Where can you vacation ashore and afloat at the same time?
If you want to go on a charter vacation, you are spoilt for choices. Fleets of new or nearly new monohulls and catamarans await you in any number of exotic locations.
If you want to go on a charter vacation, you are spoilt for choices. Fleets of new or nearly new monohulls and catamarans await you in any number of exotic locations.
Fleecy cotton candy clouds were stacked high across the southern horizon that summer afternoon as my Hobie 16 catamaran, Kat Baloo, ghosted silently along the low-timbered shoreline, leading us closer to the shipping channel into the Gulf of Mexico.
Years ago, my wife, Sandy, and I heard about a clump of islands about 40 miles off the coast of southern Italy, just north of Sicily in the Tyrrhenian Sea—a little archipelago known as the Aeolian Islands. The ragged, volcanic island group includes few natural, protective harbors, but plenty of “sheltered” anchorages that are considered suitable for hooking into, so long as the weather permits.
On the last day of the 2013 St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, a crew of eight spirited Dutch women invited me aboard Tiger Pause, a Beneteau 50.5, to race bareboat with them and their hired French skipper, Chantal Medrinal.
Around the world, there are only a few sailing events with a recipe potent enough to capture a sailor’s senses so effectively that they too become immediate repeat customers. For those events that have mastered the recipe, the result is a regatta with a long life.
We thought it would be interesting to poll a number of SAIL’s writers to see what marine electronics they actually own and use. Their boats should be bristling with the latest and fanciest gear, right? Well, yes—and no…
Esli and Carolijn decided to spend a few weeks in the San Blas islands, a collection of 365 bounty-islands along the Caribbean coast of Panama. Before long, they found out they never wanted to leave.
We dropped anchor in the lee of an uninhabited island and pulled the dinghy up the sandy beach. Soon we had a campfire blazing and the entire island to ourselves.
Imagine sailing 4,198 feet above sea level on a lake that’s saltier than the ocean and larger than the state of Rhode Island—a lake where sudden storms erupt from nearby mountains and conditions shift from glassy to gale-force in an instant.
If you promise not to tell too many people, I’ll let you in on a little cruising secret: Bocas del Toro. Located on the Caribbean coast of Panama near the Costa Rican border, this unspoiled archipelago of nine big islands and many smaller ones creates an inland sea where the breezes are so tranquil the waves rarely exceed knee height. And because Panama is south of the hurricane zone, there is no “season.” You can safely cruise here all year round.

For National Safe Boating Week (May 17-23) we’re revisiting some of the best safety stories, recommendations, and gear from our sister publications. Today, Passagemaker offers cold-water survival tips for boaters.

I was delivering a boat back from the Annapolis Sailboat Show last year and decided to pick up a pair of these boots for the

Sailing Alone Around the World Joshua Slocum completed the first recorded solo circumnavigation in 1895-98. Instead of using a chronometer to determine the time for

For National Safe Boating Week (May 17-23) we’re revisiting some of the best safety stories, recommendations, and gear from our sister publications. Today, from Soundings,

For National Safe Boating Week (May 17-23) we’re revisiting some of the best safety stories, recommendations, and gear from our sister publications.

Our thoughts are with the crew of Cuauhtémoc, a Mexican training ship on a cultural diplomacy tour that apparently suffered a mechanical failure and struck the Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend. Two people have died and 22 others are injured.

There’s nothing quite like the adrenaline at the start of a race.

A cruise through the Pacific islands of Panama reveals another side of the country known mostly for its canal.

Against the backdrop of a lush and vibrant Caribbean island, this regatta offers fierce competition, challenging conditions, and a friendly social scene.

The sailing scene in Antigua is fantastic, but head to shore and check out this island’s history, stunning nature, and vibrant culture.