Customer Reviews

100 Boat Designs Reviewed: Design Commentaries by the Experts (Woodenboat)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been unable to put this book down. In the few days I've had it, I have already studied each set of drawings several times. There are many beautiful designs here, and the commentary is enlightening. Great book for wooden boat owners and dreamers. My only complaint is lack of an index. Sections on each design are titled decriptively, but do not include the name of the boat or the designer, making it hard to find a particular boat. This should be corrected.

The essence of any boat review is the drawings. They say as much to a prospective builder as any collection of writings can.
This book has excellent and well-written design reviews, accompanied by drawings that vary from good to unusable.
In particular, those drawings of boats provided by Woodenboat are among the worst, and appear to be copies of copies of copies.
Although the shading work of Susan Bray helps salvage some of this mess, unfortunately she was not comissioned to redo, or at least clean up the numerous blurred, faded, or just hard to look at line drawings in this book. At the list price of 24.95, this is a waste of money.

I agree with a previous reviewer, in that many of the drawings needed to be cleaned up - a lot. Some actual photographs would have greatly enhanced the book as well! The cover photo is just a teaser, and ultimately becomes a depressing example of how nice this book COULD have been. Also, I found this compilation, often word for word, duplicated many of the designs and descriptions already covered in the "30/40/50 Wooden Boats" series. The reviews were based on previously written descriptions (see above), the reviewer's own interpretation of the drawings, or on hearsay - NOT on the reviewer's actual experience with the boats. Many times the experts just describe a boat from the drawings without any interpretation at all. Not too impressive, since even I can see if a boat is ketch rigged, has 3 berths, a starboard galley, etc.

That being said, the book does have 100 boats to dream about, including paddle, sail and power boat designs of all different sizes. Most are fairly conventional, older, wooden boats - but some of them are not, and are pretty interesting and thought provoking. When the expert reviewers venture their own opinions, the reading becomes more entertaining, and it is nice to get a different slant than the one promoted by the designer or plans broker.

If you don't mind the lack of photographs, and aren't already familiar with the other boat design books put out by Wooden Boat magazine, then this is a nice book to have.

If you're looking for in-depth information, real visual inspiration and originality, then save your money.

I was expecting some discussion of the merits of the reviewed boat designs with respect to seaworthiness, handling, good points and places where improvements might help. The commentaries focused primarily, in my view, on accomodations and construction. I saw little or nothing regarding the conditions for which a particuar boat might be best suited.