A sailboat’s precarious final voyage takes teamwork, tools, and a 10-foot tide. Issue 141: Nov/Dec 2021 Stretched out on my side amid tangled clumps of bittersweet and knotweed, my head resting on a r...
A boisterous sail and a new boat make for a day full of lessons learned. Issue 141: Nov/Dec 2021 “If you never make mistakes, you never learn anything.” The first time I said this to my kid, I thought...
Issue 141: Nov/Dec 2021 In 2018, I was part of a delivery crew charged with returning a Newport- Bermuda race boat to Rhode Island. It was a C&C 115 that had been stripped for racing, but one of t...
A boat’s small spaces and singular scents are alluring and memorable. Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022 I must have been a stowaway rat in a former life. Why else would I have a nose for the dim, fragrant (usua...
Mending a father’s grievous losses seemed impossible until another boat came along. Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022 Every year, countless sailors venture south. I never thought I’d be one of them but apparent...
After Baranof Island, an Alaskan voyage brings more beauty, a few bears, and stories to tell. Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022 As we walk down the main pier in Craig Harbor, our family’s dock cart is heavily l...
For these Lake Ontario sailors, the off-season is full on. Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022 It is February in Bluffers Park Marina in Toronto, and Lake Ontario is frozen solid. Winter in these parts can be pre...
A pleasant amble up the ICW is rudely interrupted by a near-sinking. Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022 It’s a hot August day, Mile Marker Somewhere, along a meandering stretch of well-marked rivers down in Sout...
Two friends’ seasonal ritual in a frozen boatyard sweetens the long Canadian winter. Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022 It is mid-January, Quebec winter at its best. The day is sunny, the air crisp, and the sky ...
Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022 When I was in my mid-20s, I instructed cruising and sailing classes on monohulls and catamarans in the Caribbean, Bahamas, Florida, and basically anywhere else I was asked to g...
A sailor is grateful for her fellow bold sailing women. Issue 143: March/April 2022 It was mid-March in Rock Hall, Maryland, and boaters were emerging from hibernation to prep for the upcoming season....
The most memorable physical education class in college had nothing to do with the gym. Issue 143: March/April 2022 “I’m sorry!” I shouted as a massive wave hurled itself across the bow, soaking my cre...
A first-time passage to Catalina Island serves up wildlife, outboard hijinks, starry nights, and happiness. Issue 143: March/April 2022 I was getting pretty good at the marina thing. Nine months after...
An unpredicted nighttime wind shift created a dangerous situation that demanded quick action. Issue 143: March/April 2022 After months of boat work, my partner, Chris, and I sat back to enjoy the frui...
How one sailor’s electric propulsion system went from dubious to undoubtable. Issue 143: March/April 2022 It is a beautiful, sunny day, and after more than 3,500 miles singlehanding across the North A...
Looking foolish is part of sailing, yet we come back for more. Issue 144: May/June 2022 After motoring into a popular Chesapeake Bay harbor on a holiday weekend, my first mate and I experienced a leve...
A journey up the Saint John River is a sweet reward for the effort of getting there. Issue 144: May/June 2022 “My phone scolded me for taking only 548 steps yesterday,” I confessed to Alex, my wife. “...
Being designated deck boy on the family sailboat was sometimes scary, always exciting. Issue 144: May/June 2022 Dirty, difficult, dangerous. Those were the kinds of jobs assigned to me as our family’s...
Issue 143: March/April 2022 OK, so this is a test. I am kneeling—no, really, I’m in what amounts to a contorted version of yoga’s “child’s pose”—facing aft in the rather narrow passage between the mai...
Issue 144: May/June 2022 Holding an inflatable globe, I point out the equator and describe that at zero degrees latitude, it divides the earth into northern and southern hemispheres. Next, the prime m...
Maybe a good small boat and a quiet lake are all you really need. Issue 145: July/Aug 2022 One sunny Saturday afternoon found me trailering my O’Day 192 to a nearby lake for an afternoon sail and an o...
A serendipitous turn brings a small sailboat full circle. Issue 145: July/Aug 2022 “I owe Kelley a letter. I wonder how Doug and Laura are doing? I need to call Mom and Dad. I should find a new dentis...
After a brisk autumn catboat sail, a catnap invokes memories. Issue 146: Sept/Oct 2022 The sail luffs as I round up into the wind, our mooring ball dead ahead. I stretch over the foredeck for the line...
The first launch of a Catalina 22 after bottom painting didn’t go as planned. Issue 146: Sept/Oct 2022 I bought my first boat, a well-used 1981 Catalina 22, after moving from Alaska to the East Coast....
A small-craft sailor finds a second chance with the perfect boat that got away. Issue 145: July/Aug 2022 Most of us have been there—fallen for an early love who for one reason or another became the on...
The boat was small, but the crush was huge. Issue 145: July/Aug 2022 At the age when girls often dream of riding horses, I was falling in love with a sleek, white, fiberglass hull. And though I’ve com...
During a seven-day rally, the Salish 100 celebrates the vivacity of small boats. Issue 145: July/Aug 2022 Usually, I’m better prepared. Self-recrimination rarely does any good, but as I fumbled to stu...
Through a long friendship of sailing and writing, a particular boat weaves a steady thread. Issue 146: Sept/Oct 2022 I wasn’t in the market for a sailboat. I already had one, a Pearson Ensign, to be e...
When life gives long-held racing plans lemons, you make cruising lemonade. Issue 146: Sept/Oct 2022 In late 2017, I decided that it would be really neat to enter the Marion-Bermuda Race and navigate m...
New to sailing, a young couple is making the adventure happen one step at a time. Issue 146: Sept/Oct 2022 In November 2020, Nathan and Kirra Davison-Lamb were aboard their newly acquired Cape Dory 31...
