Scot Carpenter sent this lovely stack. He writes: “Rather than create a book stack that would topple in a zephyr, I chose books with a common theme that I have returned to year after year: classic designs and journeys with an emphasis on shoal draft boats. I grew up sailing on the Texas Gulf Coast and its shallow waters so all but one of my boats has had a centerboard or lifting keel. I became enamored with classic small craft, especially sharpies, after reading Chapelle's American Small Sailing Craft and American Sailing Craft at an early age.
One of my favorite boats was a 14' Spritsail White Hall built by an Oregon builder from the design in John Gardner's Building Classic Small Craft. My second boat was a wooden Wayfarer that I purchased and then sold to my regret when I moved across country, and before I read Frank Dye's Ocean Crossing Wayfarer.
Sailing Alone Around the World and The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss relate the stories of two ocean crossing journeys in boats that would not be considered adequate by today's standards but show how the skill and experience of their captains overcame the design limitations of their craft and Princess is the story of one man's love for his sailboat that I think every boat owner should read.
Herreshoff's Sensible Cruising Designs features some of the most beautiful designs and drawings I've seen and includes Herreshoff's version of a leeboard sharpie, Meadowlark.
Pete Culler's and Philip Bolger's books need no explanation, as they show the genius of two men with different visions who produced remarkable designs, with Bolger's ideas on shoal draft flat bottom designs of special interest to me.
Finally, Gilpin's The Good Little Ship, Parker's The Sharpie Book and Thomas Colvin's comments and designs of shoal draft cruising boats and sharpies in Seven Sea's 20 Designs from the Board of Thomas Colvin round out my selection of boat design and voyaging books.
My current boat is Jim Michalak's Mayfly 16 design, and I include his Boat Building for Beginners and Beyond for its information on plywood boat designs and construction.
I am enjoying reading other's book stacks and hope that mine will be of interest.
Editor’s note: Here is a link to a free e-book version of The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss. It’s quite a story if you haven’t read it!
The book also includes a lengthy appendix with some surprisingly specific seamanship advice. For example:
13. HOW A SMALL VESSEL SHOULD LIE, UNDER A SEA ANCHOR AND RIDING SAIL, IN A HEAVY GALE, SO AS TO KEEP DRY AND COMFORTABLE.
Your boat should lie straight head to sea, or nearly so. The sea anchor is out about a hundred and fifty feet ahead and fifteen feet below the surface, kept there by its cork buoy. The riding sail is set over the stern with the sheet hauled in flat. If the vessel be provided with a bobstay, put a tackle on the mizzen-boom and haul the sail a little {311} to that side which is opposite the anchor rope hawse. To explain it thoroughly: if the anchor rope plies out over the starboard bow, haul the mizzen-boom to the port side. In that way your boat will lay a trifle off the wind which, far from being a disadvantage, will prevent chafing of the bobstay and headgear. The mizzen- or riding-sail should be made of strong canvas, and in order to keep it set flat put a preventer-stay from the mizzen masthead forward.
All blocks, ropes and strops as well as the sail, and everything else should be of the very best. For when a small boat is hove to under a sea anchor the riding sail will shake heavily at times, as if electric shocks were passing through it. This is very hard on the gear and the sail itself.
A ketch, schooner-ketch, yawl, or schooner-yawl are the best small vessels in which to make an ocean cruise. For all these carry a mizzen-sail, which is ever ready and avoids the necessity of having an extra riding sail when hove to.
Peter Ward checks in with an adventurous stack with a distinctly British flavor. He writes:
From the top:
The Sea Chest is a collection of stories from Yachting Magazine in the late 1940’s
Several books by Maurice Griffiths
East Anglian Shores is a more modern version of small boat cruising and part travel guide to East Anglia
Authors Tripp and Jones write about East Anglia sailing in the spirit of Griffiths
Three Men in a Boat is a classic of camp cruising via row boat on the Thames
Arthur Ransom on the Broads is a story of Ransom’s cruising (and writing) adventures
Riddle of the Sands is a must have. Right? (Absolutely! -eds)
Hornfischer's last book is a good story of he Navy and foreign policy in the Cold War: a good read
The Navigation Dictionary, from the library of a de-commissioned ship
Peter Freuchen’s Book of the Seven Seas covers the travels of the well-known Nordic explorer
Dutton’s Navigation, with the Navigation Dictionary were always at hand underway for ocean voyages
Tom Graham highlights a title he thinks should be added to stacks. He writes:
“I would like to add Cruising At Last by Elliot Merrick to the book stack. This is a wonderful book about cruising the East Coast from Hilton Head SC to Maine and back in a home built keel sloop. The boat, Sunrise, is a Carinita designed by Naval Architect Al Mason and originally documented in The Rudder magazine. Merrick and his wife Kay built the boat as he approached retirement and then set out together on multiple trips to Maine and back. Merrick, an accomplished author, wrote a number of books including NY Times Best Selling Northern Nurse (1984) as well as articles for Yachting and Rudder Magazines.
An interesting aside is that Sue Merrick Hoover, the author’s daughter, currently lives in Port Townsend. Sue (now retired from active sailing) spent about 10 years single handing a Quanta 28 all over the Salish Sea. In addition to her many sailing adventures, she is a longtime supporter of the NWMC. Sue acquired the ships logs and manuscripts from her father shortly before his death and had them published some years later in this book.
A memorial dedicated to Elliot and Kay Merrick and their adventures in Sunrise is located in the Mariners Plaza (Sponsor Paving Bricks) at NWMC. •SCA•
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