Book Review: The Modern Cruising Sailboat by Charles Doane

Book Review
The Modern Cruising Sailboat: A Complete Guide to its Design, Construction, and Outfitting

 

Winter is the time for Great Lakes sailors who haven’t pointed the bow south towards little latitudes to plan next season’s cruises, prepare the spring maintenance list, shop for boat upgrades, learn more about sailing and dream about their “next boat”. Books provide a great means for beginning all of these processes.

The Modern Cruising Sailboat (International Marine 2009) by Charles Doane offers a wealth of information useful as a guide for beginning cruising sailors and as an authoritative and nearly comprehensive review for cruising veterans. While mostly directed at the cruising sailor, racers and day sailors will also likely find the book interesting.

The book is well written with great illustrations and pictures. The first half of the book covers design and construction and is the most comprehensive at doing so that I’ve read in a book aimed at a cruising audience. There’s also a fair bit of historical information that some readers will enjoy. While readers likely won’t find all of the information and ideas for fitting out a cruising boat new, I’m certain they will pick up several ideas that will be helpful.

There's also a section at the end where Doane reviews 40 cruising boats ranging from 27' to ~60' feet. He chooses boats that he recommends for cruising based on his personal experience and gives a wide-array of different styles. This is the section of the book that many readers will gravitate towards for practical perspective on which boats to consider for purchase and which boats to keep locked in their minds as dream boats. I personally appreciated the size range, price range and collections of older boats included in the this section. Doane certainly could have included many new boats with his experience as editor-at-large for Sail magazine, but instead I believe he appeals to a wider audience by including several vintage, “affordable” cruising sailboats. While I would have liked to see a review of at least one pilothouse or motor-sailer, Doane candidly told me in an email correspondence that he’d like to add these if a second edition of the book is published.

While I’ve read just about all the sailing books and magazines I can get my hands on, The Modern Cruising Sailboat is the type of book I’ll keep close at hand for reference, alongside a select few other titles such as Beth Leonard’s The Voyager’s Handbook and Don Casey’s This Old Boat. Unfortunately I enjoyed Doane’s book so much that I read through it in about a week’s time so now I’ve got to find more reading to take me through the rest of the long Great Lakes winter.

The Modern Cruising Sailboat is readily available on Amazon.com.  You can read more about the author on his personal blog at http://www.wavetrain.net/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Top 10 Favorite Affordable Bluewater Sailboats

Image
I've always said that my favorite boat is whichever one I currently own. Being able to call it "mine" makes it my favorite by default. My first boat was a $400 derelict that I loved (still love) deeply. And she loved me back. However, that doesn't mean there aren't other boats I love that I'd like to call "mine" someday. The following is my personal ranking of my favorite affordable (available for ~$50k) sailboats. I've rather arbitrarily set the price limit around $50k and called it "affordable" in hopes that one day one of these boats might fit my budget and help my family and I to sail far and live free. Also note that other than the top 3, these rankings change in my head almost daily and I really struggled to narrow the list down to just 10.   As you peruse my list, you'll notice that they're all bluewater cruisers . You won't find any modern designs, fin keels, spade rudders, sugar scoop transoms, carbon fiber
Read more

Go Small and Go Now! 5 Pocket Cruisers to Take you Anywhere

Image
"Go small, go simple, go now!" -Lin & Larry Pardey Iconic cruisers Lin and Larry Pardey are well-known among cruising enthusiasts for the above statement. Can it really be that easy? Grab yourself a small boat, outfit it properly but simply for offshore work, and get going while your dream and your body is still alive! Lin and Larry not only made the statement, they lived it. If you're looking to do the same, maybe some of the micro- or pocket-cruisers I've listed below can serve as your "go small" portion of the equation. Going small and choosing one of these or several other pocket cruisers will lead to trade-offs. Of course first and foremost you'll be giving up length, both on deck and at the waterline. This often leads to less storage space, less weight capacity, and slower sailing. But the upside is presumably less maintenance (less paint, less wood, fewer systems) and more affordable expenses. For example, replacing the sails or rigg
Read more

Escape to the Sea: How to get from the Great Lakes to the Caribbean

Image
Let's say winter's chill was something you could no longer take as a Great Lakes sailor. Or perhaps you just want to extend your sailing season beyond the boundaries of summer. What options do you have?  You could just opt for a bareboat charter somewhere in the Caribbean and consider the itch scratched. But then you'd miss out on all the adventure of moving a boat between the Great Lakes and the Caribbean. And you wouldn't be sailing  your  boat. I'm here to convince you that the best option is to sail your own boat south. What follows is an overview of the route you could take to get you and your boat to warmer water and weather from the Great Lakes. Route 1: St. Lawrence Seaway (including Lake Champlain shortcut) You're adventurous if you choose this route. From most starting locations in the Great Lakes, you'll also be seeing the most scenery and passing the
Read more