Books and DVDs

Few of us will ever experience a Vendée Globe race firsthand. But readers can now get at least a taste of what it’s like, thanks to Rich Wilson’s book, Race France to France.

For those wondering about all that talk of the “good old days” in the Volvo Ocean Race, there could be no better primer than the recently published Sailing Legends: Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race 1973-2009, by veteran sailing journalists Bob Fisher and Barry Pickthall.

Cell phones and water don’t mix, which by extension means that cell phones and sailing don’t mix. Although I usually leave my phone belowdecks while I’m actually sailing, I once managed to fall overboard while the boat was sitting happily on its mooring…

As sailors continue to debate the pros and cons of digital navigation apps and paper charts, map junkies just grin and think: the more, the merrier! Well, junkies, rejoice. The National Geographic Society has expanded its “Trails Illustrated Maps” series to include a number of popular sailing locations, including the Virgin Islands, Channel Islands, Apostle Islands and Boston Harbor Islands. In

Though sextants are no longer used by most bluewater navigators, they are still objects of fascination to a certain passionate sect of sailors. On the one hand they are merely precision measuring instruments. On the other they seem like magical tools employed by celestial priests and druids. For those who worship the very concept of the sextant, here is a book that should satiate even the most

When Gary Jobson saw his first 12-meter at age 12, he dreamed of someday getting a taste of the America’s Cup. Over the next five decades— from his role as tactician for Ted Turner aboard Courageous in 1977 to his role as an ESPN commentator in New Zealand in 2003—Jobson got his taste, and then some. Along the way, he met a host of fascinating characters, often switching from racer to

Lin and Larry Pardey have long been fixtures in the sailing world, thanks to their many instructional cruising videos and DVDs, and Lin’s 11 books about the couple’s life afloat.Lin’s most recent work, Bull Canyon: A Boatbuilder, a Writer and other Wildlife, breaks with this tradition by addressing the time they moved to an isolated California canyon 60 miles inland to build their

In 1983, Dodge Morgan, then 53, sold his electronics company and made a promise to himself: he would sail around the world, alone, without stopping. He hoped to complete the 27,459-nautical-mile voyage onboard his 60-foot cutter, American Promise, in 220 days. That would require him to sail 100 miles a day at an average speed of 6.25 knots. As Morgan boarded American Promise in

In his book Plain Sailing, Dallas Murphy gives new sailors the essential information needed to get on a boat and become a significant crewmember, while also offering experienced sailors a strong reminder of what it means to be out there in the first

After watching Steve Henkel collect brochures on trailerable boats for almost 50 years, his wife, Carol, asked why he was continuing to surround himself with mounds of seemingly obsolete files. With no room to maneuver, Henkel could only mumble that they were for a book he was planning to write. “Starting when?” his wife asked. “Now,” he meekly replied.Fortunately for us, the result is a