I first read this book as a young woman in college and I still love the content and the stories. It was well written and the photographs very powerful. I learned to have a better appreciation for the sea and the men who sail and love her.

I am going to buy this book to be one of my prized collections. It is part of my memories as a historical museum worker and I think this is something I would like in my home library.

This collection of sea tales is by far one of the best. It covers all centuries of seafaring vessels, including the Battle of Trafalgar, pirates, and modern day voyagers. The Cape Horn voyage aboard the steel packet was a favorite, as was the narrative by Robin Lee Graham. I highly recommend this book for all potential sailors.

This was a very interesting and TRUE account of the early days of ships. From inflated animal skins to modern ships, the detail and knowledge are evident. You don't set the book down. A captivating and thorough account. I spent several weeks about a year ago trying to find a copy. I has previously read the book when I purchased it via National Geographic. I then had it 'borrowed' at work and hence the search over 7 years later. It was this good. I even remembered the title and authors name.....I usually don't.

A wonderful pictorial of the windjammer's life! The black and white pictures show the beauty and the harshness of life aboard a tall ship, in great detail. The large size of the book is needed and appropriate for the photographs. Each photo is accompanied with an excerpt of Alan Villiers writing. Though not written for the pictures, the editors did an excellent job associating snippets of Villiers' writing with his photos. This is an excellent book to linger over on those rainy days that keep you from being out on the water, sailing yourself.

I have a first edition, signed copy, from Scribners (NY, 1951) which I acquired from a rare bookseller in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1987. The significance of this book is that it tells the story of the four-masted schooner Argus, one of about 30 of the last codfishing sailing vessels of the Portuguese fleet out of Lisbon, and which is still sailing in the Windjammer Cruises fleet as S/V Polynesia. I sailed aboard her at Christmas, 1985 from Sint Maarten, and the Captain told us about her history as Argus, and that Alan Villiers had sailed on her in 1950, then written this book about her. Villiers writes with a style that puts the reader in the scene ... at once descriptive with insider jargon, yet prosaic in construction which leaves no doubt of his mastery of both the pen and his subject. The quest describes the six-month trip to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, and north along the west coast of Greenland, in search of North Atlantic cod, the salty gold of the European markets. The author sprinkles historical significance where appropriate, crediting the early Portuguese sailors and the adventurers who made an excursion like this possible, and profitable. He relates the events of the voyage in careful detail ... lost dorys, iceberg encounters, fog and rough seas, and I swear you'll imagine your comfortable reading chair swaying with Argus as she skims the ocean, and feel the salt spray she kicks up with ease. A wonderful read, quite informative...