Further Offshore

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17272
Mapes, Ed
Book
9781574092530
Sheridan House
2008
342
1
D1
In Stock
Review Date: 
26/08/2010

Further OffshorePrice: £24.95

Further Offshore – and I quote from the flyleaf  - “describes all steps involved in becoming an accomplished offshore passage maker.” Comprehensive, it ranges from boat selection to making landfall, through fitting out, passage planning, navigating, weather, provisioning and maintenance. Taking just 250  pages (excluding appendices) it is concise - Nigel Calder's “Boatowner's Practical and Technical Cruising Manual” takes over 500 pages to cover similar ground.   For me however, the book was somewhat unsatisfactory. Undoubtedly the writer has both the experience and knowledge that gives him a reasonable claim to being an authority on his subject – he is for example, a licensed US Coast Guard Master – but his style is somewhat humourless and tends to the didactic e.g. “I recommend you buy the biggest boat you can afford and that you can physically handle with your intended crew”. For me this was the weakest area and other parts of the book were much better. The chapters on weather, voyage routing and anchoring were I thought good useful summaries of the basic principles involved and made for more interesting reading. Some of my difficulty may come from the conciseness -  some areas are very thinly covered, but also its very US bias. Ed Mapes is clearly writing for an American reader and one whose prior sailing experience seems to have required little in the way of passage making skills in tidal waters.  As a result there is much material that I would have expected a sailor in Europe to already have a good knowledge of and thus tends to feel a little redundant. Having said all this there is good stuff here  -  a topical section for example, on being boarded by the US Coastguard and there are some useful check lists in the appendices but overall I think there are probably better books for a European audience. Andrew Bonnett

 

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