Winter reading suggestions

[Tony G]

Yeah, it's not much longer before it down right hurts to go outside without putting long-legged pants and maybe even a jacket (or two) on. Being I've gone pretty much TVless this winter should be one for reading. I hope...

I've been itching to read something by the Pardey's. They have a few more titles than I have dollars so which books have our members read. I like a story, but, in the end I'm still eager to learn how to and what ifs.

I'm open to suggestions from other authors and other topics too. After a recent rabbitfish sting my interest in sensory halucinations has been rekindled. Still have eluded the lionfish in my life so far.

[ebb]

Tony, where are you headed when you've launched the boat?

Being in California here, when I go, it's obviously into the tropics.

I probably have had thousands of boat and salt water books go through my hands over the decades. I can remember a great book that described the fish that could be caught and explained with photographs which ones you can't eat. Like lion fish. Who wants to eat a fish that looks like a salad?

It is a necessary fresh food. I'm not a fisher. And I'm still not convinced I should be eating anything that has eyes. But a good book on edible fish would be one to look for. Finding one that's seen from the yachtsman's view: catching, prepping, cooking and preserving, would be a great find.

Here's a blog that talks about the present consciousness around hooking your own fresh protein.

google> Eating Local in the Tropics Honoring the Fish


Reference books be good to collect for the places you want to sail to.
Good motivator too!
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Picked this up at Borders for $17. It is an in-house guide by the RYA called SEA SURVIVAL HANDBOOK, Keith Colwell. [2009, Skyhorse Publishing]
Great full color illustrations, excellent accurate artwork by Steve Lucas. Check lists, how to get into an immersion suit, what to take in the life raft, basic first aid. Very Brit (Printed in China - it's the best looking best made handbook you'll ever see - beautifully done!)
Serious Coast Guard stuff, but in a concise, civil, non patronizing presentation.
150 pages, 9 5/8"h X 7"d, thick coated stock. Help you plan, remind you what you forget.
If you have one book aboard on the subject, this is the one!
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Proud Dad advert.
Great pre-publishing reviews! Just out.

SOULLESS, Gail Carriger [Oct. 2009 Orbit] $8.
(in the Sci-Fi section at Borders.)

My one and only daught's first novel!!!
Utterly non-marine, it's a steampunk/pgwodehouse, comedy novel of vampires and werewolves. Young adult. Maybe you have a teenager that would like it? Hell, maybe you'll like it. Set in Victorian England, Gail Carriger believes that the Great British Empire could not have happened without supernatural help.

[Westgate]

Lionfish not withstanding......

Currently reading a good yarn about a father and son going around the horn in a 20 something. Title is "My old man and the Sea". Writing is sometimes difficult but the overall premise is first class adventure.

If you haven't yet, I recommend it...esp since we all share that 20 something affliction.

Andrew

[Tim D.]

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Proud Dad advert.
Great pre-publishing reviews! Just out.

SOULLESS, Gail Carriger [Oct. 2009 Orbit] $8.
(in the Sci-Fi section at Borders.)

My one and only daught's first novel!!!
Utterly non-marine, it's a steampunk/pgwodehouse, comedy novel of vampires and werewolves. Young adult. Maybe you have a teenager that would like it? Hell, maybe you'll like it. Set in Victorian England, Gail Carriger believes that the Great British Empire could not have happened without supernatural help.

Well congrats for your daughter, since I have a 13yo, I will go look for it.

Tim

[c_amos]

I highly recommend;

Sailing Small: Inspiration and Instruction for the Pocket Cruiser(Paperback)
by Stan Grayson

review from Amazon.com;

Nice stories about small boats
This books owners tell about their experiences with 8 small boats. If you think you must buy a big boat, read this and you'll see it's not so. Just depends on your application and how squished you're willing to be on a longer passage. The different writing styles and perspectives of the various owners is a pleasure.
Published on June 12, 2005 by ---- Neil H.

I got new ideas several times reading through the stories.

Good stuff.

[Commander227]

Princess; A man's affair with a boat
Joe Richards

“Princess” the true story of fine art artist Joe Richards' struggle to rebuild a 26' Friendship sloop in the pre-WWII era and then sailing her south from New York in search of an idyllic tropical island.

I found the book after I named "The Princess" so I had to pick it up. Great read!

[mbd]

I've been re-reading Blown Away by Herb Payson and enjoying the heck out of it.

One year I was in a frozen Winter kind of mood - maybe appropriate for you Minnesota folks this year: North to the Night by Alvah Simon and Time on Ice: A Winter Voyage to Antarctica by Deborah Shapiro were both pretty good reads too.

[bill@ariel231]

I'm renewing an acquaintance a copy of Sir Francis Chichester's "Gypsy Moth Circles the World" (1967) an account of his single-handed circumnavigation with one stop in Sydney and 226 days at sea. It makes me want to build a replica and repeat the trip .

[mbd]

It makes me want to build a replica and repeat the trip .

Adding a swiveling navigation seat with a beer tap close at hand would be a step in the right direction...

[ebb]

Gypsy Moth, the boat, had more adventures and another book:
Gypsy Moth Sails Again by P Gelder of Yachting Monthly who got together the 300,000 Ls it took at the CamperNicholson yard (where she as originally built) to restore her.

The boat ran around in the tropics, I think, but was towed off the reef finally and eventually completed its second circumnavigation in 2006-7? Haven't read the 2nd book.

Gypsy Moth imco is one of the greatest names for a sailboat ever. (Chichester originally attempted a disasterous circumnavigation in a Gypsy Moth airplane.) And I think the name had a big part in the popularity of Chichester's 1960 and 1962 adventures. Great boat but didn't track worth a damn.

G.M. caterpillar is a voracious forest pest that eats almost everything.

[mbd]

Just finished a fantastic book I heartily recommend for your winter blues:

Bound for Roque Island by R.J. Rubadeau.



It provided some much needed inspiration after my last disheartening and wallet busting season.

[Ariel 109]

Mike

I'm going to have to get and read this book, thanks.

Ben

[agua dulce]

Just finished DESPERATE VOYAGE. Pretty amazing story of a supposed novice sailor buying a 29 ft. boat, hopping in, and sailing from Panama to Australia, alone. If the guy was truly a novice he was a really smart cookie, but it was a good book.

[Rico]

I'll add my bit here...

I enjoy reading about sefairing adventures very much... the truer the better!

Keep looking to this post for updates & additions.

A few MUST NOT MISS books:

"Two years before the mast" By Richard Henry Dana
(Dana point is named after him). Young guy takes a couple of years of from Harvard to become a lowly seaman and travels on trade voyages from NY to Pre-Gold rush California (which was still Mexican territory at the time), when there was not much going on in California. He visits San Diego, San j. Capistrano, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and up to San Francisco) Just fascinating reading about the arduous work aboard ships and in the trade and descriptions of both the abuse endured and the towns visited. And MUCH more... One of my very favourite books... Look for editions including a post-Gold rush chapter where he describes the changes in San Francisco and the Bay.

"Sailing Alone around the world" by Joshua Slocum
World's first singlehanded circumnavigator. Very entertaining tale of adventures around the world in the 1800's.




Other Favourites:

"Adrift" (subtitle: 76 Days Lost At Sea) is a 1986 memoir by Steven Callahan about his 76-day long survival in a life-raft after capsizing mid-Atlantic Ocean. A staggering ordeal alone at sea in an inflatable raft.


"Heavy weather Sailing" by K. Adlard Coles
Used to be the bible on heavy weather sailiing (still is if you account for modern equipment!) Great insights...

"After 50,000 miles" by Hal Roth
A compendium of preparation and experiences as told after accumulating 50,000 miles at sea

"Fastnet Force 10" by John Rousmarie
An Account of the terrible events that transpired when the fleet of the Fastnet race was pummeled by a super-storm causing the loss of 15 sailors and many racing Yachts.

"Maiden Voyage" by Tania Aebi
"Tania Aebi (born October 7, 1966) is an American sailor. She completed a solo circumnavigation of the globe in a 26 foot sailboat between the ages of 18 and 21. Despite many challenges, she accomplished her goal and proved to her father that she could complete something.

Aebi recounts the story of her voyage in her book Maiden Voyage. The book is a story of teenage angst, self discovery and adventure. Aebi's story is unusual because she was poorly prepared for her voyage, but prevailed through common sense and determination."


"The Long Way" by Bernard Moitessier
The Long Way, tells the story of his 1-1/2 round the world voyage as a singlehandler. It is a mental journey as much as a sailing adventure and is still regarded as a classic of sailing literature

"The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service": is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers.
It is a novel that; perhaps more significantly, it was a spy novel that "established a formula that included a mass of verifiable detail, which gave authenticity to the story about a couple of guys sailing around the Frisian Islands on holiday just beore the start of WWI and running into some suspicious shenanigans...

[mbd]

Here's some good Fall reading. I finished it a little while ago and really enjoyed it. It's a well written and unpretentious narrative of a young couple who recently completed a circumnavigation on their Cape Dory 30.



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No, I don't know him, I just thoroughly enjoyed his book.