Drascombe Association

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Association Books

The following three books are published by the Association and available for purchase by members...ordering details are inside front cover DAN
The Shallow Sea Drascombe

The Shallow Sea Drascombe

A manual of seamanship for Drascombe owners, written and illustrated by Hans Vandersmissen the well known Dutch marine journalist and Drascombe owner.

 Drascombe 10/30

Drascombe 10/30

A history of thirty years of Drascombes and ten years of the Association, compiled and written by a group of the members.

 A Celebration of Drascombes

A Celebration of Drascombes

Published in 2007, DAN 20/40/80 celebrates 20 years of the Association and 40 of Drascombes - the boats and the people who designed, built and sailed them.

Member's Books

Books written and published by members.
Drascombe Round Britain

Drascombe Round Britain - a circumnavigation in easy stages.
Jim Hopwood

20 DAN style cruise reports plus thoughts on boats, gear and passage planning. Available from the DA shop.

Appuskidu went too

Appuskidu went too
Douglas and Margaret Hopwood

An account of the Hopwood's trail/sail adventure through Scandinavia, the Baltic states and St Petersburg. There is also a web site where you can see the chapter list and a few of the photos.

Other Books about Drascombes

Most of these are unfortunately out of print, so scour those secondhand shops. Amazon has secondhand books or you could search Abebooks
The Association also holds a library of some of these books for lending to Members.

Australia the Hard Way
David Pyle's story of his voyage in a wooden Lugger from England to Australia in 1969/70.
Try Amazon or Abebooks

Open Boat - Across the Pacific
Webb Chiles' first book of his Lugger voyage describing the first successful Pacific crossing ever made in an open boat.
Try Amazon or Abebooks

The Ocean Waits
Webb Chiles' second Lugger book telling of the longest nonstop open boat voyage ever recorded and his subsequent experiences in Saudi Arabia.
Try Amazon or Abebooks
Lugworm on the Loose: Exploring Greece in an Open Dinghy
The first of Ken Duxbury's Lugworm books - sailing in Greece.
Try Lodestarbooks **New Edition**		 Lugworm Homeward Bound Lugworm Homeward Bound: Greece to England in an Open Dinghy
Ken Duxbury's sequel to 'Lugworm on the Loose'.
Try Lodestarbooks **New Edition**		 Lugworm Island Hopping
Ken Duxbury's story of a Lugger sailing in the Scillies and Hebrides.
Try Lodestarbooks **New Edition**
Have you an image of this book cover? The Seagoing Drascombe
Hans Vandersmissen's first Drascombe manual.
Try Amazon or Abebooks		 A Sea Blue Boat A Sea Blue Boat (and a Sun God's Island)
Idyllic days in a wooden Lugger around Rhodes, written with humour and sharp observation by lan Brook.
Try Amazon or Abebooks		 Open Boat Cruising
The book with a Coaster on the cover. Written by John Glasspool giving practical advice on preparing a small boat for cruising, with hints on comfort, safety, trailing and launching.
Try Amazon or Abebooks
Sail South Till The Butter Melts
Geoff Stewart's account of his 1973 Atlantic crossing in a Longboat. This book is now available in the UK from The Sea Chest Nautical Bookshop.
Review of this book by Peter Tiplady
Try Amazon or Abebooks

Open-boat cruising
Frank and Margaret Dye
"Frank and Margaret Dye have vast experience of cruising in dinghies. Most of this has been in their famous 16ft Wanderer, which proudly took her place in the Greenwich Maritime Museum after having sailed 40,000 miles with them in 19 years."
Try Amazon or Abebooks

    

Relevant books at Amazon

Listed below are a selection of books likely to be of interest to Drascombe sailors, and people interested in Drascombes, that are available to buy online at the Amazon (UK) online bookshop.

Instructional/reference titles
Day Skipper (Shore Based)
by Royal Yachting Association
If you are studying for your Day Skipper ticket this is the book you will need.

RYA Navigation Exercises
by Chris Slade
Exercises to help you on a day Skipper shore-based course.

 RYA: Navigation Handbook
by Tim Bartlett
The new official course book for anyone taking an RYA Dayskipper, Coastal Skipper/Yachtmaster course.
Coastal Navigation
by Jeff Toghill
A good basic reference for those of us who aren't greatly adventurous...		 Coastal Skipper Sailing
by Karle Stephenson 		Day Skipper: Pilotage and Navigation
by Pat Langley-Price, Philip Ouvry
The Complete Yachtmaster
by Tom Cunliffe
This revised edition brings together all the essentials of modern cruising including the most recent developments in electronic navigation, GPS, chart plotters and an expanded section on radar. There is also an analysis of what makes a good skipper, theory and practice of sailing, seamanship, navigation, meteorology, yacht stability and dealing with emergencies. 		Sailing Small Cruisers
by J C Winters
This book aims to assist skippers and crew to choose, equip and handle small yachts by giving basic commonsense guidance on all aspects of boat, equipment, sailing and passage-making so that owners can enjoy their boats to the full. 		RYA: Weather Handbook
by Chris Tibbs
With full colour graphics by Sarah Selman, this book guides readers through the intricacies of weather in the northern hemisphere. It explains how to interpret area weather forecasts, modify them for local conditions and improve their accuracy.

Weather at Sea: Colour Edition
by David Houghton

The Outboard Motor Manual
by Keith Henderson
Well worth having around, if you're at all interested in keeping your 'iron spinnaker' in tip-top condition. 		Using GPs
by Conrad Dixon
Aims to help owners get the best from their sets and make full use of the facilities available.
Handbook of Knots
by Des Pawson
If your repertoire of knots extends to about three (plus improvisations and variations) that are pressed into service for a wide variety of purposes, this book could broaden your horizons considerably! 		Dinghy Cruising
by Margaret Dye
A book that is both practical and entertaining. Frank and Margaret Dye are acknowledged as experts in the art of adventurous cruising in small open boats, and this wealth of experience shines through here. 		The One-Pan Galley Gourmet: Simple Cooking on Boats by Don Jacobson
Delicious, nutritious, satisfying dishes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert -Menu plans for three-day and seven-day cruises.

Books of general interest

Ideal for whiling away some spare time until the tide turns...
A Single Wave: Stories of Storms and Survival
by Webb Chiles
Definitely one for the fireside on a blustery winter evening. A brand new work from an author whose name will not be unfamiliar to Drascombe enthusiasts. 		Close to the Wind
by Pete Goss
The centrepiece of this book is, of course, an account of a feat that has already passed into legend: the beat of 150 miles back through the Southern Ocean to rescue a fellow competitor in a round-the-world yacht race. Makes that bit of wind-over-tide in the Solent seem not so bad after all.		 Fatal Storm
by Rob Mundle
"Death was just there in the water alongside us. You could sense it was there... The whole boat was completely engulfed in white water, completely submerged. We went into the night thinking the next wave could be the one that took us out."
Sailing Alone Around the World
by Joshua Slocum
Joshua Slocum was the first person to circumnavigate the World single handed. He set out in 1895 (at the age of 51) in a boat that he rebuilt himself after it had lain derelict in a field for 20 years. An extraordinary achievement documented in a highly eloquent way. 		Shackleton's Boat Journey
by Frank Arthur Worsley
A classic tale of endurance, initiative, leadership, and seamanship. This journey was recently recreated in a replica boat built by none other than our friends McNulty Boats.		 The Riddle of the Sands
by Erskine Childers
A book that endures as a 'thundering good read' almost 100 years after it was written, and clearly based on real, hard experience of navigating small boats in challenging waters.
The Shadow in the Sands
by Sam Llewellyn
The recently-written sequel to the 'Riddle'... a fascinating idea and worth reading for curiosity value alone.		 Swallows and Amazons
by Arthur Ransome
Regrettably Drascombes hadn't been invented in 1930, otherwise they would undoubtedly have been the preferred mode of transport for the protagonists of this book! 		The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex
A Narrative Account by Owen Chase, First Mate
The whaleship Essex sank in the South Pacific in 1820. Twenty sailors pulled away from the wreck in three frail boats, but only eight survived the next three months at sea. This is an account of the disaster, told by one of the survivors, who only lived because... well, read the book and find out, although it's probably fair to say that you may never complain about an end-of-cruise leftovers stew again.
Sailing just for fun: High adventure on a small budget
by A C Stock
An account of many years of sailing the East Coast in a gaff rigged pocket cruiser. And how to always get back home for work on Monday without an engine. 		The Magic of the Swatchways
by Maurice Griffiths
Deservedly regarded as a classic and one of the books that inspired many to take up sailing. Sometimes it's hard to see why, consisting as it does of various tales of dodgy trips in dodgy boats in dodgy weather in various dodgy bits of the East Coast with assorted dodgy crew. Still, well written, and heartfelt.		 The Perfect Storm
by Sebastian Junger
October 1991. The 'perfect storm' was that rare event, a once-in-a-century gale of such immense power and ferocity that it was perfect - that is, it could not have been any worse. Hundred-foot waves and winds of 120 miles an hour transformed the ocean into a lethal maelstrom, the kind of nightmare sailors only witness once in a lifetime. Aboard the sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail, skipper Billy Tyne and his crew find themselves heading unwittingly towards its frenzied centre.
Practical Dinghy Cruiser
by Paul Constantine retails at £9.99 +P&P
Dinghy Cruising is a popular, practical activity, pursued by hundreds if not thousands of sailors.
Where do I start?  What do I need?  Who can help me?  The book is filled with questions and although many solutions are offered, absolute answers are not given, only guidance, to encourage individuals to explore ‘avenues’ and to think for themselves.
The book has many simple constructional diagrams of useful equipment, numerous photographs of the people, the boats and the activity.  There are lessons to be learned and short cruise accounts to be enjoyed, sufficient to carry the reader into the dinghy cruising world in the craft that they have evolved. The contents will hopefully encourage each person to feel ‘I could do that. 		Sea Kayak Navigation 2nd edition
by Francis Ferrero (on Amazon at about £10.99)
" It is a really clear and helpful exposition of coastal navigation that is as applicable to Drascombes (without chartplotters!) as to kayaks." Graham Russell (17/12/14) 		       

Pilots and Charts
The Shell Channel Pilot: the South Coast of England
by Tom Cunliffe 		East Coast River Cruising Companion by Janet Harber

East Coast Pilot by Colin Jarman

How to Read a Nautical Chart: A Complete Guide to the Symbols, Abbreviations and Data Used on Nautical Charts by Nigel Calder

Upper Clyde Chart Pack (Imray 2000 S.)

UK Small Format Charts.

This chart pack containing five sheets covers the popular sailing area of the Upper Clyde. A2 format.

West Country Chart Pack (Imray 2000 S.)

Set of 11 charts covering the West Country Rivers and local coastal areas. In A2 format suitable for small chart tables and compatible with Yeoman plotters.

West Coast of Scotland 2800 Chart Pack (Imray 2000 S.)

UK Small Format Charts.

A pack of 7 charts covering from Crinan to Tobermory and Fort William. A2 format.

Kent Coast Chart Pack (Imray 2000 S.)

UK Small Format Charts comprising six small format charts covering the Kent Coast. A2 format.

 Stanfords Chart Pack: Dorset Harbours and Approaches: No. 15

Suffolk and Essex Chart Pack (Imray 2000 S.)

UK Small Format Charts covering Suffolk and Essex rivers, River Ore and Alde, River Deben and Orford Haven, Walton Backwaters and Harwich approaches, River Stour and Orwell, River Blackwater, River Colne, River Crouch, River Crouch and Roach. A2 format.

The Solent Chart Pack (Imray 2000 S.)

UK Small Format Charts.
A pack of 8 charts covering an area from Selsey Bill to Poole, including the Isle of Wight. A2 format.