Customer Reviews

The Sailor's Wind

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

 

 

While, I'm sure a lot of what Dr. Walker writes about is groundbreaking stuff and no where else will you find the detailed decriptions of winds at various major racing locations, I found this book very technical and difficult to read. I was constantly referring to the glossary to see what terms meant. I finally went and bought Wind Strategy by David Houghton and High Performance Sailing by Frank Bethwaite, both of which I found easier to read.

Worth at least ten places at last week's 60th anniversary Lightning regatta at Skaneateles in the New York Finger Lakes region. ( 175 or so boats in three fleets, 87 boats in our fleet)

All those little thermal downslope lifts coming off the side streams... 180 degree wind shift from downslope thermal to gradient wind right before leeward mark....just exactly as Walker described !

Alexander P. Vucelic

I am a meteorologist and bought this book as we sometimes give talks to our local sailing club. Reading this book was an exercise in total frustration. Mr Walker has undoubtedly catalogued all the winds he has experienced in different parts of the U.S. in detail. But unfortunately he does not seem to have the ability to explain how the wind patterns come about. His language is too wordy and ambiguous, his sentences too long, and leaves one in doubt as to how much he really understands weather patterns and dynamics. If he understands them, he does not seem to have the ability to communicate his understanding to others.

For example, in one part of the book he mentions the environmental wind blowing inland. Anyone would then presume a thunderstorm at the coast would be advected inland. But instead he says such thunderstorms move parallel to the shoreline. This leaves one totally mystified. There are countless other such peculiar descriptions in the book.

The positive reviews on the back of the book jacket are written by the author's old sailing friends and by his magazine editor, people who would for the sake of long acquaintance, undoubtedly write something good. One wonders how the average sailor (for whom the book seems to be written) would rate it, if they managed to survive reading the book.

The book is valuable in that there are many examples of the types of wind flow one can get under different terrain and synoptic situations. However one is left knowing the wind pattern but not understanding how the wind pattern comes about. It is a great pity because this book would have been a very informative one if only the author knew how to explain the meteorological part clearly.

Verdict : Buy it if you want a catalogue of the types of winds around the U.S. coastal areas. However if you want to understand how these wind patterns come about, forget it.