SAIL.SailMagazine

Categories: CruisingMaintenance

The April issue of SAIL has a page of illustrations of Bird Scarers by Dick Everitt (page 76). If only I'd known. In 2007 I sailed to Peru. The country suffered an out-of-date reputation left over from the Shining Path era, and I was one of only eleven foreign boats to check in that year.

bird pooMaintenance

Categories: Boats and Gearstabilityballastsailboat design

The route has been set for the next Volvo Ocean Race. And now the campaign to sell it begins.

Here's the pitch for the route, which again loses a Southern Ocean leg in favor of the Middle East and China:

And here's the pitch for the overall race:

RacingVolvo Ocean Race 2014-2015route

Feeling a little guilty as this most certainly hasn’t been my mom’s most exciting visit to see us. We’re still just sort of waking from our funk.

I’ve gotten over to the boat a couple of times to mess around with the engine mounts. Today I borrowed an angle grinder and got the busted one’s bolt sawed off and ready to be removed. Tomorrow I’ll wedge a 2/4 into place to make sure the engine doesn’t drop at all when I pull that mount, and will hopefully be able to get rolling on them from there.

Categories: CruisingMaintenancechildren

Q:  What do you do when your parents take a breather from dragging you around to tourist hotspots?
 

Categories: Cruisingchildren

Photos © Kimball Livingston

What’s in a shadow?

Some things cast a long shadow, relating to Grant Dalton’s comment—

If New Zealand can’t win the America’s Cup this time out, “The team cannot survive.”

Categories: RacingAmericas CupETNZ

Well, you might not be going yourself anytime soon. But the bark Europa was there in January, and has produced three nice videos that allow you to start fantasizing about exploring a cold, remote, and beautiful place. 

Part 1:

Europa from William Collinson on Vimeo.

Click Read On for Parts 2 and 3.

CruisingMiscellanybark EuropaAntarctictall ship

It’s been a rough ten days or so around here and we’re only now starting to come around. But if I hate anything more than hearing about people’s illnesses I can’t think what it is at the moment. Though I venture to guess I may have said that about more than a few things at some point in the past.

Categories: Cruisingchildren

It's a perpetual question. And this video from the 2013 African Course Racing Championships certainly has some cheap thrills. But what I don't see is much in the way of real deal tactics. It appears to be all straight-line speed. Which is okay, I guess, but makes this style of "sailing" sort of a two-dimensional game.  

RacingkitesailingkiteboardingJohnny Heineken

Categories: Boats and Gearwhisker poles

Written by Ben Ellison on Apr 4, 2013 for Panbo, The Marine Electronics Hub

Categories: Boats and Gearelectronics

  My can opener didn't always have vice grips attached.  Once upon a time, it had a plastic handle.  And then one day last December, the handle simply fell off.  The plastic hadn't broken - the metal underneath had rusted away.  And so, in fine cruiser fashion, I improvised.   Categories: Maintenancecorrosion

Categories: Cruisingpuerto ricoVieques

Well, they certainly should know what they are doing by now, because they've built an awful lot of them:

Boats and GearLaserboat buildingLaser Performance

Kids are recuperating from this latest bout of whatever the hell it is. Bacteria-itis will be my new term for any illness that results in puking or pooping. I tell you what, a boat can feel like one heck of a small place with two sick kids onboard.

Categories: Cruisingchildren

Emirates Team New Zealand has been ahead of the pack with foiling, training, and overall preparation. So it's almost unfair that they have found yet another level of performance following a wildly creative design breakthrough.

I'd say all the other teams are toast and Larry could save a lot of money by simply shipping the Cup to Auckland right now:

Racingamerica's cupdesign breakthroughETNZApril Fools

Multihull sailors have been saying it since the sixties: “If you want to sail fast, get the lead out!”

Now the monohull world has caught on, and lead keels are being ditched like old dishwater.

“I got rid of seven tons of lead in my keel, now replaced with foam, and hey, big surprise, my boat sails way faster, especially off the wind,” says Francis Scupper, a weekend racer from Tampa, Florida.

keelsAir KeelVendee Globe

One thing that has changed since the last time I cruised these waters in the late 1990s is that now everywhere you go in the Spanish Virgins and the east coast of Puerto Rico you see these tsunami warning signs. I wasn't aware that tsunamis are a serious threat in the Caribbean, so I'm wondering what the point of these is. Maybe it's the fruit of some kind of sweetheart deal between the sign manufacturer and the local government.