This is a wonderful cherry-picked collection of humiliating misadventures from the enduringly popular Confessional column of Yachting Monthly magazine. For over 25 years, yachtsmen have clamoured to tell the world about their most embarrassing exploits and their most shameful blunders, and the cream of the crop are collected together here in the hope that the rest of us can learn from their mistakes instead of our own - or at least have a good laugh at their expense! Shipwrecks, strandings, mutiny, getting locked in the lavatory...you couldn't make them up. Counted among the contributors are no less than four former editors of Yachting Monthly, which goes to prove that worse things really do happen at sea! Accompanied by cartoons from the inimitable Mike Peyton, this collection deserves a place at every bunkside.

One clear morning in May, Nick Thorpe left his Edinburgh flat, ducked off the commuter route and hitched a ride aboard a little white canal boat, heading west towards the sea. It was the first mutinous step in a delightful boat-hopping odyssey that would take him 2500 miles through Scotland's canals, lochs and coastal waters, from the industrial Clyde to the scattered islands of Viking Shetland. Writing with characteristic humour and candour, the award-winning author of EIGHT MEN AND A DUCK plots a curiously existential voyage, inspired by those who have left the warm hearth for the promise of a stretched horizon. Whether rowing a coracle with a chapter of monks, scanning for the elusive Nessie, hitting the rocks with Captain Calamity or clinging to the rigging of a tall ship, Thorpe weaves a narrative that is by turns funny and poignant - a nautical pilgrimage for any who have ever been tempted to try a new path just to see where it might take them. Part travelogue, part memoir, ADRIFT IN CALEDONIA is a unique and affectionate portrait of a sea-fringed nation - and of the drifter's quest to belong.

Life doesn't always give you a second chance to make another choice...Cassie Lewis, a widow for over 20 years has begun to realise there must be more to life. In-between working at the family boatyard in picture perfect Dartmouth and raising two children, she wonders where the years have gone. Both her children, Tom and Polly, have inherited their father's love of sailing and currently Tom is preparing for a gruelling round the world race. When an accident forces Tom to pull out, Polly, to Cassie's horror, insists she is capable of taking his place. As Polly prepares for the race, Cassie unexpectedly finds herself with two keen and eligible men vying for her love. With her BIG 5-0 birthday approaching Cassie knows she has some big decisions to make but will the worry over Polly's safe return, cloud her judgement? A wonderful escape to the beautiful harbour of Dartmouth, Perfect for the fans of Lucy Coleman, Jo Thomas and Sue Roberts Originally published in 2003 as Call of the Sea