Innehållsförteckning för April 2025 från SAIL

Have you had an encounter or collision with marine life while at sea? The Marine Mammal Advisory Group (MMAG) needs sailors’ help compiling data for their global Marine Strike Log. This critical collision data will help identify high-risk areas and hopefully minimize harm to marine biomes, as well as improve safety for sailors and their vessels. “Seafarers are the eyes and ears of the scientific community,” says Damian Foxall, co-founder and coordinator of MMAG and Volvo Ocean Race veteran. “By sharing our observations, we build a better understanding of our impact on ocean life and can use this knowledge to inform better practices as we shift our role from being ocean users to ocean stewards. We’d like to thank in advance everyone who takes the time to complete this survey.”…

I sucked in my gut as if that was going to skinny up our draft. A quick check of the chartplotter said we definitely were in the right place, but the coral heads reaching up from the bottom in the clear water below said otherwise. With the engines in neutral to protect the props, we drifted, tensely waiting for the breeze to push us into deeper water. When we cleared, the group exhale was audible. “They weren’t kidding about Belize being shallow,” said Joe. “This’ll about give you a heart attack.” I have a low tolerance for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” blasting through speakers in packed stores, so our Belize charter timing in November was a perfect pre-holiday escape. I booked a flight and applied for the Belize Port Authority…

After battling the foul currents and light night winds throughout Nantucket Sound, we finally scooted through Pollock Rip Channel and found ourselves about 10 miles east of Cape Cod. Alison and I were doublehanding to Vinalhaven, Maine, aiming to drop anchor in Long Cove, a cozy anchorage on the west side of the island, where we’d hide for a day from some predicted wild weather. On board, the breeze was softly coming over our port transom and the ocean was relaxed. Jack, the windvane autopilot, was holding course and I was keeping myself entertained with a rigging project. When I first bought Ben-Varrey, our Luders 33, there wasn’t any sort of preventer. Up to this point, I’d secure a line to the end of the boom and then make the…

When we first set sail on Avocet, our single sideband radio (SSB) was just another piece of gear, a rather mystifying communications device that sat dormant alongside our heavily used VHF and other nav station electronics. It wasn’t until four years into our liveaboard and cruising life that we had the opportunity to sit down, learn, and fully grasp its value, thanks to our friend Baron from S/V Remedy. While anchored in the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, Baron taught us how to tune into various nets, including the one that he and his wife were controllers of, the Amigo net. Within minutes, familiar voices of friends en route to French Polynesia filled the airwaves. Despite having Starlink at our fingertips, there was something nostalgic and magical about the radio’s crackling…

As my husband, Scott, and I departed Charleston, South Carolina, with the outgoing current, a crisp November sunrise marked our first month as full-time liveaboards. We’d worked down the East Coast from New York City on our 1983 Contest 36 and left Charleston with no destination in mind, wanting only to make progress south before jumping to Cumberland Island, Georgia. With the bow pointed southwest, we sailed upwind in 10 steady knots on a composed close reach while lounging in the cockpit, reading, and fishing. It was the first time we experienced a feeling we would later come to relish: the lightness of setting to sea, a feeling almost like going on vacation, but better. Once we got comfortable with landmasses falling away, heavy with their burdens, we started to…

The problem with going down 411 steps is that you must go back up them, because there are no elevators in a cave. Spelunking doesn’t usually come to mind on charter, but we were following in the footsteps of Lord Byron and loads of European royalty by exploring this 300-foot-deep, 45-million-year-old cave on the small island of Antiparos, in the heart of the Greek Cyclades Islands. It was worth the exertion. After the most exercise we’d had in over a week, we treated our-selves to lunch at the Rooster Wellness Center on the island’s western shore. I was a little surprised they let our sweaty motley crew in. This is the kind of spa resort where the staff wear silk pajamas and speak in hushed tones about hot stone treatments.…

“This is by far the best finish line I’ve ever crossed. Today, I can confidently say I’m the happiest man in the world,” reported an exhausted Charlie Dalin shortly after crossing the Vendée Globe finish line on January 14, 2025. The 40-year-old skipper had spent 64 days, 19 hours, and 22 minutes at sea, racing solo around the world to win the 2024/25 Vendée Globe in MACIF Santé Prévoyance and smashing the course record by more than nine days. In recent years, the amiable French skipper has risen from a Figaro contender to prominence in the IMOCA class, securing the IMOCA 60 world championship in 2021 and 2022, sailing with the winning 11th Hour Racing Team campaign during The Ocean Race in 2023, and scoring line honors in the 2020/21…

Sailing more than 1,100 nautical miles in 25 days is a task for energetic, determined voyagers. That aptly describes Sam Ness and his partner, writer Rachel Jorgensen, who took their 1980 Cheoy Lee 48 from Portsmouth, Rhode Island, to Traverse City, Michigan, in one fell swoop last summer. But this story doesn’t start there. It starts in Thailand in 2016, when they conjured a dream of sustainable travel and settled on sailing despite having minimal experience. The route from the white sand beaches of Southeast Asia to crossing under the Mackinaw Bridge in their own cruising sailboat was a multi-year, multi-step process. First, Sam learned commercial diving, a skill inspired by exploring coral reefs from Thai dive boats. After adopting this vocation, he lived in a converted ambulance on job…

Using wind to generate power is something sailors have been doing for decades to make their boats more energy autonomous and clean in terms of environmental impact. But what if you could use wind—and sailboats that consistently stay in that wind—to actually generate “green” hydrogen fuel to be delivered where needed? That’s the premise behind DRIFT Energy, which has won the UK’s 2025 Startups 100 Sustainability Award for its innovative approach to tackling climate change and developing scalable alternatives to fossil fuels. Based in Bath, England, DRIFT Energy is using sailing and sailboats as the basis for the world’s first mobile renewable energy class of vessels. The design platform is a 60-meter aluminum catamaran—what DRIFT calls an “energy harvesting ship.” Put simply, here’s how it works: Under sail and at…

Diversifying ways to generate power onboard without using fossil fuels, and maximizing that power generation, is the holy grail of sailors who want energy independence, self-sufficiency, and a cleaner wake. Solar and wind are the most common and well practiced methods, but hydrogeneration—harnessing the power of your boat’s speed while sailing to generate juice via the spinning propeller—is gaining traction in today’s ever-evolving hybrid and electric systems. Much of the focus on these systems has been inside the boat, rather than at the prop itself, but now GORI, the Danish propeller manufacturer, has developed the GORI Hybrid Propeller, which is specifically designed for this task while also optimizing performance. Based on the same platform as the company’s DAME Design Award-winning GORI 3-Blade Folding Propeller, the new wheel is the first…

The paper bag full of hot, buttery croissants landed with a thunk on deck above our sleeping heads. Alex, my wife, stirred in her bunk and murmured with delight. It was 06:15 and breakfast had arrived. The sailing life on the remote French island of Saint Pierre is steeped in many traditions, and breakfast delivery was a favorite. Ours was one of four sailboats tied up to the Éric Tabarly Wharf in the tiny French territory off the coast of Newfoundland. This morning was Chip on the yawl’s turn to go early and collect the prized flaky delicacies for all the boat crews before the Boulangerie de Girardin sold out, as it was known to do. I was hoping the decadent pastry would calm my frazzled nerves worn thin by…

In March, the Cruising Club of America honored Carter Bacon of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with its Rod Stephens Seamanship Trophy for his “his meritorious handling of the sinking of his classic 50-foot K. Aage Nielsen sloop Solution during the return sail after the 2024 Newport Bermuda Race. “Abandoning one’s 60-year-old yacht after 24 years and numerous voyages, including several races to Bermuda and a transatlantic crossing, is a difficult decision to make—comparable to losing a family member,” the CCA said in a media release. “Bacon put his crew’s safety first and foremost, which he is quick to say was an easy decision for him. For what is all too often a dangerous and chaotic event, in a carefully orchestrated manner and with expert support from the U.S. Coast Guard, Bacon and…