Bill Gladstone, a Sailing Instructor at North U, explains the basic lessons of sailboat tactics in about the clearest way I have found so far. An easy read, with large illustrations, Bill makes his points stick with a light hearted, humorous style.

Gladstone uses geometry in many of the illustrations and has converted many of the concepts that appear vague to the new sailor into clearly understood simple lessons.

You also end up, after reading the book, being able to understand the different thought processes involved between strategy and tactics.

This 200 page book covers areas such as Strategy, Tactics, Starts, Rules and Weather. The upwind tactics portion is excellent. The downwind tactics is a bit light on information and I wished this was more developed. Don't expect much on the Weather section; it is a pretty brief chapter.

This is an updated book. Many old sailing book still promote the "Vanderbilt Start". This book clearly calls this "flawed". So I found it more attuned to current trends.

Overall, this is must have sailing reference manual. You may have the boat speed but without the tactical skill that is described so effectively in this book, you will not progress to the upper ranks.