Feb. 24/2023: Elvis Francois, originally from the island of Dominica, was making repairs to his boat at St. Maarten back in December, when he somehow got swept out to sea. Twenty-four days later, in late January, after drifting across much of the Caribbean basin, he was rescued about 120 miles off the coast of Colombia,...
Feb. 17/2023: Leave it to the most experienced performance sailors to come up with the most interesting boats when they get older and want to go cruising. Exhibit A in today’s brief is Oddity (see image up top), a custom plywood/epoxy 32-foot gaff-rigged barge of a thing masterminded by ex-round-the-world solo racer Pete Goss. A...
Feb. 10/2023: Got a hot text this morning from an old shipmate of mine, Geoff Hill, tipping me off that he’s been prominently featured in an official Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race viddy as the living incarnation of “the true Corinithian spirit of the race.” I can attest to this. I first met Geoff in 1992, when...
Feb. 7/2023: Maybe this counts as progress. The new sailing flick that just dropped on Netflix—True Spirit, a dramatization of Jessica Watson’s 2009-10 solo non-stop circumnavigation—is not actually cringingly inaccurate as to the details and nuances of ocean sailing. They have, for example, done an excellent job of recreating Jessica’s boat, an S&S 34 she...
Feb. 2/2023: I’ve been waiting since the 1990s, when I developed a crush of sorts on Isabelle Autissier, for a woman to win an around-the-world solo sailing race. A tantalizing prospect! This is the toughest, most extreme sport there is, but it is also that great rarity—a sport where women and men compete against each...
