The Story of Sail [Hardcover]

Veres Laszlo (Author), Richard Woodman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1999

From the earliest known craft of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to the final surviving sailing ships of this century, every major step in the development of the sailing ship is beautifully illustrated in this handsome large-format book that includes 1,000 highly detailed scale drawings and sixteen color plates. They are reproduced to standard scales, making comparisons both easy and meaningful.

Organized by period and theme, the entire 6,000-year history of the sailing ship is depicted. A concise but detailed text introduces each ship type and highlights the salient features of every vessel. Such a chronological review provides an unprecedented level of comparative information that will prove invaluable for maritime historians, modelers, and ship enthusiasts everywhere. This work is the only general developmental history of sail available, so it is certain to have broad appeal.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Readers will want to pour over these drawings for hours...it is simply delightful to peruse, read and digest." -- Sea History, Spring/Summer 2004

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press (December 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557508968
• ISBN-13: 978-1557508966
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 9.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,369,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding history and reference compendium., April 4, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Story of Sail (Hardcover)

The Story of Sail features over 1000 scale drawings of sailboats and provides a beautiful history of sail, from its earliest beginnings to modern times. No color photos of vessels here, but the intricate scale drawings are the draw and provide outstanding detail.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous example of the illustrator's art, November 5, 2003

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Story of Sail (Hardcover)

This is one of those collections of extraordinarily detailed and extremely exact drawings that will keep you poring over it with an enlarging lens for weeks. More than 1,000 technical line drawings by a very skilled illustrator takes you from prehistoric bladder-floats and Assyrian reed boats, through Roman grain carriers and Columbus's little PINTA (a "caravela redonda") and West Indiamen of the 18th century, right up to a modern Japanese motor junk and even the KON-TIKI, not to mention every rigged warship and clipper you ever heard of. And scores of variations on the common fishing boat. And Antarctic exploration vessels. And modern pleasure yachts. And on and on and on! Woodman's equally clear and detailed explanatory text is icing on the cake. The whole thing is printed on heavy coated paper, which greatly enhances the detail. This is not at all a cheap book, but if this subject fascinates you (as it does me), it's definitely the best thing out there.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More boats than you can shake a stick at!, November 22, 2002

By 

A. J. Watson "Bones" (Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Story of Sail (Hardcover)

Mr.Woodman (of the Nathaniel Drinkwater novels fame) shows the depth of his experience and research in the accompanying text to Mr.Laszlo's finely detailed scale drawings, which cover the 5,000 or so years of sailing development.
As far as I know, this is the only place where you will find the whole history of sail, with typical craft from all the sailing countries in one volume.
Logically arranged in roughly chronological order, we see the development from sail-assistance (galleys), through square- and lateen-rigs to the full ship & clipper rig of the19thC and modern solid sails. Here the devotee of nautical literature can see at a glance the difference between a brig and a snow, and why a settee is not a lateen rig.

The chapters on small working boats from all countries is very useful, especially for the fine detail of standing and running rigging. Of particular interest to the modeller is the section on ship's boats, which includes the sail rigs employed and seating arrangements.

The sections on eastern craft are particularly interesting, as we rarely see these depicted as scale drawings... Here we see junks, sampans, proas, prahus, catamarans, dhows, booms, sambuks etc.

A wonderful book, that I recommend to anyone with a passing interest in sail. *****