Amazing Sailing Stories - True Adventures from the High Seas

Big adventures on the high seas—from one of the greatest seafaring writers of our age

Hal Roth’s vivid, authentic tales of the sea have riveted readers around the world for forty years. Here, in one volume, are three of his classic sea stories, each one a white-knuckled, rail-down voyage into the unknown.

A hard-working San Francisco husband and wife abandon their jobs, their security, and, some would say, their sanity to sail their 35-foot sloop to Japan and back—the long way! Over the next nineteen months, they discover exotic islands, fascinating people, and a whole new way of life.

A few years later these intrepid voyagers decide to try their luck against Cape Horn, but they will need a lot more than luck to survive the vicious storms, violent seas, and perilous shores of the world’s most dangerous stretch of water.

Then nine courageous sailors accept a challenge to do what has never been done before: to race alone, in a small sailboat, around the world—nonstop. Only one will complete the race; seven will be forced to withdraw, and one will simply disappear.

“Roth writes with grace, humor, and poetic insight about the vastness and beauty of the ocean.”—Library Journal

“By all means read all of Hal Roth you can find.”—Practical Sailor

“Roth’s books about his life at sea, including Two on a Big Ocean and Two Against Cape Horn, are universally listed among the most influential sailing books ever published.”—SpinSheet

“The tale of Carl Wake and the hurricane that was waiting for him goes straight to the heart of the greatest sea stories: they are not about man against the sea, but man against himself. John Kretschmer’s book is as perfectly shaped and flawlessly written as such a story can be. In addition to being the best depiction I have ever read of what it is like to be inside a hurricane at sea, At the Mercy of the Sea is as moving a story of a man’s failure and redemption as can be found anywhere in the literature of the sea. This book is surely destined to become a classic.”—Peter Nichols, author of Sea Change and A Voyage for Madmen

“John Kretschmer has transformed this story of three men on a collision course with a hurricane into a modern seafaring classic.”—Peter Nielsen, editor of SAIL magazine

“With expert analysis and taut writing, he draws readers into that mad storm. You can’t turn away. You keep reading until it breaks your heart.”—Fred Grimm, columnist for the Miami Herald

“Once begun, his vivid and powerful narrative is impossible to put down.”—Derek Lundy, author of Godforsaken Sea and The Way of a Ship

“I felt I knew Carl Wake, because John Kretschmer found in him an archetype—an aging sailor with an age-old dream.”—Jim Carrier, transatlantic sailor and author of The Ship and the Storm: Hurricane Mitch and the Loss of the Fantome

“It was the best of dreams, it was the worst of dreams, it was an age of consulting the nautical experts, it was the age of landlubber foolishness, it was the epoch of determination, it was the epoch of despair, it was the season of hurricanes, it was a spring of beachcombing…”

If you dream about chucking it all away and sailing toward an island life, read this first

• “What Broke?” sections explores the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of a cruising multihull
• "Island” section provide assessments of the islands of the Caribbean