The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat: A Guide to Essential Features, Gear, and Handling

With a bookshelf of excellent books on cruising, this became my primary source while shopping for a bluewater boat. (I had already digested his Twenty Small Boats . . . , even though I was looking for a larger boat.) Vigor's writing is clear and easy to understand. Plus he interjects just the right amount of humor. The books provides enough detail to truly educate me, without going into unnecessary detail.

Even if you do not plan to sail shorthanded thousands of miles offshore it's a very good idea to understand in detail what makes your boat seaworthy in difficult circumstances and to make it so.This book is a very thorough and very readable treatment of the subject of everything you need to know about a sailboat (except how to sail; that part is assumed). These sorts of things distinguish good sailors from the mass of recreational sailors and I, for one, have an ambition to become the former. If you do, too, then this is a great book to read several times.The Black Box theory of why some people are lucky and others aren't relates to preparedness and if only once in your life you need it, then it's worth it to you and your companions to have taken the trouble.

You can easily pick up three books on offshore sailing and get three separate opinions of what type of boat you need. A fast boat will get across the pond faster. A big boat adds stability and can carry lots of accessories like auxiliary generators and water makers. John's theory is that you should get a boat that can be handled well by a small crew and tough enough to handle any weather that you are likely to run into. Since his opinion parallels my own, I can only assume that he is obviously a sailing genius. This book is highly recommended for anyone contemplating a voyage over the horizon.

This is an outrageously thorough, understandable, complete, easy to understand book. It will give you more knowledge about things to look for in buying or outfitting a boat, more questions to ask yourself about how you have equipped your boat and what you can do to make it safer and more easily handled, than anything else I have read. Easy reading, consise yet complete. If you read with a hiliter half the book will be yellow. You will want to refer to it often, and re-read it more than once. Contains useful references for topics requiring more in-depth discussion such as medical/psychological issues, self-steering, and heavy weather, although it has excellent discussions of these topics for starters; including a particularly good storm build up scenario which helps one put the contents of Adlard Cole's Heavy Weather Sailing in perspective.

In The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat, author John Vigor covers the requirements for any sailboat venturing beyond coastal waters. He first defines what makes a boat suitable for offshore sailing, then provides a virtual checklist of improvements that can "harden" a boat in order to meet the requirements for heavy weather sailing. In one chapter there is are 56 questions to test the fitness of any boat. The final score on this test helps the sailor determine whether or not a boat is blue water capable. He also addresses the operation of a boat on a long voyage, and what should be expected in the way of weather. Provisioning is also addressed in this book. An appendix covers the Catalina 27, a model that has over 6000 boats manufactured. His assesment is that this boat is the "Volkswagen Beetle" of the boating world, and is a very seaworthy choice for it's price and size. He tells of Patrick Childress making a solo circumnavigation in a Catalina 27. Any boat owner contemplating a long offshore cruise would be well advised to read this book before venturing out without making the improvements suggested.