RYA Weather Handbook

Publisher: The Royal Yachting Association, 2003 £ 10.99

Teachers know that presentation and style can be vital in generating interest in complex subjects.  Chris Tibbs certainly does.   His new Handbook is illustrated with brilliant cartoons, clear diagrams, and stunning photographs.  It is also informative without being boring.

To give a simple example of how good presentation can work: one cartoon shows at a glance why one can be becalmed in the Doldrums.  It barely needs further explanation.   Presentation is not its only merit.  The Handbook is endorsed by the RYA's Chief Examiner as covering a skipper's weather requirements up to Yachtmaster Ocean standard.  It gives some meteorology for the beginner; explains synoptic weather charts and how local sailing conditions might be extracted from them; gives advice on recognising and using offshore and onshore breezes as the day progresses; describes such hazards as gusts, squalls, thunderstorms, and fog; lists the various wonderful winds that blow around the world; and gives a guide to the new
technologies (including the addresses of a few web sites) now becoming generally available.  Globetrotters' needs have not been forgotten, and there is a chapter on the ways this information might be affected in the Southern Hemisphere. 

This examiner gives it 10/10! - DWB

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