The Complete Rigger's Apprentice is also a free-roaming collection of useful ideas and tips on everything from supplementing winches with block and tackle, to rigging snubbers at anchor, to using pantyhose for an emergency fanbelt. In short, it's the definitive book on the art of rigging, written by its most entertaining practitioner.
Writer-rigger Brion Toss became obsessed with knots in the late 1960s, a preoccupation that led him to sailing and rigging. He has rigged everything from tiny daysailers to huge square-riggers. Equally at home with modern or traditional rigging, Toss continues to pursue the challenge of designing The Ideal Rig--that unique combination of details best suited to a particular boat and its particular crew. When not writing or lecturing about knots and rigging, he can be found at work at Brion Toss Rigging, his shop in Port Townsend, Washington.
Robert Shetterly lives and works in Brooksville, Maine. He got hooked on drawing at Harvard University and later taught in a one-room schoolhouse, dug clams, and worked in a fish factory to support his habit. In 1980, he left an art editor position at Farmstead Magazine to become a full-time freelance illustrator. He has illustrated many books, and he continues to create what he calls his own "peculiar drawings."