How can a boat sail faster than the wind? What is the most efficient hull shape? Why does a tall, skinny Marconi point better than an old gaffer? The aptly titled Evolution of Modern Sailboat Design e...
Have you ever wondered what life on a square-rigger was like . . . not as Horatio Hornblower, but as a sickly apprentice seaman crossing the Atlantic on your first voyage? How would you stand up to th...
Using GPS and a chart plotter for detailed navigation, I have become over-confident. Jerry and I refer to our boat’s system as “Nintendo navigation.” We can go to a small lump protru...
Most of the reading that I do about sailing is of a technical nature, but reading about how to get the perfect coat of varnish, racing tactics, or high-latitude cruising can get a little dry. Once in ...
Anybody remember the ’70s song, “The Mighty Quinn”? The artist was Manfred Mann. Quinn, of course, was an Eskimo, the polar opposite of sailing songwriter Eileen Quinn’s subjec...
BY ROGER MCAFEE (NIGHTHAWK MARINE LIMITED, VANCOUVER, B.C., APRIL 2002; 130 PAGES, $24.95) REVIEWED BY NORMAN RALPH In Fort Ross: The Ship in the Shadow, Roger McAfee presents readers with a smorgasbo...
I don’t know about you, but ever since we bought an older cruising sailboat I’ve developed a mild addiction to books about 12-volt electricity. There are many books available on the subjec...
After reading Margo Wood’s autobiography I feel she is someone I would like to meet. Her story, starting with the day she was born, is simply fun reading. I could put it down anytime and enjoy m...
Lin and Larry Pardey will be the first (and certainly the most credible) sailors to tell you that you won’t encounter many storms at sea. They want to encourage cruisers to go now, not to contin...
One of the challenges and pleasures, of sailing good old boats is that you run the boat yourself. A big responsibility, one which requires experience, skill, and knowledge of many things. Much of the ...
As you sail along with Salty and the Pirates, you’ll set out to solve a mystery packed with adventure and friendship. When Salty and his friends discover the old lost treasure of the ancient Zap...
Winter is here. For most of us that means our sailboats are under wraps and days on the water are only a pleasant memory. For those of us who would like a brief respite, two recently published books m...
A professional yacht designer says you might be happier with one The summer winds are fickle and light in many of the waters of North America. I’ve sailed in a number of them: Lake Ontario, Long Islan...
This is a chronological story of the life of Donald Crowhurst. The authors give insights into the psychological growth followed by the decay of the man into lunacy. Donald grew up in a time of heroes ...
BY MELISSA FISHER (MELISSA FISHER PUBLISHER, 2002; 94 PAGES; $14.95) REVIEWED BY KAREN LARSON Good Old Boat writer Melissa Fisher (Rudder Renewal, May 2001) has just developed a cruising cookbook of i...
HISTORICAL REVIEW Readers of this magazine generally agree on the virtues of small boats, modest budgets, and sailing trips that may start out less ambitious than Cape Horn voyages. Seamanship, simpli...
Have you dreamed of laying your own teak deck, installing a holding tank, or sprucing up your boat’s interior with new vinyl headlining but lack the know-how to achieve these dreams? If so, Boat...
In the story, Susan’s Sailing Adventures by Jahnn Swanker Gibson, Susan is a 12-year-old girl who tells of her many sailing trips with her mom, dad, and several family friends. Throughout the st...
Jack the Ripper in the 1880s. The sinking of the Lusitania during World War I. The British Royal Family. Modern day lovers enmeshed in a series of life-threatening events over which they have no contr...
When out of nowhere this voice said to me, “You will sail around the world”. Before I could even think, ‘Where did that come from?’ another part of me just said ‘yes.R...
When Good Old Boat editors asked me to review this mystery novel, I happily agreed because mysteries are my favorite junk food. But the editor/proofreader in me is always on duty, and it took me five ...
Beware of the gales of November. Those who sail the Great Lakes — especially Lake Superior — take that admonition seriously. Recreational boaters have the luxury of hauling boats out in Oc...
Cruising in Catamarans is an ideal primer for any Good Old Boat reader who has been thinking about the possibility of getting into multihulls but hasn’t a clue where to start. Chuck Kanter offer...
John Kretschmer has just published a new book of interest to good old boaters, Used Boat Notebook, offering 40 reviews of good old boats which have been published in Sailing magazine over the past six...
When Sandy Mackinnon set out on a vacation trip down the River Severn, in England, he wasn’t planning to be away more than two weeks. His boat, after all, was a 10-foot 10-inch Mirror Class ding...
In Volume 6 of C.S. Forester’s Hornblower saga, the hero cuts out a captured British cutter, the Witch of Endor, in Nantes harbor to complete his escape from the bowels of Napoleonic France down...
The highest compliment you can pay to some people is to say that they’ve never held down a job. For anybody with the goal of long-term cruising, the first question might be how to achieve that g...
One sailors’ lament might very well be “so many sailing books, so little time.” If time for reading them is not the issue, then space for storing them (particularly if you are cruisi...
More than a century ago some people opposed the use of fountain pens in schools because the art of using a pen knife to sharpen a quill would be lost. The boating community long ago quit using manila ...
BOYS DIED IN VAIN TRY TO RESCUE DAD This headline, from the July 2, 1935 Boston Post, chills the heart. It refers to the story of the ketch, Hamrah, and the Ames family, lost at sea during an ocean vo...
