Nautical Book Offers Tips for Alaska-Bound Boaters

For boaters yearning to skipper their own boat to Alaska, there is a new nautical book. "Cruising to Alaska: Tips & Tactics from 20 Skippers” offers advice from experienced boaters who have collectively ventured through the Inside Passage to Southeast Alaska.

Bellingham, Washington (PRWEB) November 25, 2005 -- For the thousands of boaters yearning to skipper their own cruising boat to Alaska via the Inside Passage now there is a nautical book written just for them. “Cruising to Alaska: Tips & Tactics from 20 Skippers” offers advice from experienced boaters who have collectively ventured through the Inside Passage to Southeast Alaska more than 100 times during the past decade.

Bob Duke, the book’s author and one of the 20 skippers, has written a recreational boating book unlike any other on the market today. “Tips & Tactics” offers 20 boaters’ viewpoints on outfitting and skippering a boat cruising the Inside Passage. The book brings to the reader the nautical skills and knowledge of experienced cruising skippers gathered by the author through detailed questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The information is presented in engaging prose, with energetic style that makes for easy, entertaining reading.

The result is a real hands-on, how-to guide that offers between its covers the collected wisdom of 20 boat crews and detailed descriptions of 20 capable cruising boats. Some profiled boating couples have made 12 consecutive cruises to Southeast Alaska; all average 23 years of boating experience and six seasons of cruising in Alaska.

“The book is an effort to put an advanced Alaska cruising seminar into the hands of readers,” said Duke, a Northwest boating magazine writer. “It would be difficult to get all these expert cruisers together at one time and in one place to offer advice and answer questions. But I realized that I could accomplish that within the pages of a book.” As a result, “Cruising to Alaska: Tips & Tactics from 20 Skippers” brings 20 boats, ranging in length from 26 to 62 feet, and the experiences of 20 skippers to your door. In the book’s pages you get to know skippers and first mates, look at their cruising boats and equipment in detail and learn tips and tactics that have made cruising the Inside Passage to Alaska safe, comfortable and practical for them.

“Cruising to Alaska: Tips & Tactics from 20 Skippers,” priced at $24.95, comprises 160 pages in a 10 3/8-inch by 8 3/8-inch format with 39 photographs, a map and index. It is available from nautical book distributor Robert Hale Company, Inc. and is sold through nautical booksellers and boating supply stores. The book may also be ordered directly from Good Enough Publishing, P.O. Box 2505, Bellingham, Washington 98227, or by calling 360-756-8036 or e-mailing email protected from spam bots.

Author Bob Duke has owned a dozen large and small power and sailboats and has cruised and chartered worldwide. In 2002 he completed a 3000-mile round trip cruise to Southeast Alaska, six weeks of it single-handed. Since 1982, Duke has authored more than 500 articles for regional and national boating magazines.