Publisher: Crowood Press, 1999 £ 18.99

An imposingly authoritative study of scantlings of all the materials you can call to mind (and several I couldn’t). The author is well qualified in his subject and takes us carefully through it from the basic knowledge (which we all think we possess) up to the dizzy heights of computer generated design.

For those fortunate few of us who have a say in the materials and specifications of our own boats, it is a necessity but for the rest of us it is an absorbing read, admirably written with plentiful notes and illustrations. I would like to have kept this book. –JFB

Page prepared 22 September 1999