Unfavorable winds turn an offshore adventure into a sleepy crawl down the DitchBy Dave BaldwinWe emerged from the darkness of an overnight passage 10 miles off the North Carolina coast when Joe asked an ordinarily easy question: Should we turn off the engines and sail? The light breeze had finally clocked around so that it wasnt hitting us on the nose andhaving spent
A thousand islands, a balmy climate, friendly people: Croatias Dalmatian Coast knocks the socks of most other cruising groundsWith my wife, Roz, and my old Scottish mate, Patrick, Id bought tickets on a low-price airline from London to Split. Two and a half hours later we were losing altitude over a fairytale fortress on a tiny island. Well sail there for sure, I
A premonition of things to come on the coast of Country Cork.As my wife, Clare, is from County Kerry, I have spent some time over the past several years exploring the southwest corner of the Emerald Isle by land and have enjoyed it immensely. Still, my eyes have always been drawn to the shore and the sea beyond. Even when viewed from land, the southwest Irish coast presents
Receiving the gifts of a subsistence economyBy Fran SlingerlandIn the wandering way of sailors, bleary-eyed after a long passage, we walked down the main street of Gizo, the backwater capital of the Solomon Islands Western Province. Dust flew up around the closed false fronts of Chinese stores. Giant nut trees, limbs glittering with green epiphytes, lined the waterfront and
By Eric SkansgaardWhen my wife, Renee, and I moved from Alaska to Hoquiam, on Washingtons Grays Harbor, we missed the sense of exploration and adventure we had found there. Then one day Renee plugged the word sailboat into the eBay search engine, and we ended up with a 22-foot Hunter we named Taligim Chignaa, Aleut for Dancing Creek. On weekends we towed her to Budd Inlet, in
Come harvest time, the California sea breeze blows toward Napa ValleySome things are worth doing because theyre a big deal, others because they are not. Take my trip up the Napa River, nosing into the richest wine-growing region in California. No big deal, but Id never explored the Napa Valley by boat. Nuff said.The city of Vallejo, a former Navy town that now has a
The littlest boat in the fleet turns a sailing vacation into an adventureId been invited to join the North East Trailer Sailors Association for its annual Lake Champlain Rendezvous in early July, but with only a week to go, I had no boat. Thats when the adventure began. Enter the NorseBoat, a 17.5-foot gaff-rigged trailersailer. Auxiliary power: two sets of wooden oars.
Every sailor yearns to voyage beyond the horizon, but most of us have to settle for an annual cruise of a week or two. Make sure your boat is well prepared, and youll go far toward guaranteeing that youll spend your time trimming sails, chilling out in quiet anchorages, and enjoying early-morning swims rather than visiting the nearest boatyard. Know your boat As a rule, every
A fast boat. Summer’s prevailing southwesterlies. Plenty of quaint harbors to explore. How hard could it be to cruise/circumnavigate Cape Cod on an F-24 trimaran?It was all going to be so easy and so much fun when we pulled out the charts and kicked around the “Hey, let’s circumnavigate Cape Cod” idea. August is the best month of the summer, we thought. Our F-24 trimaran
After receiving an influx of complaints from the marine industry, both locally and abroad, the British Virgin Islands government announced July 15 its decision to indefinitely defer levying harbor fees on all vessels entering or remaining in territorial waters and on those using BVI Ports Authority facilities. In a statement made July 15, available via Virgin Islands Platinum Newss Web
If anyone doubted that the ocean racing multihull scene was a hotbed of innovation, the new Sodebo Ultim 3 trimaran will lay those questions to
We, dog owners, understand the general expectations of ourselves in public places, like picking up after Fido and keeping him on a leash. There are,
France’s Garcia Yachts, which teamed up with bluewater legend Jimmy Cornell in 2013 to create the Exploration 45—a concept that has since been extended to
A Wondrous Bag Cruising sailors are always on the lookout for energy-efficient ways to prepare food, so this new take on the slow-cooker principle should
This July 8-13, Newport, Rhode Island, will be reliving its storied history when the Ida Lewis Yacht Clubs hosts the 12-Metre World Championships. For two
Owning a yacht in charter sounds exotic and enticing, and it may have crossed your mind to give it a try. Maybe you’ve heard stories
In a time when most new cruising boats are coming from Europe, it is refreshing to meet the Tartan 395, a brand-new design from a
It was the summer of 1952. The Eisenhower/Stevenson race was in full swing. I was in my junior year, studying naval architecture at the University
As with so many other things on our 1987 Pearson 39-2 project boat, the lifelines looked to be original equipment. Made of vinyl-coated 3/16in 7×7
We had left San Diego in early November and spent a month sailing down the west coast of Baja California on board Distant Drummer, our
