Books on board

[Gordonmc]

With the boat now on a swinging mooring in a sea-loch I am getting to grips with logistics after several years on a marina pontoon.
Trying to minimise the number of dinghy trips means thinking ahead about necessities of life on board, carrying the minimum. But last weekend brought home a big failing... an empty bookshelf. It was cleared when I left the marina.
I had plenty of grog and grub, but with the radio out of Radio 4 range and Classic Boat read cover to cover several times over, I was getting a tad saloon-crazy.
So how can you keep a decent stock of books on board without pages sticking together and hardbacks curling with the damp?
I am considering fabricating a "dry shelf" which would be enclosed with a perspex or similar front in which can go books, mags and maps plus a few silica gel sachets.
Any thoughts other than lugging books back and fro?

 

[Mirelle]

A \"dry\" book list...

I recall that the Cruising Association Library has a ban on "books being taken on board"!

I scanned my cabin bookshelf, and noted:

The Nautical Almanac
The Channel Pilot
The Dover Straits Pilot
NP 401 Vol. 3
NP 401 Vol 4
The Ship Captain's Medical Guide
East Coast Rivers
The Sailing Today version of the same thing (much better, imho, disloyally..)
Nigel Calder's magnum opus
Admiralty Tide tables V. 1
A very obscure treatise on the correction of the magnetic compass
Norie's Tables
Lloyd's Register of Yachts, 1977.

None of which might be termed good bunkside reading!

I need another bookshelf!

I reckon that a book will last OK on board without any exceptional precautions, so long as it is not actually dripped onto.

 

[tome]

It's difficult on a wooden boat, and even more so on a swinging mooring without shore power. We get around it by using a de-humidifier during the winter months.

A large sealed plastic box with some dessicant would do the trick and could be hidden from the purists.

 

[Kristal]

You could build a bookshelf which could be sealed in with perspex, along with a few silica sachets, whilst she's on her mooring, the perspex then being removed as part of waking her up before a cruise...

 

[Blueboatman]

Ok So maybe this is extreme but..The last boat had the marine loo,plumbing and tanks removed , by me ,2 shiny new buckets instead(now there's a way to see if your partner likes sailing-trust me... ) and the heads became A LIBRARY ! 10 linear feet of bookshelves ,and at sea a drop down acryllic flap to minimise contact with salty air.
Kristal mentions JDS ,well his Old Harry books were there,along with ''how to'' stuff,the silly and the erudite,bad weather days no longer seemed quite so. And ,yes ,the boat did adopt a slight list to port from the weight ,in what started as a stripped out go faster rebuild 26footer !