How to Buy a Boat: Practical Advice from 50+ Years of Experience I’ve been buying boats for more than 50 years — everything from sinking derelicts and kayaks to sailing dinghies, small power cruisers, center consoles and large motorsailers. Some were new, most were not. Over the decades I’ve learned a lot about buying, maintaining … Read more
NOAA satellite analysis confirms skipper’s account of the knockdown off Brazil that doomed the tall ship NOAA satellite imagery and meteorological analysis support the captain’s account that a violent downdraft — a microburst — was likely responsible for the Feb. 17 sinking of the four-masted barque Concordia. Ken Pryor, a researcher at NOAA’s Center for … Read more
Blue skies, verdant meadows and sunlit water set the scene in Marstal on the Danish island of Ærø. This story isn’t about pronunciation but about salt-stained schooners, the craftsmen who built them and the crews who sailed them across the globe. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Marstal was widely known for its … Read more
How Steamboats Shaped Early U.S. Mail Delivery Imagine a time when a single innovation could reshape how a young nation communicated. In an Oct. 2, 1807 editorial in the New York Evening Post, a bold question was posed: would it not be well if she could contract with the Postmaster General to carry the mail … Read more
Hal Roth, who died at 81, left behind a rich legacy of books and films chronicling the early days of Pacific cruising and a lifetime of sailing adventures. Together with his wife Margaret, he turned voyages into stories, beginning in 1966 when they slipped the lines in their first yacht named Whisper and set off … Read more
Boatbuilders are arriving at the fall and winter boat shows with a strong roster of genuinely new powerboats. After years of incremental updates and model tweaks, manufacturers are now unveiling more completely redesigned boats — many new from the keel up — than we’ve seen since the Great Recession. Many of the boats in this … Read more
NOAA’s New Supercomputers Aim to Sharpen Hurricane Forecasts for Boaters When Hurricane Matthew struck Hilton Head, South Carolina, in 2016, the storm surge and winds devastated Palmetto Bay Marina. Water rose above the pilings, winds approached 90 miles per hour, and more than a foot of rain fell in a short time. One local Sea … Read more
Don’t Touch Seal Pups: How One Rescue on Vancouver Island Unfolded If you spot a seal pup on the shore or hauled out on a log, the best action is simple: don’t touch it and don’t try to intervene. Instead, contact local marine mammal rescue authorities. That clear message is what marine mammal experts and … Read more
Skip Novak: Racing Legend and Antarctic Expedition Leader Skip Novak is a distinguished sailor whose career spans competitive ocean racing and leading high-latitude expedition voyages. He made a mark early in his life as a navigator and skipper in multiple editions of the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race and later pivoted to building and … Read more
How This Couple Sees the World Without Breaking the Bank Nearly 20 years ago, we chose to sell our property and business, buy a boat and start cruising while we were still young and healthy enough to enjoy it. Watching friends postpone their plans — only to have health or family issues derail their dreams … Read more