The title of Nick Moloney’s remarkable book about breaking the Jules Verne unlimited round the world record in the 33m catamaran Orange offers a hint about the man that few…
Great Seamanship
Great seamanship: Fifty South to Fifty South
The German pilot schooner Elbe 5, built in 1883, has had a remarkable life. A few years ago, she was in the news after being sunk in a collision with…
Great Seamanship: Heavy Weather Sailing
Back in 1986, Martin Thomas and Alan Taylor entered the Transatlantic Two-Star Race in the Sadler 32 Jenny Wren. To say they didn’t have an easy trip would be a…
Great seamanship: Slow Boat to Uruguay
If you’ve ever dreamed about buying a boat and sailing to South America with no firm plan about what to do next, Slow Boat to Uruguay by Andrew Tunstall is…
Great seamanship: A surprising landfall
Seefalke is a long-ended 1930s classic, built to the old 50 Square Metre rule for the Luftwaffe by Abeking & Rasmussen, one of the finest yards of the golden age…
What happened when the great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens ran away to sea?
When a person is hit by the call of the sea – a wild call which, as Masefield observed, cannot be denied – today’s world offers many options. Varied they…
Great seamanship: inside a volcanic caldera in 50-knot winds
Joe Phelan is one of Ireland’s great sailors. With his wife and equal partner Trish he has been quietly standing out from the crowd for over 50 years, with dinghy…
Great seamanship: The Lugworm Chronicles
For anyone interested in small-boat voyaging – or indeed, any sailor wanting to get seriously close to the sea itself, The Lugworm Chronicles by Ken Duxbury is a ‘must-read’. I,…
Great seamanship: The Voyage of the Aegre
Back in July 1973, Nicholas Grainger and his wife, Julie, sailed from north-west Scotland bound for the oceans of the world. Their boat was a 21ft clinker-built traditional Shetland Islander,…
Great seamanship: Bound for Cape Horn
Read about sailing all your life and you won’t find another book quite like Bound for Cape Horn, with its interesting subtitle Skills for Expedition Cruising. Any suggestion this might…
When a sailor and a chicken took on an incredible voyage
Say what you will, but the French have got style. We Anglo-Saxons may fancy ourselves as adventurers, but then along comes an unsponsored lad from North Brittany in a 30ft…
15,000 miles around Europe’s far north in a windsurfer camping under a sail – a fascinating tale
Most of my deepwater sailing I’ve done in conventional yachts or classics. Board sailing and windsurfers, although I tried my hand years back and enjoyed it, are a world of…
Climbing a square rigger mast in the heart of a storm
The world of square riggers is obscure to the vast majority of sailors today. Yet nautical literature is rich in fine works describing the minutiae of what went on –…
Sailing a junk rigged schooner in Greenland
Dave Leet’s Nomad is a junk-rigged schooner which he sails mostly single-handed. He certainly puts the miles in, because although this article is about his experiences in West Greenland, when…
The Sea and The Snow: a stunning tale of adventure
In the world of small-craft seafaring and modern mountaineering, 1964/5 seems very distant. Philip Temple’s remarkable work The Sea and The Snow, recently republished, brings those days straight to our…
Dream of the West Indies: four schoolboys on a transatlantic adventure
In the summer of 1983, a group of very young Norwegians set out on a round trip to the Caribbean in Jeanette VI, a 35ft Vindø yacht they chartered from…
Long Lost Log: Pincher’s tale of storms and rows
Michael Chapman Pincher, son of the great investigative journalist, left school at 17 to become a stagehand in London’s West End. At 23 in 1974 he quit and went to…
Great Seamanship: sailing through desert storms in the Suez Canal
Sailing Suleika by Dennis Krebs is a long sea-mile from a typical description of an extended cruise. Dennis met up with the 43ft steel ketch and her redoubtable skipper, Sally,…
Solo mast climb in a mid-Atlantic squall: Emma Richards’ Around Alone
In 2002, Emma Richards (now Sanderson) was the youngest person and the first British woman to finish the ‘Around Alone’ race. Sailing the Open 60 Pindar, she was pipped at…
Sailing across the mouth of the Amazon Delta in a 21ft Herreshoff
Stephen Ladd is a city planner from the US who opted for a better life. Not being inclined to luxury, his first book goes under the title Three Years in…