With its winning mix of gripping narrative and easy-to-implement performance-raising tips, this book has become a best-selling classic. It’s garnered 5-star reviews and wide-ranging endorsements – from Sebastian Coe and Dame Kelly Holmes to Lord Digby Jones

The groundbreaking reference on high speed racing techniques--the bible for racing sailors of all levels and abilities from dinghies to the America's Cup. High Performance Sailing has become the standard reference work on high speed racing techniques. Groundbreaking in its thinking on boat speed, strategy and tactics, and timeless in its application, this second edition has been brought right up to date with new information, the discoveries from new boat testing and new developments. Some people like to sail. Some people like to sail fast. This is a book about sailing faster. During the past few decades there has been a revolution in the way some boat designers and sailors have thought about, designed, built and sailed their boats. This book is about the new ideas which have led to these greater speeds and the faster sailing techniques which have been developed to achieve them. "It is the cheapest bit of go-faster gear you can buy..."--Robert Lloyd, Island Sailing Club "One of the most readable books on the complex subject of sailing faster, and without doubt, a must for every racing sailor"--Yachts and Yachting

Think Fast, Sail Faster started out as a series of articles published in the U.S.-based Sailing World magazine called "Conversations with the Doc." This book expands those original ideas into a comprehensive rethink about how we understand sailboat racing, and how the way we think affects racing performance. The book represents a fundamental reconstruction of many of the core concepts of sailboat racing. Here are some of the innovations: "Feel" is a central theme. "Feel" often receives relatively little attention in sailing texts, but is one of the most important factors in sailing performance. How we think about sailing conditions has been re-designed. The new classifications of wind conditions (fragile, powering up, depowering, too-much) require the sailor to focus on the boat itself rather than focusing outside the boat and trying to guess whether the conditions might be "light," "medium" or "strong."Wind strategy has been substantially overhauled. The usual classification system for wind shift patterns has been extended into four new groupings. These ideas, combined with explanations of "wind sense," enable sailors to make direct connections between what they see and the best strategies for winning races.Other novel topics include: three-phase oscillating breezes; the "no-brainer" race; the eight standard port/starboard crossing strategies; how to not use a compass; explanation of offshore breeze patterns; the complexities and misinformation about sailing in current; a complete sail racing performance model; psychological performance issues; how risk management and wind strategy combine; and how to build your own wind forecasting system.Finally, these ideas are presented as conversations between the Doc and his fictional friends, rather than as lists of instructions. Throughout the text there are margin notes, and at the end of each chapter there is a simple summary of the main ideas.

From the author of the bestselling High Performance Sailing and Higher Performance Sailing comes the first scientific analysis of what makes fast sailors fast. Eschewing the idea that luck or innate talent are the keys to success, Frank Bethwaite shows how knowledge truly is power. Making use of video cameras aligned to GPS read-outs to track the fastest racers, he meticulously analyses what winners do and how they do it, to show the rest of us how to get the best out of a racing craft. Frank Bethwaite's previous books were groundbreaking bibles that applied scientific theories to how sails and hulls interact with wind and water to influence boat speed. But whilst they applied scientific theories to boat construction, they didn't apply science to practical boat handling. This book fills that gap, and then goes further. Budding racers of all levels will welcomethis unique book as a godsend. It will inform, instruct and enable them toemploy the techniques (and timing) of the most successful racers, and make racingmore competitive for participants, and more exciting for those of us watching.

'Monumental!' - Bob Ross, Australian Sailing High Performance Sailing is now regarded as the bible of racing sailors and carries a string of endorsements from high achievers. Since its publication in 1984, racing yachts and dinghies have developed out of all recognition - a new high-tech breed of 'apparent wind' fast racers has claimed the water and so far no-one has applied themselves seriously to analysing what makes these boats sail fast (and what will make them faster). This is Frank Bethwaite's ground-breaking achievement in Higher Performance Sailing. By means of extensive research, and working with sailors of different racing calibre, Bethwaite analyses how to harness the apparent wind for increased speed and better position on your rivals. Higher Performance Sailing will provide the key to racing sailors' dreams. Praise for Bethwaite's High Performance Sailing: 'It represents a breakthrough...It is a book that my Olympic squad will benefit from.' Rod Carr, former British Olympic Sailing Team Manager 'Allowed only one "if only" in yacht racing, it would have been to have read Higher Performance Sailing years ago.' Bob Fisher, journalist, broadcaster and international championship winner

What begins as the sheer desire for adventure turns into a spiritual quest as a young woman comes to terms with her family, her dreams, and her first love. Tania Aebi was an unambitious eighteen-year-old, a bicycle messenger in New York City by day, a Lower East Side barfly at night. In short, she was going nowhere—until her father offered her a challenge: Tania could choose either a college education or a twenty-six-foot sloop. The only catch was that if she chose the sailboat, she’d have to sail around the world—alone. She chose the boat, and for the next two and a half years and 27,000 miles, it was her home. With only her cat as companion, she discovered the wondrous beauties of the Great Barrier Reef and the death-dealing horrors of the Red Sea. She suffered through a terrifying collision with a tanker in the Mediterranean and a lightning storm off the coast of Gibraltar. And, ultimately, what began with the sheer desire for adventure turned into a spiritual quest as Tania came to terms with her troubled family life, fell in love for the first time, and—most of all—confronted her own needs, desires, dreams, and goals…