Andy Du Port - The Yacht Owners Manual: Everything you need to know to get the most out of your yacht

Adlard Coles Nautical

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First published 2015

This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Andy Du Port 2015

Page numbers refer to the print edition.

All images of the author with the exception of the following which are from Shutterstock:

Cover photographs: front David Harding, back Shutterstock

Andy Du Port has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

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CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION

This book is aimed at the reasonably knowledgeable and experienced yachtsman or woman who is relatively new to yacht ownership, but I hope that it will also prove useful to those who have owned yachts for many years. It is not a sailing primer, nor will it attempt to provide you with absolutely everything you need to know about owning and caring for your yacht. That would take many volumes and still not be complete.

There is nothing quite like having your very own yacht. You are entirely responsible for fitting out, maintaining and sailing her, and solely accountable for all aspects of safety. You do not have to answer to a sailing school, yacht charterer or other owner, nor are you able to rely on someone else to fix things when they go wrong. You, and you alone, are the boss. You are skipper, navigator, engineer, cook, plumber and much more.

Does this sound a bit daunting? Well, many thousands of yachtsmen and women have taken the plunge before you, and there is a plethora of advice and information available just search online or glance at the bookshelves of any chandlery. The snag is that most of this advice is either massively detailed or buried in obscure sources that can take ages to unearth. Few books, if any, bring it all together in one slim volume aimed at those who do not need to go back to basics but who want some simple, practical guidance to get started. If you subsequently need to explore a particular aspect of ownership or maintenance more thoroughly, you may need to do more research or seek specialist advice.