Books about Waterways from Amazon.com

Since the publication of the widely hailed first edition in 1983, The Annapolis Book of Seamanship has set the standard by which other books on sailing are measured Used throughout America as a textbook in sailing schools and Power Squadrons, The Annapolis Book of Seamanship thoroughly and clearly covers the fundamental and advanced skills of modern sailing. This edition of Annapolis is a major overhaul. Over half the book has been revised; old topics and features have been updated, and many new ones have been introduced. The design has been modernized, and many color illustrations have been added.

As big and detailed as Annapolis is, the wealth of technical information (including dozens of step-by-step instructions) is presented here in a way that is uniquely readable; it's both useful and easy to use. This is because John Rousmaniere and artist Mark Smith bring to Annapolis decades of experience both as sailors and as professional communicators.

Annapolis emphasizes the standard skills and proven methods that eliminate error and confusion, ensure security in emergencies, and allow every sailor more time for enjoyment on the water. Much has changed on the water since 1983 when this book was originally published. Black buoys are now green, the Global Positioning Satellite navigation system (GPS) is almost universally used, new types of anchors and sails have appeared, safety skills and gear are vastly improved, many more women are commanding boats, and catamarans and trimarans are common where only monohulls used to sail.

But for all these modern developments, the basic skills and spirit of sailing have not changed at all. Sail trimming, keeping up steerageway, maintaining the dead reckoning plot, heaving-to -- these fundamentals are as important now as ever and receive much attention here. Among the innovations in this edition are:

* Basic skills in early chapters: Fundamental sailing and boat-handling skills and gear, which are introduced in chapters 1, 2, and 3.
* "Hands On" segments: Three dozen special sections, each devoted to a particular seamanship problem and an expert solution.
* More how-to tips: Additional rules of thumb that guide a crew quickly and successfully through seamanship problems.
* New coverage of multihulls: Advice on evaluating, anchoring, and handling catamarans and trimarans under sail (including in storms).
* More on emergencies: New material on emergencies, safety, and heavy-weather sailing, including a section on preparing a docked boat for a hurricane.
* Equipment updates: Expanded coverage of the use and care of modern gear and hardware, including radar, GPS, rescue devices, and asymmetrical spinnakers.
* Terminology: Full definition and illustration of major terms when they're first introduced, with alternative language provided in parentheses.
* Gender: The use of feminine personal pronouns, which reflect the fact that more women are captaining and sailing boats than ever before.

From navigation and seamanship to boat and gear maintenance, from pleasure cruising to heavy-weather sailing, here is the definitive, state-of-the-art guide that provides systematic step-by-step techniques to see you through every situation on deck and in the cockpit..
Price: $27.41 [Notify me when price goes down.]

.
Price: $19.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In the spirit of The Perfect Storm and Shadow Divers, Sailing into the Abyss presents a minute-by-minute account of the sinking of the Merchant Marine vessel the SS Badger State, a cargo ship loaded with bombs being sent to support US troops in Vietnam. A true story that rivals that of any fiction thriller, Sailing into the Abyss uses eyewitness accounts, official documents and rarely seen photos to relate what would become the deadliest sea disaster of the Vietnam War Sailing into the Abyss compellingly documents a tragedy while celebrating the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity..
Price: $8.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This is the story of a couple's travels on a forty-foot trawler cruising 6300 miles and 145 locks around the eastern part of North America known as America's Great Loop or the Great Circle Cruise. Their nautical ineptitude is evident from the beginning, but pulling from their personal and collective strengths, the authors overcome doubt, a lack of experience, and real and imagined horrors. The odyssey is told the way life hands out its adventures -- sometimes humorously, sometimes tragically, but always memorably. The writing is light and appealing, but there is a serious strain running through the book for those who relish history and descriptions of the landscape. Astute and attentive to detail, they chronicled events and kept an account of expenses, equipment and charting. As a result, the appendix/guidebook is worth the price of the book for anyone interested in planning their cruise. Topics include necessary charts and guidebooks, information on locks, sett! ing an itinerary, resource addresses and websites, details on equipment and the best place to be educated about boating. The book has full-color inserts with black and white photographs interspersed throughout..
Price: $19.55 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Loran and GPS notwithstanding, there will always be a place for the sextant aboard any blue-water boat, if for no other reason than the thrill and mystery of finding one's position on earth by gazing at the heavens Here is the indispensable reference that should accompany the instrument aboard. Cmdr. Bruce Bauer, a professional navigator and master mariner with the U.S. Merchant Marine, has distilled years of hands-on experience into an eminently readable guide to buying, adjusting, using, and repairing sextants.

The Sextant Handbook is dedicated to the premise that electronic navigation devices, while too convenient to disregard, are too vulnerable to rely on exclusively. The book is designed to make beginner and expert alike conversant with this most beautiful and functional of the navigator's tools. Topics include:

• Assembly and Disassembly
• Vital Adjustments
• Avoiding Problems
• Rough Weather Sightings
• Oiling and Cleaning
• Immersion Baths
• Emergency Silvering
• Finding and Buying Used Sextants
• And Much More

You'll also find a list of distributors, manufacturers, and dealers worldwide, a discussion of future trends, and numerous helpful hints, including sighting with eyeglasses and using a Rude starfinder. All in a thoroughly revised edition of a book acclaimed by navigation professionals..
Price: $9.09 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Few people have done more than Sam Devlin to popularize wooden boatbuilding For the past 15 years he has been designing, building, and helping others build his fleet of small sail and power boats. Ranging in length from 7 to 40 feet--so graceful, pert, and purposeful they seem to have been born on the waves--these boats belie the fact that they are built from sheet plywood using wire stitches and epoxy glue. In other words, anyone can build them, and many have. A 1988 WoodenBoat magazine profile of Devlin garnered more than 1,800 inquiries for his boat plans, an unbelievable response to any article in any magazine. Sailboats like Nancy's China (costs less to build than the reported cost of one place setting of Nancy Reagan's china) and powerboats like Surf Scoter are familiar, much-appreciated sights these days. Devlin developed this guide to building boats--his or any other designer's--from the building instructions he supplies with his plans. It is a mature, shop- and ocean-tested manual, covering everything from sharpening the tools to launching the finished boat. There is also a gallery of Devlin's designs and a detailed appendix listing sources for tools and other materials. .
Price: $12.67 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From freelance tramp freighters to bulk carriers to the mainstays of large shipping lines the Traders and Gunboats rulebook introducers many new ship types to the universe of Traveller. In addition to purely civilian vessels there are also details on system police cutters and gunboats that aim to help those in trouble and to stamp out criminal activity within a system, be it smugglers, hijacks or piracy..
Price: $14.66 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Everybody has the dream: Build a boat in the backyard and sail off to join the happy campers off Pogo Pogo, right? But how? Assuming you aren't independently wealthy, if you want a boat that's really you, you gotta build it yourself

Backyard boatbuilding has its problems. Building in fiberglass is itchy, smelly, and yields a product that yachting maven L. Francis Herreshoff once called "frozen snot." Ferrocement, once all the rage, has pretty much sunk from favor, if you catch the drift. But there's still wood, right? Ah, wood. Nature's perfect material. You can build in the time-honored traditions of the Golden Age of Yachting, loving crafting intricate joints in rare tropical hardwoods, steaming swamp oak butts to sinuous shapes, holding the whole thing together with nonferrous fastenings that cost a buck or better each. Does that sound like boatbuilding for everyperson?

What about the currently fashionable wood/epoxy boatbuilding? You butter regular old wood with Miracle Whip, stick it together in the shape of a boat, and off you go, right? Epoxy works, but They don't exactly give it away; nor is it exactly a benign substance. Suiting up like Homer Simpson heading for a fun-filled day at the nuclear power plant isn't exactly the aesthetic boatbuilding experience many of us are looking for.

Where does that leave us? In the capable hands of George Buehler, who honors the timeless traditions of the sea all right, but those from the other side of the boatyard tracks. Buehler draws his inspiration from centuries of workboat construction, where semiskilled fishermen built rugged, economical boats from everyday materials in their own backyards, and went to sea in them in all kinds of weather, not just when it was pleasant.

Buehler's boats sail on every ocean and perform every task, from long-term liveaboards in Norwegian fjords to a traveling doctor's office in Alaska. This book contains complete plans for seven cruising boats--from a 28-foot sailboat to a 55-foot power cruiser. All the information you need is here, including step-by-step instructions honed by nearly 20 years of supplying boat plans to backyard builders--and helping them out when they get into trouble.

Buehler is anarchic, heretical, and occasionally profane; his book is West Coast counterculture meets traditional hardchine workboat construction, leavened with hardnosed common sense and penny-pinching economy. This book is for those who look around them and see that much of what is done in the world today--whether in yachting or politics or economics or interpersonal relationships--is based not on logic but on conforming and meeting other people's expectations. This book is most definitely NOT about either. It is about the realization of dreams.

If you believe that everyone who wants a cruising boat can have one . . .

If you see beauty beneath the fish scales and work scars of a commercial fishing boat . . .

If you want to build a simple, rugged, economical, good-looking cruising boat--power or sail--using everyday lumberyard materials and few skills other than perseverance, this is the book for you. Buehler's Backyard Boatbuilding tells you how to build extraordinary boats using the most ordinary skills and materials, with complete plans, instructions, and specifications for seven real cruising boats ranging from a 28-foot sailboat to a 55-foot power cruiser.

"Build wooden boats the Buehler way, which is to say inexpensively, yet like the proverbial brick outhouse."--WoodenBoat

Richly flavored with personal advice and anecdotes as well as a wealth of valuable information."--American Sailing Association

"Everyone will revere this book."--The Ensign.
Price: $16.23 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An estimated 4.1 million people in the United States participate in recreational sailing. Yet the large library of sailing literature leaves many of them high and dry. On one side are technical guides for America's Cup boat-builders; on the other, simplistic books for weekend sailors with little interest in science. In Float Your Boat! professional and amateur boaters alike will find intelligent and understandable answers to such questions as: What were the key innovations that made sailboats more efficient? How do you increase the speed of a boat? How do sailboats travel into the wind? Why are so many explanations of sailing so wrong?

Sailing enthusiast and physicist Mark Denny first traces the evolution of the sailing craft, from prehistoric coracles made of animal skins and antlers to the sailboat's reinvention as a pleasure craft during the Industrial Revolution. He then identifies specific sailing phenomena -- how wind drives modern Bermuda sloops, how torque determines stability, why hull speed exists -- and provides the key physics principles behind them.

Whether you are an inquisitive landlubber who has never set foot in a boat, a casual weekend sailor, or an old salt who lives for the sea, Float Your Boat! is an accessible guide to the physics of sailing.

.
Price: $16.21 [Notify me when price goes down.]