Now in full color. The basic book in the Certification Series. Instructs all basic sailing maneuvers in clear illustrations and spare text. Offers excellent, reassuring instruction in basic sailboat handling and sailing seamanship.
A good introduction and essential for certification. However, there is no substitute for going out with an experienced sailor and then rereading it. Then, everything makes more sense!
Simple but thorough. A few things were still confusing to read but I think that the book gets you as close as you can get without actually getting some hands on experience. Covers the basics of sailing, docking, knots, colregs, how to read weather and depth charts, etc. Truly a very basic course, but a solid introduction.
I just read the chapters on how to steer and rented a sailboat. I reccommend you do the same. Watch out for that jibing boom swing though- it will ring your bells if unaware it'll move that fast. They cover that in the chapter I didn't read till after the fact.