Seamanship & Navigation, November 2021
Stories of repairs at sea always make for fascinating reading. Not the fairly routine substitution of a spare part but rather a failure so horrendous that great ingenuity was…
Author: Eric Forsyth
Venerable voyaging boat sinks at the start
The start of this year’s cruise was hardly auspicious; Fiona began at the bottom, or more literally, on the bottom.
A rough crossing of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay has a notorious reputation for bad weather.
Changing a starter motor at sea
Fiona’s engine is an 85-hp Perkins, far too big to start manually; an electric starter motor is essential.
Turned away
When I departed Long Island, N.Y., on July 5, 2013, I was making my fourth attempt to cruise Antarctica aboard Fiona, my well-traveled Westsail 42. My plan was ambitious: a westward-bound circumnavigation of the Antarctic continent.
Illness and injury on the high seas
Editor’s note: Eric Forsyth is not a medical doctor and the following account is not intended as a medical guide. Forsyth recounts some medically-related incidents he has experienced in more than 40 years of deepwater sailing to illustrate the kind…
Modifying a fuel system for cross feed between tanks
My boat has two diesel fuel tanks. Fuel for the engine is selected by appropriate feed valves with the unused return fuel also piped to the tanks via valves. Normally, fuel is returned to the same tank that is feeding…
Braving the Northwest Passage
Ice and a steering failure make for an eventful transit from Atlantic to Pacific
Remote corners: Voyaging to small, isolated islands
One of the great joys of ocean voyaging is to fetch up on small, isolated islands
