Yachting

This is another very rare publication. Just imagine, it was published nearly century-and-half ago, in 1884. This is what we call a truly classic book. Of course, some things have significantly changed since the time of the first release of this manual; however, you must agree that the fundamental laws of physics and hydrodynamics governing the behavior of the yacht remain unchanged.

The manual opens with a chapter describing the process of selecting a yacht giving some valuable instructions and practical tips to the future yacht owner. The next chapter addresses the examination of the yacht - you will know how to check your yacht and the areas where you should be concentrated on during the examination. The following two chapters are dealing with the yacht construction and equipment, while the others are dedicated to the seamanship, management of the yacht and racing.

Finally, the remainder of the manual is covering various types of yachts, for example centre-board, Brighton beach, Pollywog etc. Small racing yachts have also been paid particular attention in this volume; same approach was applied to the steam, ice yachting and canoeing - there are separate chapters for each of them. At the end, there is a dictionary of general yachting-related information for ready use.

Nick doesn't like fore and aft mooring buoys. He finds them difficult to pick up and, once secured, they seem to put veiy heavy loads on the mooring lines, particularly with the tidal stream from astern and a crosswind. Having read in the sailing directions that the only mooring option in Chausey Sound was between fore and aft buoys, he was thinking about giving up the plan for an overnight visit to the islands southeast of Jersey.

His crew had heard that this was a magical place though, and persuaded him that, as it was neap tides and no more than a Force 4-5 forecast, it would be a shame to pass them by. As it turned out, there was plenty of room on the moorings and, with the help of smart work from the crew, Nick picked up a suitable pair of buoys without a problem. The wind had been light when they arrived and dropped to nothing overnight so his worry about strain on the deck cleats and mooring lines was ill-founded.

The following day he planned to leave through the shallow northern end of the Sound, which meant waiting until mid-afternoon for sufficient rise of tide and a favourable stream. By lunch the wind had built to the promised Force 4-5 from the northeast, right abeam, and the heavy warp risers from the buoys were leading to windward at quite a shallow angle...