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Notable New Titles

Vencedor: The Story of a Great Yacht and an Unsung Herreshoff Hero in the Golden Age of Yachting By Charles Axel Poekel, Jr. This book could well be summarized as a tale of international yacht racing in the 19th century…

Twain Braden,

The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier

The basic premise of The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina is a riff on the classic logic problem referred to commonly as “the prisoner’s dilemma.”

Twain Braden,

Murder Aboard: The Herbert Fuller Tragedy and the Ordeal of Thomas Bram

Murder Aboard jumps right into the action: An 11-person crew of the barquentine Herbert Fuller departs Boston with a load of timber in July 1896, bound for Buenos Aires.

Twain Braden,

Celestial Navigation: A Practical Guide to Knowing Where You Are

This short book — only 133 pages — delivers just enough information for the reasonably competent coastal navigator to become a reasonably competent celestial navigator.

Twain Braden,

Modern Marine Weather (Third Edition)

The problem with teaching marine weather is the same problem as celestial navigation: How do you demonstrate a three-dimensional concept so that the recipient can visualize it?

Twain Braden,

Halfway Rock Light Station

When writing about lighthouses, it’s almost impossible to avoid lapsing into nostalgia or busting out in Faulkner quotes about the past not being dead or Masefield’s lonely sea and the sky.

Twain Braden,

Shakedown Cruise: Lessons and Adventures from a Cruising Veteran as He Learns the Ropes

I approached Nigel Calder’s latest book with the usual trepidation.

Twain Braden,

The Last Voyage of the Hornet: The Story that Made Mark Twain Famous

In June of 1866, a young Samuel Clemens was hiding out in Honolulu after a dust-up in San Francisco.

Twain Braden,

Staten Island’s hidden relics

Beneath a canopy of old sycamores and lindens, directly across the Kill van Kull from some of New Jersey’s most wretched industrial wastelands — Bergen Point, Port Johnson and Constable Hook — lies the bucolic 80-acre campus of Sailors’ Snug Harbor.

Twain Braden,

An unusual Bermuda landmark

The narrow two-lane road from Southampton on the southwestern end of Bermuda looks ordinary enough, but it leads to a marine oddity that most visitors never see unless they slow down and pay close attention to a curious little bridge.

Twain Braden,

A visit to the next “Big Ditch” in Nicaragua

In December 2014 a centuries-old plan to dig a 173-mile trench from the Caribbean to the Pacific, connecting Central America’s largest lake in between, began in earnest.

Twain Braden,

Is pod propulsion a viable choice?

Podded propulsion has been around for some time in the commercial world, but how effective is this type of drive setup for power voyaging boats? Ocean Navigator contributing editor Twain Braden reports on the pod drive approach.

Twain Braden,

A somber funeral procession

I was on my usual run out to Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, when I heard a cryptic transmission over the VHF: Sea Tow was requesting that the U.S. Coast Guard issue a security call on its behalf…

Twain Braden,

Navy interested in laser flares

Recall the grisly final scene in the movie Dead Calm involving a flare gun? Picture the bright flares firing briefly over the doomed Titanic.

Twain Braden,

Shifting sands off Hatteras a hazard to navigation

The United States Coast Guard 5th District is warning mariners approaching Hatteras, N.C., to be aware of shoaling sands that have recently encroached on navigable channels.

Twain Braden,

Body found off Coronado Islands

The body of a man was found off the Coronado Islands off Southern California Sunday, May 6, prompting local sailors to wonder whether the body was that of the skipper of the doomed sailing vessel Aegean, lost in the annual Newport-Ensenada Race, was lost April 29.

Twain Braden,