If there's one thing that separates an 'Old Salt' from the rest of us, it's his or her ability to tie the left handed upside-down crown half-fangled wonder knot in a force ten with a following sea!  Knots are one of the currencies of wisdom, and there's nothing more impressive for a young yachtsman than to see the wide range of useful knots tied well by an experienced yachtsman or woman.

This little compliation of Sam Llewellyn's articles, written for practical boat owner, is a lovely fun read. Anyone who has rubbed shoulders or rubbing strakes with the local marina crew will recognise, and love, the humour. With little vignettes of the small boat yachting life, Sam covers such things as anchoring, fishing, alcohol and marine sanitation.  We look forward hugely to the next article on e-borders!

These little tongue-in-cheek diatribes are illustrated with Mike Peyton's cartoons (though some of them are looking a little long in the tooth these days), and the whole is packaged in a neat A5 size booklet not much larger than an RYA instruction booklet.  In fact, the reality of some of the experience contained within might replace the worthy RYA handbooks with something a little more like reality!

Well worth the £8.99 for a fireside read before the reality of scraping bottoms and re-doing the anti-foul hits in the early spring.

The Minimum Boat is published by Adlard Coles Nautical, price £8.99, ISBN 978-1-4081-9999-2