Essential Reading for Sailors (3)

RYA Manual of Seamanship

Tom Cunliffe

This book, part of the RYA Yachtmaster Series is a ‘must have’ for anyone who puts to sea in a small boat. Although written with sail boats in mind, much of the advice and wisdom is equally applicable to motor vessels also. It deals with hull form, speed in theory and practice, the motive force of sails and power units, ropes and rope work, boat handling, anchoring, mooring handling heavy weather, storm survival, dealing with emergencies, fog, manners and customs of the sea, dinghy work, river seamanship, grounding and wind and waves – an awful lot of information in one hundred and seventy well illustrated pages.

The author, Tom Cunliffe will need little introduction to most boat-owners and there can be few writers better qualified to write on this subject, having spent a lifetime serving before the mast in small sailing ships, racing, skippering yachts for private owners and serving as a mate on British registered coasting vessels as well as teaching.

So, if you want to know how to coil rope, what flag to fly or how best to survive unexpected heavy weather – this is the book to tell you and the advice contained within its pages is the best you can get.

Tom Cunliffe’s Manual of Seamanship is essential reading for anyone taking an RYA Dayskipper, Yachtmaster course or, for that matter, anyone who puts to sea.

RYA Manual of Seamanship Title        

Author     Tom Cunliffe

ISBN         978-1-905104079

Publisher    Royal Yachting Association 2007

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