Favourite sailing fiction?

[Seajet]

Not fiction but highly recommended;

Dan,

it can be very expensive and a bit rare secondhand ( £118 new ! ) but 'High Endeavours', the life stories of Miles & Beryl Smeeton, is the sort of book one never forgets; I am very grateful to 'Lady Campanula' of these forums for putting me on to it.

Miles was the sort of bloke for whom WWII was a bit of a let-down with not enough action, standing on his tank and firing back when being strafed by Japanese aircraft, and exclaimed he didn't feel he was alive unless he had a really good fright once a month; he reckoned Beryl was tougher !

What with them and Sir Francis Chichester, we can still say we're proud to be British but their type doesn't seem very evident now.

 

[Hadenough]

Trustee to the tool room
By Neville Shute.

+1 I've got a first edition, possibly my most treasured possession.

 

[Seajet]

+1 I've got a first edition, possibly my most treasured possession.

It saddens me that Nevil Shute Norway to give his full rather than pen name seems not to be a big draw with young trendy folk, I find his writing quite captivating.

What some people don't realise is that he was a serious engineer and aircraft designer, he founded the 'Airspeed' company at the now gone Portsmouth Airfield ( under PC World etc now ) and his aircraft such as the Oxford were very important in WWII; his autobiography 'Slide Rule' is a very honest and interesting read.

A dear friend of mine's Father, Bob Milne, was a Test Pilot for Airspeed, and Jenny knew Nevil Shute well from her time playing as a girl at the old windmill at Langstone village ( Chichester Harbour ) where NSN stayed during the war; sadly I never met Jenny's Dad or NSN, would have been honoured to bits to meet either.

 

[Dougie_the_Mate]

I was given a copy of 'the Riddle of the Sands' by an old friend who inherited it from a library in the Highlands when he was Asst. Director of Education in that airt. There was a newspaper cutting in the book from the day that Childers was executed by the Free State government for treason. It gave a short biography and a report of the execution.

Quite poignant especially when we recall that he was one of the envoys together with Michael Collins who brought the treaty back from the peace talks. He then walked out with De Valera's deputies and the the civil war ensued.

 

[Greenheart]

Miles Smeeton was the sort of bloke for whom WWII was a bit of a let-down with not enough action, standing on his tank and firing back when being strafed by Japanese aircraft, and exclaimed he didn't feel he was alive unless he had a really good fright once a month; he reckoned Beryl was tougher !

Fabulous. Although, possibly many men of his age and experience were like-minded, enthusiastically larger-than-life, fire-eating crazies...but few who so willingly jumped into harm's way from '39 to '45, survived the fighting.

Still, fascinating to imagine a man who becomes restless and ill-tempered whenever it's more than a few weeks since he had to fight for his life!

 

[Poignard]

- 'Moby Dick'
- '****** (black man!) of the Narcissus'
- 'Typhoon'

 

[westernman]

Bavarias making 13 knots through the water to windward at 30 degrees to the real wind. Posters on this forum seem to be able to do this all the time.

Oh - sorry. I see we are talking about a different kind of fiction.

 

[tcm]

why not write your own fiction? I do! Complete and utter invention, altho some people call it a blog.

 

[Greenheart]

Now, now , gentlemen...let's slacken off that cynical sheet. I dunno, though, you've got me wondering...did Slocum really sail round the world, or might he have written the whole thing in a deckchair, at a friend's riverfront home in Maidenhead?

He might have stepped on a tin-tack one night while groping for a candle, and begun to think what type of barefoot-footpads he could keep at bay that way...literally...and journeyed in his mind, to include them in a story. Fact or fiction, it's a very good read.

 

[ghostlymoron]

If you want something more up to date, try some of Sam Llewellyn's books, I've enjoyed the ones I've read. Also I'm now reading Alexander Kent, Midshipman Bolitho series having finished all the Patrick O'Brian I can get my hands on.
What about DVDs? Master and Commander, Riddle of the Sands and the suberb The Cruel Sea (Jack Hawkins at his best).

 

[richardabeattie]

Wot - no mention of Para Handy?

 

[DownWest]

One might be influenced by reading some stuff early, so Monsarrat and ROTS. But I devoured Neville Shute as fast as I could find them in my early teens. Stand out was the Trustee From The Toolroom. It was only a couple of years ago that it was pointed out to me (here) that it was influenced by the Smeetons.
At a lower level.. The art of corse sailing was much read until it disintergrated in the bilge cross channel.

Quite enjoyed Tristram Jones' books, which many here consider fiction........