PS Advisor: Complacency and the Experienced Sailor
The past few years have made it clear that age and experience doesn’t necessarily translate into safety on the water. In fact, a number...
Rhumb Lines: Eight Bells for Charley Morgan
Legendary sailor and yacht designer Charley Morgan passed away on January 6, 2023. He was 93 years old. Outspoken, self-assured, indefatigable, Charley was all...
Rhumb Lines: Seamanship, Not Size, Is What Counts
Years ago, one of my first assignments as a sailing editor was to join the famous sailor and yacht designer Steve Dashew and his...
Rhumb Lines: The Saddest Story I Ever Heard
The familiar opening sentence to Ford Madox Ford’s classic “The Good Soldier” in the headline above could easily apply to “The Boy Who Fell...
Rhumb Lines: Lessons from Hurricane Ian
Well, Hurricane Ian plowed south of the refuge-by-default for Opal, the 1971 Yankee 30 I spent a good part of last year working on. With...
Steering with a Broken Rudder
Cruising Club of America member Mike Keyworth, has done some significant research into emergency steering. Mike has had decades worth of ocean racing and...
Emergency Rig Repairs at Sea
Rigging problems at sea are like broken shoelaces. Ideally, replacement is in order, but in reality a knot might be the right short-term solution....
Powering Portable Devices Safely
Most mariners, especially those on the West Coast, have heard about the horrific fire aboard the dive boat Concepcion near Santa Cruz Island, California,...
Lifesling Inspection Tips
For many in the northern hemisphere winter is the off-season, which means it's a great time inspect safety gear. Lifejackets and throwable rescue aids like the Lifesling which incorporate materials that degrade over time deserve particularly close attention. Even new safety equipment deserves close inspection. Probably the most startling safety equipment failure we've experienced was that of a newly bought child's safety harness with a polypropylene tether that immediately broke under very little load.
Cordless LED Spotlight Update
Our first LED flashlight test appeared in March 2000. Even two decades ago, we were becoming concerned with beam patterns. In fact it was...
Latest Logbook
Practical Sailor Logbook – September 2026
In September we tour the Hans Christian 48T — the offshore cruiser many sailors call the holy grail — walk the custom Antigua 60...
Video: The BEST Sailboat You Can Buy for $35,000 – Catalina...
If you’re searching for a mid-30-foot sailboat, affordable cruising sailboat, liveaboard sailboat, first sailboat, or a capable used sailboat for coastal cruising, the Catalina...
Latest Sailboat Reviews
Cal 2-27 Used Boat Review
Our story begins in 1970, with the introduction of the Cal 29. Looking for something similar but a bit smaller, the company asked designer Bill Lapworth for a 27-footer, which at first was the Cal 27, a fin keel, spade rudder design with a convertible pop top; another incarnation of this basic hull was the T/2. But the concept of the 29 found its full expression in the Cal 2-27, which began production in 1975 and continued to 1977, after which it was again modified and called simply the Cal 27...again. Production of it ceased in 1986.
