Reddit reviews Adlard Coles' Heavy Weather Sailing, Sixth Edition

Alard Cole's Heavy Weather Sailing, of course!

Would-be naval architect here (turned aerospace engineer, they're surprisingly similar fields). Our dreams are not so different.

You absolutely need to read - and understand - Heavy Weather Sailing by Adlard Coles. This is regarded as the Bible of ocean-crossing small craft design and has been in print for about 40 years. It's quite heavy text, but you don't need to be a scientist to understand it, just remember not giving up on this book and reading as much as you can will keep you safe.

It starts off talking about the meteorology of storms, the physics of wind & wave formation, and once you understand how these things work it explains how competing designs and different charecteristics of the rig and hull cope with extreme weather, e.g. breaking waves pitchpoling a yacht, as well as fair-weather performance. I read it purely for interest, but I was 15 at the time, so it's really not too hard to follow.

I was going to put key points here, but it is absolutely impossible to tl;dr summarise everything your situation needs. If you can't do it yourself, do the smart thing and hire a designer with a good reputation to help you realise your dream - if going it alone, this book is mandatory required reading.

Overengineer things. Rigging wire a size or two larger than manufacturers' recommendation is more likely to come out of extreme situations unscathed, it's not unusual for blue-water sailors to carry an anchor a size or three over to be certain it will grip in a storm, etc. Read up on safety gear - EPIRBs and satellite radios are, imo, a must these days but it's not all flashy electronics - several spare 600-yard warps are useful in everything from drag in a storm to jury-rigging a rudder to towing someone else to safety. Consider different scenarios and how you'd cope - "the mast falls down and you're asleep", for instance, or "the fresh water tanks leak and there's none left in the middle of the Atlantic". Can you fix it alone? Tools - and the knowledge to use them to repair everything you own - will keep you safe.

Finally, I recommend an xpost to /r/sailing, they're a bit more active. Also find some forums dedicated for sailors (I like Scuttlebutt on yachtingmonthly.com, but there must be communities dedicated to blue-water sailing and self-builds) - you'll get much more detailed advice there. Good luck and don't give up!

This was essential reading on board our yacht. As a ten year old child, I remember being absorbed in this book down below, as our father took our violently pitching yacht through a horrible storm off the coast of France. Adlard Coles - Heavy Weather Sailing

Gripping stuff.