Recommended Reading

If you've ever been offshore in a small boat in weather that ebbs and surges between slightly frightening and merely uncomfortable--and that this took place back when you were tougher & dumber--it is a real treat to relive that kind of foolishness through someone else's eyes.
Adlard Coles Heavy Weather Sailing recounts what the English sailboat racing scene was all about in the post WWII era.

Gray Sea Under Farley Mowatt (I think thats how you spell Mowatt)

The BBC did a TV series to go with it. If you can get hold of it, it's excellent - and 'The Long Way Round'!

Maybe tending to the heavy iron but still can't be beat on a long passage:


Death Ship: B Traven
Gray Seas Under: Farley Mowat
The Serpent’s Coil: Farley Mowat
The Left Handed Monkey Wrench: Richard McKenna
Sons of Martha: Richard McKenna
Looking for a Ship: John McPhee
Steaming to Bamboola: Christopher Buckley
Rats, Rust and Two Old Ladies: David Creamer
Freighter Captain: Max Hardberger
Woody, Cisco, and Me: Seamen Three in the Merchant Marine: Jim Longhi

So many books, such a short time to read them ... sigh.

What a great idea Judy ... thanks for creating a must-read list (except of course for Chapman's, which "my deceased relatives" read and I can only imagine their true deaths were self-inflicted ).

My offerings would be 2:

Enchanted Vagabonds by Dana Lamb
Virginia Lamb will make most guys look like pansies as the couple takes a 16' covered sail/canoe from San Diego to the Panama Canal in the early 30's. You keep asking yourself, "Could I do that?"

next is

Ship Of Gold by Gary Kinder
A dual history look at the wreck and salvage of the Central America. The treasure is alluring but the logistics of recovery are incredible.

Evan

good reads

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Jack London, The Sea Wolf was the first of his stories that popped into my head, but just about everything I've read from the man has been intrigueing.

Amyr Klink
"100 Days Between Sea and Sky"
"Between Two Poles "

Amyr has several other books, but with only portuguese editions.

Hey Judy!
What a wonderful Thread, thank you for posting. I am a bit late to this party, so here goes:
As a kid growing up a LONG way from the sea, but in love with everything t o do with the ocean, my favourites were:
Cape of Storms by John Gordon Davis (try find this as it is not so common. Written by a person who lived the experience as he was still at University in the Cape.)
Tai Pan James Clavell (as previously mentioned in this thread).
Anything on skin diving by Hans Haas (showing my age here!)
The classics from Hornblower onwards to Master & Commander (cannot beat these!)
Custom of the Sea (Neil Hanson)

Blind mans bluff is a pretty good book if you are interested in submarines.

Some of these are repeats of books in previous posts, I thought I'd mention some of my favourites that are available as free eBooks and a couple of book I like that haven't been mentioned:

Fiction

The Sea Wolf - by Jack London

Free eBook from Project Gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1074

The Bedford Incident - by Mark Raskovich

Cold war thriller.

https://www.amazon.ca/Bedford-Incident-Mark-Rascovich/dp/0689000251


Non-fiction

Two Years Before the Mast - by Richard Henry Dana

This has been mentioned a couple of times, I wanted to point out that the free version at Project Gutenberg is an edition that has an account of Dana's return to San Francisco 24 years later, and a fascinating picture of how much California had changed in that time.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4277

Details of Classic Boat Construction - by Larry Pardey

An excellent book on how to build a classic carvel-planked boat in a shed, lots of pictures.

https://www.amazon.ca/Details-Classic-Boat-Construction-Anniversary/dp/1929214448

Steve and Linda Dashew's comprehensive cruising books. I'm glad I happened to see the "last chance to buy a printed copy" of their books and got a set, but the PDFs are also great.

https://setsail.com/free-books/

Exploring Puget Sound and BC Chart Atlas - by Steven Hilson

When I was kid in the 70s and our family was cruising the BC coast, this book had just come out and we had a copy on board. Given the date, I'm sure Hilson literally cut and pasted notes on history, place names, and local knowledge onto charts to create this.

https://www.waggonerguidebooks.com/store/p109/exppsbcchart.html

Ocean Steamships - multiple authors

Another Project Gutenberg free eBook. I've only read the 3rd chapter about building a steamship, that one is fascinating, and there are certainly parts of the rest of the book that look equally interesting.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54136

The Innocents Abroad - by Mark Twain

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3176

Men against the sea. I thought this was better than its two cousins from the bounty trilogy.

Hemingway's Boat was a terrific read as well.

Hello Judy, last time I wrote about a misspelling in this forum, the OP wrote: " You re right but at this point I was hoping for useful information instead of zpaileen lessons.".

Risking a similar response I believe the correct spelling of the author´s last name is Kling, not King, thank you for all your informative writings.

Kindest regards.

Unsinker, we welcome spelling and factual corrections. Please don’t be dismayed by someone having a bad day.

Downloaded this and read it while crossing the Atlantic and Med over the past few weeks. Now I've downloaded more of the series. Thanks Judy!