Serious sailors need serious knives, and Spyderco’s Salt Series of knives fits the bill. This sheepfoot-blade one-handed folding knife is impervious to rust and incredibly light with a nonslip

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The death of a sailor who drowned when his life jacket did not inflate during the Chicago Yacht Club’s Race to Mackinac July 21 is being investigated by a committee overseen by the yacht club.

 One of the largest North Sails lofts in the country has a new home in the heart of freshwater sailing country.A new Detroit-area North Sails loft is open in Warren, Michigan, and will serve the area from Rochester, New York, down the American side of the Great Lakes, as far west as the Michigan-Indiana border. 
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It’s boat show season, and this year there is a range of new boats hitting the shows from Newport to Miami. From a fun inflatable dinghy and a foiling racer to comfy cruisers, our editors share some of the exciting new designs.

Talk to sailors who cruised the British Virgin Islands back in the 1970s and you’ll hear about remote anchorages with no other boats in sight, pristine beaches void of people and a quiet natural beauty that nourished the soul. By the time Twe chartered there for the first time in 2004, the lovely islands had morphed into something different, not better or worse, merely changed by controlled real estate development and a growing number of residents and boats. The BVI, which remains one of our favorite sailing destinations, had become, in a word, commercialized.

They had traveled 750 miles by sea, convinced themselves that they had blown their lead when they had to stop to deal with a log jammed under the boat and worked their legs as much as their brains and yet, as the team of seven woman approached the finish to what is one of the most unusual and captivating races in the world, they damn near missed it.

David Thoreson has sailed all over the world, more than 70,000 bluewater miles. But his favorite place to sail is small cluster of lakes tucked in the nation’s heartland known as Okoboji.  “

The myth that one-design racing produces cut-throat competition doesn’t apply to these classic classes. Head to any of the winter circuit regattas, weeknight races or even the national and world championships and you will find a atmosphere that is more like a family reunion than hard-core battle. Built on the philosophy that sailing is better with friends, and that lending a hand with tuning or rigging tips, these one-design classes are bringing new sailors into the sport with “more-the-merrier” attitudes. 

When Terri and Thomas Sand first started dating in 2013, they didn’t know it would lead to a new love, not just for each other but for sailing. Since then, the couple has made a five-year plan that is taking them from learn to sail classes to sailing off on a world cruise on their brand new cruising catamaran. 

What a thrill it brought, pressing my face against a hazy plexiglass airplane window, and seeing whitecaps scattered on the sea from 29,000 feet. Following last year’s tragic season of storms in the Caribbean, I was flying to the British Virgin Islands for the Spring Regatta, which has been bringing sailors to Tortola and the surrounding islands since 1972. As the flight descended through the tropical sky, I began to see the telling signs of destruction. Hundreds of homes were without roofs and scores of boats were askew and aground. But this isn’t a story about destruction. It’s a story about revival, and how sailors are helping bring that about.

Take a classLenny Shabes photo If you already sail, you might think that your ship has sailed as far as classes go. But learn-to-sail classes are just the tip of the iceberg. Most sailing schools

Just as the Volvo Ocean Race fleet nears the finish line July 1, having zoomed around the world aboard high-tech 65-footers at speeds often exceeding 30 knots, sending high-tech drone video updates of every thrilling moment, 19 solo sailors will leave Les Sables d’Olonne, France, for a nonstop circumnavigation race aboard 30-footers retro-outfitted, meaning no GPS, satellite weather, watermakers, AIS, radars, chartplotters, instruments, autopilots, digital watches or even iPods. These hardy skippers in the Golden Globe Race are going old school on the 50th anniversary of the inaugural race in 1968.

There was never any doubt that the tragic story of Donald Crowhurst would have to be included in my book about madness at sea. Of all the stories I researched, it’s the one that has caught the publi

It was a typical race day on Chesapeake Bay’s Miles River. The wind started out at 12 knots, gusting to 16. But of the 11 Chesapeake log canoes that left the dock at the Miles River Yacht Club for a

1 How  your life jacket worksSpinlock created a life jacket with an integrated harness and several other safety functions specifically for sailors in the Volvo Ocean Race, but it is available to

The silence made my ears ring. No electronic chirps, no roar of jets overhead, no sounds except the softly lapping waves on the sturdy wooden hull and the whisper of wind in the sails. An occasional s

The Moorings 4800 rides at anchor.Susan Colby photo Sailing French Polynesia is the stuff dreams are made of. We had Laura, a marine biologist, who dreamed of exploring the sea life and coral gar