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Rating:  -
This book is a well written survey of high grade, expensive sailboats. The information is getting very dated. We need a new edition if the reader wants current advice on selection of a sailboat. Few of the boats covered are current production boats, though I assume all of them could be built for an owner in a custom yard. I found the general principles described in the book helpful, but the newer materials and newer designs that have come out in the years since this book was published make the book dated. I would have rated this book five stars when it came out, but its value to me as a first time sailboat buyer today makes me give the book only three stars.
Rating:  -
The photography is stunning, the interviews thought-provoking. If you want to see beautiful boats in all their glory, this is the book for you.
Selection is a bit arbitrary; the high technology side of the industry is pretty much ignored. But that's not what this book is about. It's about beauty. It's about style. It's about craftsmanship.
Those are great things, in any era, for any reason. But I do join with the previous reviewer: This is an appreciation, not a buyers' guide. By all means buy the Dashews' Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia and educate yourself technically before spending $ 500,000 plus on a boat.
Buy this book and let your imagination soar, into a world where you have the funds and the energy to maintain a sixty-five foot teak-laden palace. True beauty is yours.
Rating:  -
This is book of beautiful pictures and great interviews with designers of some of the most respected sailboat builders in the world. I enjoyed the read and I very much liked the emphasis on overall quality that comes through loud and clear. Mate's book, however, is like a tour guide to the world of the "rich and famous", not a practical guide to functional sailboats. If you have $800K to buy an Alden or a Hinkley, then be my guest, but understand that while these boats are built to the highest quality standards, some of the design compromises they incorporate do not produce the safest, most appropriate, or the most durable boats in the world.
Mate' is clearly a knowledgeable sailor and no lightweight when it comes to boat design issues, but he seems to have missed the point with this book. I had almost bought into his philosophy that a beautiful boat with lovely teak decks and interiors is the same a "great" sailboat when I saw a write-up on Steve Dashew's new "Beowulf" series of boats and how they were designed and developed(covered in "The Encyclopedia of Cruising"). Dashew's thoughts are worlds apart from the design philosophies of the manufacturers of high-end production boats like the ones covered in Mate's book. If the purpose of this book is to provide a useful guide to the market for new production sailboats, to my mind, the author has missed the mark. A potential sailboat buyer will benefit far more by taking a look at some of Dashew's design comments than he or she might by reviewing any of the boats mentioned in this book.
What bothered me most about this book was the boat builders that Mate' excluded as well as some that made his "A" list. No production boat mentioned in this book is built out of aluminum which is far superior to GRP in almost every respect. On the other side of the coin, some of the boats included had me scratching my head. Hallberg-Rassy and Beneteau were both reviewed even though both have serious weaknesses as far as blue water sailing in rough weather is concerned. Hallberg-Rassy still uses the chopped glass lay-up method for its hulls which is far weaker and less stiff way of building hulls than woven GRP. Beneteaus, which are marvelous boats for the price, lack stiffness because of the use of a plastic shell liners rather than integral beams and other stiffeners used in most better boats. You would not want to spend much time in the Southern Ocean in either of these production boats.
All in all, I loved the photographs, enjoyed the comments of the designers, but ultimately found the book lacking in useful insights. As a tour of what's available at the high-end of the production market, the book may have some merits, but viewed as an aid to selecting a safe and suitable boat it falls short.
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