How to Design a Boat

Reviews / Votes

There are, of course, only two kinds of boating people: those who want a 33 (10m) white plastic cruising-racing yacht and those who want a 33 (10m) white plastic planing powerboat. If you don t believe me, look at the mainstream boating magazines; they patently adhere to the credo that there are no other kinds of boat to which anyone could conceivably aspire. Which makes it particularly brave of the publisher to re-issue this little manual of a distant counter culture. As totemic in its way as Das Kapital or The Motorcycle Diaries, it was back in 1992 that it first gave voice to the radical notion that you might not want to own 33 (10m) of elongated bidet. But its author, the late John Teale, a designer best known for his multi-chine steel motorboats, went even further by suggesting you could actually design for yourself an individual non-bidet to suit your own needs and inclinations. Clearly the boating equivalent of bra burning. Coming back to the book now, with its engaging coursework of a 14 (4.4m) lug-rigged dinghy, a 21 (6.4m) flattie skiff, even a good old-fashioned displacement motor cruiser, I can only cry Viva la revolution! * WaterCraft * This is a step-by-step walk through a series of designs that grow in size and complexity as the reader progresses, we trust with pencil in hand, from chapter to chapter. The author addresses a variety of boat types, small and large, and his writing style is so infectious that the more avid reader is likely to pass from plans on the dining-room table to shavings on the living-room floor without realizing it. * Cruising World * "The wealth of knowledge and confidence imparted by this book to the beginning designer may even provide incentive for launching a new career in yacht design."--Journal of the American Sailing Association