American author Jack London, best known for his fiction writing set during the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1800s, was also an avid sailor. “Small-Boat Sailing,” was published in 1917 in The Human Drift, a collection of short stories and essays. London recounts his time at sea, including travels on fishing schooners and coal ships but mostly on small sailboats on San Francisco Bay. His description of the hard work, excitement, and thrill of handling a small boat in trouble on the water will be exhilarating to anyone who’s experienced it — or only wished they had. This short work is part of Applewood’s “American Roots,” series, tactile mementoes of American passions by some of America’s most famous writers.