Nov. 29/2023: And here I am—way late—with a description of how the good ship Lunacy and her faithful Lunatics finally finished their voyage down to the warmth of the W’Indies. The last photo in my previous post, some may recall, was of a massive barge/crane/ship thingy that I found anchored across the way in Jamestown...
“Lyrical, engaging, and true,” writes prize-winning historian W. Jeffrey Bolster of my biography of Thomas Tangvald, The Boy Who Fell to Shore, recently published by Latah Books. “Doane reconstructs the searing tragedy, apparent resilience, and ultimate vulnerability of a brilliant young man better suited to navigating the sea than life itself. It’s gripping—a thriller to...
Feb 25/2022: It’s hard to believe, but this coming November we’ll be hitting the 10th anniversary of Paul Larsen’s record-breaking 65.45-knot speed sailing run in Vestas Sailrocket 2. That record, almost 10 knots better than its predecessor, still stands. These days two different teams are hard at work designing and building vessels they hope to...
Sailors of a certain age will remember seeing this B-movie title in TV listings for certain low-budget UHF stations back in the day: I Sailed To Tahiti With an All-Girl Crew. I certainly remember it, and I've used the title as a throw-away line most of my life, but I don't think I ever actually...
Goodness gracious. Do I feel sorry for Eric and Charlotte Kaufman! Not only have they lost their home, Rebel Heart, the Hans Christian 36 they've been cruising on for two years, which they had to abandon yesterday when they boarded a U.S. Navy warship about 900 miles west of Mexico, and which the Navy subsequently...
Thank goodness I was off having my own misadventure when Stanley Paris announced in his blog that he was abandoning his solo circumnavigation attempt and pulling into Cape Town. Otherwise there's a good chance I might have stepped in it like my SAILfeed compatriot Andy Schell did when he read the news. It seems that...
Silly me. I thought publishing my account of abandoning Be Good Too would decrease rather than increase speculative and critical commentary among the baying dogs of the Internet. I suppose I should have known better. Unlike some folks out there, I don't have the free time to write multiple screeds on all the sailing forums,...
"I can say for certain that was the best helicopter ride of my life. It was also the best shower." --statement by Gunther Rodatz to U.S. Coast Guard airbase personnel; Elizabeth City, North Carolina; Jan. 14, 2014 THERE HAS ALREADY BEEN a lot of buzz about what happened Tuesday morning approximately 300 miles off the...
Back in the early days of singlehanded ocean racing, the winners of races like the Vendee Globe and the BOC Challenge were often the guys who slept the least and steered the most. Autopilots were useful in calm to moderate conditions, but once the waves were up you needed a live body on the wheel...
We should note that Stanley Paris, after a bit of a weather delay, finally got away from St. Augustine, Florida, 11 days ago on a solo non-stop round-the-world voyage aboard his custom-built 63-foot cutter Kiwi Spirit. Paris, age 76, is trying to beat the "ghost" of Dodge Morgan by getting around in less than 150...
