Absolute beginner books for Ausssies?

[Luan]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the great replies! Currently in Darwin and the only books they had at the local bookstore today was either SFD (which I quickly flicked through) and International Marine Book of Sailing by Robby Robinson (which I ended up buying), as well as one other small book.

Going back down south soon and will certainly look up those other books and buy a few more.

Further question: I can't seem to find a good website about sailing. Does one exist?

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Chief Engineer

SFD is a good starter book. It is sometimes daunting for a new person to sailing to deal with the arcane knowledge and verbose writing.

Some writers are too full of themselves and try to make it seem to mysterious.

1. The Pointy End Goes First
2. The Sailboat wants to stay upright
3. A good one will always want to go into the wind
4 "Tiller Towards Trouble" (That takes some 'splaining)
5 Wind is free

I would add only this.

The sailboat will go any direction except into the wind.

6 Sail 45's to go upwind


We launch our dinghy kids with these 4 commands:

1 Push rudder
2 Pull rudder
3 Sheet in
4 Sheet out

We had 12 first time sailors out in 25 minutes last December.