Essential Books

Hi there,

What are your go-to books for the care and feeding of your pride and joy? Which books would you recommend rookies get as invaluable sources of information on diesels, as well as regular, seasonal, and periodic vessel maintenance, etc?

I'm at the bottom of the learning curve, and the top is nowhere in sight!

Nigel Calder's Boat Owners Mechanical and Electrical. Chuck

Thanks!

I should add that we'll probably end up with something from the 1980's. Hoping for a seamless problem free experience, but something tells me...

Capn Chuck said:

Nigel Calder's Boat Owners Mechanical and Electrical. Chuck

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Spot on! Probably one of the best books for the boat.

One of the few I recommend...now with the internet, many of the experts out there writing are being exposed for only knowing part of the story and some things change so fast books are obsolete as they are being printed.

Nigel Calder`s "Cruising Handbook" though more sailboat/yacht related, is a useful reference book.
Without hijacking (or with apology),I`ve been thinking of a thread about books, not necessarily nautical, to share what members might read in the off season. I just read Alan Villiers "Cruise of the Conrad" about a 1938 fully rigged (square rigged) ship circumnavigation, New York to New York. Some Hemingway is a good read for boaties. Happy for a Moderator to move this elsewhere if it sparks interest. BruceK

The Complete Book of Anchoring and Mooring by Earl Hinz. Best book on the subject available.

The manufacturer's Parts and Operator's manuals for most of the major equipment, and Calders
Steve W

The Propeller Handbook
Boat Mechanical Systems Handbook

both by Dave Gerr

Hard to go wrong with the venerable Chapman Piloting: Seamanship & Small Boat Handling. A bit old fashioned maybe but still valuable in its upteenth edition (I'm still using the 58th edition printed in 1987).

George Buehlers Trollers and Boat Building in your own Backyard. Gougeon Bothers Books are also very useful for FG repairs. Jimmy Cornells " World Cruising Routes".
Dave Gerrs "The Nature of Boats", and Propeller Handbook as previously nominated by Northern spy

saturnaisland said:

Hard to go wrong with the venerable Chapman Piloting: Seamanship & Small Boat Handling. A bit old fashioned maybe but still valuable in its upteenth edition (I'm still using the 58th edition printed in 1987).

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There is a lot of good information in that book. Some, you may not care about like handling a sailboat or launching a trailer boat, but the stuff on anchoring, tides and currents, charts, weather, hiding from storms, etc. is pretty usefull.

For example, most of the anchoring questions I see posted on boating forums have already been answered in great detail in this book.

MurrayM said:

Which books would you recommend rookies get as invaluable sources of information on diesels, as well as regular, seasonal, and periodic vessel maintenance, etc?

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To be honest, I wouldn't get any books. I have all of the ones mentioned in this thread obtained 5+ years ago. I even edited part of Calder's last edition on charts last year. The reality is that the information you want is online and better than what's available in the books. You can get information specific to your engine and when you have a question, you can ask it to a knowledgeable body (like these forums). The engine manufacturers themselves are great sources of information and all of them have websites with technical information online and available.

For what you want, you'd be much wiser to spend some time on boatdiesel.com and perhaps even join for $25/year when you have a question to ask. That money will be very well spent - and save much over all the paper while providing better, more personal and complete information that's important to your needs.

It's been years since I opened any of the books listed above. When I recently wanted to look up some loading values for anchor chain I was thinking about getting, I skipped the Hinz book and found the forumula quicker online.

Think really hard before you spend $25 or more on any paper product today. The info will be old, stale, often biased in ways you won't know about, and based on one person's view. It's much better to have an interactive reference where you can ask questions and find things specific to your needs through multiple opinions from multiple people.

The reality is that the way we obtain information today has changed. Actually it changed about 5 years ago. And there ain't no going back.

ActiveCaptain said:

................. Think really hard before you spend $25 or more on any paper product today. The info will be old, stale, often biased in ways you won't know about, and based on one person's view..

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And the information you get on-line won't be?

Just read some of the posts on this forum. If I say "black", somebody is bound to come back and say "white". If I say I am a "technician", someone will come back and say he is an "engineer". Some people read something and then regurgitate it as their own information without understanding what they are posting. I can't count how many times I've read on a boating forum that increased resistance in a circuit will increase the current and blow a fuse or trip a circuit breaker. And these folks can quote ohm's law (incorrectly) to prove it.

Yes, there is good information available on the Internet, but you have to already be pretty familiar with the subject you're researching to weed out the bad information.

Chapman Piloting,for example, wouldn't still be around and being revised it it didn't contain valid information. Nigel Calder probably knows what he's talking about or he couldn't continue to sell books.

Books also cover things that someone might not think to ask or research. And of course, they work where you might not have Internet access and in locations where you might not want to take a computer or other device.

Best plan is to use a combination of sources for information.

Jeff is absolutely right about getting info online vs reading old boating books.

But I can think of dozens of threads that I have followed where someone asked a question and hoards of half baked and absolutely wrong answers (opinions) followed. And if the OP picked the answer that got the most responses, he would have been wrong! IMHO, of course ;-).

So how do you know what information to believe on the net? At least authors of books and magazine articles have to have some acknowldeged expertise to get themselves published. Anyone can post any thing online.

BTW, I would add Bebe/Leishman's book Voyaging Under Power for its philosophy and examples of what makes a passagemaker. Of course some don't like Leishman's additions. I do.

David

Greetings,
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet"......Benjamin Franklin

djmarchand said:

Jeff is absolutely right about getting info online vs reading old boating books.

But I can think of dozens of threads that I have followed where someone asked a question and hoards of half baked and absolutely wrong answers (opinions) followed. And if the OP picked the answer that got the most responses, he would have been wrong! IMHO, of course ;-).

So how do you know what information to believe on the net? At least authors of books and magazine articles have to have some acknowldeged expertise to get themselves published. Anyone can post any thing online.

BTW, I would add Bebe/Leishman's book Voyaging Under Power for its philosophy and examples of what makes a passagemaker. Of course some don't like Leishman's additions. I do.

David

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A good example happened awhile back on another forum concerning he use of EPIRBs.

I was in and out of much of the USCGs role in GPS and EPIRB development in their beginnng stages. I flew or supervised hundreds of missions involving all different kinds of EPIRBs....debriefed hundreds more. I have followed their development with interest as I sometime teach and/or get invited to national level Safety at Sea seminars, etc. I am not published yet believe my background puts me up there in the "practical usage" of EPIRBs.

The discussion was whether an EPIRB could be used for anything other than a MAYDAY....while even that is debateable, the thread started to debate even what a MAYDAY was.

Finally, someone quotes an author's book as "expert level" info because it obviously had to be to be published. The poster even posted the page of the book refering to EPIRBs.

There was NO first hand experience with an EPIRB at all in that passage. The author's claim to fame was write a book about their first year cruising. They never used their EPIRB, never heard an EPIRB, never searched for an EPIRB...they only passed along canned info about EPIRBs and it was faulty info at that. I quickly posted a link and a cut right from the COSPAT SARSAT website showing the error. No matter as the error wasn't gonna kill anyone but the whole cut was about the types of EPIRBs, why you should have one and which one to buy for offshore cruising. Basically "how to" book for much of it based on their ONE successful cruise. (yeah they may have been boating a long time...so have most of us)

No matter to the poster and a bunch of the other low experienced or armchair sailors...they all believe their boating books and mags because who else can they trust? The experience sailors knew what tidbits rang true and figured out the rest for themselves...which was really the audience I was responding to because the rest would probably never be out of VHF range anyhow...

So I get exactly what I need from the internet versus books mostly because I know what to ask and what answers ring of the truth or by real, experienced boaters. I know not everyone has that luxury...but books aren't necessarily full of facts either.

Two plus two always equals four whether it's in a book or on the Internet. Anchoring equipment and techniques have not changed to render the information in Hinz's book obsolete. Our FL120s are 39 years old. Accurate nformation on their care and feeding in a book written 10 , 15, 20, 30 years ago is still valid. While advancements spawn new methods and equipment for which the Internet can certainly be a good information source, the notion that printed material is out of date or irrelevant because it's "not on the Internet" or in some digital form is total crap, in my opinion.

And as Ron accurately pointed out, the Internet has given everyone " authority.". Not because it's on the Internet but because it's " in print.". We still tend to believe what we see in print. And where the cost and effort of printing and distribution kept most people from dumping their misinformation on the public the Internet has given every misinformed, opinionated, know-it-all the same "authority" as the person who actually knows what he's talking about, whether the subject is anchoring or politics.

Ron is right. Where you could not know something and pretty safely trust a book on the subject, particularly on technical or technique- type subjects, you now need to know enough about the subject to know if what you're reading is accurate. And if you know that, you may not need what you're reading on the Internet.

Which is why I almost never act on any "information" or "advice" I read on the Internet. The one exception is the GB owners forum because there are actual shipwrights on that forum who have owned yards specializing in wood and glass GBs as well as some retired diesel shop workers and owners. Other than that any advice or help I need on important stuff like power trains, electronics, electrical, wood maintenance and finishing I get direct fom people who work in these fields. I can asses a person when I'm talking to them in person, particularly when I can see examples of their work.. On the Internet, everyone's just words on a screen.

think that on most subjects, multiple sources of information are good. In any format, one must vet the info. I always want to know what sources are being used, be it net or print. I want to know the basis of their claimed "expertise". That hasn't changed in years!

Marin said:

The Complete Book of Anchoring and Mooring by Earl Hinz. Best book on the subject available.

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Thanks Marin, I just purchased a copy on eBay.

djmarchand said:

So how do you know what information to believe on the net?

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It's a valid question. But you're also mixing up these types of forums with real, solid information that exists. I'd tend to trust the info on the John Deere site before I'd trust anyone on this board (sorry). If there were something more specific I needed, I'd definitely trust boatdiesel.com responses especially as multiple people converged on an answer to my issue.

These social types of forums are great - as we all know. But they're the 2012 equivalent of running into some trawler friends at a bar and talking about issues, problems, and other things on each others minds. If you have a real, specific question or topic to research, qualified information is out there often with comments and questions.

djmarchand said:

At least authors of books and magazine articles have to have some acknowldeged expertise to get themselves published. Anyone can post any thing online.

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I totally disagree with that. Anyone can print anything and bind it for a couple of hundred dollars of investment. Even getting a book into the distribution channel isn't difficult not to mention the people who sell their books from the trunks (or lazarette's). I'd much prefer an online source where others can comment on the content - to show where it's right or wrong. Paper doesn't do a good job of that. It also doesn't update itself as technology, products, and new ideas come about. My Chapman's doesn't even have the word AIS in it. My Calder doesn't talk about Lithium ion technology. And no matter how much I want it, they'll never be updated without laying out another $25 or more to get something that is available in many other places for free.

What I find curious is that so many distrust internet forums.

I have had amazing luck and saved a ton on my home projects, truck issues and boat issues.

Yes I agree that maybe every 500th word is the only gem you get out of a thread...but it's there if you know what you are looking for. And with a few more minutes of cross verifying from those sites that are more trusted (manufacturer, government, testing, whatever) you probably have as good info as you can get...even from reference books...why? because that kernel of knowledge probably came from one of those ancient books, was tried and found to be time tested true or updated to newer tech by the poster and a bunch of other "real life people" (not some lab info)....and then verified by independent info if you care to.

No different than asking the guy at the marina, dealership, parts store, etc....yes you have to have some idea what's going on...but sometimes only a little research will put you in a position to make the intelligent choice.

What's funny too...is there ARE those "experts" that you find in yards, machine shops, etc...etc...right here (well sorta ) you just have to know who is blowing smoke and who is not and whether they are likely to have experience with what the topic is.

psneeld said:

I have had amazing luck and saved a ton on my home projects, truck issues and boat issues.

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THIS!!

I have many of the book named and I really like the ability to grab a book. The tactile feel of it, the lack of internet connection and power needed to have the info on the workbench or on the hook in a far away anchorage. No matter what, books will be around for a while yet.

I grew up with encyclopedias and libraries for research and reference and still love spending time reading books. Google has completely changed the paradigm of researching answers to a problem. In less time than it takes to type the question you will receive thousands of leads that can give an appropriate answer. Not at all unlike sitting in the library sifting through card catalogs and searching books on the shelf. Only faster.

Ultimately discernment of the information received is still required as it always has been. The authors background, experience and motivation is still vital to know as well as his sources.

Japanese Proverb - “Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass”

Sloan Wilson's "Away from it all".

The best book on radar I've cme across is Kevin Monahan's "The Radar Book."

"Painting and Varnishing" by Rebecca Whitman is one of the best books ever on those subjects.

"How to Read a Nautical Chart" by Nigel Calder is excellent.

And while it's aimed at PNW boaters specifically, "Local Knowledge" by Kevin Monahan is very informative, too.

As a newcomer to the game, it'll be nice having some vetted & edited information sources to establish a base of knowledge to build from. The books listed will help greatly to that end, and as GonzoF1 said, they can rest on the workbench or be read in some distant anchorage when they're needed most.

Thanks to all for the recommendations.

Nigel Calder: Marine Diesel Engines". KJ

ActiveCaptain said:

........Anyone can print anything and bind it for a couple of hundred dollars of investment. Even getting a book into the distribution channel isn't difficult not to mention the people who sell their books from the trunks (or lazarette's).........

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Many of these books have been validated by boaters. Chapman would not still be in print and updated from time to time if experienced boaters did not recommend it.

Once you have a basic background and understanding of a subject (usually from books or formal education), the Internet can be a way to get updated information. Still, there is a lot of bogus information out there. How do you know who to believe? The number of posts? The author's claimed background and education? His/her claimed experience?

Greetings,
I haven't reread all the postings on this thread but a thought occurs to me about the most important book on boating. CHEQUE BOOK!!!!!