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Bareboat Cruising
Offers pertinent information on docking, anchoring and basic navigation giving sailors the confidence to bareboat charter in destinations that were once only distant dreams.
111 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1996
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December 23, 2022
This is comprehensive on chartering issues, but also lightweight. It appropriately assumes the sailing knowledge from earlier in the series, so covers minimal sailing. There's reasonable first aid and emergency protocols, and a pragmatic focus on aspects like provisioning and planning short inter-island trips.
Regarding being "lightweight":
I would have liked to see more discussion of docking techniques in tricky situations, information on utilizing food storage effectively, meal and shopping suggestions, clearer VHF protocol instructions, and dinghy instructions (getting the motor in and out, maneuvering the dinghy). These are covered well in cruising books outside of the US Sailing series.
The focus of the navigation chapter is largely to tell you not to rely on digital navigation aids. A little more information on how to read and use paper charts would be helpful, as well as more than one page on weather forecasting. Interpreting forecast predictions, clouds (in more detail), and barometric pressure shifts would have been useful.
The dinghy towing notes have a single line from the dinghy to the mothership. I would have recommended a bridle on both ends. Realistically, I guess they're assuming that everything is rigged by the charter company and they don't care.
For the primarily Mediterranean and Caribbean waters that are assumed, I would have made special note of not anchoring near coral and of checking the anchor by snorkeling.
There is essentially no heavy weather sailing information. That is presumably covered in the passagemaking textbooks as one does not sail a charter boat in heavy weather.
Regarding being "lightweight":
I would have liked to see more discussion of docking techniques in tricky situations, information on utilizing food storage effectively, meal and shopping suggestions, clearer VHF protocol instructions, and dinghy instructions (getting the motor in and out, maneuvering the dinghy). These are covered well in cruising books outside of the US Sailing series.
The focus of the navigation chapter is largely to tell you not to rely on digital navigation aids. A little more information on how to read and use paper charts would be helpful, as well as more than one page on weather forecasting. Interpreting forecast predictions, clouds (in more detail), and barometric pressure shifts would have been useful.
The dinghy towing notes have a single line from the dinghy to the mothership. I would have recommended a bridle on both ends. Realistically, I guess they're assuming that everything is rigged by the charter company and they don't care.
For the primarily Mediterranean and Caribbean waters that are assumed, I would have made special note of not anchoring near coral and of checking the anchor by snorkeling.
There is essentially no heavy weather sailing information. That is presumably covered in the passagemaking textbooks as one does not sail a charter boat in heavy weather.
Displaying 1 of 1 review