Understanding Yacht Design

Publisher: Fernhurst Books 2003 £ 14.95

Ian Nicolson has spent much of his life writing about, designing and sailing boats,  building the 30 foot sloop “Sea Saint” and  sailing her back to the UK from Canada in 1955, and never looking back! His latest book distils much of his experience as a designer and builder into advice for the novice designer, concentrating on pencil and paper methods with a chapter on Computer Aided Design. The first chapter is entitled “Good looking craft” and this typifies Nicloson’s approach – in his words “it is so important to make beautiful designs”.

Much of the mathematics associated with design is replaced by tables or rules of thumb, and the book is copiously illustrated with line drawings.  Ian Nicolson’s practical approach guides the would-be designer through all stages of designing, and supervising the building of building a yacht, including a chapterr on making modifications to a n existing boat. 

There is a useful bibliography, necessary as the coverage of such a wide range of topics in 126 pages must at times be cursory. - CN

"© Cruising Association [2000] All rights reserved.
Use of this site is subject to our Terms and Conditions."

Page created 14 April 2003