Table of contents for March 2021 in SAIL

Almost anywhere a sailor drops the hook someone else has been there before. We are hardly ever the first. Th at remote Maine harbor without a soul in sight: there’s a lobster trap. the south coast of Newfoundland: the crumbling remains of a fisherman’s cabin lie hidden among the boulders. British Columbia’s inside passage: the charred remnants of someone’s campfire. Rather than diminishing the thrill of discovering a pristine anchorage, though, these reminders that someone else used water, as we have, to get there and leave their mark actually tie us all together. So it is in the remote northeast corner of Lake Superior. My wife, Jennifer, and I sail Catamount, our Caliber 38, to that corner of Canadian wilderness almost every summer. Once there, we often go 10 to…

NEMESIS SAILING DISPLAY B&G has a new display that’s sure to be a critical part of any nav station it’s installed in. With intuitive, preset dashboards that can be edited to show exactly what you want to see (or the option of automatically set dashboards with the most relevant information for your current point of sail) it’s easier than ever to have the necessary data at your fingertips. The bright, crisp IPS SolarMax HD touch screen is visible from any angle, even with polarized sunglasses on, and can display everything from graphical gauges to tank levels. It can be mounted in either a portrait or landscape orientation and can even be controlled via Apple Watch. The display is available in two sizes—9in and 12in. From $3,490. B&G bandg.com FOIL PRO…

It is possible to cross an ocean in almost anything that will float, just as you could cross the United States on anything with wheels. But to voyage safely, swiftly and comfortably calls for a good deal more than the minimum. That’s where bluewater specialist Amel comes into consideration with vessels like the new Amel 50, the smallest boat in the company’s current product line. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION Over the past 50 years, Amel ketches like the Super Maramu have been top choices for sailors who value excellent construction, good open-water performance and a sensible layout for living aboard. The Amel 50 shares many of these qualities, but it’s a sloop, and its lines are also more modern, carrying a wider beam farther aft than its predecessors. The Amel 50’s…

1851 On August 22, the New York Yacht Club’s schooner America wins a 53-mile race around England’s Isle of Wight organized by the Royal Yacht Squadron. It is awarded a “100 Guinea Cup” or “Queen’s Cup,” as it was variously known. Later the trophy comes to be known as the “America’s Cup,” in honor of the schooner that won it. 1857 The America’s Cup trophy is officially donated to the New York YC through a “deed of gift” to be held in trust as a challenge trophy to promote friendly competition among nations. The deed of gift also serves to govern the rules by which other yacht clubs can challenge for the trophy. 1871 The first defense of the America’s Cup against the topsail schooner Cambria. Two yachts represent the…

NEXT STOP USHANT, FRANCE Undaunted after having to give up an initial attempt at a new round-the-word record when they hit an unidentified floating object in late November, the crew of the maxi-tri Maxi Edmond de Rothschild was back at sea for a second try January 10. The time to beat: 40 days, 23 hours and 30 minutes, as set by Francis Joyon aboard Idec Sport in 2017. For the latest on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, visit gitana-team.com.…

February 2, 2020 was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. the temperature was in the upper 60’s, the wind from the southwest at a steady 8 knots—an ideal day to take my Catalina 270, Pneuma, out for the first sail of the year in my home waters of north Alabama. After a few extra seconds of cranking, the engine came to life and the mainsail cover was taken off while the engine warmed up at around 1,500 rpm. After removing the shore-power cable and mooring lines, I shifted the transmission into reverse, and Pneuma slowly backed out of the slip. Shifting into forward, Pneuma eased out of the marina, and when the depthsounder showed 10ft of water, I brought the bow into the wind and raised the mainsail. Th at done, it…

In October of 2018, Randall Reeves departed for a second attempt at what he called his “Figure 8 Voyage,” a solo circumnavigation of both the North and South American and Antarctic continents in one season. He had something to prove. During his first attempt, knockdowns off Cape Horn and in the Indian Ocean had damaged his 45ft aluminum sloop, Moli, or “Mo,” forcing an abrupt retirement and return home. The subsequent attempt went more smoothly, or at least as smoothly as anything can ever go sailing the stormy waters off Cape Horn… Hour after hour we run toward the shallows to the south of Tierra del Fuego. Hour after hour the wind blows a steady 30 knots out of the west. The barometer remains fixed at 1008 millibars as I…

A weather forecast—like an old-school dead-reckoning plot—will decrease in certainty with the passage of time. Over the past five years of arranging off shore charters aboard our Swan 48, Isbjørn, and our Swan 59, Icebear, we’ve tempted the gods by consistently breaking the cardinal rule of cruising—sailing to a schedule. However, thanks to a fundamental understanding of big-picture weather patterns and a willingness to be flexible once underway, we’ve learned that even the toughest passages can be made comfortably. In this article, we’ll look at how we plan our passage calendar and the tools we use to forecast the weather. We’ll also analyze three difficult passages—Iceland to Ireland; a Bermuda-Azores Atlantic crossing; and a southbound migration from the Chesapeake Bay to the Eastern Caribbean—to see how these things all work…

One of the great things about Jerome Rand’s book, Sailing into Oblivion: The Solo Non-Stop Voyage of the Mighty Sparrow, is the way he describes the emotional side of sailing his Westsail 32, Mighty Sparrow, around the world, as opposed to just providing a narrative of the storms and physical challenges he faced. In the following excerpt, for example, he describes how he marked some of the milestones of his voyage. I had decided before I left Gloucester that I wanted to do something special for the big moments on the trip. The five southern capes, the Equator, the Prime Meridian, the International Date Line and Point Nemo. Though only points on a chart while planning the passage, at sea they mean everything. Mostly they meant progress, something to look…

While it’s safe to say that U.S. production boatbuilding is a shadow of its former self, one North American company that is still going strong is Rhode Island-based J/Boats. Not only that, but far from just surviving, the company continues to push the envelope, the same as it has done ever since it initially burst onto the sailing scene with the iconic J/24 in the mid-‘70s. In his latest two designs, J/Boats designer Al Johnstone has decided to strike out in two very different directions that not only target two different points on the LOA spectrum but two very different types of sailing. At the smaller end of the scale comes the 28ft J/9, what J/Boats is describing as a “comfortable, simple and easy-to-own daysailer.” Features include an expansive cockpit,…

A few years ago, Jeanneau set about the business of revolutionizing its storied Sun Odyssey line when it introduced its SO 490 and 440 models, designed by Phillipe Briand. Building on that momentum, the French builder has since passed the baton to a new designer, Marc Lombard, who incorporated a number of Briand’s innovations in the Sun Odyssey 410, but has also added some twists of his own. the result is a performance-oriented family cruiser offering a mix of bold new features with enhanced creature comforts. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION As with its larger siblings, construction of the Sun Odyssey 410 is reliably straightforward, with a hull comprised of a solid fiberglass laminate set in polyester and a balsa-cored deck. the L-shaped keel, available in both deep and shoal-draft versions, is…

We were sailing in the Indian Ocean from the Seychelles Islands to Madagascar on my brother’s plywood-built 40ft trimaran, Romany Road, a 1,000-mile voyage. It was a clear, calm day far from land. The gentle wind drove us smartly along through the royal-blue ocean. Out of nowhere, whitecaps began hurrying toward us from the eastern horizon. Th is made no sense—there should be no whitecaps in 10 knots of breeze in the deep ocean—that is until a white-streaked gray torpedo suddenly leapt into the air and landed with a dramatic splash. Next thing we knew, an immense school of dolphins, hundreds, maybe thousands, were rollicking, diving, streaking through the waves all around us. The fleet leaders crossed our path, swimming on toward God knows where, the rest of the school…

It was blowing 25 knots when the inner forestay let go. Eclipse, my 1984 Tayana 42, was screaming along on a broad reach just south of Saint Thomas. I had gone to raise the staysail, and upon putting a slight strain on the hanks, the stainless wire separated from its swagged fitting at the deck. I leapt forward to get the sail and wire under control, using a spare line to lash it back to the chainplate. In shock, I stared up at the rig, expecting the rest of the stays and shrouds to start letting go. Fortunately, Eclipse is rigged as a cutter, so the broken inner forestay wasn’t required to hold the mast up. Still, I was lucky the mast had held and I was so close to…