Learning to Sail

By Harold A. Calahan

Book Overview

This vintage book is a complete and accessible guide to sailing. Designed especially for the 'landlubber', this volume provides just enough information to enable anyone to take out a small boat and bring her back safely. "Learning to Sail" has been carefully selected for a modern readership, and would make for a worthy addition to collections of related literature. Contents include: "What It's All About", "The Selection of a Boat", "Type of Boat for Beginner", "About the Cat-Boat", "The Mooring", "Acquiring a Vocabulary", "Looking Her Over--Preliminary Warnings", "Three Useful Knots", "Bending and Hoisting Sail", "Reefing", "The Theory of Sailing", "Before the Wind", "Sailing to Windward", "Reaching", etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on sailing. This book was first published in 1945.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1447411811
• ISBN13: 9781447411819
• Release Date: May 2011
• Publisher: Wrangell-Rokassowsky Press
• Length: 372 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The best "How to" learning to sail book ever written!

I learned to sail in a 19 foot "Lightning" class sailboat holding this book in my left hand and the tiller in my right hand, while alone in the boat. His homey, unsophisticated descriptions, conveyed the feeling that H. A. Calahan was in the cockpit with me every step of the way. This gave me the confidence to learn the "ropes". In successive chapters he tells you how to buy a boat, how to handle the boat, "17 ways to get into trouble" followed in the next chapter by "17 ways to get out of trouble" with simple easily understood descriptions. There are also many other chapters on subjects essential for safe, trouble-free boating. I subsequently took the basic knowledge acquired from Mr. Calahan and proceeded to successfully sail in many exotic parts of the world and meet and interact with interesting people in the sailing community. Reading this book changed and enriched the lives of my whole family.