Messing About In Sailboats

Sailing Photo Of The Day - Tarna

Yesterday's guest post by Bruce Hansen of the blog, A Voice Cries Out In The Wilderness, recounted the life of the great Dodge Morgan. Bruce met Morgan when Bruce unknowingly grabbed Morgan's mooring. As Bruce tells it: Dodge rowed out to our 38’ Alden Challenger and said “This is a private mooring. Nobody is allowed to tie up here. But this is the prettiest boat I have ever seen. You can moor her here anytime. May I have permission to come aboard for an inspection, Captain?” And this is the lovely Tarna, Hansen's 38' Alden. Pretty indeed! Read more →

Around Alone - Guest Post by Bruce Hansen

I am delighted to share a wonderful account about Dodge Morgan, brought to you by Bruce Hansen. Bruce is the author of a new sailing blog, A Voice Cries Out In The Wilderness. This blog will be well-worth following. As you can tell, Bruce is a fine storyteller. Dodge Morgan was truly larger than life: Jet pilot, journalist in Alaska; newspaper publisher; inventor; entrepreneur and above all a Great Sailor. He passed last September. Here's his story. =================================================================== His most frightening moment came when he pulled the next-to-last bottle of beer from the bilge. Dodge Morgan circumnavigated alone 27,000 miles around the world on his sailboat American Promise in 1986 after five months at sea in a record-shattering time of 150 days, 1 hour and 6 minutes, cleaving the previous record in half. The captain white-knuckled it as Promise righted herself after getting flattened by exploding wind at least 11... Read more →

2010 Vineyard Race - Worse For Wear. Guest Post by Ethan Garr

The 2010 Vineyard Race did not disappoint, except on the following fronts: 1. It beat the crap out of everybody 2. It made lots of people seasick 3. It seemed to never end 4. It broke lots of gear 5. It deprived everyone of sleep Other than that it was fantastic. I raced on Poppy, an Olson 911s owned by Kelly Robinson and Valerie Shwerk out of Raritan Yacht Club. We had a crew of 7, and I think at 30 feet we were the smallest boat in the fleet. We won our division, PHRF 3 as well as the Cotton Blossom Performance Trophy (best corrected time on the Seaflower Reef Course). With Hurricane Earl busting by the coast the day before, we had beautiful skies and 70 degree temperatures at the start, but the seas were rough and the wind was up. The start was great with 60+ boats,... Read more →

Avoiding Many “Avoidable Close Calls” (Listening To and Communicating with Commercial Vessels on Channel 13) by Guest Author Stu Hochron

Stu Hochron is founder and author of the truly excellent sailing online newsletter News From The Bow. He and his wife Shana sail their beautiful Freedom 45 in the Northeast mainly. The image is care of Bowsprite. You should definitely check out this truly original blog. Fantastic water colors. Adam New York’s East River is home to ferries, tankers, tugs (pushing and towing) and all sorts of commercial traffic. The safety of these working boats depends, to a significant degree, on their ability to communicate with each other while underway. Their captains are required to monitor channel 16, and so too should all pleasure craft. However, many pleasure boaters are unaware that nearly all commercial vessel VHF radio communications, including some calls to pleasure craft in their area, are NOT heard on channel 16. Consider this scenario: You are traveling on the East River (or Hudson River, or NY Harbor,... Read more →

Crossing the North Pacific in the Clipper Round the World Race 2005-2006 by Part 8 Guest Author Brian Luster

(Brian Luster is a fellow nautical blogger and author of the excellent blog A Movable Bridge. Brian took part in the big Asian leg of the 2005-2006 Clipper Race. The current race is taking place right now and the crews are in Asia as I write this --Adam) The finish: 7 May 2006, Victoria After 31 days at sea New York arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, and took seventh place in the race from Qingdao. The last cold, rainy 18 hours were some of the toughest of the race. The entire crew was on watch; no one got to sleep. We had a few people on deck at all times, and the rest on standby for tacking and changing sails. That last day, dawn broke to show that we were socked in by a thick fog. Out of the fog a ghostlike Glasgow suddenly appeared and sailed past us. We... Read more →