Fifty Places to Sail Before You Die: Sailing Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations

• #23 in Best Sailing Books

8 Reviews

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Chris Santella`s "Fifty Places to Sail Before You Die" is an interesting but ultimately disappointing book. Although the idea of a collection of unforgettable places to sail is an excellent idea, this book is one of unrealized potential.

The author contacted and interviewed famous sailors from around the world - racers, charterers, instructors, photographers, etc. - for their favorite places to sail. For each great sailing area, he wrote a 3-4 page blurb about the area, and included a small bio of the expert along with some basic information about how to travel to the area, when the best sailing season is, and information about local accommodations and charters.

Unfortunately, Santella does not sell these sailing locales. I expected a book on great sailing areas to include numerous dazzling photographs of each area, but most of the sections include only one picture from the area (some none). Too many of the write-ups focus on the history of sailing an area or other trivia instead of the reasons to sail that area now, and there are no maps to give one a flavor of the area - another must, to me, in a book about sailing locations.

Despite these drawbacks, there is still some interesting information in this book and the sailing locales are a nice sampling of different types of sailing locales. Ultimately, although this book did not give me a burning desire to travel to many of these places, this book is still a worthwhile purchase for anyone with a love of sailing.

Obviously, Chris is not a sailor and was not intending for this book to purchased by sailors. There is not much information that sailors would find of importance such as the coordinates, good anchoring spots or even the nearest harbor. I received this as a gift, I never would have purchased it for myself. Photos are great, but lacking good information.

This has snipets by some of the greatest living sailors, but has some glaring omissions. Also, the editing seems to have take the life out of many of these characters. The book is arranged in alphabetic sequence. It would have been more useful to have it in sequence by continent. This would have been more interesting with stories about things that happened in these beautiful places. As it is, it's just a - here's a nice place, here's another nice place, and on and on. A cruising guide to the various regions would be a more entertaining read.

We cruise extensively in Australia and on the Med. We bought the book hoping that it would introduce us to new, exciting sailing grounds. Sadly, the book largely fails to do so.
To start with, it lists the locations in alphabetical order: California, China, Chile, Colorado etc instead of geographical grouping. The individiual sections are crammed with general information to fill the pages. Twenty percent of each section is typically dedicated to the writer's CV! Very little information is specific to sailing conditions.
For example the Antarctica section doesn't say a word about the special cruising challenges. The Fremantle/Australia section describes how the US won the America's Cup here - but not a word about the magic beaches and crystal clear waters.

I am an avid sailer and dream of sailing around the world or being a crew member of an America's Cup team. I thought this book sounded facinating and ordered two (2) copies: one for myself and one for my brother, another water warrier.

I was disappointed in the lack of images. How can you talk about Hong Kong Harbor and not have an image? I assumed this was a coffee-table book which I think with added imagery would make it all the more enjoyable. Reading the passages was informative, but you had to read the bio of the author fist to understand why the place they chose was important to them.

Am finding it slow to get through - and disappointing.

what a wonderful book to get started!!! my husband has read it front to cover and has learned many important points.

Other reviews more aptly describe the disappointing aspects of this book: dreadfully small quantity of photographs, not useful/practical information to travel to said location, etc.
That said, the book has made fair bedtime reading. Just do as I did, check it out from the library instead. It's worth reading, but not owning.

We really like the book sitting on our coffee table so we can flip through it and dream of sailing in all the beautiful places. The only complaint we have is that the images are often poor, with very low resolution and some of the 50 locations don't even get an image, which is sort of ridiculous for a book like this. It's certainly not an expert guide, though it gives some great descriptions, tips, and stories of sailing, including quotes and tales from professional and competitive sailors. Overall, a fun coffee table book.