Indice dei contenuti per February 2020 in SAIL

It was a dark and stormy night. Actually it was a cold and windy mid-February afternoon. We were into our fifth or sixth day of single-digit temperatures, our cove in Connecticut was covered with a layer of ice about half a foot thick, and the wind was howling out of the north-northwest—altogether, not a pleasant afternoon. As I sipped my tea and gazed out the window at my mooring ball, about 25 yards out from our dock, with visions of leisurely summer sails coursing through my brain, I had a funny feeling that the damn thing moved. I don’t mean up and down, because unfortunately it was fully encased in that same 6in of ice. I looked again but could not be sure, so I took a sight over the…

If there was a moment that gave the US Sailing Team hope to break a major Olympic medal dry spell, it was the first day of the 49er FX worlds in New Zealand last December. Paris Henken and Anna Tobias had a rough 18th in race one, then banged out two bullets and a fifth to lead the fleet that contained the reigning Olympic medalist teams. Their smooth tacks in the hyper-shifty waters of Auckland, seen in the live, multi-camera coverage online, showed a poise and strength that Americans have been desperate to see. They were sailing against the best, and they were comfortably beating them all. Just weeks before in the Oceania Championships, teammates Stephanie Roble and Maggie Shea had ranged in and out of medal contention, ending with…

The history of sailing is replete with examples of boats being repurposed after their initial launch—think of the famed yacht America also doing service as a blockade runner in the Civil War. Rarely, though, has an updated design done half so well as the Hinckley Bermuda 50’s transition into the all-new Hinckley Sou’wester DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION Designed by Tripp Design Naval Architecture, the Sou’wester 53 is built in carbon and epoxy (infused and then post-cured in the company’s “Advanced Composite Center” up in Maine) with a Corecell foam core and an outer layer of Kevlar for puncture resistance. The basic lines are the same as the 50’s, but the hull has been slightly lengthened to gain an additional 3ft of deck space aft of the twin helms, creating more cockpit…

“It was now mid-August and I’d been out nearly two weeks. It was time to turn the bow east and start for home” It had been seven years since I’d taken my Westsail 32, Antares, out for more than an afternoon day sail. Such is the reality when taking care of an elderly parent. However, a year ago my dad passed away at the age of 100, and after we sold the family home, I found myself living aboard Antares with time to go cruising again. I learned to sail with Dad on the Great Lakes and wanted to revisit some of the ports we’d discovered together years ago. But at the same time, I was not entirely sure that I’d be up to a month of coastal cruising by…

It was an early alarm. My wife likes it loud, and loud it was. The clanging clanged my nerves. I was suddenly wide awake and, looking out my bedroom window, I noticed that a soft snow was falling. Icicles had formed on each window pane and the pre-dawn view was bleak. Gray on gray with gray trim. None of it mattered. This was the alarm that we had been looking forward to since Christmas when we told our four teenage boys that we were taking them to the Caribbean for a week’s sailing. It was going to be a new tradition for our family. In the future, the Christmas gifts would be traveling to some place special, and a week in Antigua on a Moorings charter yacht would be special…

At the risk of both dating myself and being accused of gross hyperbole, I will say this: it was a bit like 1964 when the Beatles first landed in New York. What I’m referring to is last fall’s U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis. Playing the role of the Beatles were not one, but two bands of sailing “vloggers” (as in video bloggers)—the crews from Sailing La Vagabonde and Sailing SV Delos, the two most popular sailing video channels on YouTube. In my 20 years attending the Annapolis show I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it—people lined up literally around the block and down the street hoping to catch a glimpse of and hear live words tumbling from the lips of Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu, the young Aussie…

Are you out there sailing, cruising and living the sailing life? Share your experiences with other readers. Send your photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com And don’t forget to sign up for our free eNewsletter, Under Sail, via our website sailmagazine.com I took this pic on a circumnavigation of the Delmarva peninsula. This was the morning view in the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. — Steve Smolenak, Nockamixon, PA I photographed the setting sun while our 425 Catalina, Esprit, was moored at Napatreet Point, near Watchill, Rhode Island. Although the digital HDR photograph is spectacular, the actual dynamic range of the colors was breathtaking. — Rita and Glenn Lau-Kee, Mystic, CT This photo is of a spectacular Galveston Bay sunset during the Waterford Yacht Club Peanut Regatta #36, which was not much of a…

James Barber Harbour Publishing, $14.95 I’ll bet a filet mignon against a can of Dinty Moore that almost every cruising cook has read and discarded a goodly number of seagoing recipe books. Some are so simple as to be insulting. Others require too many exotic and perishable ingredients. Still others call for equipment beyond the ken of sailors just hankering after something more inspiring than tuna casserole. This small book by Canadian sailor and TV chef James Barber might just earn a permanent spot on your bookshelf. For one thing, everything in it can be cooked in a single skillet or pot. For another, you’ll probably already have on board most of the ingredients he uses. And finally, it’s a pretty entertaining read. Go on, treat yourself—especially if you’re a…

IMAGE THAT: Each year, professional sailing photographers from around the world submit their images to the Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image awards, where both pros and the public are invited to vote for their favorite. There are three awards—one for the winner of the popular vote, another for the photo chosen by 300 delegates to the Yacht Racing Forum, and the main award, selected by a jury. In 2019, the winning photo (right) was by Swiss photographer Loris von Siebenthal. To see more of this year’s entries, go to yachtracingimage.com. BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIQUES: There’s never been anything quite like it: four 100-plus-foot Ultim trimarans, each crewed by only two sailors, racing around the North and South Atlantic oceans on a 14,000-mile course shaped like a giant figure 8. The Brest…

A boat is a set of tradeoffs, and a perfect boat doesn’t exist. That said, if you’re searching for a proven bluewater multihull that can be sailed shorthanded, has all the comforts of a luxury home and is wicked fast without beating up your wallet, you owe yourself a test sail on the Catana 53. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION Catana uses an infusion layup with carbon reinforcements around the chainplates and the mast step to maximize performance and load-carrying capabilities. On the 53, this approach resulted in cutting nearly a ton of weight compared to its predecessor. Even so, according to the owners of our test boat, at a little over 32,000lb the boat still loads up nicely in a squall and moves forward like a train—steady and stiff rather than…

Almost 50 years ago I met a wild American teenager, Terrie, and was keen to impress her. My elder brother had a 26ft sailboat, Wallop, on the east coast of England. He was conveniently out of the way in Canada. “Let’s go sailing,” I said. We filled the bilges with bottles of homemade beer and set off across the North Sea to Amsterdam with an ancient set of charts and minimal navigational experience. We had a fine adventure until a freighter ran into the back of us while we were becalmed off the Dutch coast. 1970s: Camping Out Wallop’s engine was hand cranked and temperamental, which is why we were unable to get out of the way of the freighter. We had an intermittently operative depthsounder powered by flashlight batteries…

It’s goodbye to the paper chart, at least those produced by NOAA. The agency’s Office of Coast Survey is soliciting comments on plans to completely phase out the production of paper charts and associated products within five years Its tighter focus on ENCs (electronic navigation charts) means the agency’s cartographers will no longer produce its suite of more than 1,000 paper nautical charts, its raster charts (RNCs), its full-size chart PDFs and its small-size BookletCharts; although these are no longer printed by NOAA, they have been available as print-on-demand products through third parties. Although the raster charts use the same base data as the ENCs, they take a considerable amount of extra time to refine into the printable paper versions, time that could be spent on the ENC library. The…

Things may still be frightful up north, but down in the Caribbean the weather is just fine, and the recently launched Jeanneau Sun Loft47 looks like just the boat to take advantage of it. Designed by long-time Jeanneau collaborator Philippe Briand, the 47 is being billed as a “monocat” that offers best of all possible worlds, whether it be aboard one hull or two. The boat is also being positioned as the ideal charter platform, with as many six cabins and four separate shower/heads compartments accommodating up to 12 people. Central to the boat’s multihull nature is an enormous cockpit reminiscent of the large aft cockpits found aboard cruising cats. Specific features include a topside galley, a large sunshade overhead that works with the boat’s dodger to keep you out…

Much has been said and written about preparing your vessel for an off shore passage, but few think about the importance of having good shoreside support set up before heading out to sea. Almost all off shore racing teams have sophisticated onshore support teams providing them with weather routing, sea conditions and critical equipment data to keep the boat running smoothly. Granted, few cruisers have the same resources available, but all it takes to get a degree of shoreside support is some pre-planning and the right communications equipment. A land-based support team, for example, can supply weather information, assist with repairs by providing technical data, relay progress information to loved ones and help pass on information in the event of an emergency. For the average cruising sailor, this support is…

SHACKLES VERSUS BOWLINES Q: I’ve sailed and raced on a number of boats over the years. I feel like aboard most of the boats I’ve sailed, we’ve just attached the jib sheets to the sail with a pair of bowlines. However, aboard a few the owners have used shackles. What are the pros and cons of the two approaches? — Tracy Patrick, Madison, WI BRIAN HANCOCK REPLIES Most raceboats are moving away from shackles and their like for a number of reasons, the principal being weight, since a stainless shackle weighs more than a knot. It may not weigh much more, but it all starts to add up. Similarly, in many other applications aboard raceboats and cruisers things are now being lashed with a light dyneema or something similar. These…

Last September, Hurricane Dorian rolled over the top portion of the 700-island archipelago of the Bahamas, blasting a path of destruction over Grand Bahama and Abaco Islands specifically. By far the most damage was suffered by the island of Abaco, home to the Marsh Harbour airport and a number of charter bases. Most of the charter boats that weren’t moved out of the area were destroyed. Nearly six months later, the island nation is rebuilding and with the help of funds from tourists and charterers, the process should be a little faster and a bit easier. The situation is much like that of the British Virgin Islands after another Category 5 storm, Irma, devastated the area. Like the BVI, the Abacos are looking to provide charter service as soon as…