The Mariner’s Library
The Mariner’s Library brings forgotten & obscure sailing books to life, allowing them to pass on their hard-won knowledge to a new generation of sailors. Read by solo, round-the-world yachtsman and host of ’The Mariner’ podcast; Chris Stanmore-Major.
The Mariner’s Library brings forgotten & obscure sailing books to life, allowing them to pass on their hard-won knowledge to a new generation of sailors. Read by solo, round-the-world yachtsman and host of ’The Mariner’ podcast; Chris Stanmore-Major.
Episodes

Oct 24, 2022
Oct 24, 2022
25 min
The fifteenth part of Brian Connell's 1953 English translation of Dr. Alain Bombard's notable 1952 French manuscript, 'The Bombard Story'.
This is the story of an unbelievable voyage, requiring huge personal sacrifice and with barely mitigated risk, taken solely in the altruistic pursuit of furthering scientific understanding towards providing hard and fast possibilities to help 50,000 ship wreck survivors a year (at that time) hold on long enough for help to reach them.
This is a book that I have wanted to read for many years because it has direct application to the kind of survival situations I might find myself in as a pelagic mariner.
Having personally been in a situation in a round the world yacht race where my desalination machine was reduced in it's capacity to provide fresh water down to only 250ml a day, I know what it is to be surrounded by water but not have drop to drink. In my situation, I was in an equatorial area with no rain showers and with two weeks sailing to the nearest land. I survived by mixing my fresh water with an equal amount of salt water and adding sugar 'to taste/not puke'
My method worked, I finished the leg (3rd!) and I suffered no ill effects, but I am now understandably interested in discovering all I can about Dr Bombard's work and learning more about how it was possible for him to cross the Atlantic, in a rubber boat, in sixty five days with no food & no fresh water.
Let's find out together.
If you are enjoying these stories and would like to support the creation of more great free content, please support the podcast by heading over to my Patreon site and joining the community there.
Click here to support the show for $5 a month
If you have any sailing books published before 1925 that you think would be an interesting read for modern sailors please contact me at csmthemariner@gmail.com and we will see if we can bring them and their forgotten voyages back to life here on Rare Nautical Reads.
Oct 24, 2022
25 min

Oct 21, 2022
Oct 21, 2022
25 min
The fourteenth part of Brian Connell's 1953 English translation of Dr. Alain Bombard's notable 1952 French manuscript, 'The Bombard Story'.
This is the story of an unbelievable voyage, requiring huge personal sacrifice and with barely mitigated risk, taken solely in the altruistic pursuit of furthering scientific understanding towards providing hard and fast possibilities to help 50,000 ship wreck survivors a year (at that time) hold on long enough for help to reach them.
This is a book that I have wanted to read for many years because it has direct application to the kind of survival situations I might find myself in as a pelagic mariner.
Having personally been in a situation in a round the world yacht race where my desalination machine was reduced in it's capacity to provide fresh water down to only 250ml a day, I know what it is to be surrounded by water but not have drop to drink. In my situation, I was in an equatorial area with no rain showers and with two weeks sailing to the nearest land. I survived by mixing my fresh water with an equal amount of salt water and adding sugar 'to taste/not puke'
My method worked, I finished the leg (3rd!) and I suffered no ill effects, but I am now understandably interested in discovering all I can about Dr Bombard's work and learning more about how it was possible for him to cross the Atlantic, in a rubber boat, in sixty five days with no food & no fresh water.
Let's find out together.
If you are enjoying these stories and would like to support the creation of more great free content, please support the podcast by heading over to my Patreon site and joining the community there.
Click here to support the show for $5 a month
If you have any sailing books published before 1925 that you think would be an interesting read for modern sailors please contact me at csmthemariner@gmail.com and we will see if we can bring them and their forgotten voyages back to life here on Rare Nautical Reads.
Oct 21, 2022
25 min

Oct 20, 2022
Oct 20, 2022
33 min
The thirteenth part of Brian Connell's 1953 English translation of Dr. Alain Bombard's notable 1952 French manuscript, 'The Bombard Story'.
This is the story of an unbelievable voyage, requiring huge personal sacrifice and with barely mitigated risk, taken solely in the altruistic pursuit of furthering scientific understanding towards providing hard and fast possibilities to help 50,000 ship wreck survivors a year (at that time) hold on long enough for help to reach them.
This is a book that I have wanted to read for many years because it has direct application to the kind of survival situations I might find myself in as a pelagic mariner.
Having personally been in a situation in a round the world yacht race where my desalination machine was reduced in it's capacity to provide fresh water down to only 250ml a day, I know what it is to be surrounded by water but not have drop to drink. In my situation, I was in an equatorial area with no rain showers and with two weeks sailing to the nearest land. I survived by mixing my fresh water with an equal amount of salt water and adding sugar 'to taste/not puke'
My method worked, I finished the leg (3rd!) and I suffered no ill effects, but I am now understandably interested in discovering all I can about Dr Bombard's work and learning more about how it was possible for him to cross the Atlantic, in a rubber boat, in sixty five days with no food & no fresh water.
Let's find out together.
If you are enjoying these stories and would like to support the creation of more great free content, please support the podcast by heading over to my Patreon site and joining the community there.
Click here to support the show for $5 a month
If you have any sailing books published before 1925 that you think would be an interesting read for modern sailors please contact me at csmthemariner@gmail.com and we will see if we can bring them and their forgotten voyages back to life here on Rare Nautical Reads.
Oct 20, 2022
33 min

Oct 19, 2022
Oct 19, 2022
24 min
The twelfth part of Brian Connell's 1953 English translation of Dr. Alain Bombard's notable 1952 French manuscript, 'The Bombard Story'.
This is the story of an unbelievable voyage, requiring huge personal sacrifice and with barely mitigated risk, taken solely in the altruistic pursuit of furthering scientific understanding towards providing hard and fast possibilities to help 50,000 ship wreck survivors a year (at that time) hold on long enough for help to reach them.
This is a book that I have wanted to read for many years because it has direct application to the kind of survival situations I might find myself in as a pelagic mariner.
Having personally been in a situation in a round the world yacht race where my desalination machine was reduced in it's capacity to provide fresh water down to only 250ml a day, I know what it is to be surrounded by water but not have drop to drink. In my situation, I was in an equatorial area with no rain showers and with two weeks sailing to the nearest land. I survived by mixing my fresh water with an equal amount of salt water and adding sugar 'to taste/not puke'
My method worked, I finished the leg (3rd!) and I suffered no ill effects, but I am now understandably interested in discovering all I can about Dr Bombard's work and learning more about how it was possible for him to cross the Atlantic, in a rubber boat, in sixty five days with no food & no fresh water.
Let's find out together.
If you are enjoying these stories and would like to support the creation of more great free content, please support the podcast by heading over to my Patreon site and joining the community there.
Click here to support the show for $5 a month
If you have any sailing books published before 1925 that you think would be an interesting read for modern sailors please contact me at csmthemariner@gmail.com and we will see if we can bring them and their forgotten voyages back to life here on Rare Nautical Reads.
Oct 19, 2022
24 min

Oct 18, 2022
Oct 18, 2022
22 min
The eleventh chapter of Brian Connell's 1953 English translation of Dr. Alain Bombard's notable 1952 French manuscript, 'The Bombard Story'.
This is the story of an unbelievable voyage, requiring huge personal sacrifice and with barely mitigated risk, taken solely in the altruistic pursuit of furthering scientific understanding towards providing hard and fast possibilities to help 50,000 ship wreck survivors a year (at that time) hold on long enough for help to reach them.
This is a book that I have wanted to read for many years because it has direct application to the kind of survival situations I might find myself in as a pelagic mariner.
Having personally been in a situation in a round the world yacht race where my desalination machine was reduced in it's capacity to provide fresh water down to only 250ml a day, I know what it is to be surrounded by water but not have drop to drink. In my situation, I was in an equatorial area with no rain showers and with two weeks sailing to the nearest land. I survived by mixing my fresh water with an equal amount of salt water and adding sugar 'to taste/not puke'
My method worked, I finished the leg (3rd!) and I suffered no ill effects, but I am now understandably interested in discovering all I can about Dr Bombard's work and learning more about how it was possible for him to cross the Atlantic, in a rubber boat, in sixty five days with no food & no fresh water.
Let's find out together.
If you are enjoying these stories and would like to support the creation of more great free content, please support the podcast by heading over to my Patreon site and joining the community there.
Click here to support the show for $5 a month
If you have any sailing books published before 1925 that you think would be an interesting read for modern sailors please contact me at csmthemariner@gmail.com and we will see if we can bring them and their forgotten voyages back to life here on Rare Nautical Reads.
Oct 18, 2022
22 min

Oct 17, 2022
Oct 17, 2022
18 min
The tenth chapter of Brian Connell's 1953 English translation of Dr. Alain Bombard's notable 1952 French manuscript, 'The Bombard Story'.
This is the story of an unbelievable voyage, requiring huge personal sacrifice and with barely mitigated risk, taken solely in the altruistic pursuit of furthering scientific understanding towards providing hard and fast possibilities to help 50,000 ship wreck survivors a year (at that time) hold on long enough for help to reach them.
This is a book that I have wanted to read for many years because it has direct application to the kind of survival situations I might find myself in as a pelagic mariner.
Having personally been in a situation in a round the world yacht race where my desalination machine was reduced in it's capacity to provide fresh water down to only 250ml a day, I know what it is to be surrounded by water but not have drop to drink. In my situation, I was in an equatorial area with no rain showers and with two weeks sailing to the nearest land. I survived by mixing my fresh water with an equal amount of salt water and adding sugar 'to taste/not puke'
My method worked, I finished the leg (3rd!) and I suffered no ill effects, but I am now understandably interested in discovering all I can about Dr Bombard's work and learning more about how it was possible for him to cross the Atlantic, in a rubber boat, in sixty five days with no food & no fresh water.
Let's find out together.
If you are enjoying these stories and would like to support the creation of more great free content, please support the podcast by heading over to my Patreon site and joining the community there.
Click here to support the show for $5 a month
If you have any sailing books published before 1925 that you think would be an interesting read for modern sailors please contact me at csmthemariner@gmail.com and we will see if we can bring them and their forgotten voyages back to life here on Rare Nautical Reads.
Oct 17, 2022
18 min

Oct 16, 2022
Oct 16, 2022
18 min
The ninth chapter of Brian Connell's 1953 English translation of Dr. Alain Bombard's notable 1952 French manuscript, 'The Bombard Story'.
This is the story of an unbelievable voyage, requiring huge personal sacrifice and with barely mitigated risk, taken solely in the altruistic pursuit of furthering scientific understanding towards providing hard and fast possibilities to help 50,000 ship wreck survivors a year (at that time) hold on long enough for help to reach them.
This is a book that I have wanted to read for many years because it has direct application to the kind of survival situations I might find myself in as a pelagic mariner.
Having personally been in a situation in a round the world yacht race where my desalination machine was reduced in it's capacity to provide fresh water down to only 250ml a day, I know what it is to be surrounded by water but not have drop to drink. In my situation, I was in an equatorial area with no rain showers and with two weeks sailing to the nearest land. I survived by mixing my fresh water with an equal amount of salt water and adding sugar 'to taste/not puke'
My method worked, I finished the leg (3rd!) and I suffered no ill effects, but I am now understandably interested in discovering all I can about Dr Bombard's work and learning more about how it was possible for him to cross the Atlantic, in a rubber boat, in sixty five days with no food & no fresh water.
Let's find out together.
If you are enjoying these stories and would like to support the creation of more great free content, please support the podcast by heading over to my Patreon site and joining the community there.
Click here to support the show for $5 a month
If you have any sailing books published before 1925 that you think would be an interesting read for modern sailors please contact me at csmthemariner@gmail.com and we will see if we can bring them and their forgotten voyages back to life here on Rare Nautical Reads.
Oct 16, 2022
18 min

Oct 14, 2022
Oct 14, 2022
23 min
The eighth chapter of Brian Connell's 1953 English translation of Dr. Alain Bombard's notable 1952 French manuscript, 'The Bombard Story'.
This is the story of an unbelievable voyage, requiring huge personal sacrifice and with barely mitigated risk, taken solely in the altruistic pursuit of furthering scientific understanding towards providing hard and fast possibilities to help 50,000 ship wreck survivors a year (at that time) hold on long enough for help to reach them.
This is a book that I have wanted to read for many years because it has direct application to the kind of survival situations I might find myself in as a pelagic mariner.
Having personally been in a situation in a round the world yacht race where my desalination machine was reduced in it's capacity to provide fresh water down to only 250ml a day, I know what it is to be surrounded by water but not have drop to drink. In my situation, I was in an equatorial area with no rain showers and with two weeks sailing to the nearest land. I survived by mixing my fresh water with an equal amount of salt water and adding sugar 'to taste/not puke'
My method worked, I finished the leg (3rd!) and I suffered no ill effects, but I am now understandably interested in discovering all I can about Dr Bombard's work and learning more about how it was possible for him to cross the Atlantic, in a rubber boat, in sixty five days with no food & no fresh water.
Let's find out together.
If you are enjoying these stories and would like to support the creation of more great free content, please support the podcast by heading over to my Patreon site and joining the community there.
Click here to support the show for $5 a month
If you have any sailing books published before 1925 that you think would be an interesting read for modern sailors please contact me at csmthemariner@gmail.com and we will see if we can bring them and their forgotten voyages back to life here on Rare Nautical Reads.
Oct 14, 2022
23 min







