Sit-On-Top Kayaking: A Beginner's Guide

I found the presentation and format of this book provided a good, quick, and easy read. Simple diagrams and explanations address those questions you feel too dumb to ask but probably should ask. It is a book I find myself coming back to re-reading items after I have tried them out on the water. This is the book to buy for sit-on-top newbies.

I'm still a bit new to SOT kayaking and I found that this book offered some excellent information and suggestions - the checklists were very helpful when I began equipping my kayak. Really solid, basic information!

I wish Tom Holtey's "Sit-On-Top Kayaking" had been in print when I started ocean kayaking at age 55, nearly ten years (and 4 or 5 kayaking books) ago. Today, I'm grateful that it IS available as a packable, readable reference that always reminds me of the basics that are so important to beginners and veteran kayakers alike. Don't get me wrong - the books then available were good - just overweight with procedures I simply couldn't apply. This book delivers what it says on the cover - A Beginner's Guide - with clarity and directness, thanks to Mr. Holtey's lean text and Mr. Altman's line drawings. After several years of increasingly challenging coastal paddles, I have found that it is indispensable.

Tom Holtey has had several decades of experience in kayaking and it shows. The information in this unique book is an easy read, but by no means trivial. The obvious target is the beginner, but there are many details that the experienced kayaker will find useful. I have personally paddled with Mr. Holtey, and I can vouch that he knows his stuff, and practices what he preaches! If you are considering kayaking, there are other books on the subject are very detailed and you may want to purchase them. However, if you want a book that distills all of the information into a concise form that you will remember when you are out there in the awesome blue world that all kayakers know and love, then get this book.

I read the book as an advanced beginner, and I still learned much from Mr. Holtey's excellent directions. It was like having a personal kayak instructor.