Sara Hopkinson is an experienced sailor, and a Yachtmaster Instructor and Examiner. She runs an RYA Training Centre in Suffolk which specialises in navigation, radio, radar and first aid courses. She was a Coastguard Rescue Officer for many years and Deputy Station Officer of HM Coastguard, Holbrook. Sara has written books for the RYA and Fernhurst Books’ Skipper’s Pocketbook, VHF Afloat and VHF Companion.
""This excellent book has the best explanation of accessing your course to steer I've ever read. Sara Hopkinson sensibly assumes she is teaching a babe in arms and as a result the pages on applying tidal vectors are failsafe. I like her simple checklist of getting aboard, preparing for a passage and setting off - simple, clear and impossible to misinterpret. Her no-nonsense approach will be a huge benefit to the novice sailor grappling at home with training, but it will also be welcomed by the harassed skipper, a little rusty from winter lay-up, who just wants a quick reminder of what he's supposed to be doing. I will keep a copy aboard myself."" (Yachting Monthly) ""I gave a copy to a dinghy sailor who had very little navigation knowledge and, within an hour or so, she felt confident enough to do the basics to get a boat from A to B using chart navigation. A good first introduction to navigation."" (Sailing Today) ""There is nothing intimidating about learning to navigate using Sara's approach... The innovative difference in approach taken by this book is the very visual step-by-step way in which each subject is covered with colour photographs and diagrams on almost every page. It is very easy to follow whilst still being comprehensive. This book is unreservedly recommended for newcomers to boating and for students on RYA courses: it is one of the very best."" (Cruising Association)