Book Review

Every issue of WindCheck includes a look at a new book about sailing (or perhaps the reissue of a maritime classic) and occasionally gives a listen to the music of the sea.

Book Review

Vencedor

By Chris Szepessy

Vencedor

The Story of a Great Yacht and an Unsung Herreshoff Hero in the Golden Age of Yachting By Charles Axel Poekel Jr. Published by Sheridan House, an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.   271 pages In the 1890s, a young Danish-American naval engineer named Thorvald Julius Schougaard Poekel was the chief draftsman at the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in Bristol, Rhode Island. At that time HMCo was designing and building the fastest racing sailboats in…

Book Review

Connecticut Waters: Celebrating Our Coastline and Waterways

By Chris Szepessy

Connecticut Waters: Celebrating Our Coastline and Waterways

Photography by Caryn B. Davis Narrative by Eric D. Lehman Published by Globe Pequot, an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 226 pages   hardcover   $27.95 Connecticut Waters, a collection of 300 images by award-winning photographer Caryn B. Davis, is a beautiful exploration of the Constitution State’s maritime roots, both past and present. With a fascinating narrative by Eric D. Lehman, this title from our friends at Globe Pequot explores Connecticut’s shorelines, sounds, rivers and…

Book Review

Doing the Ditch: A Descriptive Historical Journey of Self-doubt to Success!

By Chris Szepessy

Doing the Ditch: A Descriptive Historical Journey of Self-doubt to Success!

By Anthony Pozun WindCheck readers will recognize Anthony Pozun as the author of “Against All Odds,” an account of his rescue mission to the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian in 2019. This yet-to-be-completed saga aboard his Catalina 400 Mark II Mystical Paradise, in which Tony was delayed by a series of breakdowns and quarantines, can be found at windcheckmagazine.com/article/against-all-odds/ and windcheckmagazine.com/article/against-all-odds-part-2/ Tony’s first book, Doing the Ditch is a compilation of several trips he’s made along the Intracoastal Waterway, a…

Book Review

Patriarch of Maine Shipbuilding: The Life and Ships of Gardiner G. Deering

By Chris Szepessy

Patriarch of Maine Shipbuilding: The Life and Ships of Gardiner G. Deering

By Kenneth R. Martin Published by Jackson A. Parker and distributed by Tilbury House Publishers, 216 pages hardcover $60 In the waning days of the Golden Age of Sail after the American Civil War, steamships were taking more and more trade away from sailing cargo ships. Although the writing on the wall was clear, a small number of builders in Bath, Maine, the “City of Ships,” persisted in building and launching wooden schooners, enlarging and modifying them…

Book Review

Huntington Harbor Lighthouse

By Chris Szepessy

Huntington Harbor Lighthouse

By Antonia S. Mattheou and Nancy Y. Moran Foreword by Pamela Setchell, Introduction by Deanna Glassman Published by Arcadia Publishing 127 pages paperback $21.99 If you’ve done any boating on western Long Island Sound, you’ve seen the Venetian Renaissance-style lighthouse at the entrance to Huntington Harbor, New York. Completed in 1912, the structure resembles a small castle. By 1985, the deterioration of the Huntington Harbor Lighthouse had become so great that the U.S Coast Guard was ready…

Book Review

Learning to Fly

By Chris Szepessy

Learning to Fly

America’s Cup XXXIII 2010 By Roger Vaughan Photographs by Gilles Martin-Raget, Introduction by Gary Jobson Published by Choptank Word Bank 175 pages $29.99 The start of the 36th regatta for the America’s Cup was just six weeks away as this 201st edition of WindCheck went to press. As we look forward to victory in Auckland for New York Yacht Club American Magic, author (and WindCheck contributor) Roger Vaughan takes us back eleven years to the first time…

Book Review

The Anatomy of Sail

By Chris Szepessy

The Anatomy of Sail

The Yacht Dissected and Explained By Nic Compton Published by Adlard Coles Nautical   192 pages hardcover   $60 Whether you’ve enjoyed sailing for decades or have just been bitten by the bug, The Anatomy of Sail by author and photographer Nic Compton is both an encyclopedic compilation of every element comprising a sailing yacht and a visual feast. Starting with the history of yachting and boatbuilding, Compton describes the evolution of sailboats and then focuses on specific parts,…

Book Review

Christopher Blossom: Premier Maritime Artist

By Chris Szepessy

Christopher Blossom: Premier Maritime Artist

Published by The Greenwich Workshop Press   80 pages   softcover It’s fascinating that prodigious talent is not only hereditary but also frequently multi-generational in a family (i.e. Williams and Andretti in music and motor racing, respectively.) The son and grandson of well-known illustrators, our friend Christopher Blossom grew up on the eastern seaboard and started sailing at age six. Today, he’s one of the world’s greatest marine artists. By twenty, Blossom had sailed aboard the square-rigged brigantine Young…

Book Review

Maritime Casualties: Causes and Consequences

By Chris Szepessy

Maritime Casualties: Causes and Consequences

By Capt. Tuuli Messer-Bookman Published by Cornell Maritime Press, a division of Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 216 pages   hardcover   $34.99 While compiling information for a seminar she planned to deliver to senior deck cadets at the California Maritime Academy, Captain Tuuli Messer-Bookman discovered that there were no up-to-date comprehensive texts on the subject of maritime casualties, and more significantly, the consequences of such events. In fact, before a lecture on the sinking of the RMS Titanic and the…

Book Review

Voyaging with Marionette

By Chris Szepessy

Voyaging with Marionette

By Ron Breault Published by Whaler Books, an imprint of Mariner Media, Inc. 320 pages   paperback   $39.95 In 1995, Ron Breault of Old Lyme, CT placed the winning bid on a Sparkman & Stephens Dolphin 24 that had been donated to the Connecticut River Museum’s annual Thanksgiving fundraising auction. Having retired early from the ‘game,’ he was looking forward to restoring this lovely but neglected boat for singlehanded daysailing, overnighting to places like Fishers Island and Shelter…

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