Arriving in Antigua
“The lazy jacks on the starboard side have failed,” said Jeff in his usual calm voice. “The lines were dragging in the water, so I tied up the ends to the boom.” The last night at sea was the roughest. My shift was from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. I crawled into the forward berth […]
The sail south to Antigua- the lost jib…..
“The jib just blew into the water!” I shouted. The 22 knot wind swallowed my words. I knew Michael and Jeff asleep below would not have heard me above the roar of the waves smashing into the hull and the screeching of the whistle as the wind rattled the rigging. It was 4 a.m. 100 […]
Avoiding Hurricane Melissa
The screen shot of PredictWind shows strong winds off the east coast. The dark red indicates winds of 30 knots…. Add in the 15 foot waves coming onto the eastern US coast from hurricane Melissa and dangerous conditions exist for our planned departure on November 1- destination Antigua in the Caribbean. The three of us […]
It is not that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.”-Sir Francis Drake
In another month, I’ll be at sea. I found out in the spring that when a sailor plans a voyage, often the destination differs from the one hoped for…. I set off from the Dominican Republic hoping to catch the trade winds to pull me south to New York City. Then up the Hudson, through […]
The new boat
After losing the first boat in a storm 240 miles off the coast of New Brunswick, I once again approached Pat Sturgeon of Pat Sturgeon Yachts. We went through the options of looking for another used boat. There was an almost new Hanse 505 in Abu Dabi that was fully loaded and looked beautiful. Ileana […]
The “fair weather” sailor
The image of sailing in a warm breeze with the sun gently bathing bikini clad beauties lounging on the foredeck listening to sailing songs and sipping on margaritas while reading romance novels may have occurred on someone’s sailboat, but I must confess rarely seems to happen on mine….. However, I keep bringing up these images […]
Sailing stories
Sailors are big story tellers so I am always looking for a good sailing story. I have watched hundreds of sailing videos and every once in a while I come across one on YouTube that is memorable. What makes a great sailing story?
Going south
A sailor’s dream is to sail south to Paradise. Images of swinging in a hammock in a gentle breeze while watching the sunset from the front of the sailboat gently bobbing at anchor in a secluded harbour surrounded by palm trees is what appears near the surface of my mind. This is how any journey […]
South to Annapolis
Getting a 34,000 pound 51 foot sailboat transported to the east coast is no easy task. The first question that comes to mind might be why would anybody want to do this? I have spent hours dreaming about the warm blue waters of the Bahamas. Imagine a warm breeze filling the sails with dolphins playfully […]
It’s All About The Weather
It is said that the pessimist complains about the wind, an optimist hopes it’ll change, and a sailor adjusts the sails. It’s actually a little more complicated than that as you might expect for the sailor. It is the weather that is the most important factor when sailing south. Several months ago I subscribed to […]