Woodhead, 2007, PP347, £135, ISBN 9781845691318

This book has 13 chapters which are devoted to the individual activities of baseball, snowboarding, ice hockey, fly fishing, archery and rowing – with a further two chapters on athletics and fitness equipment.

The book starts with the general chapters modelling of materials, non-destructive testing (NDT) – specifically infrared thermography – and materials and design for sports apparel. There are then separate sections on protective helmets and mouth protection, each of which covers the incidence of injuries.

The different chapters by an international array of authors are of varying standard, some stating the obvious while others provide in depth information. Being aware of the difficulties of NDT of composites, I took a particular interest in the chapter on NDT and thermography, but found it disappointing. Some of the information is aimed at generalists rather than specialists, thus rowing provides basic information such as a diagram of three shapes of oar blades.

The chapter on archery also disappointed. There is quite a lot on bows and the associated equipment and material, but I was hoping for something on the aerodynamics of arrows. I would imagine the stiffness of the material and its resonance frequency in flight would influence the shape, frontal area and drag in flight thus affecting both speed and accuracy. The materials and manner of construction must therefore be highly influential.

Intriguing aspects of the book include areas where better materials, designs or equipment have appeared but then been banned. Also of interest are the figures showing records for the various years. The section on pole vaulting, for example, shows directly the influence of the pole material on the height jumped.

I have always accepted that sports (hunting shooting and fishing), games (as played in the Olympic Games), and pastimes (crosswords and puzzles) are separate subjects so was amused when the terms sports, games and pastimes were used apparently interchangeabley. There is only one sport present in this book, angling – the relatively specialised practice of fly fishing. New materials for rods have improved in accuracy, range and reliability of casting. What I had not realised was the vast number of lines available or the complexity of line construction.

The target readership for this text would be students on materials for sports courses. This should have a much larger readership among the participants, contestants, coaches and sports psychologists that back up elite athletes and teams.

This is a good book to broaden knowledge of materials, but at the end, I was left wondering whether all this specialised effort devoted to what are effectively toys for adults is justifiable.