The Rigging Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Sailboat Rigging

From YouTube’s popular Rigging Doctor channel, The Rigging Handbook is an introductory to mid-level book intended for boat owners, sailors, and cruisers who want to better understand how the mast and sails work and make an informed decision on what grade of equipment to use to outfit their boat. This guide includes an overview of common rig designs, a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of all rigging materials (including hemp, steel, and Dyneema), why rigging parts fail, how to perform a rig survey, and the basics of replacing standing and running rigging.

Herb Benavent, the Rigging Doctor, has been living the cruising life since 2017 when he and his wife, Maddie, left Baltimore, MD and set off to do the impossible: cruise full time in a 1968 Morgan 45 with an electric motor and synthetic rigging, showing how it can be done to allow you to 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, USVI, and Puerto Rico. Currently, Herb and Maddie are back living in Baltimore as they refit a 1966 Alberg 30 into a proper cruising yacht.