Innehållsförteckning för January 2020 från SAIL

It began, as Randall Reeves puts it, as a simple idea—to solo-circumnavigate the Americas and Antarctica in one season, making a double loop of the globe in the shape of a figure eight. It ended last October, when Reeves and his 45ft aluminum cutter, Moli, sailed back into Sausalito, California, at the conclusion of a 39,000-mile epic that encompassed everything from dodging icebergs to Southern Ocean storms to frustrating calms in tropical heat. The Figure 8 Voyage was one of those increasingly rare sailing feats, one that hadn’t been done before. No one had attempted to circle both Antarctica and the North and South American continents. The near-40,000 mile voyage would have been a challenge for a fully crewed boat, let alone one sailor. In fact, on his first attempt,…

For years, Fd been wanting to visit Grenada. There are many things that fascinated me about this island: its rugged, mountainous interior, its rainforests and waterfalls, and the fact that it’s less traveled than some other Caribbean sailing destinations. My photographer decided to to blend some learning in with the fun, so she took a 10-day cruising course with LTD Sailing before we picked up our boat from Dream Yacht Charter. There are so many options for sailing and anchoring in Grenada and the Grenadines, it’s impossible to visit even a fraction of them. That being said, you’ll likely want to visit Molinere Point where you can snorkel the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park. Installed in 2006, this was the first of Jason deCaires Taylor’s famed underwater sculpture gardens, of which…

Clearly, with any device that penetrates the hull of a yacht, the choice of materials, design and method of installation is paramount to the safety and integrity of the vessel. Plenty of boats have been lost due to corroded through-hulls and seacocks, either through electrolytic breakdown of the material itself or by a failure of the valve mechanism attached to it Traditionally, through-hull fittings and seacocks were made of bronze and manufactured as a single part, as opposed to having a separate through-hull fitting with a seacock screwed onto it. The most well-known of this type is still made by England’s Blakes & Taylors (established in 1789) and has a tapered core plug mechanism that enables the valve to be adjusted in situ or even stripped down and serviced. Similar…

I sea-trial a lot of boats, and while I know that an afternoon on a vessel may be great, living with one for a week tells a more detailed story. That’s why I’m excited each fall when the new models roll out, some of which are headed to charter companies where they can be tested on a weeklong vacation. Here are a few new monohulls and catamarans that may wow you in some exotic location in 2020. JEANNEAU SUN LOFT 47 Navigare Yachting Having made the circuit at European boat shows in summer of 2019, the new Jeanneau Sun Loft 47 has arrived in charter duty with Navigare Yachting. Designed by Philippe Briand, the new version is based on the Sun Odyssey 490 and is being offered as a "monocat”…

THE HEINEKEN REGATTA Need a dose of warm sunshine, hot competition and strong breeze to shake off the winter blues? The annual Heineken Regatta is perfectly timed and placed to provide all three. It’s four intense days of racing around the island of St. Maarten/St. Martin, featuring everything from grand prix boats to charter boats. As an added bonus, the onshore party scene is legendary. How do I take part? There are pay-to-play spots available on race boats that contest all the Caribbean events. Alternatively, enter the bareboat class and have just as much fun. Dates: March 5-8. More info: heinekenregatta.com SPERRY CHARLESTON RACE WEEK Since Key West Race Week’s demise, this East Coast regatta has cemented its place as the go-to event for early-season competition. Top one-design racers from…

The Bahamas is a vast country consisting of over 700 islands spread out over an area 25 percent larger than New England. Attracted by yearround sunshine, the lure of excellent fishing, world-class diving and calm waters, thousands of boaters of all ages and nationalities visit the Bahamas each year. For many, it is their first foray into the laid-back island lifestyle romanticized by Ernest Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream and the melodies of Jimmy Buffett. With all the good the islands have to offer, it is an immutable law of nature that from June 1 to November 30 every year, the country is subject to the ravages of tropical storms and hurricanes. When asked about the weather threat, most Bahamians take it in stride and rightly focus on the vast…

Our driver, Dracula, has a thick slack body, and his head leans heavily to the right. One eye wanders and looks only up and left. The other is covered with an opaque membrane. His ungainly body is covered with a loose, soiled shirt and pants. It is a hot day in March 2007, and Dracula is taking me to get provisions for our Island Packet 420, Hope and Glory, where he and three other line handlers will live on our deck for the next four or five days on our journey through the Panama Canal. Cars and buses fight for space on the streets of Colon. Drivers blow their horns and curse each other in Spanish, a language I don’t understand, driving over sidewalks and median strips to cut each…

When we set off on our sixmonth Caribbean cruise aboard Iteration, our 53ft Amel Super Maramu, my husband, Ryan, and I planned to add solar power to minimize generator usage. Many Super Maramu owners choose to install a solar arch off their sterns, but we weren’t fans of how this would look, or how much it would cost. We decided that a flexible solar array on our bimini would be the best solution. We wanted as much power as we could get from biminimounted solar panels—without paying an arm and a leg. Luckily, we found high-performance components that didn’t break the bank. We didn’t have time to deal with our solar design before we cast off, so for the first two-thirds of our voyage, we relied on our diesel generator…

One of the first things I noticed when I started mucking about on sailboats big enough to be manned by more than one person is that it is much easier to crew than to skipper. Being one step removed from primary responsibility for the many things that can go wrong on a boat always makes for a more relaxing experience. Having twice crewed on boats that had to be abandoned, I can assure you such adventures are much more entertaining when you are not in charge. Not that crewing on Other Peoples Boats (OPBs) is necessarily simple. People who are very good at it are not as hard to find as truly great skippers, but they are still valuable commodities. If you aspire to be one of these people, assuming…

On October 18, 2008, Dustin Reynolds was hit by a drunk driver while he was riding his motorcycle in Hawaii. On an operating table in Oahu, his surgeon explained the risks of the exploratory surgery they needed to perform to assess his injuries, and offered Reynolds the option of living out his last moments with his friends and family at his bedside. Instead, he chose life. Now Reynolds, who lost his left arm and leg in the accident, is set to become the first double amputee to circumnavigate the globe alone under sail. In June 2014, he cast off the dock lines on a beat-up 1968 Alberg 35 with $20 to his name and 40,000 miles ahead of him. Since then, Reynolds has sailed over 30,000 miles, visiting more than…

The design rule for the 36th America’s Cup’s is the most audacious yet: a 75ft foiling monohull that will race mostly in flight at four times true wind speed, up to 50 knots. It’s more an airplane than a boat; more a story of aerodynamics than hydrodynamics. That is the defining feature of the AC75. Since September, three challengers—Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team, INEOS Team UK and the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic—and the defender, Emirates Team New Zealand, have all launched their first-generation boats and are foiling successfully, thanks to using simulators during the design phase. (A fourth challenger, Stars & Stripes Team USA, has yet to launch a 75-footer.) Simulators were also a major contribution to New Zealand’s success in Bermuda. The boats are designed to the…

In January 1987 we set off to sail around the world (we didn’t make it beyond the Caribbean) with a one-year-old daughter and Terrie three months pregnant. (Now you know why we didn’t make it be-I yond the Caribbean.) I had on board a vacuum pump for refrigeration repairs, a small oxy-acetylene kit for welding, a complete spare variable propeller unit, injectors and injector pipes, and a considerable stock of other parts along with the tools (including woodworking tools) to repair and replace most things on Nada. Terrie had a sewing machine, sailcloth and associated supplies. In 1987, self-sufficiency was the order of the day. Between 1987 and today we have had a revolution in communications (Internet and satellites) and transportation (FedEx, UPS and DHL). There is now hardly a…

PERSISTENT GALVANIC CORRSION Q: We have a 37ft sailboat and have been experiencing persistent galvanic corrosion for several years. We have added a galvanic isolator, sandblasted the lead keel and applied seven coats of InterProtect; we have tested the marina water with a silver/silver chloride tester, paid a marine electrician for several days to test for ground faults (he submitted a detailed summary declaring no detected problems in the earth grounds or the bonding system), and recently had the boat lifted out mid-season (six weeks in Lake Erie at a different marina to eliminate possible “hot water”) to see if we were still experiencing the corrosive activity. The photos I’m including show the extent so far this season. The corrosion seems to be lifting the copper bottom paint from the…