THE CIRCUMNAVIGATORS: Small Boat Voyagers of Modern Times

A large book about the long voyage -- globe-circling in small boats with such intrepid mariners as Joshua Slocum who in 1895 sailed from Boston and returned three years and two months and 46,000 miles later, having not only sailed around the earth but also been saved during a storm at sea by the ghost of the pilot of Columbus' Pinta (?). Slocum writes: ""I was en rapport with my surroundings, and was carried on a vast stream where I felt the buoyancy of His hand who made all the worlds."" The most endearing eccentrics fill these pages. Among them is Moitessier, the logical sea tramp, far out front on the home stretch of what for him could have been a million-dollar race, who after five months at sea suddenly changed course for a second nonstop circumnavigation, hoping to find his soul. He said: ""I have found a temple, a civilization nobody knows."" Herein great, if slightly mad, heroes abound: Sir Francis Chichester of the Gipsy Moth IV; Robin Knox-Johnston (whose scruffy little ketch won the race Moitessier abandoned); Chay Blyth who went the distance nonstop the ""wrong way"" east to west, and over two dozen others. Also included is a large appendix, notes from the logs and books of the sailors, and a chapter on how to plan a dream boat. If you're taking a long voyage, or only a bath, The Circumnavigators may be just what you're looking for.