Tabla de contenidos para April 2026 en Cruising World

The French boatbuilding conglomerate Groupe Beneteau has been in business well over a century, and has morphed from a family-run producer of modest fishing boats to a marine-industry colossus with several sailboat brands (including Jeanneau, Lagoon and Excess) and powerboats (like Four Winns, Wellcraft and Scarab). In recent years, it almost seemed as if its signature brand of Beneteau sailboats was a back-shelf entity that the many motorboat companies overshadowed. However, this year, perhaps somewhat in honor of the 40th anniversary of its Oceanis line—the company has produced almost five dozen Oceanis models—Beneteau is back in a big way, with a trio of nominees in this year’s Boat of the Year contest. The Oceanis 47 is one of the first two entries in the line’s eighth generation of solid, all-around…

We made the turn at the sea buoy 19 miles off Norfolk, Virginia, and headed north. The weather forecast called for a building breeze from the northeast. Soon it was blowing 22 to 27 knots. Out came the foul weather gear. The sailing was exhilarating as we averaged over 12 knots. It was also wet as our 66-foot boat powered through the building seaway. When I went below for my wellearned off watch, I realized my foul weather gear was soaked inside and out. Maybe even worse, the sole of my right boot had fallen off. We still had 300 miles to sail, and it was cold at night. Having the correct clothing is important for offshore sailing. Good foul weather gear is expensive, but worth the investment. Your kit…

I am often asked, “How many miles has Quetzal sailed?” I reply politely, but evasively, “Quite a few.” For someone who loves navigation and mathematics, I can be vague about certain numbers. Or maybe, as the years and miles keep piling up, I don’t really want to know. I have always contended that it’s time at sea that matters. Days, hours, minutes and the stories they produce are more meaningful than a tally of miles. Alas, the hardest history to outrun is your own, and with another major refit looming after a spate of serious sailing, a reckoning of sorts was due. I take people to sea. That’s my job. I am Neptune’s ferryman, and along the way, I share bits of seamanship and stories that I have picked up…

Scattered along the Caribbean coast of Panama like a handful of emeralds, the San Blas Islands represent one of the most significant gearshifts for circumnavigating cruisers. Comprising over 360 islands, most of them uninhabited, this archipelago is where the “slow burn” of the voyage truly begins along the Oyster World Rally route. Navigating these waters requires more than just technical prowess; it demands a shift in mindset. There are no marinas here, only coral-fringed anchorages where the local Guna people trade fresh lobster and hand-stitched molas from dugout canoes. For rally participants like the Hadida family, featured on page 64, the San Blas serves as the ultimate litmus test for their “why.” It is a place where success isn’t measured by performance or pace, but rather, by the ability to…

Because home is where the boat is, my wife, Behan, and I sailed our Stevens 47 Totem into 53 neighbor-hoods last year. Each destination, from the Marshall Islands to Japan, was new to us. Routing discussions were as regular as sunrise and coffee. Can we arrive in good light? How stable is the weather window? How are we tracking for timing slack tide at the atoll pass? Getting to Japan posed a routing accountability test. At sea several days before arriving, we had to inform officials of the exact time we’d pull up to the dock plus or minus 15 minutes. Cue the weather-routing software to help estimate our time of arrival for certain-to-be punctual Japanese officials. Routing software computes the route, or path, to the fastest ETA. Its computations…

A crowd gathers at the breakwater in Gran Canaria to bid farewell to the yachts. One by one, boats from 26 nationalities file out of Marina Las Palmas toward the start line at the north of the Spanish island. Crews dance and cheer. The music changes from Queen to ABBA as the Swedish yacht Dawnbreaker docks out to the blare of an Alpine horn. The two white-haired children at the bow seem awed by the fanfare, but their brother, Alfred, waves furiously from the top of a Jacob’s ladder, looking more than ready to take on the Atlantic. The Chuck Paine design is one of 83 vessels (six of them American) taking part in the 2,700-mile rally to Grenada, with a stopover in Cape Verde. The direct ARC, which sails to…

The day Ali Hadida tossed her 2-year-old son, Harry, into a swimming pool in Antigua was the day the gravity of the next 16 months finally arrived. Ali isn’t a reckless parent. Until recently, she was a doctor in the British National Health Service, a profession that trains you to spot red flags before they turn into catastrophes. She had done her homework. She had purchased the highest-rated life jackets available, sized them to Harry’s small frame, and assumed the gear would do the work. But when Harry hit the water, he flipped. The jacket didn’t cradle him; it betrayed him, holding his head dangerously low in the water. “That was a shocking day,” Ali says. “I realized that for an entire month of sailing with him as a baby, I’d…

I found my sea legs on Friday, November 6, 2020. It was day four of our passage from Put-In Creek, Virginia, to Antigua. Some 750 miles from land, we had left behind the stress of U.S. politics, COVID-19, and the world as we knew it. I felt good. During the next five hours of my night watch, from 20:00 to 01:00, I checked the sails, instrument readings, weather and sea state every 15 minutes. After completing my 360-degree visual sweep, I hovered over the radar screen, scanning AIS for nearby vessels. Then, I peered into the bilge, all while my captain, Michael, slept. In between my watch duties, I opened my computer for the first time while sailing. I’d forgotten to take my seasickness medication, and to my surprise, I wasn’t…

A chance landfall in Bougainville reveals a Pacific island poised between a troubled past and a hopeful future. As soon as our anchor has dropped into the turquoise water off the densely forested island, an alarming number of canoes sets out from the beach. Some are made from fiberglass, but most are carved from tree trunks, many with masts and rolledup sails stowed inside—all full of people. They circle our boat, shout a greeting, come alongside. Before we can even react, men, women and children start climbing up from all sides. We have half a village on deck, every-body eyeing the sails and lines curiously. This could have been a scene from the 1970s, when cruising pioneers got celebrity welcomes, until our visitors got out their smartphones and started taking…

Where does it begin, the craving to cast off into the big blue? The cruising dream may be sparked by a book, a video, a holiday. It’s nurtured over time until one day, sitting in your own vessel at dusk, it has morphed into an overriding need: to leave the familiar horizon silhouetted behind you. Gaining confidence with planning and completing passages takes time. You can intellectualize the process from books and videos, but there’s no substitute for firsthand experience. Managing the mix of decision-making and uncertainty required for days at sea isn’t something you can model from an anchorage. The progression doesn’t have a neat timeline, either; the goal is to accumulate good experiences and avoid bad ones. Pace plays heavily into this. Our own plans shifted significantly during…

For the past 40 years, I have been keeping a record of the global movement of sailing yachts by obtaining the number of arrivals in several key locations around the world. There has been a steady increase in those numbers, with probably the most significant being the number of Panama Canal transits by cruising yachts smaller than 80 feet. In 1984, there were 496. In 2024, there were 745: some 559 of them Pacific-bound, and 186 Caribbean-bound. Those figures were reflected in the 434 arrivals in French Polynesia in 2024, compared to 328 in 1987. The South Pacific remains the most tempting destination among world voyagers. The only place with a marked reduction is the Suez Canal, which fell from 198 transits in 2000 to 50 in 2024. Among the…

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