Profiles

Bluewater Families: Growing Up Cruising

by Gina Rowe, Posted February 1, 2012

While the majority of bluewater cruisers take to the seas kid-free, there are a brave few who manage to raise a family while cruising. It’s not a well-worn path, but teenage cruisers Gina and Fransisco Rowe wouldn’t think of following another.

Tom Corogan Making Sixth Solo-Trip Around Cape Horn

by Peter Nielsen, Posted February 1, 2012

Is it the dandelions he regularly eats, or the well water he drinks at home in Port Clinton, Ohio? Whatever it is, it’s working for Tom Corogan, who at the age of 84 is making his sixth attempt to round Cape Horn—solo

Bluewater Families: Cruising with Kids

by Patricia Zumstein, Posted February 2, 2012

The prospect of sailing 4,500 miles across the South Pacific on a 48-foot sailboat with two small children and a wife prone to seasickness is enough to make most sane skippers back away in terror. Lucky for me, my not-so-sane husband saw it as the chance of a lifetime. So in May of 2008, we cast off from Honolulu aboard our Swan 48, Sundance, with our two children, Sofia Maria, 5, and Rufo, 4, and threw ourselves to the wind.

A Star to Steer Her By

by JoJo Nielsen, Posted April 14, 2009

“I can’t go any higher.”My legs were shaking. My body was pressed to the shrouds. The STV Unicorn seemed to sway and quake beneath me, despite the fact that we were safely tied to the dock in Greenport, Long Island. The first mate, Ms. Baum, peered up at me from the deck, 30 feet below. Tami, another member of the adult crew, was close behind me on the rigging. Her

SAIL Magazine Rewind: Little Jonah and the Hurricane

by Douglas Jones, Posted September 21, 2011

This story was originally published in the August 1995 issue of

Phaedo after the ARC: Shifting into Cruising Mode

by Charles J. Doane, Posted January 10, 2012

The ARC, which starts each November in the Canary Islands, is very much a European event and the Americans who run it are often a bit out of the ordinary. Without doubt, the least ordinary American boat in this last edition of the rally was the Gunboat 66 Phaedo.

Air and Water

by Adam Cort, Posted October 31, 2011

Most sailors only go aloft when necessary—either to do some kind of repair or maybe to get a better view while picking their way into a strange harbor. For French sailors Franck Rabilier and Delphine Lechifflart, though, messing about in their boat’s rigging is the most natural thing in the world. Currently partway through a circumnavigation, the two acrobats have staged dozens of performances at

A Mermaid Muse

by Sarah Eberspacher, Posted October 31, 2011

The sailors of old may have filled their free time with activities like scrimshaw and fancy knot work. But during a recent yearlong cruise with her family, 8-year-old Emily Ehlers (now 12) stayed busy creating a new card game, which is now being marketed under the name “Mermaid Beach.” A native of Portland, Oregon, Emily, her parents and two brothers sailed their 42-foot Pearson 424,

The Rallying Kind

by Charles J. Doane, Posted October 31, 2011

I’ve been on both sides of the fence when it comes to cruising rallies. My very first transatlantic experiences, way back in 1992, were in two cruising rallies organized by Jimmy Cornell, the man who can rightfully lay claim to having invented the concept when he launched the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC), from the Canaries to the West Indies, in 1986.

Heavy Weather Sailing: Remembering Hurricane Mitch

by Charles J. Doane, Posted November 28, 2011

AFTER TWO BOATS HAD BEEN ABANDONED, after people had been hospitalized, after we finally (and gratefully) reached the safety of Virgin Gorda, Steve Black, who had organized the rally, held a "debriefing" session."This is not something anyone would go through willingly," he explained to the crowd. "It's important that sailors have short memories."