Product Description

The definitive guide from the world's best-known sailboat maintenance expert

Don Casey’s Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual combines six core volumes into a single, utterly dependable resource that answers every frequent question, explains every major system, and helps you keep your boat and its components shipshape.

More than 2,500 clear and detailed illustrations guide you step by step through every procedure. Casey’s technical virtuosity, his user-friendly explanations, and Peter Compton's diesel engine expertise make even the more complicated repairs and improvements easy to understand. This must-have guide saves you time, money, and grief as you learn the fastest, easiest, most effective ways to:

• Evaluate the condition of your boat or one you’re about to purchase
• Repair structural damage to your fiberglass sailboat
• Improve or repair your sailboat’s electrical system
• Troubleshoot, maintain, and repair your boat’s diesel engine
• Put a professional-looking finish on your boat’s hull, deck, spars, wood, and trim
• Make and repair sails, sail covers, dodgers, awnings, sailbags, and bimini tops

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15648 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 896 pages

From the Back Cover

The definitive guide from the world's best-known sailboat maintenance expert

Don Casey’s Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual combines six core volumes into a single, utterly dependable resource that answers every frequent question, explains every major system, and helps you keep your boat and its components shipshape.

More than 2,500 clear and detailed illustrations guide you step by step through every procedure. Casey’s technical virtuosity, his user-friendly explanations, and Peter Compton's diesel engine expertise make even the more complicated repairs and improvements easy to understand. This must-have guide saves you time, money, and grief as you learn the fastest, easiest, most effective ways to:

• Evaluate the condition of your boat or one you’re about to purchase
• Repair structural damage to your fiberglass sailboat
• Improve or repair your sailboat’s electrical system
• Troubleshoot, maintain, and repair your boat’s diesel engine
• Put a professional-looking finish on your boat’s hull, deck, spars, wood, and trim
• Make and repair sails, sail covers, dodgers, awnings, sailbags, and bimini tops

"Astoundingly clear text and line drawing illustrations. The reader can almost feel the hand-holding this book provides through each step of a repair."—Dockside

Don Casey is the author of the universally praised This Old Boat, which has helped tens of thousands of boatowners turn their rundown production boats into first-class yachts. A regular contributor to SAIL and Good Old Boat magazines, he combines more than three decades of sailing, an innate curiosity, a knack for clarity, and an eye for the telling detail to deliver reliable expertise. He and his wife, Olga, cruise the Caribbean aboard their 35-year-old, much-modified Allied Seawind.

About the Author

Don Casey is the author of the universally praised This Old Boat, which has helped tens of thousands of boatowners turn their rundown production boats into first-class yachts. A regular contributor to SAIL and Good Old Boat magazines, he combines more than three decades of sailing, an innate curiosity, a knack for clarity, and an eye for the telling detail to deliver reliable expertise. He and his wife, Olga, cruise the Caribbean aboard their 35-year-old, much-modified Allied Seawind.

Customer Reviews

A Must Have for the Do-It-Your-Selfer
This book is a must have for the occasional do-it-your-selfer. Being a compilation of all of the Don Casey books on sailboat maintenance, I find myself pulling this book off the shelf more often than any other maintenance book I own.

I find the drawings and step by step instructions to be well thought out and easy to follow. Geared for the occasional weekend warrior, this book shows you how to do it right while pointing out many of the pitfalls that often accompany a sailboat maintenance project.

I highly recommend it for those like me who own an aging sailboat but don't have a Pentagon sized budget laying on the side to give the yard.

No better book for a sailboat owner
I own a 30 foot sailboat that is just about 30 years old. Although my boat is in overall good condition, there are always things to touch up and fix.

I am extremely happy with this book and refers to it constantly before attemtption a new task. A few of the things I have used the book for:
- Refinishing interior wood
- Maintaining the engine (oil changes, valve settings, shaft alinghtment)
- Maintaining topsides (gelcoat repairs, general maintenance and upkeep, re-sealing deck hardware)
- Electrical work, troubleshooting stray currents and partial re-wiring
- Maintaining and fixing the head
- Canvas work is next. :-)

I am amazed at Don Casey's huge knowledge on sailboat maintenance and repair. I do not think there is a better or more copmlete book on the subject of sailboat maintenance.

I highly recommend this book for all sailboat owners. I can also reconmmend it as a gift.

Fair winds to you!

the only book you need (almost)
This is compilation of 5 Don Casey's books, but only very small portions of material are doubled. There is part on marine diesel, but there isn't on marine gas engine. Fiberglass repair chapter describes only strightforward repairs of the hull. I couldn't find much info about propeler and rudder shafts repairs. But these are my only complains.
Besides it is excellent book full of very clear pictures. Great source of info about materials and paints, great chapter on AC/DC systems etc.
I probably won't buy any other "sailboat repairs" book.