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Amazon

This page is about books that I have read and recommend. If you would like to order them, click the image for Amazon.com, but beware, once you leave this page you cannot return automatically!  All commission earned from Amazon will be donated to charity, so please buy freely! Prices given are there as a rough guide and show what I paid!  Many of these books are available from Amazon at a  much lower cost so please check  their current prices.

To help you, listed at the top here are the categories and then the book titles. Click on any of these to take you straight to where you want to go.

About the BT Global Challenge / By notable sailors / About sailing theory / The rules / More books for dinghy sailors / More books for big boat sailors / About attitude and self-improvement / More good reads

GLOBAL CHALLENGE / ONE HAND FOR THE BOAT / UPHILL ALL THE WAY / CLOSE TO THE WIND / FIRST LADY / TAKING THE HELM / YACHTMASTER / YACHTMASTER RYA SHORE-BASED / DAY SKIPPER RYA  SHORE-BASED / DAY SKIPPER RYA PRACTICAL / RYA COMPETENT CREW / RYA SEA SURVIVAL / THE RACING RULES OF SAILING / THE RULES BOOK / RACE TRAINING / THE RYA BOOK OF RACE TRAINING / WEATHER AT SEA / HOW TO TRIM SAILS / HELMING TO WIN / CREWING TO WIN / TOTAL LOSS / FITNESS FOR SAILING / SAIL, RACE AND WIN / LONGITUDE / THE PERFECT STORM

bookpile books

About the BT Global Challenge......

GLOBAL CHALLENGE by Humphrey Walters, Peter and Rosie Mackie and Andrea Bacon. 1997, The Book Guild Ltd, £25 hardback,  ISBN 1-85776-385-8.
It promotes itself as 'Leadership lessons' from "The World's Toughest  Yacht Race". It is an interesting examination of the interpersonal dynamics of the race,  what worked and what didn't as far as the skippers and their crews were concerned.

ONE  HAND FOR THE BOAT by Haydon Edwards
1998, Thermal House Group, £12.95 paperback, £19.95 hardback, ISBN 0-9534110-0-1. Haydon took part as a legger in the BT Global Challenge 1996-7 on the Sydney-Cape Town leg. As an RNLI representative,  he tells his easy-to-read story in this book which contains colour pictures on almost every page. A donation of 20% of net profits goes to the RNLI. Prices include mail order, available from Thermal House, Mylord Crescent, Killingworth, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE12 OUJ

UPHILL ALL THE WAY by Alan Sears
1998, Adlard  Coles Nautical, ISBN 0-7136-4876-7
This is a personal account of the BT Global Challenge 1996-7 by a crew member on Toshiba. It is a good, easy read  which deals with all aspects of being a Crew Volunteer including how the author raised his berth fee.

By notable sailors.......

CLOSE TO THE WIND by Pete Goss
1998, Headline, £18.99 hardback, ISBN 0-7472-2126-X
Apart from talking about his rescue of Raphael Dinelli, Pete mentions the training that he set up for the crew volunteers for the British Steel Race, the forerunner of the BT Global Challenge. No wonder I felt like a marine on the Continuation sail!

FIRST LADY by Kay Cottee
1990, Pan Australia, ISBN 0-330-27174-1
Autobiography  of the first woman in history to complete a solo, non-stop and unassisted voyage around the world.

TAKING THE HELM by Dawn Riley
1995, Little, Brown and Company, US$24.95 hardback, ISBN 0-316-74550-2
Dawn answered the urgent, last minute call to skipper the US Women's Challenge in the 1993-4 Whitbread.

About sailing theory......
 
YACHTMASTER (second edition) by Pat Langley-Price & Philip Ouvry
1993, Adlard Coles Nautical, £15.99 hardback, ISBN 0-7136-3772-2

YACHTMASTER - RYA SHORE-BASED COURSE NOTES
1996 6th Revision, £6.50, ISBN 0-901501-33-6
An expensive but invaluable brief text of everything you want to know to master the art of sailing in illustrated form.

DAY SKIPPER - RYA SHORE-BASED NOTES
1996 6th revision,  £6.50, ISBN 0-901501-34-4

DAY SKIPPER - RYA PRACTICAL COURSE NOTES
1990 Ed James Stevens, £6.50, ISBN 0-901501-35-2

COMPETENT CREW - RYA PRACTICAL COURSE NOTES
£6.50, ISBN 0-901501-35-2

SEA SURVIVAL - RYA PRACTICAL COURSE NOTES
 £6.50, ISBN 0-901501-69-7

The rules..........

THE RACING RULES OF SAILING 1997-2000
1997, Royal Yachting Association, ISBN 0-901501-70-0
THE Rules - read them or be exploited on the water!

THE RULES BOOK, 1997-2000 by Eric Twiname revised by Bryan Willis
1997 6th Edition, Adlard Coles Nautical, £10.99, ISBN 0-7136-4565-2
This time the rules with explanations!

RACE TRAINING - COACH YOURSELF TO SUCCESS by Rick White and Mary Wells, 1996, Fernhurst Books, S$38.40, ISBN 1-898660-22-0

THE RYA BOOK OF RACE TRAINING by Jim Saltonstall
1996, 3rd edition, Adlard Coles Nautical, £14.99, ISBN 0-7136-4284-X

WEATHER AT SEA by David Houghton
1998, Fernhurst Books, colour edition £11.95, ISBN 1-898660-49-2
Beautifully illustrated.

HOW TO TRIM SAILS by Peter Schweer
1990, Adlard Coles Nautical,  £7.99, ISBN 0-7136-3323-9

More books for dinghy sailors.........

CREWING TO WIN
by Andy Hemmings
1994, Fernhurst Books, £10.95, ISBN 1-898660-05-0

HELMING TO WIN by Lawrie Smith and Ian Pinnell
1994, Fernhurst Books, £11.95, ISBN 1-898660-01-8


More books for big boat sailors........

TOTAL LOSS by Jack H Coote
1992, Adlard Coles Nautical, £10.99, ISBN 0-7136-3613-0
40 first-hand  accounts of yacht losses at sea with a summary of lessons to be learned.

About  attitude and self-improvement..... .

FITNESS FOR SAILING by Alan Beggs, John Derbyshire & John Whitmore
1993, Fernhurst Books, £10.95, ISBN 0-906754-94-1

SAIL, RACE AND WIN by Eric Twiname, revised by Cathy Foster
1993, 2nd edition, Adlard Coles Nautical,  £12.99, ISBN 0-7136-3566-5
This book may be close to the bottom of this list, but it is held very high in my esteem. It is all about how to develop a winning attitude. The chapter on 'Making the least of crises' is especially worthwhile.

More good reads .......

LONGITUDE by Dava Sobel and William H. Andrewes
1998, £25 hardback, ISBN 1-85702-714-0
I first read the paperback version (without pictures) and thought that the search for longitude was a gripping tale. Then, reading this illustrated version brought the whole story even  more to life.
 

THE PERFECT STORM by Sebastian Junger
1996, Fourth Estate, £6.99, ISBN 1-85702-730-2
"Read this and see if you still want to go sailing,"  a serious-looking colleague said!

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Copyright ©  Jan Cambrensis 1999-2004.  All rights reserved.