Sir Robin Knox-Johnston is sitting in the lobby of New Yorks Algonquin Hotel. He’s in town to receive an award from the Cruising Club of America, and he’s telling me a story about his encounter with the American astronaut Buzz Aldrin.Hes a marvelous man, brilliant, Sir Robin says. You meet him and you realize that this man was born to be an astronaut. Everything about him, from the
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston is sitting in the lobby of New Yorks Algonquin Hotel. He’s in town to receive an award from the Cruising Club of America, and he’s telling me a story about his encounter with the American astronaut Buzz Aldrin.Hes a marvelous man, brilliant, Sir Robin says. You meet him and you realize that this man was born to be an astronaut. Everything about him, from the
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston is sitting in the lobby of New Yorks Algonquin Hotel. He’s in town to receive an award from the Cruising Club of America, and he’s telling me a story about his encounter with the American astronaut Buzz Aldrin.Hes a marvelous man, brilliant, Sir Robin says. You meet him and you realize that this man was born to be an astronaut. Everything about him, from the
Its one of the great ironies of sailing. Going dead downwind, arguably the easiest angle of sail, is also the slowest. Thanks to the phenomenon of apparent wind, modern boats regularly sail faster than the true wind speed on a reach. But on a run, theres no getting around the fact that the faster you go, the less pressure there is on your sailsuntil now.
If we move the leads forward, we get a deeper foot and the sail takes on a bigger shape, explained North U director Bill Gladstone as he shifted the virtual leads on a graphic of a sail, which was projected on a screen for a classroom of 80 racers. But if we adjust the jib sheet, that
On Thursday March 17, with blisters on her hands and sores on her bottom, sailor Lia Ditton rowed into Antigua, a proud finisher of the Atlantic Rowing Race. For 73 days, she and a partner rowed in 12-hour shifts from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. They crossed 2,500 miles nonstop with no assistance. Rowing in close quarters
The two nearly identical Open 60 monohulls set to establish an inaugural New York-Barcelona (NY-BCN) Transoceanic Sailing Record have arrived in New York in preparation for their passage across the Atlantic sometime in mid-April.This past week, hundreds of New Yorkers gathered at the World Financial Centers Winter Garden to take part in the opening of a Transoceanic Sailing Exhibit that
The Volvo Race will once again be making a stop in the United States, this time in the port of Miami. Organizers have announced that for the 2011-12 running, the fleet will finish there at the end of a leg beginning in Brazil.Miami will then serve as the jumping-off point for a transatlantic leg finishing in Lisbon. According to race organizers, Miami fought off a number of other North
It took five long years, but Bruno Peyron and Orange 2 no longer hold the record for the fastest circumnavigation under sail. That honorand the Jules Verne Trophy that goes with itnow belongs to skipper Franck Cammas, navigator Stan Honey and the rest of the crew of the maxi-trimaran Groupama 3, which did it in an incredible 48 days 7 hours 44 minutes and 52 seconds! Thats an
Heading into the homestretch on its bid to set a new round-the-world record, Franck Cammas maxi-trimaran Groupama 3 remains locked in a head-to-head battle with its virtual competition, Bruno Peyrons Orange 2.Since setting sail on February 1, Cammas and crew have been keeping close tabs on their progress relative to that of Orange 2, the current holder of the
Pre-cook your meals for the first two days. Reef early. Don’t drink too much the night before departure. Don’t expect to poop until the third
Time was sail-powered vessels ruled the waves. The Age of Sail, as we now call it, lasted millennia. Then came steam engines and the internal
Celestial Nav 5 – The fifth installment of The Nav Station’s Celestial Navigation series discusses the contents of the Nautical Almanac, and how to use
Ryan Finn’s second attempt at sailing the Cape Horn Clipper Route has begun, after damage to the hull cut his first attempt short last January.
After a few uncertain years waiting to see how the Volvo Ocean Race would be reincarnated as The Ocean Race, the pieces are starting to
Andrés Reséndez, Mariner Books, $28 Conquering the Pacific is a rich historical narrative that tells the story of the last great discovery of the Age
February is National Black History Month, and to celebrate we’re highlighting some of the contributions of Black sailors at the height of the Age of
Fresh out of college, I was working two jobs and living in a basement sublet in the Bronx. Twice per week, I would take the
The nature of sailboat racing is such that the bigger boats tend to get the lion’s share of attention. Recently, though, I’ve found myself especially
The Women’s Sailing Foundation is offering the Sue Corl Youth Sailing Scholarship to one teenage girl, aged 14-19 years old, who wants to expand her
