A Near Miss While Mooring

Last week, I almost crashed Falken into the dock. We were returning from the third trial sail in the English Channel since completing our Farr 65’s yearlong refit, and I was distracted. The following day we were set to have our first open house to share our newly refit dream boat with the fans …

The Race to Alaska

Riddle me this, sailor: What do you get when there’s a gale warning out of the west and a 13-year-ebb tide rushing out of the east? If you answered “a bad time” or “a washing machine,” you are correct. Such were the conditions on day 1 of the Race to Alaska (R2AK) that our half-Australian, …

Fountaine Pajot Tanna 47

For more multihull reviews and stories, subscribe for free to Multihull Power & Sail at sailmagazine.com/multihull Fountaine Pajot knows a thing or two about the mid-40-foot sweet spot for cruising multihulls, and with the launch of the new Tanna 47 cat, they’ve dialed in their eight-model …

Bureaucracy and Logistics on Charter

Often, the trickiest parts of a charter have nothing to do with ticklish navigation, lousy weather, or seasick crew. Instead, they are about logistics and bureaucracy, and I was remembering this as the two female Cuban customs agents with hot pink nails dug through my bag with gusto. On discovering …

New Boat Review: Excess 14

For more multihull reviews and stories, subscribe for free to Multihull Power & Sail at sailmagazine.com/multihull I first saw Beneteau’s Excess brand of sailing catamarans in 2019 in Düsseldorf, Germany, with a room full of marine journalists, some of whom, like me, weren’t convinced of the …

Oyster 495: New Boat Review

Southern California was serving up a strong dose of its May Grey/June Gloom weather when I arrived in Santa Barbara. With a thick marine layer and cool temperatures, the breeze was light and the seas were flat. I had arrived to test the Oyster 495, a new model from a family of cruisers I’ve held up …

Eight Bells: Buddy Melges

Buddy Melges, whose career in sailing and impact on the sport has been so remarkable that few superlatives come close to describing it, has died at age 93. The two-time Olympic medalist, two-time Star world champion, three-time 5.5-Meter world champion, three-time Mallory Trophy winner, and …

Runaway Dinghy!

The Cruising Club of America (CCA) is a collection of 1,400 ocean sailors with extensive offshore seamanship, command experience, and a shared passion for making adventurous use of the seas. Their experiences and expertise make them, collectively, one of the most reliable sources of information on …

Getting to Know Your Boat Better, Fast

Most sailors take months or more to learn a new boat since, truth is, most of us have limited or sporadic time to devote to the education. David and Alison Lennarz, on the other hand, put their learning curve on fast-track mode when they took delivery of their new Balance 526 in St. Francis, South …