Here is a treasure trove of classic vessel designs, long dormant in almost 50 years of back issues of The Rudder magazine. In this book, you’ll find equal numbers of drawings for both sail and power boats of a wide variety of types—catboats, sloops, yawls, ketches, and motorsailers; launches, runabouts, cruisers, and motoryachts. There’s even a selection of vintage commercial and military craft. All of the plans shown here are faithfully reproduced from The Rudder’s monthly design profiles, and they represent the work of such noted naval architects as John Alden, Charles Mower, B.B. Crowninshield, William Hand, Sparkman & Stephens, Phil Rhodes, Sam Crocker, E.A. Boardman, and L. Francis Herreshoff—among many others. Anne and Maynard Bray, the author-editors of this volume, have for years studied the rich collection of design work published in The Rudder. They bring to this book discriminating eyes and unique perspectives—Maynard with his concise commentary informed by a fascination since childhood with wooden boats and their details; Anne with a career dedicated to archiving literature and images related to classic watercraft. This book is a distillation of the Brays’ years of serious study of classic vessels—a showcase of boats of enduring function and beauty.

Anne and Maynard Bray, 185 pp, 2000