The Voyager's Handbook: The Essential Guide to Blue Water Cruising [Hardcover]

Beth A. Leonard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998

Here's how to see the world from your boat. More and more people are taking off on their cruising boats for a few months or even a year. After they've tasted the cruising life, prepared and equipped their boats, and developed some experience, many cruisers begin to dream of voyaging farther--maybe even an around-the-world voyage.

The Voyager's Handbook offers specific information for cruisers considering such a vast undertaking. An experienced circumnavigator, author Beth Leonard shows cruisers how to prepare their boat and themselves. She offers complete, up-to-date information on the latest gear and techniques and detaile, hard-earned advice from dozens of experienced sailors, about boats, crew, and costs as well as crucial but easily overlooked aspects of long-distance passagemaking such as health, safety, weather, provisions, fresh water, and foreign port protocol.

With a balanced, down-to-earth approach, The Voyager's Handbook tells it like it is, for any cruiser considering that voyage of a lifetime.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"When other boats scurry back to their berths just ahead of the setting sun you want to keep sailing. You want your tracks to be the only ones on a perfect sand beach of a deserted tropical island. You want to see the green flahs, taste coconut milk from the husk, watch the fish dance at dusk, and share a feast with new friends from other cultures. Perhaps you have cruised for a few months along one of the coasts, for a season in the Caribbean, or for a year in the Atlantic. You probably returned relaxed and contented--full of plans for someday. This book can help you get there. It is written for coastal and limited offshore cruisers who want to make the transition to long-term voyaging. I have tried to capture everything I wish I had known when we set sail that June day."

--from the Prologue by Beth Leonard

About the Author

Aboard their 37-foot ketch Silk, Beth Leonared and her partner Evans Starzinger successfully completed a 35,000-mile circumnavigation of the world in June 1995. Prior to their sailing career, they were international management consultants. Beth holds an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon. Since discovering the joys and challenges of offshore voyaging, she has published several articles in SAIL magazine, Cruising World, Sailing, and Yachting World. She has also participated in many popular panels, forums, and seminars within the international sailing community.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press; 1 edition (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070381437
• ISBN-13: 978-0070381438
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,305,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Outdoor Recreation > Sailing > Excursion Guides

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The MBA goes sailing, December 28, 1999

By 

San Franciso Sailor (Angel Island, SF Bay) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Voyager's Handbook: The Essential Guide to Blue Water Cruising (Hardcover)

A few of the other customer reviews have pointed out that the author may not be the most experienced sailor in the world, and that her circumnavigation experience was limited to relatively non-dramatic tradewinds sailing. While this may be true, what I found most helpful about this book was the author's open-minded analytical approach to the issues, and the fact that she backed her opinions up with her surveys and "research" results. She also presents various alternative solutions to the reader- for example when she specs out how a cruiser can be outfitted in either a simple, a moderate, or a complex way. This is very helpful in a field that tends to be dominated by more "fundamentalist" writers such as the Pardeys or the Dashews who bring their own conclusions very much to the table when they share their experiences. In that sense, I think her relative lack of experience can be a virtue, in that she seems to have kept an open mind.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Getting ready to go, June 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Voyager's Handbook: The Essential Guide to Blue Water Cruising (Hardcover)

This book was by far the most complete guide to cruising and living aboard that I was able to find. As long-time charter boat people, in mid-1999 we purchased a sailboat in France and sailed to the Caribbean, where we now live. Before leaving, we read everything we could find for advice. This book was far more complete than anything else we could find. We found that we had much less experience and knowledge than we had thought before we read it. No book has ALL the answers for living aboard and sailing, but this comes the closest.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most thorough and readable cruising handbook to date, September 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Voyager's Handbook: The Essential Guide to Blue Water Cruising (Hardcover)

We bought our cruising boat one year ago. Three years before that we started buying/reading every cruising "how to" book out there. Tania Ebei's book, Maiden Voyage, got the whole dream thing started, and this book finalized it. You'll find each chapter complete and filled with relevant and detailed information. I have yellow highlights throughout the entire book. I refer to it monthly, especially the monthly maintenance section. It got to be my bible, until my husband thought he'd explode if I offered "Beth said..." during any of his projects. OK, so I gave some other books a shot, some written for the woman cruiser, and I joined cruising associations, but none of them have come close to the first rate information Beth provided. As detailed and meticulous as you could ask for. Before I start a project for the first time, I still take Beth out and read her chapter on whatever it is, and believe me, she addresses it all from the cost of cruising, what equipment you need and what it will cost, what each piece of equipment will draw from you batteries, how to provision, how to package the foods to prevent moisture and cockroaches etc...Buy this book!