Clarence Jones is a writer, inventor, tinkerer, photographer, sailor. He was born in the middle of the Great Depression. When something broke, you fixed it. There was no money for a repair man. He learned as a youngster how to design and make things that worked just as well as those in the store that cost a lot. His inventive creativity was a great asset in his careers as an award-winning newspaper and television reporter. One of the biggest challenges was often figuring out how to hide a camera or a recording device that would capture the evidence to prove his target's guilt. So when he became a sailor in mid-life, it was just natural for him to design gadgets that made his boat work better. The impetus for some of his projects would be a magazine article about a new device for sailboats. Within a day or so, Clarence would have a working prototype that would do the same thing. For a tiny fraction of what the new gadget cost. This book is a collection of those projects, many of them first published in sailing magazines. The guidelines for his sailboat projects - and the writing about them - have always been: Simplicity Ease of assembly Minimal cost Lots of pictures Where to get the materials That's what this book is all about."