The Riddle of the Sands
Erskine Childers
Set before the first World War, this enthralling novel pitches two amateur sailors-cum-sleuths against the secret forces of mighty Germany.
Powers of deduction and navigational skills prove equally important in uncovering a plot which threatens personal as well as national security.
The enduring appeal of this book lies not only in its spellbinding and tangled drama, which matches any modern thriller in ingenuity and tension, but also in the hauntingly atmospheric backdrop provided by the fogbound seas and treacherous sands in and around the Fresian Islands.
260 pp. Maps and illus. Hardback with d/w.
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Breeze for a Bargeman
Bob Roberts
The author fives a vivid picture of the trials and tribulations of carrying sail under sail in Thames sailing barges. In the 1930s he was part-owner of the Whitstable fishing smack 'Quartette', last vessel to fish out of Ramsgate under sail. Together with his fellow owner, Sinclair, and two friends, John Bell and Henry Trefusis, he sailed her from London to Rio de Janeiro, with many adventures on the way.
After a downturn in luck following the loss of 'Disco' the ship's cat, Quartette was sold to a West Indian skiper for red snapper fishing out of Port of Spain. Bob, finding himself short of funds, signed on as mate in a rum schooner trading through the Caribbean, and earned enough money for his fare home. Back in England he returned to the life of a bargeman trading under sail. As master of the barge 'Cambria' he was to be Britain's last commercial sailing skipper.
174 pp. B&W illus. Softcover.
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Rough & Tumble
Bob Roberts
The sea was in Bob Roberts' blood, one grandfather was a fisherman out of Lowestoft, the other sailed around the world in the brig 'Sunbeam' , and he never could settle ashore. Having first gone to sea in the barquentine 'Waterwitch' at the age of fifteen, he did not enjoy the claustrophobic atmosphere of a Fleet Street newspaper office, so he set off for a Great Adventure with a single companion, a former London policeman, in a little smack-yacht less than 27ft long. From the Thames to Poole, across the Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar and Tangier, and then across the Atlantic they went, and on trhough the Panama Canal to the Pacific. Rough and Tumble is the breezy story of that Great Adventure, and it came to an untimely end on the rocks of the Cocos Island. It is a book that will delight every yachtsman and small boat sailor, providing good reading for winter evenings by the fireside, or for hot summer evenings in the cockpit.
161 pp. B&W Plates. Softcover.
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Rough Passage
Commander R.D. Graham
In 1934 the author sailed alone in his 30-ft. yacht 'Emanuel' from England to Newfoundland, cruised the coast of Labrador, fell ill, sailed to Bermuda in November (twenty-three days of uninterrupted misery') wintered there, and finally brought his little vessel back across the Atlantic to her old moorings in Poole Harbour.
Also included is 'The Adventure of the Faroe Islands' an account of Emmanuel's 1929 voyage by R.D. Graham's daughter Helen. (Later Helen Tew). But when it came to the trans-Atlantic crossing, Commander Graham left his mate of many years behind. 'It seemed a particularly treacherous proceeding sailing off without her' he wrote, and his daughter never really forgave him until she too had crossed the Atlantic at the age of 88, as described in her own book 'TransAtlantic At Last'.
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Sailing Alone Around the World
Capt. Joshua Slocum.
This account by Captain Joshua Slocum of his own epic voyage is a classic narrative.Slocum, an ageing Massachusetts merchantman was not only the first man to circum-navigate the globe single-handed but he also set down the story of his odyssey in an unequalled masterpiece of vital yet disciplined prose.
Starting from Boston in April 1895 Slocum crossed the Atlantic to Gibraltar only to discover he would have to change his route. He then crossed the Atlantic a second time, following Magellan's course Southwestward went through the Strait, traversed the Pacific and Indian Oceans, rounded Cape Horn, and crossing the Atlantic a third time, dropped anchor at Newport Rhode Island in June 1898. He had cruised 46,000 miles, entirely by sail, and entirely alone, much of the time with the wheel lashed while he sat below reading or cooking or mending his clothes.
294 pp. Original illus. HB.
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