On Saturday, April 14, I was enjoying a perfect sailing day at the Strictly Sail Pacific boat show in Oakland, California. More accurately, I was watching a steady stream of boats heading out to enjoy a perfect sailing day—racing, cruising, or just messing about—while wishing I was among them. I had no idea that just 30-some miles away, a tragedy was unfolding in a sailboat race.
Sailing started out for me with a simple dream. I always wanted to have my own little boat where I could take her out on the ocean. I grew up in Huntington Beach, California, where my family spent many summers at the beach. At the pier, I would gaze longingly at the sailboats as they launched.
Standing at the bow of Eurisko, our Creekmore 34, my heel always scrapes the turnbuckle for the cutter stay when I operate the windlass. For many years I inevitably returned to the cockpit after setting the anchor with a bloody foot where the cotter pin had gouged me.
After writing last month’s note about minimalist cruisers Thies Matzen and Kicki Ericson and their exploits in the much-traveled 30-foot sloop Wanderer III, I was overcome by some uncharacteristic soul-searching.
My dad came from a long line of sailors and seafarers, but he didn’t start boating himself until he was nearly 50. I was 12 years old when he bought a 14ft Rhodes Bantam. Together, with some trials and errors, we set about learning to sail it.
Few places in Barnegat Bay are off the beaten track, but sometimes you can find a nook that is less well traveled. For instance, check out Silver Bay, in New Jersey’s Toms River Township.
The three of us were still in foulies. We settled into the cockpit, the first time we could truly sit down and relax together in 23 days. Somehow we made the anchorage before dark, but only just. Since we had first sighted land some 50 miles off, at exactly noon, we had been racing the sunset.
As warm-water sailors, we do not winterize our boat. However, we do store it out of the water for hurricane season, and as part of our decommissioning procedure we run the engine on the hard to pass fresh water through the raw-water circuit and flush out salt and guard against corrosion.
The uses for AIS—Automatic Identification System—continue to evolve far beyond the original intention of collision avoidance for large ships. The first AIS-equipped Personal Locator Beacons have just gone on sale.
North America is as big as its waters are varied. Some sailors inhabit a tideless world where 0400 departures to catch the south-going stream through Hell Gate are as foreign as flying to the moon.
New for 2021, the Sport 650 has the performance, durability and reliability to take you on adventures you can only pursue in a rigid inflatable boat (RIB).
Part of the 2021 Sport Collection from Highfield Boats, the world’s largest builder of aluminum-hull rigid inflatable boats (RIBS), the new Sport 520 is a versatile sportboat that also is well suited for use as a luxury superyacht tender.
Day one of the America’s Cup brought all the excitement fans have been hoping for for the past four years. The Defender of the Record,
The wind shrieking through the rigging jolted me awake in the middle of the night. It sounded like the bimini was being ripped to shreds.
The Cup is finally here. The first races of the 2021 America’s Cup will begin at 10pm EST tonight. Last month’s hard-won victory by the
Few bodies of water have such a fearsome reputation—or have exerted as powerful an effect in shaping the course of history—as the Bay of Biscay.
After 116 days at sea, Ari Huusela (Stark) has crossed the line and brought a close to the 9th edition of the Vendée Globe. He
This year marks half a century for New England’s largest boat show, and the celebration will be in person. In a statement released yesterday, Nancy
Two years after its global survey on women in sailing, the World Sailing Trust is surveying the entire sport in order to assess equity, diversity
The original saloon table in my Down East 45 schooner was a single heavy sheet of 3/4in laminated plywood, 27in wide by 57in long. It
