SAIL.SailMagazine

Boatworks The term Wi-Fi gets bandied about plenty these days. After all, you probably use it to obtain high-speed Internet access at work, in airports and hotels, or at home, and you’ve probably used it on your boat, likely with varying degrees of success. Built-in Wi-Fi hardware in laptops, or PC Wi-Fi-card adapters (802.11 cards), such as those from Linksys, work fine if you’re close
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Boatworks Any sailor who has made extended passages along coastlines or across oceans has had at least a few close calls

with big ships whose course and intentions can be difficult to discern until the last minute. The introduction of AIS (Automatic Identification System) has taken a lot of the guesswork (not to mention terror) out of these close-quarters situations. For just a

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California Sailors and non-sailors alike respectfully refer to the ocean beyond my home waters of San Francisco Bay as “Outside the Gate.” Along the northern California coast there are miles of rocky coastline separating the few harbors of refuge, which often have challenging entrances. Along the way you had best be prepared for strong winds, fog, and sizable seas. Of course, it may also
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Profiles “I can’t go any higher.”

My legs were shaking. My body was pressed to the shrouds. The STV Unicorn seemed to sway and quake beneath me, despite the fact that we were safely tied to the dock in Greenport, Long Island. The first mate, Ms. Baum, peered up at me from the deck, 30 feet below. Tami, another member of the adult crew, was close behind me on the rigging. Her

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Cruising Grounds It’s not because you can’t get there. Or that it’s dinky. In fact, it’s the biggest city on the biggest freshwater lake in the world. It’s just that it is the farthest end of the biggest and baddest freshwater lake in the world.

H.O.M.E.S: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. Childhood mnemonic for memorizing the five Great Lakes.

By now all you Carmen Sandiego

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