On The Shelf

Yacht Design According to Perry: My Boats and What Shaped Them, by Robert H. Perry ($39.95, International Marine) A few years ago, Bob Perry was walking along a dock and saw what he thought was a familiar and fabulous-looking boat. He summoned the skipper and asked what kind of boat it was.“Really,” said Perry. “Well, I’m Bob Perry, and I don’t remember this one.” As it turned out, the owner had done so much custom work in building the boat that the identity of the boat, a Valiant 32, was lost in the details. But Perry can easily be forgiven for losing track of one design among the sheer volume of designs and hulls he has fostered in the past 38 years. Perry, a graduate of Mercer Island High School and Seattle’s Corinthian Junior Yacht Club, has produced nearly 400 yacht designs and seen more than 6,000 boats built. That’s a lot of children to remember, even if they are yours. In Yacht Design According to Perry: My Boats and What Shaped Them, Perry reflects on his offspring with candor, grace, humor and a wealth of insight into the art and science of moving a boat through water. Just as he is one of the most remarkable naval architects in Northwest history, his book is a remarkable accomplishment. “The challenge is to match the boat to the individual,” Perry writes in his introduction. “I want the boat to reflect the client’s approach to life on the water. It’s as personal as it sounds, and it’s the central premise that has shaped my production designs as well as my custom boats.” Perry’s book is like a Perry boat:  a mix of applied science and personality, a smart, floating narrative. Perry manages this by mixing the actual history of various designs with comments on the challenges behind specific design features. He starts with the Valiant 32, the first “performance cruiser,” and devotes subsequent chapters to vessels that are chapters in his own career: Islanders, various double-enders, Passport Yachts and so on. The boats make for remarkable stories, of challenges met, competitors bested, obstacles overcome, and his personable, self-deprecatory approach makes for a friendly, pleasant memoir. In between the boat tales are essays on yacht design and his own approaches to sheer lines, full keels, shortening sail, bows and more. The mix makes for a solid tutorial, rich in technical intrigue, but with good doses of anecdote and personality.

 

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