Showing titles in Water Sports

Two Years Before the Mast is an 1840 memoir by the author Richard Henry Dana. A Harvard graduate, he spent the years 1834 to 1836 as a sailor on a merchant ship on a voyage from Boston to California. The journey took them past Cape Horn on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. Dana provides detailed descriptions of ship life and the technical aspects of sailing. A chapter on California and its inhabitants offers valuable historical insights on the state which was then a foreign land.

On an overcast April day in 2003, David and James Livingston raced against each other in the 149th Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. Watched by over seven million people, it was the first time for over 100 years that brothers had battled against each other in this gladiatorial contest. Only one could be victorious. In Blood Over Water, David and James tell their stories for the first time, giving an intimate insight into one of our best-loved national sporting occasions, whilst also describing a brotherly relationship tested to breaking point.

From the age of three, Norman Ollestad was thrust into the world of surfing and competitive downhill skiing by the intense, charismatic father he both idolized and resented. While his friends were riding bikes, playing ball, and going to birthday parties, young Norman was whisked away in pursuit of wild and demanding adventures.

On his 43rd birthday, Dick Conant, a golden boy who never quite grew up as those around him expected, stepped into a homemade boat to embark on a journey despite a gathering snowstorm. Among his possessions was a Gideon Bible and biographies of Einstein and Bismark. It was the beginning of an all-consuming odyssey by an unconventional man into the watery arteries of America, a journey to the unreported margins of society.

Did you ever wonder why scuba divers need weights or what the bends are? Why do divers fall backward into the sea rather than forward when diving? Do you want to know why water does not enter the face mask? If you want to know the answer to any of these questions, this book is for you. Greater than a tourist explains in plain language the procedures for scuba diving and how to protect you from harm, using personal experiences as examples.

There are many of us who dream about selling all our stuff, quitting our jobs, and running away to Paradise. This is a story about one couple who made that dream come true. The author shares what it feels like to experience ultimate freedom, and outlines the steps they took to get there. The story includes tales from their travels, social commentary on the state of today's American society, and a simple financial plan that will benefit anyone, regardless of their future goals.

On June 10, 2006, four college friends stepped into a 29-foot rowboat as the only American competitors in the first North Atlantic Rowing Race. From the initial idea and chaotic race planning to heaving through cold ocean swells, author and lead rower Jordan Hansen takes us along as the crew heads out from New York Harbor, racing against three other teams; catches the elusive Gulf Stream current; and makes the final dramatic push for the finish line off the coast of England.

In Kayak Fishing: A Practical Sea Angler’s Guide for Catching Your Favorite Big Fish from a Kayak, Parsons has collected all of his extensive kayak fishing knowledge in one easy-to-use reference. You’ll discover the best equipment to buy, how to reduce the cost of getting started, and how to stay safe in your kayak while fishing. You’ll learn the best sea kayaking fishing tricks and techniques to catch your fill every time.

In 2006, Dee Caffari became the first woman to sail solo round the world against the prevailing winds and currents. Her story is an adventure in the true sense of the word. It is about physical hardship in terrible conditions, overcoming solitude, sleep deprivation, the worry of crucial equipment failing, 34 days of gales, 12 metre waves, cyclones and a lightning strike. It is also about a woman who stepped outside her safe zone, gave up a good job and financial security, all because she wanted to sail.

This is what it is like to sail an ocean alone. Not the world-girdling marathon of the Southern Ocean racers or the “cruise in company” as part of a trade-wind rally, but what it is really like to set off for 3,496 miles from the British Virgin Islands to Falmouth in the UK, totally alone. That means no contact with the shore, no high-frequency radio or satphone. No weather forecasts, no texts from loved ones. No news…Just complete and uninterrupted isolation for 44 days. In other words, this is singlehanded ocean sailing at its purest: One man in a world shrunk to its bare essentials.

Plunge into the water, accompany Antonio Argüelles on his Oceans Seven adventure, and, along the way, find out how to achieve your own dreams and goals. On August 3, 2017, Antonio Argüelles swam 35 kilometers from Northern Ireland to Scotland. When he arrived on the Scottish shore after a swim of nearly 14 hours through hypothermic currents wearing only a speedo, cap, and goggles, he became just the seventh person ever to conquer the Oceans Seven, an aquatic achievement on par with the Seven Summits.

Sailing is an international sport that offers many rewards. Imagine white sails billowing against a clear sky, the brisk feel of the breeze on your face, and the gentle motions of the boat as it cleanly slices through the water. While sailing is a great way to enjoy the outdoors, it also requires you to be an active participant more than almost any other type of boating.

Unmoored by a failed marriage and disconnected from her high-octane life in the city, Diane Cardwell finds herself staring at a small group of surfers coasting through mellow waves toward shore—and senses something shift. Rockaway is the riveting, joyful story of one woman’s reinvention—beginning with Cardwell taking the A train to Rockaway, a neglected spit of land dangling off New York City into the Atlantic Ocean.

Set in the remote arctic region of Northern Canada, this book takes listeners on a harrowing canoe voyage that results in tragedy, redemption, and, ultimately, transformation. George Grinnell was one of six young men who set off on the 1955 expedition led by experienced wilderness canoeist Art Moffatt. Poorly planned and executed, the journey seemed doomed from the start. Ignoring the approaching winter, the men became entranced with the peace and beauty of the arctic in autumn.

The RYA National Sailing Scheme's higher-level modules for small-boat sailing are covered comprehensively in this audiobook. As well as the information for seamanship skills, day sailing, sailing with spinnakers, performance sailing, and start racing, there is extra detail on dealing with capsizes, trapezing, and foiling. Following on from the audiobook RYA Start Sailing, RYA Advanced Sailing will help you succeed on any pathway you choose to follow.

Before a surfing accident caused 33-year-old Devon Raney to lose all but 15 percent of his vision, he had already lived an extraordinary life. Time and again, he'd gone against the grain to maximize time for his passions - surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding - bringing him into the direct path of colorful characters, unexpected adventures, and even the occasional brush with death. Through it all, Devon's commitment to outdoor adventure never wavered.

In A Foolish Voyage, Neil Hawkesford gives us a remarkable tale not just about sailing but about life. Good times and bad. Here we learn what happens at the very limits of physical, emotional, and mental endurance. Here we also learn how personal tragedy can lead to a life-changing discovery, the realization that hidden deep inside all of us is the perseverance and passion needed for achieving life's greatest goals.

Welcome to ABetterU: 52 Books A Year by Brad Young, the podcast inspired by an extraordinary challenge undertaken in 2024. Brad Young wrote and published a remarkable 52 paperbacks and 52 ebooks, each focusing on crucial aspects of health, wealth, happiness, and skills training. In this podcast, Brad dives into the wealth of insights, strategies, and lessons gained from his prolific year of writing. Join us as he breaks down key takeaways from each book, offering you invaluable advice on how to enhance your personal well-being, financial acumen, and everyday skillsets. Whether you're striving ...

Triple Olympian and wellness entrepreneur Lisa Curry has lived her life in the public eye for six decades. In this very personal memoir, she shares the untold story of being Lisa. A swimming prodigy who became one of Australia's first fitness entrepreneurs, Lisa Curry swam to Olympic fame in the '80s and '90s. With celerity and celebrity, she became in equal parts the darling of women's magazines and tabloid fodder, until, at 58, a family tragedy nearly consumed her.

Are you ready to sail into the future—one that leaves no carbon footprint behind? As the world embraces cleaner energy, sailing is undergoing a revolution. Whether you're a seasoned sailor, a passionate environmentalist, or just curious about eco-friendly adventures, Electric Sailing is the definitive guide to transforming your sailing experience into a zero-emission, environmentally responsible journey.

As a young lad of only 10 years old, Jim Whitelaw is taken sailing with a friend of the family. Jim is totally enthralled, and from that day forward, Jim decides that one day he will buy his own yacht. It is 40 years later before Jim eventually keeps his promise to himself, and this book reflects the story and steep learning curve during Jim's 40-year journey. Jim buys his first boat without too much knowledge, and makes many mistakes and gets into quite a few scrapes. This book follows Jim's dream and nightmares.

In 1958, while flying from one island to another, Audrey Sutherland sees the remote and roadless northeast side of Molokai, with its spectacular sea cliffs and waterfalls. Always an adventurer, she decides that she must find a way to explore this then inaccessible area. After much study, she determines that the best way for her to navigate these treacherous sea walls is to swim while towing an inflatable kayak. This is the story of fulfilling her dream, of planning then implementing, of launching and advancing, of retreating and reconnoitering, of challenge and success.

What is it about freezing cold water that draws people in? Throughout history, humans have gravitated to cold water swimming and celebrated its healing properties, calling it the secret to good health and serenity. Today, cold water swimmers gather in groups from Galway to Georgian Bay to jump into frigid waters for fun, competition, and even as a form of activism and protest.

Patrick Dixon spent years working as a doctor at University College Hospital, while his wife, Sheila, was a magistrate - high-pressure careers that demanded long hours away from their home, family and passion for sailing. It is a frustrating story many occasional sailors can relate to, but unlike most, Patrick and Sheila realised early enough that they could only bend so far before something snapped; they could only take on so much before they drowned.

Sailing to Newfoundland documents a solo journey on a 40' sailboat from Florida to the remote and uninhabited fjords of the south coast of Newfoundland, one of the few places in the world where raw, unspoiled nature meets the ocean and provides sheltered anchorages. From the author of Becoming a Sailor, Journey to the Ragged Islands, and Chasing the Nomadic Dream, this book puts you in the cockpit, and in the fjords, and on top of glacier-cut mountains in the remote backcountry of Newfoundland.

This charming account of the voyage of two men in a small boat half way round the world from Plymouth to New Zealand in 1953 is a rare insight into a time, not long ago, when sailors had no GPS, electronics, radio or any of the mod cons that we take for granted today. Without lifejacket or a life raft, they 'just took what came along', hand steering all the way, navigating by sextant, hand-cranking their engine and using oil lamps for light at night and for navigation. Sailors will be staggered how primitive conditions were only a few decades ago, even though it was the norm at the time.

A gonzo ride through war-torn Yemen as only Chas Smith, the award-winning author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell and Cocaine + Surfing: A Sordid History of Surfing's Greatest Love Affair, could provide. Follow Smith and his misfit band of merrymakers as they search for the true origins of Al Qaeda and endeavor to ride the unsurfed waves of Yemen all while exploring the slim opportunities for fun in the margins of our global war on terror and at any cost - even if it means eventual kidnapping by Hezbollah.

Two Years Before the Mast is a book by the American author Richard Henry Dana, Jr., written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834 and published in 1840. While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles that affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway), and being something of a nonconformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor.

Matt Warshaw knows more about surfing than any other person on the planet. After five years of research and writing, Warshaw, a former professional surfer and editor of Surfing magazine, has crafted an unprecedented, definitive history of the sport and the culture it has spawned. The History of Surfing reveals and defines this sport with a voice that is authoritative, funny, and wholly original.

In this revelatory and original book, the award-winning author of the acclaimed surf memoir On a Wave illuminates the connection between waves, addiction, and recovery, exploring what surfing can teach us about the powerful undertow of addictive behaviors and the ways to swim free of them.

Come aboard with Heyward and Charlotte as they transform a worn-out hull into a first-class blue water cruiser. Then take off and cross oceans with them, feeling their desperation when equipment failures force ingenious workarounds in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Share the highs of navigating the crystal waters of French Polynesia and the lows of crossing pirate-infested waters in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. Travel ashore with them to places not covered in travel brochures, meet natives untouched by the modern world, and navigate the political waters of Guantanamo Bay.

The Sydney to Hobart yacht race is one of the world's major sporting events. In 1998, it became one of the world's major sporting disasters. Six sailors tragically perished, and numerous yachts sank or were badly damaged. the subsequent search and rescue operation was one of the most phenomenally accomplished peacetime efforts the world has ever seen. In this fully updated edition to mark the 10th anniversary of the tumultuous race, Rob Mundle, one of Australia's leading journalists and yachtsmen, tells this story of challenge and survival with compassion, vigour and understanding.

Christian Beamish, a former editor at The Surfer's Journal, envisioned a low-tech, self-reliant exploration for surf along the coast of North America, using primarily clothes and instruments available to his ancestors, and the 18-foot boat he would build by hand in his garage. How the vision met reality - and how the two came to shape each other - places The Voyage of the Cormorant in the great American tradition of tales of life at sea, and what it has to teach us.