Thirty-three years ago Jimmy Cornell launched a rally for boats crossing the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. The pitch was safety in numbers and resonated with sailors who were seeking adventure but also looking for a bit of a safety net. It was a monohull ...read more
With all the rallies to choose from, there’s a perfect route for every sailor in every corner of the world. While all rallies take pride in creating community, providing logistical support and most of all making sailing safer for their participants, they each have their own ...read more
Never let it be said that the World Cruising Club (WCC) rests on its laurels. Always looking for fresh ways to add more spice to the world’s longest-running and most popular cruising rally—the first was held in 1986, and entries regularly exceed 200—the WCC this year added a ...read more
Whether you are in the planning stages for a southbound ICW cruise in 2018 or you are looking at a northbound trip this spring, it is important to know where the shallow spots are along the ICW. It is wise to mark your charts and familiarize yourself with these so that you are ...read more
After hurricane Irma bashed through Florida and the southeastern coast of Georgia and South Carolina, significant damage to infrastructure has been reported. Damage to marinas and other facilities is relatively easy to see and report. There are several resources to track the ...read more
While the World Cruising Club may be best known for the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (the origin of “ARC”) formed by Jimmy Cornell in 1986, its rallies have long since transcended those destinations limited to an Atlantic crossing. Today the WCC hosts rallies spanning the globe, ...read more
Every year since 1986, a group of around 200 cruising boats has gathered in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, ready to set forth across the Atlantic Ocean—their destination, the island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean’s beautiful Windward Isles. The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers ...read more
Photos courtesy of Simon Cohen; Alexis Courcoux; Jose Guijarro Back in 1992, when I was working at a British sailing magazine, I volunteered for some tough duty—covering the first International Festival of Sail in Brest, France. Someone had to do it, and as a wooden-boat owner, ...read more
A decade ago, here in the pages of SAIL, I wrote of my experiences with the inaugural Classic Boat Rally fleet as it sailed along the Intracoastal Waterway from Savannah, Georgia, to Charleston, South Carolina. It was a six-day cruise that led the boats through some of the ...read more
On the one hand, timing is said to be everything. On the other, anyone in real estate will tell you the thing that really matters is location, location, location. When it comes to passagemaking, though, it’s not one or the other, it’s both. Making a passage from, say, Bermuda ...read more
As far as fleets go, the collection of boats that greeted me as I motored into Hampton, Virginia, in late October was as varied as they come: sloops, cutters, catamarans, a trawler and even a trailer-sailer, all geared up and ready for an adventure. I had brought our Norlin 34, ...read more
“In a cold world you need your friends to keep you warm.” Recognize that line? It was used to promote the 1983 film The Big Chill, which ultimately spawned the hit TV series Thirtysomething. That movie, made even more famous by its soundtrack, was filmed only a few blocks from ...read more
South Bound with the Snowbirds: In my mind I’ve gone to (north) Carolina Cruising guide authors Mark and Diana Doyle, co-leaders of the upcoming SAIL Magazine Snowbird Rally, continue their eight-part tour of the Intracoastal Waterway. In this third installment they highlight ...read more
Yes, you read that right! The Intracoastal Waterway is indeed a sailor’s paradise. Last October we left Hampton VA as part of SAIL’s ICW Snowbird Rally, and didn’t refuel until we hit New Smyrna, Florida. That’s a long, long way and we made 80 percent of the journey under sail. ...read more
Cruising guide authors Mark and Diana Doyle, co-leaders of the upcoming SAIL Magazine Snowbird Rally, continue their eight-part tour of the Intracoastal Waterway. In this second installment they describe one of their favorite runs, the Great Dismal Swamp. Since the ICW south ...read more
Like many sailors, my wife, Cristina, and I cruise our local waters on the Chesapeake every chance we get. Like many sailors we have also long dreamed how wonderful it would be to one day just keep on going and not return to the marina on Sunday—that someday we would be able to ...read more
Paul & Sheryl Shard, cruisers extraordinaire As producers of the award-winning “Distant Shores” TV series, Paul and Sheryl Shard have cruised more than 100,000 miles around the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean seas. Not only are they highly experienced cruisers with a ...read more
Cruising guide authors Mark and Diana Doyle, co-leaders of the upcoming SAIL Magazine Snowbird Rally, take us on an eight-part tour of the Intracoastal Waterway. In their first installment, they begin in Hampton Roads and transit Virginia Cut (Route 1) to the sounds of North ...read more
If you think sailing rallies are for people of a certain “type,” think again. After mingling with a dozen of this year’s World ARC participants, I found that sailing around the world in 15 months takes all kinds—and that’s a good thing. While one posh new catamaran may carry a ...read more
Paradise lies just west of ICW mile marker 173 on the Neuse River in North Carolina, about a mile up Broad Creek. It’s not hard to find, but you do have to look for it. Once you get there, you’ll agree. River Dunes is paradise. Grace Harbor, River Dunes’s manmade 26-acre basin ...read more
Let’s not kid ourselves—the ICW transit can be a long, lonely and sometimes daunting slog. Commercial traffic, strong currents, shifting shoal spots and lifting bridges—help! That’s why we came up with the idea for a Snowbird Rally down the ICW, to help make the ICW an experience ...read more
For many lake sailors and coastal cruisers, crossing the Atlantic is little more than a fairytale. It certainly was for us. But ours is an “if we can do it, you can too” story of a husband and wife who took time off work to sail their production sailboat from the Mediterranean ...read more
It’s on for 2015! Click on SAIL's ICW website here SAIL’s 2014 Snowbird Rally down the Intracoastal Waterway was such a success that we’ve decided to do it again The 2015 Snowbird Rally departs Hampton, Virginia on Saturday, October 24, and ends in St. Augustine, Florida, on ...read more
Every year, nearly 50 cruising rallies take place around the globe. There are rallies that cross the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream and even the Indian Ocean, routes that circle the Baltic, the Delmarva Peninsula and the World. There are free rallies and paid rallies, ...read more
