Book Reviews

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A Sailor’s Scrapbook

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17273
Belton, Gordon
Book
Seafarer
2010
C17
In Stock
Review Date: 
05/02/2010
Cruising Review Date: 
03/2010

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

 

 

 

 


Complete Course CD - Yachtmaster /Day Skipper/Competent Crew.

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17277
Longbow Sail Training
DVD
CDR6085
Longbow Sail Training
2009
4
R1
On Loan
Review Date: 
05/02/2010
Cruising Review Date: 
03/2010

the Complete Course CDPrice: £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

 

 

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Sunset Breezer

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17024
Austen, Rosie
Paperback
1846670292
Tqwm Press
2009
295
1
L11
In Stock
Review Date: 
05/02/2010
Cruising Review Date: 
03/2010

Price: £8.50  Sunset Breezer

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

 

 

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Peyton: The World's Greatest Yachting Cartoonist

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17264
Dick Durham
Book
9781408124406
Adlard Coles
2009
168
1
M26
In Stock
Review Date: 
04/02/2010
Cruising Review Date: 
03/2010

Price: £16.99  The world's Greatest Yachting Cartoonist

We have been blessed by having some wonderful British cartoonists. I can remember as a young man being reasonably pleased to go to the dentist but only because they had the latest copies of Punch in the waiting room. Every Christmas we gave my father the Giles Annual and all the family enjoyed Giles rib-tickling cartoons with humour in every element. Like Peyton, Carl Giles was, of course, also an East Anglian sailor. The other great facility we have in the UK is the ability to laugh at ourselves. When I first saw Mike Peyton’s cartoons in the Practical Boat Owner in the 1960’s I was an instant convert. Every cartoon was a winner especially since I had done it, had it happen to me, or had seen it happen to my friends. The cartoons were cut out and stuck in the workshop and the loo.

            However, I had no idea of about the cartoonist himself until I read Dick Durham’s book which provides an excellent insight into the man, his family and his history. It is a biography that is well told and the pages are liberally sprinkled with some famous cartoons and colour photographs. The book pays particular attention to the early years of Mike Peyton’s life enhanced by many quotes from Mike’s long suffering wife Kath Peyton who is herself a well-known author of children’s books.

            The book is highly enjoyable but if I have one reservation it is the phrase in the book’s title “the worlds greatest” which seems more appropriate for a posturing pop-star or a footballer not a well-loved cartoonist. However, as I look back at some of the cartoons that have made me laugh so much; such as the wife asking the husband scraping the bottom of the boat, “How’s your bad back?” or the member of the crew hanging from the spinnaker pole being asked, ” What are you doing out there?”,  perhaps the phrase is appropriate after all.                                                                        

 

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Outboard Engines, Maintenance, Troubleshooting and Repair

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17096
Sherman, Ed
Book
Adlard Coles Nautical
160
C4
On Review
Review Date: 
27/01/2010

Outboard EnginesPrice: £18.99

Though not a large volume (around 150 pages) this is nonetheless a book for the serious mechanic rather than the wish-to-be-better-informed owner. Coverage of the subject is detailed with emphasis on advances in outboard motor design since the original edition of the book thirteen years ago and is widened to include associated matters such as electrics and steering systems. There are sections relating to specific manufacturers' products.

Though published by UK firm A & C Black the origin is the US and a flavour of that wonderful American lets-roll-up-our-sleeves-and-get-on-with-it approach to life can be seen in the book's style. Less usefully perhaps (for British readers), maintenance and servicing would appear to be related to American specifications for engines and for other products such as fuels and lubricants, rather than European ones.

Though the book is hardback, the internals are a bit basic with coarse non glossy paper and no colour, though photographs and diagrams are of a good standard within the limitations of the black and white format. Within these considerations the book can be recommended for those with a serious interest in outboard engines. - BMF

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Occupation Circumnavigator: Sailing around the World

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17211
Hassler, Lars
Book
9781408112014
Adlard Coles Nautical
2009
277
1
J2
In Stock
Review Date: 
03/01/2010

Price: £14.99

This fairly hefty tome - 277 A4 pages – describes the ten year circumnavigation by a Swedish ex-lawyer. The “hook” is that he bought a boat – a 50 ft. Beneteau Oceanis – so that he could take “paying crew”, some for quite considerable periods.

The first chapters concern various aspects of the voyage- its cost ($650,000), a bit on planning etc. – and through the Panama into the Pacific. The central section then describes his lengthy sojourn through the South Pacific islands, before eventually going down the coast of East Africa and back, via the Caribbean to Falmouth and thence back to Stockholm. While he inevitably has accidents and narrow escapes, this is the clearly the expanded log/ re-edited newspaper/ journal articles of a competent sailor. Each group of islands that he visits is given a brief historical, geographical and yachtie-relevant write-up, which adds interest. The tone is somewhat flat, factual, National Geographic, probably not helped by being in translation.

Hassler finished the Swedish version of this book in 1999, and the intervening years date it. While complaining how tourism is damaging the Pacific islands, he seems to have little awareness of the contradiction of his visit there in a 50 foot yacht with its complex maintenance needs, its 1200 mile range under motor, his desire to seek out “Newsweek” or “Times” and video films while in the Pacific; his customers’ ( “paying crew”) carbon footprints as they flew out from America or Sweden.

At the end of his ten years, Hassler had paid off the bank loan on his boat so that it was now his. The price was taking on customers and being in the right place to pick them and drop them off, and have these strangers and their demands on his boat most of the time. It seems a high price to pay and has constricted what he could and couldn’t do. However, if you want to think about exploring the South Pacific, or the concept of “paying crew”, this book may interest you. - Mike Bender

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Cruising Designs

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17204
Benford, Jay
Book
1888671009
Tiller
2009
1
C2
On Loan
Review Date: 
11/12/2009

This is the fourth edition of the designs of the group created by Jay Benford. It is often said that there has never been a designer who can design the interior as well as the exterior of a yacht. Obviously a statement that would be hotly disputed by the designers, however when one meets such an original and gifted man as Jay Benford, anyone interested in a cruising yacht will be fascinated in his ideas. Of course one way around the above statement is to have a team working on each design. He has.

Cruising Designs covers a vast number of different yachts, sail and power, from 17ft to 90ft divided into many groups, the names of which will not be familiar to every Englishman. The designs are certainly of the true comfortable cruiser rather than the more sporty types often popular for short distance cruising nowadays but the different ways that each problem is solved will be fascinating to all.

A little more care with the book’s presentation could impress more but the reference to the "previous sixteen pages" on the seventh page of type doesn't really detract from the examples of over 300 different plans.

One feels that every individual design is a really tried out functional craft that has been imaginatively created for a discerning yachtsman who knows what he wants and has enough experience of the sea to enjoy the individuality of his craft. It will give those who study the designs many hours of fascination. - RPY

Handling Storms at Sea

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17097
Roth, Hal
Book
9781408113486
Adlard Coles Nautical
2009
288
1
B61
In Stock
Review Date: 
03/12/2009

Handling Storms at SeaPrice: £19.99

The wealth of experience, which Hal Roth exhibits in his excellent book on the handling of sailing craft under extreme storm conditions, is used to describe how to survive in situations most recreational sailors would hope never to encounter.

However, his practical common sense solutions in dealing with the various aspects of heavy weather sailing in the great oceans of the world, gives us all some very useful pointers to our own boat handling, in one hopes, rather less extreme conditions. As wind conditions progressively increase, Hal details the most effective reefing methods as winds reach Force 6, heaving to in Force 7, lying a-hull in Force 8 and running off in a full gale. In the most severe conditions, he advocates the deployment of a sea anchor from the bows or preferably a drogue from the stern to slow the boat down and to keep it aligned with the wind, and explores the merits of the various drogue designs available.

As an alternative to heaving to, the practicalities of fore reaching under a reefed mainsail or a storm trysail are discussed, as well as the mechanics of hurricanes. Diagrams are used to illustrate where to locate a boat in respect to the eye, in order to have the best chance of survival, if caught in its path.

There are also some excellent chapters on the general planning of long passages and he closes with the reproduction of Admiral FitzRoy’s (of Beagle fame) 1858 paper entitled “Barometer and Weather Guide” which gives advice on the interpretation of barometric readings. This advice is still as sound today as it was then and is of particular relevance to all of us who sail for pleasure.

Hal Roth’s book provides a most interesting and informative read and reminds us all of the ever constant need for the careful planning of any cruise regardless of it’s length, if we are to avoid the risk of an encounter with the conditions he describes with such enthusiasm. - RWF

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Yachting: Start to finish

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17209
Pickthall, Barry
Book
9780470697528
Wiley Nautical
2009
207
1
D2
In Stock
Review Date: 
02/12/2009

 Start to FinishPrice: £14.99

Yet another book is published on choosing, buying, equipping and learning to sail a yacht. But this one is about “New Yachting”: plastics, marinas, satellite navigation……. Based on modern boats such as the Laser, Southerly 43 and a cruising catamaran, everything you need to know as a new owner is there between the covers: Plus something new even for experienced sailors.

Under the headings of basic principles, preparing to sail and first sail, ,tides and the weather, we are led through to the basics of navigation to safety at sea. This includes, for open keelboats and for offshore cruisers, useful checklists of safety equipment.

Superbly illustrated in colour throughout, this reviewer particularly welcomed the sections on knots, ropes and running rigging; the correct use of cleats and winches and the stowage of halyards to avoid a tangle in the cockpit. Good value - JFP

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How to Sail on a Budget

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17196
Buchan, Alastair
Book
9780713688894
Sailmate
2009
140
1
D23
In Stock
Review Date: 
24/11/2009

How to sail on a budgetPrice: £11.99

We have all spent time leafing through sailing magazines looking longingly at boats and equipment that in reality we cannot afford. Sailing as a pastime, however, comes with a large price tag and in the present stringent times those dreams of boat ownership can fade away but hope is at hand in Alistair Buchan’s excellent handbook. Condensed into 138 pages is a wealth of information on all aspects of sailing on a realistic budget. It is aimed mainly at those who are starting out but contains much that is of practical use to the established sailor.

He guides us through the decision-making process in choosing the kind of sailing you are aiming for, acquiring the right boat whether it be new, second-hand, DIY or a refitting job and where you might find it. There are useful hints too on doing your own surveying with a comprehensive checklist for both above and below deck including the engine. Only then can you decide on which boat is worth a professional survey! The whole process clearly demands considerable investment of time and effort but can be rewarded by considerable saving on costs.

The author follows through to berthing and mooring expenses, maintenance, annual refits, sources of personal gear and even shoestring cruising strategies. He has thought of everything you need to know based on his 50 years of cruising experience. All you have to do is get out there, start your search and realise that dream for next season not forgetting to take Alistair Buchan along with you. - Patricia Cooper

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