Southbound with the Snowbirds
August 3, 2015
Cruising guide authors Mark and Diana Doyle, co-leaders of the upcoming SAIL Magazine Snowbird Rally, take us on an eight-part tour of the Intracoastal Waterway.
Cruising guide authors Mark and Diana Doyle, co-leaders of the upcoming SAIL Magazine Snowbird Rally, take us on an eight-part tour of the Intracoastal Waterway.
If you think sailing rallies are for people of a certain “type,” think again. After mingling with a dozen of this year’s World ARC participants,
Paradise lies just west of ICW mile marker 173 on the Neuse River in North Carolina, about a mile up Broad Creek. It’s not hard to find, but you do have to look for it. Once you get there, you’ll agree. River Dunes is paradise.
Let’s not kid ourselves—the ICW transit can be a long, lonely and sometimes daunting slog. Commercial traffic, strong currents, shifting shoal spots and lifting bridges—help!
Becuase of our limited experience, we decided our first Atlantic crossing should be the “milk run,” from east to west. Our plan was to sail up the East Coast, spend a summer on the Chesapeake, ship the boat to the Mediterranean, cruise Greece and the rest of the Med for two summers and bring the boat back to where we started—the BVI—via the ARC
SAIL’s 2014 Snowbird Rally down the Intracoastal Waterway was such a success that we’ve decided to do it again
Every year, nearly 50 cruising rallies take place around the globe. There are rallies that cross the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream and even the Indian Ocean, routes that circle the Baltic, the Delmarva Peninsula and the World.
All the sailors who participated in the World Cruising Club’s (WCC) 2014 DelMarVa Rally this past June had one goal in common: start small, build big. At least that’s what Mark Johnson, skipper of Aisling, told me at the prize-giving ceremony afterward.
Sailing is often about the adventures you have and the people you meet, and this could not be truer for the participants of the 2014 DelMarVa Rally, which wrapped up on Saturday, June 14, in Annapolis, MD, with an awards ceremony and party for the cruisers.
On board any cruising boat, charts and guides are pivotal for route-planning. But have you ever thought about how those guides are created? We checked in with the co-authors of an ICW cruising guide to get the skinny on guide-writing and ICW cruising.
To celebrate the 250th signing of the Declaration of Independence, the international tall ship fleet is headed stateside.
A marine transformer with fun at its core.
The Cal 40 Nicole wins the St. David’s Lighthouse overall title, while Black Jack 100 takes line honors just shy of a course record. On the course: stunning scenery and a range of conditions. Off it: a scoring drama.
Good skippers manage the boat; great skippers manage the tension.
A spritely little cat that holds its own in a blow.
Analog alarms offer important feedback about how the boat is doing.
A friendly club boat with serious potential.
The lure of early-season boating is a beast with two heads.
A new four part docuseries details the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild campaign to defend the Route du Rhum title, available now on Youtube.
Eight Bells: Charlie Dalin
