Not until a year ago did I see the manuscript, yellowed and frayed, that had been forgotten in Dick Langford’s office for 30 years. I cried when I read it then and cried again recently when I tu...
I really appreciated the merits of this book when I didn’t have it during a recent trip to the Caribbean. The Sequel has nothing to do with gentlemen and/or sailing to weather. It is, however, ...
When Creative Ropecraft was first published in 1975, there was limited written material on the subject. During the next 25 years, an awareness of the possibilities for intricate, but functional, ropew...
There used to be a bumper sticker, popular in marinas, that said “Old Sailors Never Die, They Just Go a Little Dinghy.” The premise of this book is that they should go cruising offshore. T...
Theresa Fort, a homeschooling mother, and her children, Amy and Alex, the “homeschoolees,” have assembled a delightful boating-activity book for families who enjoy being together on the wa...
Olin Stephens is a brilliant and largely self-educated designer who nevertheless became one of the past century’s most distinguished and revered naval architects. In 1927, at the age of 19, with...
Chesapeake Bay, known to locals as “the land of pleasant living,” has been a major yachting center for well over a century. Its yachting history, which is actually a record of the Bay̵...
I was introduced to celestial navigation, in part, by Hewitt Schlereth’s earlier book Commonsense Celestial Navigation, now out of print. I was, therefore, eager but somewhat intimidated by the ...
Never spend more than 30 seconds fighting a fire. If the fire can’t be extinguished, get everyone off the boat.” This tip from the new book, The Best Tips from Women Aboard, hit me like a ...
Attitude is the only difference between an ordeal and an adventure. That’s the adage Bob Bitchin lives by as he ventures across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in his 1981 Formosa 56, the Lost S...
There are two types of knot people: those who use knots and those who hate to. I’ve been a user for 44 years because I’ve been sailing for 44 years. I’ve become very comfortable with...
I love skinny little books. They are usually thought-provoking and insightful, with the basic premise not lost and buried under a barge-load of non-informative words. Happily, this one is no exception...
She was the sinking ship of all sinking ships: born sinking; the only sailing sieve on this or any other coast; a romantic but impossible craft.” The Boat That Wouldn’t Sink chronicles the...
This book is not just about maintaining a boat. To quote the author, “This book departs from the limited scope of similar books in that the author’s definition of boat maintenance includes...
SECOND IN A SERIES, BY PAT AND PAUL ESTERLE (CAP’N PAULEY VIDEO PRODUCTIONS, 2000; 22 MINUTES; $19.95 PLUS $3.50 SHIPPING AND HANDLING) VIDEO REVIEWED BY BILL DIMMITT, We’ve all been there...
Force 10: Wind speed 48 to 55 knots. Very high waves with long overhanging crests. The resulting foam in great patches is blown in dense white streaks along the direction of the wind. The whole surfac...
In the 7,000 years or so since humankind first discovered the joys of “messing about in boats” (in that immortal phrase from The Wind in the Willows), many lessons have been learned to inc...
As sailors to whom the thought of living on a boat is about as appealing as living in a dark and musty cave, we were wary of this latest guide to living aboard, assuming it would be yet another book t...
On a sunny Fourth of July, six high-school students and their instructor join author Randall Peffer aboard the schooner Sarah Abbott for the first of three cruises on Buzzards Bay. The students are pa...
Ever reach for a chart only to realize you left it at the pier? Had to go back to get it, which made you late and ruined your whole day? Captain Clay Kelley has checklists to keep that kind of thing f...
Cruising is often defined as “doing boat maintenance in exotic places.” If you’re planning to sail to Spanish-speaking countries in South America and the Caribbean, there is a new bo...
Time, speed and distance. Much of navigation starts with these basics, and Captain Jack starts with them, too. This book (really two, or maybe three, books in one) presents navigation in an easy-to-re...
Red sky at night, sailors’ delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. This little ditty is pretty useful, and the author of Marine Weather Forecasting knows it also; it’s short...
When we go to sea in good old boats, we go to enjoy the romance of sailing. In the preface to The Annapolis Book of Seamanship, John Rousmaniere says that to enjoy the romance fully, we must have R...
If I had to come up with an alternate title for this book, the only one that could do it justice would be Zen and the Art of Sailboat Maintenance. It has all the same elements: an epic journey, intell...
This is not your typical how-to book, as the title may suggest. While there is a well-presented discussion about rigging your canoe for sail, the author takes the reader on a brief romp through the hi...
Hal Roth is perhaps best described as an adventurer — but not the foolhardy type. Hal is also a storyteller extraordinaire. Fortunately for him and his wife, Margaret, who has supported his many...
Break. Break. Break. Staccato, rushed and emphatic, the words punched across the airwaves . . . “My wife’s gone . . . I was off watch and just got up . . . I don’t know what happened...
As a child growing up in Maine, one of my early memories was seeing the immense J-class boat, Ranger, sailing on Casco Bay. Gary Jobson’s annotated treatment of newly recovered photographs of Am...
In 1991, when Details of Classic Boat Construction first appeared (published by W.W. Norton), I rushed to get a copy. I wasn’t disappointed. Larry Pardey and his wife, Lin, built their cutter, S...
