Sailing Books - Page 6

Ultrasimple Boat Building

Gavin Atkin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Ultrasimple Boatbuilding Review 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

This book belongs on the shelf of anyone who is contemplating building their own boat. This book was a special treat for me because there is a picture of a boat I built in it.
The prospect of building a boat can be very overwhelming. It is a process of figuring out your needs and then deciding on an appropriate design. This is followed by determining if you have the tools, money, space, skill, and time to see a project go from a pile of wood to a pleasant afternoon sailing on a local lake with your family. If you are like me you begin this process by reading as much as you possibly can prior to actually creating sawdust.
Gavin Atkin's book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the "how" to build a boat. Although you may supplement this information with additional material from other sources, Atkin gives enough practical information to actually build a boat. Atkin makes building a boat for someone who has never done it seem very doable, even fun. The second part of the book is filled with designs to whet the appetite of anyone who
is in the process of trying to decide what would would be the right boat for them. Mr. Atkin includes complete plans for seventeen of his own designs, all very doable, plus he reviews designs done by other popular designers.
My boat recently succumbed to dry rot and was hauled to the dump. I am now in the process of deciding which is the "right" boat to build and Gavin Atkin's book, "Ultrasimple Boatbuilding", has renewed my interest in building my own boat again.

Editorial Review:

The first complete how-to guide for building the latest generation of quick and easy boats

In Ultrasimple Boatbuilding, renowned designer Gavin Atkin shows you how to create elegant, seaworthy plywood boats with a minimum of time, experience, and expense. Using clearly written and illustrated step-by-step instructions, Atkin explains the basics of stitch-and-glue construction, tools, materials, shop safety, and more, as he helps you choose and build the simple boat of your dreams.

Wanderer

Sterling Hayden

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

beauty and horror of the sea, reflecting a man's life 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Hayden was one of those force of nature types who, sadly don't exist in sufficient quantities to make the world a really interesting place. In this book, he tells his life story, while telling the story of his last voyage on the 100 foot schooner, Wanderer. His prose is lovely and has the rythm of the sea; like other great works of sea literature (like Moby Dick). I'll give a high point of his prose before I complain:

"What does a man need ---really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in --and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all --in the material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention from the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where then lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be, bankruptcy of purse of bankrutpcy of life?"

Hayden was a child of the depression who worked his way out of bad circumstances by a combination of stubbornness, physique and leadership skill. He is eventually given a job a an actor, after being spotted by the media during a sailboat race in Glocester. He abandons this due to a love affair with an actress who fancies herself concerned with serious social issues. He joins the war and does OSS/CIA type operations in maritime support of partisans in Yugoslavia. He returns to his acting. Makes many movies. Marries an evil shrew. Divorces. Gets the kids. Chucks it all for a trip to Tahiti in his 100 foot yacht. All this is well and good, but the man reveals too much about himself. His self loathing isn't interesting. It is certainly not edifying, and though he seems to abundantly pity himself, I cannot feel sorry for him. The man had many fine opportunities. He had fine charachter qualities; I admire the fact that he chucked it all, just because he didn't like it. But he was not a fine man: he was petty and ugly -he couldn't even treat his own widowed mother decently, and though his ex wife was probably no better, I rather doubt as being around such a tormented spirit was good for his kids. In that way, he is a tragic figure; all the more tragic because he doesn't seem to realize it himself. It is no suprise he never did much with himself after he wrote the book. I don't know this to be true, but I suspect he drown himself and his self-loathing in booze.

Still, it is a beautifully written book. In a way, the book is his triumph over it all. It is doubtless a finer thing than any of the movies he made, and his great "the heck with it all" dramatic gesture is probably better than any he made on camera. I know I will read the book again. Perhaps when I am older I will think differently of Captain Hayden. Amusingly, a visit to Sausalito revealed that I had known Hayden as the demented General Jack D. Ripper in "Dr. Strangelove."

Editorial Review:

Since its publication in 1963 Sterling Hayden's autobiography, Wanderer, has been surrounded by controversy. The author was at the peak of his earning power as a movie star when he suddenly quit. He walked out on Hollywood, walked out of a shattered marriage, defied the courts, and, broke and an outlaw, set sail with his four children in the schooner Wanderer-bound for the South Seas.

His attempt to escape launches this autobiography. It is the candid, sometimes painfully revealing confession of a man who scrutinized his every self-defeat and self-betrayal in the unblinking light of conscience. It is also the triumph of a complex and contradictory man, a rebel and a seeker, undefeated by his failure to find himself in love, adventure, drink, or escape to the South Seas.

The Sextant Handbook

Bruce Bauer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Loran and GPS notwithstanding, there will always be a place for the sextant aboard any blue-water boat, if for no other reason than the thrill and mystery of finding one's position on earth by gazing at the heavens. Here is the indispensable reference that should accompany the instrument aboard. Cmdr. Bruce Bauer, a professional navigator and master mariner with the U.S. Merchant Marine, has distilled years of hands-on experience into an eminently readable guide to buying, adjusting, using, and repairing sextants.

The Sextant Handbook is dedicated to the premise that electronic navigation devices, while too convenient to disregard, are too vulnerable to rely on exclusively. The book is designed to make beginner and expert alike conversant with this most beautiful and functional of the navigator's tools. Topics include:

• Assembly and Disassembly
• Vital Adjustments
• Avoiding Problems
• Rough Weather Sightings
• Oiling and Cleaning
• Immersion Baths
• Emergency Silvering
• Finding and Buying Used Sextants
• And Much More

You'll also find a list of distributors, manufacturers, and dealers worldwide, a discussion of future trends, and numerous helpful hints, including sighting with eyeglasses and using a Rude starfinder. All in a thoroughly revised edition of a book acclaimed by navigation professionals.

Virgin Anchorages

Simon Scott

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Helped us Charter the BVI's 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

We have chartered a boat the last two years in the British Virign Islands,this book was a great help when it came to visualizing the islands and where to find mooring balls. Others we have traveled with have also purchased the book.

Awesome guide 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

We just got back from our sailing trip to the Virgin Islands, and this book was a huge asset. I can read charts all day long, but it's just not the same as seeing the actual photo of the bay. I strongly recommend this to anyone planning a trip to the Virgin Islands.

Nice guide but needs an update 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Nice guide but the photographs definitely need an update. The colors and resolution are poor. Being almost 2008, with the cameras, technology, and prints availalble someone should seriously consider updating the quality of the guide.

Editorial Review:

This much requested book is an excellent companion to the Cruising Guide to the Virgin Islands. Featuring stunning, color, aerial photography, it captures 46 of the most popular anchorages in the Virgin islands. Graphic illustration overlays aid in navigation to show you where the reefs and rocks are and where you will find safe passage.

Devlin's Boatbuilding: How to Build Any Boat the Stitch-and-Glue Way

Samual Devlin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Few people have done more than Sam Devlin to popularize wooden boatbuilding. For the past 15 years he has been designing, building, and helping others build his fleet of small sail and power boats. Ranging in length from 7 to 40 feet--so graceful, pert, and purposeful they seem to have been born on the waves--these boats belie the fact that they are built from sheet plywood using wire stitches and epoxy glue. In other words, anyone can build them, and many have. A 1988 WoodenBoat magazine profile of Devlin garnered more than 1,800 inquiries for his boat plans, an unbelievable response to any article in any magazine. Sailboats like Nancy's China (costs less to build than the reported cost of one place setting of Nancy Reagan's china) and powerboats like Surf Scoter are familiar, much-appreciated sights these days. Devlin developed this guide to building boats--his or any other designer's--from the building instructions he supplies with his plans. It is a mature, shop- and ocean-tested manual, covering everything from sharpening the tools to launching the finished boat. There is also a gallery of Devlin's designs and a detailed appendix listing sources for tools and other materials.

The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst

Nicholas Tomalin, Ron Hall

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Deeply thought-provoking and disturbing tale of human nature 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

In 1968, a London newspaper, inspired by recent feats of daring in the world of sailing, sponsored a contest that offered a trophy and large cash prize to the first person to successfully complete a solo, non-stop and unaided circumnavigation of the globe in a sailboat. This book is the morbidly fascinating story of one of the participants, Donald Crowhurst, a talented amateur sailor and electronics entrepreneur, who announced that he would build the world's most technologically advanced boat, including a first-of-its-kind on-board computer of his own design, and take the prize.

While sailing buffs will like this book, the real meat of it is in the look at human nature that it provides. Like many entrepeneurs, Crowhurst was a bit of a blowhard who ended up departing just hours before the deadline in a boat that had never been tested and with which he was totally unfamiliar. Busy with race preparations, he never built, much less installed, the much-publicized computer. Feeling certain he could make up time as he became more familar with the craft, Crowhurst began to tell "little white lies" in his sporadic radio communications (remember, there was no GPS back then -- the yachtsmen were truly on their own).

As his problems with the boat mounted, Crowhurst conceived an elaborate hoax to make the world believe he was on track to complete the race, maybe even win it all. For months he sailed around the South Atlantic, alone and increasingly desperate, monitoring radio communications about weather and constructing a fake ship's log and fake documentation that showed his supposed progress day-by-day. In the spring of 1969, when Crowhurst reestablished radio contact with his agent and family back in Britain, he learned a shocking truth. He was the only yachtsman still in the race. With all the others out of it, he had become a national celebrity, and a huge welcome was planned.

At this point, the audacious hoax turned tragic. It appears from his journals that Crowhurst suffered a complete mental breakdown in the week that followed. It was too late to confess or backtrack on his claims without complete humiliation; yet as the winner and only man still in the race, he was sure to be exposed as a cheat. A few days after his last journal entry, Crowhurst's boat was found abandoned and drifting in the Atlantic by another ship. He had left all the evidence of his hoax neatly arranged for the world to find.

Crowhurst is an unsympathetic character to read about, but by the end it was hard not to feel compassion in spite of everything he did. This book is much more than a reconstruction of his mysterious death. The authors invite the reader to think about the deficiencies in the heart and soul that lead human beings to lie and scheme, in spite of the inevitable disastrous results. Why is it so hard for people to be honest? And why is it these very people who lie and scheme who often attempt great things, while the honest people sit on the sidelines?

Reviewer: Liz Clare, co-author of the historical novel "To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis and Clark"

Editorial Review:

The Sailor's Classics library introduces a new generation of readers to the best books ever written about small boats under sail

In the autumn of 1968, Donald Crowhurst set sail from England to participate in the first single-handed nonstop around-the-world sailboat race. Eight months later, his boat was found in the mid-Atlantic, intact but with no one on board. In this gripping reconstruction, journalists Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall tell the story of Crowhurst's ill-fated voyage.

Around the World Single-Handed: The Cruise of the "Islander" (Dover Books on Travel, Adventure)

Harry Pidgeon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

This book will make you long to go cruising! 5 out of 5 stars.
32 of 37 people found this review helpful.

This book is special to me as it opened my eyes to the reality that anyone with a true desire to see the world can make it a reality. It sparked in me a desire to 'go cruising' which I will be doing this summer when I leave on a trip to circumnavigate the world by sailboat. I was inspired by Harry Pigeons' account of his voyage aboard the 'Islander', and I think you will be too.

Interesting, quick read 3 out of 5 stars.
13 of 16 people found this review helpful.

While Harry Pidgeon's feat of sailing around the world is exceptional, and his writing style clear and concise, he offers few insights into sailing or his life. The book is fashioned after Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around The World:" Or equally as likely, Pidgeon and Slocum were two men of a like mind. In any event, both men portray that 19th century reserve so characteristic of the Englishmen. Such reserve in the face of near scrapes with death maybe admirable, but it does not make for as interesting reading.

Editorial Review:

Record of remarkable journey made between 1921 and 1925 by lone mariner in his 34-foot homemade boat. Lively narrative enhanced with 61 photographs tells of his circumnavigation of globe via Hawaii, Samoa, the New Hebrides and across the Indian Ocean to Africa and across the Atlantic to Panama and home.

Basic Keelboat (U.S. Sailing Certification)

Monk Henry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Used by the St. Petersburg Yacht Club 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This was a great book to learn from. It made the whole learning to sail process easy.

Great Illustrations, but feels incomplete 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The illustrations in this book really are outstanding; especially compared to the ASA Sailing Fundamentals book. However, the Sailing Fundamentals book is more complete when it comes to regulations and safety. I recommend using both books.

Nice primer 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a compact book with lots of diagrams. Makes for a nice complement to a beginner's keelboat sailing course. More detailed information can be found in the Colgates' "Fast Track to Cruising."

Nice intro to sailing 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Geared toward adult new sailors. Not a bad book at all...

Pefect Primer for the Beginning Sailor 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I purchased this book with the intention of using it as a study guide for SailNY course in Basic Keelboat. The book told me all of the basic information I needed to be ready to intelligently discuss and put into practice basic knowledge about the parts of a boat, the parts of a sail, points of sail, rigging, water safety and rules of the "road."

I recommend this book for any beginning sailor. I was learning on old olympic racing boats with a jib and a mainsail, which were very responsive, so if I could learn what I needed, this book should be appropriate for smaller, slower craft without a doubt.

Editorial Review:

Although sailing is an enjoyable passion, it is also a challenging and dangerous sport. Therefore, safety is of paramount importance. This book covers the skills you will need for safety at sea.

Sailing Alone Around The World

Captain Joshua Slocum

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Classic Sailing Story for All Time 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

It is awesome to read what Joshua Slocum did. His achievement should be celebrated forever. His writing style is not particularly good but the content of the story is unique. All crusing sailors should read this book. Slocum clearly was an outstanding navigator and all around sailor. The section of the book on his adventures going around Cape Horn dealing with the weather, currents, and natives is particularly exciting. This is a story waiting for a Hollywood movie or, even better, a long running TV series.

Editorial Review:

Full of astounding adventures, Sailing Alone around the World is the true story of the first man ever to circle the globe alone entirely by sea. In a little over three years, Captain Joshua Slocum completed the feat many experts believed couldn't be done—and he has the stories to prove it. During his historic voyage, Slocum was chased by pirates in Gibraltar, soaked by a "rain of blood" in Australia, and battered by perilous storms in the open ocean. He also met many famous—and infamous—people along the way, from Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa, to Black Pedro, "the worst murderer in Tierra del Fuego." This absorbing tale, written with humor and poetic eloquence, was first published in 1900 and has remained in print ever since.

Godforsaken Sea: The True Story of a Race Through the World's Most Dangerous Waters

Derek Lundy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The best book ever written about the terrifying business of single-handed sailing--. Lundy tells a harrowing tale, as tight and gripping as The Perfect Storm or Into Thin Air."--San Francisco Chronicle

A chilling account of the world's most dangerous sailing race, the Vendée Globe, Godforsaken Sea is at once a hair-raising adventure story, a graceful evocation of the sailing life, and a thoughtful meditation on danger and those who seek it.

This is the story of the 1996-1997 Vendée Globe, a solo sailing race that binds its competitors to just a few, cruelly simple rules: around the world from France by way of Antarctica, no help, no stopping, one boat, one sailor. The majority of the race takes place in the Southern Ocean, where icebergs and gale-force winds are a constant threat, and the waves build to almost unimaginable heights. As author Derek Lundy puts it: "try to visualize a never-ending series of five- or six-story buildings moving toward you at about forty miles an hour."

The experiences of the racers reveal the spirit of the men and women who push themselves to the limits of human endeavor--even if it means never returning home. You'll meet the gallant Brit who beats miles back through the worst seas to save a fellow racer, the sailing veteran who calmly smokes cigarette after cigarette as his boat capsizes, and the Canadian who, hours before he disappears forever, dispatches this message: "If you drag things out too long here, you're sure to come to grief."

Derek Lundy elevates the story of one race into an appreciation of those thrill-seekers who embody the most heroic and eccentric aspects of the human condition.