SAIL.SailMagazine

Eavesdropping on an in-depth discussion of rating rules will send a casual bystander into a deep sleep as effectively as any hypnotist, and IRC—the successor to IOR and IMS—is no exception to this, er, rule. All I can say with any kind of authority is that boats designed to IRC tend to be a good deal more interesting than the rule itself. Over the last few years we’ve seen a steady stream of IRC

The last thing you want from your furling gear is for it to jam up in a rising breeze—or ever. I must be some kind of roller-reefing Jonah, because it’s happened a few times on boats I’ve been sailing aboard. On two of those occasions, halyard wrap was to blame.Halyard wrap sounds like something you’d tear off a new piece of rope, but it’s actually the most common cause of

One of the unwritten laws of project-boat hunting is “pick your battles wisely.” Most project boats come with their fair share of flaws—otherwise they wouldn’t be project boats, would they? The trick is to know which flaws can be dealt with relatively easily, and which will involve countless hours of hard work and heartbreak. In other words, what kind of flaw is a deal-breaker.Consider a

For cruisers bound south from points north, the long slog down the Intracoastal Waterway often ends at Beaufort, North Carolina, on the Crystal Coast, at the southern end of the Outer Banks. For some weary sailors, this backwater (in the best sense of the word) provides a chance to recuperate, repair, regroup, refuel and re-provision before firing up the diesel once more and plugging on down