Pearson's canal companions encourage visitors, explain the lie of the land and provide a lasting souvenir of journeys made. This new 9th edition of the Stourport & Black Country Rings and Birmingham Canal Navigations Canal Companion marks a new format: theextent has increased from 96 to 160 pages, maps from 41 to 48 and photographs from 65 to 153. Coverage within this Canal Companion include: River Severn (Worcester-Stourport); Staffs & Worcs Canal (Stourport to Great Haywood); BCN Main Line (Aldersley to Birmingham); Worcs & Birmingham Canal (Birmingham to Worcester); Birmingham & Fazeley Canal (Birmingham-Fazeley); Coventry Canal (Fazeley-Fradley); Trent and Mersey Canal (Fradley-Great Haywood); Stourbridge & Dudley Canals (Stourton-Netherton); BCN Northern Waters (Wolverhampton-Walsall-Brownhills).

Published to coincide with the Golden Globe Race's 50th Anniversary It lay like a gauntlet thrown down; to sail around the world alone and non-stop. No one had ever done it, no one knew if it could be done. In 1968, nine men - six Englishmen, two Frenchmen and an Italian - set out to try, a race born of coincidence of their timing. One didn't even know how to sail. They had more in common with Captain Cook or Ferdinand Magellan than with the high-tech, extreme sailors of today, a mere forty years later. It was not the sea or the weather that determined the nature of their voyages but the men they were, and they were as different from one another as Scott from Amundsen. Only one of the nine crossed the finishing line after ten months at sea. The rest encountered despair, sublimity, madness and even death.

Long before Western man 'discovered' them, the 'People of the Sea', as many inhabitants of the South Pacific called themselves, had a vibrant, socially sophisticated culture in which travel on water played an essential part. For sixty-five years James Wharram has designed, built, and sailed craft of Polynesian double canoe form, demonstrating that the sea, far from being a barrier between the islands of the South Pacific, is their highway. The ocean voyages of James and his team culminated in their circumnavigation in the stunning 63ft 'Spirit of Gaia', during which they explored the lands and cultures of their vessel's spiritual home - the Polynesian islands. Inspired by the lifetime of creativity and discovery James describes in this book, many modern 'People of the Sea' are sailing the world's oceans, seas, coasts and rivers in craft they have built for themselves to James Wharram designs.

Learn how to design, make, repair, improve, and maintain sails

If you want to produce sturdy sails for daysailing and cruising, built of low-tech materials you can repair with a few simple tools, The Sailmakers Apprentice can show you how. Emphasizing the handwork that distinguishes the highest-quality, most durable sails, sail pro Emiliano Marino tells you how to select a rig, introduces you to sail shape and theory, and then shows you -- step by step, with the help of over 700 detailed illustrations -- how to sew patches, hand sew rings, fix tears or frayed edges, and stitch seams, not to mention how to make your own sails, canvas sailcovers, and sailbags from scratch.

A visual feast for the sailor as well as an indispensable guide for the mariner comprehensive apprenticeship, this hands-on reference is an illustrated tour of the worlds rig and sail types, contemporary and historical.

This is the ultimate guide to liferaft survival for all boaters and its purpose is to ensure the survival of skipper and crew in the event of their boat sinking. In this essential safety book, expert authors, Frances and Michael Howorth, cover how to be mentally and physically prepared for a sailor’s ultimate nightmare. It includes invaluable advice on the essentials to pack into the emergency grab bag for a short or long cruise, hot or cold climate, coastal or offshore trip. Packed full of checklists and clear diagrams, there are lessons learned from disasters, flowcharts to prioritise abandon ship procedure, sections on first aid and emergency treatment. Featuring some essential content from the authors’ previous title The Grab Bag Book but completely revised and updated, the new Liferaft Survival Guide is what you need right now to stay safe at sea and covers up to date information on the way satellites and beacons work, world monitoring of distress signals and advances in medical practice. Preparation and planning are key for safe enjoyable sailing. Every boater needs to plan and prepare, and every boater should read this book. This unique survival at sea handbook helps you ensure your crew’s survival in a liferaft. Buy it, build your own grab bag and be sure to be prepared!

Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park is long established as a playground for paddlers and attracts visitors from all over the world. Loch Lomond itself has over eighty kilometres of shoreline to explore, but there is so much more to the park. The twenty-two navigable lochs range from the vast sea lochs around Loch Long to small inland bodies such as Loch Chon. The rivers vary from relaxed meandering waterways like the Balvaig to the steep white water of the River Falloch and everything in between. This vast array of options in such close proximity makes this park the perfect place for every paddler of any level, looking for whatever type of adventure. The area is also outstandingly beautiful and it is commonplace to see deer and red squirrels playing on the shores, as well as the many other species of mammal, bird and water life which call this park home. Rather than limiting you to one discipline, we have focused on all options within the national park. Whether you want hardcore white water, multi-day touring trips or a relaxing afternoon exploring sheltered water with your family, you'll find all that and much more in this book.

Heavy weather is a lurking spectre that most of us hope and plan to avoid, but not even internet forecasting can make it go away. Anyone intent on crossing oceans must be ready to deal with it if it comes, as well it may. Even well-informed inshore and continental-shelf sailors will inevitably be caught out sooner or later. The object of this slim, quickly absorbed volume is to give everyone, whatever their passage-making aspirations, a sound brief so that whether they find themselves at the wrong end of a force-six blow along the coast, or confronting serious waves far out at sea, they are fully aware of their options for taking it in their stride.

Packrafts are rugged, portable rafts, small enough to attach under a rucksack, but stable on the water to reassure first time paddlers. Weighing from 1-3 kilos, they open up a whole new world of amphibious adventuring, from navigating easily accessible waterways to discovering more challenging rivers and lochs only reachable on foot or bicycle. Packrafting: A Beginners' Guide is a perfect introduction to the game-changing recreational opportunities opened up by packrafting. It takes you through the different types and features of packrafts to ensure that you buy a boat that is right for you and have the right gear to use with it. It clearly explains the basic paddling skills and how to safely evaluate risks on the water. It also introduces the different types of adventures you can undertake with your packraft, from paddling a local canal or river to lashing a bicycle over the bow or using a packable sail to traverse open water. The book is comprehensively illustrated with over 120 colour photographs making it easy to understand and clear to follow.

Key places featured include Sowerby Bridge, Wakefield, Castleford, Selby, Goole, Leeds, Bingley, Skipton, Burnley, Blackburn, Wigan, Leigh, Burscough and Liverpool.The Canal Companions have been chugging along 'the cut' for over thirty years; conveying facts and figures, insight and entertainment, wit and wisdom: from Brentford to Burscough, from Shardlow to Sharpness, from Tipton to Todmorden. All manner of folk have been encouraged to explore the inland waterways using these guides, which have become as much a part of tradition as their subject matter. Updated for 2022.

‘Brilliant, clear, and humane’ Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love ‘Miraculous and hopeful’ Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here ‘Quietly profound … belongs on the shelf next to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild’ New York Times Riverman: An American Odyssey uncovers the story of an extraordinary man and his puzzling disappearance, and paints a picture of the singular spirit of America’s riverbank towns. ‘The peace of mind I found, largely alone, on that white-water mecca convinced me that life was capable of exquisite pleasure and undefined meaning deep in the face of failure. The experience itself is the reward.’ Dick Conant On his forty-third 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. He was to spend the next twenty years canoeing thousands of miles of rivers and their innumerable smaller tributaries, from one end of the country to the other. ‘I can, and I will!’ he said. And then, in 2014, he disappeared. Not long before Conant’s upturned canoe was found in a brackish North Carolina bay, Ben McGrath met Conant by chance as he paddled down the Hudson, headed for Florida. McGrath set out to find the people whose lives, like his own, had been touched by their encounter with the great river wanderer. Along the way he meets eccentrics and ne’er-do-wells drawn straight from the pages of Mark Twain, a vast network of friends and acquaintances who would forever remember this brilliant and charming man even after a single meeting. Riverman is the story of a restless soul who was as troubled as he was charismatic, a contemporary folk hero who slips the moorings of ordinary civilised life to tap into what Thoreau called ‘a yearning toward all wildness.’ It is also a riveting portrait of an America we rarely see: a nation of unconventional characters, small river towns, and long forgotten waterways.

This map of mainland Britain that shows the huge extent of paddling possibilities on rivers, lochs, canals and coast - some 37,000km of paddling! Enthusiasts buy this map to plan and dream, whilst for the newcomer to the sport it answers that question "where can I go paddling? It is colour coded to clearly show the nature of these waterways. Southern England and Wales is on one side of the large B1 sheet - Scotland and the North of England on the reverse. The base is provided by a map of Britain at 1:625,000 (ten miles to the inch) that shows roads, towns, villages, rivers, streams and lakes with this detail in pastel colours. Brighter colours show some 540 rivers graded by difficulty - also canals and waterways used by motorized craft. Popular paddling trips are highlighted, as are white water centres. The map also shows locations for selected loch and coastal trips. Information panels give guidance, recommended websites and guidebooks - all designed to 'open the doors' to the world of paddling - for canoes, kayaks and SUPs.

A handy, splash-proof, on-the-water summary of the key things you need to know about navigation at sea: the perfect quick reference guide to keep onboard. The book covers all the navigation essentials: charts, compass, tides, standard and secondary ports, dead reckoning, estimated position, course to steer, lights, GPS, waypoints and buoyage in a highly illustrated format making it easy to understand at a glance - ideal for those moments when you need an answer, and you need it fast! Spiral bound, this little companion stands up to frequent use and serves as a great aide-memoire.

Jam-packed with practical valuable information for fishermen everywhere, this handbook describes the hundreds of ties and bends used to connect line to the many types and kinds of hooks, leaders, lures, nets, traps, and seines. The text and illustrations are amply detailed and so clear that all guesswork is eliminated. The making and repairing of nets is thoroughly covered, as well as the making and repairing of seines and traps. With this guidebook in hand the novice can learn to make good nets and traps in a very short time. The veteran fisherman will find it an indispensable reference tool. Whether you fish for fun or to make a living, this is a valuable addition to your tackle box

This beautiful full-colour book covers knots, splices and whippings. It begins with the ten knots everyone should know. The other knots are grouped by use so that if, for example, you want to make a loop you have eight knots to choose from. Each stage of each knot is illustrated and its uses, strong points and weak points are highlighted.