Five books every wannabe should read.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by ttex

Two hundred dollars, folks. Yer killin me!

Is this the beginning of the end of my disposable income? Let's hope so.

Save money. Try the local library. Unless you're in a really small town it should have a lot of the books about boats and by cruisers. Mine has a copy of Chapmans to start.

Also www.gutenberg.com you can download free books.

Sailing Alone Around the World by Slocum is there. Another classic Two Years Before the Mast by Dana.

To read how others sailed and navigated several good ones have been mentioned. You might add any of the books by Eric and Susan Hiscock.

[Adelie]

BANG!!!
1] The One-Minute Guide to the Nautical Rules of the Road by Charlie Wing or A Small Boat Guide to the Rules of the Road by John Mellor

BANG!!!
2] Piloting and Dead Reckoning by Shufeldt, Dunlap & Bauer (better than anything else I've found)

BANG!!!
3] The Complete Sailor by David Seidman

BANG!!!
4] Cruising in Seraffyn by Lin Pardey or A World to the West by Maurice Cloughley

BANG!!!
5] Twenty Small Sailboats to Take you Anywhere by John Vigor (All the knockoffs of this book get into higher end boats, this is the one you want to start with)

Two books so you don't bump into things, an intro book, a book to drool at boats and one to show you what it can be like out there. Once you get a boat we can start talking about maintenance and other fun stuff like self-steering.

[Bill Seal]

Hurricane's Wake Ray Kauffman

How to party and debauch your way around the world

Unfortunately, those days came to an end about 75 years ago.
It's still a great yarn for daydreaming.

[Bill Seal]

Originally Posted by goat

Sailing for dummies. No, really.


goat

Looked like a good idea, until I came across this little gem:

"Most boats longer than 15 feet (5 meters) are meant

to be sailed with more than one person, and the average 30-foot (9-meter)

sailboat is best sailed with at least four crew members."

Guess we'll have to sell our toy and get a Capri 16.5

Seems the authors are only into speed. If I want to go fast, I'll go to the local dirt track and rent a Sprint Car for a couple of dozen laps or so.

My wife and I are into the "Golden Pond" age group, and if we end up sailing our little Formosa ketch "Jib & Jigger" all the way to Catalina, as long as we get there before dark, it's all good.

[chuckr]

I am amazed on the suggestions. ONLY 2 suggest a weather book. A couple on how to deal with bad wx but the idea is to avoid the bad weather in the first place.


Not always possible but come on folks in our opinion is weather 1st, weather 2nd, then Nigal on boat repair and maybe Leonard and Chapmans.


But if you can not do your own weather forecasting you can end up in a situation you would not want to be in.

[Phoenician]

I'd definitely include in the top 5:

"Sailing A Serious Ocean" by John Kretschmer

Very well written, and a perfect introduction for bluewater wannabees

[oldragbaggers]

You've had a lot of great suggestions for books already and the $$$ for your cart appears to be getting up there. I'll offer up a couple of additional suggestions that won't cost you anything.

1.) Go to the Boat U.S. website and sign up to take the FREE state boating safety course for your state.

2.) Go to the NauticEd site and take the two FREE courses offered for navigation and basic sail trim

[FamilyVan]

1) Incredible Voyage by Tristan Jones really captured my imagination.

2) Joshua Slocum has been mentioned by nearly every one.

3) God Forsaken Sea is a great storey about offshore racing.

4) I like Lord Jim by Conrad, but that may just be because I make my living on the Sea.

5) American Practical Navigator by Bowditch is a good text (including meteorology), but I don't know if I would "read" it.

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[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Adelie

Once you get a boat we can start talking about maintenance and other fun stuff like self-steering.

Good suggestions.

But the Letcher book has a tremendous amount of information about how a boat works, too. He needed to figure this stuff out before he "invented" his sheet to tiller steering system. It technical stuff written in an easy to understand format that is priceless.

I met a fellow earlier this week who has a new to him 23 foot boat. He was amazed to learn that he could eventually take this boat out by himself! All he needed to learn was "How It Works."

Maintenance = safety, in my book (pi!). This stuff is necessary after the first daysail.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by FamilyVan

5) American Practical Navigator by Bowditch is a good text (including meteorology), but I don't know if I would "read" it.

...

Yeah, I should have mentioned Bowditch. I have a FREE version on my Kindle and I am "reading" it but it sure is a tough slog. Course, I put it aside and went on to other books after wading through the GPS section. I swear you could build a GPS systems after reading that section.

Later,
Dan

[s/v Beth]

I would include Fasnet force 10 .

[monte]

Sailing around the world alone is a free audio book download. I don't like a lot of audio books because they can be hard to follow the characters, but this one is all narrative so it's pretty easy. I did fall asleep a lot listening to it but maybe in the car is a good idea.
I think most of the useful things I've learned about sailing have come from sailors biographies rather than technical manuals. Most of the inspiration and the mental attitude and the knowledge that what you know will get you through safely and that after every storm there will be calms. Imagining what Slocum or Taberly or any of the great sailors would do in a situation is often better and more comforting than falling back on technical manuals. Ok the seas are rough, it's blowing 50+, shorten sail and go below for a cuppa... Or handsteer for 40 hrs through a violent storm, or realise that certain areas and close to land require more attention than others.
I'm not saying technical type books aren't good, but mix them with a fair amount of biographical type books to learn some things outside the box and most importantly, keep the dream alive!

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Good suggestions.

But the Letcher book has a tremendous amount of information about how a boat works, too. He needed to figure this stuff out before he "invented" his sheet to tiller steering system. It technical stuff written in an easy to understand format that is priceless.

I met a fellow earlier this week who has a new to him 23 foot boat. He was amazed to learn that he could eventually take this boat out by himself! All he needed to learn was "How It Works."

Maintenance = safety, in my book (pi!). This stuff is necessary after the first daysail.

As somebody whose taught sailing for over 25 yr to a wide range of folks I learned how to get people past the first big learning hump to the point where their skills were good enough for them to maintain their own interest.

Letcher would be appropriate for someone with some experience already. One in a thousand newbies might get significant learning out of it. For a lot more it would be a discouragement.

Yes maintenance is safety but with rare exceptions you don't learn to maintain a car before learning to drive it.



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[Cheechako]

I assume you mean to learn to sail? Not necessarily all the peripheral stuff like maintenance and cruising.
I'd just google it and look at the reviews of the book on Amazon. But sailing for dummies is good.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

I would include Fasnet force 10 .

No, no, no. Never read that book or you will be scared out of your wits to ever leave the dock.