Because it was compiled for immediate contemporaries this old handbook of yachtsman, their yachts, and their clubs, has a freshness absent from more pretentious works. The rules and customs within the clubs are amazing and amusing. The reports of their races then held so recently contain a startling mixture of elegance and pugnacity. This facsimile reproduction of what was then known as The Yachtsman's Annual and General Register, with its flowery dedication and engravings of clubs and yachts, is an insight into the early days of yachting. A useful list of contents has been added together with an extended introduction, which paints a vivid scene of yachtingin 1845...