It was a perfect afternoon on the Maine coast. After a pleasant sail to a spacious, uncrowded anchorage, my wife and I spotted the familiar shape of the handsome sloop belonging to our friends Trevor and Maria. We had prearranged the rendezvous.
I am a desert sailor. My wife, Noelle, and I live in New Mexico and normally sail the small inland lakes scattered around our very dry state. On arriving in Norfolk, Virginia, one sunny Thursday afternoon, we were looking very forward to sailing with our good friend Mike and his wife, Heather, on our first cruise on Chesapeake Bay.
Four decades, five boats and 150,000 nautical miles ago I bought Autant, a William Hand gaff-rigged ketch built in 1927. She was 40 feet overall with a sweet sheer, a club-footed jib, no electrical system, no winches and no engine.
Over the course of the past 56 issues, we’ve brought you “Windshifts,” a reflective collection of pieces written by a host of different sailors on sailing, sailboats and life lived among them. However, in 2014, we’ll be taking a slightly different tack with “Waterlines,” a column in which Amy Schaefer and Paul VanDevelder take turns using this last-page space to fill you in on their unique whereabouts and reflections.
It all began when I was eight. The bilge pump on our wooden skiff was running nonstop, and my mother had been pointing this out for some time before my father finally peeked under the hatch and saw water slopping around just inches below the battery.
With the wind gusting into the low 20s and some very ominous-looking clouds on the horizon, I knew it was time to get back to dry land. I was out sailing with my two good friends, John and Jack, and we had crossed most of Great Bear Lake in no time.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” This famous line from the classic movie Cool Hand Luke is also a phrase that neatly summarizes a bareboat charter my wife, Nancy, and I recently enjoyed with friends in Corsica.
They didn’t hoist the Jolly Roger or fire a shot across my bow, but their intentions were worrisome.
Based on its pieces, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that the compound word “overbearing” is a term with nautical origins. This synonym for
A sailor debates costly rig upgrades for his Olle Enderlein 36, weighing performance, value, and passion. Is it ever “worth it” with old sailboats?
After six weeks of racing, it all came down to a single day for four of the seven teams competing in The Ocean Race Europe.
With The Ocean Race Europe drawing to a close this weekend, we look back on a very different race finish in 2023, where the teams
Innovation and perseverance deserve to be rewarded, especially when it comes to something as important as anchoring. Mantus Marine has continually improved their chain hook
From first glance, you can tell that the Sun Odyssey 415 has the clean, easily recognizable lines of a Jeanneau, and there’s a reason for
An overnight gale stirs up trouble for one trailer sailer.
On this day in 1901, Sir Francis Chichester KBE was born. The British sailor held the record for the fastest circumnavigation at nine months and
This week, The Famous Project has announced the crew roster for their all-female around the world speed record attempt. They hope to set a new
Today we celebrate the birthday of America’s Cup legend Dennis Conner. Though famous for his comeback and three victories in the Auld Mug, Conner is
