Away All Boats: A Personal Guide For The Small-Boat Owner

High-spirited and passionate--at once a useful guide and a record of an extended love affair with small boats--Away All Boats is a blending of sparkling waterlands and vivid memories.Author of Striper and Fishing Came First, John N. Cole takes readers from the dangers of haul-seining for striped bass that challenge a wooden dory's limits in the surf to the excitement of searching the flats of the Florida Keys for tarpon and other game fish aboard a shall-draft, high-tech craft perfectly matched to the task. Evocative of nature's miracles and realities (and the foibles of men who go down to the sea in "ships") , the writing is dry and witty, tender and perceptive. . Alongside the hard facts and opinions about the selection, refitting, maintenance, and use of small boats is a series of wonderful stories about the author's explorations as a bayman and fisherman in the waters of eastern Long Island, Maine, and the Florida Keys. Each boat described serves to introduce a key chapter in the author's life and his taste for adventure.. John Cole's first love is the skiff, rowboat, dory, or sharpie--any relatively stable wooden boat that can be easily and efficiently rowed--but the author also takes on larger craft powered by the internal combustion engine to indicate that every boat is designed to perform a limited family of functions. The trick, as we learn in these robust pages, is to find the boat you need (not always the boat you want) , and Cole offers practical advice on how to go about it. The surprise is that a good boat doesn't have to be expensive; some are even gifts from the sea. . As to basic equipment, the author keeps the advice simple: a compass, charts, a tachometer, an ammeter, an understanding of local winds and tides, and, with luck, an informed "weather eye" to minimize risks in open water.