Storm Morning with My Dad: A Sail on Long Island Sound Just after my tenth birthday, I woke at dawn to the steady patter of rain on the thin glass windows of our little yellow Cape house. It was Sunday, which meant Dad’s store was closed and he would be home. I scrambled out of … Read more

The July Fourth weekend is one of the busiest and most anticipated times of the summer for boaters, especially in the Northeast. With warm weather, long days, and a working boat at last, many families fill the holiday with cruising, overnighting on the hook, sandbar gatherings, fishing and water sports. It’s a great opportunity to … Read more

In 2019 my wife Molly and I cast off from our homeport in New Hampshire with the goal of circumnavigating the globe. We made it as far as New Zealand before the Covid pandemic closed borders. Over the course of nearly three years we visited countless archipelagos—stops included the eastern Caribbean, the Galápagos, Tahiti and … Read more

Christi and Jan van Heek are long-time visitors to Down East Maine’s postcard harbors, having cruised the coast many times aboard their J/46 sailboat. A year ago they moved from Marblehead, Massachusetts, to Rackliff Island just south of Rockland, and their two adult daughters and their families followed. “We’re all Mainers now,” Christi says. On … Read more

Idawalley Zoradia Lewis was roughly 12 years old when she performed her first rescue at sea, beginning a lifetime of bravery and service that would make her a celebrated figure in Newport, Rhode Island. Her father, Hosea Lewis, was a retired captain who had taken the post of keeper at Lime Rock Light, the small … Read more

Maine’s New Boater-Education Law: What It Does and Why It Matters for Boating Safety Which age group causes the most recreational boating crashes: teenagers and young adults, or people in their 30s to 50s? A new law in Maine appears to target younger boaters, but the reality is more nuanced. The state’s recent boater-education legislation … Read more

National Coast Guard Museum in New London — Exhibits, Funding, and Visitor Experience How many lives could a single line-throwing device save? In the late 19th century, rescuers on shore fired the Lyle gun, a line-throwing weapon developed by military officer David Lyle, to deliver a braided, waterproof line to ships in distress. The recoil … Read more

By the time you read this, Kim Russo and Michael Martin will be cruising aboard The Perch, a Silverton 410 Sport Bridge, somewhere in the Great Lakes as they loosely follow the route of the American Great Loop. The Great Loop is a roughly 6,000-mile network of connected waterways that circles the eastern half of … Read more

Keith Reynolds’ “Christmas Island”: A Foggy Maine Seascape of Reflection and Mood In this quietly powerful composition titled Christmas Island, artist Keith Reynolds captures a lone lobster boat as it approaches a small, isolated island shrouded in fog off the coast of Maine. The scene is calm and contemplative: flat, glassy water creates precise reflections … Read more

Captain Greg Thornton has spent more than a decade delivering yachts and working with nearly every kind of electronic navigation system. Because he routinely boards unfamiliar vessels, he keeps the Navionics app on a tablet in his gear bag. “You’re jumping on a boat blindly, and rather than having to get a specific map or … Read more