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THE JOURNEY OF ANDERS SPARRMAN A Biographical Novel.By Per Wastberg. Paperback, 401 pages, 154mm x 234mm.
This haunting novel is based on the life of Anders Sparrman, the Swedish naturalist, who in the second half of the eighteenth century became the last and youngest disciple of the scientist Carl Linnaeus. In his quest for new animal and plant specimens, Sparrman sailed to China at seventeen, joined Captain Cook on his second voyage to Antarctica and Tahiti, and made a pioneering journey on foot into the South African interior. In South Africa Sparrman witnessed the terrible cruelties of slavery, which made him a staunch abolitionist for the rest of his life.
Wastberg uses his own extensive knowledge of South Africa and Sweden to create a strange, almost mystical narrative, that weaves passages from Sparrman''s letters and journals into his own spare prose. As he follows Sparrman from innocent student to sceptical adventurer, and from dedicated botanist to abolitionist, he evokes the beauty of the Swedish countryside, the squalid conditions aboard ship, the dangers and geographical wonders of Africa and, finally the late-flowering passion that overtakes Sparrman's life. In this magical, poetic novel, set between the end of the enlightenment and the dawn of Romanticism, Wastberg's narrative combines intellectual precision with emotional power.
NZ$39.00 + delivery.
SAILING THE DREAMBy Mike Perham. Paperback, 292 pages, 152mm x 234mm, full colour photos.
More people have been in space than have sailed solo around the earth. It is a journey fraught with danger at every turn, with little time for sleep or pause for rest. It is the toughest challenge in the nautical world. At the age of seventeen, Mike Perham joined the select band of sailors to achieve that feat.
In Sailing the Dream, Mike tells the story of the incredible 30,000-mile voyage that made him the youngest circumnavigator in history. As he raced across the waves in his Open 50 yacht TotallyMoney.com, the journey soon became a struggle against wild seas, failing equipment and the loneliness of the long-distance sailor. Despite the boat's being knocked over and battered by the oceans and having to put in for damage repairs that turned the trip into a nine-month odyssey, Mike battled on, surfing down fifty-foot waves at speeds of up to 28 knots to realize his goal.
Yet through all the difficulties, Mike's positive attitude shines through. Sailing the Dream is an inspirational and thrilling tale of adventure on the high seas, and how you can be as big as the dreams you dare to live.
NZ$45.00 + delivery.
TAMATA AND THE ALLIANCEBy Bernard Moitessier. Hardback, 378 pages, 160mm x 240mm, black and white photos.
This is the last book by Moitessier, the guru of the sea vagabonds, the author of The Long Way who became the spiritual father to a whole generation of dreamers of the sea. Told with lyrical talent, this memoir is also the story of an endless quest around the world, from his native Indochina to the islands of the Pacific and to America.
Moitessier will always remain the man who rejected security to follow in perfect freedom his Robinson Crusoe destiny.
NZ$70.00 + delivery.
MASTER MARINER - A Life under WayBy Captain Philip Rentell. Paperback, 135mm x 213mm, 383 pages, full colour photographs.
From his days as a cadet on the ageing training ship Worcester, Captain Philip Rentell's forty-year career has spanned the world's oceans and a huge variety of seagoing experience. He served as a junior officer on numerous freighters and liners, as the navigator of cross-Channel hovercraft, and then as first officer of the Cunard Flagship QE2, on which he went to the South Atlantic with over 3,500 British troops and a volunteer crew of 650 during the Falklands War of 1982. Since leaving Cunard in 1990, he has been an English Channel pilot and North Sea pilot, and has commanded a succession of cruise ships.
Philip Rentell is a Fellow of the Nautical Institute and a Younger Brother at trinity House, and he has a law degree from the Open University. He has held a private pilot licence for fixed wing aircraft, and in his spare time he has recently built an autogyro. He is currently master of the classic cruise liner Saga Ruby. When he is not at sea he lives in Cornwall
NZ$40.00 + delivery.
WHERE THE OCEAN MEETS THE SKYBy Crispin Latymer. Paperback, 122mm x 198mm, 216 pages, 1 section of full colour photographs.
Crispin Latymer had every reason to be content: a successful carrer, a happy family, and his own boat in which he cruised the coasts of the UK. the he hit 50, and had a "What now?" moment. realising he was running out of time to do something truly memorable, ad with a mounting fear that he would grow old and regert not taking a leap into the unknown, he decided to sail the Atlantic solo.
His trip turned into an epic. During the 23-day journey he broke two ribs and a toe, got stuck in the middle of Tropical Storm Delta, and was chased by pirates of the Mauritanian coast. And how does he describe his adventure now? 'Magical'. It was not what he had envisaged, but in rising to the challenge it became an unexpected voyage of self-discovery.
Understated and entertaining, inspirational and thought provoking, Crispin's story speaks not only to ordinary sailors but also to anyone contemplating their own unfulfilled dreams.
NZ$29.00 + delivery.
ONCE IS ENOUGHBy Miles Smeeton. Paperback, 134mm x 210mm, 201 pages, black and white photographs and line drawings.
When Tzu Hang, a 46-foot ketch, set sail from Melbourne, Australia, in December 1956 bound for England, Miles and Beryl Smeeton and their friend John Guzzwell had little concept of the challenges or terrors that awaited them. At that time very few small sailboats had successfully rounded Cape Horn, and none had sailed as far south as Tzu Hang - just north of the Antarctic iceberg limit.
Six weeks later, in the icy seas several hundred miles west of Cape Horn, Tzu Hang was caught from astern by a huge wave that somersaulted her. Beryl Smeeton, who had been alone at the tiller, was thrown thirty yards into the sea. Despite a broken collarbone, she managed to swim to the wreckage of masts and rigging in the water where Miles and John could heave her on board. Tzu Hang was a shambles: the tiller, rudder, doghouse, anchor, compass and dinghies had all been ripped away; the masts had broken off level with the deck; and the boat was close to sinking. Working beyond exhaustion, the crew emptied the water bucket by bucket, salvaged what they could, built a new doghouse, fashioned a jury rig, and five weeks later sailed into Arauco Bay on the Chilean Coast.
After ten months of repair work in a Chilean navy yard, Miles and Beryl Smeeton (without John Guzzwell) sailed again toward Cape Horn and again were capsized, dismasted and nearly sunk by a rogue wave. Once more they survived the disaster and sailed 2,000 miles to Valparaiso, Chile.
When it was first published in 1959, Once is Enough electrified the sailing world. But what keeps it fresh and captivating is not just Smeeton's vivid re-creation of the sea's fury. His eloquent descriptions of ordianry life at sea make Once is Enough timeless reading for sailors and armchair adventurers alike.
NZ$35.00 + delivery.
SIMPLE COURAGE - A TRUE STORY OF PERIL ON THE SEA.By Frank Delaney. Paperback, 143mm x 226mm, 300 pages, four black and white photographs.
In December 1951, the freighter S.S.Flying Enterprise, laden with passengers and cargo, steamed wetsward from Europe toward America. A few days into the voyage she hit a ferocious storm during which two rogue waves more than sixty feet high slammed into the vessel, causing irreparable damage. As the world listened and watched, captain Kurt Carlsen, a seaman of rare ability and valor, tried to salvage his ship. When that effort came to naught, he helped transfer the ship's passengers and entire crew to safety. He then remained with the Flying Enterprise for days, trying against all odds to bring her and her cargo to port.
In a narrative as dramatic as the ocean's fury, acclaimed bestselling author Frank Delaney weaves an unprecedented tale of unmatched bravery and endurance at sea. Drawing on historical documents, contemporary accounts and exclusive interviews with Carlsen's family, Delaney has written a gripping narrative that highlights one man's outstanding fortitude and heroic sense of duty.
NZ$40.00 + delivery.
THE RIVER OF NO RETURN.By Neil Robinson. Paperback, 153mm x 234mm, 273 pages.
Although this is a novel, as Neil Robinson himself said: "Most of the characters are fictitious, but not, I hope, too far from the truth".
In The River of no Return Neil Robinson paints a vivid picture from a palette rich in dry wit of the Nova Scotian settlement at Waipu, Northland,in 1860
The paradoxical character of Norman Mcleod shines contrasting lights over the scene as young Donald McKinnon, on his rite of passage, attempts to question the methods and ideas of the minister, wrestles with the expectations and values of his love for the "beautiful and good" Jessie McKay.
The backdrop for this eminently human New Zealand novel is a monatge of bushmen working the virgin kauri forests of Northland, merchants and street-wise opportunists in the young town of Auckland, and sea-faring traders of goods, men, and human souls in the tropical islands of New Caledonia and the New Hebrides.
NZ$30.00 + delivery.
THE WRECKERS.By Bella Bathurst. Paperback, 130mm x 198mm, 326 pages, monochrome photographs.
Bella Bathurst's first book, the acclaimed The Lighthouse Stevensons, told the story of Scottish lighthouse construction by the ancestors of Robert Louis Stevenson. Now she returns to the sea to search out the darker side of those lights, detailing the secret history of shipwrecks and the predatory scavengers who live off the spoils.
Even today, Britian's coastline remains a dangerous place. An island soaked by four separate seas, with shifting sandbanks to the east, veiled reefs to the west, powerful currents above, and the world's busiest shipping channel below, the country's offshore waters are strewn with shipwrecks. For villagers scratching out an existence along Britain's shores, those wrecks have been more than simply an act of God; in many cases they have been the difference between living well and just getting by. Though Daphne du Maurier portrayed Cornwall as Britian's most notorious region for wrecking, many other coastal communities regarded the "sea's bounty" as an impromptu way of providing themselves with everything from grapefruit to grand pianos. Some plunderers were held to be so skilled that they could strip a ship from stem to stern before the Coast Guard had even left port; others were rumored to lure ships onto rocks with flase lights; and some simply waited for winter gales to do their work.
From all around Britain, Bathurst has uncovered the hidden history of ships and shipwreck victims, from shoreline orgies so frenzied that few participants survived the morning to humble homes fitted with silver candelbra, from coastlines rigged like stage sets to villagers where everyone owns identical tennis shoes. Spanning three hundred years of histiry, this book examines the myths, the realities, and the superstitions of shipwrecks and uncovers the darker side of life on Britain shores.
NZ$30.00 + delivery.
AROUND CAPE HORN DVD.Narration and original photography by Captain Irving Johnson. Remastered film and video, 37 minutes. This DVD is in NTSC format and is for the USA zone; many players will read this format, however for those that cannot a complimentary disk is included giving both NTSC and PAL, and multi-zone viewing (virus scanned, 6.74 megabytes, fully Windows compatible).
In 1929 the last great days of commercial sail were passing. During that time Captain Irving Johnson sailed aboard the massive four-masted bark Peking. In this programme he narrates the passage in a style that made him a favourite on the lecture circuit around the world. The most spectacular scenes were filmed during a storm with winds gusting over 100 miles-an-hour as the ship was rounding Cape Horn.
The Peking is preserved at the South Street Seaport Museum in Lower Manhatten, New York, USA. On the internet you can visit her anytime from http://www.southstseaport.org/street/peking.shtm.
This DVD video must be regarded as a very special artifact of maritime history, as it is one of very few, well executed and preserved films taken aboard merchant sailing ships during an authentic passage. It probably stands alone in that the visual quality is excellent, having regard to its chronology and technology, and it covers an entire port-to-port passage. The narration is from a lecture tour in England in 1980 and the voice-over audio is of good, modern quality.
This film is very certainly a sailor's party-piece and would be an asset in any yachtsman's or yacht-club library.
NZ$80.00 + delivery. Includes complimentary software for multi format NTSC and PAL, and multi zone viewing.
THE LIGHTHOUSE STEVENSONS.By Bella Bathurst. Paperback, 128mm x 198mm, 284 pages, monochrome drawings.
Robert Louis Stevenson was the most famous of the Stevensons, but not by any means the most productive. The Lighthouse Stevensons, all four generations of them, built every lighthouse around Scotland, were responsible for a host of optical and structural innovations, and achieved feats of engineering in unbelievably forbidding conditions. The same driven energy that Robert louis put into writing, his ancestors put into lighting the darkness of the seas. Theirs is a story of high endeavour and remarkable ingenuity, beautifully told by Bella Bathhurst in this contemporary classic of historical biography.
NZ$30.00 + delivery.
SIR PETER BLAKE - AN AMAZING LIFE.By Alan Sefton. Paperback, 129mm x 197mm, 444 pages, colour photos.
Sir Peter Blake was perhaps the greatest competitive yachtsman of all time - the man who seized the America's Cup and won the Whitbread. In his later years he turned away from international competition and used the yacht Seamaster to draw attention to the threats to the world's environment. It was in pursuit of this cause that Blake was tragically murdered in 2001 at the mouth of the Amazon while defending Seamaster from pirates.
In this first ever biography, close friend and colleague Alan Sefton traces Blake's extraordinary life. From the small boy crazy about the sea, to the rigours of ocean racing and the America's Cup triumphs, to the decision to devote his life to saving the world's oceans - and to his sad but brave end on the Amazon.
Blake lived life to the limit. This book offers both gripping adventure and inspiration to sailors and non-sailors alike.
NZ$30.00 + delivery.
HEN FRIGATES.By Joan Druett. Hardback, 162mm x 242mm, 274 pages, monochrome paintings.
Throughout the nineteenth century, many merchant ships plying the Atlantic, and farther afield to Europe and the Far East, carried not only the captain and his crew but the captain's wife and children. The amazing, largely untold story of these "hen frigates", as they were called, is more fascinating than any sailor's yarn.
Drawing on first-person accounts from journals and letters, Joan Druett re-creates the colourful and often dangerous lives of these enterprising and courageous women, describing an ocean-going world in which disease was pervalent, accidents were common, and gales, hurricanes, and typhoon - even collisions and fire at sea - were a constant threat. Some wives survived shipwreck, but many succumbed, as in the wreck of the Golden Star in 1861, when Captain Staples and his wife drowned, locked in each other's arms.
Yet despite the risks, thousands of women preferred to join their husbands at sea rather than remain safely alone on land. They endured childbirth; seasickness; terrifying skirmishes with pirates; rats that swam behind the ship, refusing to die, after being thrown overboard; and the hazards of bringing up children in the cramped shipboard conditions. In the process they acquired a resourcefulness that few women could match today.
The compensations were many: romantic moonlit nights on deck, visits to exotic foreign ports where they could shop and go sightseeing, and, above all, the companionship of the men they loved.
Told with all the immediacy of eyewitness accounts, Hen Frigates weaves a lyrical narrative of seafaring life, enabling us to share the emotional spectrum of fear and pain, anger, love and heartbreak, that these women experienced. Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated with authentic seascapes and archive portraits of the wives and their husbands, this unique book is a rare tale of high adventure that transports us back to the golden age of sail.
NZ$45.00 + delivery.
SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD.By Captain Joshua Slocum. Paperback, 130mm x 198mm, 294 pages, monochrome illustrations.
Joshua Slocum's epic solo voyage around the world in 1895 in the 37 foot sloop Spray stands as one of the greatest sea adventures of all time. It remains one of the major feats of single-handed voyaging, and has since been the inspiration for the many who have gone to sea in small boats.
Starting from Boston on 24 April 1895, Slocum crossed the Atlantic to Gibraltar, only to discover he would have to change his route. He then re-crossed the Atlantic and followed Magellan's course south-westwards, sailing through the Strait, traversing the Pacific and Indian Oceans, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and crossing the Atlantic a third time, dropping anchor at Newport, Rhode Island on 27 June 1898. He had covered some 46,000 miles entirely under sail and entirely alone - much of the time with the wheel lashed while he sat below reading, cooking or mending his clothes.
Slocum's account of his epic voyage is a classic of sailing literature, acclaimed as an unequalled masterpiece of vital yet disciplined prose. It will be welcomed by admirers of Slocum's legendary achievement.
NZ$26.00 + delivery.
THE PLIMSOLL SENSATION.By Nicolette Jones. Paperback, 125mm x 198mm, 400 pages, monochrome photos.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, an astonishing campaign stirred a nation to save the lives of the hundreds of British sailors who were drowning unneccessarily every year. Overladen and ill-repaired ships set sail, their doomed crews sacrificed while mercenary shipowners profited from the insurance. Samuel Plimsoll blew the whistle on these scandalous practices, devoting his life to a campaign for maritime reform. Plimsoll caught the public imagination: under his banner working men and women stood side by side with enlightened aristocrats and industrialists, their clamour almost toppling a prime minister.
NZ$33.00 + delivery.
MINE"S BIGGER.By David A. Kaplan. Paperback, 150mm x 230mm, 268 pages, colour photos.
Tom Perkins, the venture capitalist behind such companies as Google, Genentech, Amazon, and AOL, doesn’t do things halfway. When he collected vintage cars, for instance, he had the world’s largest collection of Bugatti automobiles. And when he decided to pursue a lifelong dream and build a sailing yacht, he went the whole nine yards: He decided it would be the world’s largest yacht-big enough to fit Noah’s Ark on its deck. He wanted it to sail at a record 26 knots, under unprecedented physical forces. And, he thought, having built this marine wonder, why not use it to try to smash the 155-year-old world sailing record from New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn?
So Perkins built “the perfect yacht”-as long as a football field, 42 feet wide, and with three masts so tall they will just fit under the great suspension bridges of the world. The Maltese Falcon, as he dubbed his ship, uses technology no clipper skipper ever imagined-a rig with no sheets, no stays, no halyards-just free-standing, rotating carbon fiber masts with 18 sails surging freely in the wind. At $130 million, it is a technological marvel-as complex as the man himself.
But the Maltese Falcon is a marvel of mechanics, engineering, and techonology, married with the romance of the age of sail, dressed out in the finest accommodations money can buy and the human mind can imagine. More than just the story of the boat, Mine’s Bigger is a broader profile of the combination of ambition, recklessness, bravado, and achievements of a 21st century entrepreneur and his time.
NZ$35.00 + delivery.
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