North America

Passage To Tomorrowland

by William Yates, Posted August 13, 2008

A California sailor becomes the world’s first solo golden shellbackBy William YatesThe reefing line just parted, making a shot gun blast—BLAM!—as it went. This gets my attention. I don T-shirt, shorts, shoes, and harness, slip on the spreader lights, and climb the ladder to the cockpit. The big sail is flapping wildly. I ease the preventer and take in the main, then

Muddling Towards Golden Gate

by Michael Petrie, Posted November 21, 2008

They say you never forget the first time. For me, cruising offshore began back in 1976 onboard Azulo, a 20-year-old, 31-foot Mariner ketch. Three friends—Dave, Karl, and Allen—and I set out to follow the path of 19th-century writer Richard Henry Dana, up the California coast. A motley crew of four young sailors off sailing the high seas!I kept a journal during that first cruise,

Feeling Blessed

by Kimball Livingston, Posted December 19, 2008

Here’s what hit me on my last trip to Catalina. It happened on the wrap-up night of a Seawind Catamaran rendezvous, and we were six cats abreast, rafted in cozy Cat Harbor across a narrow neck from Isthmus Cove. The few scattered lights ashore stole little from a starry sky. The guitars and the singing went on for a bit. A few dozen people were sated by a potluck spread (and whatever else). Tales

Bait Station Boil

by MacDuff Perkins, Posted August 24, 2011

This past July, while sailing in Maine, we were surprised to discover there were no lobsters to be had on North Haven Island. “Ya got a boat?” a woman with no lobsters to sell asked us.As it turns out, this year’s lobster season hasn’t been the best one for Mainers, and you’re just as likely to get a fresh catch in Brooklyn as you are in Rockland. Lobster “middlemen”—floating barges that

A Cruise to Treasure

by Bob Burgess, Posted December 20, 2011

Small-boat sailors strike it rich in the Marquesas

Fine & Wild

by Jayne Finn, Posted September 7, 2011

Conventional wisdom dictates that you not enter an unknown harbor at night, and as we prepare to depart Quebec City, I wonder if the same applies to leaving. For three days the wind has been blowing a steady 25-plus knots from the east, against the current of the Saint Lawrence River, pinning us down in Bassin Louise, the old port, now Quebec City marina. But let's be clear; this is not a

Port of Call: Penn Cove, Washington

by David Schmidt, Posted October 31, 2011

While Pacific Northwesteners are a laid-back lot, some things are sacrosanct. Take seafood. Sure, we might roll into the marina in an aging Subaru wearing worn-out Birkenstocks, battle-scarred jeans and an old regatta T-shirt, but you can bet your last roll of duct tape we don’t tolerate inferior seafood. Why should we?

Sailing Superior

by Charles Scott, Posted October 31, 2011

Sailors on the lower Great Lakes regard Lake Superior with a mixture of awe, respect and—frankly—fear. Tales of cold and fog, shipwrecks and wind keep most of us from exploring Superior’s shores. But there is another side to this greatest of the Great Lakes, and I found it on a summer cruise aboard my Westsail 32, Antares.

Chesapeake Bay: A love story

by Wendy Costa, Posted June 8, 2009

Is it a love story when a widow and a widower fall in love—not with each other, but with the Chesapeake Bay? Two years ago, at the age of 55, I became a widow and got my U.S. Coast Guard license to operate a 50-ton vessel. Herb, 81, recently widowed, and once an expert sailor on Canada’s Georgian Bay, moved aboard Ticketoo II, a 34-foot Catalina, on the Chesapeake

The Gold Coast

by David W. Shaw, Posted June 15, 2009

The Throgs Neck Bridge cast a shadow over the East River off the bow of StewardShip, my friend Dave Steward’s C&C 29 MK II, a fast-yet-comfortable cruiser. A stiff southerly breeze bearing funky scents of the Big Apple filled the sails, speeding us along.Standing at the wheel, I glanced up at the underside of the span, experiencing the usual trick of the eye