This handbook shows you not only how to select and equip a boat for coastal and offshore cruising, but also how to sail and navigate it. Covering all this in one volume is a monumental task, one not attempted since the pioneers of blue-water voyaging wrote the first generation of cruising bibles decades ago.

Since that simpler, more spartan era, the typical cruising sailboat has become faster and more comfortable, but also more complex. Even as they've made distant horizons more reachable, the marvels of modern technology have paradoxically raised the ante on the entry-level skills required for cruising. Small wonder then that books about boat handling and seamanship have little to say about the special demands of cruising, while books about cruising presuppose a mastery of the fundamentals of seamanship and navigation.

Nigel Calder's Cruising Handbook presupposes nothing. It sifts through, organizes, and makes sense of the hundred disciplines of the cruising avocation. It will help you through your first coastal hop or your umpteenth offshore passage. Here you will find:

• Comprehensive coverage of cruising sailboat design
• The elements of a comfortable interior and a workable deck presented in depth
• The background you need to decide which of today's technological advancements may detract from rather than add to your cruising enjoyment
• Thorough coverage of cruising skills, from boat handling to transoceanic voyaging
• Fresh wrinkles for even the most experienced sailors

Compiling in one volume all the knowledge needed for successful cruising under sail, Nigel Calder's Cruising Handbook provides an inestimable service for sailors. There is nothing else like it.

'If you were shipwrecked on a desert island and could choose only one book to help get you off, this is the book.' - Patience Wales, Editor, SAIL

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