Tom Cunliffe
Encyclopedia
Biography
Cunliffe learnt how to sail in a 22ft gaff sloop as a teenager on the Norfolk Broads. After nearly being killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 19 he read Law at university, but chose not to enter the profession. Instead he worked as Mate on a coasting merchant vessel before chartering and delivering yachts. He has been a sailing tutor for 35 years, at one point running his own sailing school in the south of France, and has been a qualified YachtmasterYachtmaster
A Yachtmaster qualification is a certificate of competence of the ability to handle either a sailing boat or motor boat in certain prescribed conditions...
examiner since 1978.
Career as journalist, author and broadcaster
Cunliffe has been a regular contributor to Yachting Monthly, Yachting World and SAIL magazine for many years.A professional writer since 1986, Cunliffe has won the Best Book of the Sea award twice, for Topsail and Battleaxe and Hand, Reef and Steer.
In 2010 he presented the award-winning six-part BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary series, The Boats that Built Britain.
Selected bibliography
- Sailing, Yachts and Yarns, 2011, John Wiley & Sons
- The Complete Yachtmaster (7th edition), 2010, Adlard Coles NauticalAdlard Coles NauticalAdlard Coles Nautical is the largest nautical publisher in the world, with over 300 books in print and publishing 40 new titles every year.The company publishes books on topics of interest to sailors and motorboaters and also ‘landlubbers’ with an interest in the sea...
- Yachting Monthly 200 Skipper’s Tips, 2010, John Wiley & Sons
- The Complete Day Skipper (3rd edition), 2009, Adlard Coles NauticalAdlard Coles NauticalAdlard Coles Nautical is the largest nautical publisher in the world, with over 300 books in print and publishing 40 new titles every year.The company publishes books on topics of interest to sailors and motorboaters and also ‘landlubbers’ with an interest in the sea...
- Good Vibrations: Coast to Coast by Harley, 2000, Summersdale
- Hand, Reef and Steer, 1992, Thomas Reed Publications
- Topsail and Battleaxe, 1988, David & Charles