Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2025 i Cruising World

Survival PLANS 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…

A transatlantic crossing is a bucket-list voyage. For cruisers who spent a season exploring the Mediterranean, the crossing links them to the dream of spending winter in the islands. For sailors who bought their boats in Europe, the crossing might be the first extended offshore passage. For cruisers who began a circumnavigation along the US East Coast or in the Caribbean, the passage might complete the circle. The western route across the 3,000-nautical-mile stretch between the European mainland and the Caribbean is a path sailed for centuries by explorers and pirates alike. The northeast trade winds and favorable current have defined the course taken by sailors from Christopher Columbus to today’s cruisers. The Canary and Cape Verde islands are an ideal jumping-off point for a passage to the Caribbean. The Atlantic…

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…

The 38-foot rugged steel cutter pulled up to the dock in June 2016, looking hardy and capable, with a hard-chined hull, a chimney and a pilothouse. I stood there on my sloop in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, thinking that the boat had the type of constitution which could weather many a long Southern Ocean crossing. I didn’t recognize the ensign that was flying, so I struck up a conversation with the solo sailor on board. His name was Leiv Poncet, and he was from the Falkland Islands, that remote and harsh archipelago a few hundred miles off the southern tip of South America. Poncet’s journey from the Falklands to the Aleutians seemed remarkable to me: He’d first sailed to Chile, then north through the Chilean channels, and then across the Pacific to…

Leiv Poncet, the intrepid high-latitude voyager and recipient of the 2024 Cruising Club of America’s Blue Water Medal, has a knack for finding adventure in Earth’s most remote corners. It’s no surprise that his lens captured the rugged beauty of Attu Island in the Aleutians—a photo that whispers of wild seas, volcanic peaks and the untamed spirit of this extraordinary archipelago. Stretching 1,200 miles and crowned with 57 volcanoes, the Aleutian Islands are one of the planet’s last great wildernesses, where steep cliffs plunge into deep, forbidding waters, and nature reigns supreme. For most sailors, the route from Japan to Alaska’s mainland offers a tempting shortcut through the central Aleutians, avoiding punishing miles of contrary winds and currents. But for those like Poncet, who yearn for every inch of adventure,…

Tired of wrestling with sail ties and flapping canvas after a long day on the water? A DIY stack pack could be the game-changing upgrade that your boat needs. Acting as both a sail cover and lazy jack system, a stack pack lets you flake your mainsail right into the bag for easy stowage—no fuss, no deck gymnastics required. In this hands-on project, Avocet’s crew, Marissa and Chris Neely, transformed their sailhandling routine by crafting a custom-fit stack pack using durable Sunbrella fabric, heavy-duty zippers, and marine-grade thread. The result? A sleek, efficient system that’s as functional as it is budget-friendly. In this detailed guide, you’ll learn how to measure, cut, sew, and assemble your own stack pack from start to finish. From choosing materials to installing lazy jacks, the…

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…

Step Into Your Next Adventure with “Forever For Now” This 2019 Leopard 45 is a standout vessel, offering pristine condition and enhanced specifications over earlier models. With minimal wear due to a pause in charter activity during COVID, she presents as nearly new. Renowned for her exceptional bluewater capabilities, the Leopard 45 offers the perfect balance of comfort, performance, and low-maintenance reliability—ideal for life on the water. “Forever for Now” has been the heart of this owner’s family adventures for five incredible years. With her exceptional design and capabilities, she’s ready to inspire her next owner to embark on unforgettable journeys and create their own lasting memories on the water. Located in St. Lucia Asking: $425,000 USD PLEASE SEE OUR AD ON PAGE 84 The Moorings Yacht Brokerage phone: +1-954-925-4150…

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…

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…

Your boat’s shore-power cable is the lifeline to dockside electricity, keeping your batteries charged and your AC appliances humming. But wear and tear on the cable or its plugs can lead to poor connections, overheating or even dangerous short circuits. Don’t wait for a power failure to address these issues. With just a screwdriver and a bit of patience, you can replace worn-out plugs and restore your cable to like-new condition—all for a fraction of the cost of buying a new one. In this practical DIY guide, veteran sailor Roger Hughes walks you through the step-by-step process of dismantling and repairing both male and female shore-power plugs. You’ll learn how to inspect for damage, strip wires and reassemble connections correctly to avoid polarity problems. Visit our website for the full…

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,…

Are you sure we are still in the Philippines?” I ask my husband, Steve, as a long purple tongue twists around the branch I am holding, elegantly stripping it of leaves. “It doesn’t make sense, does it?” he replies quietly, so as not to disturb the diners. “Giraffes roaming around freely on an island in the Philippines doesn’t make any sense at all.” I giggle, daring to reach up to touch the snout that is attached to the long purple tongue. “But it’s amazing.” More than 7,000 islands make up the Philippines, so choosing where to sail can be overwhelming. We decided to explore the Calamian Islands, 200 nautical miles southwest of Manila, for several reasons—the chance to hand-feed giraffes being one of them. This smattering of small islands offers…

BLIND Ambition 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.…