Understanding Boat Design

For new boating enthusiasts--even if they've been at it awhile--there are scores of burning questions. If one boat has a round bottom and another's is veed, what difference does it make in the way they perform? What are the advantages of a cutter rig over a sloop? Why does one sailor swear by a full keel, while others won't have anything but a fin keel? Why does one powerboat have more flare in its topsides than another? And what is flare? Why do some hull shapes look "right"? How big an engine and propeller will it take to move that powerboat? What elements make a boat safe, or comfortable?

Understanding Boat Design has been the place to look for quick, uncomplicated answers since 1971. Founder of the Yacht Design Institute, a highly respected designer for more than 30 years, and a frequent contributor to SAIL, Cruising World, and other magazines, Ted Brewer has again revised his classic primer. This new volume has been greatly expanded and contains information on many aspects of design that were not even thought of twenty years ago.

Understanding Boat Design has eased tens of thousands of readers into the complex world of small-craft design. It is the ideal introduction for backyard boatbuilders, students of boat design, or someone looking to buy a first boat.

"This tight little book should be required reading."--Soundings

"A natural for those embarking on a first purchase, or the amateur builder."--Sailing

"One of the cleanest and clearest expositions on the elements of yacht design ever published . . . by a naval architect who knows what he is talking about."--WoodenBoat

Ted Brewer, a lifelong sailor with more than 230 yacht designs to his credit, has worked on Gold Cup and Olympic medal - winning 5.5-meter designs, on the America's Cup defender Weatherly, and on numerous successful motor yachts, ocean racers, and production boats. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, with Bob Wallstrom, he produced more than 100 custom and production designs, from 21-foot catboats to the exquisite 62-foot charter ketch Traveller III. His better-known production designs include the Whitby 42, the Aloha 28 and 34, the Cabot 36, and the Morgan 38. In the early 1970s he originated the much copied radius-bilge method of building metal yachts.

Brewer's more recent designs include a sailing dinghy, a 45-foot Boston pilot schooner, the 68-foot schooner Tree of Life (named by SAIL magazine as one of the "100 Greatest Yachts in America"), and the 60-foot BOC around-the-world racer Wild Thing.

He is author of two other books, Cruising Yacht Design and Ted Brewer Explains Sailboat Design (International Marine, 1985), and a contributor to SAIL, Cruising World, Motor Boating & Sailing, and Great Lakes Sailor, among other magazines.

When not at the drafting table, Brewer cruises the waters of the Pacific Northwest aboard his Nimble 25 Arctic yawl from his home port of Anacortes, Washington.