Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2015 i Cruising World

Call me kooky, but I spent the better part of the fall and all winter and spring watching a small boatshaped icon as it “sailed” from Cape Town, South Africa, across the Indian and Pacific oceans, around Cape Horn, up the coast to Brazil, on to Newport, Rhode Island, and then east across the Atlantic to finally (blessedly) make its last landfall in Gothenburg, Sweden, on the first day of summer. It was my dot, El Jackalope, after all, and my entry in the Volvo Ocean Race Virtual Regatta. I blame my colleague Dave Reed, editor at Sailing World, for this. One day in late October I walked into his office, next door to mine, and caught him studying an electronic chart covered with wind arrows. He showed me the…

Living on an island in the West Indies that boasts 365 beaches (“One for every day of the year!”), Martin Dudley has it pretty good. His family came to Antigua in the late 1960s, and for the most part he’s called this place home. But aside from the tropical waters and the warm trade winds, Martin’s seen the island change substantially over the last 50 years. From English colony to fledgling country, lush mangrove forests to five-star hotels, Martin’s witnessed a country that’s undergone political and environmental disruption. For Martin, his journey from sailor to environmental watchdog started at an early age, when he grew up in Fitches Creek, an area on the northeast side of the island where he sailed a 10-foot Mirror dinghy after school. With a big…

If there is one lighthouse that symbolizes the beauty and history of Chesapeake Bay, it is Thomas Point Shoal Light. Located midbay about 8 miles southeast of Annapolis, Maryland, “T.P.” (as locals call it) is an immensely popular waypoint for local sailors, and one of only 10 lighthouses in the nation with national landmark status. The light marks Thomas Point Shoal, a shallow spit below the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that squeezes the deep-draft Baltimore shipping channel close to the Eastern Shore. It is currently being restored by volunteers and is open for public tours. T.P. is the last working “screw-pile” lighthouse — a distinctive regional type of marine architecture — out of more than 40 that once graced the Chesapeake. Seven large iron pilings were literally screwed into the muddy…

People & Food My boyfriend, Clif, and I recently sailed south from Juneau, Alaska, to Mexico aboard our Cal 34, Sound Discovery. One of the joys of cruising the Sea of Cortez has been watching my boat refrigerator transform into a Mexican icebox, where bread is replaced by tortillas, and avocado, cilantro and lime wedges rule. “Eating local” becomes second nature when cruising; our diets conform to the groceries available. Imagine my excitement when we pulled into Caleta San Juanico last spring and heard of a ranch up the road that sold produce from a new garden. José, the garden’s owner, welcomes cruisers, who walk to his ranch to buy anything that looks fresh and springs from the ground. After one visit, my arms were full of more fresh vegetables…

Congratulations! You have conquered one of the strongest forces on earth: the iron grip of the land. Your first cruising season will come with an array of adjectives: exhilarating, exhausting, energizing, confusing, exquisite, terrifying and life-altering, but it will also leave you with a mental scrapbook so beautiful and intense, your imagination will seem lackluster by comparison. By now you’ve read it all; you’re jacked up, topped off and tanked up with anchoring tips, navigation principles and entire volumes of sailing advice, but take a deep breath and read this one last thing. My hope is that these hard-earned lessons will help ease the transition into your extraordinary new world. Fair winds to you, and send me a postcard. Trust yourself. You have great instincts. They’ve just been buried under…

The afternoon sun cast long shadows across Cow Wreck Beach on Anegada, and though hot, the trade winds blowing across the reef just offshore helped cool the group of bathing-suit-clad adults who dug like chipmunks in the sand for bottles of rum that had been buried there. “I’ve got sand in my monkey! Nobody should have sand in their monkey!” I heard a woman shout. Well, that’s one way to put it. They continued digging as our band of observers looked on. I was there on the beach as a guest of The Moorings, along with a couple of staffers and two other reporters assigned to cover the pleasure fest. Our home for the week was a Moorings 5800 crewed sailing catamaran (see “One Colossal Cat,” August 2013), and we…

Possibly you’ve cruised the Chesapeake and the Intracoastal Waterway. You anchored at night, maybe had a glass of wine before dinner, and slept well. But now you’re going to be in open ocean 24/7, until you reach your destination — Bermuda? The Caribbean? Hawaii? As someone who has “been there, done that” and spent the last 20-plus years teaching offshore cruising, I’d like to share some suggestions that should make the transition from coastal cruising to offshore voyaging safer, easier and more pleasant. As with pretty much any advice, modify these tips to fit your boat, experience and lifestyle. And to paraphrase an old scoutmaster of mine, “We’re not out here to rough it — it’s rough enough back there. We want to flourish!” The ideas presented here do not…

The best pictures of sailboats make a bold, single statement. As you focus in on this photograph, its rich detail makes for an interesting narrative. These three J-class boats are dueling in a brisk breeze, and are a perfect example of a gallant image that is worthy of study. The J-class boats by themselves certainly look majestic on the sea, but take a closer look. Notice the crew on the middle boat all sitting on the side, with each crew leaning forward. It feels as if the sailors are trying to nudge the boat forward with their bodies. In contrast, the windward J boat has all its crew sitting low to reduce the windage coming over the deck. It makes the viewer wonder, Which technique is the fastest? The leading…

CRUISINGWORLD.COM THE CREW OF DEL VIENTO is busy exploring the Marquesas in French Polynesia. One of the highlights so far? The marine life. Blogger Michael Robertson shares some details from an afternoon swim: “‘Mom, Mom! Come here, quick!’ Windy sprinted on deck. Eleanor was stripping down to her bathing suit, trying to find her mask, and pointing at the giant manta ray swimming in circles and doing somersaults right next to Del Viento. ‘Can I go in, can I go in, please?!’ When the second ray showed up, Windy joined Eleanor, and when a third joined the party, it was enough for Frances to ignore the jellyfish stings she’d gotten on her last two swims, and she jumped in too. For 20 minutes, the three chased after the three.” Follow…

“When I was a 16-year-old exchange student in New Zealand, some guy asked me to go sailing. That was it. I was hooked,” confesses Ann Gates. “When I got back I told my mom I was getting a sailboat. ‘Sure,’ she said, disbelievingly. Then I showed up with one.” That was 40-some years ago. That was 40-some years ago. “Sailing on Lake Ontario prepared me for sailing just about anywhere,” Gates explains. “Compared to the ocean, the waves there are closer together and steeper. There’s no recovery time. A 6-footer on Ontario can be dangerous; on the ocean it’s just an easy roller. Ocean weather and wind changes are much more gradual and predictable than in the Great Lakes.” Recently, Gates single-handed her Aloha 28, Krazy Lady, 3,419 miles from…

In the past I never sailed with davits, because my previous vessels were too small and I was too smart for such bedevilments. On the other hand, Ganesh, our Wauquiez Amphitrite 43, had davits when we purchased her, so we left them in place — although until recently, the Monitor windvane we’d installed on the stern for ocean sailing prohibited their use. Currently, though, we’re gunkholing in Malaysia, the “Land Below the Wind,” as old Arab traders used to call it, and we have an infirm guest coming aboard for a two-week visit in Thailand. To ease boarding from the dinghy, we removed the Monitor, and now unexpectedly have the “convenience” of dinghy davits (for a while at least) as a benefit. Note the hilarity of having the words “convenience”…

Nearly every New Englander who sets forth for sunny climes in the dead of winter has an obligatory Terrible Travel Tale (TTT), and here’s mine. It was 4 in the morning on Sunday, March 8 at Boston’s Logan Airport in the terminal for the airline known derisively — and deservedly — as “U.S. Scareways.” Spring break had started the day before, so roughly 4 zillion college kids in something resembling riot mode were trying to escape what was literally the worst local winter in recorded history. As daylight saving time had commenced two hours earlier, springing the clocks forward, nearly everybody was functioning on the dangerous combo platter of a long night in the bars, zero sleep and max caffeine. And infinitely wise U.S. Scareways, naturally, had maybe four people…

For even more information and resources, visit Cruising World’s charter section at www.cruisingworld.com/charter. Conch Charters Conch Charters is celebrating 28 years as a family run business BVI style, which means we have learned a thing or two!! We stayed at our one location in the BVI’s to be more focused on you, our valued BVI sailors. Our fleet is the most diversified, which gives you amazing choices. Our new website offers a virtual tour of each of our yachts. We have upset our competition with our slogan “Best Deals on Keels” offering the most amazing specials and agressive pricing. Rest assured that our catamaran prices will make you purrrr! Contacting Conch Charters means that you talk to a person at our base in Tortola, not someone stateside. Our people have…

In France, stainless steel is called acier inoxydable, which is also the source of its international abbreviation: inox. Fun fact: The handle for the company that manufactures the Swiss Army Knife, Victorinox, is derived from the same abbreviation and the name of its founder’s mother, Victoria. Stainless steel relies primarily on two elements, chromium and nickel, to attain its legendary corrosion resistance. The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) groups the austenitic or marine grades of stainless steel under the “300 series” heading, a designation that should be familiar to most boat owners. Type 304 stainless is sometimes referred to as 18-8, which reflects the percentage of alloying elements chrome and nickel therein; 304 consists of 18 to 20 percent chromium and 8 to 12 percent nickel. Type 316 consists…

If you are in Beaufort, North Carolina, in the early weeks of August, beware, my beauties! On our humble English sailboat Folly, visiting the beautiful town on the coast after sailing all the way from England, we found ourselves in the middle of a pirate attack! Deafening cannon shot roared out from the schooner Meka II and the last remaining North Carolina skipjack, Ada Mae, as they approached the historic town and were in turn fired upon by a battery of cannon onshore. Clouds of blue smoke swallowed the protagonists. Anchored in Taylor Creek, we had been quietly contemplating the attractive waterfront, completely unaware that this re-enactment of a 1700s battle was to take place. The infamous pirate attack of the town, and subsequent repelling by the civil militia, is…

“Let’s stay away from them,” I said to my husband, Paul, referring to the three charter boats that had beaten us to the anchorage in Taha’a, French Polynesia. Paul and I were discussing where we were going to anchor. As cruisers, it had taken us eight months to sail our 42-foot Tayana sloop from Charleston, South Carolina, to these remote South Pacific islands. These charter folks had flown here in a day. Were they competent sailors? Did they know how to anchor properly? Did the charter company provide them with adequate ground tackle? We didn’t know, so like many other cruisers, we simply avoided charter boats. Eight years later, we found ourselves in a similar situation, standing in the cockpit and discussing where to anchor. Once again, we avoided the…

For the past several seasons, German boatbuilder Bavaria Yachts has arrived at the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, with a fresh new model to add to its revamped Cruiser line. This past fall the folks at Bavaria focused their attention on the middle of the six-boat lineup, introducing a roomy and versatile 46-footer that can be configured either for private ownership or for charter in a number of fleets found in Europe, the Caribbean and here in the U.S., where Bavaria USA has teamed up with Horizon Yacht Charters. Like all its Bavaria siblings — including those in the slightly more upscale Vision range — the Cruiser 46 owes its origins to Farr Yacht Design and the in-house team at Bavaria. The naval architects at Farr know a few…

The first thought that flashed into my head when I walked aboard the new Leopard 40 was “I’ll do the cooking.” It was a sunny afternoon at the Strictly Sail Miami show, and the cat’s interior was flooded with sunlight thanks to the tall, vertical glass windows spanning the front of the saloon to either side of a watertight door opening onto the forward cockpit and trampoline — a very cool feature brought over from the boat’s 44- and 48-foot siblings. The side windows, curved slightly to follow the arching line of the cabin top, are quite large as well, and right where front and side walls meet is the galley, surrounded by a truly panoramic view. It gives the cook quite literally the best seat in the house, in…

That changed in 2010, following a 13-month sail around North and South America that started and finished in Seattle. It turned out that the Northwest Passage, Cape Horn, dicey landfalls, reefing in gales, standing dawn watches and everything else about the trip was “easypeasy,” in the grand scheme of things. Paying the bills, getting the truck fixed, coping with rush-hour traffic, going back to my real job: Now that was terrifying. But as I type these thoughts in the last week of June, I’m suddenly feeling light and free. That’s because, happily, I’m going to sea again. A few days hence, I’ll be hopping aboard the Valiant 42 Eleanor with three of my best mates, and setting sail from Maine to the British Isles (see “Shakedown on Penobscot Bay,” April…