Boating Books

I have been a sailng instructor at a university for over 6 years and all my students have told me they found this book to be the best on our sailing library. The photographs are exceptional and break down sailing concepts into time series photos that help people to really understand concepts in a way most text descriptions or one photo simply cannot. If you want to become a better sailor or are looking to learn how to sail this is the best book to get. It goes far beyond the "wind blows the sails and pushes the boat" description of sailing but in a way that is very easy to understand and replicate. Uses 470 , laser , and j/22 as primary example boats. As such it is a great book for people interested in racing or a more sophisticated knowledge of sailing in an easy to understand format, it is a shame this book is no longer published. The photos will blow you away.

This is one of the best books on general sailing that I have ever read. It comes in second only to 'Sailing For Dummies' and that is just by a very slim margin. I have both books in my sailing library and between them, I have more than enough reference material to cover almost any sailing situation. This book should satisfy both beginning and experienced sailors alike. Good job...

I've sailed dinghies over the years, and I've always been able to get from point A to point B, but not always in great style, particularly in heavy wind. This book and DVD explain quite well the precise choreography of dinghy sailing.

If you or your child have the benefit of a strong structured sailing program run by an experienced teacher or coach, then you can probably skip this book. On the other hand, if you're holding the main sheet with your teeth, fumbling the tiller extension and generally making up your technique as you go, then you could benefit a lot from this book and DVD.

The DVD is short, about a half an hour. But it covers a lot of ground. The DVD section on capsize recovery is, alone, worth the price.

Along with this book and DVD, I can also strongly recommend the free materials at the MIT sailing website. Just google MIT sailing and find the free video lessons and the excellent Tech Dinghy sailing manual pdf at that site.

Another excellent site to view in conjunction with the DVD from this book is the t2p.tv website. Go to the programming guide and download some of the college sailing regattas. You'll see the best college sailors in the country using the techniques shown on the DVD and get a good feel for the rhythm of the movements used in racing situations in various degrees of wind.

If you're already an experienced dinghy racer then you will already be familiar with the techniques shown in this combo set.

This is primarily a social history of the sport and pastime of yachting, giving us a picture of the colorful personalities who created the emblematic myth of the "yacht" from the English aristocracy of the 18th century through the American millionaires of the Gilded Age. Rousmaniere is no snob, but he grasps the essential fact that racing disposable fiberglass dinghies owned by corporations and piloted by working-class mercenaries is not "yachting", that the word once connected to a view of life and wealth that is no longer with us and needs to be explained. The biographies are well done and sympathetic to all their subjects, the illustrations are lavish and beautiful, and the contents form a near-perfect complement to Douglas Phillips-Birt's 1974 "History of Yachting", which is written from the point of view of a naval engineer looking at the development of the yacht as a vessel type. The last few chapters of the book trace the devolution of "yachting" into a mere sporting exercise, culminating in the loss of America's Cup by millionaire-racers Turner and Connor to corporate syndicates which can be said, like the Sack of Rome, to mark the end of "Yachting" as an idea.

Based on a whim and a review in Chesapeake Bay Magazine, I read Karl Stambaugh's "Good Skiffs" last winter. Remarkably, I now have found the serious hobby I always wanted but never knew where to find.

"Good Skiffs" opens with a nice discussion of flat-bottomed boat history and lore, but it's really the chapters on skiff design and construction that start drawing the reader in. The author, a naval architect and designer, writes in an engaging fashion and readily shares his passion for the challenges and joys of designing, building and owning these small craft. The book includes pictures and information on more than a dozen designs, some of which are the author's. Stambaugh's accompanying commentary is genuinely enthusiastic and insightful.

The book concludes with a step-by-step guide for the construction of Stambaugh's 9 foot Weekend Dinghy. I built it last spring from a kit and used the book as a supplement. I'm now working on a 14 foot outboard skiff, also the author's design. What more can I say?

Having been the Captain of a pleasure boat the last 16 years, I found the information contained in Guest Afloat a big help not only to me and my crew, but also to our guests. All too often, my wife and I have invited guests aboard only to realize that our friends have little or no knowledge of what to expect during the voyage. By reading Guest Afoat our friends are introduced to the essentials of cruising so that their apprehension of getting involved in the day to day routine is avoided. The book contains information for both the guest and crew, and I have found many points that I have forgotten over the years. The book is well written and well illustrated and I found the material informative and entertaining. This book should a be "must" for every boats required equipment list.

These annual guides published by Chesapeake Bay Magazine are really nice. The guide includes a lot of detailed information about the various ports including marinas and restaurants. Also includes sections of maps for each area. The spiral binding makes the book easy to handle and use.

Excelent book for the navigator as well as being a first rate cruising guide.

"the guide to wooden boats" is a great little book-- it sets out by photographic example to show the novice sailor or the experienced yachtsman-the differences between the various types of sailing yachts-- ben has taken some the finest photographs of wooden sailboats- his photos are simple and elegant--shot with either early morning or late afternoon light --and never retouched in the lab--ben's photos show us the living legends of yachting--from around the world--this book will also settle the ageless arguments about the differences between yawls and ketches--donald tofias

(W)e thought somebody ought to turn out a tome that talked about all of the spots in the San Juans - even the crummy little ones that you wouldn't be found dead on. So, we started at Cattle Pass and did round robins of the major islands and clusters. We took about a million pictures that looked great when we were standing on the bow of the boat, but are just blobs of beach and water in a photograph. But, every once in a while we would come up with one that showed something that a boater might find worthwhile.

As we cruised around, we located every little bight and bay and rock that had a name and made an effort to say something about it. We found ourselves describing rocks that even the gulls didn't favor. But we hung in there. As a result, there is more information about more totally blah hunks of water and real estate than your patience will be able to bear. After we wrote it all up, we went over it again and again and again - and we kept finding things we had overlooked. The publisher finally howled, "Never mind if it isn't gospel! Get the darned thing finished! If we print a second edition, we will make corrections."
--- except from book's Preface