Sommaire pour March 2026 de SAIL

I was sitting on the bow, looking at the twinkling lights of Cefalù, Sicily, and wiping away tears. We had saved and planned for years, and now we were finally living our dream aboard our catamaran, Coronado. Our argument earlier that day was one of many that had been happening all too frequently since moving aboard four months earlier. The view was magical, but I was frustrated, discouraged, and searching for flights home. After almost twenty-five years of marriage, my husband John and I were equally committed to our new life. I thought we had prepared well for cruising, training in everything from diesel engine repair to handling medical emergencies. I was mentally prepared No for bad weather and tough passages. What I did not expect was all the emotional…

SAIL Editor-in-Chief Lydia Mullan has been named as the Yachting Journalists’ Association (YJA) Young Journalist of the Year. The award, which has never before gone to an American, celebrates her career and in particular her reporting in the wake of the wreck of the J/122 Alliance in the 2024 Newport to Bermuda Race. In addition to her eight years at SAIL, Mullan was also the race commentator for the 2025 Transpac and Marblehead-Halifax races, the media manager for Cole Brauer’s historic circumnavigation, and a three-time Boating Writer’s International first place award recipient. She accepted the Young Journalist of the Year prize at a ceremony in London this November. Her article, A Eulogy for Alliance (from the October 2024 issue), was the first-person account of the sinking, which led to a broader…

The whale erupted from the water, splashing close enough to leave us breathless. Our students grabbed their cameras in a frenzy. For most, this was their first offshore passage. They had signed aboard with Morse Alpha Expeditions for the week, to gain experience and boost their sailing confidence. My co-instructor Tara and I smiled as we kept an eye on the surface for another breach. From the awe of encountering one of the largest animals in the sea to the practical challenges of navigating the strong currents in Cape Cod Canal, we would face it all—standing watch under the stars, timing our approach with the tides—all in a passage that felt both familiar and reminded us how extraordinary the ocean can be. The helmsman turned Rocinante, our Norseman 447, slowly…

For those of us in colder climates, the long winters serve as a bit of a rest time. Sure, there is always maintenance to be done, schedules to coordinate, certifications courses to take, but it’s also a time for cozy nights in and dreaming of your next adventure. Before we know it, spring commissioning will be here. For me, the slow winter months are bookended on one side with the autumn boat shows and on the other with the Northeast Ocean Racing Symposium, a late-March event that draws sailors from all around to get down to the sport’s brass tacks together. The day is packed with lectures, panels, and networking centered around all things offshore. It’s also a welcome opportunity for the sailing community to reconnect and get both excited…

We spend too much time in the sun as sailors and need all the protection we can get… but, have you ever put on a pair of sunglasses and felt like the world suddenly came alive? Costa Del Mar’s Untangled Collection tackles that in two ways: great optics and eco-conscious materials. The Untangled Collection crafts each set of frames from 97-100% recycled fishing nets. Through a partnership with Bureo (bureo.co), fishermen from across Chile, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, the United States, Seychelles, and Japan, turn in their worn and torn fishing nets through an incentivized program. The nets are sorted, cleaned, and shredded before being led through an advanced depolymerization process. The result is NetPlus nylon pellets that can be used to make Untangled Sunglass frames (or even extruded into…

“To be honest, when I was young I didn’t really imagine that any of this could be possible,” Francesca Clapcich recalls with smile and just a hint of wistfulness. She’s fresh off of a second place finish in the Transat Cafe L’Or, planning out her first season as the skipper of an IMOCA 60 and chipping away at the miles necessary to secure one of the 40 coveted spots on the Vendée Globe starting line in 2028. If she makes it, she will be the first American woman on the starting line in 11 editions of the race. But there’s a long way to go between here and there, and the path isn’t an easy one. Take a look inside her campaign, the ups and downs of life as a…

My first time crossing the Gulf Stream we blew up a spinnaker in extraordinary fashion: power-reaching in a short-period sea state, comfortably into double digit boat speeds…It’s fair to say we exceeded the structural limits of the fabric. I don’t recall there being a single panel left intact, and recovering the scraps was an all-hands-on-deck exercise on this 60-footer. My most recent Gulf Stream reunion brought about a similar wind angle, albeit with a bit less waterline. We were powered up but with smooth water and an enchanting night sky. If we hadn’t glanced at our instruments, we almost wouldn’t have known we were in the Stream at all—the change in warmth and humidity was subtle and largely lagged our entry. It was one of the smoothest crossings I’ve experienced.…

Small Boats, Big Adventures I took great pleasure in Shorty Drags by Robert Malkin (October 2025). It begins; “I knew there was going to be a big blow,” and he went out anyway. He and his West Wight Potter survived a salty night with the kind of story we like reading. There are many of us small boat sailors who can quickly hitch up and take to the water, big or small. For 25 years I have launched our faithful Spirit 23 from local lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. I need no other boat, but it’s fun to look. I’m surprised how much sailing has changed. It has grown bigger and further from the water. Marinas, magazines and websites feature giant yachts, laden with technology, expensive gear and champaign…

If you remember back to the October issue, I left my XR 41 review open ended. Not in the sense of whether it was a high-quality build or if the design had impressive sailing performance—that was all there and then some. X-Yachts built an impressive boat. I left it unfinished because X-Yachts had set an even higher standard for themselves, and I consequently raised my expectations: they wanted to win ORC Worlds in their debut appearance. Given the amount they invested in this design, particularly from an emotional standpoint, I anxiously awaited the outcome. One month after I submitted that review for print, the results were in. Not only did an XR 41 win Class B ORC Worlds, XR 41’s also took second and fourth place: a definitive answer to…

It was a simple concept. Not an easy one, but a simple one. After all, people have been crossing the Atlantic by boat for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In fact, Adélaïde Charlier herself had done it before. It wasn’t pleasant and there was a lot of puking involved, but she’d managed as a passenger aboard a ship bound for the previous United Nations Climate Conference (COP). So when the young Belgian climate activist started looking into going to 2025’s COP30 in Belem, Brazil, she also started looking for a boat. It didn’t take long to assemble a team of five other activists to help put the project together: Lucie Morauw, Camille Étienne, Coline Balfroid, Miriam Toure, and Maïté Meeus. They each represented a different campaign, spanning from human…

Editor’s Note: This story is excerpted from SAIL Contributing Editor Christopher Birch’s upcoming book The Four Seasons of Boat Maintenance (available for order soon)—a compendium of lessons learned during his 40-year career maintaining other people’s boats as the founder of Birch Marine Inc. in Boston. A frequently asked question: “Wow—all this boat work is a lot! I know some stuff is mandatory, but I need to find a way to skip the optional stuff. I just can’t spend this much time and money on boat work. Where can I cut back on the worklist?” Boats do require a surprising amount of work. Even I struggle, at times, to keep up with the needs of my beloved Sundance. The maintenance schedules I recommend are designed to provide care for your boat…