A maritime adventure memoir that follows a crew of misfits hired to sail an 18th-century warship 5,000 miles to Hollywood.

In the late 1990s, Patrick O’Brian’s multimillion-copy-selling historical novel series—the Aubrey–Maturin series, which was set during the Napoleonic Wars—seemed destined for film, the production only needed a ship that could stand in for Lucky Jack’s HMS Surprise, with historical accuracy paramount.
The filmmakers found the Rose, a replica of an 18th-century ship that would work perfectly. Only there was one problem: the Rose was in Newport, Rhode Island, not in Southern California, where they would be filming.
Enter a ragtag crew of thirty oddballs who stepped up for the task, including Will Sofrin, at the time a 21-year-old wooden-boat builder and yacht racer, who joined as the ship’s carpenter.

All Hands on Deck is Sofrin’s memoir of the epic adventure delivering the Rose to Hollywood.
It’s a story of reinvention, of hard work on the high seas, of love, and of survival. The Rose was an example of the most cutting-edge technology of her era, but in the 21st century, barely anyone had experience sailing it...

NZ$50.00 + delivery.

Even as a teenager, John Beattie felt drawn to the ocean, but it was 25 years before his dreams of sailing the globe in his 35-foot yacht Warrior Queen could begin to come true.
His voyage began in England and continued to the South American coast and into the depths of the rainforests via uncharted tributaries. The adventure reached a stirring climax during his return voyage from Venezuela. One day at dawn, hundreds of miles from land, he spotted a man dying of thirst aboard a drifting open boat, a man given one last slender chance to live.

NZ$50.00 + delivery.

Since its publication in 1963, Sterling Hayden's autobiography, Wanderer, has been surrounded by controversy.
The author was at the peak of his earning power as a movie star when he suddenly quit. He walked out on Hollywood, walked out of a shattered marriage, defied the courts, broke as an outlaw, set sail with his four children in the schooner Wanderer--bound for the South Seas.

His attempt to escape launched his autobiography. It is the candid, sometimes painfully revealing confession of a man who scrutinized his every self-defeat and self-betrayal in the unblinking light of conscience.

NZ$65.00 + delivery.

SHEILA IN THE WIND
By Adrian Hayter. Softback, 0.54kg, 158mm x 216mm, 333 pages. Reprint 2020.

When Adrian Hayter set out single-handed from Lymington, England on his thirty-two-foot Albert Strange-designed yawl Sheila II, local betting was seven to one that he would get no further than the English Channel. His destination was New Zealand, and the odds were definitely against him. In 1949 perhaps only eight people had sailed solo around the world, and single-handed long-distance sailing voyages were rare.
As a sailor, Adrian recounts his foray into celestial navigation, a back-street appendix operation in India, armed escort by Indonesian authorities at sea, and eating barnacles off the hull to avoid starvation.

As a writer, (and ex soldier), he was trying to make sense of the humanitarian disasters of the Second World War and Communist Uprising that brought him to this voyage.

Sheila in the Wind is more than a report of a 13,000-mile adventure; it's a story of the human spirit.

NZ$55.00 + delivery.

In the late 1920s Norwegian Erling Tambs and his wife Julie set out from Oslo with their Colin Archer pilot boat Teddy, little in the way of navigational equipment, and not much else.

The Cruise of the Teddy is Erling's charming and modest account of how, with great fortitude, resourcefulness and good humour they reached New Zealand via the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, with many delightful human encounters along the way, to arrive with one more in the family than they started with.

NZ$45.00 + delivery.

Ice Bird is not only the account of one of the greatest small-boat journeys of all time. It is also a story of human endurance, a testimony of man’s will to overcome almost anything and everything – physical and psychological – to stay alive.

David Lewis set sail from Sydney on 19 October 1972. Through the ‘Roaring Forties’, through the ‘Furious Fifties’ he sailed on. Mountainous sea, constant gales, snow storms, freezing temperatures accompanied him until the sixth week when, on 19 November, 3600 miles out from Sydney, and 2500 miles from the Antarctic peninsula, Ice Bird capsized and was dismasted.
The proud yacht of a moment before had become a wreck: high adventure gave way to an apparently foredoomed struggle to survive. Yet, incredibly, after capsizing a second time, and in an astounding feat of navigation, Ice Bird made landfall at the U.S. Palmer Antarctic station, fourteen weeks after having left Sydney. There, the shattered boat was repaired.

In December 1973 David Lewis set sail on the second leg of his perilous journey through pack-ice and towering bergs, only to capsize yet again. Ten weeks later, exhausted and battered as Ice Bird, he reached Cape Town.

NZ$55.00 + delivery.

A journey by sea along the western coasts of Ireland and Scotland in search of islands, both real and imagined.

In an old wooden sloop, Philip Marsden plots a course north from his home in Cornwall. He is sailing for the Summer Isles, a small archipelago near the top of Scotland that holds for him a deep and personal significance. On the way, he must navigate the west coast of Ireland and the Inner Hebrides. Through the people he meets and the tales he uncovers, Marsden builds up a haunting picture of these shores - of imaginary islands and the Celtic otherworld, of the ageless draw of the west, of the life of the sea and perennial loss - and the redemptive power of the imagination.

NZ$25.00 + delivery.

"I foolishly thought that I was indestructible and capable of sailing a Drascombe Lugger halfway around the world. The reason, I thought then, was to prove that it could be done, and that due to the type and size of this vessel our route would take us through countries, rivers, remote places and harbours that no other vessel could reach… There were many occasions when we thought our lives were in serious danger… but someone or something fortunately decided otherwise..."

In Australia the Hard Way , (unavailable since 1972), David Pyle records how youth, resourcefulness, determination – and a Drascombe Lugger – got him and his companion to the other side of the world.
They voyaged by sea, land and river – including the ancient river Tigris through Iraq – gaining unforgettable experiences: arrest in France; storm in the Mediterranean; reed-hut hospitality by the Tigris; being suspected of smuggling in India, meeting pirates in Indonesia.
For the first time ever, an open boat was sailed from England to Australia.

NZ$45.00 + delivery.

In May 1946 John Caldwell set out to sail from Panama to Sydney to reunite with his wife who he hadn't seen for more than a year. Eager to reach his destination and unable to secure any other form of transport, he had to resort to singlehanded seamanship.

After an ignominious scene in the harbor, where a tangled anchor led him to take an early dip, he spent ten days learning the rudiments of navigation and sailing from a book, before embarking on the 9,000 mile journey aboard the 20-foot Pagan. Ahead lay a mission that was to reveal in him elements not only of astounding courage and determination, but also of incredible foolhardiness. Within 500 miles of Panama John Caldwell had already been shipwrecked once and had his boat's engine and cockpit destroyed by an angry shark. Indefatigable, he decided to press on towards his goal.He endured the terrors and discomforts of life on the high seas and enjoyed the triumphs of fighting and winning against the elements.

This is more than an exciting tale of sea-adventure. It is as compelling and unpredictable as a thriller. It is the story, witty and moving, of a man, motivated initially by love, and ultimately by his own fierce determination to survive.

NZ$45.00 + delivery.

In June 1994 Alvah Simon and his wife, Diana, set off in their 36-foot sailboat to explore the hauntingly beautiful world of icebergs, tundra, and fjords lying high above the Arctic Circle. Four months later, unexpected events would trap Simon alone on his boat, frozen in ice 100 miles from the nearest settlement, with the long polar night stretching into darkness for months to come. With his world circumscribed by screaming blizzards and marauding polar bears and his only companion a kitten named Halifax, Simon withstands months of crushing loneliness, sudden blindness, and private demons. Trapped in a boat buried beneath the drifting snow, he struggles through the perpetual darkness toward a spiritual awakening and an understanding of the forces that conspired to bring him there. He emerges five months later a transformed man.

NZ$40.00 + delivery.

IN THE WAKE OF HEROES.
Sailing's Greatest Stories.

Introduced by Tom Cunliffe. Paperback, 0.41kg, 128mm x 198m, 266 pages. Paperback Edition Published 2016.

Tom Cunliffe's name represents the gold standard of good yachting advice, and this book collects together his favourite extracts, all focusing on good seamanship in one way or another, from the classic and much-loved books that have instructed and inspired him over the decades.

Tom Cunliffe is one of the biggest names in the sailing world - an internationally renowned journalist and speaker, and the go- to guru when the BBC wants a presenter for a new TV series about maritime interests. For the last ten years he has edited the 'Great Seamanship' column of Yachting World magazine. Each column features an extract from a classic yachting book that covers an aspect of great seamanship. Tom introduces each extract by giving insightful background on the writer, their book and what makes their experience so worth reading about - and learning from.

This book comprises Tom's 40 favourite extracts, and covers the entire scope of yachting concerns, from small-boat handling to yacht racing to long-distance cruising and exploring.

Introduced in Tom's quintessential lively, engaging fashion, and illustrated with photos both from the original books and Tom's own archives, this beautifully packaged book contains a wealth of yachting wisdom and is a collection to be treasured.

NZ$25.00 + delivery.

BEER IN THE BILGES.
By Alan Boreham, Peter Jinks & Bob Rossiter. Paperback, 0.58kg, 230mm x 153m, 350 pages, Black and White Images. Published 2012.

In the early 1980s, after the sexual revolution and before the explosion of the electronic age, the remote islands of Polynesia begged to be explored. For three experienced sailors who dreamed of sailing through the idyllic South Pacific, it was a perfect time to embark on a quest through some of the most amazing cruising destinations in the world. As New Zealander "Hollywood" Bob Rossiter, Australian Peter Jinks, and Canadian Alan Boreham set off from different points in the world, none of them has any idea that a series of unanticipated events will eventually bring them together in the tropical swelter of Pago Pago. Along their journey lined with unexpected moments, the sailors meet a wide array of eclectic characters, including Sharkbite Charlie; Rosie, the three-hundred-pound dancer; and Gunter, the mysterious German chef from South America. Beer in the Bilges offers a fascinating glimpse into sailing voyages to the other side of the world where three men join forces and have to rely on their skills, their wit, and, most importantly, on each other as they embark on an unforgettable nautical adventure.

NZ$60.00 + delivery.

NZ$30.00 + delivery.

This fascinating voyage is recounted by his father Jon, who was allowed to join his sons as their cabin-boy at the last minute - on the promise of good behaviour. And after reading the book I can honestly say his behaviour was very good, as it can't have been easy to sit back and let your son take all the responsibility. But he did and it is truly a great book.

What a wonderful family they are as Jon frequently mentions his wife Barbara and their other 3 sons as parallel to the story of this trip he tells the story of a family with 5 home-schooled boys aboard their traditional ocean going yacht "New Zealand Maid".

Book NZ$40.00 + delivery.

YARNS, NARRATIVES AND BIOGRAPHIES. Page Seven. CRUISING NARRATIVES See also Shipwrecks and Maritime Disasters

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