Customer Reviews

Sail Trim: Theory And Practice

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

 

 

This book does a decent job at describing the aerodynamics and hydrodynamics of a keelboat. Admittedly, it's a tough topic to teach from a book. The difference between books on sail trim and theory really comes down to the graphics used to help in explanation. This is where this book falls short. Having said that, though, a new sailor will learn and benefit from reading Hahne's book.

This should help improve your sail handling. This explains how and why you should care about your sails trim without a lot of math or overly complex explainations. This has made the cut for my short list of books to carry on my boat. This is both a good winter read and something that you can review from time to time while waiting out the occational summer shower.

Clearly explains the theoretical and practical aspects of trim. Very enlightening. We sail faster now having read this book!! Well worth the cost and effort.

jn

You would think a book entitled "Sail Trim" might actually have more than a few pages on that topic.

Instead, you get 20 pages on poorly simplified and misrepresented fluid dynamics (granted, I was an Aerospace Engineer in college), 30 pages on different kinds of boats, 15 pages about a "new" automated sail trim on some crazy German boat, and 2 pages that - with no real explanation - dictate rig tuning and sail trim for a variety of conditions.

I was expecting the "Theory" to inform the "Practice" and hoping to learn something I didn't know about the complex interactions of multiple sails on large yachts and the way to use dozens of different controls to maximize boat speed. But there was none of that. This purchase was a huge failure of Amazon's "Look Inside" feature.

Do NOT buy this book unless you are a casual cruiser and an armchair physicist - if you take either discipline at all seriously, you will be sadly disappointed.