The 222 Cruise

The 222 Cruise

At first glance there is nothing that newsworthy about three old friends going cruising from Bermuda via the Azores to England; that is unless you consider that these three friends were each 74 years old. In 1981, when they made the cruise, age 60 was considered “elderly.” The British press referred to the cruise as the “222”— a reference to the combined ages of the sailors. All three of these septuagenarians were special in another way; they were all highly decorated Royal Navy veterans. Each had earned the Distinguished Service Cross for their gallantry and bravery during World War II,…
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An unlikely rescue

An unlikely rescue

The following sounds like a fairy tale, but it isn’t.  Peter Warner wasn’t happy. He’d cruised more than 2,000 nautical miles from Australia to ask the king of the nation of Tonga for permission and the necessary permits to fish for the highly prized spiny lobster that thrived in those waters. The king had refused his request, and now Warner and his crew, aboard the fishing trawler Just David, were returning home. Passing a small island in an archipelago of 169 islands that make up the nation of Tonga, they passed the small uninhabited island of Ata. Scanning the shore…
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Schooner Wanderer’s sad history

Schooner Wanderer’s sad history

In the history of American sailing ships, there are few vessels that can compare with the disreputable story of the schooner Wanderer. In her career, from 1857 to 1871, Wanderer was stranded, involved in two collisions at sea, stolen not once but twice, condemned as a slaver, a pirate ship and a gunboat. The tale of this yacht is both disturbing and illuminates a dark side of American history.  Wanderer was built as a private yacht for Colonel John Johnson, a sugar plantation owner in Louisiana and also a member of the New York Yacht Club. The keel was laid…
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The Johnsons — Irving and Exy — weren’t your average American married couple. The Johnsons completed seven circumnavigations beginning in the 1930s, all aboard boats named Yankee, with each passage taking about 18 months. They spent their lives and raised their family while circumnavigating. Through their books and articles in National Geographic magazine, they introduced America and the world to the adventure of sailing around the world.  The first Yankee was a Dutch North Sea pilot schooner. The second Yankee, purchased in 1947, was a German North Sea pilot schooner that was re-rigged as a brigantine. They sailed this Yankee…
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The 16-millimeter projector whirs, displaying a flickering, scratchy movie from 1957. It’s a gathering of suburbanites in a backyard, nothing unusual there, except that in the midst of them is the wooden hull of a 37-foot sailboat. The scene is from a film taken the day Carastee, a 37-foot L. Francis Herreshoff design boat of the Nereia class, was launched at Marshall’s Shipyard in Port Washington, N.Y. The result of more than seven years and 14,000 hours of effort by one man: Maxwell Simkin (1916-2020). Mac to his friends, professional oral surgeon and boat builder extraordinaire, was so taken by…
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Rigs & Rigging

When it comes to the modern sailboat rig, there has been a definite design trend toward higher masts and shorter booms. This rigging choice is seen most clearly on racing machines, but it has also become a factor on the average voyaging boat. There are, of course, advantages to this type of rig, but there are also some significant penalties. An examination of different rig styles reveals some of the trade-offs designers must make when drawing a voyaging rig. The relationship of wingspan to wing breadth is termed "aspect ratio" and is expressed as a simple fraction. A kite has…
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