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.
In a rare unguarded moment this summer, while discussing the cost of boat ownership, I recounted aloud the full cost of keeping a 34-foot sailboat on the water in my part of New England. My position in this debate was that boat ownership was more affordable than most people think, and I still reckon it can be.
It was a beautiful afternoon for sailing out on the Chesapeake, and our non-sailing friends seemed delighted to be taking an active part.
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
There are few boat projects more satisfying than repainting the topsides of a pretty boat. I did exactly that with my 1969 Cape Cod Knockabout
Growing up sailing a Shannon 38 with his family, a sailor and his dream boat are reunited after 27 years.
