Sailboat Cruising

I first met Steve and Irene Macek in the proper way—in an anchorage full of bluewater cruising boats. This was in St. Georges, Bermuda, in the spring of 2019. Theirs, without doubt, was the most distinctive boat there—an immaculate, three-masted, double-ended Marco Polo schooner ...read more

I was sailing down the inner channel of Marina del Rey under a beautiful red sunset when Nills, one of the crew members on my boat, pointed out an unusual and unique-looking 40-foot gaff-rigged wooden cutter tied to the end of a dock. Its classic appearance was a stark contrast ...read more

SAIL Editor-in-Chief Wendy Mitman Clarke enjoys a sunny autumn cruise in her Peterson 34 on the Chesapeake Bay. It was late afternoon just after the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis when I climbed aboard the last boat on the schedule. I and others who review and sail boats for ...read more

The Cruising Club of America (CCA) is a collection of 1,400 ocean sailors with extensive offshore seamanship, command experience, and a shared passion for making adventurous use of the seas. Their experiences and expertise make them, collectively, one of the most reliable sources ...read more

Jan. 11/2023: Now comes news over the past weekend that Charley Morgan, one of the great pioneers of fiberglass boatbuilding and design, left this world on Saturday, bound for whatever comes next. He was 93, and reportedly passed just a few hours after his wife Maurine died. ...read more

The adventure sailing company 59 North is reserving two bunks on all upcoming voyages for women. The move is to help make participation in its programming more inclusive, encourage more women to give offshore passagemaking a try, and gain confidence in their skills. ...read more

July 14/2022: I must confess I had never even heard of Ralph Middleton Munroe, a.k.a. “the Commodore,” until just 12 years ago, when I test-sailed a very interesting boat called the Presto 30, designed by Rodger Martin, on Biscayne Bay during the Miami International Boat Show. I ...read more

I was going to write this month’s column about propellor selection. Biking my 2-year-old son, Axel, to preschool yesterday, the piece started forming in my head. It was technical. Balance the tradeoffs between engine efficiency at slow speeds offshore versus power for ...read more

Growing up, sailing was always part of my life. This did not happen by chance but rather was the result of generations before me having made sailing and sailboat racing part of normal activities. I was never told I had to go sailing; it was just part of my family’s routine, an ...read more

After a three-year pandemic hiatus, the Sailing Convention for Women is back with expanded learning opportunities taking place at the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club in Corona Del Mar, California on April 1, 2023. Some of the workshop topics include Suddenly Singlehanded, Steer with ...read more

“Old sailors never die, they just get a little dinghy.” It may be a hoary old joke, but one of my problems at age 79 is I can no longer get easily in and out of a little dinghy, and neither can my (several years younger than me) wife. For this, and various other reasons I will ...read more

Here’s to the humble magnetic compass, without a doubt the sailor’s most reliable instrument onboard. It’s always there for you and with the rarest of exceptions, always operational. Yes, I love my chartplotter, autopilot, radar, and AIS. They help me be a safer and more ...read more

Joseph Conrad once wrote, “The sea never changes.” And while this may or not be true, something most definitely not open for debate is the fact we sailors, “wrapped in mystery,” as Conrad put it, are continually changing—whether we like it or not. I found myself thinking these ...read more

I first heard about Capt. Liz Gillooly in 2016 from my cousin while working three jobs in our shared hometown on the North Fork of Long Island and living with my parents to save money for a boat. But despite being the same age and growing up only 13 miles apart, Liz and I never ...read more

The Goal This year, I’ve had a specific goal to be a better sailor. Some people have laughed and said, “Why do you need to be a better sailor? This was my 22nd year racing on the same boat, with the same crew. I like to win and want to make sure we stay at the top of the fleet. ...read more

The first boat Thomas Tangvald ever owned was just 22 feet long. She was an odd craft, a narrow plywood scow with a flat bottom, leeboards on either side, and square ends—little more than a daysailer with a rotting deck and tiny cabinhouse tacked on. Thomas paid just $200 for ...read more

I don’t like sea stories. My number one goal on every passage is to get the crew back in one piece. My number two goal is to get the boat back in one piece as well. If I can’t do both, I’ll take the former. Do this long enough, though, and things are going to happen, no matter ...read more

Legendary cruising and racing sailors, sailing education advocates and coaches, innovators in boat and sail design, and mariners past and present who have effected positive change—all were among the National Sailing Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022 celebrated at an induction ...read more

I had just picked up a mooring in the Amelia River off Fernandina Beach, Florida, this past March when I saw an unusual vessel approaching from the north under power—a gaff-rig cutter with flat black topsides under a wide bright yellow whale stripe. A tingle of recognition ...read more

It happened as we were nearing the entrance buoys of the Ala Wai Boat Harbor after 16 days and 2,500 miles on delivery from San Diego to Hawaii. We’d already rolled up the jib and were jogging along at just 3-4 knots. A pod of spinner dolphins showed up and began playing around ...read more

From sailors to kayakers to swimmers, there’s one thing everyone who spends time on the ocean has in common: a stake in protecting it. For decades human activities have been taking a toll, and there’s every reason to believe the worst is yet to come. Many experts believe it is ...read more

Our anchoring adventure took place a few years ago as my family and I were nearing the end of a weeklong bareboat charter along the west coast of Florida. With me was my wife, Diane, our son and three of his high school classmates. The boys were all age 16 and inexperienced ...read more

In 1989, the 58ft yacht Maiden made a splash in the Whitbread Round the World Race with the first all-female team in the race’s history. Despite intense criticism and many roadblocks, then 26-year-old Tracy Edwards and her crew won two legs of the race and finished in second in ...read more

Perseverance and an embrace of adventure have always been prerequisites for sailors who earn the Cruising Club of America’s Blue Water Medal, but like everything in these pandemic-influenced times, Ginger and Peter Niemann had to take both up a notch when they completed a second ...read more

In 2015, our friends Lee & Rachel Cumberland were onboard their Tayana 37, Satori, tied to a mooring buoy in a Bahamian anchorage when a severe line of thunderstorms rolled through. The rare weather phenomenon known as a “derecho” wreaked havoc throughout the Exumas with ...read more

We didn’t get off on the right foot sailing into Hawaii. It was our own fault, of course. We should have known better. It’s never a good idea to assume that just because procedures were a certain way one year, they will be the same the next. It was an especially bad idea given ...read more

I met Captain Sarah Schelbert back in 2019 while on the boat trip from hell aboard a seaworthy but poorly run Triton 28 in the western Caribbean. I was trying to help the owner sail his boat back to Florida from the Rio Dulce, in Guatemala. Outbound from the river basin, we had ...read more

Many of us who are cruising sailors have been sailing mid-ocean or walking along a perfect beach in the middle of seemingly nowhere, only to be appalled at the amount of plastic trash we find. Few of us, however, have taken that disheartening reality and turned it into a ...read more

Having set ourselves the task of transforming our recently purchased Open 66 ex-Vendée Globe racer, NV, into a performance family cruiser, my partner, Timo, and I found ourselves (extremely) high and dry as cyclone season approached. The favorite cyclone strategy in Fiji is to ...read more

Whether they’re at the end of their collegiate career or after aging out of a summer sailing program, a lot of young sailors have a hard time finding a way to continue sailing as adults. Some of the barriers to sailing, including location, finances and time, can be hard to ...read more

“What’s the joke about heavy weather? You know it when you see it.” Figure 8 singlehander Randall Reeves drew laughs from the Cruising Club of America (CCA) sailors attending the forum “Heavy Weather Sailing: Bluewater Perspectives” as part of the CCA’s centennial celebration in ...read more

There’s so much going on in the news that you would be in good company if you didn’t realize the first major storm to hit the Caribbean was in full force. Hurricane Fiona is currently raging over the Turks and Caicos and is projected to make its way north in the coming three ...read more

In 1980, I owned a 26ft fiberglass ketch named Recycle, a full-keeled vessel with a 10 hp Honda outboard in a well behind the tiller. An inflatable dinghy would have been nice, but I could only afford an 8ft plywood pram. She had reinforced fiberglass seams, which made her ...read more

While many sailors are said to be superstitious, I never had any qualms about casting off lines on a Friday or hanging a large stalk of Jamaican bananas from the mizzen. Nor did I see any cause for concern heading out on “The Ides of March” for a quick daysail aboard my Dyer ...read more