Championship Tactics: How Anyone Can Sail Faster, Smarter and Win Races - Tapa dura

Championship Tactics is the tactical manual for the racing sailor. This comprehensive volume contains lessons from decades of world-class competition.

Gary Jobson was a collegiate champion and raced in three America's Cup campaigns, twice as Ted Turner's tactician and once with Tom Blackaller. Tom Whidden called the tactics in three of the America's Cup matches he sailed with Dennis Conner. Now the authors have put experience gained at the top in a format that racers of single-handed dinghies or maxi boats can use.

Championship Tactics melds expert advice with a rich collection of anecdotes from the greatest races of our time. The book also contains well-diagrammed professional secrets (there are over 150 illustrations) that even the Wednesday-night club racer will enjoy.

Topics include: starts and finishes; upwind, reaching, and downwind legs; mark roundings; steering; handling varied winds and waves; boat speed; tactical electronic instruments; the psychology of racing; key racing rules; and protests. "Local knowledge" of racing conditions from Long Beach to Long Island has been gleaned from a survey of regional experts. The book also covers how to gather vital information on conditions before a race, and how to record what you've learned.

The result is the most complete guide of its kind, by sailors ideally equipped to reveal state-of-the-art techniques.

America's Cup champion Gary Jobson has won the Liberty Cup three times, and is a two-time College Sailor of the Year. He has covered America's Cup and professional racing for ESPN, Olympic sailing for NBC (Emmy Award), and has nine books to his credit. Jobson is the host of "Sailing Quarterly" video magazine.

Tom Whidden has sailed in three winning America's Cup campaigns, and is the president of North Sails. He is the author, with Michael Levitt, of The Art and Science of Sails (St. Martin's Press).

Adam Loory is general manager of UK International Sailmakers. He sailed aboard a class-winning entry in the 1989 Tran-Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, and actively races inshore as well. He covered the 1987 America's Cup for USA Today. Loory has been editor for Sailing World and other major yachting publications.