Description
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A treasury of practical wisdom for the traditional boater. The book is full of expert tips on maintenance, navigation and seamanship, all beautifully illustrated by the acclaimed marine artist Martyn Mackrill.
Contents:
1 Sails: Setting a single-luff spinnaker, Tricing up or scandalising a gaff mainsail, Yankee jibs, Topsails, Watersails, Setting up the foretriangle when sailing to windward, Dragging the clew, Boomed staysail
2 Rigging: Ratlines, the Crane problem, Sheer poles, Burton, Spreaders, Baggywrinkle, Mast rake and Boom angle, Setting up Deadeyes, Housing bowprits, Dyarchy forestay, Mainsheet arrangements, Topping lift, Artificial hemp
3 Working the Ship: The Lizard, Mast hoops, Reefing, Harbour-stowing the staysail, Tiller lines, Stanchions and guardrails, Stowing sails, Sail ties, Flaking for the drop, Stopping the rattle
4 Navigation: Box the compass, Logbook, Barometer, Basics
5 Miscellaneous: Fiddles, Oil lamps, Chain plates, Weather helm, Boom gallows, Windvane, Sawdust, Mastheads
6 Maintenance: Slushing down, Deck leaks, Deck seams, Pouring Pitch, Stopping up, Maintaining Brightwork, Blocks, Boot Tops and Wale Strakes,
7 Seamanship: Towing dinghies, Fisherman, Sailing an anchor out, Drying out, Flag Etiquette, Burgee, Sculling, Hoisting the dinghy aboard, Purchases, Bull ropes, Securing a rope, Marking anchor cable, Bullseye, Offset propellers
Published by Adlard Coles
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3994-1189-9
179 pages
Reviews
Bosun’s Bag is a delight. It is a perfect mix of Tom Cunliffe’s lifetime experience in
traditional, wooden boats recorded in prose allied to Martyn Mackrill’s assured,
exquisitely drawn and painted illustrations.
The book starts with an introduction to the bosun’s bag of skills and explains its
gestation from articles written for Classic Boat magazine. It is then divided into
seven sections: Sails, Rigging, Working the Ship, Navigation, Miscellaneous,
Maintenance and Seamanship. Tom’s writing style is conversational and when
reading his prose you soon imagine yourself in an oil lamp lit, solid-fuel-stove heated
saloon listening to him hold forth with what he calls ‘a bottle of the right stuff’
between you. This book is subtitled ‘A treasury of practical wisdom for the traditional
boater’ and it certainly is that but you do not need to own a classic yacht to enjoy it.
Tom emphasises the physical effort involved in sailing classic wooden yachts and the
patience required in servicing and repairing them. But he is also at pains to explain
how to do these things properly, thereby avoiding undue strain and he offers a
myriad of practical tips on every page. Years of experience are recorded here and
any classic boat owner should be thankful that Tom has put together this
compendium of his knowledge for their benefit. Of course, if not having to wrestle
with the complexities of working and maintaining a large, wooden gaffer it is easy to
get dewy-eyed with the romantic associations of such vessels. As a non-classic boat
owner I enjoyed reading about the use of, to me, unfamiliar bits of kit such as
jackyarders, water sails and wale strakes and dreaming about owning a boat fitted
with such items.
This fantasy was made easier by Martin Mackrill’s illustrations. Some reminded me
of Arthur Briscoe’s drawings of hands at work in the old clippers: he captures the
posture of men pulling on ropes, hanging in a bosun’s chair or handing sails so they
look authentic. Equally his drawings of such things as bowsprit housings, lizards or
a stropped throat halyard block clarify Tom’s descriptions perfectly. It is the paintings
in the book, many of them full page that are the real gems though. Again these
illustrate the text whilst adding enormously to the allure of the book as a whole
although I loved the one of a dinghy in calm water with the caption: This painting has
no relevance to the text opposite but it was too beautiful to leave out!
Many years ago an RNR officer, seconded for training to the frigate in which I was
serving, complained of insomnia. We advised him to take the Admiralty Manual of
Seamanship Vol1 to bed with him – that would soon put him to sleep. “Oh no” said
this nautical enthusiast, “I’d find that fascinating, I’d be awake all night!” For the
same reason I cannot recommend Tom Cunliffe’s intoxicating new book ‘Bosun’s
Bag’ for your bedside table, but it simply has to be on your Christmas present list.
David Mowlam. Royal Cruising Club
‘A yacht is the sum of all the little details her people care about,’ says Tom Cunliffe in this compendium of practical
experience and advice. He shares tips and anecdotes from the traditional boats he has owned and those he has
admired. He’s as eloquent and opinionated as ever and (as usual) I was glad of the glossary. While the primary audience is
the gaffer community, even those who have moved to plastic hulls and triangular sails – as Tom himself has been
forced to do – will learn from his attitude that ‘the more you put into a boat the more you get out’. It’s illustrated with beautiful and accurate paintings by Martin Mackrill.
Yachting Monthly
One could read the subtitle of Tom Cunliffe’s new Bosun’s Bag—A Treasury of Practical Wisdom for the Traditional Boater—and make the hasty assumption that this is a niche book of little use for the modern sailor. And one would be far poorer for such an assumption.
Because while this book imparts the hands-on skills to sail and maintain a traditional sailing craft, it is also filled with history, wit, wisdom, seamanship, and the evocative artwork of Martyn Mackrill, honorary painter of the Royal Thames Yacht Club and the Royal Yacht Squadron, and a lifelong sailor of traditional boats.
Reading this book is like wandering through a chandlery or along a long-ago waterfront at the side of a salty old ship’s bosun. “Such men were guardians of the wisdom of ages; their tools were simple and their skills were not book-learned, they stemmed from a life at sea that began as a child, watching and learning all the way. Nothing was beyond their ingenuity, and resourcefulness was their watchword.”
Visually, it evokes a more elegant era of sailing, from the 19-meter cutter Mariquita barreling through a hissing ocean under a lowering sky, to twilight’s cathedral silence when a sailor has just lit the oil lamp at anchor. In all but a few instances, the art illustrates a specific point Cunliffe is making, whether to explain what a watersail is and how and why to rig it, how a tiller line helps manage steering, how to maintain or repair wooden blocks, or how to box the compass. In his typical approachable style, Cunliffe manages to deliver an absolute treasure trove of sailing and seamanship know-how—all with a lively sense of humor enriching the storytelling that fills this book.
For instance, discussing a luff yarder versus a jackyarder, he notes that with a jackyarder, “The opportunities for the club to grab something it shouldn’t are endless and can lead to the ultimate solution of sending a boy of little consequence aloft to walk the gaff and sort it out. For the cruiser, therefore, the jackyarder is best seen as a party-time sail. For the racer, the turbo-charged power is not to be denied and the boys just have to live with the knitting.”
With sections such as “Boomed Staysail—Friend or Foe?” and “Setting up the Deadeyes: The Excellent and the Ludicrous,” Cunliffe walks us through every element of sailing and maintaining a traditional sailboat, even down to making baggywrinkle, stopping deck leaks, using sawdust to help a freshly launched boat take up more quickly, and considering the endless merits of “a fragrant lump of beeswax.”
Coupled with Mackrill’s lovely artwork, this is simply a beautiful book, filled with stories of sailing, tidy bits of priceless knowledge, and the joy of a life at sea.
Wendy Mitman Clarke for SAIL (USA) magazine