Innehållsförteckning för June 2022 från SAIL

Every year, countless parents find themselves navigating the do’s and don’ts of enrolling their children in a summer learn-to-sail program for the first time. While the prospect of getting your kid on the water is exciting, as a sailing camp program director, there are a lot of things I wish parents knew going in. Here are a few recommendations, based on the questions I’m asked all the time as the summer season approaches. GEAR When it comes to buying kids’ gear, there is a lot to consider. A life jacket that fits well and closed-toe shoes are the two most important items to have at almost any learn-to-sail program. Most programs do a life jacket test, in which the kids swim and are pulled out of the water by their…

This June, after over 25 years of research, planning and work, the completed replica of the Virginia will be launched from the Bath Freight Shed in Bath, Maine. This former railway station has been converted into a maritime hidden gem, featuring a small visitor center and educational programs in addition to being the site where countless volunteers have spent two decades hand-building the 51ft Virginia. The original Virginia was a 17th-century pinnace built by a group of colonists who’d settled the Popham Colony, a contemporary of the famous Jamestown colony in Virginia, at the mouth of the Kennebec River. Though short-lived, the Popham Colony did produce the first ocean-going vessel built in the Americas. Although little is know about the original vessel, in light of the historical significance of both…

After having had to shut down due to the Pandemic the past couple of years, the BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival saw a week of beautiful conditions with which to celebrate its 49th year. The sailing festival kicked off on the morning of March 30 with a race from Nanny Cay to Scrub Island that boasted wind conditions of 14 to 18 knots. The 15-mile course played host to a number of fleets that included everything from racing monohulls and multihulls to bareboat charter cruisers. Among the winners was the Botin 52 Fox, which came in first in its fleet, skippered by Victor Wild. Coming in second was the J/122 El Ocaso from the United Kingdom followed by a J/111 from the BVI’s called Spike. Other fleets, like the…

Although they don’t generally make it into print, there’s often a backstory to the boat tests we do at SAIL: case in point my sail trial of the J/9, winner in the “daysailer” category of SAIL’s 2022 Best Boats” awards. Checking the forecast before setting out from Boston for Newport, Rhode Island, it looked like we’d be in for a pretty spirited sail with windspeeds in the mid-20s. Sure enough, crossing the Sakonnet River Bridge it was blowing stink. Great! I thought, the perfect day to put a boat like the 28ft J/9—the first in a planned series of daysailers from J/Boats—through its paces. The reason I was so happy to discover we were going to have a hatful of wind is because I was curious how the boat was…

It’s something all sailors dread—seeing the floorboards in the cabin sole afloat—and it’s what I saw on my way back from a sail across Biscayne Bay. Since I was on my own, I immediately let Betty Jane, my 1982 Mystic 20 Catboat, round up into the wind and went below to turn on the bilge pump. For some reason the automatic float switch had stopped working. I also got out the manual bilge pump and pumped away. Luckily, it wasn’t a massive leak, and a few minutes later the bilge was dry. In hindsight, I think the excess water in the bilge was due to my running before the wind for the past hour averaging 5 to 7 knots—not too shabby for a 40-year-old catboat! I think the pressure from…

When nearly 20 Friendship sloops set out for the starting line off Rockland, Maine, this past summer, they didn’t just start milling about in preparation for the gun. Instead, they gathered together beyond the breakwater so a Friendship Sloop Society member could scatter the ashes of her late parents, per her father’s wishes. After a brief ceremony, the fleet turned back toward the starting line to begin three days of racing as part of the 60th annual Friendship Sloop Homecoming Days regatta. Bringing together like-minded sailors and the sloops they love, the event provides the opportunity for a yearly gathering of the Friendship Sloop Society (FSS—fss.org), founded in 1961—a homecoming of sorts for many of the participants, who began taking part when they were toddlers in life jackets. “When the…

Send your photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com And don’t forget to sign up for our free eNewsletter, Under Sail, via our website sailmagazine.com For my birthday, we sailed to Catalina Island on a 50ft Jeanneau to celebrate. We had large pod of common dolphins at our bow for 45 minutes with an amazing wave escort out of Avalon. I must say, it was the most perfect and amazing weekend— Charlotte Hampton, via sailmail@sailmagazine.com Our Seward 25 headed back to North Alabama Sailing Marina— N. Andrew Myrick, Guntersville, AL Mind’s Eye, a Catalina 36, returning to Milford, Connecticut. Photo by Sue Ratkiewich of the Milford Yacht Club — Jack Carlson, via sailmail@sailmagazine.com Our Catalina 34 anchored at Camelot Island in the Thousand Islands— Art and Fya Veldhuizen, via sailmail@sailmagazine.com We relaxed this summer…

SailGP will be holding the second event of its third season in Chicago, June 18-19. Chicago’s Navy Pier will serve as the site of the regatta’s central race village, with on-shore entertainment and ticketed viewing areas. The Chicago stopover marks the first time SailGP has brought its racing to freshwater. Ten international teams will be racing a fleet of foiling F50 catamarans against the backdrop of the Chicago skyline on Father’s Day weekend. The event will serve to bring major international sailing back to Chicago after the city hosted the America’s Cup World Series in 2016. It is hoped the event will encourage growth in the North American market for the SailGP series. SailGP CEO Russell Coutts said, “SailGP’s close-to-shore action has thrilled fans around the world, and we couldn’t…

As a former dinghy racer, I can be hard to please when it comes to “bigger boats.” And while the 27ft Saffier SE 27 Leisure is hardly “big,” I’m always skeptical the freedom and performance that made me fall in love with sailing will still be there in any boat that weighs more than my car. However, the Dutch-built Saffier SE 27 was an absolute joy to sail and will give a Laser a run for its money when it comes to responsiveness, while at the same time keeping its crew a whole lot drier. We tested the Saffier SE 27 on a crisp, blustery day, one of the last perfect September sailing days in Newport, Rhode Island. There was enough wind that a lesser boat might have been overpowered,…

In 1980, I owned a 26ft fiberglass ketch named Recycle, a full-keeled vessel with a 10 hp Honda outboard in a well behind the tiller. An inflatable dinghy would have been nice, but I could only afford an 8ft plywood pram. She had reinforced fiberglass seams, which made her reasonably strong and watertight. I suppose I could have found a used outboard for her, but she rowed quite well, and I didn’t have a good place to carry another outboard. Although she was light enough to hoist her up on deck, there was no place to store a dinghy without causing some serious sailing and visibility problems. As a result, when it came time to cast off lines for a winter cruise from Annapolis, Maryland, to the Bahamas and back,…

“I’ll admit, it’s still hard to watch the boat leave the dock sometimes,” says former Volvo Ocean Race sailor Mark Towill. Since meeting during a Transpac campaign over 15 years ago, he and his teammate Charlie Enright have sailed thousands of miles together aboard two Volvo Ocean Race campaigns, championing sustainability along the way. During the 2023 edition of The Ocean Race, however, their boat will be setting off without him, and though that’s been an adjustment, it’s just one of many big changes for their team. After the wrap of the Volvo Ocean Race in 2017-18, some big changes were announced for the crewed around-the-world event, the biggest of which was the addition of a second fleet. In recent years, the event has been sailed aboard VO65s, a one-design…

During the pandemic I was stuck aboard Guiding Light, a Lagoon 410, in St. Lucia for over a month. During that time, as I worked on the boat, I started by doing a spring cleaning in my spares locker and finding some parts and material that I forgot I had. As soon as I saw them, I knew they would be perfect to build a bracket I wanted at the helm to hold the tablet that had replaced my chartplotter. Many people have asked why I replaced my charterplotter with a tablet using Navionics soft ware. The answer is simple. My chartplotter is a Garmin 4212, which came with Guiding Light when I bought it 11 years ago. I figure the Garmin is probably 13-15 years old. The screen had…

Discovering Amistad and Mystic Seaport Museum have partnered to organize their third annual Juneteenth festival, featuring concerts, speakers and a reflection on the lasting legacy of racial injustice in America. Declared a National Holiday in 2021, Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, commemorating the day news that the Civil War was over and that enslaved people were free reached Galveston, Texas. Mystic Seaport Museum has an ideal partner for hosting the event in Discovering Amistad, an organization that manages the replica of the Amistad, a 19th century two-masted schooner. In 1839, the schooner was used to transport 53 Mende people (from modern-day Sierra Leone) who were being trafficked into slavery in Cuba. After being sold to Spanish plantation owners, the Mende people fought back and took…

While many sailors are said to be superstitious, I never had any qualms about casting off lines on a Friday or hanging a large stalk of Jamaican bananas from the mizzen. Nor did I see any cause for concern heading out on “The Ides of March” for a quick daysail aboard my Dyer dinghy. After a dozen years of sailing in the tropics, I had just finished my first winter up north again on Long Island, New York, in what felt like forever. Except for a few hours in an antique iceboat on Long Island’s frozen eastern Great South Bay, I hadn’t been sailing in months. Then came a sunny, sparkling clear day with a brisk northwesterly breeze, following a frontal passage in the middle of March. I decided a…

Aluminum cruising boats from French builders like Garcia, Boréal and Alubat have been gaining traction in the United States over the past several years. These heavy-duty so-called “adventure cruisers” are versatile and, of necessity, conservatively rigged, with centerboards that both reduce draft and allow owners to beach their vessels with impunity. For many years Alubat has also offered a high-performance alternative to its centerboard Ovni range, the ULDB Cigale line, which features deep fixed keels, much taller rigs and lighter construction. The first Cigale 16 ever shown in the United States appeared at Annapolis last fall, and we were anxious to get aboard. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION The original Cigale 16, as designed by Jean-Marie Finot back in the 1990s, was loosely based on then-current Open 60 designs, with round bilges,…

It was early March and freezing cold in Michigan. Snow lay in patches on the barren fields, and dark clouds hung just above the treetops. Ice skimmed the roadside puddles as we left Ann Arbor, bound for sunny Florida. I was driving a minivan and towing behind me a 16ft Wayfarer dinghy, owned by the Michigan Sailing Club. This was my first trailering experience. I’ve been a keelboat sailor for 50 years, but After I sold my Westsail 32, I’ve returned to my dinghy-sailing roots. Trailer sailing has the enormous appeal of allowing one to explore new waters that are suddenly within a day’s reach by car, rather than weeks away by boat. My friend Jeanne, a fellow member of the Michigan Sailing Club, followed behind keeping an eye on…

For the record, I will be the first to admit that a professionally executed reverse-tuck Class 1 eye splice on modern braided line adds an air of proficiency and seamanship to any boat. When I see a boat with braided line eye splices, I am more impressed than any amount of brightwork or varnish. The finished art (and I use that term “art” deliberately) is what everyone notices. What nobody sees, though, is how the actual splice is concocted. (I use the term “concocted” deliberately as well.) Nor do they see you soaking your hands in hot water for 10 minutes Afterward to reduce the pain and swelling from pulling and pushing the rope strands through one another! The first reverse-tuck splice I ever tried took all day and used…