Books
Me and Leonardo..by Stuart da Bronx ~ Confident Powerboating ~ A Reef In Time
Confident Sailing ~ Shoreline East ~ Order Books
Here is an eclectic collection of stories; some true. There’s the sailor who while crossing the Atlantic with his teenaged daughter almost drowned trying to save a hitchhiking pigeon — and learned something about parenting.
And the sailor whose life was saved by getting bitten by her dog. Then there's the environmentally conscious sailor who abruptly resigned from “Save the Whales” — due to a very mischievous whale.
There are tales of strange happenings in southern Italian villages (to my Italian friends; they are fictional. I swear it) by an American who washed ashore in Italy some ten years ago and ecstatically keeps returning.
All these stories, even those bordering on fantasy, have an element of truth; and all are,
on some level, autobiographical.
Confident Powerboating: Mastering Skills and Avoiding Troubles Afloat (International Marine-RMP) Paperback – May 12, 2008
A practical how-to guide to handling and avoiding powerboat problems and emergencies
With no secondary method of propulsion, poorer stability profiles, and enough speed to get themselves into trouble fast, powerboats are far more susceptible to emergencies than sailboats. Confident Powerboating addresses your safety concerns, providing a detailed guide to avoiding problems, coping with difficult situations, and responding to emergencies effectively. Also, each section contains several anecdotes of problems encountered and resolved (or not).
A Reef in Time: Waypoints of a Most Unlikely Sailor
Stuart Reininger was born in Brooklyn and grew up in The Bronx--a high school dropout who had been in trouble with the law. He finished his schooling in the Air Force; learning, among other things, that he wasn't suited for the military. He then went to Chiropractic school and practiced three years as a chiropractor--which bored him to death. In spite of the fact that he looked cross-eyed upon any body of water larger than a duck pond and got seasick on the Staten Island Ferry, Reininger went to sea. Considering his past actions; why not? This time he stuck with it and became a professional sailor. On the way he made every mistake possible, some darn near fatal, others merely ridiculous. But he hung in there and after a rewarding career, well, 35 years later he's still sailing. A Reef in Time tells how he pulled it off.
Confident Sailing: Mastering Skills and Avoiding Trouble Afloat
Paperback – January 30, 2015
Did my subtitle grab you? A Survival Manual for the Coming Apocalypse: Really? Okay; I'm being facetious. How am I supposed to know if the apocalypse is coming, much less tell you how to survive it? However; if anything short of the proverbial "end of days" does arrive, those who are self-sufficient will be better off than the power-grid-dependent, supermarket and municipal services-addicted set. Living on a sailboat breeds survival skills. I'm not suggesting you move family and pets aboard Mom's Mink, lock and load and fight your way to sea. But if it became necessary to any degree up to and including the aforementioned; this book will make survival feasible. Somewhat short of 40-years-ago, I took my survivalist mentality and moved aboard a sailboat. Since then I've earned my living as a delivery captain and master of charter and commercial vessels--while continuing to live aboard and sail wherever I wished in whatever little sailboat I owned (and they've all been relatively small).What I learned was that survival isn't just the dramatic stuff--battling boarders and storms at sea--it's the basics. Things like maintaining your vessel so it stays afloat; dealing with emergencies; storm and anchoring tactics and getting on and off docks in adverse conditions. You need a stable, safe and reliable platform to repel those boarders if they were to come along--and that's what I address here.
It is 1980 and New York City is steamrolling towards a decade of unprecedented social and economic change. But Matthew Trekowski, (Trek), lives a peripheral life of detached despondency. He charters his decrepit sailing "yacht" the Ventura from a scruffy marina in Staten Island earning barely enough to keep self and home afloat. Trek and his symbiotic boat are hopelessly deteriorating when a deadly charter segues into opportunity-or so he thinks. Soon, Trek finds himself operating out of Pier 11 at the foot of Manhattan's Wall Street. His customers are well-heeled tourists-and a hard playing white-collar set who welcome a new venue for sex, cocaine and alcohol-fueled parties. Of perceived necessity, Trek becomes enmeshed in a criminal subculture, itself within the framework of a city and harbor shot through with corruption. Trek finds that his rational-the need of his own survival, conflicts with morals long forgotten. Trek needs to make choices-which, in the past have been disastrous.