The Figure Skate: A Research into the Form of Blade Best Adapted to Curvilinear Skating

What makes a blade good for figure skating? How curved should it be?Henry Eugene Vandervell the father of English figure skating asked these questions over a century ago and used his knowledge of mathematics physics and skating to answer them. This book presents an account of his experiments and calculations. The results strongly influenced the development of figure skate blades. Most of todays blades are not far from Vandervells recommendations.Only a handful of copies of The Figure Skate have survived. This new edition makes Vandervells work widely available and accessible. It includes the full text of the original work a new introduction describing Vandervells life and commentary explaining his calculations. Everyone interested in the science behind figure skating will enjoy this book.