Customer Reviews

Yacht Design Explained: A Boat Owner's Guide to the Principles and Practice of Design

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This is a book written by a knowledgable and experienced designer, Steve Killing, who understood his audience to be the average person. You don't really even have to know how to sail to appreciate this book (but I'd suggest it). It's well written and the diagrams are perhaps the best I've seen in a boat book.

On the downside the editing of the book places diagrams occasionally two pages away from the text that details it. This does is disturb the flow of the topic you are deep in the middle of. Plus, some interesting topics (such as adjustable backstays) are given a very light overview, and some (like bulkhead/hull/deck joint mechanics) are not covered at all.

Basically, it's a book about performance yacht design. That means it is primarily focused on the sailing aspects or hulls, and rigging, and keels, as opposed to liveability, or pure structural tradeoffs in yacht building.

That said, I've read it twice already, which for me is a rarity. Buy this book!

-thaw-

I'm an automotive designer who enjoys technical reading. Over the years I've subscribed to numerous boating publications and have purchased a handfull of books on sail power yacht design. This book is by far the best. It will answer many of your questions such as "why is a longer hull faster?", "why does 1.34 x the square root of the waterline length approximate max hull speed?". The book is well written and presents a short history of each design element i.e, sail configurations. The technical formulas are seperated in sidebar configuration for those who avoid math at all costs. If you are only going to buy one book on sail powered yacht design-this is the one.

Well written and straight forward with great graphics and pictures, this wonderful book on sailing yacht design is a must for the curious sailor.

The contents include fantastic graphics, charts, illustrations and photographs. It covers the fundamentals of design including hulls, keels, ballast, rudders, rigs, and sails.

Covering designs from Sir Isaac Newton to the America's Cup, this book is not a technical manual but an explanation of the problems that designers and builders cope with in solving the problems created by wind and water to produce a stable and practical sailing vessel.

Capt. Matt

Well thought out and informative. The author strikes a solid balance between being two technical and glossing over the subject material.

The graphs, and illustrations are of high quality.

I found this book very helpfull in discovering some of the things needed to design a performance yacht.

Steve Killing and Douglas Hunter present a very well written and beautifully presented analysis of the historic and technical aspects of yacht design, and many the tricks of the trade in designing safe, fast and reliable yachts. Using many diagrams and examples, the authors introduce you to the basics of designing fast racing sailboats and present the challenges faced by contemporary yacht designers in achieving a good balance between safety and speed.
You will get to know most of the aspects of designing a sailboat, from hull design, speed predictions, stability, rigging, proper ballasting and keel design. You will be introduced to the use of coefficients which allow the comparison of different yachts in terms of relative weight for a given length, the sail area relative to displacement, etc.
Full with interesting details it is a delightful book to read and a very useful reference source. A great starting book on the subject.

This book is clearly structured and explains yacht design clearly and to the point. Many illustrations and diagrams that explain yacht design for the rest of us. I know some professionals that work in yacht design and they were impressed too. Impressive amount of information covered in about 250 pages covering hull design, rudder, keel, rig, ballast, sails, performance predictions, tank testing and Americas Cup. I learned a lot and it is required reading for the ASA 108 certification (Offshore Passage making). Very impressive and worth every penny. Sail fast and understand why!

Clear and thorough explanations, lavishly illustrated and wide ranging in scope, put Killing and Hunter's book at the top of its field. "Yacht Design Explained" delivers an excellent mix of the technical with the practical. Killing's extremely readable, clearly understandable text "fairs" seamlessly with Douglas Hunter's outstanding two color drawings. This book covers a wide range of subjects from physics of design to the reasons that various designs work or fail. Attention is given to the history of competetive yachting. Competetive racer, day sailor, dabbler in yacht design, and curious reader alike will find this book a delight. "Yacht Design Explained" delivers and deserves to be a classic.

Terrific book for sailing enthusiast and aspiring small craft designer. Well layed out format and easliy understood commentary. Worth adding to the book shelf for refernce .

This may be the finest book on the general elements of yacht design that I have ever read. It is extremely readable and entertaining. It contains explanations of matters I have never seen in print before, such as NACA section for rudder and keel. Steve Killing uses real life examples such as the Albacore class dinghy and the C&C 35. It is not for the professional as several other books available here are...but it is very nearly as useful. Matters such as scantlings and constrution methods are better discussed in other books. However, the clarity of writing and an immensely enjoyable style make this book one that anyone interested in yacht design should not miss.

May not be for professionals, however is a good help for the rest of us.