Sailing Books - Yarns, Manuals, Fact and Fiction

Sailing Alone Around the World - Joshua Slocum

Sailing Alone Around the World is a sailing memoir by Joshua Slocum. It is about his single-handed global circumnavigation aboard the sloop Spray in 1900. Slocum was the first person to sail around the world alone. Recommended by Matt.

Barrow's Boys - Fergus Flemming

A stirring story of daring, fortitude, and outright lunacy.  If you've watched The Terror, this is the true story of that boat and others that may have inspired it.  Astonishing tales of hardship and endurance at the pole, as the peacetime British navy decide they need to send men and ships to find the North West Passage. Recommended by Jim.

Shackleton's Boat Journey - Captain Frank Worsley

The best account of Shackleton's 1914-16 expedition written by the ship's captain.  Vividly describes how the crew, shipwrecked for 14 months on the pack ice, survived. The story of their voyage from Antarctica to South George in the Endurence's lifeboat is awesome. Navigating through a hurricane by dead reckoning alone - wow! And the adventure doesn't end there ! Recommended by Jim

Race Against Time - Ellen MacArthur

Just after 10.00 on the night of February 7th 2004, Ellen MacArthur crossed an imaginary line in the sea off Brittany to become the fastest person ever to sail solo round the world. The record was held by a Frenchman, Francis Joyon. He'd slashed over 20 days off the previous record and many thought his extraordinary new benchmark would stand for 10 years or more. Most experts thought that the record would be beyond MacArthur. But in a superhuman effort that forced her to dig deeper than ever before, she proved the doubters wrong. Her effort captured the world's imagination and the scenes that greeted her return to Falmouth were euphoric. She had become, some claimed, the finest sailor her country had every produced. Recommended by Lou.

A Voyage for Madmen - Peter Nichols

In 1968, nine men - six Englishmen, two Frenchmen and an Italian - set out to race around the world, single-handed, non-stop.  A race born of coincidence of their timing. One didn't even know how to sail.

Only one of the nine crossed the finishing line after ten months at sea. The rest encountered despair, sublimity, madness and even death.

This is a superb book.  Compelling reading start to finish, you feel like you're living each skipper's race with them. Recommended by Simon, Lou, Jim.

Team Spirit - Brendan Hall

The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the ultimate long distance challenge - a 35,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe, contested by amateur crews in identical racing yachts. The 2010 winner was 28-year-old Brendan Hall and his crew in Spirit of Australia. Although Brendan was the youngest and least experienced skipper in the race, the win was no accident....  . Recommended by Lou.

Two Years Before the Mast - Richard Henry Dana

In August 1834, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., shipped aboard the brig Pilgrim out of Boston for a voyage to California. Dana tells the tale of a young, naive, religiously conservative Boston aristocrat who thrusts himself into a trial amidst crude, uneducated, generally amoral sailors. It is the exciting, intelligent, sensitive story of a young man's transition to maturity, with a vivid description of his struggle with his shipmates, the elements and with himself. The author wrote this realistic account of the life of a common sailor to make the public aware of the hardships and injustices to which American sailors were subjected. He gives an accurate account of life at sea and a colourful portrait of life in California in the early nineteenth century. Recommended by Lou.

Voyages of a Simple Sailor - Roger Taylor

Aged just 23, and already set on a life of adventure, Roger Taylor signed up as an able seaman on the square-rigger Endeavour II, bound for New Zealand. The voyage turned into a terrifying ordeal as the ship was caught in a tropical storm. Embayed between two headlands the ship was driven towards a hostile lee shore. The Endeavour II finally struck land in horrific conditions at one in the morning. There seemed little chance of survival... Following this formative experience, Roger resolved that from then on he would ever only go to sea on his own terms, single-handed and in easily manageable yachts. Recommend by Matt

In the Heart of the Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick

The epic true-life story of one of the most notorious maritime disasters of the nineteenth century - and inspiration for `Moby-Dick'. When the whaleship Essex set sail from Nantucket in 1819, the unthinkable happened. A mere speck in the vast Pacific ocean - and powerless against the forces of nature - Essex was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale, and her twenty crewmen were forced to take to the open sea in three small boats. Ninety days later only a handful of survivors were rescued - and a terrifying story of desperation, cannibalism and courage was revealed...One of the greatest sea yarns ever spun, `In the Heart of the Sea' is the true story of the extraordinary events that inspired Herman Melville's masterpiece `Moby-Dick'. Recommended by Lou.

The Broken Places - Russell Franklin

'Sunlit and dark, painful and joyous' David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas.  This is an outstanding book. Inspired by the life of Gregory Hemmingway and true events and spanning seventy years of the last century. A tale of a miraculous existence, told with beauty and compassion. Transporting the reader back and forth in time, from Cuba to New York and Montana to Florida.  I couldn't put this down and was so touched by its final chapters.  Recommended by Jim.

The Wager - David Grann

It's non-fiction but reads like a novel. Not as detailed as Master and Commander on the actual sailing front, more about the expedition and influence it's had since then. Get it on your Christmas lists! A rousing story of a maritime scandal…Drawing on a trove of firsthand accounts—logbooks, correspondence, diaries, court-martial testimony, and Admiralty and government records  Recommended by Katherine