First Sailing / Sea Book You Ever Read ?

[colemj]

The children's version of Dove when I was 8. The whole reason I now live and cruise aboard a boat. (although I am not alone )

[b-dog]

Sailing for Dummies

[Cheechako]

that little greeen and white sailing handbook... cant remember who did it....

[sailorboy1]

the ASA Fundamentionals of Sailing when I was 45

[slomotion]

Treasure Island.

[sarafina]

'Dove'

[Charlie]

Don't remember the first but Sea Wolf, Jack London. Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana. Mutiny on the Bounty and Pitcairns Island Treasure Island, RL Stevenson. Before I got into Slocum and Chichester and the yachtsman.

[PieRatPeat]

Is nobody else going to mention the Hornblower series, by C.S. Forester? He also wrote other books the deal with life on the water, including "The African Queen" and "The Ship", but the Hornblower series stands out for me and helped instill a lifelong love of sailing and the sea. Not sure which one I read first, although I suspect it was "Beat to Quarters" (aka "The Happy Return" in the US).

If any one episode in the series stands out for me it would be "The Cargo of Rice", a short story in "Mr. Midshipman Hornblower" that details Hornblower's first independent command as he struggles to bring a prize ship back to England. As usual, Forester painted a great picture of Hornblower 's internal insecurities and in this case does a great job describing Hornblower's attempts to impose his will on the French prisoners and provides lots of great technical detail (like the race to fother a sail to plug a shot hole below the water line) - epic stuff...


- peterd


(BTW, first post after a prolonged period of lurking...)

[sarafina]

there are bunch I would mention, but they aren't the 'first one'.

The Patrick O'Brien series, Master and Commander are fascinating. Michner has some really good stuff in Hawai'i.

[Chief Engineer]

and I don't care what you say Tristan Jones is way up there on my list...even though he has his detractors.

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by Chief Engineer

and I don't care what you say Tristan Jones is way up there on my list...even though he has his detractors.

i agree but he was not my first sailing author.

[Stillraining]

Originally Posted by PieRatPeat

- peterd


(BTW, first post after a prolonged period of lurking...)

Welcome Aboard Pete

[PieRatPeat]

Originally Posted by Stillraining

Welcome Aboard Pete

Thanks. I'm currently in transit from Southern California to the San Jose area for a new job starting at the end of this month. Once I get there I'll be back seeking info on South Bay boating options. Meanwhile, I'll continue living vicariously through the rest of you!


- peterd

[bluwaterdreamin]

I guess that would be Kon Tiki for me as well.
Also, Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi.
There have been many though that aren't neccesarily sailing books
but have a oceanic/sailing theme.
An Island to Myself by Tom Neal ranks right up there for me.
If you have never read this book please do yourself a favor and read it.
White Shadows in the South Seas comes to mind but I can't remember the author.
My absolute favorite though has to be Robert Dean Frisbie.
Island of Desire is so beautifully written that it will take you to the places he describes.
This book is really hard to find but I managed to track down a copy
that's free online at gutenberg project australia.
My Tahiti by Frisbie is also worth a look and can be found at the same site.
Man, I get the bug for the south seas just remembering these books!!

[SearenitySail]

The Shipkiller by Justin Scott was my first and still my favorite. This guy is obviously a sailor!

The political geography has changed somewhat since it was written (1979), but what a read and sailing adventure! This guy sails monohulls (including a Swan) and multihulls (trimaran) in his quest for revenge against Leviathan, the supertanker that ran him down and killed his wife. I've read it twice since.

Review:
Bursting out of a squall at 16 knots, a vast wall of steel pulverizes a small sailboat and steams blithely on. The million-ton megatanker Leviathan, biggest moving object on the face of the earth, leaves Peter and Carolyn Hardin floundering in the chill Atlantic. He survives; she does not. Dr. Hardin is ravaged by the death of his wife and half crazed over his inability to win redress or even acknowledgment of what he regards as murder. But he is rich, a skillful sailor and a brilliant technician. In another boat, a 38-ft. sloop he renames Carolyn, equipped with radar of his own invention and a purloined U.S. antitank TOW missile, Hardin sails off to stalk and destroy the black Moby Dick. Symbolically, his shipmate is also black, a physician, as was his wife, a young woman who had pulled him from an English beach and back to health, if not sanity.
The hunt takes them through a savage South Atlantic storm that dismasts the sloop and defuses the kill; even Leviathan barely survives the battering. Elegant Ajaratu Akanke, by now both sleeping and sailing mate, is spirited from Capetown to her native Nigeria while Hardin lays a solo course for the Persian Gulf, where Leviathan will take on a million tons of oil...
New Yorker Justin Scott spent two years researching and writing The Ship-killer. It shows. His saga of the battered, unyielding Carolyn is as heady as Francis Chichester's narrative, with a draught of Melville and a slosh of Josh Slocum. His choice of villain is a shrewd one. Leviathan is even more dangerous and ungovernable than any vessel described in Noël Mostert's Supership. Scott, who has published five previous novels, limns his driven people as stylishly as his boats. As for Peter Hardin, he will surely name his next sloop Ajaratu.
Review Link: Skuldruggery and High Technology - TIME

Note: Fire & Ice by Paul Garrison is supposed to be a pretty good sequel to The Shipkiller, but I haven't read it.

Around the World in 79 Days by Cam Lewis was also a good read.