Best books on voyaging that started from the East coast - any takers?

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jezjez

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Accounts of voyages made from the east coast - Easy starters - Riddle of the Sands, Magic of the Swatchways, We didn’t mean to go to Sea, Sailing Just for Fun, Charles Stock. Any more out there?
 
Roger Taylors cruises started in the east coast and his books are a great read! Granted all but one of his books involve him trailering his boat elsewhere to commence the cruise….
 
I think the major ‘from’ the East Coast ones have been covered. I used to enjoy Alker Tripp and have them somewhere. The drawings added to the pleasure. The Magic of the Swatchways is another classic of course. I keep meaning to read To the Baltic with Bob but have never got around to it.
 
There's a book that's currently free to download from Google Books called Swin, Swale and Swatchway, by H Lewis Jones.

Published in 1892, it gives an interesting insight into a bygone age.
 
Hard to beat 'Shrimpy' and 'Shrimpy Sails Again' by Shane Acton. (p.s. He departed on his round the world, then half-way round the world again, voyages in his 18 foot plywood Caprice from Cambridge.)

And perhaps someone can remind me (again) of the name of the book by a chap who sets off from Whitby (in something like a 70's 36 footer?), having got a year off work (from his job as a lecturer at Sunderland Poly?), and to cut a long and engaging story short is initially challenged by adverse weather and a crewmate he doesn't find conducive, before heading off across the Atlantic single-handed, and has a life-changing chance encounter in the Caribbean.
 
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michael_w said:
The journal of James Cook.
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Cook doesn't strictly meet the OP's criteria of voyages starting from the East Coast. Though he was from near Middlesborough, his famous voyages started in Plymouth.

If we are going to be so relaxed we can also include George Vancouver, who was from King's Lynn, Norfolk (where his father was a customs officer), but departed on his famous voyage from Falmouth. Parts of Vancouver's explorations of the Pacific coast of what is now USA and Canada are engagingly recounted (along with so much else) in Jonathan Raban's 'Passage to Juneau'. You can read a transcript of Vancouver's own log here, though I think it will be heavy going -
Full text of "A voyage of discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and round the world : in which the coast of north-west America has been carefully examined and accurately surveyed : undertaken by His Majesty's command, principally with a view to ascertain the existence of any navigable communication between the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, and performed in the years 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, in the Discovery sloop of war, and armed tender Chatham, under the command of Captain George Vancouver"
 
John Lewis…..Wrote the book Ataste for Sailing which was published in 1969 but I think reflects more a period prior toWW2 in so much that the east coast waters were not crowded.He writes of little voyages around the creeks ,boatbuilding and crossing the North Sea to Holland.My introduction to east coast voyages was in a barge yacht from inland exiting at Boston and steaming down the coast and up the Thames to Brentford.I made many passages up and down the east coast in coasters and was distinctly aware of the history of it harbour sand headlands and it’s trade
 
Another stretching the OP's 'departed from the East Coast' criterion a little is A.J.Cronin's Mackinnon's wonderful "The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow'. He does leave the Thames to sail and row his Mirror dinghy via canals and the Danube to the Black Sea, but he'd got to the Thames from Shropshire via the Severn, Avon, Kennet & Avon, etc.
 
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The boat they laughed at.

After buying a 42 foot ferro cement boat for £1500 to use as a house boat and being teased because of the state of it, what started as a causal retort led to the adventure of a lifetime. RYA Yacht master Max Liberson had been drawn to the sea all his life, but it was the chance acquisition of a yacht that apparently only he could see the potential of that allowed him to fulfil a dream
What followed was a true story of ingenuity, persistence and more anecdotal tales of woe than most sailors would want to admit to as their own. How do you cope sailing single-handed across the Atlantic with no engine and nothing but your own company for weeks at a time? What do you do when a gale of wind force a 54 foot to drag its anchor towards you? And what would your reaction be to find that you'd crossed the pond being kept afloat by a big lump of Essex mud jammed in the keel? Would you fill the hole with concrete and sail the yacht home?
For anyone aiming to make a similar voyage, the story goes into detail of his plans beforehand and the many pitfalls and triumphs he encountered on his 10-month round trip frm Battlesbridge in Essex over to the Caribbean and back to Battlesbridge.
 
LittleSister said:
Hard to beat 'Shrimpy' and 'Shrimpy Sails Again' by Shane Acton. (p.s. He departed on his round the world, then half-way round the world again, voyages in his 18 foot plywood Caprice from Cambridge.)

And perhaps someone can remind me (again) of the name of the book by a chap who sets off from Whitby (in something like a 70's 36 footer?), having got a year off work (from his job as a lecturer at Sunderland Poly?), and to cut a long and engaging story short is initially challenged by adverse weather and a crewmate he doesn't find conducive, before heading off across the Atlantic single-handed, and has a life-changing chance encounter in the Caribbean.
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I’ve got it, it’s an excellent read. Something about Angels. I’ll check tonight!
 
As adjudicator of my own post, I’m going to say the voyage ought to start on the east coast but I don’t think we have to be too harsh, any east coast people with a good yarn can have a special mention for a good book.
Yes, agree that the two shrimpy books are great.
I think the history of the Endeavour starts at Whitby.
Now I think of it, What exactly is the YM forum definition of the east coast?
 
LittleSister said:
Another stretching the OP's 'departed from the East Coast' criterion a little is A.J.Cronin's wonderful "The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow'. He does leave the Thames to sail and row his Mirror dinghy via canals and the Danube to the Black Sea, but he'd got to the Thames from Shropshire via the Severn, Avon, Kennet & Avon, etc.
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Swallows and Amazons, forever! Cried a lady on the riverbank. Great voyage!
 
Rappey said:
The boat they laughed at.

After buying a 42 foot ferro cement boat for £1500 to use as a house boat and being teased because of the state of it, what started as a causal retort led to the adventure of a lifetime. RYA Yacht master Max Liberson had been drawn to the sea all his life, but it was the chance acquisition of a yacht that apparently only he could see the potential of that allowed him to fulfil a dream
What followed was a true story of ingenuity, persistence and more anecdotal tales of woe than most sailors would want to admit to as their own. How do you cope sailing single-handed across the Atlantic with no engine and nothing but your own company for weeks at a time? What do you do when a gale of wind force a 54 foot to drag its anchor towards you? And what would your reaction be to find that you'd crossed the pond being kept afloat by a big lump of Essex mud jammed in the keel? Would you fill the hole with concrete and sail the yacht home?
For anyone aiming to make a similar voyage, the story goes into detail of his plans beforehand and the many pitfalls and triumphs he encountered on his 10-month round trip frm Battlesbridge in Essex over to the Caribbean and back to Battlesbridge.
Click to expand...
I need to get this one
 
jezjez said:
I’ve got it, it’s an excellent read. Something about Angels. I’ll check tonight!
Click to expand...

Thanks.

Breath of Angels?

p.s, Having looked it up, yes that's the one - 'Breath of Angels' by John Beattie. (Though having read the blurb there's obviously much I've forgotten, but sadly it went, along with numerous others, in a book cull some years ago.
 
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