I share a 1995 Beneteau 42s7 with a friend. We (and most of our other sailing friends) are getting on in years, so we’ve made some changes to help make the boat easier to sail.
There aren’t many sinking sensations to compare with the one you get when your GPS decides to take an unscheduled break, especially if you’ve been relying on an electronic chartplotter. One minute you know exactly where you are. The next you’re surrounded by a trackless sea, feeling distinctly insecure.
“Wake up! Wake up! I think we’re dragging anchor!” Peg’s words pierced my sleep like a needle popping a balloon. In an instant I was standing in the cockpit, face to face with the bowsprit of a large Island Packet that had been anchored three football fields away the night before.
Any boat under way in a crosswind, whether it’s a rowboat crossing a lake or a powerful cruiser reaching along the coast, will be pushed sideways to some extent. The effect is called “leeway,” and even big ships are subject to it. Sometimes leeway is insignificant; often it is not.
Getting a sail cover on and off a mainsail is often harder than it should be. Once it’s off the sail, it can be hard to tell which end goes where, and when you spread it out to check, the wind will wrestle you for control of it.
If there’s one thing I hate more than varnishing it’s not having all the tools at hand to do the job right. Besides brushes, old cans of varnish, new cans of varnish and thinners, there is the sandpaper.
When Mark Edwards, a rigger from Auckland, New Zealand, molded the deck for his 50-footer Relapse, he deliberately included raised toerails that trap water on deck for most of the length of the boat: as in, all the way back to the fill-point for the water tanks.
When we talk about downwind sailing, the debate often seems to be about the relative merits of symmetrical versus asymmetrical spinnakers, or gybing a headsail to go goose-winged. It’s easy to forget there’s more than one way to pluck that particular goose.
Everyone knows the Answering Pennant (AP or “Cat in the Hat” flag) means racing has been postponed and that the “P” flag means a standard starting sequence. But what about the “M” flag, an “N” flag over an “A” flag, or an answering pennant flying above Pennant 2?
It’s not as easy as pressing a button, but once you learn to use a windvane you’ll never get stuck hand-steering again.
A ship that can point higher than the rest of the fleet easily creates windward-leeward separation between itself and its compatriots; so it’s no surprise
Holcim-PRB has been awarded redress for the collision with Allagrande Mapei Racing at the beginning of Leg 1 of The Ocean Race Europe.
On this day in 1851, the schooner America won the 100 Guinea Cup, which would then be renamed the “America’s Cup” in her honor. American
The final night of a Bermuda passage is marked by fog and a restless imagination.
Spinnakers are too fun—and useful—to not take full advantage of, even when sailing shorthanded.
Newport’s 24-hour distance race hit a milestone anniversary this year, and with it a full range of conditions and challenges for the 35-boat strong fleet.
These spotlights can help sailors safely navigate at night.
The term “feeling blue” is commonly used to mean feeling melancholy or sad, but the phrase actually originates from which nautical usage?A) Homesickness felt by
Left for dead after a horrific shooting, a sailor defies all odds to return to the water.
On August 18, 1838, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes embarked on what became known as the U.S. Exploring Expedition—a major global voyage that significantly expanded scientific and
