Short Tacks - Ocean Navigator

Cornell Sailing Launches New Flotilla

Offshore sailing legend Jimmy Cornell has announced a new multi-year flotilla that will take participants around the American continents, along with the Arctic and Antarctica. “I’ve sailed at high latitude in the Arctic and Antarctic and noticed that recently, cruising and sailing to high latitudes has become more popular among long-distance sailors,” Cornell said during a Teams call. “This year, in 2024, three Exploration 45s that I conceived had successfully completed the Northwest Passage.” Cornell designed the Exploration 45 sailboat and he had previously sailed on one to Antarctica and the Arctic. “I said, ‘What is the possibility of combining…

Shipshape – A Plan

The lessons learned by elders provide wisdom for our betterment. I now understand why my mother insisted that we clean the bathroom after each use. Gil, a neighbor from my beach-life childhood, engrained in us that if we were going down the hill from the street level parking to the beach cabins to make sure we didn’t waste a trip with empty hands. The same held returning up the stairs. My wife Sue and I grew up on the beach. Like a beach cabin, a boat is either shipshape or it’s a hovel. A yacht is understandably shipshape, and a…

Cruising in the ‘Land Below the Wind’

The South Pacific Ocean is a wide and mostly empty space for long-distance sailors. It is also home on its western side to countries with challenging weather conditions where winds don’t conveniently blow from one direction, the cultures are varied and you can spend months, even years getting to know them and still not feel like a native. Sabah is a Malaysian state that sits at the northern tip of Borneo, the third largest island in the world. The rest of Borneo is split among Indonesia (Kalimantan), Sarawak (another Malaysian state) and the tiny sultanate of Brunei. Tom and I…

The Versatile Rolling Hitch

Except for use in “jump rope” or “tug-of-war,” it’s difficult to employ cordage without some form of knot, bend, hitch or splice being involved. Fortunately, these “complications,” as Clifford Ashley in The Ashley Book of Knots calls them, are all free, and every rope has at least one just waiting to be formed. For those who have no desire or motivation to integrate more than one knot into their repertoire, the rolling hitch (Figure 1465, The Ashley Book of Knots) would be the knot that we’d recommend; it is the one knot that gets extensive use on our boat. The…

Vital Resources for Coastal Cruising

The morning light flooding through the ports was grey and dense. It was earlier than usual when I woke up with a feeling that something about the day was going to go differently than expected. I set the kettle on the stove to boil and turned on the VHF radio at low volume and waited for the NWS weather station to cycle through offshore and coastal reports to the inshore forecast for Massachusetts Bay. I was spooning coffee grounds into the filter cup when my husband emerged in time to hear the offshore forecast broadcast warnings about Hurricane Henri. “It’s…

Red Sea Knockdown

I had spent all night on a Friday in early April close-tacking my way to Gezerit Zabargad, a two-mile-long island marking the eastern border of Foul Bay on Egypt’s southern Red Sea coast. The Imray pilot says the island has several moorings, donated by U.S. AID to protect the coral reef from anchors. I saw none and found nowhere to drop the hook. Too bad because the reef-protected lagoon was as clear blue and pretty as any I had ever seen. Into a light head wind I motored Saltaire, my 1966 Cal 30 sloop, the last 30 miles to Ras…

Storm tactics for small vessels

When we leave the safe, predictable environs of our local cruising grounds, we find ourselves learning, sometimes the hard way, how to survive storms at sea. During my 2000-05 circumnavigation on the 1966 Cal 30 sloop Saltaire, that’s how I learned to survive gales, groundings and even a full knockdown, always emerging victorious against the elements. Crossing oceans on a larger yacht certainly offers obvious advantages. We all know a larger craft is more stable in a seaway, cutting through swells smoothly rather than bouncing over their crests, and offering a smoother ride for her crew. In a small harbor,…

Using Satellites to “Sound” Atmosphere and Ocean

Even when going boating in my home waters where I think I know every stand-alone rock and the boundaries of channels and will only be out for a few hours, I check the weather and carry a navigation chart. Mariners have done this for as long as there have been boats, but the technology for creating forecasts and charts has evolved steadily over time. It’s making big leaps now through changes in the way satellites collect data about the atmosphere and ocean and how it is analyzed. The first U.S. satellite was launched to counter Russia in the space race,…

Protect Your Boat from Lightning

If there is anything equally as scary to an ocean sailor as falling aboard, it is the highly unlikely yet still extant possibility of being struck by lightning at sea. Like a giant battery in the sky, the negative post on that wispy, amorphous blob of a cloud is always looking for the shortest path to ground, which in this case means the highly conductive saltwater on which you are sailing—or the highest conductive point on your boat. So there you are sailing along, listening to Jimmy Buffet on the stereo, blissfully unaware of the big cloud’s intentions as it…

Feel of the Wheel

There’s nothing quite like the feel of a tiller or wheel in your hands, that tactile sensation of flesh on wood as you steer the vessel to a distant waypoint. To me, this has always been the most rewarding part of sailing. With gentle movements of your fingers, the boat responds—silent, stealthy, ready to go anywhere there’s wind. Driving a boat is all about the senses, and the skilled sailor learns to use them all. The wind on your face, the angle of heel and the gurgle of water sliding past the hull all play a part in the ballet…