Web Exclusives

Some thoughts on a couple of recent developments on the U.S. racing scene that are more than a little at odds. To start with, congratulations to the US Sailing Team (USST) and its outstanding showing at the 53rd French Olympic Week regatta in Hyeres, France, with not one but ...read more

In episode 16 of the Nav Station's Celestial Navigation series, practice putting it all together. Featuring what a celestial day at sea looks like, a more detailed examination of the Running Fix, and a unique plotting sheet system for the Bermuda Race rhumb line course. ...read more

I’m not going to lie to you, when I first laid eyes on the renderings for the ZEN 50 zero-emission solar-electric cruising cat, my thoughts were such that they couldn’t really be published in what I like to think of as our “family” publication. The more I considered it, though, ...read more

In the 15th episode of the Nav Station's Celestial Navigation series, learn how to find your latitude using Polaris, including taking the star sight, the unique corrections involved, and plotting the line of latitude. ...read more

In Episode 14 of the Nav Station’s Celestial Navigation series, learn how to take the moon sight and new ways to correct it, as well as the advantages and things to watch for when using a moon sight.  April 2022 ...read more

Episode 13 in the Celestial Navigation discusses three methods to pre-calculate the positions of the stars and planets, as well as some best practices for being organized to take star and planet sights. ...read more

Daniela Moroz and Harry Melges IV received U.S. Sailing’s highest competitive racing honor for their respective 2021 seasons, demonstrating excellence on the water and representing the US on the national stage. Moroz, who is just 21, has already received the honor twice, while ...read more

Dame Ellen MacArthur was born July 8, 1976 in Derbyshire, England. She grew up sailing with her aunt on the eastern coast of England. At age eight, she saved her lunch money to buy an eight-foot dinghy. At 17, she began working at the David King Nautical School in Kingston upon ...read more

In episode 12 of the Celestial Navigation series, learn how to calculate planet sights, with two additional corrections to the sight reduction process. Read more... ...read more

Born in Warsaw, Poland, in July of 1936, Krystyna Chojnowski-Liskiewicz did not learn how to sail until her family chose to relocate away from the country’s capital. After World War II, her home in Warsaw was absorbed into the ghetto. Her family moved from their home to Ostróda, ...read more

Major League Baseball is up and running again following a 99-day lockout, during which the league’s team owners basically said they weren’t going to play ball anymore if the players didn’t do what they say. Being a Red Sox and Cleveland Guardians fan, the return of baseball ...read more

In episode 11 of the Celestial Navigation series, learn how to pre-calculate the time of nautical and civil twilight, as well as correcting a star sight and how to use the sidereal hour angle to reduce your sight. ...read more

Born in September of 1909, Annette Brock spent her childhood traveling by steamer ship between Canada and Europe. Her mother was English and married a Canadian warehouse manager. Brock grew up small boat sailing, and at 14 she was reading nautical textbooks and building scale ...read more

. Episode 10 of The Nav Station’s Celestial Navigation series discusses the theory of the noon sight, how to take the sight, calculate your latitude, and how to pre-calculate the time of Meridian Passage based on your Dead Reckoning position. ...read more

Hélène de Pourtalès was the first woman to win an Olympic medal, sailing in the 1900 Olympics in the 1-2 Ton class. She was one of three crew aboard the boat Lérina, alongside her husband and nephew. Lérina sailed in two races that were scored and awarded separately, receiving ...read more

In Episode 9 of the Celestial Navigation series from the The Nav Station, put everything together as instructor Andy Howe covers a full problem from start to finish then plots the sight on a chart. March 2022 ...read more

Saying it stands in solidarity with the people of Ukraine as they fight against the ongoing Russian invasion of their country, US Sailing has joined the International Olympic Committee and World Sailing in barring all Russian and Belarusian athletes, teams and officials from ...read more

Episode eight of The Nav Station’s Celestial Navigation series talks about how to set up a universal plotting sheet, as well as how to plot a sight. Learn the different plotting symbols and conventions used in celestial navigation. ...read more

In episode seven of The Nav Station’s Celestial Navigation series, learn how to use the sight reduction tables in order to find calculated altitude and true bearing or azimuth angle to the body. ...read more

The first map of the Gulf Stream, which Benjamin Franklin helped create by tapping the combined knowledge of the whalemen and merchant captains of his day Although enormous multi-million-dollar projects like the Large Hadron Collider and the Human Genome Project with their ...read more

In the sixth episode of The Nav Station’s Celestial Navigation series, you'll learn the parts of a sextant, how to check and correct its errors, plus how to take a sight. This episode will also describe how to correct a sight using tables in the Nautical Almanac. ...read more

Celestial Nav 5 - The fifth installment of The Nav Station’s Celestial Navigation series discusses the contents of the Nautical Almanac, and how to use its daily pages to find the Greenwich Hour Angle and Declination of the Sun, the first steps in any sight reduction. February ...read more

Fresh out of college, I was working two jobs and living in a basement sublet in the Bronx. Twice per week, I would take the subway for an hour and 45 minutes (each direction) to a job I was miserable at, and while I sat on that train, I read back issues of SAIL Magazine and made ...read more

In episode four of The Nav Station’s Celestial Navigation series, learn how to calculate your assumed position and the local hour angle using your Greenwich hour angle and dead reckoning position. Using examples in the western and eastern hemispheres, Andy Howe discusses why the ...read more

As a teenager, I stumbled across a copy of Derek Lundy’s Godforsaken Sea in the back room of a used bookshop. I had never heard of the Vendée Globe and frankly found all the boat-speak in the first 50 pages a little difficult to get through. But Lundy’s storytelling and the draw ...read more

Celestial navigation is an invaluable tool for all kinds of sailors. In episode two of the celestial navigation series, learn the basic elements of navigation and the sight reduction process using declination and GHA to determine the Geographic Position and navigate using a ...read more

Have you ever wondered how sailors navigated before GPS? Do you want an analogue backup if your electronics fail? Are you just curious about navigating by the stars? Enter Practical Celestial Navigation from The Nav Station. This free, online course will cover celestial theory, ...read more

. The Rolex Sydney to Hobart is one of the toughest ways to ring in the New Year, covering about 725 miles from Sydney, Australia, to Hobart, Tasmania. After a hiatus in 2020, the annual end-of-year regatta more than lived up to its daunting reputation in 2021 with strong winds ...read more

To subscribe for free and have it delivered directly to your inbox every weekday, click here.  Racing Rules Rule 30.4 in the Racing Rules of Sailing is called the ”Black Flag Rule,” but it doesn’t have anything to do with pirates! What is this rule actually stating? A) It’s ...read more

The SAIL e-newsletter is off for the remainder of the year, but before we go, we wanted to wish you and yours the very best from all of us at SAIL. This year has been full of ups and downs, and we appreciate that you’ve been with us for all of them. In the office, we always say ...read more

French kiteboarder Alex Caizergues leads Syroco’s project to break the sailing speed record with a new sailing craft. The goal is to best Vestas Sailrocket 2's 2012 record of 65.45 knots over 500 meters, set in Walvis Bay, Namibia. The team expects their craft, named Moonshot ...read more

Alec Wilkinson and Hannah White host the World Sailing Awards and announce the Rolex World Sailor of the Year and 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award.  December 2021 ...read more

The Defender, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, and Challenger of the Record, INEOS Britannia, have announced the protocol and class rules for the 37th America’s Cup. According to team CEO Grant Dalton, “As the oldest trophy in international sport, the America’s Cup maintains ...read more