Towmasters: the Master of Towing Vessels Assoc. Forum

Towmaster’s Recommended Reading: the following is an always-incomplete, ever-evolving and wide-open-to-suggestion list of books and study guides that have value to the working mariner. In some case the links will take you to a retail book seller, in others it will take you to the publisher. The publishers will usually charge well more than a retailer, so shop around on Amazon Books or another retailer for a better deal. Some of the books are quite expensive, particularly those from The Nautical Institute in the U.K. That’s what happens when our almighty greenback gets you, as of 2/22/11, just £0.62! But quality costs, so if you want to improve your knowledge then you have to be willing to shell out. Educate yourselves, continually, or risk becoming obsolete and getting replaced or marginalized by those that do.

Towing Industry Textbooks

• Tug Use Offshore, In Bays & Rivers: The Towmaster’s Manual by Capt.’s George & Grant Livingstone – 2006
• ASD Tugs: Thrust & Azimuth by Capt. Jeff Slesinger – 2011
• Modern Towing by John S. Blank III – 1989
• Primer Of Towing (3rd Ed.) by George H. Reid – 2004
• Shiphandling With Tugs (2nd Ed.) by Capt. Jeff Slesinger – 2008
• Tug Use In Port – A Practical Guide (2nd Ed.) by Capt. Henk Hensen – 2003
• Practice of Ocean Rescue by R.E. Sanders & W.D. Shepherd – 1998
• Towing Vessel Officer’s Guide (2nd Ed.) by Capt. Richard A. Block – 2003
• The Law of Tug, Tow & Pilotage (3rd Ed.) by Alex Parks & Edward Cattell – 1994

Admiralty / Maritime Law

• The International Maritime Law of the Shipmaster by John Cartner, Richard Fiske & Tara Leiter – 2009
• The Law of Tug, Tow & Pilotage (3rd Ed.) by Alex Parks & Edward Cattell – 1994

Navigation, Navigation Rules, Passage Planning & Communications Textbooks

• Admiralty Manual of Navigation Vol. I – General Navigation, Coastal Navigation & Pilotage – 1987
• The American Practical Navigator (aka Bowditch) by Nathaniel Bowditch – 2002 Ed.
• Dutton’s Nautical Navigation (15th Ed.) by Thomas J. Cutler – 2003
• Knight’s Modern Seamanship (18th Ed.) edited by John V. Noel, Jr. – 1988
• Marine Navigation: Piloting and Celestial and Electronic Navigation (4th Ed.) by Richard R. Hobbs – 1998
• Emergency Navigation (2nd Ed.) by David Burch – 2008
• Emergency Navigation Card by David Burch – 2000
• The Lo-Tech Navigator by Tony Crowley – 2004
• How To Read A Nautical Chart by Nigel Calder – 2002
• Marine Radionavigation and Communications by Jeffrey Monroe – 1998
• Farwell’s Rules Of The Nautical Road (8th Ed.) by Craig H. Allen – 2004 ***Highly Recommended***
• Collisions And Their Causes (3rd Ed.) by Capt. Richard Cahill – 2002
• A Guide To The Collision Avoidance Rules (6th Ed.) by A.N. Cockroft & J.N.F. Lameijer – 2003
• Nautical Rules of the Road (4th Ed.) by Steven Browne – 2006
• Strandings And Their Causes (2nd Ed.) by Capt. Richard Cahill – 2002
• The Law of Marine Collision by Nicholas Healy & Joseph Sweeney – 1998
• RADAR and ARPA Manual (2nd Ed.) by A.G.Bole – 2005
• Admiralty Ocean Passages For The World (5th Ed.) – 2004
• Atlas of Pilot Charts – All Oceans by the U.S. Government Printing Office
• Gulf Stream Companion: The Art of Navigating the Gulf Stream by the editors of Professional Mariner Magazine
• Mariners Guide To Single Sideband (6th Ed.) by Frederick Graves – 2000

Watchstanding, Stability & General Seamanship Textbooks

• Watchstanding Guide For The Merchant Officer (2nd Ed.) by Robert J. Meurn – 2008
• Knight’s Modern Seamanship (18th Ed.) edited by John V. Noel, Jr. – 1988
• Shipboard Bridge Resource Management by Michael R. Adams – 2006
• Stability And Trim For The Ship’s Officer (4th Ed.) by William E. George – 2005
• Ship Stability For Masters and Mates (6th Ed.) by Bryan Barrass & D.R. Derrett – 2006
• Introduction To Naval Architecture (4th Ed.) by E.C. Tupper – 2005
• Formulae For The Mariner (2nd Ed.) by Richard M. Plant – 1986
• Oceanography and Seamanship (2nd Ed.) by William G. Van Dorn – 1993 ***Highly Recommended***
• American Merchant Seamans Manual (7th Ed.) by William B. Hayler & John M. Keever – 2003
• Samson Splicing Manual by Samson Rope
• Handbook Of Knots – Expanded Edition by Des Pawson – 2004
• The Ashley Book of Knots by Clifford Ashley – 1944
• The Marlinespike Sailor by Hervey Garrett Smith – 1993
• The Arts of the Sailor: Knotting, Splicing & Ropework – by Hervey Garrett Smith – 1990

Cargo Operations

• Tanker Operations: A Handbook For The Person-In-Charge (4th Ed.) by Mark Huber – 2001
• Marine Cargo Operations (3rd Ed.) by Robert J. Meurn – 2004

Weather, Tides, Currents, & Oceanography Textbooks

• Modern Marine Weather – From Time Honored Maritime Traditions to the Latest Technology by David Burch – 2008
• Maritime Weather And Climate by William J. Burroughs & Norman Lynagh – 1999
• Reeds Maritime Meteorology (3rd Ed.) by Maurice Cornish & Elaine Ives – 2008
• Weather For The Mariner (3rd Ed.) by William J. Kotsch – 1994
• Coastal and Offshore Weather – the Essential Handbook by Chris Parker – 2003
• Weather Predicting Simplified by Michael Carr – 1999
• Heavy Weather Avoidance And Route Design – Concepts And Applications Of 500 MB Charts by Capt. Mike Ma-Li Chen and Lee S. Chesneau – 2008
• Understanding Weatherfax (2nd Ed.) by Mike Harris – 2005
• Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes by Kerry Emanuel – 2005
• Oceanography and Seamanship (2nd Ed.) by William G. Van Dorn – 1993
• Beyond The Moon – A Conversational, Common Sense Guide to Understanding the Tides by James G. McCully – 2006 ***Highly Recommended***
• Ocean Circulation (2nd Ed.) by The Open University – 2001
• Waves, Tides And Shallow-Water Processes (2nd Ed.) by The Open University – 1999

Firefighting, 1st Aid & Survival Textbooks

• Marine Fire Fighting by the Int. Fire Service Training Association – 2000
• Marine Fire Fighting for Land-Based Firefighters by the Int. Fire Service Training Association – 2001
• International Medical Guide for Ships (3rd Ed.) by the World Health Organization – 2007
• The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide (22nd Ed.) by the U.K. Dept. of Transportation – 1998
• Advanced First Aid Afloat (5th Ed.) by Peter F. Eastman and John M. Levinson –
• A Comprehensive Guide to Marine Medicine by Eric A. Weiss & Michael Jacobs – 2005
• Essentials of Sea Survival by Frank Golden & Michael Tipton – 2002
• Dangerous Marine Animals: That Bite, Sting, Shock or are Non-Edible by Bruce W. Halstead – 1995

Licensing & Certification Study Guides

• Marine Education Textbooks – Houma, La.
• Hawespipe.net – Bristol, R.I.
• Lapware
• F.C.C. General Radio Operators License Examination by Jack Rudman, 1997
• GROL Plus: General Radiotelephone Operator License Plus Radar Endorsement by Fred Maia & Gordon West, 1998
• GROL Plus – Book & Software Package by Fred Maia & Gordon West, 2004
• GMDSS: A study guide for the Global Maritime Distress Safety System (2nd Ed.) by Richard K. Bass, 2007

Maritime General Interest, History & Fiction

• 2182 kHz by David Masiel – 2002 ***Fiction***
• A Night To Remember – The Classic Account of the Final Hours of the Titanic by Walter Lord – 1955
• All Available Boats: The Evacuation of Manhattan Island on September 11, 2001 by Mike Magee – 2002
• All the Men in the Sea by Michael Krieger – 2002
• Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester – 2010
• Atlantic Ocean: The Illustrated History of the Ocean That Changed the World by Martin W. Sandler – 2008
• Battle At Sea: 3,000 Years Of Naval Warfare by R.G. Grant – 2008
• Black November: The Carl D. Bradley Tragedy by Andrew Kantar – 2006
• Bloodstained Sea: The U.S. Coast Guard In The Battle Of The Atlantic by Michael G. Walling – 2004
• Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World by Brian Cudahy – 2008
• Come Hell or High Water: A Lively History of Steamboating on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers by Michael Gillespie – 2002
• Coming Back Alive: The True Story of the Most Harrowing Search and Rescue Mission Ever Attempted on Alaska’s High Seas by Spike Walker – 2002
• Dangerous Waters – Modern Piracy & Terror on the High Seas by John S. Burnett – 2002
• Dark Harbor: The War for the New York Waterfront by Nathan Ward – 2010
• Dead Men Tapping – The End of the Heather Lynne II by Kate Yeomans – 2004
• Deckhand: Life on Freighters of the Great Lakes by Nelson Haydemacker – 2009
• Down at the Docks by Rory Nugent – 2009
• Fatal Voyage – The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis by Dan Kurzman – 1990
• Foss Maritime Company by Mike Stork – 2007
• From The Bridge: Authentic Modern Sea Stories by Capt. Kelly Sweeney – 2005
• Gales of November: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Robert J. Hemming – 1997
• Ghosts Of The Titanic by Charles Pellegrino – 2001
• Great Ships in New York Harbor: 175 Historic Photographs, 1935-2005 by William H. Miller, Jr. – 2005
• Grey Seas Under by Farley Mowat – 1958
• In Peril: A Daring Decision, A Captain’s Resolve, and the Salvage that Made History by Skip Strong & Twain Braden – 2003
• In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick – 2001
• Lake Effect: A Deckhand’s Journey on the Great Lakes Freighters by Richard N. Hill – 2008
• Lifeboat Sailors: The U.S. Coast Guard’s Small Boat Stations by Dennis L. Noble – 2001
• Life On The Mississippi by Mark Twain – 1883
• Lone Voyager: The Extraordinary Adventures of Howard Blackburn, Hero Fisherman of Gloucester by Joseph Garland – 1998
• Longitude: The True Story of a lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel – 1996
• Looking for a Ship by John McPhee – 1991
• Men At Sea by Jean Gaumy – 2002
• Mutiny: A History of Naval Insurrection by Leonard F. Guttridge – 1992
• Newtown Creek: A Photographic Survey of New York’s Industrial Waterway by Anthony Hamboussi – 2010
• Nights Of Ice: True Stories of Disaster & Survival on Alaska’s High Seas by Spike Walker – 1999
• Northwest 3/4 West: The Experiences of a Sandy Hook Pilot, 1908-1945 by Capt. Edward C. Winters – 2004
• Ocean: The World’s Last Wilderness Revealed by by Robert Dinwiddie – 2006
• On the Hawser: A Tugboat Album by Steven Lang & Peter H. Spectre – 1980
• On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie & the Soul of the Port of New York by James T. Fisher – 2010
• On the Waterfront by Malcolm Johnson, Introduction & Additional Articles by Budd Schulberg, Foward by Haynes Johnson – 2005
• On Tugboats by Virginia Thorndike – 2004
• Out Of The Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill In Prince William Sound – by John Keeble – 1999
• Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen – 2003
• Portraits of the Gulf Stream: In Praise of Currents by Erik Orsenna – 2008
• Rescued By The U.S. Coast Guard – Great Acts Of Heroism Since 1878 by Dennis L. Noble – 2004
• Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood Of 1927 And How It Changed America by John M. Barry – 1998
• Sailing Into The Abyss: A True Story of Extreme on the High Seas by William R. Benedetto – 2006
• Ship: The Epic Story Of Maritime Adventure by Brian Lavery – 2005
• So Terrible a Storm: A Tale of Fury on Lake Superior by Curt Brown – 2008
• Steam: The Untold Story of America’s First Great Invention by Andrea Sutcliffe – 2004
• Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic & Technological History by Louis C. Hunter – 1994
• Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History by Alan Huffman – 2009
• Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener – 1947
• Tankers Full Of Trouble: The Perilous Journey Of Alaskan Crude by Eric Nalder – 1994
• Terrorism and the Maritime Transportation System by Anthony Davis – 2008
• The Barque of Saviors: Eagle‘s Passage from the Nazi Navy to the U.S. Coast Guard by Russell Drumm – 2001
• The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson – 2008
• The Brendan Voyage: Across the Atlantic in a Leather Boat by Tim Severin – 1978
• The Brooklyn Navy Yard by John Bartelstone – 2009
• The Brooklyn Navy Yard – Images of America by Thomas F. Berner – 1999
• The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk – 1951
• The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks by Susan Casey – 2006
• The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, & the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic by Stan Ulanski – 2008
• The Hudson: A History by Tom Lewis – 2005
• The Last American Sailors: A Wild Ride in the Modern Merchant Marine by Michael R. Rawlins – 2003
• The Last Navigator: A Young Man, An Ancient Mariner, The Secrets of the Sea by Steve Thomas – 1997
• The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos and Crime by William Langewiesche – 2005
• The Power of the Sea: Tsunamis, Storm Surges, Rogue Waves and Our Quest to Predict Disasters by Bruce Parker – 2010
• The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail by Donald A. Petrie – 1999
• The Rescue of the Gale Runner: Death, Heroism And The U.S. Coast Guard by Dennis L. Noble – 2008
• The Riddle of the Compass: The Invention That changed the World by Amir Aczel – 2001
• The Sea – Day By Day by Philip Plisson – 2004
• The Serpent’s Coil by Farley Mowat – 1961
• The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks & Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey – 2010
• The Western River Steamboat by Adam I. Kane – 2004
• The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Frederick Stonehouse – 1976
• Torpedo Junction: The U-boat War off America’s East Coast by Homer Hickam – 1996
• Towboat on the Ohio by James E. Castro – 1995
• Towboat Terrorists by James P. Jones – 2002 ***Fiction***
• Tugboats of New York: An Illustrated History by George Matteson – 2005
• Tugboats On Puget Sound by Chuck Fowler – 2009
• Two Tankers Down: The Greatest Small-Boat Rescue in U.S. Coast Guard History by Robert Frump – 2008
• Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana – 1840
• Typhoon and Other Stories by Joseph Conrad – 1904
• Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee – 2006
• Under Tow: A History of Tugs and Towing by Donal M. Baird – 2004
• Until the Sea Shall Free Them: Life, Death & Survival in the Merchant Marine by Robert Frump – 2002
• U.S. Lifesaving Service: Heroes, Rescues & Architecture of the Early Coast Guard by Ralph Shanks & Wick York – 1996
• Waterfront Revolts: New York & London Dockworkers, 1946-1961 by Colin J. Davis – 2003
• Way’s Steam Towboat Directory by Frederick Way, Jr. & Joseph Rutter – 1990
• White Hurricane: A Great Lakes November Gale & America’s Deadliest Maritime Disaster by David G. Brown – 2004
• Who Really Invented The Steamboat? Fulton’s Clermont Coup by Jack L. Shagena – 2004
• Working On The Edge: Surviving in the World’s Most Dangerous Profession – King Crab Fishing on Alaska’s High Seas by Spike Walker – 1993

Maritime Booksellers

• American Nautical Services – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Bluewater Books & Charts – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
• Captain’s Nautical Supplies – Seattle, WA
• Celestaire Navigation Equipment – Wichita, KS
• Landfall Navigation – Stamford, CT
• Marine Education Textbooks – Houma, LA
• Maryland Nautical – Baltimore, MD
• The Nautical Mind – Toronto, OT
• New York Nautical – NYC
• Pilothouse Charts – Philadelphia, PA
• Schiffer Publishing – Atglen, PA

Maritime Book Publishers

• Cornell Maritime Press – Tidewater Publishers
• DOKMAR
• International Marine
• The Nautical Institute