Make holding-tank chemistry work in your favor Iss...
March 12, 2026
Ever wonder why all Good Old Boat book reviews are positive? It’s not because all the books we review are good. It’s not because our reviewers are kind to a fault. It’s because when a Good Old Boat bo...
Note: Editor Karen Larson asked Avital Keeley — a junior member of the Good Old Boat crew and an enthusiastic newbie — to review this book. What better opinion than one from a youngster who is very in...
This is an intriguing little book. Although it is titled Notable Boats, it really is the story of some extraordinary people. Compton, who is a past editor of the British magazine, Classic Boats, sets ...
Is it every sailor’s dream to rescue a mermaid, a topless lady in distress? What could be better? How about a somewhat modern slant on the mermaid theme…say, a mermaid who can get around on two good l...
In the wake of his brother’s recent death, George Michelsen Foy becomes interested in the fate of his great, great grandfather, Capt. Halvor Michelsen, lost aboard the Norwegian packet Stavanger Paque...
The amateur yachting historian has been blessed recently with a plethora of superb new biographies of prominent yacht designers. There is Martin Black’s weighty biography of George Lennox Watson, The ...
Lin and Larry Pardey have had a lifetime of adventure and they have willingly invited the rest of us along for most of those grand experiences through their books and published articles. Lin did most ...
James Baldwin has once again pulled out his logs, sharpened his memory, and shared the incredible tale of one of his circumnavigations aboard Atom, his 28-foot Pearson Triton. The first circumnavigati...
I’ve been sailing Tortuga, my 1969 Westerly Centaur, since 2003, and about 75 percent of the time I’m alone, so needless to say I was thrilled when asked to review Andrew Evan’s book, Singlehanded Sai...
I first got the bug to own a sailboat sometime in the late ’70s and for a while I toyed with the idea of building one. However, as the years went by and I came to understand myself more, I realized th...
In the Wake of Heroes: Sailing’s Greatest Stories is an apt title for this collection of excerpts from sailing adventures penned over the last century and a half. Tom Cunliffe provides a brief introdu...
Historical novelist James Haley has entered the crowded field of nautical fiction occupied by the likes of Patrick O’Brian (Aubrey-Maturin series), C. S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower), Richard Woodman...
Michael and Elizabeth Tanner and a friend charter a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest and enjoy a typical cruise . . . that is, until the fog closes in and a large mystery boat attacks for no apparent...
Sailing Toward Sunrise chronicles the journey of Bob and Karen Jones, recently retired, as they travel from Corpus Christi to Chesapeake Bay via the Intracoastal Waterway in Watercolors, their 21-year...
This is a thoroughly enjoyable book! Red Flags in Blue Water is about assorted calamities R.A. Bard has encountered as a commercial fisherman turned delivery skipper. Most of his passages have procee...
This book could be called the “Bible of Bile” or perhaps “Fifty Shades of Gray and Black Water” but its real title is longer than your boat’s sanitation hose. It is The N...
Contrary to the title, this is not a book about how to anchor. This is a book on how to select and size the gear required for anxiety-free anchoring. As such, it is a great resource. Like all good eng...
Penelope is a 22-foot Marshall catboat; Down East is the Maine coast for which W.R. Cheney has a passion and Penelope Down East is an engaging collection of their adventures together. It is not a ship...
Ladyship started life in 1971 as a twin-keel Westerly Pageant 23, exported from England to a Westerly dealer on the lower Chesapeake Bay. She moved from there to an owner in Virginia and somehow ended...
“Boredom drove me to boating. There was little else to do…the heat was oppressive . . . the water provided the best relief from the July swelter at 17 degrees north latitude.” Linus Wilson, During a ...
This is the true story of the first transatlantic yacht race, which was the direct result of a drunken bet made at New York’s Union Club in October 1866, with the race itself taking place in mid-to-la...
Capt. Jim Stewart has been sailing for over 30 years and has been teaching boating since 2004. An employee of SailTime on Lake Michigan since 2005, he has a Merchant Marine license and is a certified ...
Michael Robertson has written the book I’ve been waiting for. It’s the book telling freelancers (sailing writers in particular) how to get their articles published. It’s the book telling fellow sailor...
Lana and her best friend, Kitty, both fleeing dysfunctional families, are young wanderers exploring the Far East. They discover the yacht The Blue and join its crew of similar free spirits, young peop...
The year is 1798: a British frigate under Her Majesty’s flag sets sail from England bound for the Mediterranean. A young cabin boy with a gift for horses and mathematics is onboard, about to emb...
Let’s face it. “The rest of us” are on a budget and have to watch how much we spend on our boats, which is why we read this magazine. Many of us have also had the grand dream of sail...
Although he died almost 40 years ago, Ray Hunt left an indelible legacy in yacht design. Hunt is now more known for the development of the Deep-Vee powerboat hull configuration, which remains today vi...
Reflection and absorption create quiet on board The iron wind is a fixture aboard most of today’s sailboats. On a typical sailboat the inboard engine lives directly beneath the floor of the cockpit, s...
Cleaning the mainsail track made easy Some time ago, Don Launer came up with a great device for lubricating the mainsail slot (see “Sailtrack Lubricator,” March 2008) but I have always thought there m...
A sailing legend puts a wayward boat’s demise in perspective In June 2013, at about the time the remains of a century-old Lake Superior shipwreck, the freighter Henry B. Smith, were discovered 30 mile...
