Sailing: A Beginner's Guide takes the reader step by step from his or her first sail to an almost intuitive mastery of small boat handling. The delightful drawings combined with the author's appealing writing style successfully explain topics in manageable double page spreads. The book unravels the mysteries of reading the wind, guides the reader through his or her first tenuous steps aboard, and then beyond to navigation, safety, seamanship and even trailering, conveying the magic as well as the nuts and bolts of sailing. It is a gentle introduction for those who are just starting out, and will provide many evocative images for those who already sail. It's all here, more successfully captured then ever before in one book. Inspirational for novice and old hand alike. 'An excellent introduction...a remarkable work' Practical Boat Owner 'Streets ahead of the rest...highly recommended for beginners of all ages' Guernsey Press
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Review
'The delightful drawings and appealing writing style successfully explain topics in manageable double page spreads. Inspirational for novice and old hand alike.' Yachting Life (May 2007)
About the Author
David Seidman went to sea at the age of nine in a wooden cement-mixing trough with a sheet for a sail and a broom handle as a mast, and has never really returned. He has sailed up the Amazon, down the Yangtze, and around the Caribbean. Formerly an advertising copywriter and creative director, he is now a writer, columnist and editor for boating magazines in Britain and the USA.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I am new to sailing and I want to learn as much about sailing as I can in a way that I can remember as easily as possible. I feel that you are a much better new crewmember, if you understand beforehand what you are doing on a boat rather than doing it because the skipper or other crew told you to do it.
This book is by far and away the best introduction to sailing boats of all sizes that I have found. It was originally an American book, and the English edition is only partially anglicised, but do not let that put you off it. I found it an informative but natural introduction to all of the main sailing topics. You will either love or hate the illustrations; that is a matter of taste but the text is very well written and the approach is much better than the mechanical/technical approach used in so many other books. It also brings you to a higher level of understanding of these topics than most other books with a lot less effort required to gain that understanding.
It is also unusual in that it sets modern sailing boats in the context of their historical development and explains clearly how each historical improvement boosted the performance of sailing ships and how sailing boat development is still progressing.
Unlike many other books which cater only for either dinghies or yachts, this book take a more holistic approach catering for sailing boats of all sizes and complexities, but does tend to yachting towards the end when it starts considering more advanced topics such as tides and navigation.
As a single book introduction to sailing, I think it cannot be bettered.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having booked my first ever sailing lesson and looked through lots of 'Beginners guides' I bought a copy of this book. I think it's a really brilliant book. There's no space-filler fluff in it - each section gives you practical instructions on how to handle a boat in all sorts of situations, what the jargon means, etc. There's a lot of material in the book, and it's all written in a very accessible style. I've now been sailing once and I'm glad I read this book beforehand. I'm now going to go back and re-read it to consolidate what I've learned on the water.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I spent one week as a child sailing a dinghy on Oulton Broad with my older brother, after devouring Swallows and Amazons. I then did a one-day sail on the broads day boat with my family ten years ago - with reasonable success. However to follow this with a week's sailing cruise with my rather trepid but very game wife last year, I felt a refresher would be needed. This book hit the spot. We took a 27 ft. cruise boat out for a 2 hour pre-holiday lesson with an instructor, who declared after 15 minutes "The skipper knows what he is doing so I can let you get on with it"
Thanks David for setting us up for a great week!
Thanks David for setting us up for a great week!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent beginners book
i have just bought a yacht having never sailed, i have found this book very helpful, easy to read, and also inspiring! Read more
Published 16 months ago by bodland
2.0 out of 5 stars
Great value
Great condition and great value, will order with Amazon again, I saved a mint, thanks!!
Published on 16 Feb 2009 by John H. Riley
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