Sail Trim Theory and Practice

Publisher: Adlard Coles Nautical 2005 £ 12.99

Sail trim clearly baffles sailors.  As a relative newcomer to sailing I have encountered skippers that even I know talk complete rubbish on the subject. There is really only one other book available* which I had to read to understand much of this one.

Mr  Hahne’s intentions are honourable - learn and understand the theory, and the practice will come much easier.  But the theory section is so dull, made worse by analogies that do not come from sailing.  Although a big effort is made to write accessibly for all, I am no idiot and still struggled.  The diagrams are not annotated well.

The practice section is a good read with much useful advice, but more diagrams would be a big help.  There are many excellent photos of yachts but often they do not illustrate particularly well what the captions say they do.  The downwind sailing section feels as if it has been hurriedly tacked on at the end.  I won’t be hoisting a spinnaker on the strength of this chapter.

Mr Hahne clearly knows his stuff, and a knowledgeable yachtsman will lap this up, but it is not he that needs this book. -  LL