Updates on what’s going on in the sport of sailing generally (most usually, but not always, relating to cruising under sail) and in the sailing industry, plus news nuggets and personal views on all manner of nautical subjects.
Oct. 27/21: Inevitably, I suppose, I’ve been driven to dive deeper into the question of what happened to my old Ruta de Morgan skipper, the inestimable Eric Thiriez, on his last voyage in 2017. I have been in touch with some of my contacts in Cartagena, Colombia, Eric’s homeport, from which he set out for...
Oct. 12/2021: Here we have another sad tale of mortality. On the last day of last month, as I understand it, the well-known yacht designer Ted Brewer passed away peacefully at his home in British Columbia. Born in 1933 in Hamilton, Ontario, he certainly had a good long run on this planet, both as a human...
Sept. 13/2021: In one sense we’ve been here before. Back in the 1970s, when the Arab oil embargo sparked a big increase in fuel prices, the market for recreational sailing vessels got a big shot in the arm while powerboat sales slumped. Now that fossil fuels are leading us into a different sort of impasse–ecologically,...
May 25/2021: Ahoy peeps! I should have mentioned this earlier. Tomorrow, Wednesday May 26, at 5:30 pm I’ll be giving a presentation on Maine Island cruising on behalf of the Maine Island Trail Association. The event is being co-sponsored by the Blue Water Sailing Club. Unfortunately, my co-presenter and good buddy Ben Ellison, per the...
May 6/2020: Here is an amazing guy, who led an amazing life, and exited this world in a way any serious sailor might envy. Drowned, at age 90, after his 30-ft sailboat was caught by a wave and rolled as he attempted to cross the Ballina Bar at the mouth of the Richmond River in...
March 18/2021: If you read blogs like this you likely know this already, so I’ll not belabor the news. Hats off to Team NZ for their successful defense of the America’s Cup, consummated yesterday in their seventh race win over Luna Rossa, the Italian challenger. Insert celebratory video here: The most important thing now is...
March 2/2021: It’s blowing the dogs off their chains today in Portsmouth, NH. A steady 40 knots, gusting to 50 out at the Isles of Shoals. A good day to recall last year’s storm season, the most active in recorded history, courtesy of this super-cool time-lapse animation released by NASA. Note the day-by-day time reference...
Feb.28/2021: I sure hope you guys followed my advice from last month, about paying attention to the end of the Vendée Globe. No records were broken in terms of elapsed time over the course. By that simplistic metric, this was a slow race, six days off the last edition’s record 74 days. But in every...
Feb. 22/2021: There we have it: the Italian Luna Rossa team will face Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup final next month. The Prada Cup final between Luna Rossa and INEOS Team UK, which ended yesterday with a 7-1 tally in favor of the Italian boat, was a real snooze, I have to say....
Jan. 15/2021: This has never happened before. Usually at this point in a Vendée Globe, with the lead boats well around Cape Horn and sailing back up the South Atlantic toward home, there is one boat well out in front with another perhaps a few hundred miles behind hoping for a lucky break. But this...
