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On February 21, Good Old Boat lost its undisputed biggest fan. Tom Wells died peacefully and unexpectedly aboard his boat in Florida; he laid down for a nap and never woke. His public obituary is here...
Saildrone “You knew it was coming…” is the message Good Old Boat contributing editor Allen Penticoff sent me with a link to saildrone.com. Maybe we should have, seems to be the era of the drone, from ...
Self Sufficient Sailor, by Lin and Larry Pardey (Pardey Books, 2019; 332 pages) There’s no questioning or disputing the sailing (and writing) creds that made Lin and Larry Pardey household names among...
Falling, by Brion Toss (C-Star Press, 2018; 52 pages) Maybe you’ve met people doing what they’re born to do? People who early-on embraced a vocation that was perfectly aligned with their interests and...
A Big Mistake We made it clear last month that we’re offering free Good Old Boat magazine subscriptions to any active-duty servicemember. We failed to make it clear that we were talking about US servi...
A night passage in familiar waters nearly ends in disaster. Issue 132: May/June 2020 I’m not a great sailor, not even a very good one. But I enjoy moving from one place to another in that way, and I’v...
Oh, The Cost Of Getting From One Ocean To Another We last transited the Panama Canal in 1997, aboard our 1980 Newport 27, heading from the Pacific to the Atlantic. It was a rich and exciting ex...
Good Deed, Good Boat, Everyone Happy A couple of issues ago, we announced that Paul Koepf was giving away Bagheera, his turn-key, well-maintained 1981 Morgan 32 for a single US dollar to the writer wh...
Quick and Dry Boat Building Contest Good Old Boat contributing editor Cliff Moore sent the following report from this year’s Boatbuilding Challenge held at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufo...
Compass & Sextant: The Journey of Peregrin Took, by Phil Hoysradt, with Carol Hill (Yankee Publishing, 2019; 157 pages) Good Old Boat uses affiliate links and may earn a small commission if...
Department of Corrections Introducing Ira Klurfield’s “Poem of the Month” in the August issue of The Dogwatch, we got our wires crossed, completely. Ira’s first boat was not a...
Helping the next generation of sailors to find sailing Issue 128: Sept/Oct 2019 In 2016, my family and I were lucky to witness the dawn of the resurgence of youth sailing in American Samoa. I wish eve...
A Dollar and Some Words = a Morgan 32 Do you want to own Paul Koepf’s Bagheera, a turn-key 1981 Morgan 32? She can be yours for $1, and a winning essay. Read on, this is good. First, the essay. In at...
Memories make up for the deficiency in dollars recouped Issue 127: July/Aug 2019 Hopefully, by the time this issue goes to print she’ll be gone, out of my life. She’d better be, she’s sitting unattend...
Whether for babies or boats, it’s the human condition Issue 126: May/June 2019 When my first daughter was a newborn, I’d have jumped in front of a car to save her life, not because she was my daughter...
Could the 2018 Golden Globe Race have been fairer and safer? Issue 125: March/April 2019 As I write this column, four of the five sailors remaining in the 2018 Golden Globe Race have rounded Cape Horn...
Learn to refine it by chasing good old boats around the buoys Issue 124: Jan/Feb 2019 I am not a very skilled sailor. I’ve sailed thousands of miles in all types of weather, from Glacier Bay to Panama...
ASA RAISES OVER $40,000 TO BOOST LITERACY The American Sailing Association (ASA), America’s premier sail-education authority, announced last week that it raised $41,379 this fall to benefit Hands Acro...
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON HONORING HEROES The Association for Rescue at Sea (AFRAS) last month held their annual maritime search and rescue awards ceremony at the Rayburn House Office Building at Washingto...
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON WE WANT FANCY If you’ve done any fancy rope work on your boat, send us a great photo of it. Maybe you’ve wrapped your wheel or boathook handle. Maybe you’ve wrapped your keel-step...
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON WE WANT FANCY We have a fantastic readers’ photo spread coming up in the September issue, and we’re already thinking ahead to the next. If you’ve done any fancy rope work on your ...
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON FREE GOOD OLD BOAT Interested in a sound Albin Vega 27? She’s on the hard in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and reader James Villa is giving her away to a good home. Of course, there ...
BEWARE THE PENETRATION-PROMOTING CHEMICALS There are chemicals in many bottom paint strippers that serve to help the chemicals that break down old paint penetrate layers and layers of old paint...
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON WHAT’S IN A COLOR? You’re probably aware that the folks at BoatU.S. sell boat name graphics. You’re likely also aware that each year they release a list of the most popular boat n...
Full disclosure: Liz Clark is a friend. I followed her adventures in Latitude 38 magazine almost from the start, then had a good fortune to meet her in person in French Polynesia in 2015, as she was p...
This book is aimed squarely at wannabe first-time cruisers who are ready to take concrete steps to casting off for a voyage. The author is a relatively young cruiser who bought a 1973 Columbia 34 in n...
75th SWIFTSURE IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST For 75 years in a row, thousands of Pacific Northwest sailors have participated in a yacht race that started as an overnight sail to round a lightship anchored ...
We’re not like the other sailing magazines, but I know you know this already. The point I want to make is that we’re not really of a place. At the Annapolis boat show last fall, introducin...
STAR BABY IN THE SUMMER OF LOVE “Old boats rule,” is how reader Peter Allen put it in his email to me about the story he sent me on the Great Pumpkin Pursuit Race on San Francisco Bay. According to pr...