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I went to the marine chandlery right across the street from the marinas today in order to pick up a tube of 4200 caulking. And you know what? They don’t carry 4200! I know, right? If I were to open a chandlery—which I totally should because I love any business where the margins are like 500%—I would only have three things on my shelf: a big jar full of miscellaneous stainless bolts and screws, Delo oil, and 4200. That’s it.

Found my tube of 4200 up the street so now I can get back to coating the boat in a one inch thick cocoon of it.

Categories: CruisingMaintenance

I've done more than my share of SailRocket updates, because Paul Larsen's quest for the outright speed record was epic. 

But you can't beat a series of detailed television reports for digging deeper, and adding to your understanding. So let's check in on the excellent Shirley Robertson, who has one of the best jobs in the world at CNN's Mainsail (One gripe: Hey, Shirley, why oh why is there no dedicated Mainsail RSS feed?). Cuz she has aired an excellent account of Larsen's SailRocket journey, in all its frustrations, setbacks, and, eventually, glory. Check it:

The Beginning

Getting It Going In Namibia

The Payoff

RacingSailRocketPaul LarsenShirley RobertsonCNN Mainsail

OF ALL the supernatural entities we sailors must cope with while messing around on our boats none are more heartless than the dreaded Bilge Gods. As long as there have been bilges on boats, these evil spirits have been lurking down there, waiting patiently to consume any Very Important Object an innocent mariner might temporarily hold in his or her hand. Even if you are on deck, or at the very top of your mast, as far from the bilge as you can possibly get, it is a scientifically proven fact that all you need do is let slip your grip on a VIO for but an instant and somehow it will end up in the hands of these greedy gremlins.

Categories: Maintenancebilges

There's not a lot of great sailing programming on television, or in theaters. But there is a documentary series called "Sailing Around The World," that is working hard to take viewers deep into the experience of ocean racing.

The series started with a documentary about the 2008-2009 Vendee Globe race. The film-makers must have liked the whole sailing scene, because they continue with a series of films featuring Derek Hatfield's rebuilt Open 60 as it is raced across the world by a crack team of Canadian Olympic sailors, led by Richard Clarke. The next installment, The O'Canada Project, chronicles the start of the campaign (both of these first two films are available for rent on iTunes and Amazon).

Now the next two films in the series, The California Campaign, and The Transpac, are coming. They feature the O'Canada team racing in a series of coastal Cali races, and then competing in the big one: the Transpac.

Here is the trailer for "The California Campaign":

And here is the trailer for The Transpac:

RacingMiscellanyO Canada Projectdocumentaries

Without young kids the months just sort of disappeared without anything to mark them. Now I feel the passing of each month deeply. The changes happening faster than I can do anything to stop them.

We joke with Ouest all the time that we don’t want her to get any bigger, that we want her to stay our little girl. And she comes firing right back with, “No, me big girl. I want to be a big girl.” And I remember childhood the same way—as kids we just want to be bigger, more grown up, with every passing day.

Categories: Cruisingchildren

It's been a while since we've indulged. Also, it's Wednesday. So let's take a break from tragedy, America's Cup navel-gazing, and billionaire fantasy, and engage our inner sailing lust.

Because that's the primary emotion that results from peering through the internet window at the sleek, sexy, hybrid-electric,TAG 60 catamaran.

It's enough to make you want to sell your soul. But let's bring it down a notch, and lie back with a soothing, virtual, cigarette, courtesy of "The Following Sea" Tumblr blog. It is a daily source of exquisite photographs of

MiscellanyBoats and GearTAG 60Following Sea

It isn't often that I really miss "land" things.  But every once in a while, I'd like to have a bath.  Unlike the kids, I can't fit in a five-gallon bucket.

I once made the mistake of musing aloud that I would like to take a bath.  Erik, fixer of all problems, immediately started offering solutions.

Categories: Cruisingbathing

Settled in to our new digs today: washed the boat, played at the other marina’s playground, hit the OXXO for iced coffee, and screwed around on deck. That’s it.

Written by Ben Ellison on Mar 12, 2013 for Panbo, The Marine Electronics Hub

Categories: Boats and Gearelectronics

We all know offshore sailboat racing can be dangerous. But the southern Californian sailing community certainly is enduring some tragic times.

Last summer, it was four dead aboard Aegean during the Newport-Ensenada Race. And this past weekend a young father was killed during the Newport-San Diego Island Race, when the boat he was sailing on--James Gilmore's Uncontrollable Urge--apparently lost its rudder coming off a big wave, and eventually ended up wrecked in big surf.

Here's Latitude 38 with the details: 

"The California sailing community has once again been thrown into mourning. San Diego's Craig Williams, 36, died this weekend during the Islands Race. Williams was crew aboard James Gilmore's San Diego-based Columbia Carbon 32 Uncontrollable Urge for the 130-mile race from Newport Harbor YC to San Diego YC, which leaves Catalina and San Clemente Islands to port. According to crew reports, the brand-new all-carbon boat had come off a particularly large wave when the rudder exploded, leaving the boat disabled.

Gilmore and crew — Mike Skillicorn, Doug Pajak, Craig Williams, Ryan Georgianna and Vince Valdes, the

RacingUncontrollable Urgetragedynewportsan diegoshipwreck

We gathered ourselves up this morning and finished motoring the last ten miles or so down to La Paz. We’re trying to get some things checked off the boat list once and for all and have a long list of mostly minor things that we’re going to buckle down and finish up on this stop. The plan then was to head in to Marina de La Paz, but it seems that too many people have turned that marina into their permanent home for any short-timers to get in.

Categories: PeopleMiscellany

It's a taste of things to come. At least, what you can see of it in this video of Emirates Team New Zealand lining up against Luna Rossa. 

Nice gallery here.

And ETNZ tactician Ray Davies talking about it, and saying little, here (though the footage is excellent):

The America's Cup teams have been in the desisgn phase, and will no doubt stay that way through September. But eventually they will have to race against other boats, which is why you see the teams going head-to-head

Racingamerica's cupEmirates Team New ZealandLuna RossaOracleArtemis

  It's that time of a year when a young woman's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.  By that I mean I just had to pay the boat insurance.  And what says love like transfering risk to a third party?  Categories: Boats and GearCruisingboat buying

I took the kids out for a dinghy ride around the bay this afternoon. We hadn’t been toddling along for more than five minutes before Ouest announced with some urgency, “I have to poop.” I raced back to the boat, threw her up on deck, and she stomped downstairs to the bathroom where Ali joined her and asked, “What’s going on?”

“I had to go poop. And papa turned the dinghy and went really fast. And Lolo’s hat fell in the water. And papa said, ‘Shoot.’ And papa turned around and got Lolo’s hat.”

“Papa said, ‘Shoot?’” Ali asked incredulously.

“Yeah, Papa said ‘oh shoot’” answered my sweet little girl.

I don’t know what happens some nights. We spent the day in water so calm we could clearly see the bottom at twenty-five feet. I went to bed at ten and only a slight breeze rippled the water. And by 11:30 the bowsprit was dipping into the waves as we bobbed up and down—over and over and over again. Ouest slept through it for a while but eventually the noise—combined with nearly catching air on every bounce—woke her up. Which is how I ended up sleeping on the floor the rest of the night. The two girls, snug as bugs, aside from the fact that Ali can’t sleep a wink in conditions like that.

Written by Ben Ellison on Mar 9, 2013 for Panbo, The Marine Electronics Hub

Categories: Boats and Gearelectronics

Thanks to relentless investigative reporting by the SAILfeed staff (Charlie pointing out the obvious to me), we have deduced that The Road Warrior and Hans Klaar are brothers. The Road Warrior is Alex Klaar. I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

PeopleThe Road WarriorHans KlaarAlex Klaar

Today was one of our beach days. Nothing was done all day really other than playing on the beach and in the water. In the water takes on a whole new meaning in this strange bay. From our boat it is a hundred yards or so to water that is just barely deep enough for the dinghy. From there the bay goes inland for what must be close to a mile—a mile of knee deep or less water.