Are We Taking Sailing Tales to the Extreme?
The first issue of our 48th year of publication is as good a time as any to play curmudgeon. So let’s talk about the dream of sailing away—what it was, what has become of it, and what it will be like tomorrow. Sailors today are truly lucky to live during a time when the act […]
8 Bells for Ted Brewer
You don’t have to spend much time in the sailing world to recognize it is filled with some of the planet’s most creative, good-spirited and generous people. Must be something in the wind . . . or water. We lost one of those people on September 30—yacht designer Edward “Ted” Brewer, who died at home […]
New Lifelines for a New Life
Rigger Glenn Mooney of Yacht Riggers in St. Petersburg, Florida has no choice but to be organized. A veteran rigger with more than three...
Boatyard Launch Logistics
Amidst the excitement of launch day—your desire to be back in the water, and the yard’s eagerness to make room for another customer (chaching)— there’s a chance something might get missed. A pre-launch checklist can help avoid spoiling the big day. DAY BEFORE LAUNCH Now is the time to check that the yard (or you) […]
Doomed by Pride and Envy
My last big haulout was careening an old wooden boat on a mud flat in Benoa Harbor, Bali. We had hired a crew of...
Tips on Beating the Heat at Sea
During our decade of cruising, my partner and I spent most of our days within 20 degrees of the equator. In many tropical ports...
Zen and the Art of the Endless Refit
The forlorn monuments to Sisyphus are clustered in one corner of the boatyard where the summer weeds grow tall. They arrive by towboat, strapped...
Introducing Sweet Opal
Twenty-one years ago, my planned four-year circumnavigation was going on its 11th year. (If you’re young and broke, that’s precisely how a four-year circumnavigation goes, trust me.) We were roaming around Phuket, Thailand when an enticing opportunity landed in my inbox. Friend and underwater cinematographer Peter Zuccarini had a proposition: Would I like to help […]
Buying a Boat? Insight into the Owner Helps.
At the height of the pandemic last summer, a sailing-surfing pal I knew from my days on Guam (a great place to rebuild the cruising kitty) contacted me out of the blue. He was looking for a boat. He’d had it with the madness of South Florida and planned to hightail it to the Bahamas. […]
Bridging the Ocean Between Us
In the year 2000, when I stepped off of ye ol’ Tosca and into the roles of full time sailing editor, husband, and father,...