Inside Practical Sailor

Practical Sailor owes a debt of gratitude to Sarasota, Fla., sailor Mike Collins, who offered his Cape Dory 25 Skimmer as a test platform for a new environmentally friendly bottom paint earlier this year. The paint had done well early in our panel testing, and Collins, who oversees the health of the aquariums at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, was as curious as we were to see how it might perform on a hull. So how did it do? This photo of Skimmers bottom, taken just six months after the bottom was painted, says it all.

Practical Sailor recently examined how the introduction of devices like the SPOT was blurring the line between multifunction satellite communication devices and those designed exclusively for distress signaling. In the October issue of Practical Sailor we will take a look at the design implications when a 406-MHz Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) enables expanded services for paid subscribers, including a very SPOT-like ability to send canned text messages and location maps to multiple cell phone or email addresses.

Should boaters who travel more than three miles offshore in the U.S. or Great Lakes be required to carry a to carry an EPIRB, a personal locator beacon, some other form of emergency locator beacon? That is the question a National Boating Safety Advisory Council task force is asking as it formulates new safety recommendations for the U.S. Coast Guard.

It seems somehow appropriate that today, as I hopscotch among the islands of Irelands western coast, U.S. Sailing has released its final report on the fate of the crew of Low Speed Chase. The comprehensive report, available for download at the U.S. Sailing website, covers in great detail the factors that led to the deaths of five sailors on April 14 during the Full Crew Farallones Race out of San Francisco, Calif.

Still trying to find a place to stow everything for that big summer cruise or that voyage south this autumn? You don't have to wind up like this sloop we came across in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, with everything but the kitchen sink hanging from the stern arch. With so much sail area aft, the boat has effectively become a yawl a la Sanford and Son, a precarious rig for a passage to the Aran…

Its not often that the sail-training program at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., incites envy among the midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. Historically, the Coast Guard Academys sail training program has centered on the tall-ship Eagle, and its yacht sailing program has gotten the short shrift. For decades, the USCG academy has had a fleet of offshore yachts-five Luder yawls, built in 1963. These are the same lovely but…

If you recently bought a SPOT Connect for its distress calling capability, or are looking at similar satellite messaging devices such as the SPOT Messenger, DeLorme InReach, or Briartek Cerberus, you'll want to read our upcoming story about the tragic April 28 accident involving the Hunter 376 Aegean during the Newport to Ensenada Race.

Each time I put together the lineup for an issue of Practical Sailor, I try to envision a sailing club with our subscribers boats, a sort of maritime menagerie. A few Lasers sit on dollies by the beach. The back lot is packed with older trailer-sailers like the Catalina 22 and San Juan 24. A stroll down the dock passes by wooden beauties like the Friendship sloop, classic pocket-cruisers like the Pearson Triton, and even a few luxury cruisers like the Oyster 61. A pier is dedicated to racing sailors fitting out C&Cs and J/Boats for the summer season. And, of course, several slips and a wide swath of the adjacent mooring field are occupied by 30- to 50-foot cruising boats-ranging from 30-year-old Tayana 37s to custom-built Chris White catamarans-gearing up for adventures great and small.

There is something mildly annoying about receiving a semi-automated e-mail from a Practical Sailor tester hard at work in the Bahamas while I'm stuck in the office. Im not sure why I found these recent communiques so irksome. They were seemingly harmless notes from a friend, with the subject line Check-in/Ok message for Franks Spot."

Being raised on the shores of Biscayne Bay, I should have known better than to expect crowds of sailing fanatics to converge on Miami when the Volvo Ocean Race sailed into town last month. Still, I held faint hope. Now, as the race fleet closes in on the coast of Lisbon and the flurry of press releases begins anew, I'm reminded of my many disappointments in the Miami stopover.