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2015 July 1 - 12:00 am

Deploy the foils—mom and pop are going cruising at 40 knots

By Bill Schanen
Long live the America's Cup! Yes, I know, some of us have been disappointed by the morphing of this historic yachting institution from a respected international competition among sailors representing yacht clubs and their countries into a spectacle that features participants in helmets and body armor and is fueled by the inflated wallets and egos of billionaires and marked by shameless rule-rigging, but now we can again proudly embrace this once beloved sailing icon, for the America’s Cup has finally delivered on its promise to sailors.
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2015 April 30 - 12:00 am

Sailing education has come a long way since the School of Hard Tacks

By Bill Schanen
I’m pretty sure I sailed before I walked. I know I sailed before I talked. I don’t remember it, but it’s family lore. My parents’ idea of a nice family outing was to put their first-born, while still in the babe-in-arms stage, aboard their 18-foot Seagull sloop and go sailing on Lake Michigan. There is no record of whether I wore a life preserver. I’m guessing I didn’t. The kapok models in vogue at the time would have outweighed the child.
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2015 April 1 - 12:00 am

Sports politics may be the one barrier disabled sailors can't overcome

By Bill Schanen
The politics of international amateur athletic competition are so inscrutable and Byzantine they make professional sports look wholesome in comparison. Professional sports are driven by the simple and pure imperative of an entertainment business–to make money. International amateur sports are driven by a mysterious something else. Whatever it is, it's not pure or simple, judging from the bizarre decisions issued by the ruling authorities. 
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2015 March 1 - 12:00 am

Seeing the world in cruising-lite and the real thing

Some sailors still cruise the old-fashioned way, of course, on their own boats, making long passages, sojourning for as long as the spirit moves them in those waters of sailors’ dreams.

By Bill Schanen
If there is a more wonderful invention for sailors than bareboat chartering, I haven't heard of it.  When I experienced it the first time, it seemed too good to be true. 
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2015 February 1 - 12:00 am

There but for the grace of the gods of navigation . . .

By Bill Schanen
Three stout but dignified denizens of Navigator Heaven were gathered at a local pub for their afternoon pint. “What do you make of that sailing vessel fetching up on Cargados Carajos Shoals near Mauritius?” Captain James Cook, the legendary 18th-century explorer and cartographer, asked his mates.
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2014 December 1 - 12:00 am

Not a pond or even a lake, it's really a sea with a mean streak

By Bill Schanen
I’m writing this on the “today” mentioned in the above excerpt from the NOAA marine forecast, which is October 31, 2014. That is the deadline for this column, and I had better get going, but I am being distracted by the view through my office window, a scene rendered in pewter of a street shrouded in metallic gray with a sturdy maple tree bending in the burgeoning gale as its last few leaves become unmoored to join the horizontal flight of passing snowflakes. 
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