Wise, funny and beautifully written, The Water in Between is an inspiring-and cautionary-tale for anyone who has ever wanted to escape into another life.

A stint in the army and a broken heart lead Kevin Patterson, who has never sailed before, to buy a 37-foot sailboat. He recruits a more experienced sailor-another brokenhearted guy-and together they set sail for Tahiti, hoping to burn away their miseries in hard miles at sea.

At first Patterson finds life under sail distinctly less heroic than the travel literature that has inspired him. But when his companion remains behind, Patterson single-handedly sails his boat across the North Pacific and through a perilous four-day gale, truly testing himself against the elements.

Something happens when men and women put a plank between themselves and the water and set out on a voyage, whether for a day or a lifetime. Now Sail Away brings together the very finest writing about travel on water by a stellar crew of writers. Among those to be included are Joseph Conrad, Jacques Cousteau, Roald Dahl, Lawrence Durrell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E.M. Forster, Ernest Hemingway, Thor Heyerdahl, Jonathan Raban, Paul Theroux, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, David Foster Wallace, and Evelyn Waugh. Packaged as the perfect companion to Beach, with atmospheric photos by Beach photographer Mittie Hellmich, Sail Away will be an important addition to the tradition of best-selling books about ships and the sea.

These are the 2000 editions of NOAA's classic tidal current tables, now no longer published by the government. Included are the times and velocities of ebb and flood currents, information on rotary currents, Gulf Stream information, and data on thousands of locations in North America, South America, and Asia. Mandated by the U.S. Coast Guard for use aboard commercial vessels.

Lying buried on Isle of Arran is a bottle of whisky. On the far side of the world a highly pressurized sales manager decides that the time has come for a change of gear. He wants to return to Europe, and instead of taking the plane he finds himself Ryusei, a beautiful 44-ft wooden sloop. Together with friends who form a happy gang of 'Three Men in a Boat, ' he sets sails. Taking a long route from Asia via Africa and the Americas they head to Scotland ??? to dig up the whisky.

It was January 19, 1988. The waters were calm and the skies cloudless as five fishermen set off on a week-long trip off the Costa Rican coast. Five days later, their twenty-nine-foot wooden craft was foundering against thirty-foot waves as a dreaded north wind -- El Norte -- struck with full force. Set adrift in a badly leaking vessel, they faced the perils of more storms, shark attacks, near-madness, a mutiny, and bouts of starvation and thirst. Continuously bailing, the five men endured a record 142 days lost at sea -- until they were rescued 4,500 miles across the Pacific Ocean.

Sam McKinney has spent many of the best parts of his life on the water -- sailing a dory along Canada's west coast, crewing on the deck of a river steamer, shipping out deep-sea in freighters across the Atlantic. In the middle of his life, when he sold the hull of an ocean-going sailboat which had absorbed two years of his love and labour, he looked at his boat-building shed and thought, "Hmm. With all this lumber, I could build a boat and go across the continent, instead." So he did. In the Gander he travelled up the Columbia and Snake rivers, down the Missouri, up the Mississippi and Illinois and on, ever eastward, to New York City. It took him four summers and three Ganders, one of which had to be abandoned in the mud of the upper Missouri, but he made it. This is a lovely and evocative memoir by a perceptive and thoughtful writer.

This authoritative anthology of SAIL magazine articles contains a wealth of invaluable advice, tips and opinions from leading yachtsmen, sail designers and manufacturers. It represents current ideas and practice for cruising and racing sailors alike, imparting advice on how to rig everything from dinghies up through ocean racers. By means of this anthology, information which the experts take for granted will assist the ordinary sailor to keep abreast of the times.

The curved lines of a sailing ship resemble the inverted dome of a great cathedral, surrounded not by soot-covered buildings and crowded streets but by a vast liquid wilderness. This physical and symbolic connection is at the thematic heart of Cathedral of the World, a collection of essays in which writer and professional small-boat sailor Myron Arms sets out on a journey both physical and spiritual, seeking to explore what he calls "the primal spaces" and to articulate the sailor's age-old quest to understand his world and himself. Arms, author of the Boston Globe bestseller Riddle of the Ice, weaves the experiences of four decades at sea into a series of reflections that range across half a lifetime and thousands of ocean miles. During these journeys, he takes readers to some of the last wild places on Earth, climbing the hills of the North Atlantic in a full gale, watching the flight of seabirds, listening to the night-breath of whales, and pondering the questions that all such encounters inspire.

What John Muir did for western forests, what Edward Abbey did for the desert, Arms now does for the ocean. In a voice that is reverent, impassioned, and clear-sighted, he celebrates the wilderness he has come to love, mourns its wounds, and demonstrates for all of us its power to heal.

Sailors Secrets contains over 1,000 tips, suggestions, evaluations, and nuggets of hard-won advice from more than 300 seasoned veterans.

Instructive, humorous, biting, and challenging, Sailors Secrets can be opened anywhere and enjoyed. Its wide-ranging chapters cover routine maintenance, understanding weather, safety at sea, storm strategies, piloting, engine troubleshooting, gear and outfitting, and simple solutions to complex problems.

Michael Badham and Robby Robinson have created the nautical equivalent of an experts forum. Don Casey, Dennis Conner, Bob Rice, Dave Gerr, Hank Hinckley, Bill Biwenga, Sheila McCurdy, Katy Burke, Meade Gougeon, Buddy Melges, Walter Greene, Steve Callahan, and a host of others share the insights theyve developed over millions of sea miles.

Learn how to predict a squall; navigate customs; earn money as you go; cope with heart attack, malaria, or simple sunburn; gut and dry the fish you've caught; stretch your fresh water supply. Clare Allcard's insights to all of these topics, and many more, come directly from her own long experience in living afloat. With The Intricate Art of Living Afloat as your guide, soon you too will know both the satisfaction of self-reliance on the open sea and the thrill of sailing away into that blue yonder.

Here is a detailed study of the motive forces of a yacht written in clear and accessible terms. The author has the rare gift of enabling his readers to relate the nautical phenomena with which they are so familiar to a scientific explanation of how and why these occur. The first part covers downwind sailing, upwind sailing, sails, the hull, and the dynamic motion of a yacht. Part Two is devoted to more mathematical explanations of the same phenomena for those requiring a more scientific approach.

Since publication in 1990, Ocean Cruising on a Budget has been highly praised as an essential guide for all those planning a blue water voyage, whether on a budget on not. Based on a lifetime of practical experience, Anne Hammick gives advice on choosing a suitable boat, locating equipment bargains, deciding individual priorities for safety as well as sanity and enjoyment, shorthanded watch keeping, managing funds, the human problems of living aboard a small yacht, budget provisioning and storage, and even replenishing the kitty en route. Ocean Cruising on a Budget, now completed updated, us full of down to earth advice drawn form the author's own first hand experience. Anne Hammick is an RYA Ocean Yachtmaster and experienced blue water sailor, having made eight Atlantic crossings since 1975, six of them as skipper. In 1982 she and her sister bought and refitted a 14-year old Rustler 31, making two Atlantic circuits the West Indies over the next few years. Now a full-time author, Anne's books include The Atlantic Crossing Guide and The Atlantic Islands.

Since the late 1950s, when the first plastic sailboat shocked the New York Boat Show, fiberglass boatbuilding has gone through classic growing pains. Longtime yacht broker and marine surveyor Henry Mustin has seen it all: the slow acceptance of those early, heavy boats; the market boom of the lighter boats of the 1970s; the boat pox scare of the 1980s; and the continued lack of industry standards that makes buying and owning a fiberglass boat an adventure. In Surveying Fiberglass Sailboats Mustin explains what to watch for in a used sailboat from each era, and how to ferret out the hidden defects in any boat. He shows how to estimate the cost of repairs and the value of a boat. And he addresses the question: When is a fiberglass boat too used up to save?

Mustins part-by-part look at hull, deck, rig, and machinery is both a minicourse for transforming used-boat shopping from a game of craps to a science, and the first step in a holistic boat maintenance program. His discussion of the significance of cracks found in aging hulls and decks is the most thorough in print. He is not shy in assessing the lack of regulation of professional surveyors, nor does he shrink from pointing a finger at shoddy building practices.

Having a used boat surveyed is a critical prelude to buying it. Yet a professional survey is expensive--several hundred dollars. Surveying Fiberglass Sailboats will enable you to conduct your own surveys while narrowing the field, then monitor a professional surveyors performance when selecting your target boat.

No matter what type of boat you own, or what you do with it, the rapidly changing marine electronics field offers something to make your life easier -- from VHF and single-sideband radios to depthsounders, fishfinders, electronic chart plotters, radar, cellular phones, loran, and GPS systems. Here's all you need to compare, assess, buy, install, and operate marine electronics gear -- in an objective, straightforward text that covers:

When and what to buy, and from whom -- Asking the right questions

Assessing and interpreting warranties -- Installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting

How the equipment works, from two of the country's acknowledged experts

A sailboat tossed about on rough seas will struggle to find a smooth course, balancing itself through wind and water. The human experience is a succession of balancing maneuvers as we resolve conflicts, find love, and merely exist from day to day. Grigg shows one how to be like a sailboat -- steady, adaptable, serene, and powerful.

A detailed, technical, and readable study of the tactics of winning for the experieced sailor—by one of the world's leading smal boat racers.

Here is complete coverage of the racing sailor's common problems. Stuart H. Walker describes situations in which a racing problem was faced and solved. Each chapter is a narrative based on a particular incident, or a group of related incidents, analyzing the causes of the situation and the techniques required to meet it successfully. The Tactics of Small Boat Racing is for the racing sailor who wants to win—who wants to learn the art of maneuvering his boat in relation to the other boats so as to complete the course in the lead.

Stuart H. Walker's understanding of the experiences he recounts and analyzes derives from a career that includes races won and lost in the open sea, harbors, rivers, and lakes, in strong winds and light, and in various conditions of current and sea in the United States, Canada, Bermuda, and England.