By Mensun BoundMariner Books (2022) Confession: I am a polar exploration nut. Whole hectares of my bookshelves are dedicated to the genre, past and present. Needless to say, it’s hard to be a polar nut without knowing of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the destruction of his ship Endurance in November 1915 …
DetailsI had no warning of impending disaster. The morning sky was deep blue, and the fronds of the palm trees on Belize’s beautiful South Water Caye were waving to the usual easterly breeze. I was anchored in the lee of this small island, maybe 400 yards from shore. The previous day we had dropped my …
DetailsThe inaugural Global Solo Challenge has been an ocean race like no other. From a sizable percentage of American sailors to a pursuit start that took several months to get everyone on the racecourse, it has generated a lot of conversation. The race pits pro and amateur sailors on whatever boat they …
DetailsJan. 11/2024: Here’s one of the more interesting things that has happened to me since the publication of The Boy Who Fell to Shore, my biography of Thomas Tangvald, October before last. This past November a woman named Suzanne Heywood reached out to me, wanting to talk about children raised on …
DetailsIn little over a week, Mia and I head to Falken, 59° North’s Farr 65, for the last passage of 2023. The boat is docked in Lagos, on the sunny Algarve coast of Portugal, just around the bend from Cabo São Vincente—and smack in the middle between the two hotspots for orca “encounters” over the past …
DetailsYacht Thruster, celebrating 15+ years, is a compact & powerful bow/stern thruster, installed on thousands of sailboats from 30ft – 75ft. The minimally invasive mounting design makes this the perfect project for the Do-It-Yourself-er with NO fiberglass work required. Built from a solid …
DetailsA 20- to 30-knot northerly wind and temps hovering around 39°F on the edge of the Baltic Sea in November are not generally considered prime sailing conditions. But bundled underneath my four layers and winter hat, I couldn’t stop smiling. We’d left the slip in Haderslev, Denmark, in hull No. 1 of …
DetailsClare Thompson did not fall into sailing in the usual way. She was in her early 20s in the mid-1960s, an unwilling patient in a psychiatric hospital in Britain, when she picked up a discarded newspaper from the floor of the ward she was on. In it she found an interesting article about a bluewater …
DetailsYou never quite know what’s going to happen on a test sail; often, these boats are fresh off the presses, so to speak, still being set up when we’re invited along. So, it wasn’t overly surprising when our plan to unfurl the genoa on the new Hanse 510 came to an abrupt halt when we saw that the clew …
DetailsAs the 70-foot Sunseeker drifted down on us in the dark, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I lurched forward on deck in my bathrobe, screaming and clapping, trying to get their attention before they hit us. My mate was prone on the bow of the bucking ketch, easing the snubber for the third time, …
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