The Sailor's Assistant: Reference Data for Maintenance, Repair, and Cruising

As other reviewers have stated, this book isn't much of a read, but it's incredibly useful as a reference. Keep it our your boat and you will find yourself reaching for it all the time.

I have a reasonable library of sailing/boating books and this is one of the few to which I refer, year after year. This book has provided me with many straight forward answers to practical questions as I converted my sailboat from a weekender to a coastal cruiser; for example, the thickness of foam matresses, the size of a storm jib, sizing my battery bank and cabling when I re-wired the vessel. Recommended.

This book is a sleeper. The first time I thumbed through it, I failed to appreciate how much really useful information it contained. Only later while looking for guidance in sizing new winches did its scope register. Vigor has packed an astounding amount of useful information into this slender volume--how to size props, prop shafts, anchors and chains, electrical wiring, even sails. It has weather information, data on radio propagation, the facts on bottom paint coverage and compatability, hull-evaluation formulas, cruising tips, hard-to-find conversion factors, the shelf life of galley stores--the list goes on and on. Most of the information is in easy to read tables, charts, or drawings. I have used this book often since I discovered it. A good reference to have at hand.