Our judging team for Cruising World’s 2025 Boat of the Year contest found an immaculate yacht as we stepped aboard the aluminum, French-built Allures 51.9 this past fall at the US Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, to conduct dockside inspections. It looked to be a fresh-out-of-the-shipyard cutter called Castella, and it had journeyed to the States by a rather unorthodox track.

Swiss owners Markus Tanner and Marianne Daetwyler had just completed what they called “the Viking route,” an intrepid high-latitude voyage to the East Coast via Scotland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and the Canadian Maritimes. 

Remarkably, Castella looked like they could grab some groceries, fuel up and immediately run it back in the opposite direction. Clearly, it was going to be a treat to get to know a bit more about the yacht and the company that built it, as well as the couple who’d chosen and outfitted it. 

Let’s begin with the owners. A lifelong professional mariner, Tanner started his career as a deckhand and rigger, went on to skipper a four-masted bark and several contemporary boats, and owned a sailing school and charter company. Today, he works as an independent yacht consultant. Daetwyler did stints running a dive center, travel agency and sheep farm. She fell in love with sailing after buying her first boat, a J/88. The couple met a decade ago at a regatta on Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne, and together purchased a Hallberg-Rassy 44 to explore European waters. To tackle the Viking route, they wanted something larger and more substantial.

Which brings us to the French brand responsible for Castella: Allures Yachting.

The company was founded two decades ago by a pair of friends, Stéphan Constance and Xavier Desmarest, who were looking for a robust bluewater-cruising boat, one they couldn’t find in the existing marketplace. Specifically, they wanted an aluminum hull for strength and safety, composite decks and superstructure for ease of maintenance and weight savings, and a centerboard to optimize cruising range by increasing windward performance when lowered and reducing draft when raised. Over the years, they’ve built some 200 boats in four models starting at 40 feet. 

They currently offer a 45-footer and the 51.9, their most recent addition and the Allures flagship. Grand Large Yachting, the parent consortium that includes Allures, has expanded as well, and now incorporates a half-dozen different brands, including Outremer, Garcia Yachts and Gunboat.

From the moment we boarded Castella (“Our castle,” Tanner said), we could easily see that it was not only an extremely robust oceangoing platform, but also a cozy, comfortable home. 

Personally, I’m extremely fond of metal boats, especially for high-latitude work, and have sailed a steel, home-built Bruce Roberts design through the Northwest Passage, around Cape Horn, and into the Chilean channels of Patagonia. But that boat, called Ocean Watch, was a rather utilitarian workboat; the handsome, seamless Castella is anything but. 

It sports a triple-headsail rig with a staysail, genoa and code zero set off Furlex furlers, the latter tacked to a prominent, integrated aluminum bowsprit that also is home to the mighty Ultra anchor. Castella employs an in-mast furling mainsail, though a traditional main is an option. A half-dozen windows in the tall freeboard of the striking blue hull provide visual relief as well as interior light. The coachroof is low and understated with a prominent arch that anchors the double-ended mainsheet and traveler (that whole shooting match includes a Walder boom brake for easy jibing, another personal favorite). The arch also frames the pronounced windshield that protects the cockpit and offers the helmsman clear sight lines forward. 

A set of split cockpit tables flanks a pair of long settees (you can’t beat an inviting space to stretch out on long watches). There are twin helms with comfortable seatbacks, as well as dual rudders. Far aft is another shorter arch with solar panels mounted. A Bimini top provides plenty of cockpit shade. There’s an open transom with a nifty drop-down boarding/swim platform. The attractive deck, at first glance, looks like teak, but is in fact cork from a company called MarineCork. The material is amazingly grippy and simple to maintain. The wide, accessible side decks are bordered by a stainless-steel railing with triple lifelines, accented by teak toe rails. At the mast is a set of sissy bars for security when working forward. This is all a pretty, purposeful setup. 

The construction is straightforward, with an insulated aluminum hull and metal arches, the latter chosen for their ability to sustain heavy rigging loads. The deck and coachroof are glass and composite foam-cored laminates, a combination that addresses several items: They’re lighter than metal, easier to mold and shape, and do not require painting—always a plus on an aluminum boat. The 24-volt system utilizes an 800-amp lithium-ion battery bank that’s boosted by 500 watts of solar panels, with a Mastervolt charging system that manages the inverters, converters and chargers. 

Additionally, a Fischer Panda 8000i generator provides power to the watermaker and air-conditioning and heating systems. Bow and stern thrusters make docking and maneuvers a snap. A walk-in engine room for the Volvo Penta 110 hp diesel (a 150 hp engine is an option) provides workspace for regular and routine maintenance.

The interior, joinery and accommodations are rendered in light, inviting oak and are, in a word, sumptuous. The salon is bathed in natural light via the coachroof windows. To port, there’s a  U-shaped galley just abaft a fine navigation station with seats on either side. The floor plan is open, with a central dining table to starboard flanked by settees. Going forward, there’s a stateroom to starboard with bunk-style berths that have good lee cloths, and far forward is the “princess suite” with a V-berth that has excellent side access and stowage underneath. Likewise, the aft stateroom includes a double berth with an en suite head and shower. Owners and guests will be living in style no matter the destination.

Which brings us to the getting-there part. We test-sailed the boat on an ideal Chesapeake Bay morning with 14 to 16 knots of pumping, fresh northerly breeze. Setting sail is a push-button operation from the helm; all the running rigging is led below deck and handled by first-rate kit, including Lewmar winches and Spinlock clutches. We started off with the code zero on a beam reach, making better than 8 delightful, effortless knots. The wheel was firm, the steering tight and the motion gentle, even stately. It was particularly lovely steering from leeward, leaning into the cushioned backrest. 

We swapped the big headsail for the compact staysail, set up the running backstays, and put Castella hard on the breeze, making better than 6 knots in 2- to 3-foot choppy seas, which the boat muscled through easily. I hopped down below and watched the water rushing past through the hull windows, which was mesmerizing. Even more impressive, thanks to that insulated hull, was the silence—not a creak or moan to be heard. It occurred to me that I could do this for quite some time.

The final act in Castella’s Viking adventure to Annapolis was a winning one, as we unanimously named the Allures 51.9 the Best Full-Size Cruiser Over 45 Feet for 2025. This summer, Castella is expected to head north to cruise up the Atlantic Seaboard and back into Canadian waters. If you’re headed that way yourself, keep your eyes open. There’s no mistaking this Viking ship. And it’s always fun to wave at a winner. 

CW editor-at-large Herb McCormick was a 2025 Boat of the Year judge.

Finding Fellow Vikings

During this past fall’s US Sailboat Show, Markus Tanner and Marianne Daetwyler conducted a seminar on their North Atlantic travels. It included a section on searching for crew to help share the duties and joys. For cruisers thinking about a similar approach to voyaging, especially heading for high-latitude destinations, the Castella criteria is useful information. Here are a few of their tips:

Long passages to the north can be demanding, and four crew is ideal—not only for chores, but also for standing watches. Sailing experience is great, but so are other skills, including medical, mechanical, electronics and cooking. Look for team players, and if they have a sense of humor, all the better. 

Be physically and mentally healthy. Warm clothing is crucial; supply potential crew with a packing list. Ski goggles are great for sensitive eyes, and have extra thermal suits available on the boat. Depending on special interests, bring the equipment required for landside expeditions. —HM

The post Boat Review: Allures 51.9 appeared first on Cruising World.

The high-performance C&C 30 One Design skiff is a twitchy, skittish beast not for the faint of heart. This much I was discovering in an elemental way, perched on the windward rail with eight fellow crewmen on the C&C 30 Chinook in this past fall’s annual Sail for Hope fundraising regatta on Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay.

It was a puffy, shifty, challenging day for helming, and I was more than happy to serve as human ballast on the long, upwind tacks. At the same time, I was mightily impressed with the dude at the tiller skillfully carving our course to weather. His name is Steve Baskis. He’s a decorated Army veteran, one of several who were on the boat. 

Yet even in this distinguished company, Baskis was different. He couldn’t see a bloody thing. 

Chinook was competing under the figurative flag of a nonprofit organization called Sail To Win. Founded by Army combat vet Aaron “Ike” Isaacson and professional sailors Mike Patterson and Whitney Curtin, the group’s mission statement is straightforward: “To honor and empower wounded veterans, first responders and people that have served their community with disabilities by training, educating and competing in sailing competitions around the globe.” 

Isaacson received the Purple Heart after being wounded during one of his several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He told me: “I was lying in a hospital bed, and my thoughts went back to being a kid and the fun things I always wanted to do, like sailing and mountaineering. Those ­became my two main targets: sailing around the world and climbing all the mountains I could.”

Baskis lost his sight outside Baghdad in 2008 when his vehicle was raked by an improvised explosive device. A lifelong athlete, he was also hospitalized and pondered his next moves: “Thinking about how to rebuild my life, I just realized if I get out and do things, it’s going to force me to adapt, to communicate.” He moved to Colorado and got into cycling, whitewater kayaking and, eventually, mountaineering. In fact, he met Isaacson on a climbing expedition to Nepal.

“We’ve been like family ever since,” said Isaacson, who ultimately concluded that sailing, not mountaineering, was more of a lifelong pursuit. That’s when he reached out to Patterson and Curtin, whose family owns the classic 12-Metre and two-time America’s Cup winner Intrepid, which also hosts Sail To Win outings. Down the road, the organization hopes to land a larger donated boat (which is how they obtained Chinook) for offshore training and racing, perhaps even a transatlantic race. 

Baskis has steered both the stately 12 and the frisky C&C. I asked him what, if anything, was the difference. “On Intrepid, you’re standing at the wheel, and you can feel the tension and the weight and the energy it takes to carry it through the water,” he said. “On Chinook, you’re steering with a tiller. It’s way more ­reactive. You feel like you’re dancing through the water.” 

The Sail for Hope racecourse was a 20-odd-mile lap around Conanicut Island, and there were plenty of sail changes, including a couple of long stretches under spinnaker. The dance was ever-changing. Isaacson said that the team has ­experimented with haptics technology—the vibration you feel on your ­smartphone—to help get Baskis in a groove while driving. “We’ve been developing a watch that vibrates when Steve’s on the helm, that signals whether he’s on course or veering off,” he said. 

However, that’s still in the experimental stage, and during our race, Patterson served as both tactician and guide, perched alongside Baskis and providing steady input on wind strength and direction, the sea state, and the competition. “It was a tough day with the breeze up and down, constantly changing pressure,” Patterson said. “But Steve hung in there. He’s a very active guy. He’s done all sorts of adventure sports since he lost his vision.” Even up on the rail, it was easy to understand that he’d be a hard dude to rattle.

Later, after talking to Baskis a bit more, it seemed to me that two things were true: Yes, of course, Baskis is blind; yet his true soul and spirit, his inner vision, is ­crystal-­clear. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

The post Blind Ambition: A Veteran’s Racing Spirit appeared first on Cruising World.

Rigging and spars live a hard life. They are fully exposed to rain, salt, and ultraviolet rays for years on end, along with extreme cyclical compression and tension loads. Considering the poor condition of many rigs I inspect, it’s a miracle that so few fail catastrophically.

It’s even more astonishing when you add the opportunities for corrosion that are peculiar to a primary alloy used in rigging and spars: stainless steel.

Stainless steel—as robust, durable and indispensable as it is—is not without its weaknesses. Superman’s nemesis is kryptonite. Stainless steel’s nemesis is far more common. It’s stagnant water.  

Stainless steel’s largest alloying element is iron, but it achieves its legendary corrosion resistance thanks to the addition of several other metals, which vary depending on the alloy. They can include nickel, chrome and molybdenum, in varying percentages, among others. The more exotic the stainless alloy, the more elements it usually contains.  

This metallurgical cocktail lets stainless steel form a tough, clear oxide coating as it is exposed to air. The coating is maintained as long as that exposure continues. In most cases, even the oxygen dissolved in moving water—fresh and salt—is adequate for stainless steel to maintain its corrosion resistance.

Why, then, are instances of corroded and failed stainless steel so common with everything from fasteners and rigging wire to turnbuckles and plumbing components? The answer is air. Deprive stainless steel of its constant exposure to air, and things go awry.

Once starved of oxygen, stainless steel goes from a ­passive to an active state. In other words, it begins to corrode. That’s why stagnant water is such a threat. The scenario can be as simple as trapping water against a fastener that passes through a deck or hull. Give it air, and stainless steel will survive.  

Prevention is the best cure, and in the case of crevice corrosion, that means avoiding water ­entrapment. Make certain that all ­stainless-­­steel-flanged hardware is fully bedded, not just the fasteners in polyurethane or polysulfide sealant. Avoid wrapping or covering stainless wire rigging or other hardware with plastic, rubber, or other materials that can retain water. Where this is unavoidable, the wraps or coverings should be periodically removed so that the area can be dried, cleaned and inspected. 

Stainless-steel fasteners that pass through hulls and decks, like those used for chainplates and padeyes, are particularly susceptible to crevice corrosion. Water can migrate into the hole that the fastener passes through. The fastener’s shank—the part that is not visible—is where the corrosion occurs. Make certain these fasteners are fully bedded, and remember that bedding and sealant have a finite life. After five to seven years, even the best product will need to be renewed.

One common error ­involves the act of­ ­bedding internal hardware, nuts, washers, and backing plates. This practice, while seemingly intuitive, will in fact facilitate the entrapment of water. Leaving these areas ­unsealed is preferable because if and when they leak, you know it’s time to rebed this hardware.  

This is especially true of chainplates. The external portions and their fasteners should be fully bedded, including where they pass through the deck; however, internal backing plates or other support structures should not be ­bedded. Avoid applying fiberglass fabric and resin to stainless steel because this too acts as a water-trapping wet blanket.

The telltale sign that stainless steel has gone from passive to active is the formation of brown streaks, often called “tea staining.” If you see these stains, it’s a clarion call for action. Delay could lead to a rig or other hardware failure. —Steve D’Antonio 

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting.

The post Crevice Corrosion: The Hidden Threat in Your Rigging appeared first on Cruising World.

The Pacific Ocean has about 30,000 islands spread across it. That seems like a lot, but given the Pacific’s 63.8 million square miles of ocean area, these islands are few and far between. About 4,000 years ago, humans in Eastern Asia set sail in canoes and found so many of these islands that today we attribute their success to navigators who read subtle signs, such as wave patterns and bird behavior. 

I think it was a party trick. Waves and birds? Pfft.

With a second Pacific Ocean crossing in my wake aboard our Stevens 47, Totem, I’ve concluded that ancient humans’ success at discovering islands was possible only because of sailmakers making sail repairs. 

Think about how often the tough, synthetic sails on modern cruising boats need care and maintenance. The pandanus fiber sails of those ancient voyagers must have been a disaster. Back then, a blown-out sail meant stopping dead in the water. Clearly, the drivers of success were the heroic sailmakers working tirelessly through fierce storms and under the blazing sun, repairing sails to keep moving onward to the next island discovery.

Maybe I’m a biased sailmaker who appreciates the value we get from working sails. This point is most evident to me when a sailor in a remote place with broken sails reaches out for help. Ironically, cruising sailors often know more about diesel engines, watermakers, solar chargers and outboards. Boats are complex machines, but sails are key.

To me, the primary ­ingredients of DIY sail repair are simple enough: sailcloth, thread, webbing and attachment hardware. Their purpose is to resist being pulled apart in the tug-of-war between wind and rigging. When a portion of sail is pulled apart—as in torn sailcloth, broken luff slides or clew straps ripped off—a good repair will ­reestablish material strength. 

Making Sail Repairs in the Field

Field repairs don’t need to be pretty; they need to be reliable enough. A sewing machine is a primary sailmaking tool but is not necessary for most field repairs. Often, the challenge in doing field repairs is the awkward area for hand-sewing or bonding pieces together on the side deck, in the cockpit, on a dock or parking lot, or—trickier still—when the sail is still up. 

Preparing the sail and space for the work needed will make it easier. A good example of this happened a few years back when the owners of a catamaran sailing off the coast of Tanzania asked for help. Their Dacron genoa was rotten from ultraviolet damage. They expected to replace it when they got to sailmakers in South Africa, but the passage was a sporty 1,600 nautical miles down the Mozambique Channel, and they realized that the sail wouldn’t make it. 

I assessed the sail from afar and then conveyed a plan to make patches that would reinforce large areas. Materials with fiber reinforcement such as a plastic tarp would add ­necessary strength when oriented across the tearing sailcloth. 

To join the new material and bad sailcloth, they needed reasonably strong adhesive. Some marine-grade polysulfide sealants work well; so might spray glue, contact cement or superglue. If you have ­something on board but are uncertain about the bond strength, a small test run can show how strong it is when cured.

The crew acquired an old Optimist dinghy sail from another cruiser for the patch. With tubes of marine sealant they had on board, they glued wide strips from the dinghy sail across the worst areas of rotten sailcloth. The genoa wasn’t pretty, but it was enough. A few weeks later, the crew sailed safely into port in South Africa, headsail repair intact.

Another tough lesson ­happened last year with a ­cruiser we’d met while ­preparing to sail from Mexico to the Pacific. He reached out with a passage tale about an unexpected squall and an ­unplanned jibe that had resulted in a number of broken mainsail luff slides. He hadn’t thought to bring spare luff slides, so he needed a work-around. 

Hand-sewing on luff slides is an easy DIY repair, but ­unfortunately, there weren’t enough good slides to work. The sailor had to go without a mainsail for the last few ­passages of the season. He learned a lot about advance planning for a sail-repair kit.

Yet another incident happened about a third of the way between Fiji and Japan, when solo sailor Raffi Patatian noticed a tear in the in-mast furling mainsail of his Hallberg-Rassy 43, Wind River. As Raffi’s weather router, I was aware of his situational context: thousands of miles from anything resembling a sail loft, and 25-knot winds pushing up 8- to 10-foot waves. The tear ran vertically up from the foot, just forward of the clew reinforcement patch. It was only 5 inches long, but the location bears high loads that would tear apart the sail unless he repaired it.

The passage was a sporty 1,600 ­nautical miles down the Mozambique Channel, and they realized that the sail wouldn’t make it.

What is a high-load tear? By deflecting wind, a sail gains force—or load—across its entire surface. That force becomes directional as it pulls against the corner attachment points, head, tack and clew; to a lesser degree, it also pulls luff attachments. Load paths form between any two corners. In Raffi’s mainsail, the vertical tear was being pulled apart by the horizontal load between the clew and tack. This is a high-load tear, which requires a stronger patch than a low-load tear.

When the tear and the load are parallel (a low-load tear), there isn’t force pulling at the tear, so it’s an easy fix. Clean and dry the damaged area, and slap some sail-repair tape (or even duct tape) over the tear on both sides of the sail. That’s an adequate, temporary repair. 

Taking this approach on a high-load tear, however, would quickly fail. Raffi had a nicely stocked sail-repair kit, including a sewing machine. Unfortunately, the machine stayed in a locker because the boat’s motion made using the machine impossible. Instead, hand-sewing and 3M 4200 Fast Cure (a polysulfide sealant) would do the job. Rather than taking down the sail to repair it, furling the sail most of the way and stabilizing the boom would be easier and faster because of the tear location.

The first task was to hand-sew heavy webbing along the foot, spanning the tear. Before leaving the cockpit, Raffi cut the webbing about 18 inches long and used a marker to make dots in a zigzag pattern as a sewing guide. He then prepared the hand-sewing needle with a long length of four-strand waxed thread. 

Tethered to the dodger, he sewed half of the webbing to the foot, forward of the tear. Then he pulled the torn sailcloth sides together, held webbing in place across the tear, and secured them with a clamp. No sailmaker would rate this sewing as pretty, but it was strong.

To finish the repair, we wanted to add a Dacron patch over the torn portion so that it would be joined by more than webbing. Hand-sewing the patch was an option, but bonding the patch in place would be faster and stronger. The key to a bonded repair on a high-load tear is surface area. The patch needs to be four or five times wider than a sewn seam would be on each side of the tear (and wider still on sails with higher loads, such as roachy ­catamaran mainsails). 

Raffi had spare sailcloth to work with. First, he oriented the strongest yarns to the load path across the tear, and then marked and cut out the patch. With the repair area cleaned and dried, he spread the 4200 Fast Cure all over one side of the patch. Then the patch was placed across the tear and firmly pressed to the sail. The last step was sail-repair tape (or duct tape) around the ­perimeter to ensure that it stayed in place until it cured.

Raffi made it safely to Okinawa, Japan. The patch held, but near the end of the passage, more tears near the patch formed. The sail should be replaced, like the genoa on the boat off Tanzania. Or should it? 

Make the materials strong again with more DIY repairs. When the Tanzania boat got to South Africa, the crew bought a new genoa but didn’t bend it on. That mangy sail repair crossed the Atlantic and lived to see the Caribbean, believe it or not. 

As those ancient voyagers learned, your sails will get you there—if you can keep them together. Just watch for changes in the waves and seabirds to reveal when you’re almost there.

The post Sail Repairs That Keep You Sailing appeared first on Cruising World.

This definitely wasn’t the best start.

Our plan was to deliver the Jeanneau 53 Kaimana across the Pacific from San Diego to Honolulu for a friend and client, Michael Prescesky. I found myself drifting in a tiny inflatable, in the Pacific, a few miles off San Diego.

The dinghy engine had just spluttered to a stop, and the small inflatable was rocking gently in a light sea breeze. It was eerily quiet. I watched Kaimana sail away under its new pink spinnaker, against a fine backdrop of the distant San Diego skyline. To my right, the hills of Tijuana, Mexico, shimmered in the sea haze, dead downwind. 

While taking photos of the boat during our sea trial, I had gotten carried away (no surprise there) and quickly used all the gas in the tiny, built-in fuel tank of the 6 hp Yamaha outboard. This now seemed like a significant lapse of judgment.

I pulled out my phone and called my crew, longtime sailing friend Tracy Dixon, aboard Kaimana. A retired US Navy explosive ordnance diver, Tracy is predictably methodical. He hates surprises. And yet, he has inexplicably done several ocean crossings with me. 

My phone erupted in a burst of static, followed by a recorded voice saying something in Spanish like, “Bienvenidos a Mexico.”

Tracy and I knew this boat well, having delivered Kaimana from Hawaii to the Pacific Northwest. While waiting for my two nephews, 24-year-olds Rowan and Quinn, to arrive from work, and in Rowan’s case, a college graduation, Tracy and I had decided to go on a shakedown sail and test the new spinnaker.

For our sea trial, I’d enlisted the help of some veteran local racing sailors, Lani and June Spund. Tracy and I had met them while searching for a used spinnaker for our downwind run back to Hawaii. Having owned and raced a series of ultralights like the Santa Cruz 50, Lani had a treasure trove of sails and gear, but he didn’t have the sail we needed. Regardless, we immediately struck up a friendship with the delightful couple. Lani felt that sailing to Hawaii with my two nephews was simply “a gift.” They volunteered to come along and help with the shakedown cruise because Quinn and Rowan hadn’t yet arrived.

I stood in the dinghy, hoping that Lani and June would be able get the sail down with Tracy, then turn back for me in the waning daylight. Otherwise, it would be bienvenidos a Mexico for me.

My first thought was: And you don’t even have your passport.

Kaimana, now on a beam reach and perfectly trimmed, was disappearing at an alarming clip under its pink sail, sans the skipper. Until now, I’d been excited that I’d finally found that crispy, nearly new spinnaker for our downwind crossing at the local Doyle loft through its fantastic SailM8 resource for sailing gear. By the look of it, the sail was a perfect fit. Too perfect. It was flying beautifully, pulling the boat away from me at a pace of around 7 knots.

Preparing a boat for a Pacific crossing is never easy—even this boat, a recently surveyed Jeanneau 53 from 2017.

I was a little uneasy being so far out at sea in a 10-foot inflatable, but the situation wasn’t life-threatening. I was more embarrassed that I’d left the boat and failed to return.

Meanwhile, on board Kaimana, Tracy had begun methodically untangling the spinnaker snuffing sock, which, after a few jibes, had become tangled. As they sailed on, another yacht appeared to leeward, all smiles and cameras pointed at the pretty spinnaker, but also blocking the route downwind that they wanted to douse the sail. They finally got clear, doused the sail, and motored back to me. By this time, they’d covered several miles, and just managed to find me. 

I apologized sincerely for making the crew scramble. Tracy, to his credit, said it was great practice for a man overboard. The lesson was that under spinnaker, a man overboard could be recovered only if the boat were immediately stopped. Sailing away while messing with the sail wouldn’t be an option. 

At 6 to 8 knots, the boat covers a mile in less than 10 minutes. At even a fraction of that distance, with intervening seas, a swimmer would not be visible. I resolved to keep the crew safely aboard. Failing that, if anyone went overboard, we’d change course immediately to stop the boat, whether luffing up into the wind or heading dead downwind. The spinnaker could then be tamed or depowered by blowing the tack, then quickly snuffed or dropped on deck. 

Of course, all crew would have an AIS beacon attached to their inflatable harness. Far offshore, the AIS beacon is the only device that can alert your own boat, certainly the closest vessel, and is your best chance of a timely rescue. It was a given that the dinghy would stay stowed while underway.

Preparing a boat for a Pacific crossing is never easy—even this boat, a recently surveyed  Jeanneau 53 from 2017. I had already delivered Kaimana across the Pacific once, a passage to windward, from Hawaii to Victoria, British Columbia. Michael then sold it, but later decided that he just couldn’t live without it and purchased it again. In the meantime, the boat had mostly sat idle in its berth. 

I spent weeks preparing the boat. And I still had unexpected issues at sea. More about those later.

Hundreds of jobs presented themselves, from the top of the mast to the bottom of the keel. We flew in from Hawaii, arriving late in San Diego. I woke up ready to dive right in, and pumped up a glass of water with the foot pump at the galley sink. While downing it, I realized that I was ­actually drinking salt water. San Diego Bay salt water, in fact. Where the military runs ships, dry docks and bases. The foot pump, I remembered, has a handy Y valve to switch from salt to fresh water. Somehow, I survived without getting sick. Long-term effects are yet to be determined.

The best thing about Shelter Bay was Roberto’s Taco Shop, which stands out even in a city full of great Mexican food. We loved this food so much that we became a fixture there. We met the owner and his family, most of whom worked at the shop. They were openly curious about our story, wondering how we could sail “all the way to Hawaii.” We found the family hardworking, kind and generous. Basically, your typical Mexican immigrants. When I showed up just after closing time one day, they sent me back to the boat with a chili verde burrito, on the house. Unable to live without Roberto’s food, we ordered three huge trays of frozen meats for the crossing: carne asada, chili verde and al pastor. We even brought numerous bags of the heaviest, most lard-filled and delicious handmade tortillas ever made.

Our weather window showed a few days of headwinds, followed by developing high pressure that would send us all the way to Hawaii, with trade winds on our starboard quarter. 

My two nephews arrived. Both of them have crossed an ocean with me once or twice. Quinn, my brother’s son, had just graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a degree in geography. A keen surfer, Quinn had some free time before heading out to Indonesia to coach resort tourists on how to surf some of the best waves in the world, a posting that made his uncle a bit jealous. Quinn is an instinctual and physical learner, the kind of sailor who feels the boat and sails it fluidly, without evident effort.

Rowan had also just graduated, from the University of California at Berkeley, with a degree in architecture. After two Atlantic crossings with me, and time at a college sailing club honing his skills, Rowan can usually balance the boat in that sweet spot between too high and too low. I can sleep when either of these “kids” is on deck, which in fact might be the highest form of praise from a captain. I also had Tracy aboard, who has done even more crossings than these two. A few years older than I am, he retired as a senior chief from the Navy, where he spent his career defusing bombs in underwater demolitions. He always offers to take the worst job on the boat. After several tours in wartime Middle East, his usual response to any hardship at sea is to say, “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen much worse.” For me, this was the dream crew, and they all got along well. Never a cross word was spoken.

Despite the fact that the Pacific High hadn’t quite filled in and we would have to beat to weather for a few days, it was time to go. We’d worn out our welcome at Shelter Bay Marina with the most miserable harbormaster I’d ever met. For some reason unknown to us, she’d decided that she did not like us. After she’d threatened to come down and physically cut equipment off the boat, claiming it belonged to another client, I’d felt it was time to go. Sailing to windward wouldn’t be so bad in comparison. That is the beauty of a sailboat: You can always just sail away. 

San Diego was surrounded by the usual coastal low clouds when we motored out of the bay. The wind was light and unreliable. We knew we’d have to get clear of Point Conception before we’d find the northwesterlies. 

As we motorsailed out into the Pacific, our AIS and radar showed a naval vessel on our starboard bow. It seemed to be slowly altering course to pass behind us. Tracy identified it as an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer as it passed us to starboard on a reciprocal course. A series of helicopters flew overhead, dropping large parcels into the sea off our port side. 

Suddenly, the destroyer began firing 5-inch projectiles into the sea at these parcels, right across our wake. It was a spectacle. I was heartily glad they’d let us get well past before opening fire.

The wind began to increase late that night in fits and starts as we sailed out into the unobstructed coastal northwesterlies. We passed the shoals at the famous big-wave surf spot Cortes Bank, about 100 miles off the coast near the Channel Islands, due south of Point Conception. We began to hit speeds of 10 knots, and soon had double reefs in both the main and jib. At 7 to 8 knots, the boat was working in the seas and taking occasional waves over the bow. Rowan ejected his chili verde burrito dinner over the rail. 

Before daybreak, I heard footsteps from my bunk in the forward cabin. Quinn, the surfer, had noticed that the tail of our spinnaker tack line had washed loose where it was coiled at the bow. Most people would have left it, but being Quinn, he was going forward to secure it. 

I peered up out of my hatch. Quinn seemed a bit nervous, which I realized had nothing to do with the seas. He wasn’t sure how I’d react to this adventure, as captain. I could tell he was fine. He was balanced on the foredeck, he was properly tethered to the boat, and he kept an eye on the seas while riding the boat like an oversize surfboard. 

He was the one who volunteered for the most challenging jobs. Later in the voyage, when the wind got light, it was of course Quinn who volunteered to dive down to remove a loop of ­drifting fishing-net rope that had fouled the prop. Emerging with rope in hand, he was the spitting image of his father, Alex, when he was in his 20s: capable, fit and pumped up for any adventure.

Quinn was also the keenest fisherman aboard, diligently setting the lines every morning before sunrise. We used my trusty squid jigs, weighted with lead on heavy 300-pound-test monofilament hand lines, with oversize bungees. We had little luck for a week. Quinn was disappointed. “Uncle Tor,” he complained, “this is the worst fishing trip I’ve ever been on.” 

Sadly, it was just after Quinn had gone below for a nap that we hooked a 6-foot-long billfish. I had deliberately wrapped the fishing line backward around the windward sheet winch in the cockpit so that the spinning winch would alert us if we had a strike. Suddenly, the winch spun wildly, then stopped. I pulled in some of the line, but it was slack—no fish on. We could see a large gray shape underwater following the lure. Knowing that billfish first hit their prey to stun it and then come back to swallow it, I released the line in my hands all at once. The fish swallowed the lure. Sheeting out the sails to slow the boat, I brought the beast up to the transom with some effort, where we gaffed it and brought it aboard. 

Until we managed to secure a line carefully around the bill of the flailing fish, there was a real threat of serious injury from the whipping bill, hook and gaff. This far from medical care, we did everything carefully. To our amazement, Quinn slept through it all. When he reappeared on deck, I told him we had “caught a little fish” and sent him to look on the transom, across which the beast was stretched.

When he said he didn’t feel well enough to stand watch, I knew he was incapacitated.

He was happy that we had a fish, but ­obviously, he had wanted to be the one who caught it. Quinn wasn’t disappointed for long; a day later, he caught two large wahoo on his morning watch. The ocean provides.

Unfortunately, though, Tracy had apparently contracted a case of COVID in San Diego while we were provisioning. Fever and chills began just as we encountered open ocean seas. He developed an alarming, deep cough. When he said he didn’t feel well enough to stand watch, I knew he was incapacitated.

Luckily, we had four crew, and there was some slack built into our watch schedule. The schedule had each crewmember keeping a four-hour watch, with me, the captain, as second watch stander and backup in case of sail changes, ship avoidance, or anything else. I hadn’t scheduled a watch for myself, which kept me ready at any time that I was needed on deck. This was such a time, and I was able to stand Tracy’s watch, with no change in the schedule for anyone else. 

After two nights of this, Tracy ­miraculously appeared on deck and began sharing his ­encyclopedic knowledge of the history of ­civilization, so we knew that he was pretty much back to normal.

Our main concern at sea was large vessels, so we kept a good watch. We encountered a number of container and tanker ships off the California coast. On two occasions, large container vessels changed course unpredictably and erratically, making it nearly impossible to decipher their intentions. A quick VHF radio call to the bridge got their attention, and we were able to avoid them.

Having seen this before, the experience got me wondering what would cause them to drive like drunks. I later asked a friend who captains a container ship for Matson. He told me that these ships have trouble slowing down. Much as with our smaller marine engines, they’re vulnerable to carbon buildup when run at slow speeds, and they’re designed to run at nearly full rpm, except when maneuvering, which is maybe 5 percent of the time. When waiting for a berth, they’ll often zigzag, slowing down only minimally, to kill time. They also perform regular steering tests and man-overboard drills.

We were well into the crossing when we found out that our water supply was contaminated. The water had appeared fine at the dock, but once it all got stirred up offshore, a nasty white film clogged the filters and water pump. Changing water tanks didn’t help. We had already added vinegar to the tanks, but this didn’t help. The white slime remained. I tested two water samples in clear bottles, adding bleach to one and vinegar to another. The bleached water was clearer, but the white slime remained in both. 

Fortunately, we’d had the foresight to stow a good amount of bottled water under the floorboards in case of contamination like this, or a leaking tank or water line. Immediately taking stock of our bottled water, I came across a large trove of water bottles deep in the bilge. We had stowed these in 2018, when we had delivered this same boat from Hawaii to Victoria, British Columbia. Complete with labels saying “Aloha Water,” this unexpected gift meant we would have a good backup of clean water to make it to the Aloha State.

Our next unhappy discovery was oil in the bilge. It started as a small puddle, but as we puzzled over its source, it began to accumulate faster. Finally, we isolated the source to the generator, which we’d had serviced in San Diego before leaving. The mechanic had failed to tighten the new oil filter adequately, and oil was spraying out in increasing volume. 

Unfortunately, the generator was installed ­under the transom, and the only access required removing the heavy transom cover, exposing the boat to following seas. We discussed our options. We had our new pink spinnaker flying and were making good speed in relation to the relatively moderate following seas. There was still the risk of being overtaken by a wave at the wrong time. 

Tracy, ever the careful, methodical bomb tech and our voice of reason, advised against tackling the issue so late in the day. Quinn, my go-getter nephew—who coincidentally had done a lot of the oil cleanup—wanted to go for it and stop the leak. 

I made a snap decision to go ahead and ­disassemble the transom. Tracy located the ­perfect filter wrench, and I found myself fully harnessed in, literally dragging my feet in the wake as I leaned over the generator, tightening the fuel filter as the boat surfed along under spinnaker in the golden light. I got it done, and just as I dropped the heavy transom cover back into place, a wave slopped aboard, harmlessly. It was a win for the crew.

The Pacific High filled in slowly, bringing the welcome puffy clouds and brilliant blue skies of trade-wind weather. The seas increased in size, and we began surfing down waves to 12 and even 14 knots under main and genoa. Squalls increased, usually looking more ominous than they were. 

I awoke one night in the forward master cabin, feeling the boat heeling a bit farther than normal, ripping downwind. Donning my self-inflating vest with a harness, tether and AIS beacon attached, I stumbled on deck to find Rowan on watch, enjoying some active sailing as the boat careened downwind. It was still in control, but only just. Being a fairly conservative sailor, and this being a delivery, I mentioned that we might want to reef. 

“Oh, no need,” Rowan said. “It comes and goes.”

“OK, Rowan, but you know where I am if you do need to reef,” I replied, reluctantly going below.

Not half an hour later, I felt the boat heel ­rapidly. Too much sail. I rushed back on deck in a pelting rain squall to help Quinn, who had just taken over the watch from Rowan, reef the sails. We squared everything away quickly without issue after a few tense moments. 

According to Quinn, Rowan had pointed out a number of squalls in the moonlight before heading down to his warm, dry bunk. He said Rowan had joked: “Captain wanted to reef, but I told him to f-ck off.”

Of course, Rowan became the object of some friendly mockery for a few days after that, but we forgave him. I never thought being the captain and the uncle at the same time would be easy.

Rowan made up for his transgression by somehow baking a spectacular peach pie, which followed a luscious roasted chicken with potatoes for our halfway party. We’d settled into a rhythm, adjusted to our watch schedules, overcome a few challenges, and made it halfway across an ocean. 

Even the dreaded squalls seemed less fearful and more beautiful with their deep purple-blue hues and towering clouds.

Things didn’t seem quite as overwhelming, the goal was in sight, and even the dreaded squalls seemed less fearful and more beautiful with their deep purple-blue hues and towering clouds.

The trade-wind conditions made for some spectacular scenes as the boat surfed down deep blue waves under brilliant sunny skies and dark squalls. I concentrated on flying my drone, ­skimming the wave tops and trying for lower angles that showed how the boat was surfing down the waves. 

I’d just gotten some fantastic images of the boat surfing at 12 knots in big seas when the inevitable happened: The $3,000 drone flew straight into a wave. 

It was lost forever, along with its precious ­images. I tried to remind myself that I’d already downloaded some good images, and I still had a tiny backup drone that could be pressed into service for the rest of the voyage.

When the wind moderated a bit, we began to see marine debris: large plastic barrels, lengths of fishing rope and pieces of fishing nets, some quite extensive. There was more debris than I’d ever seen in numerous Pacific crossings, and we began a constant refrain of “there goes another piece.’’ 

As most cruisers are aware, this is what’s known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is actually a collection of items suspended in the water column of the North Pacific Gyre. It is not the more-sensational “floating island twice the size of Texas” that some people claim—not to minimize the problem of marine plastics at all, just to be honest about it here.

Quinn was fortunate to watch a setting full moon, balanced on one horizon off the bow, with a rising sun in our wake, and no soul but him to witness it. From his reaction, I’d guess the young man won’t forget that experience.

The boat rolled considerably in the steep seas, but after nearly two weeks at sea, we just rolled with it.

We had to dive down to free our propeller ­frequently while sailing through this area, usually removing a length of fishing net or polypropylene line. Normally I’d be the one to dive, but with Quinn aboard, it made more sense to send him down with a safety line while I made sure the boat was stopped. The passing on of knowledge and roles is a big part of our family sailing lifestyle. I recalled a line from David and Daniel Hayes in their excellent father and son tale, My Old Man and the Sea: “When the father helps the son, they both laugh. When the son helps the father, they both cry.’’

Epic days of trade-wind sailing passed in ­succession, with a happy crew laughing and joking often. I played the song “Sailing” by Christopher Cross, apologizing to the boys ­because it is ­perhaps one of corniest songs ever written. It pretty much defines the genre of yacht rock. 

Soon they were singing along, bawling out lyrics like: “Sailing takes me away to where I’ve always heard it could be.” 

“All caught up in the reverie, every word is a symphony.”

“Oh, the canvas can do miracles.”

As the moon waned, brilliant stars blazed in the skies free of light pollution, and we watched as constellations wheeled across the sky. One night within a few hundred miles of Honolulu, Tracy looked up to see a series of perhaps 20 small bright lights follow each other up into the sky, pass over our heads, and vanish out into space. He called me on deck to witness it. We suspected that these might be a satellite series launch, and indeed it turned out to be SpaceX’s Starlink ­satellite launches.

The sight left us somehow conflicted. On one hand, we were impressed by this feat of technology, with its potential to improve our lives and bring us closer together. On the other hand, we felt uneasy, as if our precious night sky had somehow been colonized by a for-profit venture—an attempt to steal our attention away from our natural world of ocean and cloud to focus us on tiny glowing screens. We were using an Iridium Go unit to download weather data, a technology that Starlink has supplanted on many yachts. The world at your fingertips, all day and all night. Who has time to look at the stars?

As we approached the Hawaiian Islands, the wind increased a notch, accelerating around our home island chain and its mountain peaks reaching as high as 14,000 feet. Now the trades were over 25 knots, out of the east. It was a dead run, pretty much directly astern. 

Experimenting with sail combinations one day, I found that with the higher wind strength, we were able to run straight downwind at close to hull speed under the 120 percent genoa, which surprisingly stayed full dead downwind. This saved us a lot of distance sailed compared with jibing back and forth at angles to the wind. Lacking the stabilizing force the sails would exert on a reach, the boat rolled considerably in the steep seas, but after nearly two weeks at sea, we just rolled with it.

On our 14th day at sea, we sighted the long slopes of Maui’s volcanic crater, Haleakala (house of the sun). Soon after, the highest sea cliffs in the world, on Molokai’s north shore, rose 4,000 feet into the clouds. These looming cliffs guard Kalaupapa, with its mournful history as a leper colony. 

We closed with the coast, surfing at 8 knots. Steep breaking seas surrounded Father Damien’s church. (Damien was recently canonized St. Damien for his great sacrifice here.) The area is now a national park. We weren’t permitted to go ashore, but we didn’t mind. We toasted our safe voyage, complete but for the daysail across the channel to Waikiki. 

We toasted not having to stand watch. I felt like Bernard Moitessier, the French sailor who continued on around the world again, reluctant to finish the voyage and face the rush of humanity. We had made a fast passage and were ahead of schedule. There was no rush to sail home to Oahu.

With the boat owner’s blessing, we spent a day anchored under the cliffs at Kalaupapa. We were in fact the only boat anchored off the entire north coast of Molokai.

The next morning, I nearly dropped my coffee when a dolphin leaped into the sky a few meters astern of the rail where I stood. It turned out that the boat was surrounded by an inquisitive pod of spinner dolphins, which spent the day circling the clear sandy-bottom bay. Each of us swam out alone several times to commune with them. Curious when we dived down to their level, some swam along with us, seemingly bemused by the awkward humans.

Every voyage should be celebrated, and that single day was distinctive as an epic bookend to a remarkable journey. What made the trip stand out as one of my best-ever voyages was not that we didn’t have problems. We’d certainly had our share, starting with my own bad judgment in the dinghy, but our crew dealt with the problems together, and we shared the experience. And that can only be described as a gift.

The post Problem Solving at Sea: The Gift of a Pacific Crossing appeared first on Cruising World.

When Moody, a division of Germany’s Hanse Yachts, introduced its first Decksaloon model—a 45-footer designed by Bill Dixon—in 2009, it ushered in a look that has since been reflected across the brand’s 41- to 54-foot lineup, including the ­newest model, the Moody DS48.

This look includes a plumb bow and stern, a sizable beam (nearly 16 feet) ­carried aft to the transom, and a high freeboard that’s made to seem taller still by solid raised bulwarks and ­stainless-steel life rails that run from stem to stern, giving the boat’s deck a shiplike feel, especially when walking around the topsides.

And, like its predecessor, the 48 has a cockpit and salon on the same level, so you walk into the boat’s interior as you might on a catamaran rather than going down below as you do on most monohulls.

When I visited the DS48 at the Annapolis Sailboat Show with my Boat of the Year judging colleagues this past fall, my initial thought was the same as when I stepped aboard the 45 all those years ago: “Wow, this boat would make a great liveaboard.”

The DS48 has a roomy cockpit that is a couple of steps down from deck level. The recessed lounging area works on several levels. First, it separates crew work from play. Second, by locating the helm stations aft at deck level, it in effect raises them for improved visibility over the cabin top. It also provides room underneath for a dinghy garage. 

The cockpit also has twin teak tables, with outboard cushioned seating to either side. Overhead, the cabin top extends aft as a hard Bimini top, which has a fiber middle section that can be opened in good weather to see the sun and stars.

Forward, the cockpit ends at a wall of glass and a door that opens into a salon surrounded by vertical windows in the sides and windshieldlike panes that slope down to meet the deck just abaft the deck-stepped mast. The 360-degree view of the great outdoors is impressive from the well-appointed galley just inside to starboard, or when sitting at the dining table with U-shaped seating forward of the cooking area, or when working at the nav station to port. The nav desk on the boat that we visited had an autopilot and a throttle control, making it a useful indoor helm station for watchkeeping in snarly conditions or, say, on passage in the tropics, where air conditioning is appreciated. 

Otherwise, there are the twin outdoor helms, located outboard and far aft. Each wheel is set on a large pedestal that is also home to display screens, throttle levers, thruster controls and push-­buttons to operate a pair of electric headsail ­furlers­—one for the self-tacking jib and the other for the reaching sail that’s tacked down just forward of it. The DS48 that we visited had a vertical battened in-mast electric furling main. Overall, the rig and sails were suited to the needs of a shorthanded crew.

To finish off the tour of the interior, hatches in the salon sole open to access an engine and equipment room below. A standard DS48, which runs just over $1 million, is powered by a 110 hp Yanmar and saildrive. The boat in Annapolis came with another $500,000 in upgrades, including a 150 hp Yanmar, bow and stern thrusters, electric winches and furlers, a methane fuel cell and loads of solar panels, a lithium battery bank and Mastervolt electrical system, extra refrigeration, a dishwasher, a watermaker, air conditioning, and a mast-mounted camera that provides a bird’s-eye view of the bow to make docking easier. I believe the technical term is the boat is “loaded.”

Forward of the salon and a couple of steps down on the DS48 we toured, there was a utility room to port and an en suite guest stateroom with twin berths to starboard. Interior-layout options allow an owner to swap out the workshop for a second en suite guest stateroom with a double or twin berths, or a single-berth captain’s quarters.

A spacious owner’s stateroom is far forward, with its own head and shower compartment and ample cabinetry for clothes and such. Overall, the layout we saw would work quite well for a couple with kids in tow, or for cruisers who want occasional guests aboard.

For a big, roomy boat, the DS48 sailed well. In around 10 knots of breeze, we saw GPS speeds in the mid-6 range, and we hit 8 knots in one midteens puff. I jotted down “solid” to sum up the feel of the boat underway. The Jefa steering was smooth and responsive, and sailhandling, especially with the self-tacking jib, was a one-person chore. One thing I did notice was that it took a while—just under a minute—to furl in the reaching sail when coming about, an amount of time that I thought could prove annoying in some situations. Then again, the DS48 is probably not a boat you’d be short-tacking up a narrow channel. There’s a motor for that.

The owner was aboard for our test sail. His plan was to set off for the Caribbean and live aboard—sometimes with friends and other times not—while sailing from island to island over the winter. His DS48 should more than suit his purpose. 

CW contributing editor Mark Pillsbury was a 2025 Boat of the Year judge.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP

Price $1.5 million (as tested)
Contact: moody-yachts.com

The post Moody DS48: A Stylish Liveaboard Cruiser with Serious Sailing Chops appeared first on Cruising World.

As we cast off the lines aboard Simple Life, our Island Packet 37, to depart our home port in Pawtuxet Cove, Rhode Island, the boat seemed to heave a sigh of relief. Wholeheartedly, we agreed.

It had been a tough summer. In June, a rare tornado had touched down in our neighborhood, wreaking havoc. Our home sustained some damage, and the waitlist for repairs was long. We’d spent most of the summer waiting for ­contractors to appear.

Now, for the next two weeks, we were free to go sailing. We’d planned to putter south down Narragansett Bay for a day or two, then head out to Block Island, about 25 miles offshore. It was the perfect place to forget our cares and woes. 

Early on a Wednesday morning, we sailed out of the bay, planning to arrive at “the Block” by noon. That’s when more than 100 transient moorings in Great Salt Pond must be vacated unless a boat has prepaid for multiple days. The forecast for the next three days was favorable: light winds and mild weather. Perfect.

A few hours later, we ­motored into the harbor entrance. It soon became apparent that no boats were leaving that day; every mooring was occupied. We hailed the harbormaster, who told us that our best bet was to drop the hook and try again the ­following day. 

Dropping anchor in Great Salt Pond can be tricky. Holding is generally mediocre, and despite its large size, the harbor has few good anchoring areas. There is excessive depth in many spots. As recent long-range cruisers, we’re well-equipped with good ground tackle and sufficient scope, but many local boats are not—even though the island is known for sudden, localized squalls that inevitably send poorly anchored boats ­careening around the basin. 

Eventually we found a suitable spot in 24 feet, dropped anchor, and paid out 150 feet of all-chain rode. After a light lunch aboard, with the weather fine and the anchor holding well, we dinghied ashore for a midafternoon libation at The Oar, a famous yachties’ watering hole. From all points ashore, we had a clear view of Simple Life.

Even so, like most sailors, my husband, Joe, checks his favorite weather apps even when skies are clear and sunny. It’s a habit formed during our years of full-time liveaboard cruising. 

“Uh-oh,” he said. He’d spotted severe thunderstorm activity on radar at nearby Montauk, New York, about 25 miles west. It was moving fast. “Looks like it will bypass us here, but let’s head back to the boat just in case.”

By the time we pulled ­alongside Simple Life, a Beneteau 42 with a solo sailor aboard had anchored off our bow, a wee bit close for comfort. Minutes later, ominous, deep-blue storm clouds appeared in the west, advancing quickly and swirling over the island. 

Urgent weather warnings to all mariners blasted from the VHF radio: “Severe ­thunderstorms imminent. Seek immediate shelter.”

Wind gusts in the high 20s began building from the south. Gusts up to 50 knots were reported on the cell’s path toward Block Island. We watched anxiously as vicious squalls and ferocious lightning moved slightly north of us. Briefly, it appeared that the storm had passed. Dinghy engines all around us fired up, and a surprising number of boaters headed ashore. 

But the storm wasn’t over. Within minutes, the wind shifted 180 degrees and built back to 25-plus knots. All hell broke loose. Unattended boats dragged into others in every direction. 

Joe, on the bow, kept a constant eye on our anchor and the boat anchored close to us. It appeared to be moving slightly our way; he paid out a bit more chain and stood ready to fend off. We watched boats drag across the channel before tangling with others, bouncing off those only to hit elsewhere. BoatUS was dispatched along with the harbormaster. Numerous boats adrift were towed to emergency moorings. 

Eventually, the storm and the chaos subsided, treating us to a glorious sunset.

Our appetites suddenly returned in full force too. For dinner, I had just the thing in mind: a northern Rhode Island specialty called Dynamites. 

These oversize sandwiches are similar in concept to Sloppy Joes but are very spicy—hence the name. After the explosive storm, the food seemed particularly appropriate. Dynamites are a social experience, served at community gatherings and backyard potlucks. They’re also the ultimate homemade comfort food and perfect boat food: easy to make, filling and delicious. Once the meat sauce is cooked, it can be frozen and reheated.      

As the spicy aroma of simmering beef and spices lingered in our boat’s galley, we savored every bite of our tasty meal and raised ice-cold beers in a toast: to good ground tackle, coming through the storm without incident, and the simple joy of winding down after a stressful afternoon.

Rhode Island Dynamites

• 1½ tsp. baking soda 
• 3 Tbsp. water
• 1 tsp. salt 
• 1 tsp. black pepper 
• 2 lb. lean ground beef (preferably
  90 percent lean)
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 large Vidalia onions, cut into 1-inch pieces 
• 2 large green peppers, cut into 1-inch pieces 
• 2 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes with juice 
• 1 7-oz. can tomato sauce 
• 1 Tbsp. chili powder 
• ½ tsp. cayenne pepper (to taste)
• Good-quality mayonnaise, as needed
• 6 to 8 soft torpedo rolls (see Cook’s Note)

Dissolve the baking soda and water in a large bowl. Add the uncooked ground beef, salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands, and let stand for 30 minutes. This technique is optional, but it tenderizes the meat, makes the sauce more velvety, and prevents the cooked meat from pebbling.

Heat oil in a large pot (cast iron if you have one). Add onions, peppers and garlic. Sauté until softened. Remove vegetables to a bowl. Add meat and cook, stirring often, until it’s no longer pink. 

Return vegetables to the pot. Add diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. Season with chili powder and cayenne. Stir and simmer, uncovered, on low heat for 45 minutes, or longer if desired. 

Slice a long, soft torpedo roll down the center. Generously apply good-quality ­mayonnaise. This combo might sound strange, but trust me, it’s delicious—and the mayo tempers the heat. 

Serve with potato chips or coleslaw
on the side, cold beer, and plenty of ­napkins.

Prep time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Can be made: Underway or at anchor

Cook’s Note: There are varying regional names for the long, soft sandwich rolls ­generally called torpedoes, including hoagie, hero, sub, Italian and—often in southern New England—grinder. 

Editor’s note: Got a favorite boat meal you’d like to share? Email us at editor@cruisingworld.com.

The post Sailor & Galley: A Perfect Recovery Meal appeared first on Cruising World.

Once upon a time, two cavemen were sitting on their floating logs, complaining about their spouses. One caveman stood up to pee-to-lee. The sun was hot. He opened up his furs to stay cool and caught a gust of wind. Modern yacht racing was born. 

Ever since, a yacht race has been defined as “any two sailors within sight of each other.” There are lots of advantages to arriving first. The faster caveman not only gets to eat first and eat more, but he also gets to, er, snuggle for a longer duration than the loser. 

Losers don’t like this. Not at all. Thus, for a long time, every yacht race has been divided into two groups: the skipper who won and the many angry skippers who believe they were cheated. We call this unfocused anger “wholesome competition.”

Now, the caveman who lost to the innovative, bladder-­blessed sailor soon discovered that lighter, longer logs of the same buoyancy are faster. Basically, this was the first step on a winding road called the America’s Cup. 

One hungry fellow in the village cooked up a T-rex burger on a log and then later attempted to scrape off the coals. He realized that the charred wood was easy to remove with his sharp oyster shell. Thus, dugout canoes were another great leap forward. I’ve had the pleasure of watching men build them using this exact hot-coal method in Micronesia. 

Hoisting specially sewn furs on a vertical pole was another mega advance, as was mounting sheets of slate to the bottom of the canoe to add righting moment (weight) and reduce leeway by increasing lateral resistance. 

Steering was done with an oar. Most men, even then, were right-handed. If the voyage was long, they’d lash the oar in place. As a natural result, they’d tie up to discharge their cargo on the port side, not the steering oar (starboard) side. Anatomy as destiny.

Newbies who steer from a proper helm often confuse the words “port” and “starboard.” An easy way to remember the difference is that port and left are short words, while starboard and right are longer. Or remember this simple phrase: “Red left port.” A sailor named Red sailed out of the harbor. The left side of his boat is the port side and the one with the red light. (When two vessels are on a collision course, the one who sees the red light should stop so that the ­green-lit vessel can go.) 

Also, in the United States at least, sailor Red correctly kept the red navigation marks on his left as he proceeded out to sea, in order to stay in the dredged channel. 

This is all basic stuff, correct? (Notice I didn’t say “right” and confuse you even more.)

Alas, sailing vessels that were intended to cross oceans soon began to look different from coastal counterparts. Why? Because their crew didn’t want to drown from waves sweeping across the vessel offshore and carrying them overboard. Plus, the excessive pitching of the vessels in a seaway slowed them down. 

Designers felt that they most certainly had the answer: Make the bow and transom higher, more high, and even higher still. Thus, the lofty stern castles and towering bows of the ­man-of-wars of the 1600s. 

This didn’t work. The weight added at the ends only increased the pitching. Who could have guessed? 

If you think all this is ancient history, just observe the modern trend in multihulls with reverse-raked bows on their hulls or amas. This is the latest demonstration of the “migrate the weight toward the center” concept. Such design choices even affected the English language. Immodest, crude sailors stuck their naked butts over the bows at the “head” of the ship, while more modest skippers set up a canvas shield on the poop deck. 

But getting back to the America’s Cup in the mid-1800s: Yachts had a problem. To be strong, they had to be heavy. And heavy required lots of sail area. But the designer couldn’t make the masts taller with the limited technology of the day. Thus, as the boats became heavier, the rigs became longer via overhanging booms and long widow-makers forward (that’s what bowsprits were called during my youth). 

Sailing ships of the day had lots and lots of sails. They regularly left Boston with four to six extra crewmembers when they sailed to the West Coast via the Horn during the Gold Rush era. One clipper skipper bragged that he’d “lost only three crew” out of the rig during his last rounding of the Horn. How lucky was that?

Anyway, after the Americans carried off the Hundred Guinea Cup and renamed it after America, Europeans wanted to visit the New World to see what all the fuss was about. Shipping increased, and thus the need for pilot boats that could remain at sea for long spans of time yet return to port quickly. That was the heyday of the pilot and fishing schooners, the kind that I grew up aboard. 

Why schooners, specifically? Because with their giant mainsails set far aft, they hove-to extremely well. Here’s irony for you: Some of the fastest boats of their day evolved from vessels specifically designed to bob in place. Ah, the historical goofiness of yacht design.

Back in my youth, large headsails weren’t practical. Not without sheet winches. Yes, some vessels sported sheets with block-and-tackles—all the better to kill any slow-ducking crew.

Now, during this time, most sailors knew empirically, not mathematically, about concepts such as lateral resistance. If you take a picture of a hauled-out sailboat from the side and cut away everything but its underbody, and then you balance the bit of the photograph on a pin, that’s the exact center of lateral ­resistance of the yacht. 

Then, if you add up all the combined centers of effort of all the various sails, and then place that point a couple of inches abaft the center of ­lateral resistance, well, the boat will be perfectly balanced, with just the right amount of weather helm. 

Don’t want to haul out to find the lateral resistance, or don’t have a camera? Fine. Just tie up your sailboat extremely loosely on a windless day. Then pull it in parallel to the dock. Then push it away from the dock with the point of the boat hook. If the bow moves away first, move aft. If the transom moves away first, move forward. Eventually, you’ll get to a spot where the boat will move away parallel to the dock from a single point. Drop a plumb bob into the water: That entire line is your center of lateral resistance. 

What? You didn’t know this? Well, most of my generation of bilge rats did. The difference between us and yacht designers was that the yacht designers knew how to operate expensive slide rules (which were kind of the ­supercomputers of the era). 

Of course, as wonderful as schooners were, it was only a matter of time before a smart-ass such as myself put the rig on backward by placing the smaller foresail behind the larger mainsail, thus inventing the modern ketch. (A ketch has its mizzen mast forward of where the rudderpost bisects the design waterline. Not aft, like a yawl.)

Now, I realize that ­knockabout split rigs are currently out of fashion, and they should be. However, once the wind pipes up above an offshore vessel, split rigs such as our Wauquiez 43 ketch really come into their own. The mainsail can be totally dropped in a gale, and the vessel remains in perfect balance. The boat not only can sail jib and jigger under mizzen and headsail, but it also can sail to windward if it’s well-designed. We regularly go through 40-plus knots with a fully battened mizzen and ­roller-furling storm staysail set, without leaving the safety of the cockpit. How cool is that?

In light-air off-the-wind conditions, we often fly our mizzen staysail instead of our heavy mainsail. The nylon mizzen staysail is ultra-easy to hoist and hand. (In my day, we didn’t take down a sail. We handed it.) 

Of course, the real problem with racing boats is the boats themselves. In a way, they suck. I mean, in order to sail upwind, you need a keel and a sail; the hull of the boat is just useless baggage to support one or the other. Doubt me? Ask any foiling kiteboarder, especially one with a smug grin. 

Or ask any of the crew of the America’s Cup boats Ineos or Taihoro, for that matter. 

How much do I know about the finer bits of yacht design? Modesty prevents me from answering at length, but I do recall my father answering: “How much doesn’t Fatty know on any given subject? Well, usually just enough to get himself into trouble.” 

Fatty Goodlander is still hard aground on his own coffee grounds in Southeast Asia.

The post From Logs to Foils: The Wild Evolution of Yacht Design appeared first on Cruising World.

We sailed into the Kingdom of Tonga at dawn after five days at sea. The verdant shores looked like broccoli tops through the wet haze. Huddled under my rain jacket, I stood at the helm of Compass Rosey, a 43-foot Polaris older than me, with my Nescafé. I breathed a sigh of relief when the hills blocked the ocean swells. During my watch, our speed had dropped to 3 knots in the light air, making the broadside rollers particularly nauseating as we pitchpoled between them.

During the past six months, my husband, Rob, and I had bobbed for 33 days from Panama to the Marquesas, and crewed on several multiday jaunts between anchorages in French Polynesia and the Cook Islands. You’d think that after crossing 4,500 miles of the world’s largest ocean, I would be a seasoned bluewater salt, right? Immune to rollicky seas, with legs of steel? Happily singing chanteys while munching on canned veggies and soggy crackers? 

Nope. This passage had been just as uncomfortable and monotonous as the last several.

Sipping my tepid coffee, I reminded myself why I’d upended my life at age 33 to hitch rides across the Pacific. To see the infinite blues of the sea and sky. To marvel at the fact that two hunks of canvas can cart us across hundreds of miles. To embrace the solitude of gliding alone across watery wilderness. To take pride in managing my mind, body and boat at sea. And the cherry on top, the real reason I’d signed up for all these ocean crossings: to visit crystal-clear lagoons and postcard-perfect islands.

The trade-off was having to pass by anchorages we desperately ­wanted to explore, yield to questionable ­decisions, and rely on others’ ­navigation skills.

We’d made it to the reward again. As the water under our keel turned from cerulean to jade, the boredom and discomfort from the passage evaporated. 

I steered us toward the biggest horseshoe-shaped island in the clump of 30-odd specks that comprise Vava’u, one of four island groups in Tonga. In the center of the horseshoe sat Neiafu, the second-largest town in the kingdom, with 3,900 people. All told, Tonga’s islands take up nearly as much ocean real estate as the Caribbean islands but have a tiny fraction of the Caribbean’s humans. I grinned, excited to explore the deserted beaches and miles of teeming reefs.

I set our autopilot and roused the rest of the crew. Our captain, Mark, called the customs office on the VHF radio to announce our arrival, and then perused the charts for moorings. Rob groaned as he hefted himself into the cockpit, draping himself on the bench beside me. He suffered from seasickness, so the slow rocking last night hadn’t done him any favors. 

“Smell that?” I asked as I gulped in an exaggerated breath. The pungent scent of flowers and fruit was striking after days offshore, both pleasing and overwhelming. “Dirt, baby.”

“Mangoes, here we come!” Rob said with a fist pump. It had been a month since we’d been anywhere with enough soil to grow food. 

Compass Rosey was the fifth boat we’d crewed aboard since leaving our home in Montana. Originally, as we plotted our midlife escape from landlocked 9-to-5 jobs, Rob and I had dreamed of buying our own boat to sail the South Pacific. We’d created budgets and voyaging itineraries, researched trade winds and provisioning ideas, and saved as much money as we could. 

One year into planning and scrimping, we realized that it would take many more years to make our dream a ­reality
—unless we used someone else’s boat. We altered course and decided to crew instead. Cruisers often look for an extra pair of hands to help with watches and chores during long passages.

We posted on Cruisers Forum, advertising our services in exchange for a lift to French Polynesia. A family of five from New England answered our ad. We spent two months aboard their 53-foot steel ketch, transiting the Panama Canal from Colón and then sailing downwind to Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas via the Galápagos. That 33-day Pacific puddle jump included endless games of Scrabble, a visit from a lone orca, and a lot of jumping jacks on the stern.

After our first prearranged ride, we relied on hitchhiking to hop between islands. Or hitch-sailing, as I dubbed it. Many cruisers follow the same route on the “coconut milk run,” leaving around March from the Americas and traveling the trade winds east to west to make it to New Zealand or Australia before cyclone season starts in December. That means we saw the same two dozen boats at most anchorages. Though pickings were slim for hitching a ride, it also meant that we became friends with the people on these boats, and they were more inclined to give us a lift. 

Our second ride from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus was a C&C 40 with a young couple. Third, we hopped on a Choate 40 with a retired couple to get to Tahiti. Fourth was a short ride with a British singlehander to Huahine in French Polynesia. Then we joined Mark, who was delivering Compass Rosey to Australia for the boat’s owner. 

I like to think that Rob and I are easygoing folks. But even the most flexible adults would start to feel weary after adapting to five different captains who each had a set way of doing things—and varying degrees of openness to suggestions. We’d learned a ton about bluewater sailing and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by volunteering as crew. The trade-off was having to pass by anchorages we desperately wanted to explore (we’ll be back for you, Maupiti), yield to questionable decisions (like sailing with no running lights one night off Tahiti’s busy shipping channel), and rely on unfamiliar equipment, and others’ navigation skills (which once plowed us into a reef while sailing at 7 knots).

Rob and I were ready to be the masters of our own destiny. We were jumping ship in Tonga and had planned to stay ashore for a bit. We’d hoped to rustle up a boat-sitting option during the upcoming cyclone season.

As Neiafu’s deep, protected harbor came into view, I took in our new digs. Shiny yachts mingled with dilapidated wooden skiffs. Onshore, crumbling concrete ruins slumped next to brightly painted houses. On one hill, a white church sat picturesquely, its bells ringing. A taller hill, crowned with a radio tower, rose behind the bay, with a path winding up the side. I couldn’t wait to climb to the top to stretch my atrophied legs.

We pulled up to the customs dock, and Rob greeted the official who ambled toward our boat: “Malo e lelei.”

He always made sure he knew how to say “hello” and “thank you” in the local language before we arrived. Along with a smile, those two phrases worked like magic in most countries.

In our cruising guide, I’d read that Tongans use three languages in their kingdom: one for royalty, one for nobility, and one for everyone else. Luckily, we’d be able to get by with English because most Tongans are fluent in that as well. After our passports were officially stamped and we’d picked up a mooring ball, Mark dinghied us to shore with our belongings: a few backpacks and one beat-up guitar. We bid him farewell, then turned to walk the six blocks of Neiafu’s main street. Kids in navy-blue-and-white uniforms walked to school. The market was coming to life, with mounds of spinach, pineapples, eggplants and tomatoes as music to my eyes. The largest building downtown, made of whitewashed brick, housed a souvenir shop, a beauty parlor and an open-air Italian restaurant. A shop called the Tropicana promised ice, laundry services, and pay-by-hour computers. The grocery store had mint-green walls and sold either vanilla or strawberry ice cream by the scoop from a wrought-iron window. Chocolate came by boat once a week, we learned, and sold out fast. An ATM on the corner shelled out pa’angas, valued at 2 to every 1 US dollar. Chickens cock-a-doodle-dooed in rising crescendos, and pigs roamed the streets. Yes, pigs. Big fat ones, little baby ones, pink-and-gray and speckled ones. They grunted in the gutter, scarfed down garbage, and scuttled through the foliage in search of rotting fruit.

We headed back to the Italian restaurant for espresso with real cream (a treat I hadn’t had in months) and asked the lovely Tongan waitress about the roving pigs. “We roast them to celebrate birthdays, weddings, funerals,” she told us, setting down my fruit smoothie and coffee. “The more pigs you have at your funeral, the more important you are.” 

Rob toasted me with his cappuccino after she left. “I think Tonga will fit us just fine.” After our snack, we found a room. It had a shared balcony overlooking the harbor, a bed with a significant sway in the middle, a tiny bedside table, and one electrical outlet. 

It was 10 times bigger than any of the berths we’d occupied during the past six months. It didn’t move. No one would wake us at midnight for watch. Supposedly the internet worked too. A dream come true. 

Brianna Randall hitch-sailed aboard seven sailboats with her husband, Rob, in 2013. They visited 25 tropical islands in nine countries and learned that they really like being the captains of their own destiny.

Hitch-Sail  (´hĭch-sāl)

1. Soliciting free rides at marinas, anchorages or ports where sailboats congregate.

2. Working as volunteer crew on a private yacht in exchange for passage across the sea. 

Sailing off into the sunset is a common dream. Actually buying a sailboat and navigating it to foreign shores is less common. One compromise for those antsy to get a move on—or for those looking to gain bluewater experience—is to hitch a ride on someone else’s boat. With a bit of forethought and a healthy dose of patience, you can get a lift to your desired destination. Here are a few tips:

• Get to know the captain, virtually or in person, before you commit.
• Negotiate up-front ­whether you’re sharing food and mooring expenses.
• Chip in early and often with chores such as night watch, cooking and cleaning.
• Pack light; one waterproof backpack should suffice.
• Bring your own ­seasickness meds.
• Be resilient, ­adaptable, and at peace with uncertainty.

—BR

The post Hitch-Sailing: A Ticket to Cruising Paradise? appeared first on Cruising World.

I’ve always been a list person. Some people thrive in the chaos of spontaneity, but for me, the calm comes in the form of bullet points and checkboxes. If you’ve ever caught an introvert in the act of trying to wrangle the external world into something manageable, chances are, you’ve seen a list. Grocery lists, to-do lists, “Things I’d Say If I Actually Wanted To Make Small Talk” lists. I even have a list titled “Lists To Make When I Have Free Time.” It’s not a coping mechanism; it’s a lifestyle.

So anytime the dream of a longish-range sailing excursion comes into focus, my first instinct isn’t to imagine sunsets at sea or the exhilarating snap of a spinnaker catching the breeze. No, my brain immediately turns to creating The Mother of All Lists, a grand manifesto of preparation that will guide me from part-time seafarer to competent passagemaker.

The thing about sailing—and specifically long-range cruising—is that it has a way of exposing your weaknesses. There’s no hiding from yourself when you’re out there, 500 miles from the nearest coastline, trying to remember if you packed spare impellers or a replacement fuel filter. For an introvert, whose inner world is as loud as their outer world is quiet, sailing demands a level of organization and ­forethought that is both ­thrilling and terrifying.

Take provisioning, for example. It’s not just about jotting down “beans, rice, coffee” and calling it a day. Oh, no. You’ve got to think about how much coffee you’ll need if you’re stuck in a storm for 48 hours and your watch partner has decided to forgo sleep in favor of caffeinated chatter. (Not recommended, by the way.) You have to plan meals, calculate portions, and ask yourself deeply existential questions such as, “How many cans of tuna is too many cans of tuna?” Spoiler: It’s fewer than you think.

And then there’s the gear list. This is where humility makes its grand entrance. I once was drafting one my “Gear and Safety Must-Haves” lists back in my early days of sailing, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had spreadsheets, color-coded categories and a solid three weeks of research under my belt. But then came the advice from a seasoned sailing buddy of ours: “Oh, you don’t have a ditch bag on board? Rookie move.” Or fast-forward to present day: “You’re bringing a spinnaker pole but no backup bilge pump? Bold choice.” Turns out, many a cruiser’s master plan is more like a rough draft.

And let’s not forget the maintenance log, because nothing says “adulting” like keeping track of oil changes, impeller replacements, and which bolt you tightened with questionable confidence six months ago. My maintenance list has sublists. My sublists have footnotes. Some days, it feels like I’m auditioning for the role of World’s Most Obsessive-Compulsive Person Stuck on a 40-Foot Boat.

But for all the effort and obsessive detail, the beauty of lists is that they anchor me. They’re the ballast to my ­overthinking, the windvane to my wandering mind. Sure, they’re not foolproof. I’ve ­forgotten sunscreen (big ­mistake) and underestimated how much chocolate a single human can consume in 24 days (bigger mistake). But lists give me a framework, a way to tackle the vast unknown—one checkbox at a time.

And really, isn’t that what sailing is all about? Preparing as best you can, knowing full well that the ocean doesn’t care about your spreadsheets or your neatly laminated safety protocols. It’s about adapting when your perfect plan meets imperfect reality. It’s about having the humility to admit that you missed something and the humor to laugh at yourself when it’s something ­spectacularly obvious, such as forgetting to pack ­biodegradable toilet paper.

So, here’s to lists: the unsung heroes of introverts and sailors alike. They won’t guarantee smooth seas, but they just might keep you sane when the autopilot fails at 2 a.m. and you’re hand-steering through a moonless night. And if all else fails, at least you’ll have a handy record of everything you forgot to do. 

The post Editor’s Letter: Plan Smart, Sail Smarter appeared first on Cruising World.