With the current media I'm spending more time reading, I'm looking for recommendations for further reading. To give you some perspective, these are the books I have most enjoyed over the last few years:
Deep Water and Shoal -William Robinson
Alone through the roaring forties : the voyage of Lehg II around the world / by Vito Dumas
The long way -Bernard Montissier
500 Days - Serge Testa
Sailing to the Heart of Japan - Nickolas Coughlan
Tinkerbelle Robert Mandry
The Voyager's Handbook -Beth Leonard
Vaka Moana- voyage of the ancestors
Heavy Weather Sailing
The Dinghy Cruising Companion
The Cruising Multihull, Chris White
200 Pound Millionaire Western Martyr
Winning in One Designs by Dave Perry.
Very dryly amusing but comprehensive guide to racing.
Chichester has about 5 books.
One that is not especially known is "Along the Clipper Way"
One ship took 160 days to round Cape Horn (the wrong way).
I highly recommend this book.
Quote: This is basically a compendium of highlights from the research that Chichester was doing at the time (1966) in preparation for the nonstop single-handed circumnavigation that would make him famous the following year. Having read up all he could on the conditions encountered by his predecessors, from Joshua Slocum to the clipper ship captains who sought out the gales of the Roaring Forties in order to make their record passages, he published this selection of quotes and narratives, tied together with his own informed commentary.
Chichester clearly knows and loves his subject, and has a good eye for material. This isn't the story of his own achievements (which would be published after the voyage as Gypsy Moth Circles The World), but it's an entertaining assemblage of anecdotes, some from sources I had seen before but many I had not. And I was delighted to find that the book closes with a long extract from The Bird of Dawning by John Masefield, a story I was enchanted by as a child but had never been able to track down again without knowing its title or author.
www.ebay.com/itm/186942379130?norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-167022-171738-6&mkcid=2&itemid=186942379130&targetid=&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9198424&poi=&campaignid=21272459277&mkgroupid=&rlsatarget=&abcId=&merchantid=119648210&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1um-BhDtARIsABjU5x4J44hC28duVvnV9J_eVda5aH4DqmD24QwUWzEq3HGN5b-jf6CIX0IaAnHREALw_wcB
Actually your list is pretty disappointing for Australia with respect
so hands up children, who has not read " Mariners are warned" by marsden horden
Then there is the all time classic "Sailing directions for the SW Pacific"
read that and the precision of the language is brilliant but then again the purpose was to able a draw your own chart from the descriptions therein
Robin Knox - Johnston ; A World of my Own
Alec Rose ; My Lively Lady
Tim Madge ; The Last Hero - Bill Tilman
Alan Villiers - The last Tall Ships etc ....
+ Chichester had a serious Aviation Career,with his passion being Navigation.
Another Time ??!!
Select to expand quotelydia said..
Storm and silence. Joe cannon
maybe best book ever for SE australia
Ebay has one less copy than it did ten minutes ago....
Great response, thank you. I also have bought Storm and Silence, Along the Clipper Way tonight.
If you're looking for my recommendation, Deep Water and Shoal is fantastic for the photos and descriptions of a world trip by small boat in 1930. Particularly cruising the South Pacific compared to now.
Shrimpy was Shane Acton's boat. 18 foot plywood, sailed around the world.
www.bluemoment.com/pdf/shrimpy.pdf and also here: www.readanybook.com/ebook/shrimpy-a-record-round-the-world-voyage-in-an-18-foot-yacht-565673
Select to expand quoteFabulousPhill said..
Shrimpy was Shane Acton's boat. 18 foot plywood, sailed around the world.
www.bluemoment.com/pdf/shrimpy.pdf and also here: www.readanybook.com/ebook/shrimpy-a-record-round-the-world-voyage-in-an-18-foot-yacht-565673
Yes, it is a good book
Chris Stanmore-Majory A.K.A The Mariner is reading deep water and shoal right now.
themarinerslibrary.podbean.com/
He inherited a large nautical library containing many books over 100 years old therefore out of copyright. He is serialising them on the podcast.
The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss was a great story.
Pete Goss' 'Close to the Wind' is one of my all time favourite books.
An excerpt describing a pretty scary 160 mile upwind leg to rescue Raphael Dinelli in the 1996 Vendee.
Birds of Prey - Wilbur Smith
Obviously fiction but a good read and based around 17th pirates/privateer's
The Art of Coarse Cruising by Michael Green. A gem from the mudbanks "When weeds and grass appear on the bow, it is time to come about!!"
Select to expand quotestray said..
Desperate Voyage John Cardwell.
absolute must reed!
That was a ripper - The Mariner did that one too.
A few not already mentioned:
Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World
John Passmore, Old Man Sailing: Some dreams take a lifetime
John Kretschmer, Sailing a Serious Ocean
Geoff Heriot, In the South: Tales of Sail and Yearning
Select to expand quotelydia said..
Actually your list is pretty disappointing for Australia with respect
so hands up children, who has not read " Mariners are warned" by marsden horden
I didn't say it was all I have read over the last 20yrs, just what was most recently enjoyed, one Author was Australian in that list.
I have bought online 'Mariners Are Warned', and I look forward to your recommendation.
Here's a couple with historical insights. Sail ho details sir James Bissets voyages as an apprentice and 2nd mate on square riggers & Johnny Wrays south sea vagabonds
Add
The Voyage of the Herald (given you are likely to still use the charts made on this voyage this weekend)
Or as one wag had said, Cook simply sailed past the headlands, it took Derham to actually map the coast.
King of the Australian Coast, biography of the first Australian born admiral in the British Navy.
The Journal's of Marion Du Fresne is another.
Only translated into English in 1961 by an academic from Adelaide University.
Du Fresne was a French privateer who in a privately financed voyage seeking trade mapped much of the south and east coast of Tasmania hence, Marion Bay, Ile de floc, and many of the French names there.
Some have a sense of history though.
The motor sailer "Marion du Fresne" built at Triabunna from celery top felled in Marion Bay.
Select to expand quoteEastCoastSail said..lydia said..
Actually your list is pretty disappointing for Australia with respect
so hands up children, who has not read " Mariners are warned" by marsden horden
I didn't say it was all I have read over the last 20yrs, just what was most recently enjoyed, one Author was Australian in that list.
I have bought online 'Mariners Are Warned', and I look forward to your recommendation.
Sorry, I should have worded that differently.
Hope you enjoy Mariners.
The author is a really interesting character as well and a marvelous researcher.
You lot will have to wait for a few years for the next classic, but at least for the Queenslanders we can lay claim to the all time legend.
On good grounds you can conclude he was written out of history after giving evidence for the defence in a trial of an indigenous leader charged with murder.
hearsay.org.au/police-magistrate-john-wickham-before-moreton-bay/?_gl=1*17krjg9*_ga*ODYyNTU4MTc2LjE3MzkxMzU3MDU.*_ga_K8F3Z7C35L*MTc0MjU5MTczNy4zLjAuMTc0MjU5MTczNy42MC4wLjgzMzUyMDAzMw..
The Cruise of the Cachalot by Frank T Bullen. A very good historical read similar to Alan Villiers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cruise_of_the_Cachalot
Found it !
The Eye of the Wind - An Autobiography - Peter Scott ( Son of Scott of Antarctic )
Olympic Sailing Medallist + Served on Destroyers in the Battle of the Atlantic .
A Life !!
Did anyone mention Melbourne born Alan Villers.? I have several of his books. He wrote many and was quite the adventurer.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Villiers
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Villiers first went to sea at age 15 and sailed on board traditionally riggedvessels, including the full-rigged ship Joseph Conrad. He commanded square-rigged shipsfor films, including Moby Dick and Billy Budd. He also commanded the Mayflower II on its voyage from the United Kingdom to the United States.[1]Villiers wrote 44 books, and served as the Chairman (1960-70) and President (1970-74) of the Society for Nautical Research, a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum, and Governor of the Cutty SarkPreservation Society. He was awarded the British Distinguished Service Cross as a Commander in the Royal Naval Reserve during the Second World War.
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A list of his books can be found here:
www.thriftbooks.com/a/alan-villiers/266810/?srsltid=AfmBOopFvz21PIJJyJRAaN48FpxGBlY5p9UHciV2nzBou6MLAwks9ltp
..with titles like:
Men Ships and the Sea
Cruise of the Conrad.
A great book im reading now is South Sea Vagabond s by J Wray about the yacht he built in Auckland in the 1930's and the voyages in the south pacific that followed.
c
...and in a similar story to Joshua Slocum there is the book by Rolf Voss who rigged a large Indiginous canoe for a sail around the world. He ran aground entering Inverloch and the canoe was an exhibit at the Melbourne Exhibition Center where it was dropped by a crane so needed repairs..
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilikum_(boat)
and the book "Around The World in a Dug Out Canoe"
For everyone here with trailer boats who want an extended cruise:
River Boats by Ian Mudie.
Steamers and paddle wheelers of the Murray Darling Basin.
Fascinating read, with steamers from the lower Murray getting as far north as the Macintyre River near Goondiwindi.
I enjoyed the Totorore Voyage by Gerry Clarke. He was an amazing New Zealander who sailed to South America and many sub antarctic islands to locate and document penguin colonies.
+1 for Johnny Wray, and then:
Finding Pax - Kaci Cronkite - if you might be into beautiful Spidsgatters.
Passages: Cape Horn and Beyond - Lin Pardy - just out, written after Larry's passing.
The Last Great Grain Race - Eric Newby - if you are into big square sails and Cape Horn. *Classic*
Once Is Enough - Miles Smeeton - if you want more Cape Horn horrors. *Classic*
