Offense Taken While I appreciate the idea of the umbrella for creating easy cockpit shade (“Cockpit Umbrella,” September 2020), as a 40-years veteran of the Navy, I take offense at your statement that...
“We are inching toward the middle of nowhere,” reads an entry in Michael’s log of the cruise of Juliet, a CSY 44 sailboat that is carrying the Partlow family of four through the San Blas Islands of Pa...
Time to Winterize If you live and sail where it gets really cold, you know about winterizing your boat. But did you know that insurance companies insure against freeze/thaw damage? And that coverage m...
Laura S. Wharton’s debut novel The Pirate’s Bastard, is set in colonial America in the first half of the 18th Century. This was an exciting place, especially for a young, ambitious man like Edward Mar...
It’s been said that the most useless things aboard a sailboat are an umbrella and a Naval officer. However, sometimes that’s just not completely true. Cruising in New England, I would ofte...
I wonder how many sailors secretly long for a relationship with, or owning or at least experiencing, a wooden boat. Though most sailboat owners nurture fiberglass craft, my guess is that deep down ins...
More Drones Drones are everywhere, and here is a use case that might make a lot of sense. Imagine a Remote Controlled Lifebuoy. That’s what the folks at OceanAlpha are calling their new water rescue d...
More Words on Electrification I have read through the reader letters in response to your question about electric propulsion and I want to offer one more point that I think was addressed only tangentia...
Boat Show Blues First, the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival was canceled, due to the pandemic (but they are putting on a fantastic virtual show, with a movie premiere. Next, we heard that the Newpor...
Amongst the hundreds of sailors I’ve known, only one kept the same boat nearly his entire life; she was a sweet 17-foot Silhouette, with bilge keels, that my friend Bob maintained flawlessly, a...
When we bought our 1976 Westerly Centaur, Breaking Wind, it came with an ancient-but-working Marinco solar-powered vent. Then, on a sporty day sailing on the Chesapeake Bay, the fan, poorly attached t...
Electrified Last month, I put it to the readers about electric propulsion in sailboats—I wanted your take, and I got it. As a whole, there are strong feelings and a strong desire for information. I hi...
A good writer doesn’t tell readers their story, they show readers their story. I know that Randy Baker succeeded on this front because I felt like I was almost aboard with he and his wife, Cheryl, whe...
As the title suggests, protagonist Paul Williams lives a simple life. He’s a single dad living aboard a 26-foot plywood boat, moored in an almost abandoned marina known as Davison’s Dyke, ...
Best Harbor in the U.S. is… US Harbors surveyed an audience of 5 million and received votes for 786 different harbors as candidates for the best. The winner? Depoe Bay, Oregon. This is a cool pl...
An Early Cat I enjoyed Ronald Sundelin’s article “A Very Early Fiberglass Cat” (The Dogwatch, June 2020). It reminded me of my first boating adventure, for which I used a couple of old 40-gallon...
If you were to try and pick the day (yes, the very day) that the United States was founded, what would it be? The founding of Jamestown? The arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers? The Declaration of Independ...
We’re among the lucky ones, we made it. After years of dreaming and prepping, we’re living aboard our boat in the Tropics. It’s everything we hoped it would be and we miss none of the creature comfort...
Summer Sailstice is on! We were shocked to realize that this is the 20th anniversary of Summer Sailstice, the annual worldwide celebration of sailing that coincides with—you guessed it—summer solstice...
In 1950, a friend of mine paid $7.00 for one half of a surplus aircraft wingtip fuel tank, made of aluminum. He added a keel to it, lost interest in the project, and sold the fuel tank boat to me for ...
Ready to Come About is both an inspiration and a cautionary tale. I met the author, Sue Williams, and her husband, David, when they delivered a presentation to our yacht club. Their tale was so fascin...
Sea Trial is two and a half stories in one, with each story perfectly complementing the other. Brian Harvey, accompanied by his wife, Hatsumi, and miniature schnauzer, Charley, set out to circumnaviga...
PC and Wishy-Washy Regarding your expressed opposition to the news you reported last month about the National Weather Service changing “Small Craft Advisory” to “Small Craft Warning,” I disagree. Wasn...
Small Craft Warning? We editors at Good Old Boat are sailors and wordsmiths, a great mesh of interest and vocation. It also means that when the National Weather Service (NWS) proposes a change in the ...
The Good, the Bad and the Worst Last month, I put it to the readers about sailing movies. I suggested a few, but wanted to know which were the best, the ones people love to watch. The responses helped...
I don’t read romance novels; this is the first romance novel I have ever read. But this book was given to me by a good friend who billeted Carol Cronin in her home during the Snipe North American Cham...
I am the wife of an old salt who breathes a sea-misted life. He sails year-round, shoving our Catalina 320 from the dock behind our Florida condo whenever the sun shines and the wind is fair. He is ha...
This book is a manual, a fundamentals textbook for managing a sailboat when crew is short or non-existent. That is not say its message is aimed at solo-circumnavigators or adventure-minded bluewater c...
Shipwreck! What does that word conjure in your mind? Adventure, mystery, cold dark places, treasure, risk, betrayal, intrigue? All of it is delivered generously in this book. A cast of fourteen Atlant...
Pirate is an NYU professor’s telling of his adventures aboard Pirate, a 1974 Swan 38 he purchased in 1989, only four years after he learned to sail. The number of miles that pass beneath a yacht’s kee...
