Aug 8/2025: There was a time when survival drift stories involving bluewater sailors were not unusual. From the early 1970s to the late 1980s, as bluewater cruising became increasingly popular, but the technology involved remained relatively primitive, we saw a steady trickle of them. These days, what with modern sat comms and global 406 EPIRB...
Oct. 6/24: Back in August, while crawling around for a while in Lunacy’s engine bay, on top of and behind the engine itself, I somehow injured my elbow. On my left arm, same side as the now mostly healed fractured wrist. I didn’t even notice at first. But after I got home to Portsmouth, my...
July 9/2024: I cannot pretend otherwise. My brand-new 2017 Boreal 47, Lunacy, overall winner of Cruising World’s Boat of the Year rumpus of 2018, ain’t so brand new anymore. Maintenance is inevitable… and more and more frequent these days. Case in point: the aft daggerboard control lines. I had, of course, noticed they were looking...
Sept. 26/2023: Having failed to do as much sailing as I would have liked through July and August, I had big plans to get a bunch of cruising in during September and blocked off the middle two weeks as non-stop boat time. One big fly in that ointment was Hurricane Lee; the other was a...
July 5/2023: This was the scene last week off Chandler Cove, on the bar between Great Chebeague and Little Chebeague Islands just north of Portland, after I intentionally grounded Lunacy to give her bottom a scrub and check on her prop zinc. This bar is quite close to my mooring behind Maine Yacht Center, with...
Sept. 23/2022: I didn’t get in as much sailing on the Maine coast as I hoped this summer, for various reasons. But I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the sailing that did take place. Back in ancient times, when I was a young person, summer sailing in this part of the world was...
Oct. 4/2021: One thing I needed to take care of on Lunacy this past month was replacing the propeller zinc, the one anode on the boat that degrades fastest. I first tried doing this in the water, diving on the prop while Lunacy lay on her mooring in Portland, in what I call the lagoon...
Sept. 2/2021: The majority of my summer cruising in Maine this year, aside from some brief solo forays into Casco Bay, has been conducted in Penobscot Bay. All things considered, it is pretty much my favorite place on the coast. Given the prevailing conditions this season–light winds, fair doses of fog, and the odd hurricane...
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...
Oct. 23/2020: Those there are my two girl cousins–Cali, left, and Laura, right–in the foreground there, who came last week to help me (in the background there) get the mainsail off Lunacy so she can be hauled out and stored for the winter. It was my first time taking the main off this boat, and...
