Topsail & Battleaxe
Topsail & Battleaxe
SKU:HIS1250
This is a reprint of a book written in the 1980s after Tom's voyage in the wake of the Vikings. It won the ‘Best Book of the Sea’ award in 1988, but has been out of print for many years.
A Viking voyage to the New World in a 70-year-old classic boat, arctic weather and unique cast of characters, overseen by the ghost of Eirik the Red.
When Tom Cunliffe sails for America down the Norse Atlantic trail, his crew includes his four-year-old daughter, a soldier and a sheepshearer.
Guided by the ancient Viking sagas, their storm-tossed passage leads from Norway to the Faeroe Island, Iceland and the ice off Greenland’s Cape Farewell. There, the weather deals a deadly card.
Can they sail their venerable ship against the wind to Leif Eirikson’s fjord in Newfoundland? And will the spirits of the desperados they meet in the sagas let them do it?
Tom Cunliffe
Tom Cunliffe is Britain’s leading sailing writer. A worldwide authority on cruising instruction and an expert on traditional sailing craft, he learned his sextant skills during numerous ocean passages, many in simple boats without engines or electronics, voyaging from Brazil to Greenland and from the Caribbean to Russia. He is the author of the yachtsman’s guide to the English Channel.
Tom’s nautical career has seen him serve as mate on a merchant ship, captain on gentleman’s yachts and skipper of racing craft. His private passion is classic sailing boats and he has owned a series of traditional gaff-rigged vessels that have taken him and his family on countless adventures from tropical rainforests to frozen fjords.
Tom has been a Yachtmaster Examiner since 1978 and has a gift for sharing his knowledge with good humour and an endless supply of tales of the sea.
He also has monthly columns in Sailing Today, Classic Boat, Yachting World and SAIL (US) magazines. He wrote and presented the BBC TV series, ‘The Boats That Built Britain’ and the popular ‘Boatyard’ series.
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