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The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails: A How-to Handbook for Builders and Owners
 
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The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails: A How-to Handbook for Builders and Owners [Paperback]

David L. Nichols (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 1, 2006
Make your modern sailboat look (and work) like a salty classic.

The Golden Age of Sail is long past, sadly, and much of its lore is nearly extinct. Sailboats now almost uniformly use the Bermudan sloop rig—a triangular jib and a triangular mainsail. But that rig evolved mainly to meet esoteric yacht-racing measurement rules. It is not necessarily the most efficient or effective rig. This book lets sailors rediscover the practical advantages—and the aesthetic delights—of such configurations as the sprit sail, the gaff sail, the lug sail, and the gunter rig. It also includes valuable information on marlinspike work like rope-whipping and eye-splicing; and tips on converting your modern sailboat to a traditional rig.

David L. Nichols has been building boats and making sails for approximately fifteen years. When he isn’t designing sails or building boats you’ll find him in the boats he’s designed and built. He feels that the only way to truly understand boats and sails is to use them. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, he has written for boating magazines like WoodenBoat and Boatbuilder, as well as writing and producing boat building videos. His designs may be viewed at www.arrowheadboats.com.

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The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails: A How-to Handbook for Builders and Owners + Sailmaker's Apprentice + The Complete Rigger's Apprentice: Tools and Techniques for Modern and Traditional Rigging
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Nichols has been designing and building boats for the last 15 years. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, he has written for boating magazines, including WoodenBoat and Boatbuilder, as well as writing and producing boatbuilding videos. He is the author of The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Breakaway Books (September 1, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1891369679
  • ISBN-13: 978-1891369674
  • Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A good general resource for the small traditional sailboater, January 2, 2008
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This review is from: The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails: A How-to Handbook for Builders and Owners (Paperback)
I like this book for its enoyable writing style and practical information on the rigging of traditional small wooden boats. The various sails documented are the lovely and functional products of centuries of European and American boating tradition, and what is good in life should stay that way, and the author assists this process with his contribution to the subject. Indeed, what better way to insure the continued tradition of lug sails and etc, than to discuss them in an inexpensive and focused book such as this? If you were to own just one book on small traditional sails, and were not interested a lot of ancillary and craftmanslike detail, this might be the book, although a variety of other books are also available and go into greater depth on this or that issue. Of course, you can't have too many books about traditional boats, so you ought to own and read them all! Start with this one, and if you enjoy it, start buying the others, is what I'd advise.

The photographs are clear and useful, but if I have one complaint, it is the basic visual format of the book: the type size and page layout could be slightly more compressed and compactly designed, providing the same information in a more handy (less amateurish looking) package. A small complaint, but there you have it. If I didn't complain about something, you might not believe the good things I had to say. --wt
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Working Guide to Traditional Small-boat Sails: A How-to..., December 13, 2009
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This review is from: The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails: A How-to Handbook for Builders and Owners (Paperback)
The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails: A How-to Handbook for Builders and Owners

Excellent book, clear and concise with good pictures and diagrams. Very good intro and subject background with logical progression through various types of sails and their rigging.

I enjoyed reading and have come back to reread various chapters as I study different boat designs prior to selection and building a traditional small sailboat.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Dissapointed in the lack of scope, October 4, 2010
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This review is from: The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails: A How-to Handbook for Builders and Owners (Paperback)
Traditional small boats come in several flavors and some of the rigs were included in this book. It does have some usefull information on basic rig types like the gunter and sprit however it lacks scope. I would very much like to see more rigging examples, pictures, and detailed descriptions of the lines, ropes, sheets, etc., where they go and what they do. I was looking for where to mount fittings and of what type. Where on/in or through the mast am I going to run the lines, where do they go and how should they be tied off. What are the traditional types of fittings, what materials are considered traditional? How is the boom to be fixed to the mast, what keeps the boom from flying about and how do you manage the lines. If your going to rig your boat this book does not include the information you would need to get a loft to produce a sail for you, nor would you come away with an idea of what other parts and pieces you would need to complete your rig. I would like to have seen some example sail plans of the various types. If Nichols were to add less than 2000 more words and several more examples of each type, sailing characteristics, pictures, drawings, photographs and details he would have a real winner that could be a must have book. Mabe a revision is in order.
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