Paper Yachts offers you streamlined designs and waterproof templates to make and sail models of real racing yachts, providing an introduction to four of the most famous ocean races, along with instructions and rules for recreating them in miniature. There are instructions for creating four classes of origami racing yacht, along with 16 waterproof templates in suitable livery to enable you to create miniatures of 4 real racing teams.

Writing this book was a real voyage of discovery, since the contract required boats from a square that not only looked like specific designs, but also floated and could be used in a real race. I spent some time with my mentor Wayne Brown ruling out dozens of existing designs that either looked right and didn’t float or vice versa. Three of the models were designed specifically for this project, the other was a brilliant model by Maarten Van Gelder.

Ivy Press have a knack of producing books that look beautiful and this is no exception. It’s hardback and full of information, attractively arranged. I’m not thrilled with the concept of cutting pages from a book to fold with, but it seems to be popular in the market at the moment. The technical data was provided by Nic Compton, who sadly I didn’t get to meet.

ISBN 0-307-46021-5