Table of contents for September 2015 in SAIL

Always remember to brush! Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing trimmer and helmsman Phil Harman takes care of some dental hygiene during Leg 5 of the 2014-2015 Volvo Ocean Race, a 6,776-mile run round Cape Horn from Auckland, New Zealand to Itajaí, Brazil. Harman and the rest of the crew aboard Abu Dhabi’s Azzam would go on to not only take top honors in the grueling race, but win the in-port series as well. For more on this year’s pulse-pounding Volvo Ocean Race, turn to page 16.…

We were a couple of hundred miles out of Bermuda on the 39ft cutter Lunacy, en route to St. Martin, when the small floating islands of brown seaweed that dotted the ocean started to become a nuisance. Clumps of it wrapped around the keel and rudder, and skipper Charlie Doane grew increasingly annoyed at the amount of time he spent with a boathook trying to clear the Aries vane gear’s paddle. We even had to stop the boat a few times to let the weed fall off the foils. Doane struck similar problems a few months later when sailing with ARC founder Jimmy Cornell from Ft. Lauderdale to Panama, and in between those dates the entire Caribbean island chain had been inundated— if that’s the word—with the errant Sargassum weed,…

Nine months after her launch at the Hodgdon Yachts yard in East Boothbay, Maine, Jim Clark’s purpose-built 100ft super-maxi Comanche set a new 24-hour monohull speed record of 618.01 nautical miles midway through last July’s Transatlantic Race. In setting the new record, Comanche bested the mark set by skipper Torben Grael and company aboard the Volvo 70 Ericsson 4, when it clicked off 596.60 miles in 24 hours midway between Alicante, Spain, and Cape Town during Leg 1 of the 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race In breaking the record, Comanche managed to turn around what had been a pretty disappointing race up to that point. “What started off as a very frustrating lightair Transatlantic Race 2015 has turned to gold for all of us,” said skipper Ken Read immediately after the…

The mark of a good boat is not how well it performs when all is well, but when it or its skipper is under some kind of stress. I’m not talking about killer gales here, but the run-of-the-mill sort of stress that can turn an otherwise fun day on the water into something bad—say, an ugly encounter with a piling, or a sudden gust of wind that scares the bejesus out of your less experienced crew. I found myself entertaining such thoughts during a recent test sail of the new Hanse 455 on Narragansett Bay. It was a perfect day, with a crisp 10-knot breeze blowing out of the southwest. As we made our way south, though, the wind built steadily the closer we got to the Newport Bridge. All…

In the history of maritime exploration, no other part of the world has proved to be more difficult and has taken longer to conquer than the Northwest Passage. Since Roald Amundsen’s successful transit of the Northwest Passage between 1903 and 1906, only 89 sailing vessels have been able to follow his example. To put this number in perspective: for every person who has sailed the Northwest Passage, 10 people have summitted the highest mountain in the world. The reason is quite simple; in spite of all the advances in boat design, technology and means of navigation, the challenges faced by those sailing in the High Arctic have remained basically the same. Climate change, whose effects are more obvious in the Arctic than anywhere else in the world, has certainly played…

SAIL’s 2014 Snowbird Rally down the ICW proved a fantastic learning, confidence-boosting and social success, so much so that we’re doing it all over again in 2015. Ably led by On The Water Chartguides authors Mark and Diana Doyle, with former ABYC Technical VP Tom Hale repeating his 2014 role as technical advisor and troubleshooter to the fleet, the Snowbird Rally will visit some of the ICW’s most beautiful towns and harbors. Along the way there’ll be technical and navigational briefings, along with parties, dinners, and sightseeing excursions. “The Intracoastal Waterway isn’t the long, dull motoring ordeal it’s made out to be,” says Mark. “It’s an amazing stretch of water with a rich history, and we’re going to make the most of it.” The 2015 Snowbird Rally gets under way…

The Hybrid Dinghy Seat Here’s one for the I’veseen-it-all-now department: a dinghy seat that opens up to reveal an array of solar panels and wind generators to charge the battery for the tender’s electric motor. Pull the dink up on the beach, and it’ll recharge its own battery while you’re having a rum at the tiki bar. The brainchild of French company GEPS Techno, the “Hybrid Bench” is not yet in production, but full marks for ingenuity. How about extending the concept to a liferaft?…

Kudos to skipper Gregg Marston and the crew of the 48-year-old Alden Mistral 36, Ti—which included SAIL’s own Andy Howe—for their outstanding performance in this year’s Marion to Bermuda race. In addition to taking the Founders Division trophy for the overall victory, Ti won the Beverly “Polaris” celestial class trophy, and Howe won the Navigator’s Trophy for wielding the boat’s sextant and figuring out the necessary plots over the 645-mile course, which includes a Gulf Stream crossing. In keeping with the Corinthian spirit of the event, the crew, which also included watch captain Peter Stoops and crewmembers John O’Meara, Chase Marston and Jake Marston, all hail from the same family, which earned the boat the Family Trophy as well. SAIL’s Bermuda Ocean Cruising Yacht Trophy, which goes to the best…

If you’ve never heard of Sirena Marine, look to the luxury motoryacht world, where the Turkish company is something of a powerhouse, having built more than 220 boats for Azimut Yachts. Now, with its partnership with Azimut scaling down and a world-class manufacturing facility at its disposal, Sirena is entering the U.S. market with a pair of well-built, stylish sport cruisers blessed with impeccable design pedigrees. We sailed the smaller of the two, the Azuree 46, on a gorgeous summer evening off Jamestown, Rhode Island. CONSTRUCTION The Azuree 46 is from the pen of Rob Humphreys, the versatile Brit who has designed everything from luxury bluewater cruisers for Oyster to Volvo 70 and Open 60 ocean racers. Its purposeful lines reflect the latest in fast-cruising fashion: twin rudders, a pronounced…

The Irish Cruising Club’s Cruising Ireland says West Cork has “a benign and comely coastline,” and so it has. We were thrilled—my wife, Judy, and I, and our friends Bruce and Nancy Beale—to have a chance to sail there for a week in the spring. Should I mention that this was a “senior cruise?” Our younger friends are in their 60s, and Judy and I are in our 70s. Not that we’re special; it’s just a reminder that sailing is a lifelong sport, and anyone who stays reasonably fit can keep enjoying it. The local saying is “West Cork is bigger than Ireland,” a piece of Irish logic that seems to make sense the longer one spends there. And it’s a treat to sail into one snug harbor after another…

Considering lifelines play such a critical role in the safety of the crew, I’m constantly amazed at the apparent disregard many boat-owners have for them. Nothing lasts forever, especially lifelines, which should be replaced as soon as anything more than surface corrosion appears. Often, even when standing rigging may be replaced, lifelines are left to soldier on for many years past their expiration date. Surveyors, as a rule, like to see plain wire, as it’s easier to judge the condition. Plastic-coated may be nicer to lean against when sailing, but hidden dangers can sometimes lurk beneath. Specifically, crevice corrosion can go unnoticed, and the wire could fail just when it’s needed the most. The example shown here is especially bad. The wire is uncoated, which is good, but the toggle…

For years the Volvo Ocean Race has been synonymous with images of boats blasting their way through the Southern Ocean smothered in foam. This time around, though, a new kind of image has come to define the race—crews locked in battle within sight of one another for days on end, sometimes finishing mere minutes apart after weeks of racing. It started at the end of Leg 1 in Cape Town, South Africa, when Chinese-flagged Dongfeng finished just 12 minutes behind Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Azzam after 6,500 miles of racing. And things only got tougher after that, with nail-biting finishes that would have been inconceivable in ocean racing only a few years earlier quickly becoming the new norm. The result was a new kind of “extreme” sailing, which was surely…

Ping! It was the tiniest little squeak of a sound, but it was out of place amid the pounding waves and constant groaning of the boat and so rang out like a microwave beep. It was the second ping we had heard that night, and we knew it was another bolt head shearing off onto the cockpit floor. That was the third, and it meant we had to do what we didn’t want to. We were crossing the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in our newlyacquired Niagara 35 with a new and meager crew of three—Capt. Phillip, Second Mate Mitch and the First-but-Novice Mate, me. I had no sailing experience, this was my very first passage, and we not only had an unfavorable weather forecast, but the absolute…

Stay Dry As with sails, engines and winches, sailors tend to be brand-loyal when it comes to foulweather gear. But what actually makes a good set of foulies? THE FABRICS Take one look at the jackets on display at a boat show or sailing store and it’s clear that we’re not dealing with the Gorton’s Fisherman outfit anymore. “Waterproof and breathable membrane technology has moved forward significantly in the past decade,” says Bart Milczarczyk, design manager for the Australian-based Zhik company. “There is now an extensive array of different membrane technologies available.” Filippo Bovio, the U.S. distributor for SLAM sailing gear, agrees. “Gear keeps getting lighter, more breathable and more waterproof,” Bovio says. “You can now achieve the same level of performance once attributed to high-end ocean gear in a…

2015 SNOWBIRD RALLY ICW Cruising guide authors Mark and Diana Doyle, co-leaders of the upcoming SAIL Magazine Snowbird Rally, continue their eight-part tour of the Intracoastal Waterway. In this second installment they describe one of their favorite runs, the Great Dismal Swamp. “And that has made all the difference…” Since the ICW south of Portsmouth, Virginia, splits into two routes, Virginia Cut and Dismal Swamp, like Robert Frost you need to choose which road to take. Last year, three of the SAIL Snowbird Rally boats diverted to Virginia Cut because of draft and rig limitations. But the remainder of the fleet enjoyed the friendly (and free) ride through the Dismal Swamp Canal. Longer distance, skinny water and too many logs—no doubt you’ve heard the warnings about the Dismal Swamp. But…

“I’ve run aground” are words that justifiably send a shiver down every sailor’s spine. However, the damage you may do to your boat when running aground is all relative—the most important risk factors are the type of the bottom you’ve hit, your speed when running aground and the sea conditions. AVOIDING THE BOTTOM When you’re running in thin water, there are two ways I recommend to avoid running aground—using your depthsounder and alarm to keep an eye on how shallow the water is, and plotting your course on paper charts. I am constantly stressing the need to check the depth every 10 seconds or so in shallow water, but the alarm is a great backup. When it comes to paper charts, I recommend them because you can quickly scan a…