Indholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2024 i SAIL

Small boat sailors interested in performance and even simply sailing well know how important it is to be able to feel shifts and changes in wind pressure and respond quickly to them. Harken’s new Zircon blocks deliver that feeling of sensitivity, leading to more precision with your sheets, smoother take-downs, and even, by some accounts, lessening muscle fatigue and thereby boosting time on the water. The secret is all in the bearings. Trusted Delrin and even Torlon bearings deform under load. The ceramic (zirconium oxide) bearings and liners in Zircon blocks don’t even flinch at their load ratings. Bearing for bearing, they can handle more compressive load than stainless bearings of the same size (700% more, according to Harken) or titanium and have a smoother, less porous surface for better…

I’m not sure what I expected when I signed on as guest crew for a week aboard Pride of Baltimore II. But in the windy rain, my fingers sticky with tar as I helped tension the rig, I sure didn’t expect this. We were holed up behind Cape Fear, North Carolina, making repairs after the jibboom had snapped off in heavy seas the day before near Cape Lookout 70 miles to the northeast. Helping to rig a temporary stay for the fore topmast, I thought of the countless sailors who must have done the exact thing in this very place. Over the centuries, this anchorage had likely seen many a crew licking their wounds and repairing broken gear after a tussle with the treacherous waters of Cape Hatteras. And although…

ARE YOU OUT THERE SAILING, CRUISING AND LIVING THE SAILING LIFE? Share your experiences with other readers. Send your photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com And don’t forget to sign up for our free eNewsletter, Under Sail, at sailmagazine.com/newsletter Photos Running downwind in my 1979 IOR 2 tonner, Sabra, just before a jibe to the finish. This is part of the annual Lopez Cup race in San Juan channel, with Shaw Island in the background and the Washington State ferry to starboard. We managed to win our class. —John Miller, via sailmail@sailmagazine.com Here’s a picture taken sailing on Lake Erie east toward Buffalo. I was participating in the Lake Erie Solo Challenge, a solo, nonstop race of over over 300 nautical miles. My sailboat, Nebesa, is an Olson 911SE. —Jack Jamison, Erie, PA…

I had no warning of impending disaster. The morning sky was deep blue, and the fronds of the palm trees on Belize’s beautiful South Water Caye were waving to the usual easterly breeze. I was anchored in the lee of this small island, maybe 400 yards from shore. The previous day we had dropped my 45-pound Manson Supreme anchor on a large patch of sand that gleamed brilliant white amid the ubiquitous seagrass, backed down to snug it in, let out 100 feet of chain for a 10:1 scope, swum over it to ensure it was buried, and called it good. According to the anchor alarm on my Vesper XB8000 AIS, we had not budged since then. The weather forecast promised nothing but more of the same. To the west,…

Every year, boatbuilders of all types submit their new models to be nominees in the SAIL Top 10 Best Boats contest. We start reviewing these as soon as they are available, sometimes traveling throughout the country or even overseas to examine the boats, talk to designers, builders, and dealers, and most important, to take these boats out sailing. When it’s possible, we like to spend at least a day onboard—more if that’s feasible—to sail the boats as we believe potential owners would want to sail them. This year, one of our reviewers helped deliver a boat from Annapolis to Connecticut; another spent all day racing and then well into the night sailing on a racer-cruiser model. The more hours we can get onboard the better, because it gives us a…

Making it to the starting line of a nonstop global circumnavigation is never a simple matter, no matter who you are and where you come from. But for Ronnie Simpson, who on October 28 joined a handful of other sailors leaving A Coruña, Spain, for their start in the Global Solo Challenge, it was a particularly sweet and charged moment. Sweet, because he has worked on a dream and a shoestring for so long and has seen his efforts come to fruition, making it to the start with a solid sponsor for his Open 50, Shipyard Brewing, and with more than 140,000 hard-earned ocean miles in everything from a Moore 24 to a 72-foot ORMA trimaran. Charged, because for this medically retired U.S. Marine, combat-wounded in Iraq at just 19…

I discovered sailing on the south coast of Cape Cod, where the breeze is a reliable 15-22 knots out of the southwest like clockwork every day; the sun rises, heats up the shore, that air rises, and the sea breeze comes rushing in. My first taste of sailing in light air happened in high school and college where I was racing predominately on small lakes. The inconsistent and lighter winds frustrated me at first, but as I learned to better harness them and apply that to my strategy on the racecourse, light air and I got on better terms. As I expanded my cruising and racing world, I learned that light air was far more prevalent than my perspective acknowledged. To enjoy sailing more, I needed to improve my ability…

Forty years ago, the solid-state revolution, which gave us computers and a host of increasingly powerful electronic devices, reshaped boat energy systems in ways that have underpinned a remarkable transition from camping out to enjoying the comforts of home. Initially, this required an AC generator to be run long hours, and sometimes 24/7, often extraordinarily inefficiently and frequently with a duty cycle that was (and still is on many boats with generators) damaging to the generator engine. Over the years, three technologies have fused to sideline the generator and today are fueling a new revolution in onboard energy systems. These are DC-to-AC inverters, lithiumion batteries, and alternators with levels of output we could only dream about in the past. Inverters can now handle any AC load on a boat, including…