Understanding Boat Design
by
Edward S. Brewer
This was originally written by Ted when he founded Yacht Design Institute
many years ago. It was intended to be a simple non-technical introduction to design for
his students. It was immediately recognized as having a much wider potential audience and
has been widely distributed right from the first. Your reviewer attended YDI and later
worked for Ted and his partner Bob Wallstrom. When YDI was sold and eventually ceased to
exist, we started Yacht Design School very consciously as a replacement school and were
very happy to use UBD as one of the basic texts. Ted is a very knowledgeable gentleman from whom I learned a great deal. If I have any criticism of this book it is simply that Ted tends to state opinions very forcefully without some of the "if, ands, or buts" which I tend to be quite fond of. Only occasionally does this rise to the level of actual disagreement with what he says. Before closing this review I should mention on typographical error which has been a great problem for Ted. His Comfort Ratio on page 8 should have the first term as .65 rather than 65. All in all I would say that for anyone interested in yacht design on any level this book makes a great introduction. It wont teach you to design on any level but it will help you become comfortable with the concepts of yacht design and how the profession operates. It will give you a big step up on obtaining the background necessary for further study. It would be a rare and very knowledgeable sailor who would not benefit from owning this book. (tm) $16.95 |