Return to my home schooling pageWhere to find Chapelle's Yacht Designing and Planning
Not in the public domain.Buy it used at Amazon.com: Yacht Designing and Planning
Where to find Finney and Skeene's Elements of Yacht Design 8th edition
Not in the public domain.Buy it used at Amazon.com: Elements of Yacht Design, 8th edition (Recommended)
Buy the reprint at Amazon.com: Elements of Yacht Design, 6th edition
Chapelle and Skeene, Reviewed
There is a lot more to write here, but the punchline is going to be that the books are complementary. If you are merely curious about design, Chapelle's book may suit you better, while if you are planning to design boats, Skeene's book will be an essential reference, and you should definitely get it first. Eventually, you will want both.Table of Contents
The two books have slightly different organization and emphasis. I have attempted to highlight that by rearranging the order of the TOC of Chapelle's book to roughly (very roughly!) match the organization of Skeene and Kinney. Both books have a great deal of detail, but Chapelle aimed at yachtsmen who wanted to know a little about design, while Skeene aimed at working designers. Thus, Skeene's book emphasizes the engineering aspects of design, while Chapelle emphasized the esthetics.
| Yacht Designing and Planning by Howard I. Chapelle W. W. Norton and Company, © 1971 |
Skeene's Elements of Yacht Design The eighth edition, revised and updated by Francis S. Kinney Dodd, Mead and Company © 1973 |
II) Preliminary Design 102 pages. Setting requirements, choosing a hull shape, | Introduction 10 pages. Miscellania and definitions of some basic terms. |
| Upkeep 6 pages. Designing for easy maintenance. | |
| Twelve Meters 6 pages. How the America's Cup rules have influenced yacht design. | |
| Handicap Rules 13 pages. More on how racing rules shape yachts. | |
| The Law of Mechanical Similitude 2 pages. Scaling a boat. | Appearance, or, the Look of a Boat 11 pages. Opinions on esthetics. |
| Santa Maria of Lloyd Harbor 10 pages. Plans of the author's own boat, which will be a running example through the book. | |
| Motor Sailers 24 pages. Plans of five motorsailers, and some discussion. | |
| How to Find Shaft Horsepower Required for Displacement-Type Boats 6 pages. Information on resistance and the power needed to overcome it. | |
| The Balance of a Sailboat 9 pages. Rules of thumb for a neutral helm. | |
| Galvanic Series of Metals 3 pages. Corrosion and electrolysis. | |
| Planing Powerboats 13 pages. Theory, powering (including the gas turbine!) and hull forms. | |
| Resistance 7 pages. Three types of resistance, and how they affect design. | |
| Tank Testing 13 pages. More on scaling, and how to use models to test a design. | |
| Propellers 15 pages. Theory and practical design information for sail and power boats. | |
| Rudders 12 pages. Rudders for power and sail, steering gear and self-steering. | |
| V) The Sail Plan 41 pages. | Spars and Rigging 28 pages. Engineering formulas and charts, and rules of thumb, for the design of stayed and unstayed masts, spreaders and standing rigging. |
| I) Tools and Materials: 22 pages. Straightforward drafting, straight out of 1936. Wonderful, old-timey line drawings of K&E drafting tools. Most of this is still applicable today. | Tools Required for Designing 3 pages. Curves, and planimeters. |
| III) The Lines 106 pages. | The Drawings 19 pages. How to draw the lines, and other plans and make the table of offsets. |
| VI) Specifications 7 pages. | Specifications 11 pages. Specifications of a cruising sloop. |
| Inspection Checklist USed by Rod Stephens, Jr. 3 pages. What to look for before taking delivery from the builder. | |
| IV) The Construction and Joiner Plans 50 pages. | Boatbuilding in Wood, Fiberglass, Steel, Aluminum and Ferrocement 53 pages. Scantlings for plank-on-frame wood (including Herreshoff's rules), discussion of the other materials. |
| A Manual of Calculations 27 pages. Moments, displacement, centers of areas, buoyancy, period of roll, and on and on. | |
| Calculations for Pipe Dream Cruising Sloop 14 pages. Example calculations. | |
| Appendix 26 pages. | Useful Data 25 pages. Tables of many cheerful facts. |
| Index 6 pages. | Index 5 pages. |