Boat Design and Selection

In 500 Days: Around the World on a 12-foot Yacht, resourceful adventuer Serge Testa recounts his dramatic circumnavigation. A lively account of microvoyaging from one of the true masters. Includes photos.

From the book: "In 2007, I purchased my 1970 O'Day Mariner, #1922 Orion, and within a year, I began a website - http://www.mariner1922.com - detailing the various projects I had tackled refurbishing and upgrading the boat. I began posting a photograph I particularly liked every week with a caption, sometimes written by myself and other times written by the photographer. Camera technology has advanced to the point where even the most amateur camera hobbyist is able to take a remarkable digital image. Professional photographers, of course, know exactly what to look for, and their results are truly stunning. A number of pictures in this album are from the lenses of Steve Hock, Alan Hlavenka and Stuart Watson, all professional photographers and past Mariner owners, and I am especially indebted to them for their permission to use many of their fine images." It's an 8" X 10", 122-page book packed with over 180 photos with captions. Published by Whaler Books. SIGNED BY AUTHOR

More than 70 accounts of big adventures in small boats. One of our favorites and a must-have for small-boat adventure readers.

Quite possibly the closest thing to a small-boat cruising bible, Beachcruising and Coastal Camping is 352 pages packed with information on boat selection, modifications and outfitting, as well as places to cruise and safety gear. The authors were clearly living the life all the way! Great photos and summaries boats like of Sea Pearls, Dovekies, Drascombes, Pelicans, sailing canoes, etc.

A practical handbook for adapting the junk rig to western style hulls. Emphasis is on practical, straight forward design and construction choices with tested materials and methods throughout. Instructions on sailing the rig, also. Well illustrated.

How to compare, select and sail cruising catamarans. Covers equipment and techniques for anchoring, diagrams, charts, specs and photos. The most comprehensive resource ever for this complex topic.

Whether she is to be rowed or sailed independently, or will be the tender to a larger vessel, nothing feels or looks quite like a traditional clinker-built dinghy, ‘done right’. And those two words are the key to a boat which will truly grace the water, charm all who use or see her, and maintain her value.

In Details of Dinghy Building boatbuilder Will Stirling painstakingly describes and illustrates, in full colour, the many arcane yet vital tasks which can daunt the beginning boatbuilder. Will has been building clinker dinghies professionally for many years and has made, and learned how to avoid, all the mistakes which lie in wait for the unwary. Take advantage of his experience, and some ‘tricks of the trade’, and draw inspiration from the many mouthwatering photographs of finished boats which punctuate the book.

If you’re building a boat, this textual guide and photographic reference will pay for itself many times over in the time, frustration and embarrassment it will save you. If you’re not, you’ll find it a fascinating verbal and visual window into a time-honoured traditional craft.

192 pages, beautifully presented in large 8.5 x 8.5" size with matte laminated cover with flaps, plus many color images.

For over 60 years the Nordic Folkboat has helped define the term classic sailboat and the class is still going strong in many of the world's most challenging sailing areas. Here's the design history along with many personal stories, photos and illustrations.

We stumbled across a cool book from a press called Boat House Books down in Portland, Oregon. From My Old Boat Shop is a huge, 356-page, 8.5 x 11 hardback chock full of good reading. The dust jacket says the book is a "narrative collection of Weston Farmer's gleanings from the old boat shops such as Elco, Racine Boat Co., Hubbard, etc. and from his personal association with the greats such as Rabl, Atkin, Davis, Hanna, etc."

I really didn't know much about Weston Farmer or his designs until recently when Associate Editor Marty Loken invited me out for a spin on his elegant Farmer-designed Sundance power-cruiser. Marty had told me how efficient Farmer's motorboat designs were, and sure enough the 17-footer climbed up on a plane effortlessly and quietly in front of a barely-throttled 25 hp outboard.

Having experienced it firsthand, I found the book's claim that "(Farmer) provides the 'secret inner workings' of old boat technology that was forgotten after high power and mass-production fever forever changed boat design," much more believable.

P.S. Some of the chapters: William Atkin Pt1 and Pt 2, Tribute to Sam Rabl, El Cheapo Planimeter, Flotation Models, The Kitchen Rudder, Power/Fuel, The Lovely Fantail Launch, The 18-Foot Runabout Pllywog.



"Simply the best book on boat design philosophy available."
- Bob Pickett, Flounder Bay Boat Lumber

Farmer is the practical companion to Chapelle."
- Bill Durham

"Farmer is a champion of the cause of the home boat builder."
- Sam Rabl "

Our last copy is reference only."
- Eric Cisney, Seattle Public Library


PLEASE NOTE INTERNATIONAL ORDERS MIGHT REQUIRE ADDITIONAL SHIPPING

By Jim Tolpin and George Walker
Illustrated by Andrea Love

By Jim Tolpin and George Walker
Illustrated by Andrea Love

These beautifully-bound hardcover books are signed by author Jim Tolpin.

From the publisher:

Good books give you a glimpse of small truths – about workbenches, joinery or sharpening, for example. Great books, on the other hand, stitch together seemingly disparate ideas to present a new way of looking at the whole world, from your marking awl, to your hand or to the line of the horizon.

“From Truths to Tools” is a hand-illustrated work that masquerades as a children’s book. There are funny drawings. There aren’t a lot of words. You can read the entire 208-page book in one sitting.

But “From Truths to Tools” somehow explains the craft, the entire physical world, our language and geometry in a way that makes you feel like the authors have revealed a huge secret to you. One that has been sitting in front of you your entire life.

The book begins with an explanation of a circle and a single point, and it then shows how those simple ideas can be used to create an entire set of layout tools – a try square, a straightedge, dividers etc. that allow you to build furniture.

Once you understand the language behind your tools, very complicated things become easy to understand. Compound joinery. Fitting odd miters. Making curves that taper.

And once you get those ideas in your head, it’s a short hop to grasp how those same ideas can be applied to building anything of any shape imaginable – skyscrapers, boats, bridges. When you can calculate if a tree will hit you when you fell it in the forest, you’ll be able to calculate the circumference of the earth.

“From Truths to Tools” is the third book from the geometry-loving team of Jim Tolpin and George Walker. Their first book, “By Hand & Eye,” makes the case that simple whole-number ratios are the underpinning to the built world and our furniture. Their second book, “By Hound & Eye,” gives you the exercises that open your eyes to the way geometry and ratios govern our world. And the third, “From Truths to Tools,” shows how geometry creates our tools and, once understood, leads to a deeper grasp of the things we build, the world around us and even our language.

What to pack for costal travel in an open boat with notes on anchoring, hazards, money and other helpful things.

This book describes what I took aboard the 18 foot dory Golden Moon rowing and sailing from Alaska to Seattle with a few words on travelling by open boat. If some things are in the way of your open boat travels; like you've got no boat, no gear, no money, no experience with either distance rowing or sailing and no clue where to start, this book is for you. Whether for weekend camping, distance rowing, or the simple happiness of a sunset in an open boat, my hope is that this gear list will be of help to those who walk the docks and feel a certain pull. 84 pages. Soft cover. Signed copy.

A fiberglass sailboat evaluation guide for owners and shoppers written with great clarity and gentle authority. Helps current owners to prioritize maintenance and shoppers to find good value and avoid pitfalls.