It really is an amazing book - exhaustive and technical, but there's a lot of personality in the descriptions and commentary. A personal favorite quote: > The

It really is an amazing book - exhaustive and technical, but there's a lot of personality in the descriptions and commentary. A personal favorite quote: > The topsail halyard bend is said to be a yachting hitch, but it is possible that it has never appeared outside the covers of a book. It has one more turn than the studding-sail bend and this, like the second tablespoonful of castor oil, savors of redundancy.