The Book of the Sailboat: How to rig, sail and handle small boats

Among the first things that the amateur sailor should learn are the rules of the road at sea, for there are just as strict and definite rules for boats traversing maritime highw...

The first thing you should learn to do if you expect to use a boat, is to learn to swim. A sailboat, properly rigged, well built and intelligently handled, is as safe as a rowbo...

To sailors the ability to tie knots, make splices and do other ropework is known as marlinspike seamanship. The name “marlinspike” refers to a metal instrument used in making kn...

Probably the first sail ever placed upon a boat was merely a piece of hide or skin, lashed to a sapling and kept spread open by a rough stick lashed across it. Through all the c...

Nearly everyone knows that the body of the boat is called the hull, but a great many people, even those who live by the sea or who are accustomed to the use of boats, know very...

Very few men or boys are capable of planning, drafting, laying down and building a round-bottomed boat. Even if you are expert enough to do this, the finished product will not c...

In learning to sail a boat or when handling a boat after you have learned to sail, there are certain things you _should_ do and many other things you _should not_ do and of thes...

If a boat is pulled up on shore, or is placed in a boathouse when not in use, it will require less care than a craft kept in the water at an anchorage or moorings, but even when...

Through countless centuries since man first made and used boats, an almost infinite variety of craft has been developed. In every land where boats of any sort are used the inhab...

No one knows who first invented boats. Probably they were used by primitive man long before he discovered how to use bows and arrows or had even learned to chip stones into simp...

There are many forms of moorings for small boats, among them large stones, heavy pieces of iron or metal, such as old furnace-pots, old car-wheels, old railroad-rails and discar...