author
Thomas Fleming Day
1861–1927
Best known for bringing sailing to a wider audience, he mixed practical know-how with a lively enthusiasm for small-boat adventure. His books and magazine work helped shape how American readers learned about yachts, racing, and life on the water.
4 Audiobooks
Songs of Sea and Sail
by Thomas Fleming Day
On Yacht Sailing A Simple Treatise for Beginners upon the Art of Handling Small Yachts and Boats
by Thomas Fleming Day
Hints to Young Yacht Skippers
by Thomas Fleming Day
On Yachts and Yacht Handling
by Thomas Fleming Day
About the author
Born in England in 1861 and later active in the United States, Thomas Fleming Day was a sailor, sailboat designer, and boating writer whose name became closely tied to the growth of recreational yachting. He is especially remembered as the founding editor of The Rudder, a long-running magazine devoted to boats and sailing.
Day did not just write about the sea from a distance. He raced, designed boats, and earned a reputation as an energetic advocate for hands-on seamanship and small-craft cruising. Accounts of his career also note that he was the first winner of the New York to Bermuda race, which fits with the adventurous spirit seen throughout his work.
As an author, he wrote practical and approachable books such as On Yachts and Yacht Handling and On Yacht Sailing, along with other boating titles and fiction. He died in 1927, but his writing still offers a vivid look at early 20th-century sailing culture and the pleasure of learning a boat well.