Is it fine art? Or just some cartoons? That's what I've been wondering about this "Around the World Alone" exhibit by artist Sean Landers currently on display at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery at 537 West 22nd Street in Manhattan. When I first came across these paintings, I was amused by them. But the more I...
Good news for surfers… bad news for ocean sailors. The first long-term study of wind and wave heights to rely on satellite data rather than buoy reports and observations from ships has found that the ocean has been steadily getting windier and bumpier over the past quarter century. Unfortunately, little of this increase is translating...
At last, here's some serious recognition for my man Alessandro di Benedetto, who set a world record back in July for smallest boat used in a non-stop solo circumnavigation. Setting the record was one thing, but you'll recall what was truly remarkable about Alessandro's voyage was that he sailed the last three months on his...
I ARRIVED IN THE AZORES aboard Crazy Horse, my Alberg 35 yawl, in late August of 1995 already feeling kind of nervous about the hurricane situation. Earlier that summer I was caught in a tropical storm named Chantal while en route to Bermuda, and since then several other North Atlantic storms had chewed their way...
What a difference a year makes. Last December right about this time I posted a story about Laura Dekker getting busted in St. Maarten after she ran away from home so she could sail around the world alone without the Dutch government messing up her plans. The kill-joy government deported her butt back to Holland...
You'll recall we left the good ship Lunacy pining on a mooring in Bermuda (with a perfectly good starter), waiting for me to welcome home Reid Stowe AND preside over my mother's memorial service, so I could AT LAST return to the Onion Patch and sail her home. Stalwart crew member Jeff Bolster and...
If I wanted to I could now blog about this almost hourly and seem relevant, but really I have better things to do with my time. Abby's rescue in the Southern Ocean has unleashed a firestorm of publicity and commentary, with one legion of critics denouncing Abby's voyage and her family and another smaller...
You may recall I threatened to abuse you with knowledge of celestial navigation back when they shut down the Loran system in February. I have long preached the wisdom of learning and practicing a bit of celestial nav, and once upon a time I actually practiced what I preached (as you can see in the...
Lunacy is the first boat I've ever had that is equipped with radar. Initially I didn't use it much. I know some curmudgeons who still swear it's their first choice when it comes to navigation electronics, but in the age of GPS this just seems perverse to me. Interpreting glowing globular clusters for clues as...
One thing I learned early on in my bluewater sailing career is that there are, in fact, just two sorts of bluewater sailors: there are poets, who become engineers in spite of themselves, and there are engineers, who become poets in spite of themsel ves. I count myself among the former. From the very beginning,...
