplicated . . . the Atalanta, a 233-foot steam yacht, owned by Jay Gould and manned by a crew of fifty-two (when Gould was blackballed because of his notorious financial dealings, he founded the American Yacht Club) . . . the Valiant, William K. Vanderbilt's 291-foot, 2,400-ton steamer, with a crew of sixty-two and more than twenty staterooms for family and friends . . . the Niagara -- graced by a Renaissance Revival drawing room 36 feet wide, a library, a photographic darkroom, and a recreation hall with an electrically operated orchestrion.

Sailing stories, racing stories, shipbuilding stories, stories of courage and peril -- brilliantly told in the entertaining and informative text by Ed Holm.

The Handbook Of Sailing by Bob Bond

1992-08-11T00:30:00-05:00

The Handbook Of Sailing
Written by Bob Bond

Trade Paperback, 352 pages | Knopf | Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $35.00 | 978-0-679-74063-6 (0-679-74063-5)

Newly updated and now in paperback, this backlist classic contains 2,000 diagrams and photos enabling you to visualize every sailing procedure and maneuver; reflects the latest word on procedures, techniques, and equipment. 48 pages of full-color photos.

Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford Ashley

1944-06-21T00:30:00-05:00

Ashley Book of Knots
Written by Clifford Ashley

Hardcover, 640 pages | Doubleday | Sports & Recreation - Sailing | $85.00 | 978-0-385-04025-9 (0-385-04025-3)

Random House New Releases - Sports & Recreation - Sailing

A Unit of Water, a Unit of Time by Douglas Whynott

A Unit of Water, a Unit of Time Written by Douglas Whynott

Sea Of Dreams by Adam Mayers

Sea Of Dreams Racing Alone Around The World In A Small BoatWritten by Adam Mayers

Three Ways to Capsize a Boat by Chris Stewart

Three Ways to Capsize a Boat An Optimist AfloatWritten by Chris Stewart

Beyond Endurance by Adam Mayers

Beyond Endurance 300 Boats, 600 Miles, and One Deadly StormWritten by Adam Mayers

Afloat by Douglas Parmee

Afloat Written by Guy de Maupassant Translated by Douglas Parmee Introduction by Douglas Parmee

Near Death on the High Seas by Cecil Kuhne

Near Death on the High Seas True Stories of Disaster and SurvivalEdited by Cecil Kuhne

Sailing Away from Winter by Silver Donald Cameron

Sailing Away from Winter A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida and BeyondWritten by Silver Donald Cameron

Sea Of Dreams by Adam Mayers

Sea Of Dreams Racing Alone Around The World In A Small BoatWritten by Adam Mayers

Sailing Alone Around the World and The Voyage of the Libredade by Joshua Slocum

Sailing Alone Around the World and The Voyage of the Libredade Written by Joshua Slocum

Cruise of the Snark by Anthony Brandt

Cruise of the Snark Written by Jack London Edited by Anthony Brandt

Godforsaken Sea by Derek Lundy

Godforsaken Sea The True Story of a Race Through the World's Most Dangerous WatersWritten by Derek Lundy

Cathedral of the World by Myron Arms

Cathedral of the World Sailing Notes for a Blue PlanetWritten by Myron Arms

Yachting's Golden Age by Ed Holm

Yachting's Golden Age 1880-1905Written by Ed Holm

The Handbook Of Sailing by Bob Bond

The Handbook Of Sailing Written by Bob Bond

Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford Ashley

Ashley Book of Knots Written by Clifford Ashley

A Unit of Water, a Unit of Time
Written by Douglas Whynott

Sea Of Dreams Racing Alone Around The World In A Small Boat
Written by Adam Mayers

Three Ways to Capsize a Boat An Optimist Afloat
Written by Chris Stewart

Beyond Endurance 300 Boats, 600 Miles, and One Deadly Storm
Written by Adam Mayers

Afloat
Written by Guy de Maupassant
Translated by Douglas Parmee
Introduction by Douglas Parmee

Near Death on the High Seas True Stories of Disaster and Survival
Edited by Cecil Kuhne

Sailing Away from Winter A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond
Written by Silver Donald Cameron

Sea Of Dreams Racing Alone Around The World In A Small Boat
Written by Adam Mayers

Sailing Alone Around the World and The Voyage of the Libredade
Written by Joshua Slocum

Cruise of the Snark
Written by Jack London
Edited by Anthony Brandt

Godforsaken Sea The True Story of a Race Through the World's Most Dangerous Waters
Written by Derek Lundy

Cathedral of the World Sailing Notes for a Blue Planet
Written by Myron Arms

Yachting's Golden Age 1880-1905
Written by Ed Holm

The Handbook Of Sailing
Written by Bob Bond

Ashley Book of Knots
Written by Clifford Ashley