Spring has sprung, which means the brave (or the stupid) are suiting up to harness the spring breeze on the water. As the SAIL intern this semester, I’ve been itching to finally go out and do what I’ve been reading and writing about since January. I’m also staring graduation in the face right now, …
South Florida Has Been Busy With the Bacardi Invitational and West Marine US Open Series It was a busy winter and early spring down in South Florida as the Bacardi Invitational and West Marine US Open series saw scores of boats doing battle off Clearwater and Fort Lauderdale and on the shallow …
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, the more I began to …
After nearly 100 days at sea, Ryan Finn is expected to complete his 14,000-mile journey called the “2Oceans1Rock” this week. Finn set out from the Miramar Yacht Club in New York on January 19 to sail San Francisco via Cape Horn. His 36ft proa is the smallest boat to attempt this route, and once …
French kiteboarder Alex Caizergues loves going fast. He is a four-time Kite Speed World Champion and holds the Kitespeed World Record at 57.94 knots. Recently, however, he’s set his sights on a different form of locomotion, leading the innovation lab Syroco’s effort to break the sailing speed …
The autopilot on my 35ft sloop, Second Wind, had been both commissioned and sea-trialed. I had also completed all of the other upgrades I’d had planned in preparation for perhaps a year-long cruise through the Caribbean. Working with various local technicians, I’d added solar panels, a new …
Trawlerfest Anacortes (Pssst, Sailors. You Should Come Too) 29 ‘Propulsion Agnostic’ Seminars Destinations, Solar Electric, Weather, Power Systems, Satellite Communications, Repairs & Maintenance… Even though the event is called Trawlerfest, and it’s brought to you by Passagemaker magazine, …
An ex-Vendée Globe racer is an unusual choice as a world cruiser, so why was it ours? Although we already both owned a pair of production boats, my partner, Timo, and I were searching for something to spice up our cruising life. We toyed with the idea of a classic schooner, but weren’t sure we …
With an increasing number of truly massive yachts on the docks at boat shows these days, it would be easy to assume that the boatbuilding industry is going all in on the “bigger is better” approach. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. As demonstrated in these three new …
For quite some time, I had contemplated an expansion of the house battery bank aboard our 1987 Sabre 38MKI, Orion. There were several potential issues that had kept the project from becoming a reality. But fortunately, while not trivial, in the end, they were all surmountable, and I was able to …