Cruising World July 2015

First the good news: We’re sailing better boats, drinking less booze while on them, taking safety courses and wearing life jackets more often. And those efforts are making it a whole lot safer out on the water than, say, in 1973, when 1,754 people died in boating-related incidents. The National Association of State Boating Law Administrators, citing Coast Guard figures, finds that 2014 was the second-safest year on record, with 610 recreational boat-related fatalities. That’s up from 560 deaths the year before, which was the safest on record. The report points out a couple of interesting conclusions. Just 12 percent of the fatalities happened on boats where the operator had taken a safe-boating course. If you study and earn a certificate (or attend a Safety at Sea seminar), it means…

It all started quietly enough, during an unseasonably cold April, with dozens and dozens of shipping containers suddenly appearing in the empty parking lot of Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island. When it was first announced that the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race would call in Newport, nobody knew quite what to expect. But as the six boats in the feet raced from Brazil to Rhode Island, the old fort was magically transformed into a sparkling race village, a little town unto itself. It was spectacular. “If you build it, they will come” is the famous catchphrase from the movie Field of Dreams. It’s also a fitting slogan for Newport’s Volvo stopover. First they built the village. Then came the boats. And then came the crowds. The yachts arrived…

Herb McCormick’s Of Watch article “Double Dread’s Dream” (May 2015) brought back fond memories of my visit to Anguilla in the mid-1980s. My wife and I and another couple decided on a oneweek charter of an Endeavour 37 out of Bobby’s Marina on the Dutch side of St. Maarten. To our delight, at that time of the season, the price included two weeks. After our briefing, the first day we sailed around to the French side of the island with a captain aboard. He was satisfied with my skills, so of we went for two weeks on our own. Our first island to visit was Anguilla. After of cialdom, the first person we met was Carl of Carl’s Whole Island Tour Company. He showed us the points of interest, which…

If you like C.S. Forester and Patrick O’Brian, you won’t be able to put down this fourth installment in a series of historical maritime novels that follow the exploits of Captain Charles Hayden. Canadian author Russell has captured all the action and nuances of the great days of sail in a Caribbean setting, at a time when empires were fighting over possession of islands and plantation slaves were in revolt. Rick Martell Make Westing & Other Tales of Sea and Sail by Jack London (2015; New Street Communications; $12.99) As a teenage oyster thief on San Francisco Bay in the early 1890s, young Jack London reckoned he’d be dead or jailed by 21. Luckily, London survived his early indiscretions and became a legendary teller of epic outdoor tales. In this…

I think that it hit me when my daughter Caitlin was excited to put together her presentation for Volvo Ocean Race Night at her school. Or maybe it was when we were part of the spectator feet welcoming in the first three finishers of the race leg to Newport, Rhode Island. Upon seeing the boats and sailors, Caitlin was completely star-struck. Despite living on a sailboat (and having a Cruising World editor for a mom), Caitlin has never been that into sailing. But the Volvo race? That is something that she, and the rest of her school, is into. Caitlin just finished up fourth grade at Pell Elementary School in Newport, and this year, the curriculum took a very interesting sailing twist by including Volvo Ocean Race-oriented lesson plans. Our…

If it’s summertime, Matt Rutherford must be off in the land of the midnight sun. The intrepid adventurer who sailed around the Americas — 27,000 miles nonstop and singlehanded via the Northwest Passage and Cape Horn, in a 27-foot Albin Vega three years ago — is off again. No surprise. But these days his voyages have a higher purpose. Rutherford and his scientist partner, Nicole Trenholm, are cruising off Greenland in his 42-foot cat-ketch Colvin Gazelle, Ault. They spent the winter in Annapolis, fxing Ault up, and plan to relinquish the aft berth they normally occupy when Dr. Deborah Bronk of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences joins them for a week of studies. Since his wild ride around the continents, Rutherford has created Ocean Research Project, a nonprofit designed…