The Voyager's Handbook: The Essential Guide to Blue Water Cruising

This is indeed like the bible of cruising. It covers everything you need to know about long-term voyaging. The author Beth and her husband Evans are two type A personalities with originally a background in consulting. So their experience is very analytical, data based, and relatively impartial. This was perfect for me, and is in stark contrast to many other sailing books where the author writes based on only his personal experiences and biases. The charts and tables in the book present valuable data, and they surveyed other cruisers to get data on dozens or hundreds of other boats. The middle of the book gets a little slow and covers more commonsense material (like how to pack small spaces efficiently) that I felt I could skim over. But the first 1/3 of the book and last 1/3 are chock full of great reading. The best chapter in this book for me was "Chapter 3 - A Bluewater-Capable Yacht". They did a good job of putting into perspective the debate on what kind of boat you need to cross oceans, and what features are important. Yet they still managed to be relatively impartial and gathered data from dozens of different cruising boats to help you make your decision.

I have over three dozen books on sailing, and this book is by far the most useful I own. I can't say enough good things about it. Every page is filled with golden nuggets of knowledge. Don't buy this book to learn how to sail, there are plenty of books out there to teach you the basics of sailing, buy this book if you already know how to sail but have always lacked for having that seasoned experience salt filling in all the tiny gaps of knowledge that can they themselves have learned the hard way. That is what Beth does, The entire volume is filled with tips that will make passage making that much easier. As I prepare for my first Pacific crossing in two months, I find myself repeatedly coming back to this book to guide me on the best practices of passage making. If you ever plan on making a passage, this book will give you back its purchase price a hundred times over just within the first few chapters. Get it, absorb it, and tell others!

Many of the more negative reviews are obviously referring to the first edition of the book. This is the SECOND edition which is based on the author's experience sailing over 90,000 (yes, 90K) miles in both trade wind and polar latitudes. In preparation for our own long-term cruising I have probably read way too many books but this is by far the best of them all. Unlike many other books, Beth provides a wealth of new and novel information rather than a re-hash of what has been said for years. A small example regarding watchkeeping: Whatever the schedule, each person should be able to sleep "until done" once per day. Brilliant and obvious, but I've never seen it elsewhere and would probably have taken 89,999 miles to figure it out! This is but one of hundreds of valuable ideas and observations all delivered with Beth's great flair as a writer. The best book for serious cruising without a doubt.

I certainly got a lo out of the book as Beth is very thorough. You can tell she has lived through it and wants to help so not everyone else has to go through the same. I am more of a study and go figure it out. At times her thoroughness seemed a bit much for me so I just skimmed over parts. More than anything it taught me that everyone will have a method that they found to work for them. It's really nice that she does some comparisons of types of sailors (simplicity, moderation, high life). I found myself more along the lines of the simplicity. Really worth while if you look to be/live on a sailboat. Otherwise you will feel like you are reading a textbook. Which for me was just fine. I will definitely use it as a reference in the future.

Before starting this book, my expectations were pretty high... I've liked Beth Leonard's contributions to sailing magazines and also saw the glowing reviews here on Amazon. Despite my high expectations, I'm still very impressed. Like most of the other reviewers, I agree this is a very useful book for anyone considering spending a bunch of time voyaging aboard a sailboat. It's generally oriented toward wanna-be circumnavigators, but still very useful even for "extended coastal cruisers" (like me) of many varying budgets and experience. It's full of good info (from money issues, to outfitting, to passagemaking, to health issues abroad, and way more) backed up with the author's experience and data from other voyagers. Very complementary to other great cruising boat books, and really should be part of every serious cruiser's library. The information is good for both skipper and crew. It's in a "detailed handbook" format, where you don't need to read it cover-to-cover in consecutive order to understand it... though that's how I read it. It's also a pretty easy style of writing... it was interesting enough I probably could have read it nonstop had I had a whole lot of time.

I like that Beth doesn't take sides or exclaims this or that is the best. She puts things in relative terms e.g. "that worked best for us or our cruising style". Its a very practice oriented book. Easy to read, well structured. I love the check lists, the comparison charts. Her comparison of cruising styles and the cost, technologies, pros and cons associated with different levels (simple, moderate, and highlife is also very good it helps to establish where you are or wanna be. What you can aford and what to focus on. And here she goes in great detail and provides alternatives which demonstrates her expertise. She knows what she's talking about. She gives great advice what to look for when buying or outfitting a sailing vessel. I love the book. Its full of highlighted passages and bookmarks for later reference. and YES I do recommend it to everybody who contemplates cruising and buying a sail boat.

I've spent the last few years working through the sailing section at my local library. Over that time, I've read dozens of technical sailing books, many of them quite good, and more than a few targeted at the same audience as this one. I bought this book because it wasn't available to me, even through Inter-Library Loan. After reading it cover-to-cover, I'm amazed that no library in Minnesota has a copy. It's excellent, and clearly belongs in the top tier of sailing-related books that I've read. It's well-researched, well-written, well-organized, and well-though-out, and a bargain at only $26 for the hardcover. When and if I can finally afford to buy a boat and voyage somewhere, this book will be one of my major references.

Beth’s work is a masterpiece. This is everything you need to know at a detailed-foundational level presented in a way that primes you for what is to come, what to watch for on your way, and how to prepare from A-to-Z. I’m so impressed. For context, this is probably the fifth or sixth blue water book that I’ve read, starting with John Kretschmer, Annie Hill, the Pardey’s, etc. and I find this book to be such an accomplishment. Beth literally wrote the book on cruising. From here, I'll move to Nigel Calder, and the Annapolis Guide to Seamanship, and Chapman’s, confident that this work has helped me to develop quite the foundation to build upon.