Many beginning sailors soon yearn for a larger boat - with a galley, head and berths - so they can extend their time on the water and range of action. However, the simple mechanics of sailing do not include the variety of arts necessary to cruise successfully. Cruising (with) Class began as a series of lectures at the Sarasota (Florida) Sailing Squadron with the intention of teaching basic skills to beginning cruisers. Comfort on the water is not a matter of soft cushions. It comes from confidence in the ability to voyage safely. Reading the weather, planting the anchor, calculating the tides, navigating a coast, avoiding fatigue, choosing equipment, coping with storms, reacting to disasters, these are the arts of a cruiser. Although the book calls on the author's 25 years of cruising small sailboats, it is not a travelogue. Instead, it is a precise iteration of lessons learned the hard way, and presented in sailor-to-sailor fashion so others can avoid disaster and find comfort bred in confidence on the water.

This book explores the sociology of sailing and yachting. Drawing on original research, and employing a theoretical framework based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the book argues that sailing is, still, an upper-middle-class activity that has much to tell us about the wider sociology of leisure and sport. The book examines the historical foundations of blue-water sailing as established by naval and colonial shipping, to trace the roots of contemporary sailing and yachting culture. It also examines archives of sailing narratives and cruising guides, as well as the children’s books of Arthur Ransome, arguing that this archival material offers a social rather than a psychological interpretation of the ‘bodily investment’ in sailing. The book uses Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘illusio’ – an investment of time, emotion and body into a worthwhile activity – and ‘habitus’, or lifeworld, alongside contemporary data sets, to examine the yacht club as a social institution, including why many boats never go out on the water, the relationship between yacht clubs and the state, and social issues as manifested in yacht clubs, such as sexism, racism and homophobia. Offering a vigorous sociological critique of yachting and sailing, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology of leisure and sport, subcultures, social theory, or social issues in wider society.

These widely acclaimed essays from the author of Infinite Jest -- on television, tennis, cruise ships, and more -- established David Foster Wallace as one of the preeminent essayists of his generation. In this exuberantly praised book -- a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner -- David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.