The multihull cruiser's destinations, experiences and lifestyle.
Our driver, Dracula, has a thick slack body, and his head leans heavily to the right. One eye wanders and looks only up and left. The other is covered with an opaque membrane. His ungainly body is covered with a loose, soiled shirt and pants. It is a hot day in March 2007, and ...read more
It was the last week of May and the hurricane season was fast approaching. My wife, Carla, and I made plans to take our Lagoon 40, Ocean Fox, west from Grenada to the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao—better known as the ABC Islands. The first leg from St. ...read more
It was sometime on day four that my resolve began to waver. It had held strong through the challenges of Charlotte Amalie, Road Town, Leverick Bay, Anegada and Cane Garden Bay; but now, sitting at a beachfront bar on Jost van Dyke, I had to face up to the sad fact that I just ...read more
My heart still races when I think about that day. Nightmares haunted me for weeks afterward. The roar of big surf pounding on a reef tenses my entire body. My mind still sees the enormous waves next to me, and I imagine our boat broken to pieces on the surf-beaten coral. A lump ...read more
The other day I was thinking about the very first time I sailed a multihull. It was in New Zealand, of all places, on the Bay of Islands, midway through Christmas break at the school where I was then teaching as a Peace Corps volunteer in Western Samoa. Stranger still, I was ...read more
Sailing at 19 knots in 15 knots of breeze is not an earth-shattering experience anymore. I was thinking about that on a perfect late summer day in Narragansett Bay while we were slicing along on the most technologically advanced cruising catamaran I’ve ever seen—the Eagle Class ...read more
With 118 islands and atolls stretching over 1,200 miles of the South Pacific Ocean, French Polynesia has a long and intimate relationship with the sea. When my photographer, Michaela, and I finally found time to put this epic destination into our sailing calendar, it was both a ...read more
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
After completing the European Great Loop on our 1987 40ft Catalac catamaran, Angel Louise, my wife, Sue, and I sailed home to the States and spent two years sailing up and down East coast between Maine and Florida, like migratory waterfowl. Eventually, though, we decided to ...read more
As our boat was readied for our Tongan adventure, we sat at Mango, the waterfront restaurant at the Sunsail base. We were relishing the free Wi-Fi when the checkout manager, Raymond, came by our table, stuck his hand out to the nearest graybeard and said, “You must be the ...read more
Flying into Tortola in the British Virgin Islands one December morning, three months after Hurricane Irma, I felt like a war correspondent dispatched to the battlefront rather than a sailing magazine writer on an assignment to go cruising. As my LIAT plane descended toward Beef ...read more
Our bareboat charter in southwest Florida had crept up on me, and though I had a fair idea of what awaited us. I had not spent much time researching our destination or potential itineraries in depth. My crew had expressed a desire to spend as much time as possible “off the grid” ...read more
The memories are vivid. Dolphins and diesel fumes. A blood-orange moon rising to starboard as engine trouble loomed to port. A spinnaker like a taut, glowing veil before a sun that shone down later on its wet, shredded remains. We were 30 days at sea, a virgin ocean-crossing crew ...read more
First Time with a Frenchman by Annie Dike MHS Summer 2017 ...read more
You almost have to pinch yourself sailing around Thailand’s Phang Nga Bay. It’s like entering a lost world in a Hollywood movie. Rising dramatically from an emerald sea are surreal, gravity-defying limestone towers (karsts) which have been sculpted by millennia of monsoon rain ...read more
Five Farangs in Thailand A motley crew explores Thailand’s fabled Andaman Sea on a charter catamaran Read Paul Gelder's full story HERE. ...read more
Four decades after his time drifting about the islands of Caribbean, a lifelong sailor returns to the waters he once loved so much. Read the story A Multihull Boat Delivery to St. Maarten here ...read more
In the late 1970s, I spent a few months cruising the Windward and Leeward islands, gunkholing remote anchorages and living off the land, fish and fruit mostly. Sure, I was broke, but I was living like a king. Earlier in the year, I had raced across the South Atlantic from Cape ...read more
Even after more years of sailing than I care to admit,I can honestly say I learn at least something new every time I get out onto the water. This goes double whenever I have an opportunity to venture offshore aboard a brand-new boat: triple when I recently had the chance to help ...read more
Captain’s log, Different Drummer, Swansboro, N.C., 6-10-2011: “Well, well, well…limped back into Swansboro, tied up at Casper’s Marina. Sam’s alive, but sick. Heading back to River Dunes.”Sam’s our port engine, Dave’s our starboard engine; twin Yanmar three-cylinder diesels. Sam ...read more
The Cat Sailor’s Bucket List Here are some ideas that will get you to some new cruising grounds that are guaranteed to make your twin-hulled excursion an adventure. Click here for details and links to these exciting travel destinations by Zuzana Prochazka MHS Fall 2016 ...read more
A great pioneer of multihull voyaging, James Wharram sailed from Las Palmas toward Trinidad two days before Christmas 1955. His crew consisted of two girls, Ruth and Jutta, and Pepe the dog. His boat was the 23ft catamaran Tangaroa, which he had designed and built himself. ...read more
An eye-opening East Coast delivery aboard a performance trimaran By Adam Cort September 2016 ...read more
