Heavy weather

When it comes to communications technology on bluewater sailboats, I have always been a Luddite. I never had any interest in high-frequency radios and never carried one on any of my boats, even after Pactor radio modems and the volunteer Winlink ham network dazzled us all with ...read more

In the middle of the night, 400 miles away from the Marquesas, my eyes snapped open.Something had changed; Shapeshifter, our Beneteau Oceanis 423 was heeling to a new breeze. I hopped out of my bunk and looked up the companionway. Colin, Shapeshifter’s owner, was flying around ...read more

I got seasick the second day out. My stomach had been rolling ever since we’d slipped out of Howe Sound that morning, but we were all busy on deck working an easterly blow through a finicky strait just above Typhoon Songda—which had put the lights out in nearby Vancouver the ...read more

Early in the 2014 season, I had set a goal of sailing Lake Ontario aboard my MacGregor Venture 21. As the summer pressed on that goal turned into a multi-day excursion from Rochester, New York, to Wellesley Island in the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The departure date was set for ...read more