Ocean Navigator - March/April 2025 - Ocean Navigator

Low Emission Power for 2025

In addition to increasing range, long-distance sailors and motoryacht owners always look for ways to reduce their impact on the environment. One immediate way to cut back on emissions could be simply switching fuel. One new fuel is called Hydro Treated Vegetable Oil and it’s made from refined waste cooking oils, animal fats and grease. “It’s probably the most significant drop-in diesel fuel today,” said Jeff Wasil, director of environment, health, safety and compliance at the National Marine Manufacturers Association. HVO, as it’s called, is a renewable diesel that meets ASTM D975 specifications and Wasil said it reduces greenhouse gas…

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…

ARC Fleet Sets Safety Preparations for Transatlantic

The big red “L” on the GRIB file, shown out in the Atlantic Ocean due west of Ireland, wasn’t doing much for anyone’s mood. No one wants to see 960 millibars in a forecast, never mind that the distant system was more than 2,000 nautical miles away from the room in Las Palmas, Grand Canary, where skippers and crew from 140 boats were gathered for the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) weather seminar. The data, presented on a Tuesday by meteorologist Chris Tibbs, offered an outlook for the Sunday departure of the 2024 ARC fleet. Weather remains a constant concern…

Self-Steering Basics: What’s driving your boat?

Take a look at almost any cruising power or sailboat these days and you’re likely to find some form of self-steering gear installed. In our modern age of boating, having the desire to keep your vessel on course without the need for a crewmember to constantly be at the helm is almost a given. But the path to getting the right setup for your boat can be a vexing problem. When we talk about self-steering, the category runs from electric or hydraulic autopilots all the way to sheet-to-tiller steering and several types of windvanes. The issue, however, is that there…

What I Learned as a Schooner Hand

I began my fall into degeneracy at an age when most people are strapping more tightly into their careers. I was midway through life’s journey, as Dante would say, and my hero’s quest proved not to be a passage to the underworld but a revelation of white sails billowing in the sun. That’s how I look back on it now. When I left my newspaper career, I only knew that change needed to come or I would strangle myself with a fax cord. After bumping around in a trance for a year, I hooked a job captaining boats for the…

Lunacy at Sea – Answer

1. HO is 14° 35.2’. 2. The intercept is 5.2 nm toward at 211°. 3. If the problem was done correctly the LOP should fall almost on top of the LOP. Hooray.

Lunacy at Sea

It was time to leave Horta, though in truth no one ever wants to leave Horta. The Azorean natives are so friendly and welcoming, the anchorage so secure, the bars so plentiful, why would anyone want to leave? Even Peter’s Sport Cafe, perhaps one of the most famous sailor bars in the western hemisphere, though by now, possibly overrated, overpriced and overcrowded, is still a comfort. The little town is bursting at the seams with sailors and traffic. Faial, the island of which Horta is just a small part, is awash in blue hydrangeas and yellow and red nasturtiums. It’s…