Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2017 i Cruising World

Aweek’s sailing adventure in early August began with me cursing an off season nor’easter that nicked southern New England and delayed our departure by a couple of days. But then, mostly sunny days, favorable breezes and fair currents prevailed every time my wife, Sue, and I hoisted the main. And in the end, I was actually thankful, in an odd sort of way, when our new itinerary kept us a little closer to home and we landed in Menemsha, at the southwest tip of Martha’s Vineyard. It’s a harbor we’d always overlooked as we dashed up and down Buzzards Bay or Vineyard Sound, bound for more far-flung waypoints. It turns out, the anchorage in Menemsha Bight, outside the town’s tight inner basin, is a lovely spot to stop for a…

Facebook Q&A: What’s your favorite thing about attending a boat show? The seminars. They are such good opportunities to learn things. – S. Gage-Hunt Boats! – L. Gleason Discounts on things I was going to buy anyway. – T. Swart The Painkillers from Pusser’s at the Annapolis show! – S.K. MacDonald The excuse to satisfy my Gadget Acquisition Syndrome. – T. Lovett Seeing friends, and new products. – J. DeGarmo The opportunity to keep the dream alive. – M. Bush Getting storage ideas. – J. & S. David Checking out all the new cleaning products. – C. Small The unsavory amount of drool that surrounds some of the floating palaces. – L. Libelo Sizing up the competition! – Leopard Catamarans…

1. SEATEK ARGO WATCH • $290 • SEATEKGEAR.COM With military-grade stainless-steel construction, the Argo is designed for hard living on the water. The dive watch is water resistant to 200 meters and has a lightweight, comfortable rubber strap. 2. SI-TEX MDA-4 VHF/DSC/AIS • $460 • SI-TEX.COM The new MDA-4 is an advanced VHF/ DSC radio that also includes the safety and convenience of a dualchannel AIS receiver. For added safety in crowded waterways, the radio features AIS alerts for closest point of approach and time to closest point of approach. 3. WEST MARINE THIRD REEF 3L JACKET • $250 • WESTMARINE.COM Updates to West Marine’s popular Third Reef gear include threelayer construction, an articulated hood that moves with you and special fitting for women’s styles. The line includes jackets and…

2016 was the year St. Helena was supposed to change. But it didn’t, and I’m glad. The changes were to come with the opening of an airport that would bring tourists, money and jobs. But things didn’t quite go as planned. The island of St. Helena consists of an isolated mountain peak 8 miles long and 5 miles wide. It juts up from the South Atlantic, roughly 1,000 miles west of Namibia and 2,000 miles east of Brazil, and the terrain is all up and down. An airport had never been built because there is no naturally level space long enough for a runway and creating one would be expensive. Eventually, the British government, of which St. Helena is a dependency, came up with the more than $300 million cost,…

We arrived in Sarande, Albania, aboard Aorangi, our Swan 47, after a four-day, 500-mile passage from Gaeta, Italy. Entry with an agent is mandatory in Albania; in Sarande, that agent is Agim Zholi (agimzholi@yahoo.com). Upon arrival in Sarande (be careful to stay half a mile to port of Punta Ferruccio and the Baladha shoal, which is marked only with a red-ring buoy to port and flashing white light at night), we found the agent on the quay to guide us to a berth. We asked to be side-tied instead of Med-moored, which is the normal practice. Even though it was very high season, we had the most pleasant of receptions. Agim’s son and his assistant helped us tie up, and then came on board for a cold refreshment. They gave…

PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS and TECHNIQUES SEAMANSHIP It’s time we sailors pay more attention to the problems that loom right in front of us on the bow. On many sailboats, potential neglect there goes unheeded because much of the gear forward of the mast hides belowdecks, out of sight from the sailor at the helm. Yet anchor chains and dock lines decide how safe your boat will be secured in rising wind and fast-building chop. And on the foredeck, the chain leads and stoppers, the anchor stowed on its roller, and the location of bollards or cleats all require careful thought to ensure ease of use and safety in all conditions. In addition, several other fittings in the bow area will help or hamper sail management when sailing downwind. Let’s begin with…

NEW TECHNOLOGY,REVIEWS and PRODUCTS for the CRUISING SAILOR Anyone who’s looking for a new boat in the coming year should approach the upcoming boatshow season as eagerly as a kid waking up on Christmas morning. Builders, literally from around the globe, are setting sail for North America with a slew of new designs, some of which are evolutionary improvements to older models, while others take bold tacks into uncharted waters when it comes to how we will sail and live aboard in years to come. Multihulls will continue their strong presence in 2018, with catamarans and trimarans that range in size and complexity from simple pocket cruisers to sophisticated, fully crewed yachts. On the monohull side of the dock, design trends continue to include smaller headsails, galley-forward layouts and innovative…

With 40 ships, five months, six countries and 7,000 nautical miles, you have the ingredients for one heck of a regatta! The Tall Ships recently visited the historic city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, on the last leg of their transatlantic summer tour. The event, Rendez-vous 2017, started in April, appropriately in the port of Royal Greenwich, England, ground zero if you’re talking longitude. From there,the fleet sailed to Portugalbefore making the hop acrossthe Atlantic Ocean to Bermuda,also host to the 35th America’sCup. Then it was on to Bostonand up the coast to Canada,where the Tall Ships venturedinto the Gulf of St. Lawrence,up the river as far as QuebecCity, before turning back east. While in Canada, the fleet, made up of historic replicas, sail-training ships and working original vessels, visited…

Have you snapped a photo of a nice sunset on the water? We want to see it! Enter CW’s Sailing Sunsets Photo Contest for a chance to win a pair of polarized sunglasses from Ocean Racing or a sun hat from Gill. Find the details and upload your photo at facebook.com/cruisingworld. It’s Boat-Show Season! Newport International Boat Show Newport, R.I. September 14-17, 2017 newportboatshow.com U.S. Sailboat Show Annapolis, Maryland October 5-9, 2017 annapolisboatshows.com/united-statessailboat-show Chicago Boat, RV & Sail Show Chicago, Illinois January 10-14, 2018 chicagoboatshow.com Strictly Sail Miami Miami, Florida February 15-19, 2018 strictlysailmiami.com Pacific Sail & Power Boat Show Richmond, California April 12-15, 2018 pacificboatshow.com…

A Life Afloat At the age of 20, Lin Pardey felt like her life was a bit stagnant. “I tired of the guys I was dating. They were all university types — all too serious — I decided I wanted to buy a sailboat and learn about sailing,” she reminisces in a new documentary video. “I met Larry, who was a charter captain at the time. We started chatting, and he was building a sailboat. I moved in with him three days later and helped him build his boat.” The ensuing story, one of a lifetime of love and voyaging, is the stuff of cruising history (you can read more about it on page 72). Watch the full video at cruisingworld .com/1710pardey. Get in the Loop Have sailing stories, maintenance tips…

Growing up aboard the 1924 wooden schooner Elizabeth in the 1950s was a trip: We had canvas sails of Egyptian cotton, a tarred manila anchor rode, a mechanical windlass, a well-swung compass, a calibrated chronometer, a cherished sextant and kerosene running lights. I’ll never forget the time my father brought me on a tour of one of the sailboats he was delivering to South America and pointed out that it had two switchable batteries! Why in hell anyone would want two batteries aboard a sailboat was beyond us. I write this more than 50 years later, on a boat with 12 6-volt Trojan T-105 batteries in my bilge. I used to carry a rigging knife with a marlinespike on my belt. Now I can whip out my digital multimeter from…

Forty years ago this past summer, a naval architect named Rod Johnstone put the finishing touches on a sailboat he built in his home in Stonington, Connecticut. The size of the boat was dictated by the length of the garage in which it took shape: 24 feet. Little did Johnstone know, that vessel, eventually called the J/24, would become an unqualified success. More than 5,000 of them would be built. It would launch a family business, J/Boats, that has introduced dozens of new models and is still going strong. It would even be inducted into the American Sailboat Hall of Fame. And in the summer of 1986, one of them, hull number 3,688, became my first boat. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. With my high school pal, Ian Scott, I…

FATTY, THE ORACLE, SPOKE TO ME I speak for the many fans and followers of books and articles written by Cap’n Fatty Goodlander when I say his recent article offering truly sage advice about buying used boats was pure genius (“Good Boats Cheap, Cheap Boats Free,” the Charter Issue, 2017). It was filled with helpful information about a topic on which he is an expert, but the article was equally informative as it was flat-out hilarious. I laughed so hard I almost cried. His article was about human nature; it shed light on people’s fear of overpaying (for anything) and the all-too-often unrealistic expectations of sellers trying to find the next dream chaser. The article should be read by everyone, everywhere, who’s selling and buying anything because it speaks volumes.…

Ocean of Insight: A Sailor’s Voyage from Despair to Hope By Heather Lyn Mann (2016; Parallax Press; $19) Wisconsin environmental advocate Heather Lyn Mann took a sabbatical from her work on global warming and set off on a six-year voyage to the Bahamas and the Caribbean beyond with her husband, Dave, aboard their Hylas 45.5, Wild Hair. In Ocean of Insight, she traces their adventures with entertaining and sometimes thrilling tales of seamanship, coupled with reflections and lessons learned from the sea in her accompanying spiritual journey charted according to Buddhist teachings. Part sea story and part guide to selfdiscovery, it’s a well-crafted tale and well worth the read. — Mark Pillsbury Notable Boats: Many Craft, Many Adventures By Nic Compton (2017; Rizzoli International Publications; $30) A blizzard pasted snow…

When the Spa Creek Bridge opens, near my home in Annapolis, Maryland, I always have this nice feeling of anticipation that a good day on the water is ahead. Within minutes, the crowded harbor falls behind while the immense Chesapeake Bay invites a sail in any direction. After spending 60 years racing boats of all sizes, and cruising to the extreme ends of the earth, I have rediscovered how much fun it is to go daysailing. Every reward one might hope to experience on a long voyage can take place on a simple daysail. Two years ago, I acquired a C.W. Hood 32 sloop with the single purpose of taking family and friends sailing around Annapolis, and sometimes beyond. The boat has everything I was looking for. It’s easy to…

Summer weather in Montenegro is beautiful: hot and sunny. Light breezes from the north or south predominate. In spring and fall, the weather is more varied. Our May cruise there was like summer, our October trip had moderate winds from the north and south, which increased in the narrow funnels between the headlands and islands. Bora winds from the north are bright and cool and can blow hard for up to three days. We spent 24 hours at anchor during a bora with wind gusts to 50 knots. The sirocco wind blows from the south, with rain, clouds, thunder and lightning. Our sirocco was very dramatic, with white clouds tumbling down the black mountain faces, illuminated by horizontal and vertical lightning. The rainsqualls had Scarlet heeling at anchor and tacking…

MONTHLY MAINTENANCE It’s all too easy to take for granted that fuel will make its way from the deck fill to the tank and from the tank to the engine. The means by which fuel travels and the plumbing it uses to make this trip often go overlooked until a leak or other failure develops. While fiberglass, metallic pipe or plastic are acceptable (with limitations), the connection between the deck fill and the tank is nearly always made of a rubber or rubberlike hose. Hose is convenient in that it can be easily routed and it absorbs movement between the deck, hull and tank. Hose used in this application is far from ordinary. It must carry a U.S. Coast Guard A2 rating, which means it’s designed to, among other things,…