Product Description

Between these covers is the essence of centuries of seafaring experience, distilled into a concise, alphabetically organized reference for sailors and powerboaters. You'll find rules of thumb for hull thickness, bottom paint coverage, estimating distances, when to hoist and lower flags, predicting weather, which colors are unlucky, rope size and strength, anchoring rights, making a rum punch, and a lot more. This is either the most useful boating book ever designed to entertain or the most entertaining book ever designed to be useful. Open it to any page and browse awhile. You'll see.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44062 in Books
• Published on: 1994-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
"Opening [this book] is... like opening a can of salty nuts. I can't resist just a little more before putting it away." -- Dockside

"Some of the stuff in this 242-page volume is useful... all of it is snake-eye fascinating." -- Boating

"Vigor successfully combines fun and function in a dictionary-style resource that is eminently readable... [It] is tough to put down." -- Lakeland Boating

Review
``Some of the stuff in this 242-page volume is useful. . .all of it is snake-eye fascinating.'' (Boating )

About the Author
John Vigor (Bellingham, WA), a journalist for 35 years and former managing editor of Sea Magazine, has sailed more than 15,000 ocean miles. He is the author of The Practical Mariner’s Book of Knowledge (IM, 1994).

Customer Reviews

best advice i've had in along time
having already read this book , I found it was filled with wisdom from the introduction to the very end , being on the water a lot for a living myself this book pointed out some of the more obvious rules of thumb that apply too mariners. And some very good ones i'd never heard of , but as it states in the book " good advice is so very hard to come by when it comes to rules of the ocean , and the black box theory is some thing i will do my utmost to adhere to as it is all very true done with the witty sence of humor that would appeal to more than most fisherman allthe way to seasoned sailors its a very handy book , A must for all serious Boaties !

Good for the novice
We enjoyed reading this book, but it wasn't what we had hoped. It is a better learning tool for the novice. The entries to the book are written in a alphabetical format. For example, entries about 'sails' are under S. We hoped it would be more of a non-fiction story form where one sailer's knowledge can help other sailers undergo new adventures. You'll read it once and then leave it on the shelf.

way over rated
This book has some definitions but, for the experienced boater, its a waste of shelf space. The "rules of thumb" are too brief to have any real value.