Safety & Seamanship

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...

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...

Years ago, one of my first assignments as a sailing editor was to join the famous sailor and yacht designer Steve Dashew and his...

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...

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...

Cruising Club of America member Mike Keyworth, has done some significant research into emergency steering. Mike has had decades worth of ocean racing and...

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....

Most mariners, especially those on the West Coast, have heard about the horrific fire aboard the dive boat Concepcion near Santa Cruz Island, California,...

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.

Our first LED flashlight test appeared in March 2000. Even two decades ago, we were becoming concerned with beam patterns. In fact it was...