There are only really two kinds of readers: Those who are devoted fans of British seafaring novels, particularly novels set in the swashbuckling era of the Napoleonic wars, and those poor benighted souls who aren’t.

And for those who do love a good seafaring yarn, there are also two — and only two — classifications: Those who have been lucky enough to have stumbled on Julian Stockwin’s Thomas Kydd saga, and those who have yet to discover these treasures, which have delighted many a sailor, armchair and otherwise, since the turn of the century.

Tyger: A Kydd Sea Adventure is the 16th and newest book in that series — and by most accounts, it’s the best one yet, a gripping yarn about a self-made captain whose loyalty to a man he admires earns him the wrath of those higher-up — and causes him to be stuck with command of a down-at-heels frigate fresh from a bloody mutiny.

Naturally, as anyone familiar with this wigmaker-turned-nautical hero knows, Kydd not only shapes up the crew and turns things around — but leads them on some adventures they’ve never dreamed of — secret and otherwise — and enough non-stop battle action to fill more than one adventure movie:

“Every detail of the enemy frigate could be seen through the eddying powder-smoke: The frantically laboring figures behind the gun-ports, the sadly scarred scroll-work, and the glitter of blades as a boarding party readied.

Then her deck erupted in a lethal spray of splinters, scattering the assembled party on a welter of screams … it went on, but Kydd could see that the tide of war was shifting. Tyger’s skill at arms — her matchless rate of fire — was telling.”

You won’t fall asleep reading this book. Action and adventure is one thing, but Tyger, like Stockwin’s other Kydd books, has a genuinely authentic feel to it, and there’s a reason for that.

Julian Stockwin, 71, is a man of the modern era — but he really did go off to sea as a boy. Not impressed into service, as was the fictional Kydd and too many real young men to count.

Instead, he joined Her Majesty’s Navy entirely of his own accord. Stockwin, whose uncle was a seaman on the Cutty Sark, seems to have been born with saltwater on his veins. With his family’s permission, he went off to sea-training school at 14 and joined the Royal Navy at 15.

Later, in an odd twist, he transferred to the Royal Australian Navy, served eight years and became a petty officer. But he was a great deal more complex than your average swabbie; he later dove into far Eastern Studies and did post-graduate work in cross-cultural psychology; became a software and computer manufacturer designer, returned to the Royal Navy, became a lieutenant commander, and was awarded the prestigious MBE — Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

Having accomplished all that, what else was left but to become a novelist? Stockwin’s first novel, Kydd, appeared in 2001. A disciplined and prolific writer, he’s pumped out a book a year in the saga since then, with plus one extra in 2005 for good measure. (Not to mention an entirely separate novel, and a nonfiction work or two.)

While each book in the series can be read on its own, I think readers will benefit more if they begin with Kydd, when our hero, a young man without the slightest intention of going to sea, is grabbed by a press gang and forced into the British Navy.

But Tyger will, without a doubt, take your mind off that garage roof that needs to be fixed, your exasperation at the office, or that sinking feeling that ice and snow are on their way.

Be forewarned: If you are a strict landlubber who doesn’t know a mizzenmast from a remote control, this book is heavy on not only nautical terminology, but nautical terminology of the late 18th century.

Fortunately, the author provides a glossary at the end, plus a helpful and informative author’s note. My main criticism is that the glossary could have been more complete — and that both of these should be read before the reader plunges into Tyger, and the sea.

In an interview five years ago, Stockwin, who sports a white beard worthy of a sea-captain, reflected that “The sea has always had a special place in our psyche. Fashions come and go, but the sea has a timeless appeal.”

He added that his Kydd series seems to touch many readers because, while set two centuries ago, “It is in many ways a modern story — that of a man achieving against the odds and achieving greatness.”

Something, that is, which so many of us yearn to do.

Jack Lessenberry, the head of the journalism faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit, is The Blade’s ombudsman.

Contact him at omblade@aol.com.

First Published October 11, 2015, 4:00 a.m.