Product Description

Mankind has plied the waves of the ocean since the dawn of recorded time, seeking sustenance, riches and adventure. "Fifty Places To Sail Before You Die" maps out some of the world's great sailing venues, as shared by both champion racers and celebrated adventurers. Venues range from clubby New England ports like Newport to the hair-raising passage around Cape Horn to idyllic island retreats like Mopelia. In addition to colourful descriptions of the sailing spots and anecdotes from some of the world's greatest sailors, "Fifty Places To Sail Before You Die" will include brilliant photographs and enough information to help would-be sailors chart their own adventure in these areas.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90126 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

About the Author
Chris Santella is a freelance journalist and the author of Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die, Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die and Fifty Favorite Fly-Fishing Tales. He lives in Portland with his wife and two daughters.

Customer Reviews

Coffee Table Sailing
I bought this book hoping it would provide coffee table inspiration about where I could one day sail in the world. I expected there would be informative pictures and descriptive narrative about the scenery and what to expect from sailing in each area. I was very disappointed. Some of the accounts given by interviewees lived up to my expectations but many others seemed to just rant on about their own sailing careers or refer to the names of places as though the reader would already know them intimately. The pictures were uninspiring too and there wasn't always a picture for each place visited. Many of the pictures were essentially of yachts rather than the scenery in which they were sailing. If you are into yacht racing and sailing clubs this might be the book for you, but as an account for potential visiting cruisers this book may be one to leave on the shelf.

Avoid - cheap & cynical formula volume
Bought this on impulse (to top up to free postage!) without reading reviews. A mistake.

All you need to know is:
1) The author's previous books were Fifty Places to .... Play Golf / Go Birding / Fly Fish etc .... before you die
2) The USA based research is so exhaustive that the British Virgin Islands and South Georgia Islands are listed under UK, but Scotland is not (meanwhile each USA state is treated as a nation)
3) Different rent a contributer provides each section - so the author probably never even visited the locations
4) Pictures are few and mostly could be anywhere

Not for sailors
A very disappointing purchase, I was expecting much more information on the 'places' and less about the boats and contributors life histories. Chris Santella (the author) admits that his experience of sailing is limited to a season of sailing lessons in 1975 thus he enrols the advice of several professional sailors for information. Hence this is a mish-mash of racing locations & partial auto-biographies alongside what looks like stock photography. If you know nothing about sailing and want a nautical book as a coffee table paperweight then this is for you. Otherwise avoid.