High Performance Sailing

by Frank Bethwaite

Book Overview

'It is the cheapest bit of go-faster gear you can buy…' - Robert Lloyd, Island Sailing Club 'One of the most readable books on the complex subject of sailing faster, and without doubt, a must for... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070057990
• ISBN13: 9780070057999
• Release Date: May 1996
• Publisher: International Marine Publishing
• Length: 414 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.5" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

Overbearing in victory, surly in defeat

Just what is going on in a sailboat race (perhaps a regatta where everyone is sailing their 505 dinghies, and wearing t-shirts with comments on them such as the one in the title of my review)? This book tells us plenty about what is going on. The first part is about wind. And at once we're told about the various surface wind patterns, how they arise, and how often they repeat. The light air patterns are called "steady, unsteady, oscillating, and ribboning," while the breeze patterns are "steady, wandering, pulsing, convergent/divergent, channeling, and harsh." There's an enormous amount of specific advice about how to spot what is happening and how to react to each of these cases. We also see a discussion of the "stability index," which incorporates a number of factors that control predictability. There's also some general race preparation advice. If your boat can match the speed of all the other boats in all conditions and you know what you are doing, that makes you the favorite, and you ought to sail conservatively. You pick three or four other boats that might win, ignore the others, and if those boats (roughly speaking) stay together, you stay in touch with them. "If you don't sail away from them, they cannot sail away from you." You beat them one by one by using the wind patterns, but only by enough to gain "the tactical advantage you need to be ahead of or inside of the selected boats at the next mark." Similarly, if you can't figure out a pattern, you can guess that a few others (perhaps with better "local knowledge") may know what they are doing better than you do. In that case, you should sail defensively, staying with the top boats. Those top boats will beat you, as will a few of the "gamblers," but you will beat most of the rest of the gamblers. The second (and shortest) section is about water. That means a discussion of the types of waves, and the implications for proper boat handling, as well as currents and tidal streams, which affect navigation and tactics. The third section deals with the specifics of the boat. Non-planing boats win according to wind speed in light and moderate winds, and according to wind direction in stronger winds. Boats which can plane, but not to windward, will win with wind direction upwind and with wind speed downwind. Boats that can plane to windward will win with wind speed, not wind direction. This section comprehensively discusses sails, rigs, foils, and hulls. The final section is on handling, to windward, crosswind, and downwind. That includes a discussion of downwind sailing in light airs, where it is of prime importance for the crew of the boat to stay as still as possible. That means moving as smoothly as possible to set up the jib on a whisker pole or set the spinnaker. This section also includes a chapter on "kinetics," which is the co-ordinated movement of sails, steering, and body weight. When sailing to windward, the only useful variety of this is "surging," which m

This book is a MASTERPIECE written by a GENIUS !!!

I love this book, it is incredibly deep and detailed with excellent illustrations. Teaching sailing is my job and I study this to improve my own racing performance and I will be passing the gems from this book to my more advanced students.It is very technical, which I think is a good thing, in that it gives you an understanding of a lot of the detailed science inherent in wind, currents, tuning, handling etc. Mind you, there is a lot of information here... so expect to spend a season reading it and digesting it all. Some of it is so complex I still don't quite grasp it... but I will return to it and work through it when I get time.If one could somehow 'brain dump' all the information in this book into a medium-level sailor's mind... he would be well on track for an olympic campaign.I love this book and it will always be on my shelf as a guide, reference work and an interesting read in its own right. I give it the highest possible recommendation and I would love to have the depth of knowlege, penetrating insight and breadth of intelligence to have written this masterpiece.

how I got back into dinghy sailing

I was a hot shot dinghy sailor from the 1960's, read most of the books at the time. Reintroduced to this by my sons and the recent purchaser of a 29'er (Julian Bethwaite design) and as a somewhat hapless and occasional 50+ year old skipper of the same boat I decided to read up on the skills necessary for this skiff. Sometimes you are born too early. I could have used this information 30 years ago (but so could most of us if it had been known and available). Better late than never. The book covers slow (traditional keel, old style dinghys) boats, medium speed (high performance, laser 2's) boats and fast boats(skiffs). It is well written in a conversational tone. As in most scientific works you may need to reread some of the more analytical parts depending on your prior educational training. There are some interesting experiments that you can perform simply in your sink, bath tub, hot tub or pool to demonstrate the hydro/aero dynamic principles. I've got 30 or 40 sailing books in my library but this encompasses the most information on how to sail fast of the whole lot.

The best book ever on sailing or building faster boats

I thought I knew about meteorology, waves, boatbuilding and sailing. I have a first class Cambridge degree in physics, have sailed and raced various boats (dinghies and sailboards) for 30 years and designed one fast dinghy. I thought I was one smart dude. Words begin to fail me. Wow! I wish I had known this lot 30 years ago. It turns out that I was pig ignorant. The book is the best I have ever seen on what the wind does. It's the best ever on how to handle it. It's extremely good on rigs and how to adjust them. It's not just the best ever, it's streets ahead. Don't expect to read it quickly. There is a vast amount to take in. If you really know your stuff you might get through it in a few weeks. Better to plan on a whole winter.

THE resource for high performance sailing of our generation.

This book is about high performance sailing, and how to go as fast, under sail, as you possibly can. It doesn't matter if you race keel boats, or sailboards, or dinghies or multihulls; if you read, understand and practice what is written in this book, you will be a faster sailor. Frank and his family have include three Olympic competitors, four World Championships, as well as several Grand Masters (over age 60) World Championships by Frank himself. Frank has been a coach on the Australian Olympic Team since 1972 and also pursued pastimes with model gliders (twice open world endurance record holder) and full size sailplanes. His latest accomplishment is that of codesigner (with his son Julian)of the latest sailboat to be selected for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, the Bethwaite 49er. The book itself is laid out into four distinct parts; wind, water, the boat, and handling. Nothing is made in the book of tactics or rules. Frank assumes that once you get out in front, you stay out front. In all, a deeply technical book on how to sail faster. Highly recommended to serious sailors interested in performance. A must for any technical sailors library. Only once every 30 years or so does such a book come out, the last being C. A. Marchaj's "The Aero-Hydrodynamics of Sailing" from the 1960s. Don't miss it...