Here's how to see the world from your boat. More and more people are taking off on their cruising boats for a few months or even a year. After they've tasted the cruising life, prepared and equipped their boats, and developed some experience, many cruisers begin to dream of voyaging farther--maybe even an around-the-world voyage. 
The Voyager's Handbook offers specific information for cruisers considering such a vast undertaking. An experienced circumnavigator, author Beth Leonard shows cruisers how to prepare their boat and themselves. She offers complete, up-to-date information on the latest gear and techniques and detaile, hard-earned advice from dozens of experienced sailors, about boats, crew, and costs as well as crucial but easily overlooked aspects of long-distance passagemaking such as health, safety, weather, provisions, fresh water, and foreign port protocol. 
With a balanced, down-to-earth approach, The Voyager's Handbook tells it like it is, for any cruiser considering that voyage of a lifetime.

The Voyager's Handbook: The Essential Guide to Blue Water Cruising

Sports & Outdoors

Leonard, Beth A.

Water Sports

International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press

“Belongs in the bookshelf of every cruising vessel.”―Blue Water Sailing 
“If you are serious about that extended voyage, read The Voyager’s Handbook.”―Sailing 
“Every now and then a new voice emerges in the world of sailing literature that stands out, a voice that is both clear and of lasting quality. The appearance of such a new voice is something of an event, and that’s what we’d call the publication of The Voyager’s Handbook.”―Blue Water Sailing 
This inspirational and comprehensive manual leads you step by step through every aspect of choosing, planning, and following the voyager’s life. Using three example boats representing three cruising lifestyles―Simplicity, Moderation, and Highlife―Beth Leonard helps make your bluewater dreams come true, whether you’re sailing on a shoestring or a CEO’s pension. Starting with the things you can’t do without―an enthusiastic crew, a seaworthy boat, and, of course, money―Leonard offers sage advice on how to select crewmembers who are truly committed to the voyage, how to choose the right boat for you, and how to find just the right approach to financing your voyage and making the most of every dollar spent. 
Managing life from a floating home and keeping that home livable, seaworthy, and safe requires you to become, among other things, the ship’s purser, engineer, doctor, cook, and cruise director. You’ll discover how to prepare for these new roles and put necessary equipment and arrangements in place before you untie your docklines. This exquisitely detailed guide also helps you master the skills you’ll need to handle a boat at sea with a small crew, including 
<ul>
<li>Weather forecasting </li>
<li>Passage planning </li>
<li>Watchkeeping </li>
<li>Heavy-weather sailing </li>
<li>Emergency management </li>
<li>Midocean repairs </li>
</ul>
Complete with dozens of easy-to-use graphs and tables for quick reference, along with the hard-won wisdom of experienced cruisers, The Voyager’s Handbook is the ultimate resource for anyone who is planning, preparing for, or just dreaming about a great adventure on the high seas.

Travel

Winner Of The National Outdoor Book Award For Literature
When Beth Leonard and her partner, Evans Starzinger, returned from a three-year, 35,000 mile circumnavigation, they thought they were done with offshore voyaging. But neither realized how irrevocably they had been changed by their experience, nor how irresistible the siren song of the sea would prove. In comparison, life ashore seemed dull and monochrome, and within months, Beth knew she had to go back to sea in order to remain true to the person she had become.
Four years later they set out on their 47-foot aluminum sloop Hawk for a journey that lasted six years and took them more than 50,000 miles. They voyaged to Newfoundland, Iceland, Norway, the Caribbean, Ireland, Scotland, Cape Horn, New Zealand, the South Pacific, British Columbia--to the ends of the earth and back.
Blue Horizons is Beth Leonard's record of that journey. Compiled from her popular columns inBlue Water Sailing magazine, which she wrote along the way, Blue Horizons is more than an adventure saga, more than the log of an extended passage. As in all great travel writing, it’s the product of an insatiable hunger to explore the world, and in so doing to explore one’s own soul. It is, says Beth, "about pulling your dreams over the horizon to you, one sail change, one course correction at a time."
But this is no dreamer's tale. Beth Leonard is both sailor and writer, well qualified to deal with and describe blue water voyaging. Her observations are as sharp as salt air and her prose as informed as it is insightful and entertaining.
Beth also brings to Blue Horizons a uniquely feminine perspective, a combination of empathy, charm, and lyric grace. Her pages are suffused with emotion and a strong sense of immediacy. You're with Beth and Evans asHawk pokes into a lonely and deserted outport on Newfoundland's barren northeast coast, and as they await hurricane Lenny in Antigua. And you sympathize as she burrows deep into her tilting berth, seeking that one, elusive interval of comfort that will bring sleep on a pounding windward passage, only to be dashed awake by the cold shock of a rogue wave spilling into her bunk.Blue Horizons is a rare journey, one to be savored by sailors and armchair adventurers alike.
Praise for Blue Horizons:
“In her new, wonderful book, Beth Leonard shows us a world in which ‘perfection’ is not bland, easy, escapist comfort in a crowded tropical harbor but a more insecure yet more rewarding existence of constant challenge--cold waters, rocky coves, old fishing villages, demanding seamanship, and the evolution of two sailors trying to manage a boat and also their own relationship.” --John Rousmaniere, author ofFastnet, Force 10, After the Storm, and The Annapolis Book of Seamanship
“Let Beth Leonard inspire you to sail around the world, explore the high latitudes, or discover your own capacity for adventure. Each nugget in this ‘dream becomes reality’ series of revelations is worth a thousand pictures.” --Gary Jobson, ESPN sailing commentator, America’s Cup Hall of Famer, and author of Gary Jobson’s Championship Sailing
“Blue Horizons chronicles a remarkable adventure through some of the globe’s most inhospitable waters. . . . Every account in this collection provides a taste and sometimes a feast. It is wise, perceptive, wonderful. If you have ever wondered what it might be like to exchange conventional comforts for an adventure not packaged with round-trip airfare, Beth Leonard has written these dispatches to you.” --Don Casey, author ofThis Old Boat and Don Casey’s Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual

Blue Horizons: Dispatches from Distant Seas

Engineering & Transportation

Transportation

International Marine Publishing

Following Seas: Sailing the Globe, Sounding a Life

The great American sailor Joshua Slocum may have had little else to do when he began rebuilding the small sloop Spray. He could, however, look back at a lifetime on the ocean as preparation for his remarkable circumnavigation. Beth Leonard attended college and collected a master's degree in business. She could point to a successful international management consulting career, but there was no blue-water sailing on her resume. Like so many of us, Beth felt an itch of discontent inside the corporate suit she put on every day. Unlike most us, though, Beth couldn't resist scratching that itch. Following Seas recounts the story of Beth's transformation from business analyst to expert in the sea, the wind, the sky, the stars and Silk, the boat on which she learns to depend for her life. Over the course of three years, Beth grows into someone to whom Joshua Slocum could tip his hat in sailing fellowship. The dramatic shake-down cruise recounted in the prologue of Following Seas became the first leg of a sometimes tumultuous and sometimes serene circumnavigation. Sailing west-abound, Beth and companion Evans Starzinger pilot silk from the Azores, through the Panama Canal, and into the South Pacific, where the peoples of remote islands play a vital part in the story. How does one decide to leave a career and adopt a new way of life? What will you discover about the new places you see, the people you meet? Most important, what might you discover about yourself? Following Seas tells the story of Beth Leonard's journey of discovery. Why not weigh anchor, sail west-around, and share this journey of exploration yourself?

Self-Help

Motivational

Tide-Mark Pr Ltd

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Leonard, Beth A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Leonard, Beth A.