When my wife Susan and I bought our Contessa 32, Hunter Star, in LaPaz, Mexico, I asked the owner if the boat came with a dinghy. He hemmed and hawed a bit, and finally said there was an old fiberglas...
Graveyard of the Pacific: Shipwreck and Survival on America’s Deadliest Waterway by Randall Sullivan There are many North American inlets out there that at times can be difficult, even dangerous. I on...
The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World’s Oceans by Laura Trethewey Sailors don’t use “maps” for navigating, we use charts. So why review a book called The Deepest Map? The short answ...
When you break a mast or need a new spreader base or just want to have a fresh coat of paint applied to an old aluminum mast, where can you go? What if you want a new cockpit arch, bow rollers, pulpit...
For those familiar with the writing and sailing accomplishments of Webb Chiles and his many voyages in small boats, a new short film about him is worth watching. The film follows the arch of Chiles...
Readers who enjoyed Bert Vermeer’s review of the Vancouver 27 in the September/October 2023 issue of Good Old Boat will get a kick out of best-selling author Donald Hamilton’s Cruises with Kathleen: M...
An easy and satisfying project to keep all your hoses organized. A friend of mine has a very large motor yacht and the degree of “comforts of home” and the associated complexity of plumbing in the eng...
For most of the 1980s we owned Dodieva, a 35-foot, Sparkman & Stephens-designed weekender sloop built in 1939. Dodieva had spent the winter in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts and in the spring of 19...
There is a common saying that every object on a boat must serve more than one purpose, and I recently learned that the sentiment can be applied to clothes as well. Although we cast off for cruising tw...
This Old Boat author Don Casey used the Coronado 35 as the poster child for ugly sailboats. Hollywood must not read such books. In two of the 10-episodes of The Night Agent currently on Netflix, a Cor...
When an enticing “free boat” presents an opportunity, a couple does their due diligence en route to a tough decision. My wife and I recently contemplated taking on a “free boat”...
Charley Morgan — 1929-2023 Sailing legend Charles E. Morgan (Charley to his friends, which was just about everyone) passed away January 6, 2023 on Treasure Island, Florida, at the age of 93, mere hour...
On October 15, 2022 at the Kingston Yacht Club in Kingston, Ontario, in front of a sold-out audience, 12 prominent past and present members of the Canadian sailing community were inducted into the Can...
Rob Ball’s legacy will live far beyond his years. I was shocked to hear of the recent death of my old friend Rob Ball at 79 years of age on September 9th from injuries suffered in a severe fall....
Keyhara was an old boat when my friend Mike and I found her sitting on a cradle in a backyard in Bay Village, Ohio in 1977. She needed a lot of work. The 23-foot cypress-hulled sloop had, at some poin...
Loosing tools in our tool bags, boxes or buckets is a common occurrence for many sailors. Where did that wrench go? Have you seen the small adjustable wrench? Well, one of readers has a clever solutio...
This is a remarkable story of one couple’s 17-year, 40,000-mile adventure that chronicles their sail from British Columbia to Lake Ontario the long way around. That is, heading west via French Polynes...
We’ve all heard it: “The two happiest days in a boat owner’s life are the day you buy the boat and the day you sell the boat!” While the idiom can be overused, it does apply to many sailors. I c...
This sailing tale needs to begin with the caveat that we are cruisers, not racers, and our 1978 Alberg 37 is outfitted as such. Yes, at one point in the Alberg’s past glory, she was considered fast by...
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...
Even Older We received the following letter on March 18, from our friend Jeanne Socrates, who last year became the oldest person to have ever sailed solo, unassisted, and non-stop around the world. He...
Vintage Racing-Rigging Info Wanted Reader Hal Nash of Waldport, Oregon, wrote asking for our help. We don’t have the knowledge he seeks and we referred him to riggers we know, but offered to also put...
When I was with Mark Ellis Design in the mid and late 1980s and early 1990, Mark was in the process of successfully incorporating more powerboats into his design portfolio. I expect that was the reaso...
Jimmy Buffett, the novelist. Who knew? Well, apparently a lot of people. After all, this is his third book for adult readers, including his autobiography, A Pirate Looks at Forty. But, in a way, Jimmy...
Highly Questionable I could not believe that you published this short article (“Easy Charting,” February, The Dogwatch). Taking a picture of a chart on a smartphone? Really? While I’m not sure, ...
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Is The Tears of Dark Water a novel about sailing? It begins on the water. Daniel Parker and his 18-year-old son, Quentin, are well-weathered Americans long into a circumnavigation aboard their ...
There’s more to going offshore than buying a boat and outfitting it. It’s also an unbelievably emotional journey. It turns your world inside out. Often, books about going offshore will only broach the...
Saildrone “You knew it was coming…” is the message Good Old Boat contributing editor Allen Penticoff sent me with a link to saildrone.com. Maybe we should have, seems to be the era of the drone, from ...
