The brief

The author wanted a book that could be read in a small boat, in wind, with one hand.

That sentence did most of our work for us. It ruled out a dust jacket, a tight spine and anything smaller than ten point. It also gave us the format: as wide as a chart folder, so the book travels where the charts do.

The page

Each essay opens on a right-hand page under the tide times for the day it describes. We set the text in Source Serif at 10.5 / 14.5 on a measure of twenty-four picas, and kept three rules for every spread:

• nothing in the head margin but the tide;
• no line of text closer than a thumb to the fore edge;
• the second colour for water, never for emphasis.

A book for a boat has one job before all the others: to stay open at the page you left it.

Binding

The sections are sewn and the spine is left open under a cloth strip, so every spread lies flat. The cover is a single board, printed in one pass.