Whether you’re looking for insights into the best cruising grounds of the East Coast, West Coast, Caribbean or Great Lakes, or the latest in tips and techniques for doing everything aboard from set the anchor to fix your engine, recover a man-overboard victim or trim your sails, our editors and contributors have the answers.
Swiss photographer Loris von Siebenthal has been named winner of the Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image photo competition for 2019. Von Siebenthal bested no less than 133 other photographers from 29 countries submitting shots of everything from regular weekend regattas to junior ...read more
Jimmy Cornell, father of the sailing rally, has turned to two hulls for his next epic voyage, the Elcano Challenge. Known for a string of monohulls all named Aventura, the founder of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) is planning to follow the route of the first-ever ...read more
Once upon a time conquering your dream of sailing off into the sunset was enough, but these days it seems like you have to be popular on social media too. Balancing the stresses of sailing around the world while keeping a successful—not to mention financially lucrative—social ...read more
Are you out there sailing, cruising and living the sailing life? If so, we’d love to see it. Send your sailing photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com And don’t forget to sign up for our free eNewsletter. This sunrise shot was taken on the last day of the Texas 200, which finishes ...read more
When I was a younger man, with less money and a stronger back, I was a regular anchoring snob. Free parking, I believed, is a fundamental right when cruising under sail, and if you want to be a true cruiser you must exercise it as much as possible. In developing this manifesto ...read more
It began, as Randall Reeves puts it, as a simple idea—to solo-circumnavigate the Americas and Antarctica in one season, making a double loop of the globe in the shape of a figure eight. It ended last October, when Reeves and his 45ft aluminum cutter, Moli, sailed back into ...read more
You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em Know when to fold ‘em Know when to walk away And know when to run — Kenny Rodgers “The Gambler” When I was young I would unflinchingly go out sailing in anything. Big boat, little boat, alone or with a crowd, it didn’t much matter. Same thing ...read more
Olaf Harken, who along with his brother, Peter, created the now legendary sailing hardware company Harken in Pewaukee Wisconsin, has died. He was 80-years-old and is survived by his wife of 47 years, Ruth, three daughters, four granddaughters and one grandson. When Olaf and ...read more
My Hartley 38, Moet, is pounding into massive Pacific Ocean seas. One week of continuous storm conditions has taken me 700 miles south of Fiji, heading for New Zealand. Every few seconds the bow lifts out of the water and hangs in midair for a moment while I tense my muscles, ...read more
It’s not often that a Frenchman urges Americans to take more chances. With its 35-hour workweek and comprehensive social security net, France can make America look like the land of hazard and reward. To celebrated French naval architect Philippe Briand, though, who has seen more ...read more
If you like the thought of easy sailing, affordable travel costs and a low hassle factor, you can’t beat the Virgin Islands for a wondrous winter charter. Whether you’re headed to the Spanish, British or U.S. Virgins, here are some tips on chartering in a tropical paradise ...read more
Many cruising sailors find themselves having to leave their boat unattended for an extended period from time to time, and that’s where people like me come in. For some reason, people trust me. My home, Brunswick, Georgia, hosts hundreds of cruising boats every hurricane season, ...read more
Last weekend I went to a boating swap meet. There were at least 50 sellers trying to get rid of everything nautical, from bent outboard props to darling ceramic figurines of baby elephants on Noah’s ark. Who buys all this junk, anyway? Well, probably you do, so I’m here to tell ...read more
Technologies are adopted because they make some part of life easier, safer or more efficient. Socrates argued almost 2,400 years ago that the new technology of writing would displace teachers, memory and wisdom. Since then other technologies have often led to the loss of the ...read more
Ever since they first appeared in my navigational toolbox decades ago I have been wary of waypoints. They certainly do seem helpful, these electronic flags we plant in the ether to guide us to where we want to go. But I noticed early on they also tend to distort our perception. ...read more
The chart showed 45ft of vertical clearance, and I knew the boat should be able to pass under the bridge. Still, there was that nagging voice in my head that wouldn’t let me be. “What if your air draft calculations were wrong?” it said. “And if you’re just a little too high the ...read more
Chasing leaks on boats is a time-honored obsession. Rule number one in all galaxies of the nautical universe through all of nautical history has always been the same: keep the water on the outside. When water somehow finds its way inside and you don’t know where it’s coming ...read more
After 320 days at sea, British sailor Jeanne Socrates, 77, arrived in Victoria, British Colombia, on Saturday, completing her latest circumnavigation and in the process becoming the oldest person ever to sail solo, nonstop around the world. Prior to the voyage, Socrates was ...read more
My husband, Neil, and I had left Mexico in March on board Distant Drummer, our Liberty 458 sloop, with a plan to spend the rest of the year on a leisurely cruise down the west coast of Central America. It was in this way that, after enjoying the delights of El Salvador and ...read more
After 14 days at sea, the 16-year-old Swedish climate-change activist Greta Thunberg has arrived in New York Harbor aboard the IMOCA 60 Malizia II. Now that she’s there, she plans to both continue protesting what she sees as the world’s failure to adequately address the problem ...read more
There’s a lot to be said for a trailer-sailer. Say goodbye to expensive boatyard haulout and storage fees. Forget about the laborious annual bottom scrub and paint. Park your pride and joy in your backyard so you can keep a fond eye on her over winter. Luxuriate in lower ...read more
There is something exciting about the extended anticipation of making landfall in a faraway place for the first time: the imminent meeting of expectations and reality, the inevitable differences from the mental pictures you’ve shaped. Through our decade of offshore sailing, my ...read more
For a few sweet years, American cruisers had the freedom to sail to Cuba. It was good while it lasted, says Addison Chan Cuba has assumed near-mythical properties in the community of sailors around the world. It is almost impossible to utter the name without conjuring up images ...read more
It is with great sadness that we read of the murder of New Zealand cruiser Alan Culverwell, and the attack on his family, by criminals who boarded their boat in Panama’s Guna Yala/San Blas Islands early in May. The San Blas were known as a “safe” area to cruise. Aside from petty ...read more
