Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i Cruising World

A year before we became liveaboard cruisers, another family came through town and took us on a daysail. It was the first time our whole family was on a sailboat together. We were hooked. The encounter took us from “we might do this whole live on a boat” thing to “heck yeah, let’s go.” We thanked them for taking the time. They said that as payback, we could look them up when we started cruising. “Life out here requires a lot of intentionality,” they said. “You have to work hard at building the connections.” Nearly three years later, two of them on the water, that conversation sticks with me. The word “intentional” might as well be tattooed on my arm. I’m a cruising mother of two. I am an expert…

The internet is replete with guidance—some of it accurate—on the subject of auxiliary diesel engine maintenance and upkeep. There is, however, far less discussion on the subject of marine gears, otherwise known as transmissions. Transmissions commonly run into problems too. For instance, the control cables. They’re the traditional connection between the shift lever in the cockpit and the gear down in the engine compartment. This system is a telegraph of sorts. Pushing it forward or aft mimics the same movement on the gear’s own shift lever. The cable, which is made up of a steel core and a steel wire jacket covered in plastic, is fairly reliable unless it gets wet. Then it can rust and seize. The jacket can also melt if it comes into contact with a dry…

Solo ocean crossings exist in a strange territory between spiritual pilgrimage and borderline madness. You have to be part navigator, part mechanic, part therapist. There’s no one to take the wheel while you sleep. No one to help reef the sails when the 2 a.m. squall hits. No one to tell you that you’re not going crazy when you wake up from a dream shouting for someone who’s not there. Most people who take on the Pacific leg of the Coconut Milk Run—the jump from Mexico to French Polynesia—do so with crew or partners. It’s the first and longest bluewater crossing for many sailors. The gateway to a life afloat. For me, it was something else. It was the thing I had to do while my 38-foot Hans Christian, Kessel,…

Bathed in stillness beneath the brooding evergreens of the Pacific Northwest, the Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 509 Kāholo rests at anchor—its smooth lines mirrored in the placid water, a scene of quiet that belies the transformation it has undergone. After years of ocean miles and worn-out canvas, a new suit of sails has breathed fresh life into this veteran cruiser. In the story “New Sails, New Life” (page 28), longtime voyager Tor Johnson recounts the journey from frustration to performance, as cutting-edge sail design—courtesy of a Kiwi America’s Cup veteran—redefines how Kāholo sails through gusts, tacks and time itself. Out here, cradled by steep forested hills and still airs, the boat seems reborn, ready for whatever lies beyond the next headland.…

At the end of a long pier at SUNY Maritime College in New York are two clusters of piles used to protect the Empire State IV training vessel. The pier was adjacent to the swift tidal currents of the East River, and before each day’s practice, I would make a point of sailing in a figure eight around the pilings. This simple exercise improved my boathandling skills in close quarters. It doesn’t matter whether I’m someplace like that, daysailing through a mooring field, closing in near a marina, or lining up on a crowded starting line for a race. The goal is to navigate safely in close quarters while enjoying the sights. I enjoy waving to mariners on other boats and to people on the dock. Everyone waves back. People…

Prior to stepping aboard the Hanse 360 during the 2025 Boat of the Year contest, the last Hanse I’d sailed was a year earlier on the larger, quite imposing 510. It was a beast of a yacht with a seven-figure price tag, more than 50 feet of waterline, and a towering 77-foot spar. As a brand, Hanse had been concentrating on its larger offerings, and I have to say, I was a bit intimidated but also quite taken by the 510’s bold looks and massive platform. So, stepping aboard the 360, I was highly interested in how the French design consortium of Berret-Racoupeau—the naval architects also responsible for the 510—would scale back their vision while remaining true to Hanse’s usual brand objective: Build comfortable production cruisers that sail well. I…

The see off Cannes, France is barely breathing this particular morning, its surface flat and luminous under the weight of the sun. We slip quietly from the dock and into the Gulf of Napoule, where the horizon meets the sky in the sort of hazy blur that makes distance seem irrelevant. A thin breeze meanders through the rigging of Sine Finis, just enough to stir the sails but not enough to command them. The boat moves anyway. Not quickly, but surely, as if being pulled forward by some invisible tether. At the helm, Nico Jonville stands relaxed, one hand lightly on the wheel. He isn’t adjusting or trimming or steering with any urgency. He is simply sailing. The kind of sailing that reveals not just what a boat can do,…

I’m a lifelong, card-carrying rag sailor. But the sail I hoist isn’t the only reason the term fits. I know that, like wine, sailing clothes improve with age. Take my two sailing shirts: both long-sleeved Lacostes, one navy blue, the other white. The backs of both have enough holes to rival cheesecloth. The cuffs are tearing away from the sleeves. The darker material of the blue one masks most of its stains, but the white one advertises them—slashes of green bottom paint, rust-colored blotches, speckles of varnish, a grease stain of unknown origin. I’ve worn these shirts as long as we’ve owned our 12-foot catboat, Finn—almost two decades. They’ve become old mates of mine, and the rips and stains and frays testify to the many years of service they’ve seen…

If sails are the engines of the sailboat, my engines were sputtering. After 13 years of use, including crossings of the Atlantic and Caribbean, my original Dacron factory sails had seen their day. Restitching and replacing the UV covers had helped, but the sun had eventually gotten to the cloth, and the wind had made them sag. Our in-mast furling mainsail presented particular problems. Bagged out in the wrong places, it bunched up when furling. I tried all the tricks, like varying the boom height and the pressure on the outhaul while furling, but unless I furled it with some wind in the sail, it jammed in the mast and became so difficult to unfurl that I swore like a bosun. From my berth in La Conner, Washington, I sailed…

There’s an old saying among sailors: “The two happiest days in a boat owner’s life are the day they buy their boat and the day they sell it.” While my husband, Chris, and I can confirm the unbridled joy of buying our beloved 1979 Cheoy Lee 41, Avocet, we’re not quite ready to test the second half of that theory. After years of pouring sweat, love and bottom paint into her, we’ve promised to keep her for the long haul. That said, we’ve been crew on the emotional roller coaster of friends preparing to sell their boats. Trust me: It’s a ride with plenty of ups, downs and the occasional splash of regret. To demystify the process and help sailors prepare for what can feel like the nautical equivalent of…

We cleared through the Panama Canal and sailed back into Pacific waters for the first time in a decade—but I looked west from our 50-footer, Atea, with a sense of despondency. All of our sailing friends had worked hard to get to this stage. They looked at the Pacific as the beginning of an epic adventure. I, however, looked at it as the ending of ours. This would be the final year of an 11-year circumnavigation. I was reluctant to conclude our cruising lifestyle. Yet, it was hard to be sullen when so much beauty lay ahead of us. The Pacific is the largest ocean in the world, and we would be sailing through one of the most enviable cruising destinations: French Polynesia. We would spend the next three months…