Duncan Wilcock

duncan@wilcock.ca

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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Another Great Book: The Annapolis Book of Seamanship

This is probably the best how-to manual all about sailing that there is out there.

My dad was a great sailor - he used to race for his university when he was at Cambridge in the UK - and we used to do quite a bit of sailing when we were kids.  My mom tells me he bought this book for us back in 1985 or so, but sadly I don't remember seeing it.

Anyway - it's an excellent book.  Great diagrams and great text.  The kind of book you read once, go sailing, and then come back to read it again and again and pick up new details each time.

It covers topics from the absolute basics - naming all the parts of the boat - to hull types, to the aerodynamics of sails.  It caters to small dingy-type sailing as well as bigger sailing yachts.  Of course there are the knots you need to know, but also man-overboard drills, and how to set an anchor.  Invaluable, and just the book I wanted to read.  Thanks Pops!

I have the 1985 version, but there is an updated (1998) version on Amazon.