Over the past ten years I’ve published more than 200 magazine articles, on topics ranging from simple product reviews to complex engineering analysis. Lamentably, a magazine format doesn’t allow the writer to present complete ideas and the back-up they deserve. Instead, magazine style demands punchy headlines, read-at-glance text, and lots of pictures. And yet I have truly enjoyed the process of writing for magazines, the broad range of topics it suggested, and the great people I was able to work with. I've been encouraged to take on research that otherwise would have gone wanting.
In these books I’ve gone back to my original text, before it was cut for size. I’ve added material where new research or experience suggested, and corrected a few things where the passage of time and miles of sailing have taught me better. I've added whole topic areas that simply aren't magazine fodder. I hope the full story will, help you solve problems, extend your sailing horizons, and encourage critical thinking about all you read and your sailing experiences.
It’s been my pleasure.
[click on either the PDF or Kindle link, depending on which format you need. The PDF contains slightly better detail and is updated more frequently.]
How-To books
Keeping a Cruising Boat for Peanuts
As much as I love sailing, putting my daughter through college and funding my 401K are more important. Transitioning from professional engineer to writer has transformed my habit of living efficiently into a passion for spreading funds thin. I like to think of it as a challenge for the imagination—it’s more fun that way.
I’ve written over 200 equipment reviews and engineering articles for popular sailing magazines, all based on laboratory and hands-on testing. I’ve spent 30 years learning how to maintain, fix, and upgrade. I've also spent 35 years as a chemical engineer, and my wife thinks I live in my basement shop.
As a result I’ve become a fair hand most crafts, never get stuck in the field with something I can’t fix, and I've learned to spread money thin, without compromising speed, reliability, or function. Although I've written on many topics, my wife assures me this is the one I know best. My magnum opus?
Check the Table of Contents link to glimpse the range of topics covered. Everything from cheap maintenance and effective multi-step water treatment, to installing air conditioning, solar, modifying keels, and other upgrades minor and major.
Like the fellow on the World War II poster, abandon all pretense of dignity, and enjoy 30 years of methods proven to keep money in your pocket.
Rigging Modern Anchors
Rigging Modern Anchors
First print edition, 2018, by Seaworthy Press. About 156 pages.
I've been setting and trusting anchors with my life (climbing) and my boat (sailing) for 35 years. I've been testing and documenting anchor testing for 5 years, and I've spent the last two sifting, collating, and analyzing all that I have learned. The result, I believe, is a complete description of what is actually going on below the waves, not just descriptively or as oral history from an old salt, but with numerical back-up everywhere I could provided it. I hope it helps. I know I sleep better. From the back cover of the book:
“Rigging Modern Anchors” demystifies anchoring with today’s modern anchors. Through years of systematic testing, Drew Frye has produced a new benchmark of understanding based on empirical data instead of anecdotal wisdom, passed down from one sailor to the next without proof or deep understanding. In “Rigging Modern Anchors” we dig deeply into the how and why of anchoring, using hard numbers as our foundation.
Included are in-depth discussions of anchoring basics, loads, scope, and the effects of cyclical loading, soil consolidation and bottom characteristics on holding power. Special attention is given to problem bottoms such as very soft mud and rock. There are anchor-specific observations, discussions of tandem anchors and rigging methods, plus an extensive appendix containing test data, open source designs for bridle plates and anchor turners, strength and toughness for various chain types, anchor connector recommendations, anchor sizing guides and more.
Proper anchoring technique, rigging, and gear selection is vital to the safety of ship and crew. Instead of hoping your anchor and rigging scheme will hold, read “Rigging Modern Anchors” and be sure.
Cruising Fast, Cruising Small
PDF, 2019, First Edition, 288 pages
I cut my cruising teeth in smaller boats, and now I'm back at it, sharpening my small boat cruising
mojo on my F-24 Mk I trimaran. From Chapter 1:
One Keeping it Small
This is not a book for racers. Although I raced performance catamarans in my youth, I’ve lost my taste for it. This is not a book for bluewater cruisers. Popular magazines are full of tales of daring-do, circumnavigators, and crossings to the Mediterranean. It’s not a primer for beginning sailors, although I mean it to be readable at all levels. It is simply a compilation of ideas that may help you cruise a little bit better in the boat you have. If you like it a lot and decide to cross oceans, you’ll be better served by a larger boat and a different book. In this book we’ll keep things small and simple.
For many of us, the pull of the water is summed up by this powerful quote from The Wind in the Willows; “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” But that Chapter one quotation is often stretched completely out of context, into a moral imperative to ditch all and go to sea. In fact, in Chapter 9, the very same innocent water rat, so taken in chapter one with the river and his clinker-built rowboat, spends a day with a charismatic seafaring rat. Our simple, provincial water rat is so completely mesmerized by the vast and sweeping stories (exaggerated, no doubt) told by the wayfaring rat about his adventures aboard a coastal freighter and the mysteries of the many ports of call, that immediately upon returning home he begins to plan his own departure to the sea. He tries to explain his new compulsion to his friends but can’t find a rational argument. He fights through fits and seizures until, in his own words, he regains his sanity.
The Seafaring Rat spinning yarns.
The Wind in the Willows, Chapter 9.
What most of us need is a miniature adventure. It suits the time available. More to the point, it fits our priorities. We have families ashore. We have friends. We have shore-based interests at least as important and valid. In other words, the myth, yea the fantasy, of casting all aside and following the winds across an ocean isn’t something we’re avoiding out of cowardice, but rather because it makes no damn sense to us. For heaven sake, we’re land animals, and we like it that way.
On Keeping it Fast
"People sail for fun and no one has yet convinced me that it's more fun to go slow than it is to go fast."
The late Richard "Dick" Newick
I don’t understand sailing slow. I mean, I like relaxing and I don’t care for racing, but I like to sail as well as I can and like a boat that is properly tuned. I like getting where I’m going, not drifting about. Fast is fun. I can always reef and slow way down, if that is what my mood requires. Sometimes it does.
I don’t understand racing, at least not anymore. I mean, I have raced, and I understand the rewards of completion, both with yourself and others, but the way many look down on anything not related to victory on the course seems narrow minded, to me. No weekend cruises. No fishing. No balance.
That said, if you want to race, good for you! Many of the upgrades I’ll suggest are speed or handling tweaks, and many will work within your class rules. Skip changes that add significant weight and read the section on shaving weight twice. Store your daysailing and cruising gear in bags that can be hauled off the boat in minutes; I hate disorganized clutter anyway. I think you’ll find our mind sets are not that far apart. Some would argue my cruising is racing without the formality.
I’ve found happiness in daysailing and fast cruising, and so this book has a natural slant in that direction, towards multihulls and sport boats. But that doesn’t mean I’m a racer at heart. I like understanding what makes a boat go and I like practicing good sailing, but I’d take a bad week of cruising over an hour’s recrimination over why we didn’t win any day.
So yeah, while this book is about trailerable multihulls and sport boats like the Corsair F-24, Seascape 24 and J-70, it’s also about anything under 30 feet that you promise to sail well.
It’s about fun boats!
Singlehanded Sailing for the Coastal Sailor
For many of us, the pull is summed up by the powerful quote from
The Wind in the Willows; “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” But that chapter one quotation is often stretched completely out of context, into a moral imperative to ditch all and go to sea. In fact, the very same innocent water rat, that was so taken with the river and his simple clinker-built rowboat in Chapter 1, later spends a day with a charismatic seafaring rat in Chapter 9. Our simple, provincial water rat is so completely mesmerized by the vast and sweeping stories (exaggerated, no doubt) told by the wayfaring rat about his adventures aboard a coastal freighter, and the mysteries of the many ports of call, that immediately upon returning home he begins to plan his own departure to the sea. He tries to explain his compulsion to his friends but can't find a rational argument. He fights through fits and seizures until, in his own words, he regains his sanity.
What most of us want is a miniature adventure that fits within the time available. More to the point, it fits our priorities. We have families ashore. We have friends. We have shore-bound interests at least as important and valid. More likely our need to singlehand is a practical thing; “I want to go sailing. Now.”
I’ve written this for coastal cruisers. I haven't circled the globe, but I have sailed 25,000 miles round and round the Chesapeake and along the Atlantic coast over the past 30 years, most of it alone. I’ve accumulated the practical sort of 15- to 50-mile day sort of experience that matters, navigating shoals, anchoring or docking daily, and returning to my real life after a few days to week afloat. We don't sail gold plated boats we bought from a dealer. We sail 5- to 30-year old boats and we spread our upkeep dollars thin, but without sacrificing function or safety.
Specific thoughts for the solo sailor? Just a few. Know your limitations and stay within them—the thoughtful beginner can be safe. Be a jack of all trades—whatever fails, it’s all on you. Choose your weather and be flexible—who were you trying to impress? Go home when it’s not fun anymore.
Faster Cruising for the Coastal Sailor
Table of Contents
This book is about covering more miles from dawn to dusk, without running yourself ragged in the process. It’s not about racing disguised as cruising. I’m not pushing new sails, obsessive sail trim, or watch keeping routines. It certainly is not about sleep deprivation and crossing oceans.
It is about:
· Getting the most from what you’ve got.
· Simple modifications that bring big benefits on small dollars.
· The basics of short-handed sailing.
· Efficiency in all things.
· Getting where you’re going a little earlier in the day, with more time to play.
I've done a little racing, but for me, it was always about the joy of moving well, and not about turning a good day on the water into an exercise in exhausting focus. If you want to dawdle some days that’s OK too. I’ll make it easier.
Cruising Guides
Circumnavigating the Delmarva Peninsula—A Guide for the Shoal Draft Sailor
Table of Contents
The writing of this book has been a 10-year labor of love, summarizing all we have learned in six circumnavigations, and all we have learned of this trip from locals and other sailors. I remain baffled by how many race around the Delmarva, rather than visiting the small places and absorbing the flavor. True, the prospect and the reality of piloting changeable inlets is intimidating, and we'll take you off the beaten path, but mostly these are places any boat could go, that had the time; I have describe both the conventional paths, and the more adventurous and rewarding alternatives.
We brought back the details of a world known only to watermen and local sailors. I hope I have brought real life this tale; I know how deeply I enjoyed the time spent with my family.
