French shipyard Outremer is taking its ocean-cruising vision to the next level with the introduction of the Outremer 64 and 57, two high-performance catamarans designed for long-distance sailing. Both models combine the brand’s decades of offshore experience with innovative design and modern onboard comfort.

The Outremer 64 is the flagship of the new generation, merging the light, seaworthy efficiency of Outremer with semi-custom elegance inspired by Gunboat. With its 95-foot volume equivalent, low center of gravity and modular layout, the 64 is designed for both family cruising and a professional crew. Its dual My Free Space configuration allows up to twelve interior layouts, giving owners a lot of flexibility for telecommuting, short-handed sailing or extended voyages.

Reinforced carbon daggerboards, a carbon mast and a carefully optimized sail plan give the 64 remarkable stability and smooth passages even when loaded, according to the builder. The yacht blends comfort, performance and emotion for a sailing experience to a level unlike anything previously offered by Outremer. Construction will begin at La Grande-Motte in January 2026, with a world premiere scheduled for the 2027 Cannes Yachting Festival.

The Outremer 57, the natural heir to the popular Outremer 55, focuses on performance and usability for small crews. It has sleek, timeless lines and a spacious layout optimized for months at sea. Protected helm stations, efficient deck circulation, ample storage, and carefully considered weight control ensure comfort and autonomy for couples and families pursuing long-distance cruising.

Like the 64, the Outremer 57 integrates lessons learned from thousands of miles sailed by Outremer owners. Performance is accessible, reliable and practical for everyday use, the shipyard noted. Construction also begins January 2026 with a public unveiling at the 2027 Cannes Yachting Festival.

Both new models demonstrate Outremer’s commitment to creating catamarans that sail fast, feel safe and provide the onboard comfort required for serious offshore cruising.

The post Outremer Unveils Next-Generation 64 and 57 Offshore Cruising Catamarans appeared first on Cruising World.

Hmm, what to pack for an offshore adventure—now that’s always a tricky question. Depending on the weather and expected time at sea, you can sketch out what you think you’ll need, but sailing trips often take unexpected twists and turns, so you’ll also want to be ready for whatever Neptune might have in store. With that in mind, here are 15 essentials I’d toss into my sea bag and YETI cooler.

1. Frozen Food

I’d pack my YETI Bimini Pink Hopper M30 soft-side cooler or the new M20 Backpack Cooler with an aluminum baking pan of lasagna and a gallon-size plastic bag of chili, both frozen. The first night at sea, the crew will be getting used to the endless motion, so simple sandwiches will suffice. On days two and three, we’ll be ready for a real meal, and by then, the frozen entrees will be thawing out. But in the meantime, they will have done double-duty as ice packs, helping to prolong the life span of fresh fruits and vegetables. After day three, we’ll be bored and ready to cook meals from scratch.

2. PFD and Tether

I’m definitely bringing my inflatable life jacket, two spare inflation cylinders, and my safety tether. At night or anytime circumstances get dicey, I like to have my PFD on, and if I’m on deck, I want to be tethered to something solid. I bring my own gear because it’s comfortable, I know how it works, and I’ve checked to make sure the PFD’s armed and ready to go.

3. Multicolor Headlamp and Small LED Flashlight

From sunset to sunrise, I always carry a flashlight in my pocket, and the headlight frees up my hands. Plus, at night on deck, its red light won’t interfere with night vision.

4. A Couple of Good Books

You can sleep for only so many hours between watches!

5. Swim Goggles

You never know when you might need to go over the side, and they could come in handy on watch during a whiteout rain squall.

6. Multitool

You never know when it might come in handy.

7. Flask of Mt. Gay Rum and YETI Rambler

See reasoning for the multitool. The drinkware company launched a new line of tumblers, mugs and bottles in Offshore Blue and Bimini Pink for use as compact containers while out on the water or simply to keep you hydrated while doing what you love.

8. Personal EPIRB and AIS Beacons

I mount these on my PFD. I’m not planning to go overboard, but if I do, I’m hoping someone will come find me—the AIS because the boat I fell off will probably be the closest, and the EPIRB in case they don’t turn back to get me.

9. Old Bay Seasoning

A tin of Old Bay can make the worst cook’s grub taste good, and if we catch a fish, well, bon appétit.

10. Paper Charts, Dividers and Parallel Rules

I find route planning a lot easier on a paper chart; you don’t need to zoom in and out or scroll endlessly to see what’s ahead. Plus, when I pull out the nav gear, it gives the millennials aboard something to laugh at.

11. Sweatpants

Even in warm places, night watches can be cold. And sweatpants are comfortable.

12. Cap and Shades

I’m definitely packing an extra ball cap and pair of sunglasses. Both are easily lost, and missed dearly when gone.

13. Pure-Castile Peppermint Soap

It works just fine with salt water and is biodegradable.

14. iPhone

Gotta have my smartphone, loaded nav apps and music, of course.

15. Waterproof Point-and-Shoot Camera

When I go anywhere on the water, I bring along my waterproof point-and-shoot camera with Wi-Fi. You can put it in a pocket and swim ashore; it will slide under things like an engine to take photos of stuff you can’t see or reach; and you can take photos of your mates when they fall asleep on watch.

The post 15 Charter Essentials for Any Sailing Trip appeared first on Cruising World.

Recently I have observed my husband, Matt, at various times of the day and evening, sitting with a half-smile on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, betraying an inner glee. I know during these times that he is thinking about what I have come to call, simply, “The Hull.” Matt has taken offense to that term, deeming it “soulless.” Fair enough—it’s not just any hull, but one with a storied past and, hopefully, a storied future as well. For we are in the midst of refitting the late, great American solo sailor Mike Plant’s round-the-world racer, Duracell, for extended cruising. But before we get into that sailing story, let me tell you ours. 

To do that, let’s return to 2014, to a crisp fall evening during one of our first dates. We were walking on a moonlit beach here in Washington’s Puget Sound when Matt told me that one day he was going to cruise around the Pacific. He didn’t say it was a dream or that he hoped to do this one day: He stated it as a fact. And he said it in his unassuming, no fanfare, no drumrolls (he leaves that to me) sort of way. He asked whether such an ­adventure might appeal to me. I didn’t respond right away because I knew this was a serious question and that my answer could have big implications for my life. So I gave it a few long seconds and then I replied, with confidence, “Yes.”

Fast-forward to spring 2017. I was teaching middle school science in Seattle, and Matt was running Kolga Boatworks, his boat-repair business. We were living aboard Louise, a unique 40-foot homebuilt monohull from the 1970s that we adored, on the Ballard Shipping Canal. We were preparing for our Pacific cruise. We’d saved our money, Louise was ready to sail offshore, and we’d put our respective jobs and lives on hold. Our parents had slowly been persuaded that what we were about to do—with careful, trustworthy Matt as captain—was safer than driving on I-5.

We pushed off from Shilshole Marina in Seattle on August 10 of that year. As Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” filled our hearts with butterflies, our first day of sailing was gorgeous: The wind pushed us gently but persistently toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the great Pacific Ocean beyond.

The cruise that followed was everything we expected it would be: magical, challenging, uncomfortable, eye-opening, educational, nausea-inducing, at times maddening and, ultimately, life-changing. Here are a few snapshots of our two years at sea, based on journal entries from various anchorages or underway, as we sailed from Seattle down the west coast of North America; into the Sea of Cortez; across the Pacific to the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti and Bora Bora; north to Hawaii; and back home to Washington.

Smuggler’s Cove, Channel Islands

October 15, 2017: Smugglers Cove on California’s Santa Cruz Island is a shallow bay with clear, Mediterranean waters and a long beach. After anchoring Louise as close to the cliffs as possible to try to get some protection from the ­rolling swell, we decided to go ashore and explore. We were a little nervous because big rollers were coming in and ­breaking a little beyond the anchorage and ­pummeling the beach. But we discussed our strategy for a dry landing using our inflatable paddleboards.  

Matt explained that the waves come in sets, and if you wait out a set of big waves, there will be a short lull. During that lull, you position yourself between two gently rolling waves, then paddle, paddle, paddle fast enough so that the one behind you doesn’t break over you. With confidence, we put on our hiking boots, cinched on our wide-brimmed cruiser hats, got on our paddleboards, and headed toward the beach. Matt positioned himself just before the big rollers began to break. 

He turned around and gave me a look that said, “Watch carefully what I do.” He waited for the lull. It came. He paddled and paddled. I felt an especially large roller move under my board. The lull was over. Matt glanced back to see a big wave break right over him. I watched his board flip, his hat float to the beach and, a second later, a drenched Matt emerge from the ocean, ready to explore. He looked back at me and shrugged. I gave him a look that said: “Now you watch this. I’ll show you.”  

I was determined. I looked behind me; the ocean was flat. Now was the moment. Go. Paddle. I was riding high and dry. My impeccable timing resulted in a gentle wave breaking after it passed under my board. Perfect. I picked up some speed and surfed on in, graceful and dignified, a natural. Not a drop of water on my hiking boots. Matt watched from the beach in awe. I couldn’t wait to explain my strategy. But then the water slid under me a little faster, and the nose of my board started to drive down into the water. I was still going to succeed. No squishy hiking boots for me. Then I too was in the water, tumbling under the wave. Dammit. I resurfaced in time to see my hat make it to the beach before me. Oh well. Once deposited onto the Channel Islands, it was a wonderful place to explore. Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz and Catalina islands delighted us with their canyons, secluded beaches and windswept cliffs. The adventure had begun.

Bahia Santa Maria to Cabo San Lucas

November 11, 2017: As I sat in my belowdecks nook typing, Matt leaned in from the cockpit and said: “I sure hope this weather keeps up all the way to Cabo. That’d be so awesome.” The sailing was, indeed, currently awesome. Sliding down the coast of Mexico, we had 10 to 12 knots of northerly breeze, filling our spinnaker consistently with the gentle waves right on our stern. There was a shh-shh-shh of the water trickling off the hull and a lovely little skimming motion of the boat down the waves as they passed under us. 

I’d been reading about Zen Buddhism and experimenting with meditation. I’d concluded that sailing your home around the ocean is a natural way to practice the teachings of Buddhism. I looked up at Matt and replied: “The present moment is perfect; however, since everything, including the wind, is impermanent, we mustn’t get attached. Ah, yes, the wind and the waves are constantly changing, like life, and we have to move with the change, not against it. Indeed, we must search for the stillness, the calm, deep within us that stays peaceful no matter how our external situations change; much like how if you go a little under the surface of the ocean, the water is calm.” At which point, he closed and locked the hatch. 

I’m kidding: I didn’t say this out loud, but I did think something along those lines and tried to persuade myself of its truth. I, much more than Matt, get frustrated by the constantly changing state of the ocean. Of course, if the weather is taking us to our destination and the sea is relatively calm, I’m as happy as a clam. But if we then lose our wind and have to “fire up the ol’ donkey,” or get a header, or if the waves built up and made for a miserable ride (as it always does eventually), I tended to let out audible groans and sighs, with a general feeling of being smote by the ocean. Sometimes I complained out loud to myself, and we sailed, or more likely, motored on. I’d recently realized that since this will undoubtedly continue to be our reality for the next two years when traveling to our next highly anticipated anchorage, I should probably figure out a way to deal with it more gracefully (for my benefit and, equally, Matt’s) when the weather changes. As it always, always does. 

Huahine, French Polynesia

November 3, 2018: After spending eight months in French Polynesia, we’d started to get a feel for this really special place. Here is what the shimmering surface of French Polynesia looked like: lush islands dripping with bananas, coconuts, soursop, cedar apples, mangoes, pineapples, cocoa, and fruits we had never heard of before; turquoise lagoons filled with imaginatively colored fish, warm waves that gently lap soft white-sand beaches; a hundred shades of green that blanket the steep mountains and jagged basalt spires that pierce the pale sky. At night, the Milky Way scatters in full splendor across the black expanse while the sweet smell of white gardenias lingers in the warm dark air. 

The beauty of the islands was reflected in the people. The older women here had a twinkle in their eyes like light reflecting off ripples in the water; they stand close to you and smile and press mangoes into your hands. Men frequently carry around their babies, cooing at them (this society loves their babies and seems to view them as gifts to the larger community rather than the property of nuclear families), and women seem empowered. They are authentic, confident, fully and naturally themselves, somehow. They laugh a deep, unrestrained belly laugh when they are with each other, standing in circles waist-high in the warm water. Outside Papeete, in the small villages, there are no movie theaters, no big-box stores, no places to buy the latest shoes in fashion, no billboards telling you what you need to buy to be cool. In the afternoons, families gather at the water’s edge. They spend time together on porches. They sing out “Io orana!” as you walk by. No one is ever in any kind of hurry. The ancient Polynesian names of the islands, such as Matairea, translates to “joyful breeze,” and the 21st century Polynesians seem connected to their past and the people from whom they descended. They bury their relatives in graves in front of their homes, adorn them with flowers, and have picnics on top of the graves.

Lihue, Hawaii

July 19, 2019: It was hard to believe it had been almost two years since we pushed off the dock at Shilshole and began our journey through the Pacific. We’d sailed and motored 13,000 nautical miles, visited 135 anchorages and 30 islands, and experienced less-measurable things too. There was nothing definitive about the end of the trip; it was more of a gradual ending that merged into new beginnings at the same time. That said, the 19th of July was momentous. I decided to fly home, and a friend of Matt’s flew in to replace me for the final passage. As we walked to the airport, it felt like there was so much to say, but we had no idea exactly what, so we ended up walking mostly in silence. 

The end of the voyage didn’t really feel like a hard and final conclusion because the cruise had fundamentally changed how we wanted to structure our lives. It set us on a path. We’d started to reflect a little, here and there, about how the previous two years had changed us. We can, and should, live our lives according to our own rules and dreams, and if those happen to go against the societal grain, so be it. 

We dreamed and schemed of a future in which we lived on a self-sufficient boat, powered by solar, wind and hydro, that Matt had built. We wanted to work for ourselves and try to find a good balance between our vocations and everything else life has to offer. We wanted to live minimally and frugally so that we could afford more free time. We wanted to be able to pull up our anchor and go exploring anytime. All of British Columbia and Alaska lay to the north, and Oregon and the rest of the planet to the south. We both were full of aspirations and dreams, and the conviction to make this vision a reality, though our dear friend Salty might read all this and with a roll of his eyes say, as he has said before, “Such bums!” Maybe he’s right.

Throughout our cruise, Matt became increasingly interested in the features of a good cruising boat. Many hours were spent sitting in our cockpit in anchorages around the Pacific, scrutinizing other boats. He read all of Steve Dashew’s books. He became intrigued by Open 60s, offshore racers that have evolved over the past few decades in round-the-world races such as the BOC Challenge and the Vendée Globe. He started sketching designs. He dreamed about all the ways he would create an ideal cruising boat if he had the opportunity.

Olympic Peninsula, Washington

January 2022: Which brings us to the present. We’ve sold Louise and bought a small house in the woods in Washington, and Duracell is now ours, parked right outside our home (see the photo below). How she came to be ours is a story in its own right.

Designed by Rodger Martin (who passed away in May 2021), Duracell was built by Mike Plant back in the mid-1980s and named after the battery manufacturer that sponsored the boat. Afterward, Plant circled the globe aboard her twice, setting the American record for a solo circumnavigation during the 1989 Vendée Globe, a dramatic story that’s well-told in the documentary Coyote: The Mike Plant Story (available on Amazon Prime and other streaming services). 

Thirty years ago, Plant sold the boat to a sailor from Seattle named John Oman, who renamed her Northwest Spirit and sailed her to victory in the Pan Pacific Race across the Pacific to Japan. He next set off on a solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the planet that came to a halt somewhere near the equator after a collision with a cargo ship. Northwest Spirit was dismasted, but the hull didn’t sustain much damage because the bowsprit took most of the blow. The cargo-ship captain offered him a ride, but Oman opted to motor to Turtle Bay in Baja California, where he refueled and carried on to San Diego, where he loaded the boat on a trailer and drove it to Seattle, where he put it in his front yard.

That was in 1992. 

In 2019, just a few weeks after we arrived home from our Pacific voyage, Matt was scrolling through a local sailing forum when he saw a new post from Oman:

“I bought Mike’s Duracell from him as he was building his next boat, Coyote. My plan was to do my own nonracing, solo, nonstop circumnavigation. After bringing her to Seattle (through the Panama Canal) and winning the Pan Pacific Race, I brought her solo back from Japan as a shakedown. My circumnavigation was cut short by losing the top 50 feet of the mast in a collision with a freighter. Putting her on the hard next to my home, it was my intention to put her back together and return to sailing. Shore life got in the way with business and family obligations, and now age and health issues. I no longer have the means to chase that dream. So what now? I love that boat. I can’t imagine a more easily handled, seakindly, safe, proven, shorthanded boat capable of sailing anywhere on Earth. So a refit for a solo circumnavigator? Or shorthanded go anywhere?”

Immediately the wheels began turning in Matt’s head. I got a text from him that simply said, “I found our next boat.” 

The pandemic delayed everything, but during that time, we got to know Oman, and worked hard to earn his trust and prove that we were worthy of this special refit project. Almost two years after his original post, Oman generously decided to release the boat to us.

But why this boat? Matt says that it’s the most solid, safest, best-built, fastest hull out there: a very special shell that we can turn into a comfortable home. Before the pandemic, he traveled to Rhode Island, where Duracell was built, and was thrilled to meet Rodger Martin, who graciously gave him copies of the original drawings. Armed with those, the refit is now well underway.

Former science teacher Janneke Petersen and her husband, Matt—a seasoned sailor who was part of the winning crew in the inaugural Race to Alaska in 2017—are well into their ambitious refit, which they’re chronicling on their YouTube channel, The Duracell Project. Also look for more updates in future issues of CW.

Mike Plant’s Famous Duracell

Before he was tragically lost at sea in 1992, solo sailor Mike Plant twice circled the globe aboard his Open 60, Duracell. His most memorable voyage came during the 1989 Vendée Globe. Midway through the race, deep in the Southern Ocean, Plant was forced to ­anchor in the remote Kerguelen Islands to address rigging problems. Though he ­completed the repairs himself, he did accept brief assistance from a team of New Zealand meteorologists when Duracell dragged anchor.

Though the Kiwis told Plant they’d be sworn to secrecy, he radioed race headquarters that he’d had help: an automatic disqualification. But Plant finished the course by sailing alone back to France, where he was greeted with a hero’s welcome and set the American record for a singlehanded circumnavigation of 134 days. He disappeared aboard his next boat, Coyote, en route to the 1992 running of the Vendée race. —Herb McCormick

The post From Offshore Racer to Performance Cruiser appeared first on Cruising World.

I don’t remember much about our sail down the Baja coast in February 2009. This seems strange because it was five days and nights at sea, our first real passage aboard Kate, our Newport 41. The ship’s log says that we had a fresh 25- to 30-knot breeze for most of the trip. Thankfully, it was a downhill run, and the motion of the boat was comfortable but lively. My husband, Steve, who had much more experience than me, called it a sleigh ride. I thought it felt more like a rickety roller coaster.

The days passed uneventfully, but my solo midnight watches were haunted by stories from my childhood. I saw sea monsters in the green phosphorescence of the large waves that periodically broke close enough to where I sat that I got sprayed with salty monster spit. I heard voices in the cockpit drains, whispering to me the secrets of sailors who had been lost at sea. I sat for hours with my arms wrapped around a winch and my fingers fondling the catch on my safety tether.

I was overcome by everything. By the enormity of the ocean, by the fragility of our boat, by our crazy plan to sail across it. By the beauty of the night sky, by exhaustion, by excitement, by fear. And yet, when we threw down the anchor at 0400 in Cabo San Lucas, at the very southern tip of the Baja Peninsula, I wasn’t ready to stop. Despite the anxiety I experienced while underway, being at sea out of sight of land made me feel full and connected.

Read More: from Heather Francis

Of course, I would spend many more nights on watch before I could put that feeling of wholeness into words. Nights that made us realize we were no longer looking for a home port because we were already home, no matter where we were. Nights that made the decision to turn our 18-month hiatus into a 12-year-and-still-counting way of life an easy one to make. Or perhaps it was the occasional nights spent ashore that made me realize how very unmoored I felt when not on the water.

This past year has been especially difficult. Due to travel restrictions, I’ve been separated not only from the ocean but also my partner. With my feet on solid ground for the past several months, I now feel as though I am completely adrift.

But, like any good sailor, I know this storm will pass. Experience reminds me that soon I will be sailing in the right direction once again.

The post Overcoming the Fear of Sailing at Night appeared first on Cruising World.

Our first warning was the stillness. You might find it cliche that, as sailors, a calm morning would spell ominous weather on the horizon. But we were at the bottom of the world—Puerto Williams, Chile—and we were about to make a run for Cape Horn.

We’d arrived in Puerto Williams on Christmas Eve, having sailed a year and a half to get there. Our 36-foot sloop was warped, weary and falling to bits after battling a barrage of storms along the coast of Patagonia. We ourselves were beaten and fatigued. But we had a window, and we didn’t know if another would come for weeks, or even months.

Cape Horn, South America, is where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans collide. Waves have been recorded at over 100 feet high—the size of a 10-story building—with winds frequently reaching hurricane force. The rock itself withstands a siege of low-pressure systems year-round. These storms originate in Antarctica, work their way north across the Southern Ocean, and then slam through the passage between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula. The size and intensity of these storms—and the steepness of waves off Chile’s continental shelf—are enough to break any boat. But these systems also follow each other in such close succession that each storm barely has time to clear the passage before the next is closing in.

The conditions ahead, however, looked almost perfect. It was December, and summer had begun its brief visit to the bottom of the world. The low-pressure system currently sweeping around the Horn promised to leave a vacuum in its wake, while the following storm was poised to miss its mark, making landfall farther north up the coastline of Patagonia. The ensuing conditions were supposed to leave the Drake Passage clear of western winds for a whopping three days.

Perfect.

We wanted badly for a break in our misfortune. After overcoming a survival storm way back in the Gulf of Mexico at the outset of this journey, it had become a running joke that when we finally arrived at Cape Horn, the ocean would be glassy-calm. We didn’t want the shirtless, smooth-sailing conditions that we’d been robbed of in the Caribbean; we just wanted a window. After all that we’d overcome to get to there—hurricanes, pirates, bureaucracies, starvation, even each other—it seemed fair (if not overdue). We thought that we had earned it.

Our forecast was promising. Some of the local expedition boats were making their first run to Antarctica for the season. Plus we had a community of sailors, military veterans and civilians cheering us on from the sidelines. But even as we cast off our lines and began motoring down the Beagle Channel, something felt wrong. Icy water rolled out in a viscous wake behind us. The sun rose low over the mountains surrounding the channel. None of us spoke. I could see it in my shipmates: Taylor’s grip on the helm, and the way John’s back stiffened at every minute sound. The stakes were too high. Besides, there was a trend that had plagued our journey from the first leg—that a serene start always preceded a tumultuous end—and our key takeaway from the Furious 50s was that, at the bottom of the world, calm seas come at a price.

We were desperate for a handout—an easy sail around the world’s most treacherous waters—but Cape Horn didn’t care what we’d endured to get there. You pay a toll when crossing what some of our predecessors had nicknamed “the sailor’s graveyard.” Almost everyone pays it. We weren’t about to get a free pass.

Even if the tale that had brought us here, and the motivation for it, was almost too hard to grasp or believe.

Three years earlier, Taylor Grieger and I were lounging on a beach in Guam. Rounding Cape Horn certainly wasn’t on our radars. In fact, sailing anywhere particularly remote wasn’t on mine. I’d flown to Guam from Scotland as a student to conduct interviews with female helicopter pilots in the Navy. Taylor, meanwhile, was wrapping up six years as a Navy rescue swimmer. His four-year stint on Guam had left him with an outstanding record of rescues…and a belly full of bitterness.

Guam was the first time we had seen each other in eight years. Taylor had gone into the military after high school, while I’d taken the academic route. Despite polar-opposite pipelines, we were able to pick up right where we’d left off: as buddies, and former teammates on the varsity swim team.

It quickly became apparent, though, that Taylor’s time as a rescue swimmer was far from the hero’s journey he’d been promised, or originally envisioned. His motivation had been to help people on maybe the worst day of their lives, and yet he found himself constantly training for combat. The pace on Guam was equally ruthless. It wasn’t unusual to have back-to-back flights scheduled, barely giving time for Taylor to stretch his legs before beginning the next mission. Their position off Mariana Trench, meanwhile, meant that whenever they got called for a search-and-rescue operation, it was safe to assume the missing people were already dead.

“A lot of times,” Taylor said, “all we’ll find is a pool of blood. Body parts in the water.” We were drinking whiskey in his living room, but the numbing effects didn’t soften his words. “They would’ve been dashed against the coral a hundred times already.”

Taylor had real, palpable anxiety about returning to the civilian world, which he was on the cusp of entering. His other deployments had been to some of the worst areas of conflict in the world: the Philippines, the South Korean DMZ and a number of typhoon/earthquake disaster-relief missions that still kept him up at night. He had already attended the military’s joke of a transition course—TAPS—but he came out more confused than when he’d gone in. So after I asked him what he wanted to do when he got out, it didn’t come as a complete shock when he said, “I want to buy a boat and sail it around the world.”

That had been Taylor’s dream since he was a kid. And the military, he said, had been his means to that end. Taylor had been putting away hefty chunks of his salary for years. Enlisted soldiers have a reputation of blowing their hard-earned cash on lavish expenditures or wild nights on the town, but Taylor had made it a point not to fall into that trap. Still, sailing around the world is a common enough dream, and lots of people talk about it. Even I had dreamed of sailing the Greek Isles. What did surprise me was what he said next: “Join me.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. The impracticality of this dream notwithstanding, I had virtually no sailing experience; I was—by all First World standards—flat broke; and I was in the middle of a doctorate program, on course to become an associate professor and a writer. Why he thought I might say yes, I can’t imagine. He didn’t even have a boat. Even so, my natural, initial response, was simply: “Sure. Why not?”

Whiskey had helped fuel that conversation, and a large part of me assumed the whole idea would be forgotten by the time I returned to Scotland. But it wasn’t. In fact, our conversations continued well into the final year of my Ph.D.

I’d been conducting interviews with combat veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for about five years. My dissertation was a collection of short stories about combat veterans adjusting back into civilian life. And so, after reconnecting with Taylor, I made him one of my authenticity buffers. We worked well together because he’d never hold back. “There aren’t sergeants in the Navy,” he’d say. Or: “It’s a galley, not a mess hall. Nobody says they’re going to eat ‘mess.’”

When Taylor got out of the military four months later, our roles reversed. Where I had looked to him for confirmation, he now turned to me. Taylor would call from his car, after a party, or from home sitting on his bed. His heart rate would be through the roof, as if he were in the middle of a rescue or about to leap out of a hovering helicopter. But he’d been doing nothing of the sort. Talking to a friend. Driving his truck. Staring at a wall.

“Have you heard this before?” he asked. “In the guys you interviewed? Is this normal?”

My answer was always: “Yes.” I’d heard similar variations from every single veteran I’d interviewed. But what struck me most were the similarities between Taylor’s experience and those of combat veterans.

Taylor and his fellow rescue swimmers had adapted to working back-to-back flights; they were frequently denied more than four hours of consecutive sleep; and their job was jumping out of helicopters. They ran off endorphins, epinephrine, cortisol and supplements that simulated the same effects. Taylor’s adrenal and pituitary glands had adjusted to producing excess amounts of fight-or-flight hormones. So when he left the military, those glands didn’t just stop producing; they kept right at it. And when he couldn’t provide an outlet for his pent-up hormones, they’d release of their own accord.

For Taylor, this was all incredibly foreign. And scary. Having no control over your body—when your profession relied on absolute control—is nothing less than terrifying. It feels like you’re losing yourself.

Then the unthinkable happened. Taylor—the fun-loving, generous, excitable kid who had gone from the slowest swimmer in town to captain of the varsity swim team; the rescue swimmer who had dedicated six years of his life to helping others; and one of the most positive, energetic humans I’ve ever known—put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

The round didn’t go off.

It’s not my place to describe what drove Taylor to that moment, or how he was able to pick himself up and carry on, but I can say that it was nothing short of a miracle that he survived. And because of it, both of our lives changed forever.

Taylor often credits me with helping him through some of his darkest moments, but it was his dream of sailing, and his determination to see it through, that pulled him out of the dark. He was alone and confused, disillusioned with, and undervalued by, the civilian population. But our proposed voyage gave him a purpose.

Taylor threw himself into this new endeavor, and he began by searching for a boat. Not just any boat though. We needed one that was affordable, and that could withstand just about anything. It took months of research, reading and traveling—not to mention thousands of dollars hauling out boats for surveys—but Taylor applied himself to the task with everything he had.

Meanwhile, I was in a frenzy to finish my degree. It was around this time that I stumbled upon the largest, most comprehensive study of veteran suicides ever released. It involved over 1 million US military personnel who served between 2001 and 2007—the peak of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—and the findings were startling. Veterans who had not deployed to a combat zone were more likely to commit suicide than veterans who had. Taylor had never technically deployed to a combat zone. And while he was being discharged, despite exposure to a number of seriously traumatic experiences, PTSD

—post-traumatic stress disorder—wasn’t even mentioned.

This sailing trip, then, became something else entirely: a mission and an expedition. It would be Taylor’s own Odyssey—his transition to civilian life—and we would document the entire endeavor. Our plan was to showcase the struggles veterans face when leaving the military, and tell the story of Taylor’s personal journey to overcome them. But to be heard, truly heard, we couldn’t simply sail a road-mapped route around the world; we needed to do something big. Something that would grab hold of the public and maintain their attention long enough for them to see. And to do that, we needed to sail the harshest waters on the planet.

We needed to round Cape Horn.

Taylor closed on a boat in Tampa, Florida, at the end of March—the last possible moment if our plans were going to stay on track—and our fantasy expedition became real. We still had months of work to do, and Cape Horn was just a speck on our charts, but we had a boat. Our journey had begun.

Taylor had purchased a Watkins 36, a Bill Tripp-designed, center-cockpit sloop with a long fin keel and skeg-mounted rudder. As a novice sailor, 36 feet sounded pretty small to me—until I stepped on board. Down below, there was standing headroom. And she was beamy, with room for a good galley and head, a comfortable saloon, and two cabins with berths for three or four crew. A reinforced cockpit Bimini would shield us from stormy weather, and she had wide working decks for sailhandling and maneuvers.

“Plus she’s sturdy,” Taylor said. “She’s built for the high seas.”

It was spring 2017, and I had flown from Scotland to see her for myself. I was not disappointed. But the clock was ticking. If we were to round Cape Horn in a single season, we would have to leave by September at the latest. There were still countless repairs and preparations to make if we were going to sail to the bottom of the world, and neither of us could afford a year of idling. And so our race started.

The next several months were a blur. I was juggling a half-dozen commitments to finish my studies, but in May I still flew back to Pensacola, where Taylor had moved the boat for the refit, then again for all of August, to help work on it. For a month straight, we woke up every morning around 0600, and it wasn’t uncommon for us to return home after sundown. Fiberglass clung to our pores and burned in the showers. The peak summer heat, meanwhile, was suffocating.

But we covered a lot of ground. Together we repaired and painted the hull, replaced and mounted a restored Perkins 4108 engine, and refurbished the entire interior. On scorching-hot afternoons, we’d sew cushion covers in Taylor’s living room. We became whatever our girl demanded of us: mechanics, carpenters, electricians, even seamstresses. And if we didn’t know how to do something, we’d learn. That month was one of the most physically taxing of my life. I sweated and ached more than I ever thought possible. It was edifying.

As the weeks passed, we drew closer to splashing her back in the water, and I began to love our beat-up old boat. All of the work we put into her created a bond unlike anything I’d ever experienced. We even referred to her as our ol’ lady. “Gotta check in with the ol’ lady before bed,” Taylor would say. And so, when it came to naming her, the answer came too easily.

Ole Lady.

We performed all of the rites and rituals required for changing the boat’s name before I returned to Scotland. Then a month later, and five days after submitting a hardbound copy of my final dissertation, we cast off our lines for the open ocean.

The first leg was a 600-nautical-mile stretch across the Gulf of Mexico. It was September 25, 2017. Smack-dab in the middle of hurricane season.

Attempting to detail here every adventure and misadventure of what next transpired would be an incredible disservice to Taylor, Kellen Warner, Jonathan Rose, and all of the many other veterans who joined us, physically or vicariously, at some point along the way. But I will say that we were baptized by fire.

Crossing the Gulf turned out to be one of the greatest trials of our entire trip. We certainly knew what season it was. Hurricane Harvey had just flooded the Houston area, and Miami had narrowly dodged its dance with Irma. With the addition of Maria—which obliterated the Dominican Republic—the 2017 hurricane season became the costliest of all time. But we were not to be dissuaded.

For one, we were already facing a tightened timeline to get to Cape Horn before winter. Not that we felt prepared for the Horn. We weren’t even prepared for the stormy Gulf of Mexico! But there’s an axiom that spoke true to us then, which I stand by today: “If you wait until you’re fully prepared, your boat will never leave the harbor.” So Taylor called one of his Navy buddies, Kell Warner—who took a week’s leave to help us reach Cancun—and we planned our departure around a high-pressure system moving south. Our plan was to ride it to Mexico.

But…the forecast high pressure never came. We enjoyed about two days of smooth(ish) sailing before the storms began, and when that first major front hit, well, it could’ve been disastrous.

Taylor had shortened our sail plan well in advance of the front, with our smallest jib and a triple-reefed mainsail. But when this storm struck, it did so all at once. From my spot on the helm, it felt like running into a wall. The wind and seas, one moment coming from port, almost immediately shifted hard to starboard. The boat heeled heavily, the mast just a few feet off the water. Waves were breaking over the bow and across the deck. We needed to fall off to a broad reach, but to do so we had to drop the main.

I was hardly aware of the evolution of the maneuver. It was all I could do to keep our mast out of the water.

Together, Taylor and Kell moved up the deck. They hadn’t even reached the mast when a wave broke over the bow, the kind of wave I’d seen only in movies, a proverbial wall of water rising out of a black sea. It was like diving headfirst into the River Styx. It broke on Taylor and Kell, crashed into the Bimini, and blurred my view completely. I thought the whole boat had been swamped, or that we had capsized.

Once everything cleared, Taylor and Kell were gone. No headlamps flashing on deck. No silhouettes moving in the dark. Only the shrieking howl of the wind. The thought that we could die on this journey had occurred to all of us a number of times. But never, in all those imaginary scenarios, had I imagined it would come so soon.

They had to be in the water, astern, adrift. I had to turn around. I wasn’t sure I could. But I had to try.

I braced myself to spin the wheel and whip the bow around after the crest of the next wave when a speck of light glinted off the jib. It was so dark, with rain so thick, that I knew it couldn’t be anything else. My grip slackened. Together, as if a single body in motion, Taylor and Kell rose from the forward edge of the bow. They’d been swept off their feet, knocked down and thrashed about, but both had managed to grab rigging and stanchions before being washed overboard. They were alive.

We dropped off Kell in Cancun after an eight-day Gulf crossing, and celebrated surviving what we hoped would be the most difficult leg of the voyage. Of course, we were wrong. Storms to come would be much worse. But we had survived our initiation; it was a trial that we sorely needed and would rely upon going forward.

It would take nine more months to cross the equator into the Southern Hemisphere, months riddled with obstacles. We battened down for Hurricane Nate off the Yucatan Peninsula, and later withstood two tropical storms off the Honduran island of Roatan. Our engine seized after a pair of oil lines burst in the middle of a tropical depression that struck between Honduras and Nicaragua. We were stranded in the middle of the Caribbean Sea—without an engine, with no breeze, for two weeks. When we finally limped into Colón, Panama, we were parched, malnourished and eating peanut butter out of a jar.

We transited the Panama Canal in early December 2018, and by the time we reached Ecuador, we had punched each other in the face, spent our life’s savings, and faced down pirates off the Pacific coast of Colombia. We’d also nearly given up on the voyage a handful of times, the most recent being right before John Rose, a former rescue swimmer, volunteered to help us sail from Ecuador to Chile.

The three of us drifted into Valparaiso after over a month at sea, arriving in late April 2018, sunken-eyed and hungry, in the most confusing landfall of our journey. We had just sailed 3,200 nautical miles without an engine. Our transmission had failed, for the second time, a few hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador, again leaving us becalmed. A fire in the engine compartment almost cost us our lives. We had been rationing food, were taking on water from a crack in the bow, and had snapped a furling line in the middle of a storm. We had totally missed our original, proposed plan to round Cape Horn. Our Ole Lady was falling to pieces.

“It’s time to call it,” Taylor had said the morning after our engine fire. We were becalmed and surrounded by a glassy, windless ocean. “This boat’s not going to make it. We’ll scrap her in Valparaiso. Use the money to fly home.”

We found a pub in Valpo, took turns cleaning up in the men’s room, and inspected the alien features of our reflections. Then we huddled into the dry warmth of a corner booth and allowed the simple pleasures of hot food and a cold beer to wash over us. It took time for our cellphones to charge, and even longer for the messages to pour in. There was going to be a treaty with North Korea, John said. Taylor announced that his sister was having a baby. Amy Flannery, a producer of documentaries, wanted to help us tell our story. Glasses were raised. Pints were drained.

Then Taylor read a message that overshadowed the rest.

“Serna’s dead,” he said. The words fell onto the table. He was already blinking tears out of his eyes. “He committed suicide.”

“No,” John said. He turned to his own phone for confirmation. “Not him.”

Serna was a fellow rescue swimmer. He had deployed with Taylor and John, but he was more than a friend. He was their brother. He was the guy everyone wanted to be around. Serna had enlisted because he believed in serving his country, and he became a rescue swimmer because he wanted to help people. He was the embodiment of rescue swimmers everywhere, but—more than anything else—he was a good man.

There had been a handful of other times on this journey when we’d bent to the point of breaking. Serna’s death hurt. Bad.

We didn’t change our minds overnight. There was no conversation about continuing on despite the risks. The choice was made gradually. We were broken; hell, we were broke; there was really no reason to believe that we would succeed. But we couldn’t give up. We were still in a position to make a difference, to help our friends and our peers. To do nothing would’ve been worse than to try and then fail.

Before flying back to Texas in June 2018, Taylor found a marina in Valdivia where we could store Ole Lady for the Southern Hemisphere winter. John spent the summer teaching sailing courses off Lake Michigan. I began working with FreshFly Films in Philadelphia to transform our voyage into a feature-length documentary. It took a Kickstarter campaign, with contributions from our small—but incredibly loyal—following, to get us back to Chile. But we made it happen. And when we returned to Ole Lady that November, we were reinvigorated and ready to finish what we had put into motion two long years before.

Our work was far from done. Ole Lady was still hurting. There were still repairs to be made and provisions to find. We had no idea what would be available to us in Puerto Williams, or our next landfall after rounding Cape Horn. We were preparing for the unknown. And we had to be ready for, and anticipate, everything.

For the most part, I’m proud to say, we did just that. Despite facing the worst seas of the entire trip—and battling more snapped lines, shattered blocks and broken rigging than ever—our next leg, from Valdivia and into Patagonia, was, by far, the one we were most prepared for. We even addressed a sheered roller furler at the mouth of the Magellan Strait, in some of the steepest waves I’ve ever seen.

When we finally checked in to Puerto Williams on Christmas Eve 2018, we weren’t just tired; we were wiped out. What we wanted now, more than anything, was to be done. To be safe. To be finished with what had evolved into our own real-life Odyssey. And that played into our decision to just keep going. On December 26, just two days after making landfall at Puerto Williams, we cast off and steered west down the Beagle Channel.

We approached Drake’s Passage from Paso Picton, traversing Bahia Nassau before looping around the Horn from west to east, to ride the prevailing westerlies past the cape, then tuck back inland behind the shelter of Isla Deceit. The wind began picking up and heading us later that morning though, and by late afternoon, we had to tack our way south. Night fell by the time we reached Bahia Nassau. I took the midnight watch.

Bahia Nassau is the notorious stretch of water that Charles Darwin coined “the Milky Way of the sea.” Joshua Slocum recalled it as the scene of “the greatest sea adventure of my life.” It lived up to its reputation.

Even in these relatively calm conditions, the wind kept shifting from all directions. Swells from Drake’s Passage rebounded off the surrounding islands, and struck back with surprising size and speed. Hours seemed to pass where it was difficult to discern if we were going forward or backward. It was a cloudy night, and so dark that, at times, I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. An eternity stretched before the glow of dawn, and at 0400, I handed the helm to John. We hadn’t even rounded the Wollaston Islands.

John spent the rest of the morning negotiating the currents and headwinds at the entrance of the Hermite Strait, the final stretch before Cape Horn. But he managed to set up Taylor for a run at the Drake Passage. Taylor hit his stride. The sun broke through at the beginning of his watch as we flew south at 5 knots, against the current.

We passed False Cape Horn, off Isla Hoste, and broke into the Drake. By now it was afternoon, and the conditions were…disheartening. We were disoriented, and not a little dismayed, to meet sharp, biting winds from the east. This wasn’t the weather window that had been promised—the calm winds and blue skies that were forecast to follow the preceding storm—nor was it the supposedly reliable westerly breeze that we had planned our entire voyage around. Instead there were low dark clouds on the horizon, a gray haze of rain to the east, and large, steep swells pushed up by a continental shelf that climbs from over 4,000 meters to a mere 100 meters within a few kilometers. We were battling upwind, into waves the size of large buildings, and against the current.

Yes, it sounds absurd, but we’d been hoping for a calm sail around Cape Horn. We’d even had conversations about cruising within a mile of the cliffs, posing for pictures in the sun, even landing on shore (drawing straws for who had to remain on board) and hiking to the monument, and getting our passports stamped by the lighthouse operator. It had been done before, and it had been our dream since the very beginning to bask in that moment. We imagined it would be an act of balance, of karma, after all the hardship we had faced to get there.

It wasn’t going to happen.

As quickly as Cape Horn appeared over the horizon, she faded behind a veil of mist and rain. A gale was approaching, and we were still 20 miles away.

Despite the warnings and lessons of our journey so far, we chose to keep going. We were determined to keep on as close a course as possible to the Horn itself. We reefed down to maintain our closehauled track, but the conditions weren’t having it. We were slamming so hard, we felt it in our bones.

After flying over a steep wave that literally knocked us off our feet, Taylor eased the mainsheet and furled most of the jib. Cracked off slightly, on a true wind angle of about 60 degrees, we were now on a heading to pass the Horn some 20 miles offshore, in the dead of night. But if things deteriorated further, we’d have no choice but to turn tail, bear away, and abandon the Horn attempt.

I was devastated. John was furious. But Taylor was heartbroken. We were so close. John disappeared below, and when he returned with a bottle of whiskey, Taylor let it out.

“Everything we’ve worked toward,” he said. “All of the shit we’ve put up with, and all we wanted was a break. Why was that so much to ask?” He looked up as he spoke, his eyes welling.

Then something remarkable happened. The sun, behind layers of mist and cloud, glowed through the haze. The waves and wind weren’t letting up, but the skies were hinting at a respite. When the wind started backing from the east to the north, we allowed ourselves to hope once more.

It didn’t happen in a single moment, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, our course was lifted inland, and we came within 3 miles of the legendary rock before passing it. The sun broke through, igniting that battered rock, and the curtain of rain that had veiled Cape Horn all day lifted to reveal her face—in all of its mean and malevolent glory.

Cape Horn demands a tribute from those who pass. Charles Darwin realized this during his first passage on Beagle, and we learned it on Ole Lady, after paying a toll on both sides. The fair weather held through late afternoon. We posed for pictures, launched the drone, and shared a celebratory dram of whiskey in the cockpit. But as the sun fell over the Isle of Deceit, we were blasted by another gale, this one with twice the force of the last.

Ultimately we did turn back—passing Cape Horn a second time—before cutting back up the passage we had come from in the first place. We motored our way up tight inlets into the Beagle Channel and aimed for Puerto Williams the following evening, but only after our engine overheated and we had to tack upwind to the Chilean port. We arrived at 0300 on New Year’s Eve, and the rest is, well, history. Our production team flew down to Ushuaia, Argentina, a month later to interview us in Patagonia. Taylor sold the boat to a young Chilean captain. Then we flew home to begin postproduction for our documentary, Hell or High Seas.

There were no parties to celebrate our return; no news outlets stood by to film our reunion with loved ones in the airport. Flying home was as anticlimactic an ending as we could’ve imagined. And yet, it wasn’t the end. Because the real journey is just beginning. Our expedition to sail Cape Horn was the first step, and Hell or High Seas is going to be the next. But more will need to follow if we’re going to make a difference. Our soldiers, for instance, need a more comprehensive out-processing program, facilitated by veterans and civilians—not the military. We need longer transition periods for veterans to reassimilate, with optional pipelines that educate as well as exercise the mind. But we also need a change of culture, not only in the military, but also outside it. I emphasize the latter because we, as civilians, are our military’s first point of contact when they return home. We set the tone for the rest of their lives.

Sailing was Taylor’s transition period. It offered an ideal mixture of serene reflection and adrenaline-packed fights for survival. We dealt with hurricanes and gales, but there were also moments of profound beauty and tranquility, from the sublime, raw grandeur of Patagonia to the ripple of bioluminescent plankton in the wake of dolphins diving at night. And so, as our trip progressed, sailing became more than an adrenaline outlet or a balance between the highs and the lows. It became a reminder about the value of living.

But there’s still a question: Is Taylor going to be OK?

I have much to say on that end—and I’ve got a lot of faith in him—but right now, after two years together on the high seas, the reality is that I don’t know.

What I can say is that he’s survived the most dangerous period of a rescue swimmer’s life—his first year out of the military—and that, by all points of evaluation, means he’s doing better. Most of this progress came from learning to live with PTSD rather than trying to overcome it. But the cost of his service will continually affect his body and mind. Taylor will always have his demons, and no measure of therapy or sailing is going to change that.

But there were other takeaways that neither of us anticipated. Like how, after all that we’d been through, it wasn’t rounding Cape Horn or achieving our goal that guided Taylor in his transition home. It was the sense of purpose that it gave him, and it was the journey, the adventure and the excitement of rediscovering the world, of recalling that there will always be more for us to experience.

And to explore.

Stephen J. O’Shea is a writer and documentarian—and now sailor—who tells stories for a living. His first book, From the Land of Genesis, was published in 2020, and he is a credited writer, videographer and producer for the upcoming feature documentary Hell or High Seas, about this epic journey to Cape Horn. Taylor Grieger, meanwhile, is captaining sailing charters out of Kemah, Texas, and delivering sailboats around the globe. He is currently the director of operations for veteran sailing nonprofit organization American Odysseus Sailing Foundation (amodsailing.org). His next dream, to lead proper high-latitude expeditions with veterans, is still very much alive.

The post Sailing Around Cape Horn For A Good Cause appeared first on Cruising World.

It was 0300, and I was on the helm of one of the fastest monohull racing yachts on Earth; the Bakewell-White-designed supermaxi racing yacht Rio 100. With a reef in the main, a small jib set and a large reaching gennaker unfurled, we were romping along at sustained speeds in the high teens with bursts well into the 20s. I was decked out in the latest, greatest foul-weather gear from Musto and “talking story” with a Volvo Ocean Race veteran serving as my watch captain. Pinching myself to be in this place in time, we were fully sending it across the Pacific on what was quite easily the fastest boat I’ve ever sailed on a long bluewater passage.

A multimillion-dollar, all-carbon-fiber racing yacht that has set numerous course records on the West Coast and from there to Hawaii, Rio wasn’t exactly the waterborne equivalent to a Formula One car, but she was damn close. She might not have been the lightest, nimblest, highest-tech machine on the water, but when allowed to stretch her legs for more than your typical grand prix race, she was tough to beat. A race-car analogy? How about a 1,000-horsepower, top-tier 24 Hours of Le Mans racer. That sounds right.

Taking advantage of Rio’s generous 100 feet of water-line, we were knocking out the miles en masse on our approach to California. After racing to Hawaii in the Transpac the previous summer, then stuck there for repairs, eight other souls and I were now sailing Rio home to Cali in the dead of winter so she’d be ready for upcoming regattas.

Delayed by a full day or more in the Pacific High, drifting in circles, to allow a weather system to pass in front of us, we’d then been gifted an open 1,300-nautical-mile runway to the coast in picture-perfect conditions (a distance that we would ultimately knock out in less than four days). Rio was fully coming to life, reveling in the reaching conditions and mellow following seas created by the 10 to 20 knots of northwesterly pressure that was propelling us onward. At those angles, Rio slid along quicker than the wind speed, oftentimes cruising at 15 knots in 12 knots of breeze and closer to 20 knots of boatspeed in 15 knots of pressure.

With a massive bulb keel that draws more than 21 feet when fully down, and twin rudders, the boat felt incredibly stable and very much in control when driving her in these conditions. When one got rocked up on a wave or gust, or in a puff/ wave combo, the boat heeled predictably and gave the helmsman plenty of warning before wanting to round up. When that inevitable force did come, however, a quick press of the helm to leeward was met with an instant reaction from the boat, which responded just as the helmsman intended, and oftentimes with a long, rewarding surfing run and a sharp acceleration in speed. It wasn’t the small, quick bursts of speed that a lightweight dinghy or skiff delivers, but rather the long, pronounced surfs of a massive racing yacht powering its way forward, propelled by impressive amounts of sail area and inertia.

Sailing Rio was an educational experience. I’m a pretty experienced big-boat sailor, but there are several systems and design characteristics on this behemoth that I had never seen before yet would come to understand and love by the end of the trip. One of the chief joys of sailing well-sorted racing yachts is seeing how talented boat captains and professional sailors have chosen to tackle certain problems or set up various systems.

For example, headsails are hoisted up all the way until they are resting on a halyard lock. Once the sail is on lock, a 2-to-1 hydraulic tack line pulls down on the tack until the desired “halyard tension” is achieved. The twin-wheel, dual-rudder steering system is a magnificent array of foils, steering wheels, Spectra cables and sheaves and, finally, carbon-fiber tie rods and track-and-car assemblies in the hull.

At first glance everything seemed complex, but once broken down bit by bit, there’s a theme of simple, robust, effective systems in place throughout the yacht. While some of them are indisputably complicated (and no boat is ever perfect), I’ve been on boats about half the size of Rio that were at times more frustrating and laborious to sail and maneuver. With the larger headsails hanked onto the forestay (I’ve never been a huge fan of head foils) and the smaller ones on furlers, keeping Rio in phase with the conditions was a fun and relatively straightforward process, even with a somewhat shorthanded crew.

Much of the credit for the relatively smooth sailing was boat captain and skipper Keith Kilpatrick, another Volvo Ocean Race veteran who has “been there and done that” everywhere in the world of yacht racing. Intimately familiar with Rio and her systems, Kilpatrick had assembled a group of old-school sailing pros, friends and crewmates who he’s known for decades, and thrown in a few talented “young guns” who were experienced, up to the challenge and keen to knock out some miles. Needless to say, I was beyond stoked to have earned a spot in “Kilpatrick’s Navy” for a couple of weeks. The sailing was fast, the food tasty, and while we were all focused on the job at hand, the vibe on board was decidedly relaxed and fun.

A little history: When computer-technology magnate and passionate racing sailor Manouch Moshayedi, Rio’s owner, set out to win the coveted Transpac “Barn Door” trophy for first-to-finish-line honors in 2015, he knew he needed a unique yacht. At the time, the Barn Door rules required a monohull to have human-powered winches and hydraulics, and conventional ballast (i.e., a fixed keel and no water ballast), so he couldn’t merely show up with any of the mammoth supermaxis such as those that competed in races like the classic Sydney-Hobart, many of which had canting keels and water ballast, and powered winches. (The Transpac rules have since been relaxed to allow canting keels.)

So when Moshayedi put the program together, he looked to purchase or build a fixed-keel supermaxi with no water ballast and all human-powered winches and hydraulics. After consulting with many top international sailors, the decision was made to buy the 98-foot Lahana and have the Kiwi design consortium of Bakewell-White redesign the boat for a full transformation, which would take place at the Cookson yard in New Zealand.

The old water ballast was removed by cutting off the back half of the hull, which was replaced by a new, wider stern section that now sported the twin rudders. With the loss of the water ballast, the designers would need to rely on enhanced hull-form stability to keep Rio on her toes in fast power-reaching and running conditions.

She was further turbocharged by adding a longer boom and longer bowsprit to facilitate a larger mainsail and bigger spinnakers. With the input from two-time Volvo winner and three-time America’s Cup vet Mike Sanderson of Doyle Sails New Zealand, the boat underwent an extensive sail program that would ultimately reap huge performance gains on the water. Combine the added horsepower and righting moment with a weight savings of somewhere between 6 and 7 tons, and the Rio 100 that emerged from the shed was an entirely different beast than the old Lahana that had entered it.

On the water, the boat immediately proved her merit in hard offshore racing in New Zealand and Australia. After her training and adventures Down Under had concluded, Rio 100 was shipped to California, where she began an ambitious few years of Pacific Ocean campaigning.

In her first two Transpac races, in 2015 and 2017, Rio indeed claimed the Barn Door Trophy, though she failed to come up with the type of performance that would make the boat truly legendary. Rio 100′s crew saved that performance for the 2016 Pacific Cup race. In a record-setting El Niño-affected summer, the North Pacific was bursting with hurricane and cyclonic activity for the duration of the season. It was a navigator’s nightmare, in which many of the competitors (including this writer, aboard a Swan 42) finished in the middle of named tropical storms that were uncharacteristically battering the island of Oahu.

As well as the storms, the race was epic because of a nuking breeze almost all the way across the course, with a large broad-reaching racetrack that was set forth before Rio and the fleet. Maintaining a starboard jibe almost the whole way, Rio’s crew set their reaching spinnaker and smashed their way to Hawaii, knocking some two hours off the already impressive course record set by the 40-foot-longer Mari Cha IV in 2004. Finishing the 2,070-nautical-mile race in just 5 days, 3 hours, 41 minutes, Rio 100 claimed an outright course record in the “other” big Hawaii race.

I got my invite to do the Rio delivery in the midst of my studies at Hawaii Pacific University. Of course, there was no way I could take time off to cross the Pacific in the middle of a semester. Or could I? After all, it was a supermaxi. I immediately realized that if I let the opportunity pass, I’d regret it forever. I said yes, informed my professors I was leaving for a bit, and packed my sea bag. In hindsight, it was the best decision I’d made all semester. I blame it all on Rio.

After a false start in which our crew collectively realized that the old laminate racing mainsail provided to us was doomed to failure, we reappropriated it to the nearest dumpster and had the current racing mainsail shipped in. From the moment we started our second attempt at the delivery, things could not have gone better. The night before leaving, we departed Honolulu’s Ala Wai harbor on a high tide to bend the mainsail on and attach it to the many luff cars that slide up and down the mast—not a simple task on a 100-footer. With another crewmate, I was hoisted about 15 feet above deck to hook up the massive sail’s square-top section with its huge gaff batten and two headboard cars; soon enough, we were joined by two humpback whales. In the thick of their annual winter stopover in the islands, the pair of whales swam alongside and seemed to watch over us and wish us a safe passage from Hawaii. Fifteen feet up the mast, on a calm full-moon night in the tropics, with whales alongside, I had the first of many magical “pinch myself” moments of the trip.

We left Honolulu the following day. In contrast to the normal pounding that one takes when close-reaching north away from the islands, we were granted a very gentle escape. With easy conditions that allowed us all to gain our sea legs before the rough stuff, we saw the gentle trades gradually replaced by reinforced winds that would carry us north. Day after day, the breeze continued blowing as Rio knocked off miles under heavily reduced sail. Even throttled all the way back in an effort not to damage the boat, we still managed double-digit speeds most of the way, while attempting not to slam the boat too hard. With an extra-long flat-bottomed vessel, there is an unusual—and somewhat disconcerting at first—sensation each time the boat slams hard upwind. As skipper Kilpatrick described it, “We’re effectively on a 100-foot-long teeter-totter.” When driving, you’re standing some 40 or 50 feet behind the keel—and the origin of the reverberating motion—and can literally feel the boat moving up and down in a fashion unfamiliar to anyone who hasn’t sailed a boat of this length.

As the breeze finally abated and we entered the Pacific High, we were able to shed a couple of layers for the first time in days. Advised by the weather routers to stall in the high for a day or more to avoid 40 knots of breeze along the coast, we effectively shut down everything and commenced our halfway party. A few repairs here, a beer or two there and a live ukulele concert by one of the crew was the perfect way to break up a wintertime delivery across the Pacific.

Back into the breeze we eventually went. On our four-day-long glory run back to the California coast, we began knocking out miles toward the mark in wholesale fashion, three-sail reaching toward the coast. Flying toward Cali with plenty of fuel left on board, we sailed ourselves out of the breeze about 100 miles off the coast and motored toward our eventual destination of San Diego, arriving at Driscoll’s Boat Works in Mission Bay in the dark of night. On a crisp, clear winter evening, we tied up Rio, stepped off, and reveled in that special moment that comes with the conclusion of any big adventure or ocean crossing. We had made it.

The dash across the Pacific was likely the only time I’ll ever sail the boat, and it was an experience that I will cherish forever. Soon enough, I was back in class. Daydreaming of Rio.

Ronnie Simpson, his studies concluded, is currently based in Fiji, having recently returned from—what else?—a delivery to Hawaii. A contributing editor to Cruising World, he’s used his college degree wisely, carving out a career sailing, writing and doing media work for major yacht races.

The post A Delivery Aboard Rio 100 appeared first on Cruising World.

Every spring, the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, sends out dozens of plebes on its beautiful dark-blue Navy 44 sloops to do a “Delmarva”—a circumnavigation of the shrimp-shaped peninsula that divides Chesapeake and Delaware bays, and is shared by Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

This 400-or-so-mile circuit covers the entire length of both bays and includes a 150-mile offshore passage between the two, a “little loop” that the Navy sails nonstop in about three days. The route offers round-the-clock training exercises in leadership and command, boat systems, navigation, safety-at-sea, and watch-standing protocols in all kinds of weather.

Local sailors like this challenge too. Since fun should be part of the journey, I took a leisurely 10 days to sail the Delmarva in my own boat, a 1983 Island Packet 26 named Bearboat, which gave my two crewmembers and me time to explore some wonderful places along the way. We started in early May, just a week before the Academy flotilla set sail in what they dub the “Fogmarva,” due to the risk of fog this time of year.

As the Navy recognizes, this is a serious journey for any sailor, with plenty of big-enough water. Our voyage coincided with the onset of a Greenland Block—a stalled northern high-pressure system that pushes the jet stream south and blankets the East Coast with strong, cold Canadian air. We had gale- or near-gale-force winds for well over half the trip, initially from the south. The howling wind and long fetch straight up the Chesapeake produced some of the biggest waves I’ve encountered on the bay: 5 feet with short wave periods, which is a lot for the narrow northern section. 

Delaware Bay is often a tough slog too; the route is long enough to ensure opposing wind and tide, much of it in restricted waters. It’s generally quite shallow and has lots of big commercial-shipping traffic. Unlike Chesapeake Bay, it has rocks and almost no harbors of refuge. To our surprise, the open ocean turned out to be the smoothest part of the entire trip.

This was the second Delmarva I’ve done in Bearboat, which had just received several major repairs and upgrades. Most important were a rebuilt diesel and quick-­setting single-line reefing system because we sailed under single or double reef almost all the time.

As I did on my first Delmarva, I sailed the loop clockwise to take maximum advantage of the west-to-southwest prevailing winds. I prefer to go in May to avoid late-winter cold fronts and early-summer heat waves. Because my boat does not have radar, I timed the overnight coastal passage to the full moon to take advantage of the light. Two crew came along: Mike Koleda, former owner of a wooden lobster boat, and Mark Burosh, an ex-Marine and now a professional fly-fishing guide with commercial marine experience. 

Aptly enough, since Bearboat’s home port is Galesville, Maryland, we cast off in a gale. Our first day was just a two-hour sail north to Annapolis because the morning was spent with final packing and a thorough boat briefing. 

The storm had canceled a big sailboat race out of Annapolis that day, so we had lots of room to tie up inside Ego Alley, downtown’s famous and usually crowded narrow harbor inlet. Rain, strong southerlies and a near-full moon had flooded the banks. A flotilla of ducks paddled over the submerged harborside parking lot. Because Mark had never seen Annapolis, we set off to explore the US Naval Academy’s campus—especially Bancroft Hall (with 33 acres of floor space, it’s the largest dormitory in the world) and the Academy’s fleet of Navy 44s docked in the sailing basin.

Breakfast was at Chick and Ruth’s Delly, the oldest eatery in the historic district, a palace among greasy spoons, and a magnet for local color. Afterward we suited up in our foulies and motored out into a southeast gale. It was a daylong roller-­coaster ride up the bay under heavily reefed sails. 

In between squalls, we passed under the soaring double spans of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and watched the smokestacks and office towers of Baltimore pass by to port up the Patapsco River. 

Chesapeake Bay narrows as you go north, forcing recreational boats into the deep commercial shipping lane that hugs the Eastern Shore. Just past Poole’s Island, the channel tightens and bears northeast, which put us in the lee of the Eastern Shore, settling the ride a bit. By midafternoon we entered the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, the northern boundary of the Delmarva Peninsula, and were soon tied up at the Chesapeake City town dock, tired but happy that both boat and crew had passed a tough early test. 

My little Island Packet is a strongly built boat, and—properly handled—loves a gale, but these conditions were a bit unsettling to Koleda at first. “When I was at the helm looking up at the wave crests going by, I was starting to wonder what we were doing out there,” he said later over a beer. He’d get used to heavy weather.

The C&D Canal is a 14-mile-long sea-level connection between Chesapeake and Delaware bays and one of the busiest waterways in the nation, carrying about 40 percent of the commercial marine traffic to and from Baltimore. It can be a dangerous place: Currents are deceptively strong, fog will shut it down, and various fatal accidents have occurred here over the years.

We left early the next day, motoring under several bridges and pushed along by a cold westerly near-gale. The canal exits to the grim industrial landscape of the Delaware River: Boiling clouds of steam gush from the hulking Salem nuclear power plant on the far shore. Huge pylons and power lines snake across the water, and refineries dominate the shoreline upstream. Turning north, we motored through yet another rain squall to the nearby entrance of Delaware City and the long floating dock of the town’s marina.

We had come to visit Pea Patch Island and Fort Delaware State Park, a little-known Civil War-era fort and prison in the middle of the Delaware River. Just half a mile offshore, the fort is in surprisingly good condition and has excellent displays of what life was like there. The fort held more than 40,000 Confederate prisoners of war (including almost all Southern troops captured at Gettysburg), and is well worth a visit.

We cast off at dawn the next day—our first without rain—and began winding our way down Delaware Bay, edging just outside the buoys to dodge the occasional gasoline barge, container ship or liquefied-natural-gas tanker.

A somewhat dicey passage begins in Delaware Bay below the nuclear plant: The channel narrows sharply along rocky ledges, marked by the Ship John Shoal and Elbow of the Cross Ledge lighthouses. It can be a tight squeeze—Elbow light was hit by ships so many times, its keepers slept in life jackets.

Almost all outbound private boats head for Cape May, the northern entrance to Delaware Bay, but we were going to the smaller town of Lewes (pronounced LEW-iss) and Cape Henlopen on the southern shore. The town’s narrow harbor is reached via the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal, and its gateway can’t be missed: A huge wind turbine marks the spot. A sharp turn to port on entering takes you down a long channel to the harbor, with an immaculate town marina and park on the south side next to the bright-red Lightship Overfalls museum. The town’s small but charming historic district, just two blocks from the dock, has wonderful architecture, great shops and excellent restaurants.

Early the next morning—our first clear and dry day— Koleda reprovisioned the boat while Burosh and I rented bikes to explore nearby Cape Henlopen State Park. This area was Fort Miles artillery base during World War II, part of the coastal-defense system. Today, the park offers 6 miles of pristine Atlantic beaches, nature trails and campgrounds, Army barracks and artillery displays, and an original observation tower you can climb.

By noon we returned to the boat, topped off the tanks at Lewes Harbor Marina, and headed back out to sea. Riding a peak ebb tide before a crisp northwest wind, we flew around the tip of Cape Henlopen, bound for Chesapeake Bay.

On my first Delmarva, I kept about 10 miles offshore on this leg, but this time followed the charted 3-mile line down the coast. This was the day the Greenland Block finally ­dissolved, and as the wind clocked lightly ahead, we rolled up the genoa and chugged comfortably down the shoreline in gentle 2-foot seas. For trips like this, I cook up one-dish meals that are vacuum-bagged and frozen, then simply reheated in a pot of boiling water. Just as the fading sun slipped into an orange horizon, a fat, full and stunningly white moon rose to port. We celebrated with a delicious hot stir-fry.

It’s always magical being at sea in the moonlight, and for me, it’s a rare privilege to bear witness to the slow passage of a complete celestial night. The moon, with bright Jupiter just to the west, provided easy headings to follow as they slowly arced across Bearboat’s bow and rigging. There was little traffic during our cold four-hour shifts, and the off watch below was rocked softly to sleep by soothing Atlantic swells.

At dawn the next day, approaching the distinctive skeleton tower of Cape Charles Light at the northern entrance to Chesapeake Bay, we were greeted with a surprise—in the ­shimmering early-morning sunlight there was a sudden, ­confusing appearance of a strange-looking orange-and-white freighter ahead. It turned out to be an optical illusion, showing a much-distorted entrance to the Chesapeake Bay ­Bridge-Tunnel just over the horizon. 

We re-entered Chesapeake Bay through the North Channel span of the Bay Bridge-Tunnel, a convenient passage for boats with less than 75 feet of air draft. This allowed us to quickly round the cape and make landfall at Cape Charles City, just up the Eastern Shore.

Cape Charles City was the once-prosperous railhead for all ferryboat traffic between the tip of the Delmarva Peninsula and Norfolk, Virginia. It was bypassed when the 23-mile-long Bay Bridge-Tunnel opened in 1964. It’s still a bit of a ghost town (especially the rusting railyard) but is slowly coming back. For cruisers, the main attractions are Cape Charles Yacht Center and Kelly’s Gingernut Pub, set in a beautifully restored old bank.

The next morning, as another storm blew in, we headed north toward an even more isolated part of the bay: Tangier Island, the last inhabited offshore island in Virginia. This hardworking community of watermen descends from original settlers from Cornwall in the 1770s, and residents still speak in a unique “orphan dialect” of British and Southern accents. This small, deeply religious community is fighting to survive: With high ground only 4 feet above water and flooding increasingly common, scientists say the entire island is destined to be lost to rising sea levels.

Early the next morning, we set off on a long northwesterly passage toward the Western Shore. This route took us past Smith Island (Maryland’s last inhabited offshore island) and the Hannibal—the last live-fire target ship on the Chesapeake, scuttled on a sandbar and riddled by Navy aircraft.

Late that afternoon, we entered the Patuxent River, ­watching jets and helicopters buzz around the massive Naval air base on the south side of the waterway. On the north side is the narrow entrance to Solomon’s Island, an excellent hurricane hole, home to some of the best marinas on the Chesapeake and one of the top cruising destinations midbay. Just as we arrived, a strong northerly windstorm set in, delaying our final run for home.

When the blow passed, we started the last 40-mile leg due north up the midbay. This route has some interesting landmarks: Cove Point Lighthouse, the huge Cove Point LNG dock, Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant and a Navy radar base. This is a popular stretch for striper and perch fishing, so we had to dodge lots of charter boats. By midafternoon, we reentered the West River and backed into Bearboat’s slip in Galesville, safely closing the loop.

A circumnavigation of the Delmarva peninsula has plenty to offer sailors. As the Navy knows, it’s a serious test of seamanship; for cruisers, it’s a challenging circuit you can do in a week or so. And it’s a great way to explore one of the nation’s best cruising grounds and meet some wonderful people—such as the funny-but-tough-as-nails waitresses at Chick and Ruth’s; Tim Konkus, the incredibly helpful owner of Delaware City Marina, who gave his storm-stranded mariners an excellent weather briefing; and Milton Parks, the owner of Tangier Island’s Parks Marina, and a legendary retired waterman.

But perhaps the best parts are being able to go for a long sail in varied conditions; putting the boat, skipper and crew to the test; and making “local” a bigger place.

Based in Washington, D.C., Stephen Blakely sails his Island Packet 26, Bearboat, throughout the mid-Atlantic coast.

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Cruising, racing, daysailing, chartering: Every sailboat is built to meet a need. But in the course of inspecting and sailing some 20-odd vessels during and after the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, each fall, CW’s Boat of the Year judges sometimes have to rely on the builder to make that intent clear.

Not so with the new Hylas 48. From its solid stainless-steel stem fitting and double anchor rollers to a versatile cutter rig, hip-high life lines and robust emergency- steering system, not one of the judges doubted that this was intended to be a long-legged, bluewater voyager.

They were so certain, in fact, they named the Hylas 48 the Best Full-Size Cruiser Under 48 Feet. In being so recognized, the newest yacht from Taiwan’s Queen Long Marine joins a number of its siblings that have received similar accolades over the three generations the family-owned yard has been in operation.

“I’ve always been amazed at how well this boatyard does,” said veteran BOTY technical judge Ed Sherman. “This is a situation where we’ve got an experienced Taiwanese workforce, and they’re artisans. They take what they do seriously, and they do a very good job.”

Sherman’s colleague, judge Alvah Simon, ticked off the reasons he thought the 48 rose to the top of the fleet: “The flow on deck was good, the nonskid was good, the pushpit and pulpit were just excellent. The stanchions were outboard of the toe rail. The vents and hatches were just incredible. I can’t imagine the cost in the stainless-steel work. Lots of good ventilation. Cleats were good. Lifelines were very good.” Simon even praised the size and location of the manual bilge pumps, in close proximity to the helm.

Though the Bill Dixon-designed H48 is somewhat a departure from the builder’s longtime collaboration with Germán Frers, the boat still has the look and feel of a Hylas, with its center-cockpit deck layout and sugar-scoop transom with steps for boarding from the dinghy.

There is a long traveler just aft of the cockpit, mounted on the aft cabin’s roof. And forward, the cutter rig provides a self-tacking jib for upwind work and a genoa that’s mounted forward of it for light-air conditions or when off the wind. Headsail furlers and the in-mast furler for the main are all electric and operated by switches at the wheel.

Underway on Chesapeake Bay, the Hylas definitely had the feel of a heavier displacement cruiser. In 8 or so knots of breeze, we tacked upwind at a not-too-shabby 5.7 knots — I should mention that the Mamba rod steering delighted the fingertips. Bearing off, the speed dipped slightly with just the jib set but bounced back when we rolled out the genny.

It was the boat’s motion, though, that really caught everyone’s attention. “It felt very stiff — in a good way,” noted judge Tim Murphy. “When we were coming down the Severn River, there were powerboats loading in for the next boat show, doing testing and whatnot, and this was kind of an old-school cruising boat feeling when you’d come through those wakes. She just really powered through.”

The H48’s hull is hand-laid, solid fiberglass, with vinylester resin and Isophthalic gelcoat. Below the water line, there are two layers of epoxy barrier coat to prevent blisters. The deck, also hand-laid, is balsa cored. Watertight bulkheads are located at both the bow and stern to enclose the interior in case of a collision.

The boat’s deck-saloon interior is stunning. Wraparound windows in the coachroof provide lots of daylight and a panoramic view. The white composite cabin top and ceiling sits atop rich teak cabinetry, bulkheads and furniture, and the teak-and-holly sole radiates warmth. Deep fiddles line the counters, and all edges and corners are rounded — as they should be.

The boat’s layout is fairly traditional for a center cockpit. A large dining table dominates the saloon, with U-shaped seating to port and a cushioned bench on the centerline. A curved settee is opposite, flanked by a cabinet forward and the nav station and electrical panel aft, near the foot of the companionway. The sole is raised, which both helps the view when seated and allows for tankage and machinery down low in the hull, where it belongs.

To port of the steps, the galley takes up both sides of the passageway leading to the aft cabin. Counter space abounds, as does storage, both under and outboard. The fridge and freezer are top and front opening, and they are located adjacent to the three-burner propane stove and oven.

To port, a walk-through head and shower also leads to the aft cabin, a cozy compartment that any owner should be pleased to call home. An island queen berth sits on a slightly raised sole. In the daytime, light pours in through overhead opening hatches and ports located to either side and behind the bed.

There are two more cabins forward of the saloon, plus a second generously sized head and shower to starboard. To port, there are double bunks for kids or crew; forward, the guest cabin also has an island queen berth.

On deck, the step in and out of the cockpit is a big one, but the Bimini top’s robust frame provides a good handhold, and once inside, there’s not a pressing need to leave.

Sail controls all lead to electric Antal winches adjacent to the wheel, and as mentioned earlier, reefing of sails is a push-button affair, as is operation of the bow thruster. Thick seat and back cushions line the seating area, and the tall coamings provide plenty of support for any crew intent on sitting back and enjoying the ride.

All the comfort and convenience has a cost, of course. The price tag for the H48 starts at right around $730,000; the boat we sailed runs closer to $850,000. Still, I’ll let Simon put that into perspective: “I see real value in this boat because it’s solidly put together. It’s a very elegant-looking boat, and for a couple that wants that kind of bluewater cruiser, I think they’re in for a sweet ride.”

Me too.

Mark Pillsbury is CW‘s editor.

Hylas 48 Specifications

Hylas Yachts
786-497-1882
hylasyachts.com

The post Boat Review: Hylas 48 appeared first on Cruising World.

On Saturday, March 30th and Sunday, March 31st, 2019 the Marine Trades Association of Maryland and Navy Sailing will present the 40th annual Annapolis Safety-at-Sea Seminar. Nationally sponsored by Cruising World and Sailing World magazines and US Sailing this event takes place in Alumni Hall at the U. S. Naval Academy.

The Safety-at-Sea seminar provides an opportunity for two days of learning. Moderator Chuck Hawley will lead a team of sailors and industry experts on Saturday, who will address safety issues that include crew overboard recovery, hypothermia, weather forecasting, search and rescue options, and the maintenance of safety equipment.

There will also be the exciting live demonstrations of crew overboard recoveries by Midshipmen, a helicopter search and rescue swimmer demonstration, life raft boarding and pyrotechnic signal flares. The day concludes with an opportunity to visit with the presenters at the evening reception. Participation in the first day of the seminar will qualify registrants for a US Sailing certificate.

Two-time Volvo Ocean Race skipper and president of North Sails Ken Read will present the keynote address on Saturday morning. Ken is a three-time College All American, College Sailor of the Year in 1999 and nine-time World Champion. He sailed aboard Ericsson in the 2005-2006 Volvo Ocean Race and was Skipper of the Puma Ocean Racing Team in 2011-2012. Puma was dismasted 2,150 miles from Cape Town South Africa. Under jury rig they proceeded to safety and reentered the race with a new mast. He skippered Comanche to victory in the 2015 Sydney to Hobart Race.

“I’m not the first to cross the vast and isolated runway known as the Southern Ocean, and there are many tales far more harrowing than mine,” Read said in the June 2012 issue of Sailing World. “Racer, voyager, explorer — each before me has his or her own Southern Ocean tale, but all accounts bear the same truth: the place is cold, wet, gray, nasty and unforgiving. And let me add, relentless.”

While Sunday’s World Sailing Certification session is sold out, the Advanced Cruising track still has space available. There will be in-depth presentations on communications and electronics, navigation, cruise preparation, and ocean currents with wind/wave dynamics. The Advanced Cruising Track offers offshore sailors the option to participate in hands-on training in the pool with safety gear or small group discussions with the experts.

Also featured this year will be presentations from Cruising World contributor Steve D’Antonio on damage prevention and control. Capt. J. K. Louttit (Kip), USCG (Ret) will discuss and demonstrate care and maintenance of safety equipment. Navy Sailing Varsity Coach Jahn Tihansky will discuss the details of crew overboard rescues. Back by popular demand, the seminar will again offer an afternoon weather seminar featuring Joe Sienkiewicz from NOAA and Dr. Gina Henderson from the Naval Academy. Dr. Michael Jacobs will present emergency medical care and hypothermia on Saturday. He will discuss questions ranging from how to treat contusions to why it’s important to understand the dire implications of hypothermia. Sunday will feature offshore cruiser and instructor John Kretschmer who will present the cruise preparation segment of the program. This year’s seminar will address the needs of offshore racers and cruisers as well as provide important safety tips for those whose boating interests remain much closer to home.

Tickets are available online at mtam.org for $175 for Saturday only, which includes an evening reception with the speakers and $225 for the two day advanced cruising session. Refreshments and a box lunch will be provided each day as part of the ticket price. Ticket and event information may be obtained through the Marine Trades Association of Maryland P.O. Box 3148, Annapolis MD 21403 on the web or by telephone at (410) 269-0741.

Endorsed by the U. S. Coast Guard and originally designed for Academy Midshipmen 40 years ago following the tragic 1979 Fastnet Race, the popular Safety-at-Sea Program has been credited with saving countless lives. Lifesaving know-how is useful not only for those who have never ventured offshore, but for those who make offshore passages regularly. The national Safety-at-Sea programs have become required attendance for those planning to participate in the Annapolis to Newport, and the Annapolis to Bermuda race. Whether racing or cruising, power or sail the Safety-at-Sea program heightens the importance of safety training for everyone on the water.

Can’t make it to Annapolis? Not to worry! Find the schedule of upcoming Safety-at-Sea Seminars throughout the US at US Sailing’s website

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Leaving without a fixed destination to arrive to an uncertain welcome. That is why I sail.

It’s the first thing I tell landlubbers who ask, “What is it like, to sail across an ocean in a small boat?”

I could describe the long, loping swell of the deep ocean. The black, moonless nights when the darkness chokes my mind. The curl of blue bioluminescence on a breaking wave. The way a new dawn paints the deck candy-floss pink. I could describe the welling of joy when dolphins appear, and the secrets we share. But I always begin with the thrill of leaving port.

My port clearance is a precious document, the paper clearing boat and crew of debts and warrants and unpaid bar tabs, free to leave without obligation to say where we will come to rest. A zarpe, an outbound clearance, a chit that sets you free. The thrill of limbo when I travel without destination sets my imagination afloat.

I aim my boat into blue waters, seeking wind and way. A month of waves may kiss my keel, then, just miles from port, I jibe away. To another coast, a friendlier nation, somewhere downwind from here. Perhaps I’ll never return, never arrive, betwixt and between, alone at sea. I’ll sail in circles, north to the pole, south to the ice, east and then west until land stands in the way. I could if I wanted to.

When the wind blows hard from the north, we aim for Yemen rather than Oman. When our water runs low, we stop in Alaska on our way to Japan. If the sailing is good I’ll pass New Zealand and aim straight for Tahiti.

It isn’t always so, this ticket to eternal noncommittal freedom. If you are port hopping in an island nation, or skipping down a nation’s coast, authorities may ask your destination. But when you raise your sail to cross the Atlantic Ocean, the Arabian Sea, crossing a great expanse to a land far away, you wave farewell and slip away into a world between nations, free of borders, free of customs, duties and right of abode.

Tell me, where else can you wander like this? Which train carries you across a border without two nations, one to exit, one to enter? No airliner takes off without a destination on your boarding pass. Roads that lead to the frontera cross to the other side.

But not when I go to sea.

“Don’t you get bored, day after day with nothing new to do or see?” the landlubbers ask.

Bored? No. Never. I’m too engrossed in the blue soul of the Indian Ocean, light shot through it like a drift of silver filings. The fear that punches through the bottom of my belly when I look aft and see a gray wave, two, three stories high, with anger in its face. The brilliant flash of metal and blue, streaks of yellow, as a tuna hits the lure. Hand over hand, in it comes, the first fresh food of the voyage.

There’s too much work, helming hour after hour, trimming, changing sails. An inch of ease for a tenth of speed. Or making repairs, jury-rigging when you don’t have spares. Baking bread, cooking dinner, cleaning the head.

My father, an old farmer, came aboard my boat. Never sailed, never cruised, a life spent working hard. He knew nothing of the sea. I was proud, showing him my world. And I waited, wanting a hand on the shoulder saying, son, you’ve done well. Nothing. A silent, critical eye.

“So, Dad, what do you think of sailing?”

“Seems like an awful lot of work to go real slow.”

I couldn’t argue. The whole point is to go real slow, to appreciate the subtle shifts of scene. Sometimes I just sit and stare at the sea. Every cloud that passes creates a new blue, new gray, new frothy white cap on the wave. Sometimes there are thrills, a squall that makes us long for home. A whale, a school of dolphins showing us the way. But even without, even if it’s calm, we’re still sailing in a kaleidoscope of shifting shape and light. The setting sun on a clean horizon, the masthead light joining Orion. Darkness so deep it’s hard to stay on your feet. Watching the stars revolve, picking a new one to point the way. Then the dawn. Oh, the dawn. First a tinge of gray, then blues and pinks and tangerine light. The white decks glow, waves and wind that frightened in the night pushed back by the light. If I show you the dawn of open sea you will love it. You’ll know what’s for real.

And then, a few weeks in, someone gets lucky on their watch.

“Land! I think I see land!”

A dark smudge on the horizon turns into mountains, beaches and trees and sand. An excitement takes hold. We clean, we shower, we put the ship in order. We work even harder.

Port of Aden, Dutch Harbor, Port of Jamestown, Pond Inlet, Galle, Salalah. Ports and not marinas, not moored next to superyachts and motorcruisers, but ships of war and coastal barges, the grit and grime of a working harbor. The docks are painted with tar, the water streaked with oil. This is not the country’s best face. But it’s where we arrive, alongside working men and foreign cargo, by the kitchen door. Others, less fortunate, I’d say, are disgorged into shiny halls, then a taxi and a hotel in a predictable order. We hoist our yellow flag, a declaration of quarantine, inviting corrupt officials to board.

“Perhaps you have a gift for me? Ah, thank you, but my brother, he likes Marlboros too.”

Our first requests are fuel and water, and “Is there a sailmaker in this port?” And once she’s secure, the papers signed and bilge inspected, we step ashore.

A cold beer, that day’s newspaper, a meal that’s fresh and green. A walk about town, perhaps a souvenir. And then I begin to wonder, what does the forecast say, when will the wind blow and get us out of here?

Cameron Dueck has skippered his own boat through the Northwest Passage, dodged pirates off the coast of Yemen and crossed the Atlantic Ocean. He writes about remote places and people, and he is currently preparing his Hallberg-Rassy 42F for a circumnavigation. Cameron lives in Hong Kong.

The post The Magic of Being at Sea appeared first on Cruising World.