Om eens en voor altijd uit de wereld te helpen dat mijn verzamelwoede aangaande (solo) zeilreizen een veel te groot verzamelonderwerp is, zal ik bij deze een lijst geven van alle boeken die reeds in mijn collectie zijn opgenomen of in de toekomst zal worden aangeschaft. Het lijkt een lange lijst, maar het zijn eigenlijk maar een stuk of 200 titels!
Aanvullingen zijn welkom.
ACTON, Shane
Shrimpy (Cambridge, U.K.: Patrick Stephens Ltd. 1981).
Shrimpy Sails Again (Wellingborough, U.K.: Patrick Stephens Ltd. 1989).
Shane Acton is known for circumnavigating the globe in an 18-foot (5.5 m) boat. He first set sail from Britain at the age of 25, in 1972. Raised in Cambridge,England without any sailing experience he departed in a used 18' 4" bilge-keel sailing boat for which he paid £400 - not an enormous amount even in the early 1970s. The boat was a `Caprice', a Robert Tucker design originally named `Super Shrimp' but referred to by Shane simply as `Shrimpy'. Later Shane was accompanied for much of the voyage by his girlfriend, a photographer from Switzerland, Iris Derungs, he sailed westabout through the Panama Canal, circling the globe and returning back to England as a local celebrity eight years later.
ALLCARD, Edward
Single-Handed passage (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1950).
Temptress Returns (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.Inc., 1953).
Voyage Alone (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1964).
An English naval architect and marine surveyor Edward C. Allcard ran away to sea and abandoned his career in 1947 to become the dean of the loners who live the lives of sea birds that wander the oceans of the world. He is the British edition of that French iconoclast, Alain Gerbault. Literate and worth reading.
ANTHONY, Irvin
Voyagers Unafraid (Philadelphia: Macrae Smith Co., 1930).
BARDIAUX, Marcel
4 Winds of Adventure (New York and London: Adlard Coles, Ltd. and John de Graff, Inc., 1961).
Originally published in France by Flammarion in 1958). The rambling narrative of one of France's greatest singlehanders, including the incredible account of building Les Quatre Vents under the noses of the Germans during the Occupation, and the author's subsequent daring and often hilarious adventures on his ultimate circumnavigation, although this volume takes you only as far as Tahiti (and maybe that's as far as you want to go).
BARTON, Humphrey D. E.
The Sea and Me (London: Ross, 1952).
Vertue XXXV (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1951).
Popular works by the venerable, salt-encrusted, irrepressible grand old man of British yachting.
BAUM, Richard
By the Wind (New York: Van Nostrand, 1962).
BELLOC, Hilaire
The Cruise of the Nona (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1925).
On Sailing the Sea (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1951).
Delightful books by one of the most literate of all writers of the sea and small boats.
BERNICOT, Louis
The Voyage of the Anahita (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1953).
This account of a singlehanded voyage around the world is one of the best by one of the least-celebrated of all the solo circumnavigators. Probably the best-loved of the French voyagers, Bernicot ironically predicted his own death a fall from the mast of the Anahita.
BLYTH, Chay
The Impossible Voyage (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1972 ).
The hastily tossed together hodgepodge of this British stunter's life and solo circumnavigation in the British Steel, sponsored by the British steel industry and various others in England. If nothing else, it is a graphic account of how badly Britain wants to excel on the seas again, as in the days of the old empire.
BOMBARD, Alain
The Voyage of the Heretique (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954).
One of the stunters, Bombard, as a 27-year-old medical student, crossed the Atlantic alone in a 15-foot rubber dinghy without stores or water. Valuable as a clinical account of survival at sea.
BORDEN, Charles
Sea Quest (Philadelphia: Macrae Smith Co., 1967 ).
A personalized narrative of selected voyages and voyagers by an experienced sailorman and talented writer, with some interesting observations on types of craft, dangers encountered, and personalities involved. The late author had a career as colorful as any of his subjects, and had sailed the Pacific in his own 17-foot sloop.
BRADFIELD, S. E.
Road to the Sea (London: Temple Press, 1964).
BRADFORD, Ernle
Ulysses Found (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1964).
BRUCE, Erroll
Challenge to Poseidon (New York: Van Nostrand, 1956).
A collection of adventures at sea.
CALDWELL, John
Desperate Voyage (New York: Ballantine Books, 1949).
The incredible account of an ex-merchant seaman who bought a 29-foot cutter in Panama and blundered across the Pacific to the ultimate end on a reef in order to be reunited with his sweetheart, Mary, in Australia in the hectic months following World War II. Even if only half true, this is surely one of the most harrowing adventure (and love) stories ever written. What Caldwell lacked in literacy, he made up for in the sheer vigor, raw manhood, and resourcefulness of a young man against the unforgiving sea. Caldwell eventually made it to Australia, was reunited with his Mary, and with the fortune he must have made off this book built a Hanna Carol and a Herreshoff ketch, and with his wife and kiddies embarked on further and more voyages. At last report he was managing a resort hotel in the West Indies.
CARLIN, Ben
Half-Safe (New York: Morrow, 1955).
The account of an amphibious trip around the world in the war surplus landing craft, Half-Safe, an optimistic name even at best, by the Australian, Ben Carlin. As a flack for an oil company in the 1960s, I had the duty of waving him on his way as he blundered his way through the Pacific Northwest of North America.
CHATTERTON, E. Keble
Ships and Ways of Other Days ( London: Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., 1913).
Chatterton was one of Britain's best-known yachtsmen and maritime writers in the early part of the century.
CHICHESTER, Sir Francis
Gipsy Moth Circles the World (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1967).
Alone Across the Atlantic (New York: Doubleday, 1961).
Atlantic Adventure (New York: John de Graff, 1963).
Along the Clipper Way (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1966.
The Lonely Sea and the Sky (New York: Coward-McCann, 1964).
The best-known works of that prolific writer of the sea and ocean voyages, and one of Britain's most astonishing sailors, who started out as a dare-devil airplane pilot. They reveal some of the inner workings of a born rebel who never let anything stop him from doing anything he felt like, and who was a master of getting himself out of the jams he got himself into.
CLEMENTS, Rex
A Gipsy of the Horn (London: Ruper Hart-Davis, 1951).
Narrative of a voyage around the world in a three-masted bark, and how good it was (and wasn't) in the old windjammer days. Good reading and lots of onboard information about ports of call, sea conditions, and routes along the old clipper track, which is now becoming popular with yachtsmen.
CLIFFORD, Brian
The Voyage of the Golden Lotus (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1963).
COLE, Jean
Trimaran Against the Trades (Tuckahoe, N.Y.: John de Graff, Inc., 1970) (First published in 1968 by A. H. & A. W. Reed, Wellington, N.Z.).
The voyage of the Piver trimaran Galinule, from Mobasa, Africa, to Wellington, N.Z., by the Cole family when their farm in Kenya was "confiscated" by the new government. On a trimaran they built themselves, the family found a new life in a new land. On the voyage were George and Jean Cole; their son, Charles, and daughter, Jane; and Granny Emie, who was ninety years old at the start of the voyage.
CREALOCK, W. I. B.
Cloud of Islands (New York: Hastings, 1955).
CROCKER, Templeton
Cruise of the Zaca (New York: Harper, 1923).
Another product of the 1920s, this time a voyage to the South Seas in utter luxury.
CROWE, Bill and Phyllis
Heaven, Hell and Salt Water (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1957).
A rather wild title for an otherwise delightful book about how one American couple dropped out of the rat race in the late 1930s, and took to the sea in their own yacht, eventually sailing around the world in Lang Syne, a Block Island schooner, which they built themselves on the beach at Waikiki in the halcyon days just before Pearl Harbor. What they lack in writing ability is made up for generously in their never-failing good humor, thorough competence and ability to handle easily any situation, including diplomatic as well as nautical and mechanical. At this writing, the Crowes were still cruising in Lang Syne, in out-of-the-way places such as Baja, with the same quiet enthusiasm.
DAMPIER, William
A New Voyage Around the World (New York: Dover Publications, inc., 1968).
A paperback version of the original published in 1967, by one of the most remarkable adventurers and travel writers who ever lived; in a period of discovery and exploration, political intrigue, buccaneers and privateers, and the stirrings of modern science and inquiry.
DAVENPORT, Philip
The Voyage of Waltzing Matilda (London: Hutchinson, 1953, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1954).
Voyage of the 46-foot Australian cutter to England, by way of the Strait of Magellan in the 1950s. The vessel was eventually lost at sea under new ownership.
DAVISON, Ann
Last Voyage (New York: Sloan 1952) .
My Ship Is So Small (New York: Sloan, 1956) .
The writings of a famous lady singlehander who went on sailing after her husband died at sea, although obviously in a perpetual state of semi-terror. More the conquering of one's fears and the seeking of peace of mind, than of voyaging.
DAY, Thomas Fleming
The Voyage of the Detroit (New York: Rudder Publishing Co., 1929).
Across the Atlantic in Sea Bird (Huntington, L.I.: Fore and Aft, 1926).
Rare today, but two of the best-known works of Day, veteran editor of Rudder the father of American yachting and "day" sailing, who designed and built the famous Sea Bird and sailed her to Gibraltar and Italy in 1911. The first practical home-built type sailing yacht capable of ocean voyages, Sea Bird was the basis for Pidgeon's Islander, Wightman's Wylo, Voss's Sea Queen, and hundreds of others. In 1912, with a crew of three, he took the 35-foot motor boat Detroit across the North Atlantic to Russia, where it was confiscated The plans of Sea Bird are still available from Rudder after all these years.
DE BISSCHOP, Eric
The Voyage of the Kamiloa (London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd., 1940).
An unusual book by a good writer on a unique voyage that was generally overlooked in the confusion of war when it first appeared. A student of oceanography, de Bisschop sailed from Hawaii to France in a Polynesian contraption consisting of two canoes lashed together with a platform. More than just a stunt.
DODD, Edward H., Jr.
Great Dipper to Southern Cross (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1930).
Voyage of the 72-foot Chance from New England to Australia in the late 1920s.
DUMAS, Vito
Alone Through the Roaring Forties (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1960). Dumas, a middle-aged Argentinian of Italian descent became the first man to sail alone around the world east-about and in the high southern latitudes and completed the longest nonstop passages until Francis Chichester's day, in what was a personal adventure of incredible hardships and personal courage to the point of being almost masochistic. His seven-year itch became a two-year circumnavigation under the worst possible weather and sea conditions. The book suffers from poor translation from the original, which was neglected and overlooked during World War II.
EDDY, Alan
So You Want to Sail Around the World (Catskill N.Y.: Allied Boat Co., no date).
A rare sleeper, long out of print, this was originally a promotion publication by the company that built the first fiberglass boat to sail around the world. Tantalizingly sketchy, it contains much valuable information for the aspiring blue-water voyager, including costs, dangers involved, and weather. Included also is a chilling account of an attack by a school of whales on his tiny vessel.
ELAM, Patrick and MUDIE, Colin
Sopranino (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1958).
The story of Sopranino, designed by the brilliant Jack Giles, which at 20 feet overall length, became the first practical small vessel capable of safe ocean passages, and was a prototype for others to come, such as Trekka. With great wit and charm, it narrates also Sopranino's first great test, across the Atlantic to the West Indies and the United States, with two carefree and adventurous lads. Mudie went on to become one of England's most imaginative and best-known small-boat designers. In a way, his career was similar to that of the late Uffa Fox, who was a crew member on Nutting's Typhoon, in the early 1920s, a voyage which resulted in the organization of the prestigious Cruising Club of America.
FAHNESTOCK, Bruce and Sheridan
Stars to Windward (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930).
Narrative of the voyage of the 60-foot schooner Director, on a circumnavigation from New York that ended in the Orient because of illness. With a crew of six, the voyage was for the most part a gay and often hilarious one, led by two members of a notoriously irrepressible Washington, D.C., family.
FAHNESTOCK, Mary Sheridan
I Ran Away to Sea at Fifty (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939).
Another account of the voyage of the Director, by the madcap mother of the Fahnestock boys, who joined the vessel for part of the cruise after her husband died of pneumonia.
FENGER, Frederic A.
The Cruise of the Diablesse (New York: Yachting, Inc., 1926).
Alone in the Caribbean (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1917).
Two sea yarns by a charter member of the CCA, both with displays of right good seamanship, with a dash of adventurism. The latter is the log of the seventeen-foot sailing canoe, Yakaboo, on a six-month voyage through the Lesser Antilles.
GERBAULT, Alain
The Fight of the Firecrest (New York: Appleton [John de Graff, Inc.], 1944). In Quest of the Sun (New York: Doubleday [John de Graff, Inc.], 1955).
The Gospel of the Sun (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1933).
The principal writings of the most famous of the French circumnavigators, which at times become rather tedious when he lapses into his noble savage themes.
GRAHAM, Robert D.
Rough Passage (New York: John de Graff, 1952; also, Rupert Hart-Davis).
A classic of small-boat voyaging, but not a circumnavigation.
GRAHAM Robin Lee (with Derek L. T. Gill)
Dove (New York: Harper & Row, Pubiishers, 1972).
At last the book version of the remarkable circumnavigation by a sixteen-year-old California lad in a 24-foot sloop (later replaced by a 33-foot Allied sloop). The original defanged and sanforized version appeared in a series of articles in the National Geographic Society magazine. The book gives Robin's version of how he was almost literally "pushed" from port to port by his ambitious father and the contractual commitments made in his behalf, when all he wanted to do was be with the girl he found in the Fijis. Not a writer himself, Graham had the book "ghosted" by another from transcripts of rambling tape recordings made on the passages, and from the logs. The book suffers from this treatment.
GUZZWELL, John
Trekka Around the World (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1963). (Adlard Coles, Ltd).
An uncommonly good narrative by an uncommonly engaging young Briton, the first Englishman to sail alone around the world, and at the time, in the smallest vessel. His version of the side trip, with the Smeetons on Tzu Hang, when they capsized near Cape Horn, is better than the Smeetons', although Guzzwell had the benefit of that version when he wrote his own. Guzzwell, for his age, was an extremely competent and level-minded person who got on well with everyone, and only lapsed once into the Briton's inevitabie snide non sequitur about Americans and things American and in this instance it probably was a bit of gratuitous revision by some obscure little editor. Trekka is one of the best of the modern narratives of circumnavigation, and a pity that it went out of print so soon.
HISCOCK, Eric
Around the World in Wanderer III. (New York and London: Oxford University Press 1956).
Voyaging Under Sail. (New York and London: Oxford University Press 1959).
Cruising Under Sail. (New York and London: Oxford University Press 1950).
Beyond the Western Horizon. (New York and London: Oxford University Press 1963).
The earlier books from this prolific writer, who has made a profession of cruising the world's oceans with his wife as first mate, and writing about it. The unquestionable dean of British bluewater yachtsmen, Hiscock is noted for his accuracy and good common sense. Mandatory reading for anyone contemplating cruises off-soundings.
HISCOCK, Eric
Sou'West in Wanderer IV (London: Oxford University Press, 1973).
The latest book by this famous authority on world voyaging, and also one of the best. It tells of the trials and tribulations suffered by him and Susan: having their "retirement boat" built in Holland; the latent poor workmanship, inflated prices, and low quality of marine parts and equipment they had to put up with; and the problems they had getting the yacht outfitted and shaken down. The new yacht owner will find a sense of relief in this book, knowing that it happens even to the best of them. The book also takes the Hiscocks from England, across the Atlantic, to winter in Southern California, next to Hawaii, and then on to New Zealand.
HOLDRIDGE, Desmond
Northern Lights (New York: Viking, 1939).
Not a circumnavigation, or even a bluewater voyage, but a gripping narrative of a winter voyage off Labrador in a small boat with a feuding crew. A little-known classic.
HOWARD, Sydney
Thames to Tahiti (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1933; also, Rupert Hart-Davis).
A good account of a 12,000-mile, 13-month voyage by the narrator and a friend from London to the Marquesas via Panama in the Pacific Moon.
HOWELL, William
White Cliffs to Coral Reefs (London: Odhams, 1957).
The often ribald narrative of that irrepressible seagoing dentist, "Tahiti Bill" Howell, on his first bluewater voyage in the Hiscocks' old Wanderer II.
HOWELLS, Valentine
Sailing into Solitude (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1966).
Often confused with Bill Howell, Howells is a different type of sailor, and a different kind of personality, whose speciality is the transatlantic race.
JOHNSON, Irving and Electra
Yankee's Wander-World (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1949).
Westward Bound in the Schooner Yankee.
Sailing To See.
Yankee's People and Places.
Readers of the National Geographic magazine will have been exposed to most of this material over the past thirty years or so, and fans will be glad to know that this durable couple is still cruising at this writing in European waters on another Yankee.
JOHNSON, Irving
Shamrock V's Wild Voyage Home (Springfield, Mass.: Milton Bradley, 1933).
Not so well known, indeed rather rare, is an earlier book by Irving, of ferrying the Shamrock V home to England in pre-Yankee days, when Johnson was a professional yacht crewman, after this J-boat's unsuccessful try for America's Cup.
KAUFFMAN, Ray E.
Hurricane's Wake (New York: Macmillan, 1940)
A scarce volume, uncommonly well-written, of one of the most hilarious and ribald circumnavigations ever made by small boat.
KENT, Rockwell,
N by E (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1937).
The voyage in the 33-foot cutter Direction from Halifax to Greenland, where it was wrecked. A fair account of an amateur voyage to Arctic regions that turned out tragic, but no way as good as that of Major Tilman in Mischief. This one, like Kent's other literary efforts, suffers from too much poetical syntax a common affliction of artist-writers.
KLINGEL, Gilbert C.
Inagua (London: Readers Union/Robert Hale, 1944).
An obscure account of a voyage to the West Indies on a scientific expedition in an exact copy of Captain Slocum's Spray, and the subsequent shipwreck. A valuable source of information for Slocum buffs. The sails, incidentally, were salvaged and sold to Professor Strout, who made the first successful circumnavigation in a Spray copy, Igdrasil.
KNIGHT, Edward F.
The Falcon on the Baltic (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1952).
KNOX-JOHNSTON, Robin
A World of My Own (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1970).
The hastily put together account of the first solo, nonstop circumnavigation east-about, by the indefatigable young British merchant seaman in the Times Golden Globe Race.
KORIE, Kenichi
Kodoku: Alone Across the Pacific (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle, 1964).
The adventures of a young Japanese singlehander who sailed alone to the United States against incredible odds, including official red tape. He was sort of a Japanese Wrong-way Corrigan of the sea.
LA BORDE, Harold
An Ocean to Ourselves (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1962 ).
LESLIE, Anita
Love in a Nutshell (London: Hutchinson, 1952).
LE TOUMELIN, Jacques-Yves
Kurun Around the World (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1955).
Kurun in the Caribbean (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1963).
The principal works of this somewhat starchy French singlehander, which have been translated into English, with, apparently, some liberties taken by the translator.
LEWIS, David
The Ship Would Not Sail Due West (New York: St. Martin's, 1961) .
Dreamers of the Day (London: Gollancz, 1964).
Daughters of the Wind (London: Gollanez, 1966).
We, the Navigators (New York: The Dolphin Book Club, 1973 ).
The books of the New Zealand-born London doctor, who gave up his practice for bluewater cruising, including a circumnavigation in a catamaran with his second wife and two small daughters, which is the best of them (Daughters of the Wind). At this writing, Dr. Lewis was trying to make a solo circumnavigation of the globe at 60° South.
LONDON, Charmian
The Log of the Snark (New York: Macmillan, 1916).
LONDON, Jack
Cruise of the Snark (New York: Macmillan, 1911).
Accounts of the ill-fated attempts to circumnavigate in one of the worst yachts ever built, by the famous writer and his wife.
LONG, Dwight
Seven Seas on a Shoestring (New York: Harper, 1939).
Long was the youngest person to circumnavigate at the time and his book was a hurriedly written effort to capitalize on it. In spite of its almost painful prose at times, it is a fascinating account by an amateur at both writing and sailing, especially because Long was an incurable tourist and seeker-out of famous people and gives the reader valuable historical reports on brazen visits (unannounced) to President Herbert Hoover, Martin and Osa Johnson, Zane Grey, Captain Harry Pidgeon, Professor Strout, William Robinson, and Alain Gerbault, and even the legendary Count Luckner, and Alan Villiers. Long was nothing if not a Rotarian.
LOOMIS, Alfred
The Cruise of the Hippocampus (New York: The Century Co., 1922).
MANRY, Robert
Tinkerbelle (New York: Harper, 1966).
The story of the Ohio newspaperman who crossed the Atlantic in the 13-foot Tinkerbelle, and somehow made it seem like a normal, legitimate voyage, instead of a stunt.
MARIN-MARIE
Wind Aloft, Wind Alow (London: Davies, 1947; also, New York: Scribner's, 1947).
A classic from the famous French artist, writer, and iconoclast, whose real name is Marin-Marie Paul Durand-Coupel de Saint-Front, of solo Atlantic voyages in the cutter Winnibelle and the motor launch Arielle.
MARTYR, Weston
The Southseaman (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1969).
The tale of two landsick Britishers, working in New York, who go to Nova Scotia, have a 45-foot schooner built for the $6,000 they have saved, and go sailing, winding up in Bermuda where the ship is sold to a rum-runner. A delightful tale by a widely known yachtsman-writer.
MAURY, Richard
The Saga of Cimba (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939).
The ill-fated voyage of the 25-foot schooner on a circumnavigation that ended in Suva, by the great grandson of the man who founded the Navy's Hydrographic Office, and one of the most gifted of sea writers. He later became master of steamships.
McMULLEN, R. T.
Down Channel (London: H. Cox, 1893).
An enduring classic by a British yachtsman of the old school.
MIDDLETON, Empson E.
The Cruise of the Kate (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1951).
A recent edition of this famous cruising book.
MOITESSIER, Bernard
Sailing to the Reefs (London: Hollis & Carter, 1971). Cape Horn: The Logical Route (London: Adlard Coles, Ltd., 1969). The First Voyage of the Joshua (New York: The Dolphin Book Club, 1973). American version of The Logical Route.
The works of France's most famous living sailor, and one of the greatest of all bluewater voyagers in small boats Moitessier is also a gifted, if not always accurate writer, and a talented and tireless innovator.
MULHAUSER, G. H. P.
The Cruise of the Amaryllis (Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1925).
Mulhauser died before he finished his book on his return from circling the globe, but it was published anyway by family and friends who filled out the missing chapters with excerpts from Mulhauser's log which were more revealing of his character than his own revised narrative There are several editions of this book at last one of which is still in print.
NICOLSON, Ian
Sea-Saint (London: Davies, 1957).
NOSSITER, Harold
Northward Ho! (New York: Charles E. Lauriat Co., 1937).
A voyage of a 35-foot schooner from Australia to England, one of the first of its kind over this route, with a valuable appendix for any serious bluewater sailor.
NUTTING, William
The Track of the Typhoon (New York: MotorBoat, 1922).
The account by the charming, but often bumbling sailor from the Midwest, who became a well-known yachting editor and founder of the Cruising Club of America. On a second voyage, he was lost with all hands off Greenland. Uffa Fox was a member of the crew of the Typhoon, which was an apt name considering the weather encountered on this crossing.
O'BRIEN, Conor
Across Three Oceans (London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1927).
Deep Water Yacht Rig (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948).
Two of several books written by this puckish, caustic, and pugnacious Irish sailor and mountain climber. The best one is his Across Three Oceans, an account of his voyage to New Zealand to go mountain climbing, which turned out to be a circumnavigation around the three capes, the first time it had been done. A constant experimenter with rigs, some of the conclusions he gave as gospel in his first book were later revised in the second, in the light of later experience. Crusty and a little arrogant, he did not suffer fools gladly nor unbend his stiff back easily. During the Irish Rebellion he was an arms smuggler with his sister and Erskine Childers, and in World War II was a sub-lieutenant in the British merchant ship service, who made many trips to New York in convoy, and on at least one occasion spent a weekend in Connecticut with William Robinson, who was operating a small shipyard with war contracts and, incidentally, building his beautiful Varua for postwar use.
OFAIRE, Cliette
The San Luca (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1935).
A little-known but charming boat of cruising European waters by the author under the pseudonym of Cilette Hofer.
PETERSEN, E. Allen
Hummel Hummel (New York: Vantage Books, 1952).
PETERSEN, Mariorie
Stornoway, East and West (New York: Van Nostrand, 1966).
The charming story of Mariorie and Al Petersen's voyages on Stornoway, to the Mediterranean and back, after Al's singlehanded circumnavigation and their subsequent marriage. A letter from them as this is written, dated at Cristobal, Canal Zone also informed me of another book, Trade Winds and Monsoons, also published by Van Nostrand, due to be released, which tells the story of their three-and-a-half-year cruise of the Pacific islands and the Orient.
PIDGEON, Harry
Around the World Single-Handed (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1955). (Originally published by Appleton, 1932).
The account by the most famous singlehander, next to Slocum, in his home-built Islander. Pidgeon subsequently made another circumnavigation, and on his third attempt at age seventy-six, was shipwrecked in the New Hebrides.
PIVER, Arthur,
Trans-Atlantic Trimaran (San Francisco: Underwriters Press, 1961).
Trans-Pacific Trimaran (Mill Valley: Pi-Craft, 1963).
Trimaran Third Book (Mill Valley: Pi-Craft, 1965).
The principal works of the ex-flight instructor and printer who developed the trimaran into a worldwide craze. Although the tri is regarded as the fastest ocean-sailing vessel, Piver's voyages were made no faster than the average conventional hull. He himself went missing off the California coast on a solo cruise on one of his own creations.
POWLES, Leslie
Hands Open (Hampshire: Kenneth Mason, 1987).
Twice Around the World Single Handed East-to-West and West-to-East.
PULESTON, Dennis
Blue Water Vagabond (New York: Doubleday, 1943).
Wartime publication of the adventures of the English lad who sailed his 30-foot yawl Uldra to the United States and then joined the irrepressible Fahnestocks on the Director as a crew member.
PYE, Peter
Red Mains'l (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1961).
A Sail in a Forest (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1961).
The Sea Is for Sailing (New York: John de Graff, Inc.,1961).
The well-known British yachtsman who, with his wife and an occasional crewmember, has done a bit of sailing about in an ancient converted cutter.
CULTRA, Quen
Queequeg’s Odyssey (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978)
RANSOME, Arthur
Racundra's First Cruise (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1958). (Originally published by B. W. Huebsch, London, 1923).
The Baltic cruise by one of the finest of all seafaring writers.
REBELL, Fred
Escape to the Sea (London: Murray, 1951).
REYNOLDS, Earle
The Forbidden Voyage (New York: McKay, 1961). (with Barbara Reynolds).
All in the Same Boat (1962) .
RIGG, Philip
Southern Crossing (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1936).
Voyage from Greece to Florida in the 54-foot North Sea pilot boat, Stortebeker.
ROBINSON, William A.
10,000 Leagues Over the Sea (British edition, Deep Water and Shoal) (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1932).
A Voyage to the Galapagos (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1936).
Early books by one of the greatest bluewater sailors of all time, and his adventures on Svaap, the Alden ketch which was the smallest vessel to sail around the world in those days and was lost finally in the Galapagos Islands after Robinson's ruptured appendix and his subsequent melodramatic rescue by the air and sea forces of the United States, with a running account on the network radio of that day.
To the Great Southern Ocean (New York: John de Graff Inc., 1966). (First published by Harcourt, Brace, 1956).
Return to the Sea (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1972).
The later books of a mature Robinson on his beautiful yacht Varua, first on a eleven-month voyage east from Tahiti along the clipper route to Chile, then north to Panama and back to the Society Islands, during which he encountered his famous survival storm; then subsequent cruises through Polynesia and Melanesia and up to Southeast Asia on semi-scientific expeditions. His last book is sort of a summing up of the career of this legendary voyager whose life was a struggle between his staid New England commercial inclinations and his beloved Tahiti, with the latter winning; and how he channeled his tremendous energies and no doubt considerable financial resources into tropical medical research and improvement of the native islander's lot.
ROSE, Sir Alec
My Lively Lady (New York: McKay, 1968).
The account of the second Briton to circumnavigate via the three capes as a senior citizen, and the second to be knighted for doing it.
ROTH, Hal
Two on a Big Ocean (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
A professional writer and photographer and his wife, Margaret, purchased a 35-foot fiberglass sloop in British Columbia, outfitted it themselves at a cost of about $25,000 in the late 1960s, and sailed it from San Francisco clockwise around the Pacific rim, a distance of about 19,000 miles, to win the coveted Blue Water Medal of the CCA, and write a profitable book. The route taken was novel and well-conceived, and they proved themselves competent seamen most of the time, but the narrative has the somewhat contrived and superficial treatment of the effete travel folder, and the photographs distract from the narrative because they have no captions. The author's comments on selecting, building, and outfitting a yacht for blue-water sailing are well-taken and based upon personal experience and in a tone that suggests this is the final word. Considering the route taken, the places visited (i.e., from Polynesia to the Aleutians), and the potential for riproaring adventure, it comes off pretty bland much of the time.
SELIGMAN, Adrian
The Voyage of the Cap Pilar (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1947).
The author, his financee, and her brother buy an old French barkentine at St. Malo, recondition it, and with a crew mostly of amateurs and young adventurers like themselves sail around the world in 1936-1938, arriving back in Plymouth during the days when World War II is brewing, and thus their tale of high adventure and romance becomes lost for the duration. A little-known circumnavigation, one of the last of its kind ever attempted.
SHERWOOD, Martyn
Voyage of the Tai-Mo-Shan (London: Geoffrey Bles., 1935).
The story of a voyage from China to England by five naval officers.
SINCLAIR, W. E.
The Cruise of the Quartette (London: Edward Amold & Co., 1937).
A voyage in a 60-foot ketch from England to Africa and South America.
SLOCUM, Joshua
Sailing Alone Around the World (Nev York: Century, 1900).
This is the one that started them all. An immortal classic of a middle-aged has-been who refused to knuckle under. It is a true literary masterpiece, an inspiring adventure of personal achievement, and a superb example of understatement.
Voyage of the Liberdade (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1894).
An earlier adventure by Joshua, published at his own expense, and little-known except to Slocum buffs, it narrates the building of a 35-foot junk-rigged dory in Brazil and sailing it back to the United States with his family after a shipwreck stranded them.
SLOCUM, Victor
Capt. Joshua Slocum (New York: Sheridan House, 1950).
The fascinating life and voyages of Captain Joshua Slocum, written by his oldest son, Victor, shortly before his death, which contains much unpublished material about the old gentleman and the family (and carefully avoids some episodes such as the birth and death of the twins to Virginia while in the Bering). The cover jacket illustration of Josh at the wheel of the Spray, running before a fresh wind is a masterpiece and a collector's item.
SMEETON, Miles
Once Is Enough (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1960).
Sunrise To Windward (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1966).
The Misty Islands (Lymington: Coles, 1969; New York: John de Graff).
Because The Horn Is There (Sidney, B.C.: Gray's Pub.,Ltd., 1970).
These works of the globe-girdling Brigadier and Beryl Smeeton cover about twenty years of post-World War II voyaging on Tzu Hang, including the story of the two capsizings off Cape Horn, and a third successful attempt to double it. Certainly the most remarkable husband-wife team of voyagers in maritime history who finally gave it up and retired to a moose "ranch" in Alberta The books are well-written, but at times tend to become stream of thought ramblings that leave out more than is revealed.
The Sea Was Our Village (Sidney, B.C.: Gray's Publishing Ltd., 1973).
The last and best voyaging book by Miles Smeeton, and how he and his wife Beryl, came to leave a British Columbia stump ranch, after his retirement from; the British army as a brigadier, go to London and, although they had never sailed a boat before, buy the famed Tzu Hang and start a 15-year career of world cruising. In this book, Smeeton reveals much of their motivation (as well as a taciturn Britisher can), and the hilarious account of trying to learn how to handle the big yacht before they started on their first long voyage to British Columbia. Sharp readers will also spot the Smeetons as the prototype for a similar couple in Nevil Shute's last book, Trustee From the Toolroom.
SMITH, Stanley and VIOLET, Charles
The Wind Calls the Tune (New York: Van Nostrand, 1953).
Good salty reading.
STOCK, Mabel
The Log of a Woman Wanderer (London: William Heinemann, 1923).
Ralph Stock's sister, "Peter," gives her version of the escapades of the Dream Ship.
STOCK, Ralph
The Cruise of the Dream Ship (London: William Heinemann, 1921 1922, 1923, 1927, 1950).
First of the post-World War I escape voyages, intended to be a circumnavigation, until a wealthy planter bought out from under the owner, his sister, and their friend. Up until then, it is a delightful account of a couple of war-weary veterans and a girl named "Peter," who were trying to get as far from the sound of guns as possible. Not very factual, but the author, who was a professional writer, shows flashes of deep perception at times, and at no time did the three take themselves seriously. It was upon Stock's return and purchase of a new dream ship, that Alain Gerbault, while visiting aboard, spotted the Firecrest nearby, bought it, and began his legendary career.
SWALE, Rosie
Children of Cape Horn (London: Paul Elek, 1974).
A bold adventure with two babies aboard a 30' catamarn sailed by an unassuming couple getting their feet wet for the first time. Europe to Australia and back by way of Cape Horn.
TABARLY, Eric
Lonely Victory ( New York: Clarkson Potter Inc., 1966) . (First published in France as Victoire en Solitaire).
France's most aloof lone-hander, who has been called by some the world's best solo sailor, tells how he won the Singlehanded Transatlantic in Pen-Duick, first of a series of revolutionary trimarans.
TAMBS, Erling
The Cruise of the Teddy (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1934).
The old favorite of bluewater buffs, by a professional writer who blundered around the globe in the early 1930s, acquiring a family and experience on the way. His first Colin Archer was wrecked on the coast of New Zealand - his second pitchpoled in the Atlantic with the loss of one man.
TANGVALD, Peter
The Sea Gypsy (New York: John de Graff, 1966).
A little Norwegian with a big ego tells how he did it.
TATE, Michael
Blue Water Cruising (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1964).
TILMAN, H. W.
Mischief in Patagonia (New York and London: Cambridge, 1957).
Mischief Among the Penguins (Chester Springs, Pa.: Dufur, 1961).
Mischief in Greenland (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1964).
Mostly Mischief (London: Hollis & Carter, 1966).
Mischief Goes South (London: Hollis & Carter, 1968).
In Mischief's Wake (London: Hollis & Carter, 1971).
The nautical works of Major Tilman, a prolific writer and famed mountain climber, who got interested in yachting and continued his adventures on the bluewater. His are the best adventure books in the English language.
TOMALIN, Nicholas and HALL, Ron
The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst (New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1970).
A thoroughly documented and clinical analysis of the rise and fall of a brilliant young man who sought to win fame and fortune in the Times Golden Globe Race by cheating, and ended by committing suicide. Ironically, the 243 days that Crowhurst tooled around the Atlantic in his trimaran until his mind and spirit broke, would have won him the prize had he spent the time legitimately competing with the others. Also ironically, it was Crowhurst's false position reports that prompted Nigel Tetley to push his trimaran beyond endurance and sink her almost within sight of victory. Anyone contemplating long ocean passages alone should read this book first.
TOMPKINS, Warwick M.
Two Sailors, and Their Voyage Around Cape Horn (New York: The Viking Press, 1939).
Best-known narrative of bluewater sailing by this famous yachtsman of the 1930s, who also wrote Fifty South to Fifty South, Coastwise Navigator, and Offshore Navigator. Tompkins was the first of the share-the-expense sailing ship operators, and the model for the Irving Johnsons and their seven circumnavigations In fact the Johnsons met on Wander Bird, when Irving was a professional crewman, and Electa was a guest. The two sailors in the book, which was written as a juvenile, were, of course, Tompkins' two children. One of them, "Commodore," told me in a recent letter that they had never actually made a circumnavigation, although their voyages took them to many parts of the world. The Wander Bird was the Tompkins' home, as well as cruise ship, for years.
TROBRIDGE, Gerry
Conversation With a World Traveler (New York: Seven Seas Press, 1971).
A brief outline story told in third person by the man who bought Trobridge's White Seal, the story of a six-year circumnavigation beginning in South Africa in a homemade steel version of John Hanna's Carol ketch.
URIBURU, Ernesto
Seagoing Gaucho (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1951).
The story of an Argentinian diplomat stationed in the U.S. during World War II, who longed for a ship of his own, and finally got home to Buenos Aires where Manuel Campos (who had built Dumas's Legh II), designed for him a Colin Archer-type 50-foot ketch, in which with three fellow bon vivants he sailed around the rim of the Atlantic. It is written in a rather spontaneous 'me" style, that is tedious at times (probably by a tipsy ghost), but the appendix is extensive and informative for outfitting a boat of this size on a long voyage.
VOGELS, Karl Max
Aloha Around the World (New York: Putnam, 1922).
The story of a circumnavigation in the 130-foot bark Aloha, which is dull reading at times, but is a classic example of how they did it before the days of income taxes.
VOSS, John C.
The Venturesome Voyage of Captain Voss (New York: C. E. Lauriat Co., i926 [also de Graff]).
A rare and valuable book, especially in the early editions, it is a classic of small-boat seamanship and heavy weather sailing by an undisputed expert whose veracity has long been unfairly questioned. Regardless of whatever else he was, Voss was a real man and a superb seaman. He and Luxton were the second ones to attempt a circumnavigation, after Slocum, in the Indian dugout Tilikum. Now, almost three quarters of a century after it happened, one can compare this book with Luxton's version (see Luxton's Pacific Crossing). The book also narrates some of Voss's other voyages, and his comments on the use of sea anchors and other techniques are as good as anything available today. Most modern writers who deprecate Voss never actually tried his methods, or at least gave them an honest test.
WALTER, Ahto and OLSEN, Tom
Racing the Sea (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935).
Mostly the story of Ahto Walter, one of the least-known and most resourceful of bluewater sailors, and his many crossings of the Atlantic.
WELLS, De Witt F.
The Last Cruise of the Shanghai (New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1925).
The elusive Shanghai keeps cropping up in many of the voyaging books of the 1930s. This book tells the story of the 41-foot yacht after it was sailed from China to Denmark, and purchased by Wells for a voyage along the Viking track, only to be wrecked in Nova Scotia.
WHARRAM, James
People of the Sea (Harrow, Middlesex: Sun & Health, 1965).
The catamaran and its voyages, by the well-known designer and multi-hull sailor.
WIBBERLEY, Leonard
Toward a Distant Island (New York: Ives Washburn, 1966).
WIELE, Annie Van de
The West in My Eyes (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1956).
Good account of Omoo and her circumnavigation by the most famous Dutch couple.
WIGHTMAN, Frank A.
The Wind Is Free (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1955). (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1949).
Wylo Sails Again (New York: John de Graff, Inc., 1955) .
Engaging accounts of the voyages in Wylo, which Wightman built on the lines of Pidgeon's Islander (nee Seabird) in South Africa. A rebel and iconoclast, Wightman's personal philosophies get a little tedious at times, but his experiences with this type vessel are informative and interesting.
WILLIS, William
The Gods Were Kind (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1955).
An Angel on Each Shoulder (New York: Meredith, 1967).
Books of the well-known senior citizen stunter who finally went missing.
ZANTZINGER, Richard
Log of the Molly Brown (Richmond: Westover Publishing Company, 1973).
A recent circumnavigation by a middle-aged swinger who is lots of fun, although a bit tipsy at times. This is how it was done in the seventies.
