The Massachusetts Marine Trades Association (MMTA) presented longtime industry leader and former co-owner of Baert Marine, Warren Kelly, the Frank Farrell Distinguished Service Award. After a varied decades-long career, Warren Kelly and Bill Baert recently sold their dealership to Port Harbor Marine based in Portland, Maine, and both have since retired. Warren has been a leader in the recreational boating industry for half a century and has always been a strong supporter of the MMTA and the Business of Boating (BOB) conference in Massachusetts. Warren is the fifth recipient of MMTA’s Farrell award, joining Joe O’Neil, former owner of the…
Former University of Hawaii at Mānoa sailor Cole Brauer has become the first American woman to sail solo nonstop around the world. The native of East Hampton, New York, finished second out of 16 competitors in the Global Solo Challenge, a race that started and ended in A Coruña, Spain. The marathon 30,000-mile journey took 130 days, and she crossed the finish line on March 7. Starting the competition October 29 on her vessel, First Light, Brauer sailed south around Africa, across the Indian Ocean to Australia, then crossing the Pacific Ocean to South America before returning north to Spain.…
Cruising sailors in the English Channel and the Mediterranean Sea may catch a glimpse at boats competing in The Ocean Race Europe 2025. The race will be the second edition of The Ocean Race Europe, following a debut event in the summer of 2021. The event will build on the foundations of the inaugural race and will be held under the banner of “Connecting Europe,” with a race course that stretches from the Baltic Sea, through the North Sea and English Channel, into the Atlantic Ocean before a finish in the Mediterranean. Racing will take place in the newest generation…
C-MAP, based in Viareggio, Italy, and a leader in digital marine cartography and cloud-based mapping technology, recently announced a major update to its North America charts, introducing detailed data for hundreds of lakes, improved satellite imagery, enhanced shaded relief and more. “We are thrilled to roll out this new update to our C-MAP users in North America, significantly transforming their navigation experience,” said Jakob Svensson, C-MAP’s product manager. “Our product team is dedicated to sourcing new data and continually enhancing and improving our charts.” The new data includes satellite imagery improvements in over 19 states, including North and South Carolina…
You can’t race a sailboat around the world in a single-handed event like the Global Solo Challenge without self-steering. Before windvanes, most boat designs could balance rudder and sails so with the helm lashed the boat would keep her course. The 1968-1969 Golden Globe Race, the first ever non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race, came after effective windvane self-steering was developed for yachts. In a retro race like today’s Golden Globe that requires windvane steering, sailors can keep a desired course well enough to still be competitive, but otherwise modern solo racers depend on electric autopilots. Today’s versions are far more sophisticated than the…
Even after a thrilling trick at the wheel, wending through the waves and keeping the sails drawing, it’s still a cheerful sight to see one of your crewmates climb into the cockpit, shake away the last bit of off-watch slumber and prepare to take your place. You tell them the course to steer, give a quick briefing on the changes in the wind, how the sails are set, what vessels or land may be nearby and then it’s time to turn over the helm. He or she takes responsibility for the vessel and your watch has ended. Something like that…
In response to last year’s severe drought, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) reduced the number of ships allowed to transit daily from a normal 36 to 22. According to Noonsite, the ACP also announced that only one of those would be an unbooked transit. Numbers are up slightly for January but as all vessels under 125 LOA go unbooked (i.e. can’t reserve a specific transit) this will cause extensive delays for transiting sailboats and power yachts during the high season. In addition, special lockages that allow rally groups to go through without a merchant vessel have stopped, and the boats…
The World Sailing Trust has launched a survey to gather baseline data on whether the design of sailing equipment is affecting the development of greater gender diversity. This new survey, launched in early October 2023, follows up on findings from its Strategic Review of Women in Sailing published in 2019. While opinions differ among sailors about how women are treated in the sport and whether that treatment needs changing, there’s no doubt from the news that they are participating in and winning events. World Sailing Trust was created in 2018 as a global charity to support sailing, especially through increased…
With the 2024 edition, Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book turns 150 years old. Known informally by East Coast sailors as “The Little Yellow Book,” Eldridge is a jam-packed compendium of 275-plus pages of mostly useful stuff. In an era when even NOAA is phasing out printed nautical publications in favor of apps, Eldridge’s continued existence seems strange. But when my husband Tom and I sailed our Sabre 30, Ora Kali, from New Jersey to Maine one of the first things I did was buy the latest Eldridge. To successfully navigate up the East Coast would require not just up-to-date nautical…
The 53-foot French yacht Triana, one of the 14 official entrants in the Ocean Globe Race 2023, was involved in an dramatic long range helicopter evacuation of a injured crewmember off the island of Maderia on September 19. The injury occurred at 1300 UTC, September 17 when crew member Stéphane Raguenes slipped on deck in heavy weather causing a severe laceration on the back of his leg behind the knee. Raguenes was taken below for immediate first aid to stop the blood flow. He was sedated and given morphine under supervision by MSOS 24hr Telemedicine organization. Triana’s captain, Jean d’Arthuys, contacted Ocean…