Tabla de contenidos para March 2023 en Cruising World

UNDER Pressure From my teens through my early 30s, my family’s Hunter 31, Ragtime, was my temple, my escape from all the intricacies of life. No matter what sort of week I’d had at school, no matter what kind of stress I was under in the corporate world, I took solace in knowing that Ragtime was always there for me with a dose of vitamin “sea” to set things right. Ragtime was my domain. Anytime we were out sailing, life just seemed to make sense. I knew all her tendencies: how she behaved at every point of sail, in any sea state. And I took great pride whenever I was at the helm. There was rarely a sheet or halyard out of place, the fenders were always properly stowed, and…

Gear Up FOR SAILING SEASON Sailors can thank recently adopted commercial-shipping regulations for a new generation of electronic emergency beacons. These devices are designed to connect vessels in distress via satellite to a global network of rescue centers, while also broadcasting Automatic Identification System alerts over marine radio channels to (potentially) summon help that much quicker. Florida-based ACR Electronics (acrartex.com) and its UK sister company, Ocean Signal (oceansignal.com), are the first to take advantage of the new rules. They are set to go with products expected to be approved by US regulators and made widely available this winter. For mariners, this merging of satellite and VHF-radio-frequency technologies in a single device—either an emergency position indicating radio beacon or a personal locator beacon—is a game-changer. In a crisis, this tech will…

WHAT SHOULD YOU CARRY On Board? The short answer: Always bring your sense of humor, and always leave your societal cares and woes. The longer, more complex answer starts with a question: How do you use your boat? Many folks daysail on the weekends. Fine. They need only the basic tools and supplies to get them back to the dock they just left. However, my wife and I are occasionally at sea for 48 days—and once, in the Indian Ocean, we went four and half months without provisioning because, happily, there is nowhere to provision in uninhabited, blissful Chagos. Back in the 1950s, when I started out, all offshore vessels were heavy-displacement craft. They had cramped living space but much cargo capacity, which was good because once America faded over…

MORGAN’S Magic Charley Morgan picked up on the first ring. Three years ago, while doing research for my latest book—a biography of sailing greats Steve and Doris Colgate called Offshore High—I placed a call to the legendary Florida sailor, boatbuilder and raconteur, hoping to get some insight into his one and only America’s Cup campaign, aboard Heritage in 1970. That campaign was 50 years earlier, and Morgan was now 90, so I wasn’t really expecting much. I could hear the age in his voice, for sure, but after I explained the reason for my call, I also recognized a fresh perkiness. “Oh, that was quite a summer,” he said. And over the next hour or so, it was crystal-clear that he remembered every bloody bit of it. Morgan, who forged…

RALLY TO GRENADA: A Colorful Cast of Characters Although the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers was originally designed as a way for amateur sailors to cross the Atlantic in the safety of a group, many experienced sailors now take part for the community and camaraderie. cruisingworld.com/arc-2022 Bonus Features Sailing Totem: When Your Boat Kids Move Ashore After years of sailing as a family, Behan and Jamie Gifford prepare for their first significant passage as empty-nesters. Bringing on crew or offering passage berths isn’t in the plans. Mostly, they can’t wait to point Totem’s bow out to sea and put miles under the keel with just the two of them. cruisingworld.com/sailing-totem-empty-nest The Noob Files: Sleepless in Cat Harbor “Around midnight, after a couple of hours of snoozing, I poked my head out of…

SAILING With a MISSION When Joan Conover arrives at Fiddler’s Green, the promised land for departed mariners, she’ll look back on an Earth better for having sailed it. Long before she took the helm of the Seven Seas Cruising Association, Conover was practicing one of SSCA’s founding principles: Leave a clean wake. On board, on land and on the airwaves, few have done as much as Conover to marshal the better angels of our privileged fleet. On her first trans-Atlantic in 2005, she and her daughter, Christina, took daily dips of marine life—160 samples—all the way to Portugal. They froze and shipped them to Old Dominion University to establish an oceanwide baseline to gauge signs of degradation. Christina, a high school graduate at the time, became an oceanographer. In the…

Where are you?” my friend asks, peering at me through the video call. In the picture-in-picture, I can see myself and the view out the window behind me. Our Fountaine Pajot 44, Starry Horizons, is rolling, with the swells of the Atlantic Ocean picking the catamaran up and sliding it down. Intermittent bursts of sunlight constantly cause my camera to adjust the exposure. I glance at the chart plotter, wondering how to describe my location and the technology I’m using in a way that portrays just how amazing it is. While in Rhode Island for the summer, we picked up the latest accessory riding the crowd of sailboats down to the Caribbean this year. Its name is Dishy McFlatface, and it’s the hottest topic in offshore communications since, well, ever.…

BOATHANDLING What is it with boats that sail with their fenders out? I’ve observed this apathetic habit nearly everywhere I’ve been on water, but never so much as I see it in Southern California. I have called Los Angeles home for the past eight years. Maybe it’s the old New Englander in me, or perhaps I’m just getting older, but it seems that every year, I see more and more boats underway with their fenders out. They bob from the lifelines like a pair of dirty running shoes dangling from knotted laces on a railing the day after track season ended. I’m not whining about boats motoring to the fuel dock or headed back to their slip after an afternoon cruise. I’m talking about the boats I see when I…

Fogbound CHERRY CRUMBLE Fog is a fact of life along the Maine coast, where my husband, Bud, and I cruise Opus, our 28-foot wood sloop. One day, we were anchored in the Barred Islands, a small archipelago in Penobscot Bay. It was isolated, beautiful and peaceful. We’d awakened early to a world of cottony gray, with fog so thick that visibility was reduced to near zero. A fine mist seemed to permeate everything, including our bones. Sailing in fog isn’t especially dangerous if you’re paying close attention to your navigation, but it can be nerve-wracking and tedious. At the time, we didn’t have a reliable radar aboard—and we were, after all, on vacation. We decided to stay put until the pea soup lifted, likely in a few hours. For extended…