THIS IS A COMMON SIGHT at Dowling's fuel dock in St. Georges, Bermuda, both in the spring and the fall when the seasonal stampede of migrating yachts passes through. It never fails to amaze me how many jerry jugs of fuel some bluewater sailors are willing to carry. In this particular case I counted 16...
I GOT INTO THE SUBJECT of Prohibition a couple of years ago on reading Daniel Okrent's excellent popular history, Last Call. I'd always understood, of course, that Prohibition was the product of the unique power of highly motivated single-issue minorities in American politics. But prior to reading Okrent's book I'd never grasped what a perfect...
ATTENTION ALL OWNERS of small sail and/or paddle craft within easy driving distance of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. You are hereby commanded to bring said craft to Portsmouth next Saturday, September 1st, to participate in the Second Annual Round Island Regatta. After racing your vessel in an informal and somewhat hilarious manner twice around a short...
YOU MAY RECALL we ran some SAIL magazine MOB drills aboard Lunacy back in early June. Hopefully you also read the article that ran in the comic in the August issue (which, of course, came out in July) and have viewed the video posted on the SAIL website, narrated by yours truly. Since then I've...
THIS ISN'T BREAKING NEWS, I know, but it bears repeating: the U.S. Olympic sailing team were super-big losers at the London games this month. Not one single medal. First time this has happened since the Berlin games in 1936. (Little known historical theory: some believe it was the poor performance of U.S. sailors in '36...
CLARE AND I FINISHED BRINGING LUNACY back to Portland this weekend and spent the last night of our mini-cruise on a mooring at Cliff Island in Casco Bay on Friday night. Soon after we settled in a massive thunderstorm started zooming in from the southwest. The photo up top depicts its initial approach.
Clare and I finished bringing Lunacy back to Portland this weekend and spent the last night of our mini-cruise on a mooring at Cliff Island in Casco Bay on Friday night. Soon after we settled in a massive thunderstorm started zooming in from the southwest. The photo up top depicts its initial approach.
ALTHOUGH THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE SPOTS on the coast, I haven't been here in almost 10 years. All that time I have been dreaming of coming back. On the chart it doesn't look like anything special--just another tiny uninhabited islet in the small archipelago that stretches around the southern end of Vinalhaven Island...
HERE'S YET ANOTHER CONCEPT YACHT that may or may not exist someday. The Ultraluxum CXL 160, according to its creator, watchmaker Jean-Francois Ruchonnet, will be the "most extreme fusion of architecture, design, comfort, performance, economy and technology ever created in in a luxury sailing yacht." Which may be debatable. If this monster ever gets built,...
AFTER I FINISHED UP my solo mini-cruise last week, I paid a visit to the Lyman Morse yard at Thomaston, Maine, and at long last laid eyes on Petrel afloat. She's the brainchild of designer Jay Paris, a colleague at SAIL, who has been fiddling over her creation for almost three decades now. I first...
