Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 i Cruising World

After lingering longer than anticipated while anchored in the remote reaches of southwest Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands, near Everglades National Park, we were fast running out of fresh produce aboard Winterlude, our Passport 37. One chilly winter afternoon, I was looking for something I could bake for dinner that would warm up the boat. I had fresh zucchini, some fast-wilting cilantro and cans of just about anything. Cilantro seemed to dictate some sort of Tex-Mex or Mexican dish. After my husband, David, learned he had a heart issue earlier in the year, a friend gave me a recipe for meatless lasagna with a Mexican flair. I had no idea if it would work well on a boat, but it was the perfect opportunity to find out. Baking the casserole would…

Dull gray sky, wind gusting to 30 knots, white cresting seas breaking over the rocks a halfmile ahead of Taleisin. One minute I feel fine; the next, sweat covers my brow and my stomach begins to churn. I move quickly to the leeward side of the cockpit and turn my back to hide my embarrassment. Seasick? How can I be? Taleisin lies steady, attached to her mooring just a hundred yards from the jetty leading to our boat shop and home base on New Zealand’s Kawau Island. It takes a few moments to realize it is my visitor’s words that have brought on my nausea. “I want to buy your boat,” he says. “She is exactly what I need!” This simple statement has forced me to confront reality. Several months…

Clearing the breakwalls of Maui, Hawaii’s Kahului Harbor, my engineless 27-foot Cal sloop reached north under just a reefed main. I set down my coffee and reached for the jib halyard. As soon as my fingers touched the line, there was a loud bang! I looked up in horror only to watch Mongo’s mast buckle in the middle, just below the single set of spreaders, immediately sending it toppling over the port side of the boat. A hundred thoughts ran through my head, only a few of which are suitable for this publication: “I’ve dismasted near a lee shore with no engine! B-bb-but I just replaced all my standing rigging five months ago! I have just sailed 20 days from California with no issues, and then sailed from Hawaii to…

When you put a tiller on a lightweight 62-foot rocket and singlehand across Pacific Northwest waters, you better have faith. Francis Lee, known affectionately among local sailors as “Sliver” due to her razor-thin entry, leads the Seattle fleet around Puget Sound on a weekly basis. But even if the boat were not out front dusting the competition, it would be easy to recognize this narrow wood-composite splinter by her deep keel, needle-like canoe stern and lifeline-free sheer. Built initially as a thrill-seeking daysailer for Seattle sailor Kim Bottles, who has a local legacy of sailing traditional wooden classics, Francis Lee doubles as a lively cruiser for Kim and his wife, Susan. “The two of us can easily cruise the Inside Passage,” explains Bottles. “I singlehand the boat fine, but when…

Sandy Flowers, who lives aboard a 30-foot Grampian just south of St. Augustine Inlet, has a vision for the northeast Florida tourist town she calls home. “St. Augustine has the potential to become the Newport, Rhode Island, of the South,” she tells me as I settle into one of the oversize seats in the Cruisers’ Shuttle she drives six days a week. She’s picked me up at the Municipal Marina, and the van’s cold air conditioning offers a welcome contrast to the muggy June heat. It’s the off-season in Florida, and the only passengers for the day, cruisers Jackie and Thomas Winkler, are preparing to store their Catana 38 (aptly named Cat) in St. Augustine before returning home to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the summer. Today the Winklers need to…

I Saturday, JULY 11 AT 0800, FUEL TANKS TOPPED off, on a favorable ebb flowing out of Maine’s Penobscot Bay, we were off to Scotland. Away we went. There were four of us aboard the Valiant 42 Eleanor of Hewes Point: skipper Dave Logan, from Seattle, the best all-around sailor I know; owner Billy Gammon, a neophyte offshore voyager from Texas, who was financing the endeavor and chasing a dream; mate Carol Hasse, a nurturing soul and instinctive mariner almost too good, and smart, to be true (and also an elite sailmaker whose Pacific Northwest loft, Port Townsend Sails, had built Eleanor’s very complete sail inventory); and me, a sailing writer out of Newport, Rhode Island. I was there for a very simple reason: Logan had called me a year…

In many ways, the new technology of the last couple of decades has profoundly changed the way we socialize. Hence, we’re raising our kids in an environment that is fundamentally different from the one in which we were raised — then taking it a step further by proposing to do it aboard a traveling boat. Yet one constant remains in this age of information: Kids need other kids. Folks who sail away from a network of schoolmates and playdates and neighborhood sleepovers worry about leaving these relationships in their wake. What will replace them? Will there be other kid boats? The answer is that there are plenty of kids on boats cruising the world’s oceans, and the amount of time you spend with them is up to you. How flexible…

There are three types of squalls/thunderstorms: those associated with a cold front or low pressure area, the “air mass” thunderstorm, and trade wind squalls. Cold front thunderstorms develop along the leading edge of a cold front. Remember, the cold front brings a wind shift from the south or southwest into the west and northwest. The cold front also brings a change in temperature and increased dryness of the air. Thunderstorms develop vertically into the atmosphere, reaching heights of 40,000-50,000 feet. The rule of thumb is the taller the thunderstorm, the more violent the weather will be. Taller, more violent thunderstorms will be preceded by an area of high clouds that spread out from the top of the thunderstorm, moving with the jet stream. Since these higher clouds appear overhead before…

Heading out to a boat show to see what’s new and different? Judging from the sailboats making their North American debut this fall and at shows early next year, there are a lot of innovations to ponder and choices to be made as you compare quality, price, amenities, and that always hardto-define attribute: good looks. Our 2016 New Sailboat Showcase includes 32 new models, ranging from 30 to 67 feet, and online, you’ll find six additional models that we’ve either already sailed and reviewed, or that were included in last year’s showcase but just recently launched. These latter models include the Azuree 46, Bali 4.5, Bavaria Open 40, Dehler 46, Jeanneau 64 and Leopard 40. (You’ll find write-ups on these boats and photo galleries of all this year’s lineup at…

By the early 1990s, all that had changed. Every mooring in Newport was spoken for, and if you wanted one, you put your name on the list and waited. And waited. And waited. So, for my next boats — a C&C 33 and a J/30 — I rented moorings from the local purveyor, Oldport Marine, at ever-increasing costs. Eventually I was paying more than two grand a year to park the boat. For a couple of years, though, it was really worth it. I had what I considered the absolute best mooring in the entire harbor, tucked way up in Brenton Cove (now the site of the New York Yacht Club’s Harbour Court “station,” a mansion overlooking everything). My particular mooring was tucked right under another palatial estate called Beacon…

CRUISINGWORLD.COM IS THAT A WHALE? The Barba crew is dodging icebergs in the Norwegian Arctic. On identifying local wildlife, Terry Ward writes, “When you’ve never seen something before, how should you know how it really looks? Well, walruses from a distance looked like a small whale to the crew’s untrained eyes, which we were plenty excited about. So we all were giggling like school kids as we got closer and realized these were no whales. Two ridiculously huge walruses poked their heads up to check us out at exactly the same moment, within a few meters of Barba.” cruising world.com/1510barba CRUISERS UNIVERSITY FALL SESSION Need to brush up on a few skills? Head back to school! The fall course lineup has been announced for Cruisers University 2015, which will take…

At first, we thought those shadows around our son in New Caledonia’s spectacular lagoon were rocks. Then we saw that some had fins! No need for alarm, though — these are small blacktip reef sharks, more afraid of us than we are of them. When we first set out on our Pacific crossing, the idea of sharks was terrifying. As time went by, however, we learned to put sharks in the same category as rogue waves or out-of-control 18- wheelers on the highway — horrible to imagine, but incredibly unlikely. Generally, you’re safe swimming in reefprotected waters because the bigger, more dangerous sharks are ocean dwellers. Reef sharks pose little danger unless you’re spearfishing, when it’s prudent to get out of the water or switch locations as soon as you…

Amazing. That’s the word Doris Colgate says comes up again and again when students fill out evaluation forms after completing any one of a variety of instructional or vacation programs at Off shore Sailing School, the celebrated institution that she and her husband, Steve Colgate, founded more than 50 years ago. Amazing is also the word that easily comes to mind when one considers the Colgates themselves, a dynamic, youthful duo whose game-changing accomplishments, unique personal bests and diverse generosity would put them at the top of the Fortune 500 of sailing, if such a list existed. Last summer, on a perfect afternoon, there was no better occasion than the eve of Steve’s 80th birthday, and no better place than Harbour Court, the New York Yacht Club station on the…

After departing remote and beautiful Penrhyn Atoll in the Northern Cook Islands, my fiancée, Gayle Suhich, and I made for Suwarrow Atoll, 450 miles to the southwest. A moderately fresh breeze to start our passage aboard Small World II, our Flying Dutchman 50, ended up petering out on us after the second day. At one point on what became a very slow passage, when our ¾-ounce spinnaker finally collapsed like a deflated balloon, we simply took down all the sails and went to bed — only losing 1.8 miles overnight. Just after dawn on Day Five, while motorsailing in a light easterly, we picked up the line of palm trees on Suwarrow Atoll, and by 1000 we entered the wide, easy-tonavigate pass and made our way into the lee of…

In warm climates, where so many of us keep boats or aspire to cruise, fabric bimini tops and spray dodgers suffer the wrath of year-round sun and exposure to the elements. First they start leaking, and have to be waterproofed periodically. Then the thread breaks down, requiring more and more re-stitching. Finally, at least on Silverheels, my ketch-rigged Pearson 424 built in 1978, the whole shooting match needs to be replaced every five to seven years. It’s a bothersome, costly, recurring maintenance item. Not surprisingly, permanent fiberglass and composite hard dodgers and biminis have gained wide popularity among sailors seeking longevity and low maintenance from their cockpit protection. However, unless your craftsmanship is well above average, designing and fabricating such structures is best left to professionals, and that can get…

Sail enough offshore miles and the glories of driving dwindle, especially when the first splatters of a Pacific Northwest rain or Down East fog start peppering the hood of your foul-weather jacket. Then, the thought of a warm cabin, of hot coffee and warm soup, sounds fantastic. Enter the modern autopilot, a powerful tool for both bluewater and coastal cruisers that offers the opportunity to reef, hoist or lower sails without waking the off watch, while freeing up the single- or shorthanded sailor to attend to navigation or other chores when underway. Modern autopilots use a manageable amount of electricity compared to their predecessors, making them a strong option for backing up a windvane installation, or for use as a sole mechanical driver aboard boats that have adequate wind- and/or…