Try an RYA e-Book

I love books – the feel of them, the smell of them … but a couple of years I was converted to a Kindle, especially for travelling.

The big advantages for me are its relative weight (on a one-week holiday I could easily get through 3 big paperbacks), the fact that I can increase the font size to compensate for poor light, and the dictionary. Almost every book I read I find a word that I’m pretty sure I know the meaning of – but it’s so useful to be able to check it.

Since getting my ipad last year I’ve started using that instead of the Kindle and have started to discover e-books that include video and animations.

The RYA now has over 40 publications available as e-books, with more being released every month. You can add bookmarks to help you find things you’re likely to want to refer to again.

The RYA Books app is free and runs on Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire devices. You can find out how to get it on this page of the RYA website.

Once you have the app you can download free tasters of the eBooks. Any that you want to buy can be purchased from the in-app store or from the RYA shop. Buying through the in-app store is quicker but you can only download for the specific platform you are using (for instance, if you buy from Apple it will only be available on Apple devices). Buying from the RYA shop allows you to download to any device, up to a maximum of three, and you can synchronise bookmarks between devices.

If you’re new to sailing you might want to have a look at Start Sailing, while those aiming for Day Skipper this year could find the Introduction to Navigation useful

I’m about to download both of these myself to take a look at and I’d be really interested in your feedback if you use any of the RYA e-Books. Email me and let me know what you think of them.