Innehållsförteckning för November/December 2019 från SAIL

“Focused on racing, dedicated to fun,” says the Wayzata Yacht Club’s website, and its Thursday evening races on Minnesota’s Lake Minnetonka certainly bear that out—up to 130 boats turn out for the 65 races it organizes each year, and the weekly beer can races often attract 100 or more crews. The club keeps it real—most of the boats are 22ft to 25ft keelboats, like the Catalina Capri 25s pictured here doing battle with each other and shifty winds. It also organizes a program of big-boat racing via its Apostle Islands station in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Way to go, Wayzata!…

GPSMAP 86 HANDHELDS The new GPSMAP 86 series from Garmin is comprised of four models, including the top-of-the-line GPSMAP 86sci with built-in Garmin/Navionics charts and inReach functionality, making them just the thing for a daysailer or pocket cruiser, in particular. Each model in the series boasts a sunlight-readable 3in color display and an easy-to-use keypad. When hooked up to wireless internet, the GPSMAP 86s can even interact with whatever compatible devices you may have onboard, integrating data and remotely controling your autopilot. The rechargeable battery provides up to 35 hours of operation. $650. Garmin, garmin.com SAILING AMERICA Rizzoli International Publications has released this striking portrait of American sailing by nautical photography legend Onne van der Wal just in time for the holidays. Featuring 200 stunning photographs spanning the length and…

In almost 40 years of cruising my wife, Terrie, and I have almost never set a tripping line on the anchor. We lost one anchor while riding out a gale in a tight anchorage in Belize lying to two anchors in 60ft of water. Toward the end of the gale the wind veered, and our boat, Nada, swung, dragging the rope rode to our second anchor over a coral head, which cut the rode. We were OK—our primary anchor held—but despite dragging the bottom with our dinghy anchor, we were not able to recover the one the one we’d lost. On this occasion, a tripping line would have saved it. Of course, if we were divers we could easily have recovered it, but we are not. The anchor was 60ft…

So, what exactly is involved in installing an electric furling gear? If you’ve ever installed an electric windlass, part of the process will be familiar to you—you’ll be hooking up an electric motor to switches and a control box, running cables the length of the boat and adding an appropriately rated circuit breaker in the positive cable from the battery. That’s all simple enough, and if you’re a capable DIY-er you could do all that yourself. What’s not so simple for the DIY-er, as I found when watching Seldén Mast techies swap out a manual Furlex 304 with its electric equivalent, is the rest of it—the rigging component of the project. They were fitting the unit to a Pearson 39, and in addition to running cables through the boat they…

CHOOSING THE BEST JIB SHEETS Q: I need to replace the jib sheets on my 35ft performance cruiser. I keep hearing about how high-modulus line can benefit sail shape and wonder if I should maybe spring for something fancy. Or will good old double-braid polyester still do the job? I’m a bit of a tweaker, but not a fanatic, and I don’t race. — Susan Hubbel, Los Angeles, CA BRIAN HANCOCK REPLIES This really depends on what type of sails you have. If you have high-tech sails, you need high-tech jib sheets to take full advantage of their performance potential. If, on the other hand, you have more low-tech sails, such as those made of woven Dacron, you can stick with polyester, especially if you don’t race. When you’re under…

When I was a younger man, with less money and a stronger back, I was a regular anchoring snob. Free parking, I believed, is a fundamental right when cruising under sail, and if you want to be a true cruiser you must exercise it as much as possible. In developing this manifesto it helped, of course, that I was cruising in places where anchoring was really the only option. Back in the 1990s while poking around the Atlantic islands and West Africa, even in popular ports and harbors, I found zero rental moorings and very few moorings of any type that were suitable for anything smaller than a container ship. The one likely looking mooring I did pick up, in the Azores, turned out to be a cruel joke. It…

Share your experiences with other readers. 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 We were on our Catalina 30 sailing to Annapolis and were so happy to be so close to this wonderful regatta on a Saturday afternoon.— Mohsen Masoudfar, Annapolis, MD This photo was taken by Channel Cruising Club member Rob von Zabern’s drone as we “rounded up” on our annual long cruise in August at Mariner’s Basin in Mission Bay.— Mike Schneider, San Diego, CA I shot this photo on a beautiful pre-Thanksgiving sail back in 2017— Matthew Plaisted, Clearwater, FL This photo is from the last leg of the GBCA Rum Race #8 on Galveston Bay. You don’t see a Cheoy Lee 38…

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em Know when to fold ‘em Know when to walk away And know when to run— Kenny Rodgers “The Gambler” When I was young I would unflinchingly go out sailing in anything. Big boat, little boat, alone or with a crowd, it didn’t much matter. Same thing with setting all kinds of sail, weather forecast be damned. Reefing is for wimps! This, of course, resulted in some memorable moments afloat, as well as some equally fun sailing stories back on shore. “Remember that one time when we set the kite and…” Since then, however, I’ve become a good deal more cautious (or maybe “prudent” is the better word). Part of this, I believe, stems from my having had the opportunity to sail aboard…

Emirates Team New Zealand may have been the first to launch a new-generation America’s Cup boat, but it was the New York Yacht Club’s challenger, American Magic, that had the last (first?) laugh. Just a few days after ETNZ’s radical-looking AC75 hit the water in mid-September, the American team not only splashed their new boat, but were up on the foils and charging across the waters of Narragansett Bay while the Kiwis were still tow-testing theirs. Not only that, but helmsman Dean Barker and his crew pulled off their first full-foiling gybe—a notoriously difficult maneuver—on their maiden test sail, with a practiced ease that was down to their months of training on the “Mule,” the McConaghy 38 that was transformed into a half-scale version of the real thing. If it’s…

The fall shows may have drawn to close here in the United States. But in today’s global marketplace, the business of building and designing new sailboats never stops. And, of course, lest we forget, the Miami boat show is just around the corner. What follows are some new boats either fresh off the drawing board or in-build that we can expect to see splash in the coming months. OVNI 400 Among the many things that French designers and builders are known for is their affinity for aluminum bluewater cruising boats, and the new Ovni 400 now in the works at the veteran Alubat yard looks to be a nice addition to the genre. The boat has a fine, tumblehome bow with a powerful square-top main and a lifting keel containing…

Sailing at 19 knots in 15 knots of breeze is not an earth-shattering experience any more. I was thinking about that on a perfect late summer day in Narragansett Bay while we were slicing along on the most technologically advanced cruising catamaran I’ve ever seen—the Eagle Class 53. This sculptural, cool silver machine with its concave hard top, sprawling red lounge and clear-coat carbon bar area was created to fly on hydrofoils controlled autonomously by sensors and algorithm-driven computer software. “Here comes the puff”, called the boat’s captain, Tommy Gonzalez, from the windward steering station. “Ease out just a bit.” I was at the control island, right up front, just behind a compression post under the hard top, trimming the soft, battened aft “flap” of the hybrid wing sail. The…

Two of the most indispensable items on board a cruising yacht are a dinghy and an outboard motor. At anchor or on a buoy, of course, they are your only means of getting ashore. They also have a thousand other uses. For example, they can allow you to motor across to friends’ boats, collect supplies, clean the hull, feed out a long line ashore or set a kedge anchor, just to name a few. With this in mind, not only does the tender need to be tough and stable, its outboard motor must be as reliable as possible and powerful enough to drive it fully loaded, but not so heavy it can’t be handled on and off the boat easily and safely. There is a large selection of portable outboards…

TOUGH SENIOR SAILOR SETS SOLO RECORD A big tip of the hat to British sailor Jeanne Socrates, who at the ripe young age of 77 became the oldest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world when she brought her Najad 380, Nereida, home to Victoria, British Columbia in September. Socrates’s voyage was all the more remarkable for being accomplished in a midsized production boat. She was at sea for 259 days while circumnavigating south of the five capes. Look for an interview with this tough senior citizen in the next issue of SAIL. WOMEN IN SAILING The 30th annual Sailing Convention for Women takes place on February 1, at the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club in Corona del Mar, California. All women interested in sailing are welcome to…

It’s official—Volvo Ocean Race veterans Mark Towill and Charlie Enright will campaign an IMOCA 60 in The Ocean Race 2021-22. Their team, 11th Hour Racing, has become one of the first official entries in the round-the-world race, which is open to both the Volvo 65 one-design boats that competed in the last two VORs and the 60ft IMOCA foilers that have historically been sailed by one or two people. Best known for the Vendée Globe round-the-world solo race, the IMOCA 60s represent a big departure from the kinds of boat the American pair have campaigned in past ocean races. The 11th Hour Racing team has purchased Briton Alex Thomson’s former Hugo Boss, which came second in the last edition of the Globe, to help them transition into the rarified world…

There’s something especially fun about sailing a boat on the home waters of the company that built it. And when you’re sailing the latest performance-cruiser from X-Yachts, the X40, on the “Little Belt,” just down the road from the company’s squeaky-clean yard in Haderslev, Denmark, the experience is out of this world. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION Not coincidently splashing on X-Yachts’s 40th anniversary, the 40ft X40 boasts the same top-notch build quality sailors have come to expect ever since the company launched its very first design, the X-79, back in 1979. At the heart of the new boat is a trademark X-Yachts galvanized steel grid, which serves to anchor the boat’s keel and also help manage rig loads. The rest of the hull is infused in epoxy and post-cured for 24…

Once upon a time conquering your dream of sailing off into the sunset was enough, but these days it seems like you have to be popular on social media too. Balancing the stresses of sailing around the world while keeping a successful—not to mention financially lucrative—social media channel afloat is no easy feat. Australian Elayna Carausu, 26, and her partner, Riley Whitelum, 36, are the sailors behind the wildly popular YouTube channel Sailing La Vagabonde, which recently hit the one million subscriber mark. I wanted to know how she is navigating life as a fulltime sailor, a first-time mom and a social media superstar. You started in the Mediterranean on a 43ft monohull. How did you get from there to where you are now, sailing an Outremer 45 catamaran? Elayna:…

My dissatisfaction with the head and holding tank plumbing arrangement on our 1987 Sabre 38 had grown as we cruised the boat away from the comforts of a marina for longer periods of time. When we are tied up at a marina, the use of regular bathrooms generally trumps the onboard system, and one can get rather complacent. Once untethered, though, the dynamic quickly changes. There is only one option inside the three-mile limit, and that’s to use the holding tank. We inherited a fairly typical setup, with one glaring exception. For reasons unknown to me, the previous owner had converted the original 34 gal holding tank into a water tank. Before your mind gets too wrapped up in that thought, I should point out that he bought the boat…

The fall boat shows have come and gone, winter is settling in, and sailing may seem like a distant dream as you hold your breath until your warm-weather Christmas charter. All is not lost, though, as this is also a great time to both distract yourself and work on creating some cohesive group dynamics prior to your arrival at the charter base. Maybe your brother isn’t much of a sailor. Maybe no one has met the cousin’s new boyfriend. Who knows what drama awaits? Inject some excitement, anticipation and common experience into your group with a few nautical movie nights. Here are 10 films that are bound to get the group talking, laughing and asking questions as you wait on that delayed flight to paradise. White Squall — Not exactly…