Book Review

By Paul Heiney Published by Adlard Coles, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Comical in appearance with black and white plumage and colorful parrot-like beaks, puffins are known to many as “the jokers of the sea.” Although they spend most of their lives at sea, Atlantic puffins have roosted in large numbers on or near Iceland for millenia. The population of these loveable little auklets is declining alarmingly, says author Paul Heiney, who sailed his 38-foot cutter…

100 Tips to Help You Get Your Sea Legs By Michelle Segrest Published by Navigate Content, Inc., Alabama, USA 133 pages “In my experience, there are two kinds of sailors,” writes Michelle Segrest in the introduction to her newest book. “Those who get seasick, and those who lie about it.” Every sailor knows that mal de mer can be much, much worse than the flu, food poisoning, and even a crushing hangover. While there is no cure…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…