The Complete Yachtmaster

Publisher: Adlard Coles Nautical,5th ed., £19.99
Publication Date: 2005

As one of Tom Cunliffe’s fans, I would have liked to have given him the kind of accolades which appear on the cover, such as ‘A gem, distilled from decades of experience.’ – Yachting Monthly or ‘Cunliffe’s competence and authority radiate from the pages … thoroughly recommended. – Little Ship Club’ But I can’t!

It was a shock to find a hero with feet of clay. I am unable to accept the careless errors appearing in a 5th edition. E.g, p103, re pencils ‘They should be the softest you can get because pencils of 2B format …’. 2B pencils are certainly the right ones to use but the ‘softest you can get’ would be 9B!

P 120 has another unforced error, where the standard barometric pressure is quoted as 1017mbs instead of 1013 mbs.

There is a lot of excellent advice but some of the opinions jar with my own research and experience. E.g, on ‘telltales’ (p 15). On a 35 foot yacht, Tom would place them about 6 inches from the luff whereas I would place them at least twice that distance.

On anchoring, 9 lines are devoted to the comparatively inefficient ‘Fisherman’ but only 7 to the CQR, 3 to the Danforth and none at all to the even better Delta or any of the other newer designs.

On windward strategy p 177, he sensibly defines a ‘tacking cone’ as 5 degrees either side of the ‘rhumb line’ to the destination! This would only be true if, as he does say, the destination was directly upwind. However, he omits to advise that the cone should be centred on the ‘wind line’. In other words the direction of the ‘sailing’ wind should be plotted from the destination and then 5 degree lines should be drawn to either side of that.

As someone brought up on Eric Hiscock’s excellent Cruising Under Sail I fear I found The Complete Yachtsman rather superficial and far from complete. However, it is up-to-date and includes good advice on electronic navigation aids and I would have to go along with Yachting World’s reviewer who described it as ‘An extremely clear and concise companion to the [RYA] course.’ - IG