A couple of recently published true seafaring tails for winter's reading list

[Doug SC]

My son-in-law turned me on to two recently publish books about British tall ship adventures and misadventures. The first was written by David Grann the author of "Killers of the Flower Moon". The title of the book is "The Wager". As the jacket for the book proclaims it is about "shipwreck, mutiny and murder". A hastily put together plan of the Admiralty to intercept a Spanish Gallon in the Pacific considered "the prize of all the oceans" was put into action. One of the ships sent out was damaged going around Cape Horn and shipwrecked off of Patagonia.

The other is titled "The Wide, Wide Sea" by Hampton Sides. It is about Captain Cook's last voyage of exploration to search the Pacific for a northwest passage over Canada. He spends time in Tahiti returning Omai the first Polynesian to have been bought to England. On his way heading to the northwest coast of America he discovers Hawaii. From there he goes above the Artic Circle.

Both are fascinating true stories from the age of exploration in "wooden ships upon the water".

[Timm R Oday25]

As someone who is always looking for the next great read I thank you .

[Norm L.]

Now that cold is here for many of those here it does get time for sailing books. I've got The Proving Grounds by G. Bruce Knecht inn line. It's the tale of the horrors of the 1998 Sydney-Hobart race.

I wanted to put a quote about climbing a mast in my technical blog so went to Two Years Before the Mast and Midshipman Hornblower. Alas. I ended up rereading both and glad I did. The first time through was about the story. The second time was paying more attention to the writing. The re-reads were also helped as I could now go to Google Maps and occasionally Google Earth to put me at sites. 
In Two Years while they were trying to weather the Cape west bound, I read that in the forecastle the crew had molasses as the sweetener for their tea. Being a tea drinker and one who likes using molasses in some cooking and my oat granola I tried it in my tea in the cooler weather. Without having to be called for All Hands.
In the first Hornblower book I read a scene in a pub where the officers of the Press Gang are hanging out waiting for prey. The bad guy adds gin to his tanker of beer. Horatio doesn't. It took me way back when I did add gin to my beer. But that's another tale.