My favorite boat building & sailing adventure books
I love sailing, have been doing it all my life, and have read a bunch of books on the subject. Below are some of my favorites.
Books With Boat Plans
Sail Making & Technical Sail Design
Sailboat Racing
Beach Cruising In Small Sailboats
Cruising In Small Sailboats
Epic Voyages in Small Boats
Navigating & rules of the road
Kids Sailboat Books
(bed time story type reading)
When researching a subject I am very sceptical about the source of the information, especially when I read something in a discussion forum. Too often I have posted a question, got an answer from someone who sounded very confident and later found out they had no idea what the heck they were talking about and infact have no real world experience in the subject matter being discussed. It is very contemporary to start research in discussion forums but for the people that hand out information at forums there isn't much of a penalty for giving out bad information because whatever they say today is quickly buried by next week's posts and often muddied by all the "other" types of people posting irrelevant information. Next week those same experts are now handing out different opinions depending on the mood in the forum that week.
Authors who publish books are in a completely different game. It takes a long time to create a book, they are expensive to have made and when finished the author's words & views are rather permanent & exposed for the rest of time. The result of these dynamics tend to cause information presented in printed books to be a lot higher quality, more reliable and useful. Plus the extra benefit that books usually cover a wide span of the topic & include an introduction which reveals & explains hidden aspects of the topic.
Another great thing about books is the ergonomics. Can take them everywhere, leave them in the car (in the sun) and not have to worry. Of the hundreds of paper books I have accidentally dropped, not once did I cringe. I know... I am a dinosaur... but it does have it's benefits.