Plain Sailing: Learning to See LIke a Sailor: A Manual of Sail Trim

This book belongs on the shelf of anyone who has interest not only in learning to sail, but for all who want to sail well. As a long-time sailor, on all kinds of sailboats, I am excited that Dallas Murphy has focused on the key element that one must understand to enjoy sailing - that element is awareness of wind! Everything, and it truly is everything in sailing, begins with this knowledge and skill. It is what makes a sailboat move, the right amount makes for a wonderful day's outing, too little or too much of it can provide a challenge, and much sailing terminology is based on the wind and its actions.Too many books on sailing that are suggested for beginners get bogged down in the minutiae of types of rigs and hulls, knots, various rigging systems, and so on. Having taught sailing for years, I have seen how the critical piece of the sailing puzzle for the newcomer is to develop the ability to "read" the wind and know intuitively what direction it is coming from, how it interacts with the sail(s), and the direction of the sailboat relative to the wind. This is the focus of Plain Sailing.If one understands how the boat and sails interact with wind, and the basic principles of properly trimming sails for efficiency (of which steering is a critical component), one can step on to almost any sailboat and be comfortable going out on it and managing the sails, steering, and maneuvering. Murphy starts with discussing the wind and how it influences correct sail trim, then uses this a the basis to talk about helmsmanship and the essential knowledge that every sailor needs to comprehend.There are several key points that Murphy mentions that should be emphasized. One, of course, is the importance of wind knowledge. A second one is his admonition that when one is invited to sail with a more experienced skipper and crew. be much more than a passenger. Watch what is going on, ask questions, and try to see how the various elements of wind, sail, and boat all come together. Every sailing experience is a chance to increase one's understanding of this wonderful activity. Finally, the author correctly recommends (also in my experience) that the smaller the boat one learns on, the faster the concepts of wind and its effects will be understood. A small boat both rewards good sailing and quickly illustrates incorrect actions much better than a larger one. Accomplished small boat sailors are able to transfer their knowledge to any size vessel. It is more difficult to discover the important nuances of sailing surrounded by a larger boat.As you may guess, I am impressed with this book. While it is presented as a book for beginning sailors, my feeling is that many intermediate sailors will benefit from reading it. It will likely clarify many aspects of sailing the are sometimes too quickly presented by other authors and many sailing schools.Even an experienced sailor can find value in Plain Sailing. Especially if one enjoys the opportunity to teach sailing - this book presents what I feel are important concepts and a means to present them that should shorten the learning curve for a newcomer to sailing.I doff my sailing hat to Dallas Murphy and his excellent book, Plain Sailing.

I'm clearly among a minority among reviewers but it's really tough to identify the value of this book. A primer perhaps? It is definitely for the novice sailor.Having sailed for many years on local lakes and reservoirs where winds are typically fickle, fluky and sometimes turbulent and the confines of the waters themselves require frequent tacks and jibes, fussing with the minutia in tuning sails is something we generally don't have an opportunity to do. Having purchased a boat on the Great Lakes and preparing to sail there, I was looking for a good quick reference guide to refining my sail handling and not wanting to overlook anything, I read this book from cover to cover. For anyone with any familiarity with the nomenclature of sailing and basic sailing principles, the first three chapters can be skipped altogether and these are over a third of the book. As for the rest, there is no zen, it differs little from other texts on the subject and this is where it's difficult to understand the purpose of this comparatively abbreviated book. A beginning sailor, at least a curious and prudent one, will not bypass or shortcut anything by reading this book. That student will still want to study more comprehensive volumes such as the venerable Chapman's and dedicated texts on sailing (my favorite when learning to sail was 'The Annapolis Book of Seamanship' -also referenced by the author in this book) and I'm sure there are other fine examples. Two valuable skills to develop stressed by the author and probably not mentioned much elsewhere is sensing wind direction and velocity and interpreting tactile responses to sail trim. These skills might not readily occur to someone who hasn't had reason to develop them through other activities.Comments in a sidebar regarding boat weight and performance cost this review one star. The author states that light, fast and nimble boats are more fun to sail than heavy slow boats, that any argument as to the safety of the latter doesn't hold water and further that the owners of these may quit sailing out of boredom. I love spirited sailing in challenging conditions and sailing fast is fun. However, I would probably not get to sail much, if at all -particularly with my wife, were it not for the easy motion, dry cockpit, mannerly seakeeping and stable nature of our full keeled heavy displacement boats. All boats are a compromise and their designs are as varied as the tastes of those who sail them. Considering the target reader, the assertion seems arrogant if not ignorant or worse. I can only hope that the statement was incomplete as are dabblings into topics such meteorology and rights of way of which much more could have been covered if the topic was to be opened.As an aside, I wonder if any other reader has pondered whether there is any message to the author's defying traditional convention in the use of default pronouns?In the end, I couldn't recommend this expensive little book that offers little that can't be found in volumes that detail much more.

If you're a beginning sailor who has inevitably run up against the frustration of sail trimming, this is your book. It will not, sadly, answer all your questions. For example, most of us newbies are going to focus on the telltales to start and there is no real step-by-step for figuring out what the hell to do when nothing you do can get the damn things to fly right. HOWEVER, grab a packet of those little post-it tabs and a highlighter. You'll find a TON of tidbits in here to mark for future reference. Then grab a ziplog bag, seal this inside, and go sailing.I've read a dozen books on sail trimming. This is by far the most useful for beginners. It also has the bonus of being really well written.

This was such a expertly designed and narrated book on the fundamentals of sailing. As a amateur sailor I can't wait for more time on the water

This is an excellent introduction to keelboat sailing, well-written and illustrated.It covers essentially ALL the material of a basic sailing course in clear, not overlytechnical language, although it does stress the need to learn correct terminology inorder to communicate effectively on board. Its designation as a manual of sail-trim isslightly misleading, since only a lesser fraction of the book addresses sail trimspecifically. That slight caveat aside I strongly recommend the book to people startingout on the endlessly enthralling and challenging life of sailing.

A long time sailor I still learned a lot and will reread it often. Highly recommend it. Sails are the sailor’s engine, learn to use them efficiently.

Well written. I bought it as a refresher...course....love it.

This book is a great book for beginners but even for a more experienced sailor there is still plenty of good info about sail trim. Very well written.

After sailing for a decade I thought I new it all .A real leveler .Brings sailing to life in print .Loved it.

Great book

Great read and good value. A bit basic for those who sail already but good nonetheless