Instructional

Don Casey's Complete Illustrated Sailboat Maintenance Manual

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

Nigel Calder's Cruising Handbook: A Compendium for Coastal and Offshore Sailors

The most comprehensive and helpful guide ever written for selecting and equipping a cruising sailboat

Whether you’re a coastal or offshore cruiser, you’ll find your most pressing concerns treated with the know-how that makes for skillful, confident cruising in Nigel Calder’s Cruising Handbook. The author -- one of the most respected marine how-to authors on either side of the Atlantic, and author of the universally admired Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual, -- walks you through all key technical and practical aspects of modern cruising systems and equipment, providing you with a summary of the skills necessary for safe, enjoyable sailing.

The first half of the book includes an easy-to-use tabular method for evaluating a boat's suitability for cruising; ideas for workable deck and interior lay-outs and organization; how to choose and configure suitable boat systems for cruising; and how to install gear for trouble free operation.

The book's second half teaches you boat handling skills; core navigational expertise; anchoring techniques; weather understanding; heavy weather expertise; and specific skills for long-term and long-distance cruising.

The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat

The Essentials of Living Aboard educates both dreamers and explorers with information about this wonderful and rewarding lifestyle. Mark Nicholas has combined his experience of life aboard with the advice of other liveaboards, marina owners, technicians, boat manufacturers and advocates in order to detail the challenges and offer real advice for success. This lifestyle, typically thought to be out of reach or "for other people," is now available to all who dream.

Essentials explains, among other things how to:
•Figure out your needs
•Choose the right boat
•Buy your boat
•Choose the right marina
•Prepare for the lifestyle
•Outfit your boat
•Plan for all climates
•Forecast your costs
•and more!

Sailboat Electrics Simplified

Don't Be Baffled by Your Electrical System--Handle Repairs and Improvements with Ease

With clear illustrations and simple explanations, Don Casey shows you exactly how to install wiring . . . make good, safe connections . . . match your battery bank and alternator to your needs . . . troubleshoot problems quickly . . . avoid shore power problems . . . and more--all without a lot of technical jargon.

"Don Casey's book provides clear guidance on how to create and maintain a robust electrical system. Don's lucid explanations and numerous illustrations make what is normally mysterious and invisible--electricity--into something the reader is able to understand with confidence. An excellent addition to the sailor's seagoing library." --Chuck Hawley

Sailboat Hull and Deck Repair (International Marine Sailboat Library)

A fiberglass hull's seamless nature leads many boatowners to conclude that repair must be difficult. Wrong. Here, clearly and abundantly illustrated, is all you need to know to seal joints, bed hardware, replace portlights, locate leaks, fix cracks and even holes, restore your hull's gloss, renew nonskid decks, and much more. You'll wonder what you were worried about.

Storm Tactics Handbook: Modern Methods of Heaving-To for Survival in Extreme Conditions

Modern methods of heaving-to for survival in extreme conditions. Trysail and para-anchor technology for all types of boats and sailors.

Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Sailing

Aimed at sailboat owners of all kinds, this reference book contains 200 entries packed with solid practical advice and valuable tips. The alphabetical reference format offers the reader opportunities to open the book at any page and browse endlessly. Cartoons by Sail Magazine cartoonist Tom Payne enliven the text. A comprehensive appendix covers over 50 technical topics.

Outboard Engines: Maintenance, Troubleshooting and Repair

If like most do-it-yourselfers you've relied on a sketchy owner's manual or one of those abstruse shop manuals written for professional mechanics to keep your onboard running, here's an end to your frustration. This abundantly illustrated nonthreatening guide is filled with effective maintenance, repair, and advanced troubleshooting advice for two-cycle and four-cycle engines from 2 to 250 horsepower. Although outboard engines have become more reliable, they're also more sophisticated and require more than a passing knowledge of mechanics to troubleshoot and repair. Outboard Engines covers recent developments such as electronic ignition, oil injection systems, and four-stroke powerheads. Your fears about the reliability of your "finicky" outboard are over!

Ultrasimple Boat Building

The first complete how-to guide for building the latest generation of quick and easy boats

In Ultrasimple Boatbuilding, renowned designer Gavin Atkin shows you how to create elegant, seaworthy plywood boats with a minimum of time, experience, and expense. Using clearly written and illustrated step-by-step instructions, Atkin explains the basics of stitch-and-glue construction, tools, materials, shop safety, and more, as he helps you choose and build the simple boat of your dreams.

The Voyager's Handbook

“Belongs in the bookshelf of every cruising vessel.”—Blue Water Sailing

“If you are serious about that extended voyage, read The Voyager’s Handbook.”—Sailing

“Every now and then a new voice emerges in the world of sailing literature that stands out, a voice that is both clear and of lasting quality. The appearance of such a new voice is something of an event, and that’s what we’d call the publication of The Voyager’s Handbook.”—Blue Water Sailing

This inspirational and comprehensive manual leads you step by step through every aspect of choosing, planning, and following the voyager’s life. Using three example boats representing three cruising lifestyles—Simplicity, Moderation, and Highlife—Beth Leonard helps make your bluewater dreams come true, whether you’re sailing on a shoestring or a CEO’s pension. Starting with the things you can’t do without—an enthusiastic crew, a seaworthy boat, and, of course, money—Leonard offers sage advice on how to select crewmembers who are truly committed to the voyage, how to choose the right boat for you, and how to find just the right approach to financing your voyage and making the most of every dollar spent.

Managing life from a floating home and keeping that home livable, seaworthy, and safe requires you to become, among other things, the ship’s purser, engineer, doctor, cook, and cruise director. You’ll discover how to prepare for these new roles and put necessary equipment and arrangements in place before you untie your docklines. This exquisitely detailed guide also helps you master the skills you’ll need to handle a boat at sea with a small crew, including

• Weather forecasting
• Passage planning
• Watchkeeping
• Heavy-weather sailing
• Emergency management
• Midocean repairs

Complete with dozens of easy-to-use graphs and tables for quick reference, along with the hard-won wisdom of experienced cruisers, The Voyager’s Handbook is the ultimate resource for anyone who is planning, preparing for, or just dreaming about a great adventure on the high seas.