SAIL

In SAIL’s June issue, I went on a bit of a tear in the magazine’s “Racecourse” section regarding the current state of the America’s Cup. At the heart of my complaint is 1) the fact of the exorbitant cost of the thing and 2) the way these same costs are turning the Cup into something far too many sailors no longer care about. Of course, a big part of the problem is the Cup’s complete and total professionalism. Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton basically admitted as much when he claimed he needed to farm out the location for his team’s defense in order to obtain the necessary funds to keep his people from jumping ship the way Russell Coutts did back in 2000. Unfortunately, this has in many…

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GRAND PRIX SYNDROME Interesting article in the June SAIL magazine (A Sad Day for Auckland, June). The “Cup” has become what has happened in Formula One GP racing, too expensive, over designing and exorbitant salaries to the drivers. They forget the fans pay to see good racing; if the fans go away so will the racing. Let’s get back to some basics and limit the crews to their own country boat. — Derek Jones, via sailmail@sailmagazine.com STICK TO SAILING It is my humble opinion that Emily Greenberg could be the best new contributor your magazine has had in a long time (Escape from New York, May)! I’m sure that many readers want to read about someone who’s gone to Croatia, or Sweden or Lake Champlain and hear about the author’s fine dining experiences… Emily, on the other…

Having set ourselves the task of transforming our recently purchased Open 66 ex-Vendée Globe racer, NV, into a performance family cruiser, my partner, Timo, and I found ourselves (extremely) high and dry as cyclone season approached. The favorite cyclone strategy in Fiji is to sit your boat in a cyclone pit in Vuda Marina. This is a hole dug in the ground in which the keel and rudder fits, with the hull sitting on tires at ground level. Unfortunately for us, digging a pit deep enough for our 14ft keel was impossible, as the bottom of the pit would end up below sea level, which in turn would cause it to collapse. Our draft also prevents us from being able to tie up among the mangroves in one of the nearby…

Growing up, sailing was always part of my life. This did not happen by chance, but rather was the result of generations before me having made sailing and sailboat racing part of normal activities. I was never told I had to go sailing; it was just part of my family’s routine, an important part of my foundation. My dad came from a family of eight kids growing up in Edgewood, Rhode Island. My grandfather was addicted to sailing like someone might be about golf. He would pack some supplies, gather all the children and to head for the Edgewood Yacht Club. It was there where his boat was moored, a large catboat that was ideal for holding lots of people. All my dad’s siblings, as well as friends of my grandparents,…

Paperback, 429 pages $20.99 Pegasus Publishers, pegasuspublishers.com It’s hard work keeping old sailing traditions alive. Doing so can also lead to adventures as wild and wooly as those experienced by the sailors who established those traditions in the first place. In Salt Water and Spear Tips, Danish explorer and filmmaker Thor Jensen recounts how he joined a crew of three master-sailors from Papua New Guinea as they set out to attempt a record breaking circumnavigation of New Guinea in a traditional sailing canoe named the Tawali Pasana. The book follows the 13-month, 21-day journey in wonderful detail, narrating the ups and downs of the 3,900-mile trip across 429 pages. Setting off from Milne Bay in August of 2016, Jensen and company had more than their share of close calls and perilous situations, including…