The Atlantic Sailor’s Handbook

Price: £19.99

Well-illustrated with diagrams, plans and photographs, the title of this book is precise. Written for the cruising sailor with reasonable passage-making experience, the author provides practical advice on every aspect of planning and preparation for a first-time Atlantic crossing.  He deals thoroughly with such important matters as safety, communications, ocean weather systems, anchoring and security.  A large proportion of the text covers the various possible routes for crossing the Atlantic both ways with the salient features of each – the best time of year to start, the distance, average wind speed and direction, percentage chances of calms and gales, average set and drift, wave height and water temperature.  Very usefully, the percentage time for each passage spent beating, reaching and running is set out thus enabling a good assessment to be made of the optimum sail wardrobe.

For anyone contemplating crossing the ‘pond’ this is a very valuable compendium of all the aspects to be considered as well as practical solutions to potential problems.  Alastair Buchan’s motto which heads his introduction is one that we might all usefully follow whether or not we are attempting an Atlantic crossing: “Proper planning and preparation prevents pretty poor performance”.

-  Christine Holroyd