Sometimes I whine about the absence of design documents in the review packages I get these days.  I want to see what the designer drew. Leave it to my buddy Kevin Dibley in New Zealand to knock me out by sending me an almost complete set of plans for his exquisite new 21-foot trailerable sportboat.     Schedule

 
 X-Yachts is introducing a third line of boats to complement  its Xp (performance) models and Xc (cruising) models. The range will be the X series and the first one will be the X6 followed by this X4 model at 41 feet LOA. I have been a fan of the X-Yachts models for many years. Its in-house design team does a great job with both styling and performance. The new X series will combine comfort and speed with the latest build technologies and exceptionally high-quality materials.Schedule

 Successful husband and wife teams are rare in the competitive sailing business. But Heidi and Steve Benjamin, each accomplished sailors in their own right, have found a winning formula racing together for several decades. Intrigued by their success I caught up with the pair in Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom, during the recent Etchells World Championship where Steve was racing.Schedule

I’d like to start using an iPad as a backup navigation option. I am not sure what navigation application to use and I am a little confused about the GPS options for the tablet. What’s the best way to go?Schedule

 Whether by choice or chance, at some point most sailors will find themselves sailing shorthanded. Your first experience might be a trip to the fuel dock with your own boat, an end of the season delivery with a loyal friend or sailing with a group of four or five friends before realizing only a couple of them are sailors. The sooner you learn shorthanded seamanship, the sooner offshore waters become a comfortable backyard in which to play.Schedule

 Our picks for holiday gift giving.ScheduleScheduleSchedule

Growing up in Florida, I was often envious of my friends who spent their summers going to camp or a theme park for a family vacation. Could I spend a week visiting an overgrown and overpriced mouse? Oh no, our family headed to the Abacos for our summer vacation.  I vividly recall the image in my head as my mother explained that we would be making “the crossing” to the Bahamas. I pictured our family, all with water wings on our arms, swimming from island to island, with cartoonish sharks circling in the distance. In reality, the crossing was the 12-plus hours it took to sail from somewhere near Jupiter, Florida, to the Abacos, a part of the vacation that I loathed then, as seasickness was something I was prone to. 

The Jeanneau 64—the French builder’s new flagship built in its state-of-the-art facility—and I go way back. I happened to be visiting the plant in late 2013 when the very first 64 was making its way down the production line. 

 This new Oceanis model from Beneteau makes a very good contrast to the J112E. The biggest difference is that J/112E might be more appealing to the skipper inclined to do some racing while the Oc

The Melges 24 may not have been the first “sportboat” but it sure kicked the design of sportboats in the pants good and hard. The gloves came off. The new 40, designed by Botin Partners Naval Architecture, appears to be an extension of the same all or nothing approach to a 40-foot one-design sportboat. That’s a lot of sport. 

Here is the latest J/Boats entry into the cruising boat field. I’m going to assume the design is a collaborative in-house effort like the other J/Boats. Many thanks to J/Boats for providing me with actual design drawings.  I have said this before in the reviews but the cruising boats that J/Boats has produced have always managed to echo my own thoughts on what the perfect cruising boat would be for me. They combine comfort, efficiency and style into a total design package that I find very appealing. It would work for me.

It’s hard to imagine a better place to be introduced to sailing than a Caribbean island, where the water is warm and the sun is always shining. And that’s exactly where more and more people are getting a taste for the sport thanks to a partnership between the American Sailing Association and Sandals and Beaches resorts. 

The story of Tess Lloyd, a 20-year-old Australian sailor with Olympic dreams, is a true fairytale. In 2012, she was in a regatta when she had a terrible collision with a windsurfer, leaving her unconscious in the water. Her crew held her head above water until rescuers arrived and rushed her to a hospital where doctors found she had a fractured skull and severe brain swelling.

One acquaintance said he spent the better part of a weekend binge-watching the drama unfolding on his computer screen. Another told me he lost sleep, unable to resist getting up in the night to check the latest developments. A number of people I hardly knew regaled me with arcane details of a sports competition they barely understood but followed avidly on the internet.

Terry Kohler, who discovered a love for sailing as a boy aboard his mother’s Alden-desigend schooner Venturer, dedicated himself to making the sport more technologically advanced as well as more accessible to sailors of all abilities, all from a sleepy blue-collar town on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Features  New boats for 2017 A look at some of the new models in advance of the fall boat shows Paradise times two Exploring the native beauty of Tahiti is even better on the stab

Next year’s crop of new boats is anything but cookie-cutter. From push-button control to origami trimarans, there is something to pique the interest of every sailor. New refinements in manufacturing and design are evident, and the payoffs are boats that offer more in terms of speed, storage, sail area and safety. Turn the page to catch a glimpse of what will be gracing the docks at upcoming boat shows.

It started as an April Fools’ joke. I never would have thought of  Kyle Ryan as particularly gullible. He’s an experienced sailor, a big wave surfer and a divemaster. He has spent years at sea as an officer with NOAA. And he recently proved to be sound crew on a rough crossing from Fiji to New Zealand aboard my Beneteau 473. Which is why I was surprised when he believed the ridiculous story my wife and I concocted in the early morning hours of April 1.Schedule