Showing titles in Water Sports

Team Spirit is a gripping account of a race on the edge, and a young skipper's determined journey to victory. The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the ultimate long distance challenge - a 35,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe, contested by amateur crews in identical racing yachts - and the winners are those who keep their focus the longest.

RYA Yacht Sailing Techniques describes the basic skills that a skipper and crew require to enjoy their cruising in good conditions. It covers the layout and equipment on a small to medium-sized yacht, the essential safety information that all need to know before getting under way, basic maintenance, manoeuvring in a marina, handling under sail, anchoring and mooring, and, of course, man overboard rescue strategy.

Tania Aebi was an unambitious 18-year-old, a bicycle messenger in New York City by day, a Lower East Side barfly at night. In short, she was going nowhere - until her father offered her a challenge: Tania could choose either a college education or a 26-foot sloop. The only catch was that if she chose the sailboat, she'd have to sail around the world - alone. She chose the boat, and for the next two and a half years and 27,000 miles, it was her home. 

This audiobook of the RYA Sail Trim Handbook is crammed with useful tips and pointers on one of the fundamentals of good seamanship: sail trim. Sail trim can be bewildering to the novice, but this audiobook talks you through the subject in an informative, entertaining manner, with a focus on the needs of the cruising sailor rather than the out-and-out racer. After all, a well-trimmed cruising yacht will be better balanced, easier to handle, and will sail more comfortably.

Joshua Slocum was believed to be the first man to sail single-handed around the world. After a distinguished career, where he worked his way up from cabin boy to captain, Joshua Slocum wrecked his ship off the coast of Brazil. Turning this catastrophe to his advantage, he built a sailing canoe from the wreckage and sailed back to New York. Moreover, he wrote Voyage of the Liberdad, a chronicle of his trip, and earned some literary success.

Scuba Exceptional may be the fifth in Simon Pridmore’s Scuba series, but it is the true follow up to the first book in the series, Scuba Confidential. It reflects the same philosophy of safe diving through the acquisition of knowledge and skills. The themes are new, there are some wonderful and extremely useful new cautionary tales, and the focus this time is more on issues that face experienced divers. For example, there is more technical diving content, but, as usual, Simon covers complex issues in his usual clear and easy-to-listen-to style.

The story is told beginning with the vision and desire to sail on the ocean, through the training and education, buying a boat, gaining experience, and finally embarking on a 1000nm journey to bring the boat home, singlehanded. An immersive nonfiction adventure story, Becoming a Sailor captures the scene as one would experience it. Becoming a Sailor also goes into technical detail about the repairs and additions to Sobrius, a 1972 Dufour Arpege, as well as the techniques the author had to learn in order to sail singlehanded on multiday passages.

Challenged by an expert who said it couldn’t be done, Joshua Slocum, a fearless New England sea captain, set out in April 1895 to prove that a man could sail alone around the world. A little over three years and forty-six thousand miles later, the proof was complete. This is Slocum’s own account of his remarkable adventures during the historic voyage of the Spray.

Soon to be an ABC reality series entitled Ultimate Surfer, starring 11-time World Surf League champion Kelly Slater Eleven-time world surfing champion, actor, and American heartthrob Kelly Slater tells his inspiring story of triumph over adversity From Beach Blanket Bingo to Baywatch to Blue...

Just in time for the 2012 Olympics - prepare to peek into the mind of a champion with this newly updated edition of Michael Phelps’ autobiography, Beneath the Surface. In this candid memoir, Phelps talks openly about his battle with attention deficit disorder, the trauma of his parents’ divorce, and the challenges that come with being thrust into the limelight.

Bloomsbury presents… In My Element: Life lessons from the world's toughest solo ocean race, written and read by Pip Hare *Includes bonus audio material from Pip's archives* 'An entertaining and compelling page turner that will stay with you.' Pete Goss The boat picks up another wave and surfs...

An Epic Memoir of an Intrepid Solo Adventurer, a Woman Who Lived by the Philosophy "Go Simple, Go Solo, Go Now" In a memoir remarkable for its quiet confidence and acute natural observation, the author of Paddling Hawaii and Paddling My Own Canoe begins with her decision, at age 60, to undertake...

There is something different about adventurers; about the way their minds work. They look at the world as a place of challenges and though they know what fear is, they refuse to be hindered by it. TRUE SPIRIT is Jessica's story and in it she will detail her preparation, her journey and her...

‘A delight for anyone whose heart thumps at the sight of dawn, dusk and hazy light’ Nell Frizzell At first, I didn’t find fog – fog found me. Liminal, transformative and increasingly elusive – far from a simple cloud of water droplets, fog is a state of mind. As mist drifted through a...

Bloomsbury presents Left For Dead by Nick Ward & Sinead O'Brien, read by Simon Vance. The world-famous Fastnet Race takes yachts from the Isle of Wight to the Fastnet Rock off the southwest coast of Ireland and back. The 1979 race began in perfect conditions, but was soon engulfed by the...

Narrow Margins is the true story of one family's journey from the financial crash of the Rover car company to an alternative and better lifestyle. Faced with the loss of everything - the house, the cars, and more importantly, their rather lazy and indolent lifestyle - Marie Browne and her family took on the challenge of a whole new way of life. Strapped for cash, the family buy a decrepit 70ft barge called Happy Go Lucky which had been run as a floating hotel.

The solemn, rhythmic intonation of the shipping forecast on BBC radio is as familiar as the sound of Big Ben chiming the hour. Since its first broadcast in the 1920s, it has inspired poems, songs, and novels, in addition to its intended objective of warning generations of seafarers of impending storms and gales. In Attention All Shipping, Charlie Connelly wittily explores the places behind the voice, those mysterious regions whose names seem often to bear no relation to conventional geography.

This is what it is like to sail an ocean alone. Not the world-girdling marathon of the Southern Ocean racers or the “cruise in company” as part of a trade-wind rally, but what it is really like to set off for 3,496 miles from the British Virgin Islands to Falmouth in the UK, totally alone. That means no contact with the shore, no high-frequency radio or satphone. No weather forecasts, no texts from loved ones. No news…Just complete and uninterrupted isolation for 44 days. In other words, this is singlehanded ocean sailing at its purest: One man in a world shrunk to its bare essentials.

Faster times and better technique aren't a guarantee when you train hard. What really makes a difference to your speed and efficiency in the water? The Effortless Swimming podcast helps make a complex sport really simple to better your swimming. We cover open water swimming, triathlon swimming and pool swimming. Hosted by Australian National swimmer and coach Brenton Ford.

For centuries, people from all over the world have immersed themselves in cold water for its healing properties. Leading expert in cold water therapy Dr. Mark Harper offers long-awaited evidence that cold water swimming can achieve powerful, tangible health benefits in his revolutionary debut work, Chill. Dr. Harper illuminates the ways in which cold water can positively impact us physiologically and psychologically.