Feb. 7/2026: I found Kiana Weltzien (see photo up top) online a couple of years back and was immediately intrigued. It’s not every day you see a young woman sailing around solo on a super-primitive Wharram catamaran, and I certainly wasn’t the only one who noticed. Kiana’s YouTube sailing channel has over 50K subscibers, and...
Nov. 7/2025: This isn’t really a sailing book, but in one sense it is sort of an ultimate sailing book—a story of sailing and the sea as a saving grace. I first met its author, Clare Allcard, in the spring of 2016, when I set out researching The Boy Who Fell to Shore, my biography...
April 3/2025: Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Through all of my career as a sailor and journalist, I have believed, wrongly it turns out, that Naomi James was the first woman to sail around the world singlehanded. I have a feeling I am not the only one. It is true...
Dec. 12/2024: I’ve been remiss here. I got a copy of this book some time ago, handed me direct and personal from its author, Tim Murphy, autograph included. I read big chunks of it most immediately and learned: it’s a great book! But I was on my boat at the time, and the book got...
Dec. 15/2023: I have long been a fan of canned fish. It may be this is why I took up cruising under sail in the first place, so I’d have a good excuse to eat more of it. When provisioning a boat, particularly for a long voyage, one often defaults to canned food, primarily because...
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...
