Book Review

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…

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…

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…

By Ben Wyckoff Shore Published by Cinder Block Publishing   250 pages   paperback A term used to describe how a piece of art can evoke powerful emotion in the viewer, particularly awe or terror (originally ascribed to the works of the 16th Century Italian artist and sculptor Michelangelo), Terribilita is also the title of the first book by Ben Wyckoff Shore. Taking place during the Italian unification movement of the mid-19th Century known as the Risogimento, this historical…

By Christopher Rosow Published by Quadrant Publishing, LLC   375 pages   paperback It’s exceedingly rare for a self-published book by a new author to break into the top 20 on the Amazon “Most Sold” list. Christopher Rosow’s first book, False Assurances, not only ascended to #6 on that list for the week ending May 17, it simultaneously hit #1 with a bullet on Apple Books…an occurrence only slightly more likely than seeing a mermaid. In July 2017, a…