Water Sports

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All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora

by David Rensin from HarperEntertainment

Amazon Best of the Month, April 2008: Defining the life of legendary surf icon Miklos "Miki" Dora can be as elusive as the man himself. The self-proclaimed "King of Malibu" has been compared to trailblazers such as Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and Pablo Picasso for providing the archetype of the counterculture surfer. Yet he was also a convicted felon who rarely missed an opportunity to scam even his closest friends. All for a Few Perfect Waves meets this conflicted figure head on, as David Rensin provides a rare look at the famously guarded Dora through hundreds of interviews with those who knew him best. The result is a portrait of a life wedged between hyperbole and vulnerability. His beguiling personality charmed many, but few relationships and situations were ever deemed off-limits to a con. Happily, any judgments are left up to the reader, as Rensin's engaging narrative seeks only to explore the inner workings of a man who truly lived life on his own terms. --Dave Callanan

An Exclusive Q&A with David Rensin, Author of All for a Few Perfect Waves

When profiling an elusive figure like Miki Dora, the "why" is evident, but not the "how." How did you manage to gain unfettered access to Dora lore?
Rensin: To gain access to people, stories and material like letters, faxes, emails, photos, and interviews, I had to first gain everyone's trust - not an easy task when you consider that Miki spent his life mostly avoiding the press, complaining about it, telling his friends to not sell him about and not talk about him. And, when someone did break through and write about him, as I did for the August 1983 issue of California magazine - for a long time the only mainstream press story about Miki; the rest were in surf genre magazines, including interviews, and Dora's own stories about improbable international adventures - he was likely to threaten a lawsuit. (But never win.)

I started with Miki's father, who sent me to Harry Hodge, the administrator of Miki's estate. Harry is from Australia, and he was head of Quiksilver in Europe, so we met several times when he came through Los Angeles. It really came down to the human connection. We hit it off. He told me what he thought a biography of Miki would have to entail: not trashing Miki, not whitewashing him, not sensationalizing. And the book still had to be warts and all - otherwise it would be seen as dishonest. I told him I could do that. I wouldn't dance on Miki's grave, but I also had to be totally independent. I would not let anyone control the story. My loyalty would be to the story, whatever I found.

I also told him that I thought an oral history, with some narrative connective tissue, would work best because I could gather 360 degrees of opinion about and experiences with Miki. I thought that was the only fair way to go with someone who had such a multi-faceted personality, who compartmentalized so well. If I took a side, I'd get strong reaction against it from some quarter. Better to be non-judgmental about a character about whom everyone was very judgmental.

This helped really put people at ease, and allowed me to get the best and most honest material. No one felt they had to defend a point of view. And though it might run counter to the classic biography, I didn't want to figure out Miki, but to let his mystique remain.

Harry liked that and passed me back to Miki's father, Miklos Dora, Sr. We talked, I told him the same. I knew I had to be absolutely authentic with him and he was authentic in return. He had read the California magazine piece and thought it had captured Miki's character. He also told me I'd been "a little hard" on his son as well. I gave him some of my other books to read. He liked them and gave me the go-ahead.

Now came the hard part: finding people who knew Miki and convincing them to trust me to do a non-judgmental book that wouldn't focus on the easy "outlaw" aspects of his life that landed him in jail for a short while, nor treat him only as a faded old celebrity surfer from Malibu. The idea was to do a portrait of the man, and in so doing, explain the myth. Harry had told me that when discussing the book with Miki over twenty years of lunches and dinners, Miki said he wanted to be thought of as more than just a surfer. As a journalist who had spent some years surfing, but not a surf journalist, I felt I could give him that bigger tableau.

In the end, the tone of my interviews, the questions I asked, the passion I shared, and my willingness to listen instead of try to fit the story to preconceived ideas won out and people trusted me and word spread. I got over one million words of interviews from more than 300 people on five continents.

I guess it worked.

How do you think the famously guarded Miki would react to this book?
Rensin: I was often asked how Miki would react to the book; would he even want it done? Miki had always emphasized how privacy was important. He supposedly hated the commercialization of surfing and his name. These were strong and authentic themes in his life. But they were not absolute. Did he hate being photographed? I've seen many, many snapshots of him. Did he hate surfboard companies and clothing companies? Not if they didn't try to rip him off. Yes, there was a general discontent and desire to be left alone at times--and he wanted empty waves--but his actions were often situational, not carved in stone.

I think that publicly Miki would say he didn't want a book, but privately he would want it. He had to be able to put it down, to always have plausible deniability. Part of what I had to do to gain access to interviews was prove that Miki in fact wanted a legacy. I could do that because I had the correspondence as evidence. He had talked with potential book collaborators and had done some interviews. He met with people who wanted to make movies of his life. It never worked out. Some people say he just gamed these suitors for money, and in some cases that is true. But not always. I think Miki never did his book/movie because had to live his life instead of write about it, and because he wanted too much to be in control. I respect that: the wanting to get it just how he wants it. It's his life after all. He didn't want anyone interpreting it. But he had difficulty trusting co-authors. I suppose he was simply waiting for the right person with the right point of view to come along, but as an experienced collaborator, I wonder how well he would have weathered the ups and downs inherent in that kind of working relationship. It's never easy.

In the end, Miki left the evidence of his life (letters, notebooks, etc.) that he could easily have trashed. He knew someone would inevitably do something. He called it the vultures picking at his bones.

Anyway, does it matter whether or not Miki would have wanted the book? I don't think so.

How would he have reacted? He'd have said I blew it, that I could have gotten the real story if only I'd taken the time. But he'd have carried the book everywhere, showed it around and, depending on the situation, would have said he hated it or loved it. That's Miki.

How was Miki able to reconcile the fact that he played such a significant role in rise of 60's surf cinema? Considering that these films created the surfing population explosion that Miki loathed, it would seem that he made quite a complex bed for himself.
Rensin: I don't think Miki played that big a role in the rise of surf cinema. The irony is simply that at a time when he was most loudly decrying the exploitation of surfing because Gidget and other beach party films had crowded his beloved Malibu, he was also taking money to be a stunt rider and technical advisor. Maybe his ego couldn't let him stay away. Maybe it was the free lunch at the craft services table. Maybe it was his notion that he could subvert from the inside by acting weird as an extra in the background. Maybe he met some women he wanted. Maybe it was just fun, there was no surf, and he needed to do something that day. Later in life he realized that he had in some small way aided and abetted, but I don't think he wasted much time with regret.

Miki has been compared to everyone from Jesus to James Dean. However, after reading All for a Few Perfect Waves, I found my own comparison: he was the Tyler Durden of surfing. Akin to the Fight Club character, surfers cannot always condone Dora's antics, but we quietly support his pursuit for point-break perfection. Do you agree?
Rensin: I agree. Miki, like Durden, was that sage of harsh reality who made his own way, and the hell with the rest of you. Like Durden he was not completely a loner, and was willing to bring along new initiates if they attracted him with their own inner search. Often while writing the book, I kept thinking about Fight Club and how the rule never to talk about Fight Club was Miki's rule for himself. Many of Durden's aphorisms apply as well to Miki: "The things you own end up owning you." "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." And my favorite, "Fight club exists only when fight club begins and when it ends." Or, as Miki famously said: "When there's surf I'm totally committed. When there's none, it doesn't exist."

How important was Dora's close and inflammatory relationship with Greg Noll?
Rensin: Dora's relationship with Greg Noll endured fifty choppy years and I think it was an anchor, a familiar place to return to. Noll just didn't take crap from Dora, yet he appreciated the rascal in him. Noll had it, too. They met as kids. They were of an era and mindset. Noll never wanted anything from Dora. When they made "Da Cat" boards, he endured the games Dora played. And he wasn't afraid - after Dora would pay him a visit at home - to ask to check his suitcase for the silverware. He knew what Dora was about, and he let him know he knew, but he never shunned him for it. They could appreciate each other and that love, if you want to call it that, grew over time. Also, Noll is physically imposing. You don't mess with Noll. Dora didn't.

What is your favorite Dora story or experience?
Rensin: It's really tough to come up with a favorite Dora story or experience. Overall, I love his audacity, his willingness to go against the grain, to not be bound by the rules, to so cannily manipulate an innocent surf media to his advantage after they'd helped rip away his paradise of empty waves. He was always pulling stunts like wearing a see-though plastic mask, or letting his groupies chauffeur him around, or having what he called his "party kit" (everything from a glass with ice cubes to a tuxedo, so he could crash Beverly Hills doings with ease), to various little cons and pranks (baby chicks in the lifeguard tower). There are too many to go into here. But I guess if I had to chose, a favorite would be Miki being baptized in the Mormon church when he lived in New Zealand in 1975. He played on the eagerness of two young missionaries and led them on a merry chase. I'm sure he was authentically curious about their vision of the universe, but I think he was definitely tongue-in-cheek. And best of all, he went through with the immersion. Dora was living theater. The idea, the best approach now and then, was to sit back and enjoy the show.

There will never be another surfer like Miki "Da Cat" Dora.

All for a Few Perfect Waves is the story of Miki "Da Cat" Dora, the dashing and enigmatic rebel who, for twenty years, was the king of Malibu surfers. He dominated the waves, ruled his peers' imaginations, and—to this day—inspires the fantasies of decades of Dora wannabes who began to swarm his pristine paradise after the movie Gidget helped surfing explode into the mainstream and changed it forever—many say for the worse.

Disenchanted, Dora railed against the ruination; angry that the waves were no longer his own, he fought back—or found better things to do. Dora was also an avid sportsman, raconteur, philosopher, traveler—and scam artist of wide repute. When, in 1973, he finally ran afoul of the law, he soon abandoned America and led the FBI and Interpol on a seven-year chase around the globe. At the same time, he never gave up searching for (and occasionally finding) the empty waves and spirit of the Malibu he'd lost. From homes in New Zealand to South Africa to France, he continued to personify the rebel heart of surfing and has been widely acknowledged as "the most relentlessly committed surfer of all time."

The New York Times named him "the most renegade spirit the sport has yet to produce." Vanity Fair called him "a dark prince of the beach." The Times (London) wrote, "A hero to a generation of beach bums. He was tanned . . . good-looking . . . trouble."

To capture Dora's never-before-told story, David Rensin spent four years interviewing more than three hundred of Dora's friends, enemies, family members, lovers, and peers—none of whom would previously talk in depth about him—to uncover the truth about surfing's most outrageous practitioner, charismatic prince, chief antihero, committed loner, and enduring mystery. The result is a riveting and living portrait of an uncommon character whose unique influence on surfing has never waned, and who became what most can never be: a legend in his own time.

Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way To Swim Better, Faster, and Easier

by Terry Laughlin from Fireside

Masters swimmer and acclaimed coach Terry Laughlin has taught thousands to swim more efficiently in the workshops he has given across the United States. In his book Laughlin details simple, step-by-step drills emphasizing the importance of technique and an innovative workout regimen.

Swim better -- and enjoy every lap -- with Total Immersion!

Terry Laughlin, the world's #1 authority on swimming success, has made his unique approach even easier for anyone to master. Whether you're an accomplished swimmer or have always found swimming to be a struggle, Total Immersion will show you that it's mindful fluid movement -- not athletic ability -- that will turn you into an efficient swimmer. This new edition of the bestselling Total Immersion features:

A thoughtfully choreographed series of skill drills -- practiced in the mindful spirit of yoga -- that can help anyone swim more enjoyably

A holistic approach to becoming one with the water and to developing a swimming style that's always comfortable

Simple but thorough guidance on how to improve fitness and form

A complementary land-and-water program for achieving a strong and supple body at any age

Based on more than thirty years of teaching, coaching, and research, Total Immersion has dramatically improved the physical and mental experience of swimming for thousands of people of all ages and abilities.

Chapman Piloting & Seamanship 65th Edition (Chapman Piloting, Seamanship and Small Boat Handling)

by Elbert S. Maloney from Hearst

The Annapolis Book of Seamanship: Third Edition, Completely Revised, Expanded and Updated

by John Rousmaniere from Simon & Schuster

First launched in 1983, Annapolis remains the sailor's bible, a comprehensive chapter and verse guide to all aspects of seamanship from the simplest ABC's to the most advanced skills and latest electronics. And while much of the original edition has been left in dry dock to make way for the many changes on the water since 1983--like multihull vessels, satellite tracking, and the reality that while all ships remain "she," there is no longer the assumption that it's a "he" at the helm--Rousmaniere still emphasizes what he's stressed from the first tack: the importance of mastering sailing's fundamentals. This means knowing every inch of your boat and how to handle her, understanding the importance of safety on the seas and preparing for all emergencies, reading the weather, learning to navigate, knowing essential boat maintenance, and being aware of the traditions every sailor steps into whenever he or she sticks feet in a pair of topsiders. Clearly organized and presented, cleanly and smoothly written (given how much technical information he presents, Rousmaniere's prose is blessedly jargon-free), and thoroughly illustrated with photos and drawings, Annapolis is as essential as a good wind, perhaps the one volume no sailor should leave port without. --Jeff Silverman

Since the publication of the widely hailed first edition in 1983, The Annapolis Book of Seamanship has set the standard by which other books on sailing are measured. Used throughout America as a textbook in sailing schools and Power Squadrons, The Annapolis Book of Seamanship thoroughly and clearly covers the fundamental and advanced skills of modern sailing. This edition of Annapolis is a major overhaul. Over half the book has been revised; old topics and features have been updated, and many new ones have been introduced. The design has been modernized, and many color illustrations have been added.

As big and detailed as Annapolis is, the wealth of technical information (including dozens of step-by-step instructions) is presented here in a way that is uniquely readable; it's both useful and easy to use. This is because John Rousmaniere and artist Mark Smith bring to Annapolis decades of experience both as sailors and as professional communicators.

Annapolis emphasizes the standard skills and proven methods that eliminate error and confusion, ensure security in emergencies, and allow every sailor more time for enjoyment on the water. Much has changed on the water since 1983 when this book was originally published. Black buoys are now green, the Global Positioning Satellite navigation system (GPS) is almost universally used, new types of anchors and sails have appeared, safety skills and gear are vastly improved, many more women are commanding boats, and catamarans and trimarans are common where only monohulls used to sail.

But for all these modern developments, the basic skills and spirit of sailing have not changed at all. Sail trimming, keeping up steerageway, maintaining the dead reckoning plot, heaving-to -- these fundamentals are as important now as ever and receive much attention here. Among the innovations in this edition are:

* Basic skills in early chapters: Fundamental sailing and boat-handling skills and gear, which are introduced in chapters 1, 2, and 3.

* "Hands On" segments: Three dozen special sections, each devoted to a particular seamanship problem and an expert solution.

* More how-to tips: Additional rules of thumb that guide a crew quickly and successfully through seamanship problems.

* New coverage of multihulls: Advice on evaluating, anchoring, and handling catamarans and trimarans under sail (including in storms).

* More on emergencies: New material on emergencies, safety, and heavy-weather sailing, including a section on preparing a docked boat for a hurricane.

* Equipment updates: Expanded coverage of the use and care of modern gear and hardware, including radar, GPS, rescue devices, and asymmetrical spinnakers.

* Terminology: Full definition and illustration of major terms when they're first introduced, with alternative language provided in parentheses.

* Gender: The use of feminine personal pronouns, which reflect the fact that more women are captaining and sailing boats than ever before.

From navigation and seamanship to boat and gear maintenance, from pleasure cruising to heavy-weather sailing, here is the definitive, state-of-the-art guide that provides systematic step-by-step techniques to see you through every situation on deck and in the cockpit.

Nights of Ice: True Stories of Disaster and Survival on Alaska's High Seas

by Spike Walker from St. Martin's Griffin

Frantic and entertaining in a guilty sort of way, Nights of Ice is like Endurance on steroids. The book presents eight true stories of disaster and survival involving commercial fisherman off the coast of Alaska (said to be one of America's most dangerous occupations). Included are tales of subzero temperatures, 100 mph winds, 60-foot-high waves, boats encased in ice and capsized, men trapped underwater, and other horrors. Author Spike Walker, who interviewed many of the survivors in compiling this book, is no stranger to such tales of the high seas; he worked as a commercial fisherman off the Alaska coast and wrote about it in Working on the Edge.

Nights of Ice begins promisingly enough but unfortunately gives way to a sensationalism that cheapens the whole affair: "At that moment, Bruce Hinman's past life flashed before his very eyes. Launched instantaneously through time, he watched the events of his life play out before him...they flashed and froze there in his consciousness, in a kind of nostalgic collage of all that had once mattered in his life." As a result, there are a lot of unintentionally funny moments. Despite its problems, though, Nights of Ice is fun to read, and lovers of true-adventure stories or those interested in the dangers of the Alaskan fishing industry should enjoy it. --Andy Boynton

Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports

by Michael Sokolove from Simon & Schuster

Amy Steadman was destined to become one of the great women's soccer players of her generation. "The best of the best," Parade magazine called her as she left high school and headed off to the University of North Carolina. Instead, by age twenty, Amy had undergone five surgeries on her right knee. She had to give up the sport she loved. She walked with a stiff gait, like an elderly woman, and found it painful to get out of bed in the morning.

Warrior Girls exposes the downside of the women's sports revolution that has evolved since Title IX: an injury epidemic that is easily ignored because we worry that it will threaten our daughters' hard-won opportunities on the field. From teenage girls playing local soccer, basketball, lacrosse, volleyball, and other sports to women competing at the elite level, female athletes are suffering serious injuries at alarming rates.

The numbers are frightening and irrefutable. Young female athletes tear their ACLs, the stabilizing ligament in the knee, at rates as high as eight times greater than their male counterparts. Women's collegiate soccer players suffer concussions at the same rate as college football players. From head to toe, female athletes suffer higher rates of injury, and many of them play through constant pain.

Michael Sokolove gives us the most up-to-date research on girls and sports injuries. He takes us into the homes and hearts of female athletes, into operating theaters where orthopedic surgeons reconstruct shredded knees, and onto the practice field of famed University of North Carolina soccer coach Anson Dorrance.

Exhaustively researched and strongly argued, Warrior Girls is an urgent wake-up call for parents and coaches. Sokolove connects the culture of youth sports -- the demands for girls to specialize in a single sport by age ten or younger, and to play it year-round -- directly to the injury epidemic. Devoted to the ideal of team, and deeply bonded with teammates, these tough girls don't want to leave the field even when confronted with serious injury and chronic pain.

Warrior Girls shows how girls can train better and smarter to decrease their risks. It makes clear that parents must come together and demand changes to a sports culture that manufactures injuries. Well-documented, opinionated, and controversial, Warrior Girls shows that all girls can safeguard themselves on the field without sacrificing their hard-won right to be there.

Black Wave: A Family's Adventure at Sea and the Disaster That Saved Them

by John Silverwood from Random House

“I told God that if he would let us survive this night, I would make it mean something worthwhile. And then, somehow, I felt calmer than I have ever felt. Unreasonably so. Irrationally so. I looked over the scene of our wrecked life and I smiled–a crazy smile for sure–and I looked through the dark at the mad beauty of it.”
–Jean Silverwood

An exhilarating true-life adventure of one family’s extraordinary sea voyage of self-discovery and survival, tragedy and triumph

Successful businessman John Silverwood and his wife, Jean, both experienced sailors, decided the time was right to give their four children a taste of thrilling life on the high seas. And indeed their journey aboard the fifty-five-foot catamaran Emerald Jane would have many extraordinary and profound moments, whether it was the peaceful late-night watches John enjoyed under the stunning celestial sky or the elation shared by the whole family at the sight of blissful pods of dolphin and migrating tortoises. John and Jean had hoped to use the trip as a teaching opportunity, with the Emerald Jane as a floating classroom in which to instruct their children in important lessons–not only about the natural world but about the beauty of human life when stripped down to its essence, far from the trappings of civilization.

Yet rather than flourishing amid the new freedoms and responsibilities thrust upon them, the children were sometimes confused, frightened, resentful. The two oldest, fourteen-year-old Ben and twelve-year-old Amelia, missed their friends and the comfortable life left behind in San Diego, while the two youngest, Jack, seven, and Camille, three, picked up on the stressful currents running above and below the surface–for throughout the journey, the Silverwood family found its bonds tested as never before.

John and Jean, whose marriage had weathered its share of storms, would wonder again if they had taken on too much as the physical, emotional, and financial strains of caring for the expensive catamaran and their children brought old resentments to the surface.

John’s dream trip that began on Long Island Sound ended almost two years later as a nightmare in treacherous waters off a remote atoll in French Polynesia, where, in an explosion of awesome violence, the terrifying brunt of the ocean’s anger fell upon the Emerald Jane.

Gradually, in the crucible of the sea, a stronger, more closely knit unit was forged. The Silverwoods became a crew. Then they became a family again. But just as it seemed to them that they had mastered every challenge, their world was shattered in a split-second of unimaginable horror. Now their real challenge began, forcing them to fight for their very lives.

Sailing For Dummies (For Dummies (Sports & Hobbies))

by J. J. Isler from For Dummies

Attention landlubbers: If you don't know your port from your starboard, tacking from jibing, then you need to experience clear sailing with the Dummies. With the usual cargo of good humor and demystifying tone, this mast in the Dummies armada lifts the fog on confusing nautical language, teaches the basics about maneuvering a sailboat from dock to open ocean, floats important safety information, and offers advice and info on a variety of related issues (knots, racing, sailboards, how to buy a sailboat). Whether you want to learn to sail or just talk like a sailor, Sailing for Dummies is your anchor to life on the water.

Interested in learning to sail but feel like you’re navigating in murky waters? Sailing for Dummies, Second Edition introduces the basics of sailing, looks at the different types of sailboats and their basic parts, and teaches you everything you need to know before you leave the dock.

In Sailing for Dummies, Second Edition, two U.S. sailing champions show you how to:

• Find and choose a sailing school
• Use life jackets correctly
• Tie ten nautical knots
• Handle sailing emergencies (such as capsizing and rescuing a man overboard)
• Launch your boat from a trailer, ramp, or beach
• Get your boat from point A to point B (and back again)
• Predict and respond to water and wind conditions
• Read charts, plot your course, use a compass, and find your position at sea

Sailing for Dummies shows you that getting out on the water is easier than you think. The authors keep the sailor-speak to a minimum where possible, but give you a grasp of the terminology you need to safely and effectively communicate with your crew. A textbook, user’s manual, and reference all in one, this book takes the intimidation out of sailing and gives you the skills and confidence you need to get your feet wet and become the sailing pro you’ve always wanted to be. Anchors away!

Sailing Fundamentals

by Gary Jobson from Touchstone

Published under the pennants of the American Sailing Association and the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, Sailing Fundamentals is an excellent guide for novice sailors ready to get their feet wet. This comprehensive manual helps beginners learn basic sailing and coastal cruising with step-by-step instructions for everything from hoisting the sail to docking. Written with clear prose by Gary Jobson--tactician aboard the 1977 America's Cup-winning Courageous--Sailing Fundamentals is specially designed to help sailors qualify for ASA certification--essential if you wish to charter a boat.

Necessary reading for novice sailors--and an excellent reference for intermediate to advanced sailors. --M. Stein

Written by America's foremost instructional authority, the new edition of Sailing Fundamentals combines the training programs of the American Sailing Association and the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary. The official learn-to-sail manual of the American Sailing Association, it is also used in the programs of many yacht clubs, colleges, and sailing groups. Unlike most introductory sailing books, which reflect the biases and idiosyncrasies of their authors, Sailing Fundamentals has been extensively pretested by ASA professional instructors to ensure that it offers the fastest, easiest, most systematic way to learn basic sailing and basic coastal cruising. This book covers every aspect of beginning sailing -- from hoisting sail to docking and anchoring -- and specifically prepares the learner to qualify for sailing certification according to international standards. Widely acclaimed author Gary Jobson has won several major races, including the 1977 America's Cup victory as tactician aboard Courageous. He was head sailing coach at the U.S. Naval Academy, and has conducted sailing clinics across the country. Illustrated step-by-step in two colors with over 150 line drawings and photographs.

The Complete Sailor: Learning the Art of Sailing

by David Seidman from International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press

The Complete Sailor takes the reader from the first sail to a mastery of small-boat handling. Weaving his writing around 600 drawings by noted marine illustrator Kelly Mulford, David Seidman has created a book in which each double-page spread invites the eye and communicates volumes of information. The Complete Sailor goes beyond other learn-to-sail books to cover navigation, boat design, and seamanship. Encyclopedic in scope yet warm in style, it conveys the magic as well as the techniques of sailing. Among the other topics covered: anchoring, ropework, rigging, weather, fog, squalls, currents and tides, rules of the road, trailering, and working the winds. The book is a gentle introduction for those just starting out, and a guide to new horizons for those who already sail.