"Let's get it straight right up front: This book is more than a catalog of designs. The 96 pages between its covers contain plans for 15 small craft. Designer Jay Benford knows that readers will build boats directly from the book - bypassing the formality of ordering plans from his office. In fact, he encourages the process by including full working drawings and tables of offsets for all of the designs.

James Henning's 8' Portland Yawlboat

"Benford opens each chapter with a brief, and sometimes humorous, commentary about the design at hand. Where one boat (the 16' Sailing Tender) was modified after experiencing some teething problems, he explains the how and why of the situation - revealing, educational, and honest. The designer goes on to show how the knowledge gained was applied to subsequent work (the 18' Cat Ketch).

"Considering this books standard 8½ x 11" format, the plans are presented at a most generous size (usually one-half the original scale). Even failing eyes of a middle-aged editor can, without optical aid, decipher the tables of offsets and notes. The lines drawings are printed black and crisp, and there seems to be little doubt that Publisher Benford had access to Designer Benford's original drawings. Builders will require neither convex lenses nor enlarging photocopiers when working to these plans.

"Benford presents the following designs, in order of increasing length, silhouetted along the bottom of the book's cover and detailed in its contents: a 7'-3" flat-bottomed skiff, easily built of plywood; a 7'-6" plywood dinghy, slightly larger and ever so slightly more complex; two 8' dinghies; an 8'-6" dinghy; the 9' Pacific Peapod; a 9'-6" dinghy; the 11' Oregon Peapod, an elegant double-ender for glued lapstrake or cold-molded construction; an 11' transom sterned dinghy; an 11' plywood sailing skiff; an unusual 11'-4" plywood dory-skiff; a really unusual 12' keelboat; the 16' Sailing Tender (flat bottomed); the 18' Cat Ketch (also flat bottomed); and the 18' outboard-powered Texas Skiff.

An 11' Oregon Peapod built by Mike Kiefer for her designer

"The appealing 7'-3" skiff was drawn for a Friday Harbor (Washington) High School shop class. Materials consist of a modest amount of clear fir and two sheets of ¼" plywood. The chine logs have nearly constant bevel, so they can be run off in an easy pass over a table saw. Benford shows no dirt collecting, space robbing transverse frames. Hard to see how such a boat that "looks like a boat" could be much simpler.

"For pure whimsy, 12' keelboat is difficult to beat. Designed for ferro-cement construction back in the early '70s (when, according to Benford, working in that medium was socially acceptable), this plumb-stemmed flier is pushed by a 125-sq. ft. sloop rig. If that sounds too tame, you can build her with a 344-sq. ft. (!) "sandbagger" rig drawn by Peter Dunsford. By the way, the designer suggests substituting cold-molded wooden construction for welded steel mesh and cement.

"If I were allowed to choose a favorite from this collection, it would have to be the 18' Cat Ketch. Simple yet civilized, she'd make one fine camp cruiser.

"In all, this little book represents an honest value. Simple arithmetic suggests that each of the plans costs readers only $1.00. And the glacial pace of evolution for most simple boat types bodes well for the future worth of the publication."