Winter Reading

[ronkberg]

joeeb,

I can hardly hold myself back with the suggestion you had for "charismatic monks, hermits and celebrated living saints of Eastern Christianity"........

Please forgive my sarcasm but ............

WOW !!!!

Ron

[Joe Myerson]

As mentioned in another thread, I read and enjoyed Michael Tougias's "Ten Hours Until Dawn." It's a real story of seaborne heroism in the face of a terrible storm (the Northeast Blizzard of 1978).

Currently, I'm reading two books that members of this board would enjoy:

"Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe," by Laurence Bergreen, and, on the technical side, "The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat," by our own you-know-who.

Both are fascinating, and the Magellan book is, indeed, terrifying. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm having a hard time putting it down. I've already learned that Ferdinand Magellan was a cruel, greedy man who lived in cruel, greedy times. This book is especially amazing when you consider that the vessels men like Magellan took across oceans--and into totally unexplored regions of an as-yet-unknown world--would never qualify as seaworthy offshore sailboats by the learned Mr. Vigor's standards.

John's book, on the other hand, is something that I'm savoring chapter by chapter, each confirming what I already know: That I'm going to have to spend a lot of time, and a lot of boat units, if I really want my little 25D to be truly blue-water capable. And, of course, it's thanks to members of the Cape Dory Bulletin Board that I learned about John's book.

--Joe Myerson

[NANP]

I'm currently re-reading Ferenc Mate's <U>From A Bare Hull</U> and just finished John Kretschmer's <U>Flirting With Mermaids</U>, which was hugely entertaining.

When it comes to the days of iron men and wooden ships, Nathaniel Phibrick's <U>In the Heart of the Sea: the Tragedy of the Whaleship <I>Essex</I></U> is a longtime favorite. And I keep Reese Palley's <U>Unlikely Passages</U> around for dream inspiration before "lights out" . . .

Mr. Vigor's entire output is on my wishlist at Amazon.com, but I haven't started that particular buying frenzy yet. Soon, I imagine!

~Terence

[Bill - Dulcie]

Try an older edition of Knight's "Modern Seamanship". Fascinating!

[Neil Gordon]

... if it goes on just a little longer, we'll be talking about spring reading.

(Okay, I didn't mean the list of books and whatever wasn't good!)

[Steve Laume]

I enjoyed reading the list of provisions put aboard Magellan's ships for the voyage. The only thing they seemed to have enough of was Spanish wine. Conditions degraded to an unimaginable level. The ships stank so bad the men would sleep on deck even in adverse conditions. Stores were contaminated with rodent urine and feces. The rats them selves became a sought after commodity, as they were believed to, and in fact did, ward off scurvy. Magellan and a few of his officers lucked out by bringing along some jam which they had no idea was the reason they stayed above the horrid effects of scurvy. Those guys would have thought they entered heaven if they had the comforts and the seaworthiness of even the smallest Cape Dorys.
My next read, after a Jimmy Carter book on religon and politics will be "Ice master" by James Houston. It is a fictional work about a whaling voyage from Connecticut to Baffin. Bring on the hardships and suffering, Steve.

[winthrop fisher]

the best book i ever read was "the wind calls the tune" by stanley smith in the 50's....a twenty footer cross the atlantic ocean both ways....

[chase]

Moitessier is one of my favorites. While I'm not one to idolize, I like that fact that he "made do" and did not spend all his money on gadgetry to see the world. I do idolize self-sufficiency. Anyone who's willing to eat dog biscuits on a long voyage is my kind of man.

Right now I'm reading Heavy Weather Sailing by Coles and Maiden Voyage by Aebi. Maiden Voyage is great light reading and hard to fathom from a father's perspective.

I just finished "Cruising at Last" by the late Elliott “Bud” Merrick, a great friend of mine. As a young farmer fresh out of college, I found a book "Green Mountain Farm" in the farm manager’s house I lived in and soon learned that the Author lived just down the cove. That day I marched down there and introduced myself and began to work for Bud whenever he needed help. In his eighties, he still heated with a wood stove. We would drive his old Buick into the woodlot and haul wood in the trunk, sometimes bouncing around through the trees on the steep and muddy roads. Little did I know about his sailing exploits, I just didn't care about sailing then. I do remember him telling me about building the small boat he sailed to Maine and the barn he built it in.

His daughter posthumously published Cruising at Last, describing his boat building and subsequent voyages with his adventurous wife, Kate. Bud was a Yale graduate and published by the great Maxwell Perkins (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolff, etc.). With almost 70 years between us, we were great friends -- I just wish we had more time together. I have to say that reading the book made me feel thankful for his continuing influence on my life. Reading through it reminded me of old times. I could see his facial expressions, smell the earthy smell of his mountain home, and see the gleam in his eye that made him so fun to be with. It was just by chance that I even learned about this book – a great surprise. Perhaps some of you will enjoy it.

I’ve filed away all of your recommended reading. I’ve got time for a few more books before spring. It’s all parts manuals and technical bulletins after that.

Chase

[Joe Myerson]

Perhaps it's because of my current reading of the Magellan book mentioned above, but I'd like to recommend Dallas Murphy's book "Rounding The Horn: Being the Story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Natives - A Deck's Eye View of Cape Horn" for anyone who hasn't read it.

This book came out last year, or maybe the year before that. It's now available in paperback.

Dallas merges stories of his contemporary voyage to Cape Horn with fascinating stories about the region's history.

Another Cape Horn, and points south, thriller is "Berserk," mentioned by somebody else in this thread.

--Joe Myerson

P.S. Why am I reading all these books about the Far South and the Roaring Forties? I don't ever expect to sail those waters.

[Steve Laume]

Joe, you might want to read "My old man and the sea". It is written by and about a father and son who sailed from New London, CT down through the canal over to the Galapagos and then down around the horn and back. I believe they did this in a 26 FT boat that was probably not as seaworthy as your CD25-D could be. I was kind of funny and presented things in a mortal human kind of perspective. That trip may still be in your future, Steve.

[Tom Keevil]

I thoroughly enjoyed a biography of Miles and Beryl Smeeton.

High Endeavours: The Extraordinary Life and Adventures of Miles & Beryl Smeeton
by Miles Clark

It's not entirely about sailing - they didn't begin sailing until rather late in life (as part of a scam to get money out of England after WW II), but they were remarkable people all along.

[Cathy Monaghan]

Northeasterners might enjoy:

"Cruising at Last -- Sailing the East Coast", by Elliott Merrick

and

"The Coast of Summer -- Sailing New England Waters from Shelter Island to Cape Cod" by Anthony Bailey

[CapeTyphooner]

Great thread. Here are some of my favorites that I can highly recommend and feel are "must reads":

Wooden Boats by Michael Ruhlman

A Unit of Time, A Unit of Water: Joel White's Last Boat by Douglas Whynott

Sailing Alone Around the World by Josua Slocum

Sailing in a Spoonful of Water by Joe Coomer

Anything by Herb Payson, Hal Roth and Lin and Larry Pardey

Thanks to this thread, I am going to pick up John Vigor's Small Boat to Freedom.

[David van den Burgh]

I'd add Homer's Odyssey to the list - preferably the Mandelbaum or Fagles translation. It's certainly an enjoyable change of literary scenery and style.