Author(s): Daniel Spurr

Sport/Games

Until now, learn-to-sail books have offered no advice on acquiring or caring for a boat; they just assume the boat appears from somewhere, and the reader only needs to figure out how to sail it. Meanwhile, books on buying boats have offered no advice on sailing them. In fact, there simply is no book available on what to look for in a starter sailboat. A few books exist on choosing cruising sailboats, but these assume the reader already knows how to sail and just needs help spending a few hundred thousand bucks. In other words, there has been no attempt to answer the needs of the adult new sailor, who not only wants to learn how to handle a sailboat but also how to choose, acquire, and care for one. The fact is that you can buy and learn to sail a safe and fun sailboat for a startup cost of USD5,000 or less and ongoing expenses of just a few hundred dollars a year - less than you could easily spend on golf, fly fishing, stock car racing, or skiing. There just hasn't been a book around to explain that to you. With such a glaring gap at the entrance level, no wonder sailing still gets accused of elitism. Your First Sailboat changes all that. It is the first book to take a holistic view of the sailing experience - putting entry-level sailboat selection, use, maintenance, and lifestyle issues all in one place for new sailors who happen to discover this wonderful sport as adults. This is the book that answers the questions other books don't even think to ask: Can a keelboat tip over? Can I take a centerboard boat onto open water? How do sails turn wind into forward motion? Can I trailer a keelboat? Is it ok to buy a used sailboat, and how will I know if it's used up? What kind of boat is best for taking my kids daysailing and what's a fair price to pay for it? What if I want to do some weekend cruising too, or even some weeklong coastal cruising? Should it have a tiller or a wheel? What knots do I need to know? How do I know where the wind is coming from? How will I know when it's too rough to go out? In three major parts - Buying and Equipping Your First Sailboat; Handling Your First Sailboat; Maintaining Your First Sailboat - this book first provides a road map for boat acquisition, including decision-making trees that end in specific model recommendations for new and used boats according to the kind of sailing you want to do. These recommendations will fall into six groups: centerboard daysailer; centerboard racer; keel daysailer/racer; keel weekender/racer; centerboard weekender; keel cruiser. Boat handling information includes complete tying instructions for the only five knots you need to know, plus answers you won't find so succinctly anywhere else for the common dilemmas every new sailor encounters (Where am I? How do I get over there? What will happen if I turn this way? Why an't I make the boat move? Why can't I make the boat stop moving? How do I attach the sails? Where is this water coming from? Is this normal?) and so on, with the information differentiated for the six major types of sailboats whenever necessary. The book also does the new sailor a major favor by identifying the things he or she Doesn't need to know, and it ends by answering one of the harder questions: How do I know when it's time for my second sailboat? Deceptively simple, engagingly straightforward and laced with humor, Your First Sailboat is the complete starter kit that new sailors have been looking for.