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

Beth Leonard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 16, 2006

“Belongs in the bookshelf of every cruising vessel.”—Blue Water Sailing

“If you are serious about that extended voyage, read The Voyager’s Handbook.”—Sailing

“Every now and then a new voice emerges in the world of sailing literature that stands out, a voice that is both clear and of lasting quality. The appearance of such a new voice is something of an event, and that’s what we’d call the publication of The Voyager’s Handbook.”—Blue Water Sailing

This inspirational and comprehensive manual leads you step by step through every aspect of choosing, planning, and following the voyager’s life. Using three example boats representing three cruising lifestyles—Simplicity, Moderation, and Highlife—Beth Leonard helps make your bluewater dreams come true, whether you’re sailing on a shoestring or a CEO’s pension. Starting with the things you can’t do without—an enthusiastic crew, a seaworthy boat, and, of course, money—Leonard offers sage advice on how to select crewmembers who are truly committed to the voyage, how to choose the right boat for you, and how to find just the right approach to financing your voyage and making the most of every dollar spent.

Managing life from a floating home and keeping that home livable, seaworthy, and safe requires you to become, among other things, the ship’s purser, engineer, doctor, cook, and cruise director. You’ll discover how to prepare for these new roles and put necessary equipment and arrangements in place before you untie your docklines. This exquisitely detailed guide also helps you master the skills you’ll need to handle a boat at sea with a small crew, including

• Weather forecasting
• Passage planning
• Watchkeeping
• Heavy-weather sailing
• Emergency management
• Midocean repairs

Complete with dozens of easy-to-use graphs and tables for quick reference, along with the hard-won wisdom of experienced cruisers, The Voyager’s Handbook is the ultimate resource for anyone who is planning, preparing for, or just dreaming about a great adventure on the high seas.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Belongs on the bookshelf of every cruising vessel Blue Water Sailing If you are serious about that extended voyage, read 'The Voyager's Handbook' Sailing In her own journey, Beth Leonard has become not only a wonderful sailor, but also a fine teacher Cruising World Required reading. Beth Leonard is a fresh and authoritative voice SAIL 'This book will help you manage your life afloat... offering in-depth technical information based on real-life experience covering everything from finding equipment, to selecting crew members, finance, passage planning, heavy weather sailing and mid-ocean repairs.' Yachting Monthly (October 2007) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover

“Belongs in the bookshelf of every cruising vessel.”—Blue Water Sailing

“If you are serious about that extended voyage, read The Voyager’s Handbook.”—Sailing

“Every now and then a new voice emerges in the world of sailing literature that stands out, a voice that is both clear and of lasting quality. The appearance of such a new voice is something of an event, and that’s what we’d call the publication of The Voyager’s Handbook.”—Blue Water Sailing

This inspirational and comprehensive manual leads you step by step through every aspect of choosing, planning, and following the voyager’s life. Using three example boats representing three cruising lifestyles—Simplicity, Moderation, and Highlife—Beth Leonard helps make your bluewater dreams come true, whether you’re sailing on a shoestring or a CEO’s pension. Starting with the things you can’t do without—an enthusiastic crew, a seaworthy boat, and, of course, money—Leonard offers sage advice on how to select crewmembers who are truly committed to the voyage, how to choose the right boat for you, and how to find just the right approach to financing your voyage and making the most of every dollar spent.

Managing life from a floating home and keeping that home livable, seaworthy, and safe requires you to become, among other things, the ship’s purser, engineer, doctor, cook, and cruise director. You’ll discover how to prepare for these new roles and put necessary equipment and arrangements in place before you untie your docklines. This exquisitely detailed guide also helps you master the skills you’ll need to handle a boat at sea with a small crew, including

• Weather forecasting
• Passage planning
• Watchkeeping
• Heavy-weather sailing
• Emergency management
• Midocean repairs

Complete with dozens of easy-to-use graphs and tables for quick reference, along with the hard-won wisdom of experienced cruisers, The Voyager’s Handbook is the ultimate resource for anyone who is planning, preparing for, or just dreaming about a great adventure on the high seas.

Since completing a three-year, 35,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe with her partner, Evans Starzinger, in 1995, Beth Leonard has lectured widely, written for leading sailing magazines, and outfitted a new 50-foot aluminum cutter aboard which she and Evans once again set sail in 1999. They logged an additional 50,000 miles at sea over the following six years, much of it in the world’s high latitudes, including Labrador, Iceland, Scotland, Cape Horn, and east through the Southern Ocean to Australia.

See the world from your boat

“A voyaging handbook with soul. Beth Leonard is a pleasure to read. No one else has captured the yin and yang of voyaging so well.”—Caribbean Compass

“Required reading. Beth Leonard is a fresh and authoritative voice.”—SAIL

“In her own journey, Beth Leonard has become not only a wonderful sailor, but also a fine teacher. I know this because I’ve learned so much from her.”—from the Foreword by Herb McCormick, Latitude 38 and Cruising World

"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 flash, taste coconut milk from the husk, watch the fish dance at dusk, and share a feast with new friends from other cultures. 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 on that June day when we first sailed out from under Newport Bridge.”—from the Prologue by Beth Leonard

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press; 2 edition (November 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071437657
• ISBN-13: 978-0071437653
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.9 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #95,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Outdoor Recreation > Sailing > Instructional

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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!