Make holding-tank chemistry work in your favor Iss...
March 12, 2026
I’m fond of books that take me back to another time, as if I’ve slipped through a portal, to experience our human history in person. A Darker Sea is one of those books. Award-winning historian James L...
Dropboards give way to user-friendly doors Companionway dropboards are cumbersome to remove and replace and inconvenient to store. When you need them, they’re often buried deep in a locker. What’s a s...
SAILING FOR NEWER HUMANS I saw your inquiry about how to promote sailing as an activity among young people. My theory is that the same things that drew me in are likely to appeal to newer humans as we...
I am somewhere between the middle and end of refurbishing for fun and charter my 1982 Islander 48, Crescendo, hull number 1. She’s just about ready to move from Port Charlotte, FL where she’s been on ...
I rush to the Chesapeake Bay to fill up on sailing adventures. I explore the Bay with my boyfriend, Jordan, on Base Camp, our simple and reliable Pearson 31. You too may know the magical moments: smoo...
It’s wrong for hoary mariners to bemoan the evils of GPS and the loss of traditional navigational skills. Nonsense, as Jack Lagan points out in his Barefoot Navigator. His extended exploration of the ...
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON UNSTAYED: LOOKING FOR PHOTOS Good Old Boat is looking for readers’ photos for an upcoming spread. We want to see you and your boat, underway beneath a headsail that’s set flying, ...
It is Race Week in the Salish Sea, north-northwest of Seattle, Washington. This is important to many of the characters in Antonio Hopson’s novel Nefarious, but not because they want to win any of the ...
There is, perhaps, no more ephemeral and monstrous a phenomenon than a rogue wave. A ship that meets one may suffer grave damage or even disappear before a Mayday can be sent. And yet the sea is no di...
A friend and experienced boater related an interesting story over lunch. He’d recently had trouble backing his boat into a slip. The wind was on the beam and his bow would blow off, keeping him ...
Sometime in the late 70s or early 80s I became obsessed with the idea of owning a sailboat after seeing one on a trailer with a “For Sale” sign hanging from the bow, and soon found myself ...
By Karen Larson This summer the confluence of two things made a strong impression on me. The first was the opportunity to appreciate once again in its entirety The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graha...
FROM TURKEYS TO DOLPHINS I just read Jeremy’s article about the Hospice Turkey Shoot (“Chasing Silver in a Good Cause,” August 2017). Stu Polhamus is a 3-time Dolphin 24 owner (curre...
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON UNSTAYED: LOOKING FOR PHOTOS Good Old Boat is looking for readers’ photos for an upcoming spread. We want to see you and your boat, underway beneath a headsail that’s set flying, ...
Well-drilled junior sailors help save a mast To the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song . . . Let me tell you a little story ’bout an engineer named Tom. Had a little boat that he sailed upon t...
I drag the dinghy down the dune to the beach. The water lies so calm only an occasional ripple slurps ashore. I set my knapsack on the bow seat and shove off, the scrape of the hull on the sand giving...
When author Jim Trefethen wrote Sailing Into Retirement, he combined some information from his previous book, The Cruising Life, first published in 1999, with a second, updated edition in 2015. But, i...
Who’s the Captain? is a 56-page picture book of sailing life according to Dad and his crew. The humor in the text is accentuated by clever, colorful cartoons. Older kids who are familiar with the ins ...
Bill Streever is a biologist and a well-known nature writer. He and his wife, Lisanne, are novice cruising folk, who boldly set off on a cruise from Galveston, Texas, to Mexico’s Yucatan with only a v...
About 27 years ago, a group of sailors at Yankee Point Marina, off the Rappahannock River in Virginia, decided that a sailboat race in November would make a fine climax to the sailing season. Some of ...
Great alternator tensioning device In the June Good Old Boat Newsletter Dave Lochner has an article (“DIY V-Belt Tensioning”) with an excellent idea about tensioning the alternator belt. O...
The Tartan 34 Turns 50! Tim J. Dull, Vice Commodore of the Tartan 34 Classic Association, let us know that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Tartan 34, S&S design 1904. The sloop versio...
Not in all the years that hundreds of sailing books have landed on my desk for review have I thought that a novel was destined for the leap from boating literature to mainstream reading and popularity...
One night, about two years ago, we sailed Country Dancer, our Catalina 470, into a very narrow fjord just southeast of Thunder Bay, Canada. This little inlet was about 100-odd feet across, 25 f...
Vern Hobbs’ third novel is his best one yet, and the other two are very good. An artist and contributor to several sailing magazines, including Good Old Boat, Vern began his journey as an author in 20...
I read the title, The Boat Drinks Book: A different tipple in every port. I expected I’d find inside a cold and factual catalogue of all of the boat drinks I’d ever tasted, and perhaps a couple of new...
A tour of the marina was illuminating My good fortune to live on a small barrier island in Florida is offset by the misfortune of full-time employment that requires me to commute to the mainland daily...
The thing I like about opera is its ability to bring together of so many complementary artistic endeavors to create a production that pleases all the senses. That is, a production where the who...
“Initially a reluctant sailor, I fell in love with the cruising life…waking up each morning in a different place…Also the satisfaction of a life pared down to the essentials, yet all you really need…u...
The Salty Bard makes magical moments. For those who sail there are magic moments; and not all of them come with the canvas flying. While the swoosh of a hull slicing through white caps can quicken th...
