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.
This Italian/Danish build aims to bridge the gap from small boat to grand prix sailing.
The Bar Keeper’s Friend It doesn’t matter what a class act your boat is, I’ll bet the builders let a few so-called stainless steel bolts
Michael Reardon, founder and CEO of Daedalus Yachts, has purchased several American-made brands this year.
Polynesian women are practicing the ancient art of traditional navigation and inspiring seafaring communities around the globe to do the same.
There are a number of different terms for the motions and rotations you may encounter on the water, like pitch and heave. If you were
Rowing dinghies provide exercise, connection with the water,
and camaraderie — and they always start on the first pull.
And with that, another summer season is in our wake. We hope you get out on the water for the long weekend and have a
Biotherm remains dominant, making the best of an early morning transition zone.
Groupe Beneteau teams with industry partners to get closer to a circular economy in boatbuilding.
A new builder with composite expertise drops a cool carbon cat.
