The Outboard Boater's Handbook: Advanced Seamanship and Practical Skills

This comprehensive manual shows you how to go places and do things you never thought possible in a small outboard motorboat. A well-designed ruggedly built 17-footer, for instance, can fish offshore, circumnavigate Lake Superior, and crisscross the continent on inland waterways or on a trailer pulled by the family car. Small outboards are among the most versatile boats ever developed and are far more able than you might expect. Covered here are all the popular types--and some exciting alternatives as well as methods that may change your entire boating outlook.

Aided by contributions from other experts, veteran outboard skipper David R. Getchell, Sr., offers a wealth of useful facts and special savvy that reveal for the first time in a single book the true potential of these democratic boats 20 feet and under. Here are the means to understand what can be done, and the way to do it safely, including: how to judge a boat's potential and capabilities based on design and construction; how to rebuild an older boat; how to handle a little boat in big seas, surf, or shallow water; how to navigate; how to read the weather; how to head upriver or offshore; how to trailer your boat; how to manage and equip it for camp cruising on a nearby lake or for subarctic exploration; and how to care for the boat and motor.

Annie and David Getchell has been using, selling, and writing about outdoor gear for more than 35 collective gears. This year they finished a four-year run as on-air co-host and producer, respectively, of the PBS series "Anyplace Wild." Annie is an experienced cross-country and downhill ski racer, canoeist, sea kayaker, rock climber, cyclist, and mountaineering instructor. She has for the past eight years been the outdoor gear columnist for AMC Outdoors magazine and is a frequent contributor to Backpacker magazine. Prior to producing "Anyplace Wild" David Getchell Jr. was the longtime equipment editor for Backpacker.