The editor has prodded me into my responsibilities as Technical Advisor regarding this book. It has had good reviews, not only in the previous issue of this bulletin, but also in a yachting magazine. The mystery to me is that people that I would have expected to criticise it appear to approve of it! My theory is that the more experienced sailor skips through the more general advice, looking for some new ideas. He can probably find a worthwhile number. These he quite rightly appreciates. The beginner, on the other hand, having no inbuilt sense of discrimination, has to absorb everything. It is, therefore, with trepidation, but with a broad back, that I present my adverse comments on this publication.

Chapter I sets the scene with the author's personal experiences as a young man. Couched in terms of 'what a daring devil I was to do such dangerous things' and 'do as I say, don't do as I do' he refers to his sailing in the dark of winter evenings in the area of Southampton Water in a sailing dinghy. He says that he nearly always sailed close along the shore and proves it by relating how he hit a sewage outfall pipe with his dagger plate. This incident made him jump, if that is what a heart-snatch is! It was certainly dangerous, but not because it was dark or winter time. There have been one or two cases recorded in past bulletins where dagger boards have hit submerged obstacles. This has resulted in severe damage to the hull as the board cannot lift as can a centreboard. Surely, the anecdote should have given the author the opportunity to point out the risk.

Chapter II is entitled 'The Best Type and Size of Sailing Boat'. It would help if the author had defined his terms of reference, even if it was only in a preface or forward to the book. However, after we have read this chapter we probably decide that the boat will always be sailed by a crew of 2, that it should be capable of being righted by the crew after a capsize, unless the conditions are bad (when, presumably, one does not bother to right it!) and it should be possible to pull it up the beach. It appears quite acceptable to get help for this latter operation and either two muscular helpers are assumed to be on hand or a crowd of children. To bribe them one is advised to carry a supply of sweets. I thought that this might be a joke, but the only intentional joke here is a warning not to drop the boat on any of the smaller children. He should have added a rider about ensuring that a policeman is not watching when he approaches them! When discussing size he condemns 10 feet as being too small and is not keen even on 12'. This may be because he is assuming a crew strength of 2, but this is a guess because he doesn't say. 10' is not too small for singlehanders as a read of A G Earl's book 'Dinghy Cruising' will prove. If he doesn't include singlehanders as 'Open Boat Rovers' why not?

Chapter III deals with open powerboats. The big weakness here is that there is no attempt to categorize them into displacement and planing craft. Instead he decides that there are slow, up to 7-10 knots, medium, up to 25 knots, and fast! Reading this chapter we could believe that all that was needed to turn a slow boat into a fast one is more power. Perhaps he believes this himself as assuming a 17' displacement hull, then 6 knots would be a more realistic maximum than 7 to 10. In this chapter he first mentions self bailers. Surely there can be no question of cutting large holes in the bottom of the boat to install these gadgets so prone to distortion, when the boat is meant to go offshore. Dealing with safety in powerboats, he mentions making it unsinkable by installing sufficient buoyancy (difficult if a heavy diesel engine is fitted) and carrying a spare outboard motor. Anyone with experience of planing dinghies would know that there is a real danger of being thrown out of the boat in rough conditions. A safety cut-out to stop the engine, operated by a lanyard attached to the helmsman should be fitted. Manufacturers are now beginning to fit them to engines as standard. A safety harness with lifeline is not the answer here! This basic safeguard should have been mentioned. One cannot help feeling that this chapter is only included to boost sales by appealing to a wider readership than just sailing folk. This impression is supported by the fact that the author gets in a plug for no less than four of his other books within these few pages.

The title of Chapter 4 is 'Rigs'. This starts off by stating that one of the reasons that the Bermudan rig dominates the sailing world is because it is so common! Bermudan as a rig description is, of course, incomplete as it only describes the shape of the mainsail and not the arrangement of the other sails such as sloop, cutter, yawl, etc. Later he describes the una rig as a Bermudan mainsail without a headsail. The name of the rig was taken from the name of the American built catboat that was brought to this country in 1854 and was, of course, gaff rigged. It is generally accepted that the sail can be either shape. Still on the una rig, he says that if the boat rounds up head to wind in a breeze unreefed, it is likely to capsize. I am unable to fathom why this should be more so in a craft sporting only a mainsail. He next refers to gunter rig and then lug rig. Gunter is, in fact, another type of lugsail. Nobody could understand what a dipping lug is from his description and he insists on calling a lugsail yard a gaff. The gaff is, of course, an integral part of a gaff mainsail and is rigged entirely differently to a lug. He does not mention gaff rig except in the title of a photograph of a gaff rigged boat. Strange that a man so fond of diagrams does not draw the various rigs as it is only possible to understand his descriptions, erroneous as they are, if you know it all already. He does, however, include a whole page drawing of mast lowering gear, including tabernacle, bearing out spar and four part tackle on the forestay. In view of the size of the boats considered in this book, this seems a bit of an overkill. The tabernacle would be sufficient, if that. It is noticeable that he seems to forget what size of boats he is supposed to be writing about at various places in the book.

In Chapter 5 on Sails there is an ingenious single line jiffy reefing system. I certainly intend to try it myself, but my natural cynicism suspects that there must be a lot of friction in the system. I would not even bother to try the heavy-weather sail plan in this chapter. He shows the jib removed and the mainsail heavily reefed with the mast being relocated in alternative forward heel sockets. First, consider the problem of tensioning shrouds and forestay and lifting the mast from one position to another with the dinghy jumping about in a seaway. Next, it must be pointed out that one of the characteristics of the bermudan sail is that as you reef it the centre of effort of the sail moves forward, much more so than any other rig. This largely does away for the need to move the mast in the example shown. If you are going to fiddle about on the foredeck you may as well fit a tiny spitfire jib with a gain on all round efficiency of the whole system.

Chapter 6 on Oars, Paddles and Outboards must see the end of this critique as otherwise it will take up more of this bulletin than it should. The astonishing thing about this chapter is that the author has ignored all the good advice written by people who understand rowing and have fully researched this subject. A prime example is his little graph to enable one to calculate the appropriate length of oar for one's boat. Incredible as it may seem, he shows boat length to be the sole arbiter of oar length. He entirely ignores beam. It is difficult to see what bearing boat length has apart from the question of stowage. On his drawing of an oar he shows a barrel shaped hand grip which is generally uncomfortable to use for any time, although occasionally seen on mass produced oars. A parallel grip or one tapering slightly towards the leather is far superior. Mentioning oar leathers he quite rightly condemns what used to be the common practise of tacking them on with copper tacks, seldom seen now, and suggests the better method of lacing them on. However, his idea of using leather thonging for the purpose leads me to believe that he has never tried it. Whipping twine of polyester is fine for the job, will take a good strain which much thonging will not and lies flat on the oar. Because it beds in it is not liable to chafe. Surprisingly, the author thinks of paddling as a viable method of propelling an open boat. As emergency propulsion for a racing dinghy, a paddle has much to commend it, being light and easy to stow. As a serious method for a cruising dinghy, it is virtuously useless, slow and hard work in a calm and powerless in a head wind. So few muscles can be used in paddling and the leverage exerted at the blade diminishes so rapidly as the height of the paddle above water increases. This is why mankind has found throughout the world and over centuries that this system can only be used with easily driven hulls of low windage. Open boats either powered or sailing do not come into this category, only craft of canoe form designed for the method.

The above are only a few of the examples than can be extracted from this book to prove that it is poorly written, that many of the ideas cannot be based on experience or are unproved in practise and that the author has a casual approach to nautical definition and principles. In the last chapter, the author recommends buying the Simpson-Lawrence catalogue. The current price of this is £7.50 - expensive, but I am sure good value compared with 'Roving' at any price, let alone £12.95!!