Alone Through the Roaring Forties is the story of Vito Dumas's wartime voyage from Argentina eastward around the globe in the 31-foot canoe-sterned ketch Lehg II. By any measure, it was a remarkable, unprecedented voyage over what Dumas justly called the impossible route - south of the Cape of Good Hope, south of Australia, south of Cape Horn. Leaving Buenos Aires in June 1942, he made the 20,000-mile voyage singlehanded, becoming the first to do so. He was also the first solo sailor to round Cape Horn and survive, and the first to sail around the world with only three landfalls. Dumas completed his high-latitude voyage through the great Southern Ocean, where prevailing westerly gales push huge seas unimpeded around and around the bottom of the globe. His gear and provisions were makeshift - he suffered inordinately because his tattered clothing provided no protection from the cold wind and water - but his boat, though very small, was tough and well mannered. He was awarded the Slocum Prize in 1957 to honour the extraordinary voyages made by the greatest solitary navigator in the world. Alone Through the Roaring Forties was first published in Spanish, then in French, and finall

On Friday 14 June 1968 Suhaili, a tiny ketch, slipped almost unnoticed out of Falmouth harbour steered by the solitary figure at her helm, Robin Knox-Johnston. Ten and a half months later Suhaili, paintwork peeling and rust streaked, her once white sails weathered and brown, her self-steering gone, her tiller arm jury rigged to the rudder head, came romping joyously back to Falmouth to a fantastic reception for Robin, who had become the first man to sail round the world non-stop single-handed. By every standard it was an incredible adventure, perhaps the last great uncomputerised journey left to man. Every hazard, every temptation to abandon the astounding voyage came Robin's way, from polluted water tanks, smashed cabin top and collapsed boom to lost self-steering gear and sheered off tiller, and all before the tiny ketch had fought her way to Cape Horn, the point of no return, the fearsome test of any seaman's nerve and determination. A World of My Own is Robin's gripping, uninhibited, moving account of one of the greatest sea adventures of our time. An instant bestseller, it is now reissued for a new generation of readers to be enthralled and inspired.

Large Print Edition of the true account of the 2017-2018 solo non-stop circumnavigation by Jerome Rand aboard the Westsail 32 "Mighty Sparrow". A testament to endurance and adventure, this memoir recounts what life is like aboard a small sailboat during a 271 day voyage around the globe, alone and without stopping. One of the greatest challenges of both body and mind, the author will take you onboard during the good times and the bad. As one of only a handful of people to have ever succeed in such a small boat, this story is truly the adventure of a lifetime.

In early 1968, desperate entrepreneur Donald Crowhurst was trying to sell a nautical navigation device he had developed when he saw that the Sunday Times would be sponsoring the Golden Globe Race, the first ever solo, round-the-world sailing competition. An avid amateur sailor, Crowhurst sensed a marketing opportunity and shocked the world by entering the competition using an untested trimaran of his own design. Shock soon turned to amazement when he quickly took the lead, checking in by radio message from locations far ahead of his seasoned competitors. But on July 10, 1969, roughly eight months after he had sailed from England--and less than two weeks from his expected triumphant return--his wife was informed that his boat, the Teignmouth Electron, had been discovered drifting quietly, abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Crowhurst was missing, assumed drowned. How did he come to such an end when his race had begun with such incredible promise? In this masterpiece of investigative journalism, Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall reconstruct one of the greatest modern stories of one man's descent into self-delusion, public deception, and madness. Based on in-depth interviews with Crowhurst's family and friends, combined with gripping excerpts from his logbooks that revealed (among other things) he had been falsifying his locations all along, Tomalin and Hall paint an unforgettable, haunting portrait of a complex, deeply troubled man and his final fateful journey.

“An extraordinary story of bravery and insanity on the high seas. . . . One of the most gripping sea stories I have ever read.” — Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm In the tradition of Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, comes a breathtaking oceanic adventure about an obsessive desire to test the limits of human endurance. In 1968 nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held and never before completed: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death. Gorgeously written and meticulously researched by author Peter Nichols, this extraordinary book chronicles the contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems. A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms, and of those riveting moments when a decision means the difference between life and death.

Bernard Moitessier is a writer and one of France's most famous sailors.

Paddy Macklin, a self-taught sailor, decided to sail around the world in the smallest boat possible, single-handed, and hopefully, without stopping. He survived, sailing the Southern Oceans in winter and rounding both southernmost capes in the world, but by the skin of his teeth. His extraordinary little craft, "Tessa" was knocked down several times in the Southern Ocean and completely rolled twice. "In the space of about 40 seconds I was thrown out of my bunk onto the ceiling (deckhead) then back to my bunk again...throughout the time I spent upside down, the most noticeable thing was the complete silence". It was the damage done by these two 360 degree knockdowns that forced Paddy and Tessa to break their journey in New Zealand, pulling into Timaru where sailing friends towed them into port, and helped piece together the shattered sailor and his little craft. As Paddy noted, "It's not the huge seas that damage a strong, well-found yacht; it's the breaking tops of the seas - several tons of very fast-moving water - that present the greatest danger. Throughout his sojourn, Paddy was able to communicate twice a week with family back in England and this has been diarised and interspersed with the Captain's log thus giving a more personal insight into the character of Tessa's captain, how terrorised he was by the gigantic seas, how pleased he was to make friends with dolphins, birds, and whales, how wonderful it was to sight land, and how he managed to remain sane during an odyssey that few of us would ever dream of undertaking. It's a brave - or perhaps mad - person who would pit his strength against the might of nature. Paddy is one of the few.

On December 18, 1988, Olivier de Kersuason set out on a solo around the world race on board his 75-foot multihull Poulain. His goal: set a new speed record for non-stop solo circumnavigation."

“A masterfully curated collection...You don’t have to be a sailor to be blown away by this fascinating, bighearted book.” —Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea, Travels with George, and Second Wind A story as vast and exhilarating as the open ocean itself, SAILING ALONE chronicles the daring, disastrous, and often absurd history of those who chose to sail across the ocean, in very small boats, alone. Sailing by yourself, out of sight of land, can be invigorating and terrifying, compelling and tedious - and sometimes all of the above in one morning. But it is also a wide expanse of time in which to think. Sailing Alone tells the story of some of the remarkable people who, over the last four centuries, have spent weeks and months, moving slowly over the world's largest laboratory: a capricious and startling place in which to observe oneself, the weather, the stars, and countless sea creatures, from the tiniest to the most massive and threatening. Richard J. King profiles characters famous, diverse, international, and obscure, from Joshua Slocum of 1898 to modern teenagers daring to take the challenge. They see strange hallucinations, lie to us (and themselves) on their travel logs, encounter sharks, befriend birds, and experience ESP, all part of the unnerving reality of extended isolation. And some disappear altogether. Sailing Alone also recounts the author's own nearly catastrophic solo crossing of the Atlantic, and the mystery of his inexplicable survival one sunny afternoon. An enormously engaging new book for skippers and armchair voyagers alike.