For those in search of fair winds, an umbrella-laden beverage and an increased sense of adventure, Cuba provides. U.S.-Cuba relations easing in December of 2014 provided an opportunity for voyagers to sail the island. One year later, we arrived to our charter in the southern Cuba port of Cienfuegos to begin a 600-nm voyage to Havana.
A judge in the U.S. Virgin Islands has acquitted a charter captain facing a charge of seaman’s manslaughter stemming from a 2015 incident where a delirious crewman jumped overboard in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA) has urged its members to mobilize against any new limits on overnight anchoring ahead of the upcoming legislative session in Florida.
Renowned British yachtsman Robin Davie has arrived safely in England after a roundabout voyage from Les Sables d’Olonne, France, to Falmouth that caused him to arrive four days later than expected.
The sailboat helmed by Abby Sunderland during her failed attempt to sail around the world has been found.
If you trust the polls, most of us believe in climate change and appreciate the threat from rising sea levels.
Daily grind got you down? Looking for a little adventure, or the chance to save a few bucks?
Cruising sailors are largely responsible for their own medical care unless moored in a town with a clinic.
Sailing to the Edge of Time is a splendid book of nautical lore and, in its way, a profound book — a philosophical inquiry into the seductive enticement of seafaring.
One outcome of thousands of years of human seafaring is that some of the myriad vessels involved never reached their destination.
When you have a mess to clean up, sometimes the best solution is to take matters into your own hands and suck it up.
Sailors, true sailors, know how to grab their moments.
Great Barrier Island, New Zealand, is only 50 to 60 nautical miles offshore of Auckland — a dense and populated place by most standards — yet the island truly feels a world apart from that big city.
As the Newfoundland coast vanished astern, we headed on a bearing directly north aboard our 52-foot aluminum sloop Kiwi Roa.
Communications on our Valiant 40, Brick House, was once limited to a few methods.
Very high frequency (VHF) radios provide two-way communication and have a range of five to 30 miles, mostly line of sight with some bending.
Years ago when I was researching and writing the first edition of my book, Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual, I spent a great deal of time studying ways to make electrical systems more powerful and reliable.
The first generators we developed within the Parker project were permanent magnet devices with sophisticated three-phase controllers.
As noted, the goal is to meet all of a boat’s electrical generating needs when the vessel is underway.
If our system is the only generator on board, there will be times when a propulsion engine has to be run at anchor, in neutral, to generate electrical energy.
In this installment, we’ll cover sextants and sight taking, and the corrections you’ll need to apply to your sight.
Exploring collimation error, perpendicularity of the index mirror error, side error and index error.
Here is a sample problem of sight correction.
Many a ship has sailed with a cat aboard. Cats were often carried on sailing ships to hunt rodents but also simply for their companionship.
