Book Reviews

Price: £8.99 

Having often read the topical series of articles ‘A Question of Seamanship’ in Yachting Monthly over the last 20 odd years I found this slim handy volume ‘What Now Skipper?’ which is based on that series, to be both a challenging and informative training aid.  

Bill Anderson, ex- Royal Navy and a former RYA Training  Manager and Chris Beeson an experienced offshore yachtsman, working for Yachting Monthly, describe in some detail 37 sailing situations. They are designed to test seamanship, navigation and captaincy skills.  Collision avoidance with fast ferries, survival techniques in storms and dealing with a decision to abandon ship are some of the more difficult situations described. Others concern weather, passage making and even mooring problems.  Challenged to give your own solution you are then supplied with a reasoned alternative or suggestions that might suit your particular craft.  

A variety of diagrams and photographs are included which make the circumstances described more realistic but are in some cases a little too small to be fully appreciated.  Decreasing the size of some of the large general sailing pictures which do not convey a particular message would perhaps free up the necessary space for enlarging essential diagrams or even inserting a relevant chart. Readers should also remember to insert ‘Jersey’ for ‘Guernsey’ in one very compelling ` account about safe water and GPS failure!  

This book would be useful to most yachtsmen in that it offers guidance and reminders while giving forthright direction to the inexperienced or the foolhardy.

Vic Stephens

Just picking up this book tells one to expect something different - and so it proved!

“A Sailor’s Scrapbook” is three books in one: The log of the 4 masted barque “Lawhill” from 1943 to 1948 (with a short section on “Passat”); the life history of the vessel including an insight into the ownership and management of such vessels - clearly the result of in-depth research and fascinating to learn; whilst the major content is a description of life aboard during those especially troubled years. The black and white photography is exceptional and forms the backbone of the book.

Gordon Belton was a young Able Seaman whose account of life before the mast is beautifully written and is based on day-to-day accounts of several voyages. His description of the joys, horrors and minutiae of life aboard is written by a true seaman who has the rare ability to graphically communicate to the reader his inner feelings as well as what he sees with his eyes and camera.

Whilst a very specialist subject and far from “our” sort of sailing, anyone interested in the sea – from sitting looking at it to those who plough their own furrows – cannot but enjoy and benefit from this story of the very last days of commercial sail. This reader soon found himself sharing that experience, the ending proving particularly poignant. - MG

Price: £49.95

(Members receive 10% off when ordering direct from the publisher.)

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A laptop is an excellent learning aid, and you will not be disappointed by using this CD course from Competent Crew level right though to Yachtmaster.  It is full of useful, clearly written, well illustrated, relevant information and exercises which not only make a really good accompaniment to theory classes which was the intention of the authors, but which also serves as a useful self-teaching course.  Particularly likeable are the animated pictures and diagrams which move one frame at a time on demand giving the student time to absorb each frame separately.  In the accompanying text any term highlighted in blue pops up with its own glossary explanation at the click of a mouse if required.  The course also has an excellent bookmark system which is an easy way of settling back to where you had previously left off, and simple access to the contents from each page makes it easy to use the course as a revision tool. 

The inversion of centre of gravity and centre of buoyancy at the beginning of the stability chapter and some rather outdated photographs discredit the overall content which is generally good.  Unfortunately, the chapter on meteorology has rather poor animations and is difficult to follow in places as it seems to be back to front, starting with not very well-defined cloud formations, and finishing with the weather maps.  Too many different flashing buoy lights on one page make it difficult to interpret individual flashing patterns, and it would be helpful also to portray them alpha numerically.  Similarly, it would have been good to show each individual craft on its own page and animate it through its lights, shapes and fog signals in sound, written dots and dashes and words.

 The navigational chapters are well laid out and clearly explained, and the sections on electronic aids (apart from the omission of AIS), passage planning, and running a yacht are all excellent.  However, access to the glossary information via an index would have been a useful improvement.

This is the best navigation course that I have seen on CD to date, and it is better than many books. The fact that it is available to CA members at a discount, is well worth remembering and if it is successful in financing the authors in their new boat, they jolly well deserve it.              Peter Flower

Price: £8.50 

Rosie Evitt, writing under the nom de plume Rosie Austen, has written a novel stimulated by a four year cruise round the Caribbean. She was a member of the Cruising Association for fourteen years and did some of her research for this cruise in the library in CA House. The beginning of the book describes the Basin at Limehouse, the canal, the refurbished warehouses the new apartment blocks and the marina which was the base for Rosie and her partner whilst making plans for the trip. It is a good advertisement for the Cruising Association.

The book hinges on a Talisman created by a Russian girl whose ambitions have been thwarted by an accident. The holders of the Talisman have to email the Russian girl with photographs and narrative of their travels. These travels are related as a quick ‘Lonely Planet’-style guide of the regions visited. The reader is given a flavour of life on a yacht - learning about the history and geography of places, visiting tourist attractions and harbours, tasting the local wine and food. There is plenty of social interaction, cruising in company and meeting the same people doing a similar circuit.

If you want a light beach read with a smattering of sex that you can put down and pick up later then this is a book for you.                                  LG