Índex per August 2017 a SAIL

The expedition yacht Seal lies at anchor in a lonely, tranquil bay in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, prior to departing for her voyage to the Aleutian Islands this past May. In 1989, much of the sound’s shoreline was coated in crude oil after the tanker Exxon Valdez hit a reef, and tens of thousands of marine birds and animals perished. Most species have recovered in the intervening 28 years, but the cleanup from the oil spill is ongoing. At least on the surface, the natural beauty of this remote area of the Pacific Northwest remains undiminished.…

Like most soon-to-be cruisers and fellow dog owners, I fantasized about life on the boat with woman’s best friend. I pictured cruising the waterways with my faithful companion, his ears flapping in the wind as he stood on the bowsprit looking down at the dolphins in the bow wave, or running ahead of me along tropical beaches at sunset. Then reality hit. My husband, Brian, and I became full-time cruisers in October 2014, and when a dog like Phinneus is in your life, the fantasy starts to become more like a bad dream. Phinneus is a 15-year-old dapple dachshund, a pampered momma’s boy. He has long-term medical issues that require him to eat a venison-based diet. And then there is his relationship with my husband, Brian, who is not a…

The Volvo Ocean Race recently announced some design changes for the 2019-20 event, and I for one am very pleased. It’s true I have been ranting on Sailfeed (sailfeed.com) against the unimaginative slab-sided boats currently in use (and set to do another lap as part of the 2017-18 race, beginning in October). However, I don’t think it was because of my rants that the changes have been made. I think it’s because Volvo hired Mark Turner as CEO, and Mark is an innovator. He has long been involved with the IMOCA Class, where the true innovation in offshore ocean monohull racing has been taking place, including once serving as the group’s chairman. You only have to put one of the new generation IMOCA 60’s alongside a VOR 65 to see…

Be it for safety, navigation or competition, all sailors have a need for information about their boat’s performance and its environment. Many recent advances have been made by marine electronics manufacturers, which have increased the accuracy, quantity and accessibility of data from electronic sailing instruments. A general understanding of how these devices gather, share and display their data is helpful when sorting through the myriad of options on the market. Collecting Data The fundamental sensors that make up any sailing instrument system include wind speed and direction, boatspeed, water depth and water temperature. These transducers detect variations in the physical world around the boat and convert that information into an electrical signal. Buying your transducers as part of a kit with instrument displays is a reliable way to make sure…

In his book After 50,000 Miles, renowned cruiser Hal Roth wrote about the changes he made to Whisper, his Spencer 35, after he and his wife, Margaret, had crossed oceans on her many times over. It’s an illuminating look at how an old-school sailor who only learned the sport in his 40s never rested on his laurels, and never accepted that his “experience” alone made him a better sailor, but constantly evolved to meet the increasingly difficult challenges he set for himself. I borrowed the title of that book for this essay, adapting it to the two years my wife, Mia, and I have owned and sailed Isbjorn, our 1972 Swan 48 on which we run offshore passages with paying crew. Mia and I have sailed more during this period…

Our Allied Seabreeze 35, Keewaydin, has just turned 50, so it seemed appropriate to give her (and us) a small present to simplify sail handling—a new traveler. We’d already added a Tides Marine sail track, new halyard winches, and replaced the original quirky roller-furling boom with a slick single-line reefing boom and vang setup from Selden. The original mainsheet setup consisted of two blocks on deck, a double block at the boom end and a miniscule winch. It was awkward to use, unsafe to trim in any kind of a blow and didn’t do much to shape the mainsail. A traveler installation is a simple and moderately easy project on most boats, but it does require some planning. The first step was to remove all the old hardware, fill the…

In a sport dominated by men, Team SCA was not just the only the all-female team to compete in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race, it was also the first all-female team to complete in the VOR in 12 years. Andy Schell recently spoke to team member Sara Hastreiter about what ocean racing is like and what got her there. Considering that you grew up in Wyoming and only got started in ocean racing in 2008, you rose pretty quickly. How did you manage that? I initially went to the Caribbean for an internship and then moved there permanently in 2008. There was a local regatta taking place, and I was able to get on a boat and go along for the ride. A few weeks later, I went to St.…

The new Nautitech 46 Fly does not take its name from an ability to become airborne, but is the flybridge version of the original 46 Open. The flybridge opens a spacious area for skipper and passengers, provides excellent visibility in all directions and consolidates control lines neatly in one place. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION The hull and deck are constructed of a vacuum-bagged, resin-infused fiberglass laminate, a proven modern technique popular among boatbuilders. The core is Divinycell. Poking about into lockers and hatches revealed neat, careful workmanship. Not only is the structural layup nice, but the plumbing and wiring are appropriately sized and well installed. The engine rooms call for some comments. These spaces in the aThend of the hulls are quite large and easy to get into. However, the diesels…

FEEL THE VIRB Garmin has followed up its waterproof VIRB camera with the VIRB 360, a seriously cool-looking piece of gear that will transform your sailing videos. Lenses front and back capture a full 360 degree view of the surroundings, which is then stitched together by the camera’s software. There’s an internal GPS and the camera’s livestreaming function lets you post to Youtube or Facebook in real time. If you’d rather get rid of the bloopers like unintended gybes or a docking snafu, the VIRB 360 app lets you edit the footage on your smartphone or tablet. Wi-Filets you control the camera from your phone. It’s compatible with both Apple and Android devices. $799. Garmin, garmin.com KEEP YOUR COOL Hard coolers can be awkward to carry and stow on a…

When I stepped off the plane I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. However, one thing became clear, quite quickly. It was hot. I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t make more trips down south from Boston during the rainy and somewhat miserable month of April. I was on my way to the headquarters of the Offshore Sailing School at South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island, Florida, to take part in a women’s only Fast Track to Cruising course. For women, taught by women—it sounded like just what I needed, and I had jumped at the chance to partake. As a full-time liveaboard going on my fourth year, who sails frequently and works in the industry, I certainly didn’t feel like a novice. That said, I knew that…

If you anchor often enough a time will occur when your yacht is brought up abruptly against the hold of your chain and anchor. Initially it might be a gentle bump, but as the wind increases it can become quite aggressive and frightening. It’s not only wind that causes this snatch loading. As the wind increases so does the wave action, espe cially in ocean anchorages with a bit of fetch. You only need a gust coinciding with a peak wave and swell, and you have a classic anchordragging situation. Historically, the easiest solution was to deploy more chain, move to a more sheltered location—if you could find one—or rig a riding sail, which reduces veering. Yet another option is to equip your boat in advance with heavier chain. However,…

All last winter the faded red Achilles inflatable floated in an empty slip, a rose with its bloom most defi- nitely gone, abandoned, I was told, by a cruiser who’d moved up to a RIB. In the autumn gales she filled with rainwater and in the coldest New England months she cradled a massive block of ice within her tubes. Yet those same Hypalon tubes had held air for the six months she’d been floating there, and the Achilles pedigree had to count for something. I was looking for an inexpensive tender, and this one was free; perhaps she was worth saving. One spring aft ernoon I pumped the water out of the dinghy and pulled it onto the dock. The plywood floorboards were, of course, delaminated and spongy, except…

I was originally drawn to sailing not by the pull of the water but by the pull of land, land beyond my horizon. The idea that one could step aboard a boat, hoist a triangle of canvas like a hitchhiker’s thumb and catch a ride on a passing wind to an exotic island, to a foreign country, to a different continent was, well, mind-blowing. When I first became aware of sailing, the possibilities it opened were personified by the legendary British couple Eric and Susan Hiscock. They had individually started hitching rides on the wind in the 1930s. By 1955 they had sailed as a couple completely around the globe aboard an unremarkable 30ft sloop appropriately named Wanderer III. They continued to wander the globe for another three decades, funding…

A number of competitors had to be rescued this past June when a powerful summer storm struck the 15Thedition of the OSTAR, from Plymouth, England, to Newport, Rhode Island, lashing the 15-boat fleet with 60-knot winds and 50ft waves. The TwoStar, a doublehanded transat race running simultaneously under the flag of the Royal Western Yacht Club, also fell victim, with at least one boat sunk and two more having to be scuttled. At press time, only five singlehanded sailors had finished or remained in the OSTAR. Similarly, only two boats out of the original fleet of six managed to avoid dropping out of the TwoStar. Among those falling victim to the storm was solo American sailor Kass Schmidt aboard the 36ft Zest, a Rob Humphreys custom design, who was forced…

There’s much pressure these days on continual introduction of new products—think Apple and the iPhone. But what if you have something that has worked well for over a decade, like the tried and true Hallberg-Rassy 40ft cruiser? The answer: you stick with the classic and fine-tune the details to rethect owner and dealer feedback. That’s how the Hallberg-Rassy 40 Mk II was created, 12 years after its predecessor was initially launched in Europe. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION German Frers has been Hallberg-Rassy’s design firm since 1988, and all the company’s models, from 31ft to 64ft, have a certain sophisticated appeal. There are no hard chines, the bow is not plumb, and the reverse stern angles gracefully up to the deck. The signature rubstrake is still present, which may save you in…

Who doesn’t love one-designs? Not only do these boats arguably represent competitive sailing in its purest form, they also represent sailing at its most democratic, allowing even those of modest means to compete at the sport’s highest level. Think the ubiquitous Sunfish or, say, the Thistle class, in which decades-old “woodies” still find their way to the podium on a regular basis. Not only that, but because one-design classes live and die by the number of participants they can attract, and because many, if not most of these sailors are going to want to use their boats for more than just racing, the one-design concept has also produced some of the finest boats the world has known. This, in turn, has created a kind of brand loyalty that is hard…

Sailing to Catalina Island is no mean feat. Racing singlehanded or doublehanded around the back side of the island in the open ocean is a whole other animal. My mind was working overtime a few days before the Pacific Singlehanded Sailing Assocation (PSSA) race around Catalina Island. Will it be a good day? Will I have enough gas to travel halfway around the Island if something breaks? What if the wind dies completely? Nevermind all the rigging and racing setup. What’s the wind going to do on the day of the race? And more importantly, what’s on the menu for lunch and dinner? Most of those thoughts had fled by the time I left the dock at 0800 for the 1100 start off Palos Verdes. I was enjoying the motor…

As the 50th anniversary of the Golden Globe Race of 1968-69 approaches, it seems the battle lines have been drawn. On the one hand, we have a highly organized tribute event: the previously discussed Golden Globe Race 2018 (see Waterlines, March 2016), put together by ex-BOC racer Don McIntyre, with a fixed starting time and location and strict rules, including limitations as to what sorts of retro boats and equipment can be used. On the other, we have an utterly disorganized anti-matter tribute event: the Longue Route 2018 (longueroute2018.com), being put together by another ex-BOC racer, Guy Bernardin, in recognition of Bernard Moitessier’s role in the original race. Moitessier, on his 39ft steel ketch Joshua, of course, became a legend when he blew off his chance to win the Golden…