The Tobago Cays are a divine cluster of isles in the Grenadines, in the southeastern Caribbean. But their out-of-the-way location can make this piece of heaven a bit hellish to get to. Roughly 30 nautical miles south of St. Vincent and 30 nautical miles north of Grenada, a visit requires a bluewater sail through the passes between the Windward Islands.

Twenty years ago, I was working at the office of Classic Boat magazine when I got a call to review a boat on the River Dart. It was the latest design by that doyen of modern multihull design Nigel Irens, best known as the designer of ENZA, Ellen MacArthur’s record-breaking B&Q and several Gunboat multihulls. 

Whether your boat has enjoyed a winter off or it’s time to take on some annual chores, our guide to fitting out will make sure your boat is ready for a great year of sailing

When a cruising tale starts with the words, “We had no engine and ... ,” it usually means a disaster story is about to follow. Most sailors get a knot in their stomach at the thought of losing an engine while trying to anchor somewhere new, entering a busy harbor at night or attempting to dock their boat. Those are the panic-inducing moments that we prepare for but secretly hope never happen. There are some sailors though who go through these scenarios on purpose. Sailing without an engine is not a new idea, but it’s one that is catching on slowly but surely with long-term cruisers all around the world. 

But never fear; we’ve assembled a list of sailing experiences you can enjoy right now, all of which will help tide you over until it’s time to pull the sails out of storage and kick off the season. 

Transiting the Panama Canal is a rite of passage that packs a lot into a 50-mile journey. Whether crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific or vice versa, cruisers celebrate their arrival in Central America by taking this short cut that recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of the opening of a channel cut through mountain and jungle in an engineering feat for its time.

 The winds were off the starboard stern at around 15 knots, steady and warm on a sunny July afternoon, blowing up Lake Ontario out of the southwest. The water was flat in spite of the long fetch, protected by Amherst and Wolfe islands off Kingston, Ontario, where the Great Lake flows into the St. Lawrence River, starting its 650-nautical-mile journey to the sea. We were bound for the Thousand Islands, a world-class cruising ground with a wealth of anchorages and a multitude of delights. 

The cruiser-racer fleet grew in the 1908s and 1990s and the boats of that era continue to cruise and race successfully today.Erik Simonson photoYou still see them at local marinas and at popular dista

Maybe it had something to do with the bounty of food and drink served. Maybe it was the chill in the early autumn air or something in the green-tinted lake water. Whatever the cause, Blue Chip Fever struck Pewaukee, Wisconsin, in late September.

Our editors choose the best sailorly gifts to give and get this season.

T. Craig Ligibel When the Marquis de Lafayette arrived in America aboard the French frigate L’Hermione in 1780, he brought the good news that the French were sending troops and material to help

 Although, our family sailed on Pelagic, our 54-footer built specifically for high-latitude expedition sailing, in the channels of Tierra del Fuego in 2008, sailing to Antarctica for an extended cruise over the long Christmas holiday was the opportunity for my daughter Lara and son Luca to finally realize why Dad goes south every year. 

The Novak family knows how to cruise, as they prove with a holiday trip to Antarctica aboard Pelagic to study penguins, bash through brash ice and just have a good time. 

 We’ve been to plenty of concerts but never by sailboat, so when our friends in Florida called to ask if we wanted to join them to see the Dave Matthews Band via boat, we grabbed our bags and headed for the airport. 

 In the winter of 1956-1957, my grandfather commissioned a small sailing craft and named her for the young girl in Charlotte’s Web. He had been dreaming about small boats for some time and the popularity of his second children’s book made the project possible. He had owned other boats, including, a 30-foot double-ended cutter called Astrid, but Fern would be the first boat built for him. 

Jimmy Buffett's newest boat is a cruiser created by a designer known for classic lines and inspired by paddleboarding and surfing.

It was hazy, hot and the air was still and the seas were calm; certainly not the conditions we were expecting as we motored down the narrow channel toward the northern city of St. Petersburg on the eastern edge of the Baltic that so many of us had traveled so far to visit. But the uncharacteristically warm and sunny weather was only the first salvo of what proved to be a barrage of sensory overload that no reasonable expectations could live up to.

 Francis Lee was named in honor of a father’s boating lineage, but everyone knows her as Sliver. To the dockside crowd of sailors who reveled in the champagne-soaked launching, Sliver was celebrated as a hometown wonder designed and built in the Pacific Northwest. The wood composite 62-foot double-ender was designed by Bob Perry and built at Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building.