Book excerpt: Combining and updating the renowned Rigger's Apprentice and Rigger's Locker, meets the changing face of modern materials and technology while remaining true to rigging's best traditional principles and practices. It's much more than a knot book, though the knots a sailor needs are all here. It's a book for sailors who want the satisfaction and hard-cash savings of stepping their own masts, inspecting and maintaining their own rigs, and turning their own tailsplices and wire eyesplices. It is for boatowners who want to replace an entire gang of rigging themselves--measuring, choosing appropriate wire, turning soft eyes, leathering, and serving. It is for bluewater voyagers who want to feel secure in the knowledge that, should a shroud carry away far at sea, they will be able to repair it. 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.