Sailing In Grandfathers Wake

Ian Tew was born into a seafaring family and leaned to sail at the age of seven.

Lying buried on Isle of Arran is a bottle of whisky. On the far side of the world a highly pressurized sales manager decides that the time has come for a change of gear. He wants to return to Europe, and instead of taking the plane he finds himself Ryusei

Shipwrecked on an atoll in the Indian Ocean, the author and his wife receive help from visiting sailors and adapt to life in primitive conditions. After emergency repairs, they leave on the 3000-mile voyage home. Illustrated with 25 color photos.

Fourteen boats sail against winter gales from New Zealand through the Roaring Forties to a South Pacific atoll to join a small flotilla protesting against nuclear weapons testing. For 30 days, JOIE and crew withstand aggressive intimidation from a hostile French Navy, gear failure, and storms. This three-month, 6,000-mile voyage is an amazing achievement in high-action sailing.

"True stories of the sea, told by those whose stories they are: Here is action and adventure, passion and drama, storms and calms; it all makes for stirring reading." - Wilbur Smith.Here is a seafaring adventure spanning three generations. In 1938, Caplin, skippered by Commander R. D. Graham with his daughter Marguerite as mate, set out from England to sail around the world. Sixty years later, Cdr Graham's grandson, Captain Ian Tew, bought Independent Freedom in New York and, with his aunt's account of the voyage as a guide, sailed in Caplin's wake. The side-by-side accounts of their navigation to remote shores provide a fascinating historical perspective against which the calms and storms of sailing are ageless. Born into a seafaring family reaching back to a notoriously successful 17th century privateer, Ian Tew was learning to sail at the age of seven. He made his career in the British Merchant Navy and then as a salvor in the Middle and Far East but, after returning to the UK in 1991 to run a small business, has returned to wind and canvas. Ian Tew's other memoir, Salvage: A Personal Odyssey, his first novel The Dare and his collection of stories Reflections On The Sea are all also available through Titwillow Publishing.Praise for Ian Tew's Reflections On The Sea:"Authentic and gripping. A fine collection of stories." Richard Foreman.

Kenneth D. Mowbray, a mechanical engineer, worked in the machine and product design industry after retiring from the US navy.

'No cure, no pay'- those are the terms under which a salvor operates, and in doing so he takes on an onerous responsibility. If he is defeated by the elements he is not paid. He receives nothing, however much money, effort, sweat and tears he has put in. Salvage is not a business for the faint-hearted. Ian Tew joined Selco Salvage of Singapore in 1974, and spent over a decade on the front line. Already an experienced master mariner, he learnt the salvage trade in the busy waters of the Far East before rising to command some of the world's largest supertugs, eventually becoming a roving salvage master. In his odyssey he roamed the world, from the coast of Cornwall to the Southern Ocean, from the Gulf of Suez to the dangerous reefs of the South China Sea. This is a vivid account of those ten tough years - successes, failures, tows and rescues - a barge adrift in a hurricane in the English Channel - a freighter aground on a reef hundreds of miles from land with a tropical storm approaching - a trawler battered by the surf on a coral reef, its bottom ripped out - a tanker hit by a missile in the Gulf during the 'Tanker War' of the 1980s. The tugs themselves play a big part in the story, as do the crews and captains the author worked with. This gripping account of drama at sea is a tribute to the seamanship, courage and resourcefulness of the salvor, and an insight into the technical, commercial and human issues behind the headlines.

The Great Lakes create a vast transportation network that supports a massive shipping industry. In this volume, seamanship, cargo, competition, cooperation, technology, engineering, business, unions, government decisions, and international agreements all come together to create a story of unrivaled interest about the Great Lakes ships and the crews that sailed them in the twentieth century. This complex and multifaceted tale begins in iron and coal mines, with the movement of the raw ingredients of industrial America across docks into ever larger ships using increasingly complicated tools and technology. The shipping industry was an expensive challenge, as it required huge investments of capital, caused bitter labor disputes, and needed direct government intervention to literally remake the lakes to accommodate the ships. It also demanded one of the most integrated international systems of regulation and navigation in the world to sail a ship from Duluth to upstate New York. Sailing into History describes the fascinating history of a century of achievements and setbacks, unimagined change mixed with surprising stability.