Topsail Adventures Ltd - Library and Weblinks

Amelie Rose's Library

If you've been aboard you'll know that Amelie Rose has an extensive library of books, from the practical and educational to the exciting and entertaining. Here, we'll be listing lots of books that we use, love or would never be at sea without. It's going to take us a while to get them all written up so keep checking back!

There's also a section with some of our favourite places on the wonderful World Wide Web. Jump to a category by clicking on the links below or just browse the entire list. If you think we're missing something please let us know - just email your suggestion to us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Some of these books will be available from our store - just follow the "Buy Now" links where you see them.

Click the links to jump to that category:

Weblinks >>> True Stories >>> Navigation >>> Knots and Deckwork >>> RYA Publications >>>

"Sell up & Sail" Books >>> Sailing Gaffers >>> Classic Traditional Sailing Books >>> Fiction >>>

Amelie Rose's Favourite Websites

We're often out and about around the web and have built a big library of favourite sites. Here, broken down by section are the places we visit when surfing the web. You can jump to a section by clicking the links below or just browse through the whole collection. Happy webbing!

True Stories

From fantastic tales of individual derring-do like Capt. Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World" and Pete Goss' "Close to the Wind" to the great stories of the early pioneers of recreational sailing like Claude Worth and RT Macmullen these are the books that inspired us to leave the office behind and set out to sea with nothing else but a well-found ship and a star to sail her by.

Navigation

There's a ton of stuff available on Navigation, from "how to" manuals to pilot guides and the bible of Navigating around the British Isles - the Reeds Nautical Almanac. Here we'll be listing the books we use and recommend.

Knots and Deckwork

Want to know a little bit more about the skills you'll need aboard a boat like Amelie Rose? From knots and splices to sweating up a sail or coiling a rope these are the books that we used to hone our skills and still refer to when we forget how to back-splice or make a rope becket.

RYA Publications

The RYA publish mountains of useful books and guides and we've got a fair few of them on board. From the humble Cruising Logbook for you to keep a record of all your seamiles to their excellent Competent Crew and Day Skipper training guides; if there's a sailing subject to be covered then the RYA have probably got a book about it. We'll be listing the ones we think are most useful here.

"Sell up & Sail" Books

These are the books we turned to when we first started to dream our dreams of heading off to sea. The original "Sell up and Sail" is packed full of great advice if you really are thinking about heading South until the butter melts but Annie Hill and Lynne & Larry Pardy have also written excellent introductions to the subject of "Champagne Cruising on a Beer Budget". So go on, buy them and start dreaming dreams! (But come sailing on Amelie Rose in the meantime!)

Sailing Gaffers

Gaff rigged sailing boats (gaffers) really aren't that different to "normal" sailing boats but there are some differences and the lack of modern technology and seeming miles of rope does set some folk to worrying. There'll be some great books in here, both old and new, to give you a head start as to what it all does.

Classic Traditional Sailing Books

There are some books that you really should read about sailing these fabulous boats. RT Macmullen's "Down Channel" is one and several more come to mind. This will be our list of "must read" classics to get you in the mood for some "proper" sailing!

Sailing Fiction

If you've not read Erskine Childer's classic "Riddle of the Sands" then you really have missed a treat, and we were brought up on the wonderful Swallows and Amazons of Arthur Ransome. We don't think that there's enough watery fiction so let's make sure that what there is sells well enough to make it worth writing more!

Picture of Nick, Skipper of Amelie Rose