Two fair (and fun) sailing books to take with you on vacation

Ready to cast off your moorings for your boating vacation?
If you are missing some good reading on board, let us give you a couple of recommendations.
They are “interested” but mostly interesting, because we are talking about two books written by our contributor Danilo Fabbroni.

The book for knowing all about rigging while having fun

The first one is titled.
“The Sail – The Art of Rig Maintenance – Rigging App 2.0 – Rewritten Updated Expanded + Deck Equipment” and is much more than a manual .

Fabbroni, a sailor who has made “rigger” his successful profession, has sailed on some of the most important racing boats such as Brava and participated in regattas such as Admiral’s Cup, One Ton Cup, Sardinia Cup (he was also Harken’s technical assistance manager and lectured at the Faculty of Naval Engineering of the European Institute of Design).
This book, with its long title, is the result of his very long experience and deep learning.
The book starts with the rigging of early 20th century yachts and ends with the AC 75s of today’s America’s Cup.
It even starts from the jute, hemp and manila textile rigging of Columbus’ Caravels to the lenticular carbon rigging of Luna Rossa & Co. Don’t worry, it is not a “brick” and is packed with advice for all sailors and plenty of anecdotes.
All in anti-academic, mocking, dockside, irreverent, sulfurous language.

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• The book, published by Amygdala, is 352 pages and costs 18 euros. You can purchase it directly here

The great sailing circus

Fabbroni’s second summer reading for you is the novel titled “Sailing is Beautiful … too bad sailors do it!” and to introduce it there is nothing better than the synopsis he wrote himself. White-hot novel that lays bare the rare virtues and the many, many flaws of that Vanity Fair called Sailing, the professional, the amateur, the domestic and the foreign; as much the small boats as the big ones of the present day, as much the coeval as the 1970s vintage.
Document-fiction, more fiction than document, constructed in vitro by a Bidellus of Pulleys and Winches who has been plowing seas, docks, harbors, marinas, yacht clubs, regattas and otherwise since 1970 all gathered in a flamboyant kaleidoscope in whose presence the Barnum Circus seems a place for schoolgirls.
The whole constitutes a sequel to the highly successful“Love and Sailing in the Time of the IOR (not the Institute of Vatican Works!)” reinterpreted here in a dreamlike key on the edge of a tale that mimics, in an obviously minuscule and parodying manner, somewhere between Charles Bukowski and the elusive Jorge Luis Borges, sonorously mocking myths, foibles, stupidity, petty-mindedness, rhetoric and whatever else fate reserves for hapless sailors.
Between a tear, a smile, a mockery, a gag, and a little tale that is as oblique as it can be, fun is assured to the fullest.

• Available in various bookstores and 264 pages long, you can find “Sailing is Beautiful… too bad sailors make it!” here