By Tom Cunliffe,
Adlard Coles, $35
Amazon.com, $26.47
One could read the subtitle of Tom Cunliffe’s new Bosun’s Bag—A Treasury of Practical Wisdom for the Traditional Boater—and make the hasty assumption that this is a niche book of little use for the modern sailor. And one would be far poorer for such an assumption.
Because while this book imparts the hands-on skills to sail and maintain a traditional sailing craft, it is also filled with history, wit, wisdom, seamanship, and the evocative artwork of Martyn Mackrill, honorary painter of the Royal Thames Yacht Club and the Royal Yacht Squadron, and a lifelong sailor of traditional boats.
Reading this book is like wandering through a chandlery or along a long-ago waterfront at the side of a salty old ship’s bosun. “Such men were guardians of the wisdom of ages; their tools were simple and their skills were not book-learned, they stemmed from a life at sea that began as a child, watching and learning all the way. Nothing was beyond their ingenuity, and resourcefulness was their watchword.”
Visually, it evokes a more elegant era of sailing, from the 19-meter cutter Mariquita barreling through a hissing ocean under a lowering sky, to twilight’s cathedral silence when a sailor has just lit the oil lamp at anchor. In all but a few instances, the art illustrates a specific point Cunliffe is making, whether to explain what a watersail is and how and why to rig it, how a tiller line helps manage steering, how to maintain or repair wooden blocks, or how to box the compass. In his typical approachable style, Cunliffe manages to deliver an absolute treasure trove of sailing and seamanship know-how—all with a lively sense of humor enriching the storytelling that fills this book.
For instance, discussing a luff yarder versus a jackyarder, he notes that with a jackyarder, “The opportunities for the club to grab something it shouldn’t are endless and can lead to the ultimate solution of sending a boy of little consequence aloft to walk the gaff and sort it out. For the cruiser, therefore, the jackyarder is best seen as a party-time sail. For the racer, the turbo-charged power is not to be denied and the boys just have to live with the knitting.”
With sections such as “Boomed Staysail—Friend or Foe?” and “Setting up the Deadeyes: The Excellent and the Ludicrous,” Cunliffe walks us through every element of sailing and maintaining a traditional sailboat, even down to making baggywrinkle, stopping deck leaks, using sawdust to help a freshly launched boat take up more quickly, and considering the endless merits of “a fragrant lump of beeswax.”
Coupled with Mackrill’s lovely artwork, this is simply a beautiful book, filled with stories of sailing, tidy bits of priceless knowledge, and the joy of a life at sea.
January/February 2025
