The Rigging Handbook

“Highly useful and interesting.” – Lin Pardey, voyager, US Sailing Hall of Fame inductee, and author of twelve books on cruising and seamanship, including Storm Tactics Handbook“Brian Toss taught us to respect the rig. Herb Benavent picks up the thread with modern clarity and a DIY sailor’s voice. If you want to understand, inspect, and maintain your own rig—with today’s tools, materials, and realities—this is the book to have aboard. Practical, current, and confidently hands-on.” – James Evenson, Sailing Zingaro; author of Be The Captain“This book is essential for anyone thinking about sailing in the modern world. Herby is a rare and refreshing talent, someone who embraces new ideas and materials. He will take the best of the old wisdom and add to it with his own thoughts and findings. Herby is not just a theorist; all his ideas are utilised on his own boats, which he will then sail across an ocean to test. The world could do with more sailors like him.” – Steve Holloway, Sailing Fair Isle

Herb Benavent, the Rigging Doctor, has been living the cruising life since 2017, when he and his wife, Maddie, left Baltimore, Maryland, and set off to do the impossible: cruise full-time in a 1968 Morgan 45 with an electric motor and synthetic rigging, showing how you can sail sustainably as far as your heart desires! Some 18,000 nautical miles later, they have sailed to the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Azores, Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Madeira, Cape Verde, Suriname, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Currently, Herb and Maddie are back living in Baltimore as they refit a 1966 Alberg 30 into a proper cruising yacht.