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| I am still learning sooo much, and initially it was quite hard to just figure out where to start. For those of you in the same boat, I thought that giving a short review of what's helped and what hasn't might be useful (on a scale of * to **** stars). The section is divided into the following sections:
"Sail like a Champion", Dennis Conner, 1992 **** This book is not easy to find - I finally ordered it through Barnes & Noble's website. A really good overview of racing - probably the best book to get started with. Covers boat-design, trim, crew, strategy, and tactics. Oh, a bunch of the racing rules are outdated, so disregard a lot of that.
"Illustrated Sail & Rig Tuning", Ivar Dedekam, 2000 ISBN 1- 8986660- 67- 0 **** A short, very well illustrated sail trim book. Due to the exceptional color illustrations, and the terse but to the point writing, probably the easiest to understand book I've found. And it really covers the bases well, so I wouldn't even call it an introduction. Overall, highly recommended.
"Around the Buoys", Michael Huck, Jr, 1994 *** Quite a bit more detailed on tactics and strategy than the above, but also a lot harder to read. I started with this, got quite confused, stopped, and switched to Conner's. After Conner's book, it's an excellent 'deepener'. As with Conner's book, disregard a good amount of the rules related stuff.
"Weather for the Mariner", William J. Kotsch, 1983 ** to **** Probably a definitive book on the weather. Not exactly what you'd call night-time reading, but the best I've found so far. Well explained, but too quite a detailed level. If you are patient, it's great, if not, then skip it.
"Sailboat Electrics Simplified", Don Casey, 1999 ISBN 0-07-036649-7 **** Extremely well illustrated, from the basics of electricity to the workings of an alternator and batteries, system trouble shooting, and system layout. By far the best I've found on the subject. Full of little hints and gems of what to do and not to do. Despite being an electrical engineer, I find this book extremely useful.
www.pyacht.com **** Mailorder online store. Much better service than sailnet.com, and in general also much better prices. So far, have ordered Harken track-cars, a tuffluff system, some line, as well as the Nexus Autopilot from them.
www.riggingonly.com **** By far the cheapest place for rigging (line). When we redid our running rigging, I ordered most line from them, and had them splice a couple of the high-tech halyards. Great prices with delivery as promised. Will use them again.
www.sailnet.com *** Good general articles on everything from racing to cruising to gear. Every day something new. Also, their mail-order shop has lots of stuff that is significantly lower than Westmarine, and you don't pay sales-tax. Service is ok, they often seem backordered, and sometimes don't know what the status of your order is. Still the prices generally seem to be worth it for me.
http://www.mpc.ncep.noaa.gov/Frames.html *** A great website to check out weather maps and forecasts. Check out the 500mB maps for the jet stream (drives the speed and direction of the movement of the Lows and Highs), and the surface forecasts, etc., to get a feeling for what we are up against.
http://www.nws.mbay.net/marine.html *** SF Bay & westcoast marine weather. Links to the buoys, etc.. Lots of stuff here.
www.orc.org **** The offshore racing council. Puts out the regs concerning boat and equipment requirements for offshore races. For the OYRA stuff we are interested in Category 2 events (ORC Special Regs Cat 2). Makes very interesting reading. The Category 1/0 stuff for serious long distance off-shore stuff is also worth having a peek at (ORC Special Regs Cat 1)
www.yra.org ** SF Yacht Racing Association. If you are interested in the overall racing scene in the SF bay, this is a good place to start. Contains a calendar for all the SF area races, as well as sailing instructions, results, etc.
North U **** North University is an extension of North Sails. Their University program teaches various seminars all over the country. For racers, there is Sail-Trim, as well as Tactics and Advanced Tactics. These are taught in alternating years. For cruisers, there is a cruising course, that goes through just about everything relating to cruising. Manuela is taking that course in February, so ask her how it was then.
Single Handed Sailing Society Seminars **** Great seminars taught by various members of the SSS here in the SF bay. The seminars are meant to help you prepare for the PacCup or TransPac, but are open to anyone. Generally, they ask for a donation for the handouts ($2-$4). I've just attended two, and found them very useful. Just by listening to people who make it to Hawaii on their own, one can glean a bunch of useful info. I've pulled down the handouts from their website, which you can find at Downloads.
From the SSS
The following is the SSB intro from ICOM at www.icomamerica.com:
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