Índex per August 2016 a SAIL

A newly launched Jeanneau 54 arrives in Florida’s Hillsboro Inlet at the end of a boisterous daysail from Miami’s Biscayne Bay. Constructed in Detroit, Michigan, the 172ft Hillsboro Inlet Light has been watching over this snug little anchorage since 1907 as part of a string of lights created by Congress to help guide commercial vessels safely from Jupiter Inlet to the Tortugas. After dark, the light’s Fresnel lens glitters like an enormous diamond as it sends its warning out to those mariners still at sea, making for a truly magical resting place.…

BERMUDA RECORD SMASHED Jim Clark’s 100ft purpose-built record-breaker Comanche rockets southward shortly after the start of this year’s Newport Bermuda Race, which it completed in a mere 34 hours 42 minutes—crushing the previous record of 39 hours 39 minutes set by Rambler in 2012. According to skipper Ken Read, the critical moment came early on when navigator Stan Honey found a way through the light winds of a high-pressure ridge straddling the rhumb line just south of Newport. After that, Read says, “We were averaging 28 to 29 knots and our highest speed was 32 knots.” For more on the race and Comanche’s record run, visit bermudarace.com. It was a dramatic 2016 Para World Sailing Championship Regatta in Medemblik, the Netherlands, this past May for US Sailing Team Sperry. In…

A newcomer to the production multihull scene could easily be led to believe that there are two kinds of large multihulls in this world: high-performance speedsters and relatively heavy-displacement charter-style cats in which performance necessarily takes a back seat to comfort and lounging space. There are, however, any number of other boats out there that offer an appealing balance between theses two extremes—including the new Seawind 1160 LITE. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION Built by Australia’s Seawind Catamarans at its manufacturing facility in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, the Seawind 1160 LITE is an evolution on the company’s successful Seawind 1160, of which more than 100 have been launched. For years, Seawind has built its reputation on boats that are not just elegantly styled sailers, but seaworthy in the most demanding sense…

It had been months, but the email I was waiting for finally came in. “I think it’s going to work out … Will confirm Monday,” was all it said, but I jumped to my feet. Hello Ocean, our research foundation, was about to launch Expedition Underway, its very first research-under-sail expedition. Thanks to a partnership with the charter company The Moorings, we were headed to Belize for some pioneering ocean research. I’ve been a sailor, both professionally and recreationally, for two decades. Sailing provides me with an opportunity to escape, to explore and to experience new environments. Places where I can witness amazing examples of nature, like leaping dolphins, colorful coral reefs or thunder holes on a rocky coast. Recently, however, I find myself wanting more—to give back and ensure…

Some sailors claim that the inflatable boat has killed the traditional rowing sailing tender. I don’t think so. I think that it was the development of small, lightweight and reliable outboard engines that ended the reign of the rowing dinghy. For sailors, the journey is the destination. Once the anchor is down, a hard dinghy is certainly a delight to row or sail while you explore an anchorage, both of which they do well, at least until they are loaded up. However, due to their size and speed, their range is very limited, and even with a small outboard they only move along at displacement speed. With its lighter weight and increased capacity and speed, on the other hand, the inflatable dinghy has developed to fill a different role. For…

On many boats, decks are cored with end-grain balsa or plywood with a fiberglass laminate on each side. It’s not unusual for moisture to find its way into this wooden core. Stanchion bases and chainplates often leak as a boat ages, and often holes are drilled in the deck for new hardware, anchoring systems or dinghy tie downs, and not properly sealed by coating the exposed core with epoxy resin. Over time, moisture intrusion leads to a rotten core, which in turn makes decks “spongy” and compromises the integrity of that portion of the boat. When friends on an Allmand 31 asked my husband, Dave, for advice about repairing cracks in the fiberglass near their bow cleats, Dave realized they had a much bigger problem than mere stress cracks. Upon…

The Sailing Scene Are you out there sailing, cruising, and living the sailing life? Send your sailing photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com for a chance to have your sailing memory featured in these pages. This is our 23ft Spirit, Sweetwater, on Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming. We are on Wolf Bay, where we have heard and seen wolves. My wife and I have been sailing in Yellowstone for 12 summers, and it is not uncommon for us to be the only boat in sight. —Geoff Baumann Sailing in the Little Egg Harbor Bay, New Jersey, off the town of Tuckerton at sunset in August, aboard our 23ft 2001 Precision, Pchomp Pchomp. —Curtis Saal Looking out at Lollipop, a 15ft Marshall Sandpiper Catboat, on Lake Tashmoo, Martha’s Vineyard. I felt the peaceful scene captures the…

It’s 1985. After six years of hard work, my wife, Terrie, and I are about to embark on our maiden voyage in our homebuilt 38ft William Atkin “Ingrid” ketch, Nada. In addition to Terrie and myself, we have a crew of three, including Terrie’s younger sister. We are departing from Mandeville, Louisiana, headed for Isla Mujeres off the coast of the Yucatan, some 600 open-water miles to the south. The prevailing winds are pretty much dead on the nose, while the rhumb line across the Gulf of Mexico runs straight into the Gulf Stream “loop current” that will flow at up to 4 knots against us—and our boat does not sail well to windward. To counteract these negatives I have chosen to depart ahead of a strong cold front, because…

European designers and builders do a great job of producing smaller boats that look like scaled-down grand prix racers— minimal overhangs, chines, wedge-shaped hulls, twin rudders, square-headed mainsails—but attempts to introduce such boats to the U.S. market have usually failed dismally. A different aesthetic preference prevails on this side of the pond. Saffier Yachts, a well-established brand from the Netherlands, hopes to succeed where others have fallen by the dockside. The yard produces two lines of boats—both daysailers and pocket cruisers—that blend classic good looks with modern design features and high-quality construction techniques. Already several boats have been shipped to customers here in the States, and the yard expects to have a dealer network setup state-side by the end of the summer. The three boats in the Elegance range are…

WEEGO 44 JUMP STARTER The Weego 44 portable jump-starter is easy-to-use, safe and reliable, and packs enough power to start 3.2 liter diesel engine. The Weego 44’s new, patent-pending “Smarty Clamps” have a rear hinge point and open much wider than traditional clamps, making it easier to connect the device to any battery terminal, and their design provides a better grip for smaller hands. The unit displays a green light to indicate if the cables are properly connected and ready for a jump start, and a red light lets the user know the unit is improperly connected or not connected to a 12-volt system. Flashing lights and a buzzing noise alert the user if the cables are on the wrong battery terminals. $149.99. Weego, myweego.com PELICAN AIR CASE Pelican Cases…

A DECADE AGO, here in the pages of SAIL, I wrote of my experiences with the inaugural Classic Boat Rally fleet as it sailed along the Intracoastal Waterway from Savannah, Georgia, to Charleston, South Carolina. It was a six-day cruise that led the boats through some of the prettiest waterways of America’s south. Naturally, when rally founder Sam “Woody” Norwood asked me if I would like to join the fleet once again for the 2016 rally, I happily said yes. And so I found myself in the South once again this past April, with 10 classic boats ranging from 18ft and 22ft catboats to a Drascombe Lugger and Menger Oysterman 23 ketch, once again gathered to mark the 10th anniversary of the rally with a reworked three-day sail that would…

There are two fabric choices used in inflatable boats. Both have excellent performance and durability. PVC coated polyurethane cloth is lighter weight and more flexible. It is good fabric if you are cruising seasonally or if you store your boat deflated. PVC fabric can be heat welded, and heat welded seams are virtually leak proof. PVC tenders hold air exceptionally well. Neoprene coated nylon fabric, Hypalon, is heavier and all the seams must be hand glued. This is the material to use if you are using the dinghy full time in the tropics. FABRIC WEIGHT Regardless of the coating material used, manufacturers use different weight cloth as the base of the fabric. Fabric weight is often measured by its “denier.” Fabric with a higher denier is a heavier base fabric.…

Dinner Key in Coconut Grove, Florida, is sometimes referred to as “The Hotel California”—a place where many cruiser check out but never leave. After almost two months, my wife, Tara, and I started to feel like regulars. We planned on spending the holidays there and had some doctor’s appointments to take care of, all of which extended our stay. After spending a few weeks here last year while getting the boat ready for a trip to the Bahamas, we really started to like the area. However, after two months, we were ready to move on. One of the drawbacks of this mooring field is that it is exposed to easterly winds, being on the west side of Biscayne Bay. The bay is relatively shallow, and the waves can become very…

Two gruelling solo circumnavigations by American sailors ended in May, when Jeff “El Jefe” Hartjoy and Donna Lange crossed their outward tracks. West Coast sailor Hartjoy celebrated his 70th birthday during his 204-day nonstop voyage south of the five capes, in the course of which he had to deal with seemingly endless bouts of foul weather and gear failure. He had to repair one of his most important sails some 50 times, and a month before crossing his outbound track and then making landfall in Ecuador, his watermaker failed. Still, El Jefe remained in high spirits, and his Baba 40 ketch, Sailors Run, handled the conditions round Cape Horn and The Cape of Good Hope in fine style. Lange, who first sailed around the world alone on her Southern Cross…

Despite the late arrival of a decent sailing breeze on the first official day of racing, organizers, fans and the sailors themselves had nothing but good things to say about the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Chicago regatta, which took place this past June. Indeed, the first-ever America’s Cup event on the Great Lakes had a little bit of everything, including plenty of thrills and spills (read: dramatic capsizes!) on a boisterous pre-regatta practice day; more of the same close-quarters racing that has come to characterize the 35th America’s Cup thus far; and a strong showing by two of the supposedly “weaker” teams, highlighting the fact that the 35th Cup remains as wide-open as ever. Better still, there was a surfeit of fans—good news for an event looking to…

What’s better than something that works? Something that works even better. With this in mind, Beneteau reviewed its Oceanis 41—a model at a very popular length—and with owner feedback and some clever engineering, launched the new and improved Beneteau Oceanis 41.1 at this year’s Miami Boat Show. The result is better performance and a more ergonomic interior, not to mention fun sailing, even in light winds. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION The Finot-Conq-designed hull remains mostly the same. The bow is still blunt, and the 13ft 9in beam is carried well aft , while hard chines in the stern sections continue to both increase interior volume and reduce heel—keeping it 5 degrees less than on competitive models in her size range, according to Beneteau engineers. The flat bottom, single spade rudder and…

“We ran full-speed into something we weren’t expecting.” Thus did Dean Brenner, the outgoing head of the U.S. Olympic Sailing Program, describe the shellacking his team experienced at the 2012 London Olympics, when it failed to win a single medal at the sailing venue in Weymouth. But did they really? Did the team’s failure to get a single sailor on the podium really come as a complete surprise? And did things really go off the rails as badly as it seemed? First, a reminder of just how bad it was. Not only did the 2012 Olympic regatta represent the first time the United States failed to win a single medal since the 1936 Games in Berlin, Germany, but it was a year in which the U.S. team had actually hoped…

It’s funny how the bug bites. In January 2010, my husband, Kirk, and I were vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, when we signed up for an excursion on an old America’s Cup boat from Australia. Kirk grew up sailing around the Great Lakes; I had never been on a sailboat. The excursion included a race against another ex-America’s Cup sailboat from New Zealand, also crewed by tourists. We had a great time. Several weeks later I found Kirk at the computer searching the internet for sailboats. Soon we were spending hours researching boats and talking about little else. The problem was, we live in southeast Idaho, not exactly a sailing Mecca. Then we read a blog by a couple in Washington state who had a MacGregor sailboat that they…

When bareboat chartering with friends or family, it can be tough to be the captain. Not only are you ultimately responsible for navigation, anchoring and the safety of the vessel, but you also have to manage crew duties without coming off like Captain Bligh. Part of good crew management and morale is keeping the boat clean and shipshape so you don’t have a mutiny. I like to see how roles develop naturally aboard before making a roster. Some people cook because they like it, some are fastidious cleaner-uppers, some are capable mechanics, some are good shoppers and some can be downright lazy. Even if your whole crew chips in, you might want to rotate duties to eliminate grudges and make sure everyone is involved in managing the boat, although that…