It was an age without GPS and the Internet, without high-tech monitoring and instantaneous reporting. And it was a time when women simply didn't do such things. None of this deterred Sharon Sites Adams. In June 1965 Adams made history as the first woman to sail solo from the mainland United States to Hawaii. Four years later, just as Neil Armstrong very publicly stepped onto the moon, the diminutive Adams, alone and unobserved, finally sighted Point Arguello, California, after seventy-four days sailing a thirty-one-foot ketch from Japan, across the violent and unpredictable Pacific. She was the first woman to do so, setting another world record. Inspiring and exciting, Adams's memoir recounts the personal path leading to her historic achievements: a tomboy childhood in the Oregon high desert, an early marriage and painful divorce, and a second marriage that ended when her husband died of cancer. In the wake of his death and almost by accident, Adams discovered sailing. Six weeks after her first sailing lesson she bought a boat, and within eight months she set out to achieve her first world record. Pacific Lady recounts the inward journey that paralleled her sailing feats, as Adams drew on every scrap of courage and navigational skill she could muster to overcome the seasickness, exhaustion, and loneliness that marked her harrowing crossings. Purchase the audio edition.

Denis Gorman's A Voyage to the Sea is an inspirational tale of following your dream, despite the set-backs that life can throw at you, and is delivered in a well-paced narrative that military historians and deep-water sailors will enjoy in equal measure.

Pirates Through the Ages Reference Library explores the history of piracy from ancient times to the present day. The set includes Almanac, Biographies and Primary Sources volumes, covering topics including piracy in antiquity and the Middle Ages; the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean; female pirates; the pirate code of conduct and pirate slang; strongholds and hideouts; ships, weaponry, and sea battles; pirates in literature and film, modern maritime piracy; and more. The set includes standard U X L Reference Library features such as a chronology, glossary, research and activity ideas, and more. Also includes a comprehensive index.

Stephen Colgate, the founder and president of the Offshore Sailing School, removes the mystery of sailing and reduces the techniques to basic, simple principles. He instructs the reader on all matters from how sails work under various conditions to night sailing and piloting, tactical problems and heavy-weather racing, emergencies, safety, boat control, and all other fundamentals. This edition contains the latest technological advances in equipment, and the newest rules, regulations, and strategies that are critical to safe and pleasurable time on the water. The result is a superior resource that is an absolute must for all sailors.

Lovingly written and beautifully photographed, Best Boats is an evaluation of the most elegantly designed and best-built sailboats in stages from a bare hull to a finished yacht. In addition to evaluating overall design, performance and layout, this book, like no other, analyses how and how well the boats are built. Ranging from the ageless Herreshoff day-sailer to the ultra-light Santa Cruz flyers, the book features some of the finest works of designers such as German Frers, Chuck Paine, Bill Crealock, Doug Peterson, Lyle Hess, and others. Even more importantly, it contains interviews with legendary builders such as Tom Morris, the Cherubinis, Cecil Lange, and Tom Dreyfus. Using the surveyed boats as examples, Mate; shows what to look for when contemplating the purchase of any sailboat. For the boatbuilder, it points out the weaknesses and strengths of all aspects of construction, using hundreds of photographs and illustrations to clarify."

Fifty classic wooden yachts are featured in this handsomely illustrated book from the authors of the highly acclaimed Classic Yacht Interiors.

The term classic yachts invokes many images: long bow sprits, impeccable sheer lines and tiny transoms, teak decks, varnished trim, and sparkling brass. Some of the great sailboats come to mind: Altair, Lelantina, So Fong, and Ticonderoga, to name a few. But there are also the motor yachts such as Principia or the classic J boats Shamrock V and Endeavour. Some feel that classic yachts have to be at least fifty years old and built of wood, and while In the Spirit of Tradition is primarily about old wooden boats, there are some new yachts as well, such as Hetairos and Radiance, true to the "classic" style.

Fifty yachts are shown with historical and current photographs and textual information. Additionally, there are profiles of the people today who love and restore classic yachts. This lush, beautiful book is the most complete, up-to-date book on classic yachts ever produced.

With full-color chart details and photos (both aerial and on-the-water), illustrated endsheets, and chapters on Nantucket piloting, weather, tides and currents, anchorage, history, and shoreside attractions, this book unites beauty and utility to an unusual degree. Yacht designer Alfie Sanford has been sailing around Nantucket all his life. When he tells us to tack over to starboard just past the green can marking the end of the second dry shoal entering Eel Point channel, do it. He's been there, and he knows.

In this classic simulation, a group is stranded on a rubber life raft with minimal supplies including:
* Fishing kit
* Mosquito netting
* Shark repellant
* Shaving mirror
* Two chocolate bars . . . and ten other items
Participants work individually, then as a group, to assess the items salvaged from a yachting accident, based on their value for survival. Results are then compared with the expert rankings supplied by the U.S. Merchant Marines. Through self-scoring, the group immediately sees how well they performed.
Timing: 1-1/2 hours
Audience: Work teams--4 to 9 team members may participate at one time--several groups may be directed simultaneously

Tales of an Enchanted Yacht

Launched as Tioga in 1936, this glorious ketch finished first in twenty-four of her initial thirty-seven races. Renamed Ticonderoga in 1946, she went on to set more elapsed-time records than any ocean racer in history. Ticonderoga held more than thirty course records in races on several oceans, surpassing even the best performances of the hard-driven nineteenth-century clipper ships. But Ticonderoga wasn't designed for racing. Her creator, L. Francis Herreshoff, shaped her for genteel "afternoon sailing," giving her uncommon elegance of form with a clipper bow, elliptical transom, raked rig, gilded garnish, and a bathtub. It is these qualities of unsurpassed opulence and beauty, combined with her astonishing speed, that have made Big Ti so incomparable.