Ocean Navigator – May/June 2022

Puerto Vallarta Race 2022 recap

The 36th running of the Puerto Vallarta Race finished in March with 29 boats crossing the finish line out of fleet of 30, with one boat retiring. Ocean Navigator was one of the PV 2022 race sponsors. In terms of fastest overall, Roy P. Disney’s sled Pyewacket 70, set a new monohull course record with a time of 03:04:38:02. The overall winner on corrected time was John Raymont and crew aboard his Ker 51 Fast Exit II. Raymont wrote on the race website, “The goals for the Ker 51 Fast Exit II full-on racer are the same as they were…

Canada goes digital (and free)

If you’re planning a cruise to Canada this summer, be aware that Canadian Hydrographic Service is offering all its products in digital form and for free, a fact that I discovered while planning a cruise to the Bay of Fundy this summer from Maine. Whenever I contemplate sailing to an unfamiliar area I try to buy paper planning charts, and I also look for government sailing directions. Though aimed at a wide range of mariners and not especially recreational, these national publications give an overall picture of a coastal area and its harbors. All the US Sailing Directions are stored…

World’s biggest sail flies off St. Barth

North Sails is calling it the world’s largest sail. It’s a 28,029-square-foot (2,604-square-meter) A2 spinnaker built by North for the 192-foot (58.6-meter) superyacht Perseus^3. Building the sail was a major effort that required a custom order from Contender Sailcloth, and a team of 10 sailmakers and two graphic installers. The sailmakers labored for more than 15 days to construct the chute, which is roughly the size of 10 tennis courts. North sail designer Glenn Cook explained that the sail was designed with the size of the boat in mind. “Because Perseus^3 is a huge boat… you can’t turn very quickly, and trimming…

Impressive fleet set for Newport Bermuda Race

When the Newport-Bermuda Race starts on June 17 (photo above shows 2018 start), it will have the second largest fleet of competitors in its history. More than 214 boats have signed up for what will be the 52nd running of the 635-mile race from the mouth of Narragansett Bay to the finish off St. David’s Lighthouse. Only the 2006 centennial race, which saw 265 boats signed on, had a larger fleet than this year’s edition. Co-hosted by the Cruising Club of America and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, the contest features eight divisions: Double-Handed (22 entries), Finisterre for cruisers (38),…

In Slocum’s Wake

Ocean Navigator contributor Nat Warren-White’s account of his circumnavigation aboard his Montevideo 43, Bahati, is elevated by association with Joshua Slocum’s historic work of adventure literature. Despite the huge differences, there is a comparison to be enjoyed between the two accounts and it is well worth the time to pull out Sailing Alone while reading In Slocum’s Wake. A non-technical travelogue, In Slocum’s Wake has a mission: to persuade mere mortals to follow in Bahati’s wake, to imply how much easier it is to sail on a modern boat with a crew, to thank his 50-odd crewmembers, to thank his…

Taken by the Wind Memoir of a Sailor’s Voyage in a Bygone Era

This memoir of an ocean sailing adventure by three young Americans in the 1970s, is not a swashbuckling yarn of lusty youth turned loose on the world. Mike Jacker was 22 years old when he and his friends purchased a Cal 2-30 and set out from New Orleans to journey westward across the Pacific and back, returning only just in time to start medical school and a conventional life. They were recent college graduates from educated, comfortable families in the Midwest. Theirs was not Sterling Hayden’s act of voyaging defiance – thumbing their noses at the establishment just for the…

Daybreak

A power voyaging boat with impressive passage-making “legs,” the Nordhavn 68, Daybreak, launched in 2021 and owned by Karen and Jerome Fisher, can easily voyage to far destinations. Daybreak is the Fisher’s second Nordhavn, the first was a Nordhavn 60 — also named Daybreak. The name is based on the first commercial fishing boat on which Jerome worked and the Fishers have re-used that name on multiple vessels. Aboard their Nordhavn 60 the couple voyaged south to Baja and north to Alaska and as far afield as New Zealand. According to Jerome, this bluewater capability was one of the reasons they purchased…

Getting a line on voyaging

When considering gear for a voyaging boat, you likely think of a diesel engine or a multifunction display or a bank of batteries. But there’s another type of equipment that most voyaging boats, especially sailboats, can’t operate without: the simple but vital tool of rope. Without rope (line on a sailboat), sailing a boat offshore would be all but impossible. And while rope may seem like a fully developed product in the age of satphones, rope innovation continues. One example of this is Yale Cordage’s ULS Yacht Braid product, a rope for cruising boats that takes advantage of newer materials…

The wreck of Starlight

My wife Anne and I were aboard our 26-foot sloop Starlight of Mersea, sailing fast through the Caribbean night, reaching along parallel to the waves with the self-steering wind vane working hard to keep her on course in the boisterous seas. It was about five in the morning. There was no moon but from the hatchway I could see the sails and steering gear by the faint starlight and the luminescence of the breaking wave crests. A few years before we had found Starlight in Bob Vowell’s yard in Pwllheli in Wales and bought her for £1,600. Starlight was a…

Eight license renewals later, still proud

Inspired by the COVID 19 lockdown, I began cleaning house in a major way. That meant going into drawers and cabinets seeking out items that I no longer needed. Inevitably my purging led me to a cabinet drawer full of files that I hadn’t seen for years; old stories never completed, postcards from forgotten friends and in one file, bursting with the girth of a snake swallowing too big a meal, a treasure of long-forgotten information labeled “Captains License.” I hadn’t looked at that file in at least 15 years but it was taking up a lot of room and…