Some of the prettiest miles of the 3,000-mile-long Intracoastal Waterway are those between Gordon Pass and the tip of Keewaydin Island in southwest Florida. This 10-mile stretch is a natural waterway

Five adult sailing students were making their way back to the dock after a couple of hours of drills on a J/24 and two instructors and I were following in a tiny chase boat. We were heading into the �

Sailing is the oldest form of transportation in the history of mankind, not counting walking.  Archaeologists say the first humans to settle on the Australian continent had to have traveled ther

In the process of learning to sail, there is one thing that is not often taught yet it is extremely important. It falls somewhere between learning to duck your head on a jibe (ouch) and not getting yo

A sailboat sank in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on March 13. The four people on board were rescued by other sailors after nine hours in a liferaft and dinghy. We of the sailing community are

Since sailors are now flying, sail trimmers are now biking and cloud computers are now navigating, it seems appropriate to separate today’s sailing myths from reality. Surprise, everything I’ve li

By rough count, more than 60 different people have sailed with me on my boats. No, I haven’t been operating a day charter business on the side. What I have been doing is sailing in sailboat races f

There is a scene in “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to the 1986 movie that made Tom Cruise a top gun at the box office, that is a thrilling depiction of humans speeding through the glories of the

In World War II, aviators had what they called the “Caterpillar Club.” It was an organization for pilots and aircrews who had “hit the silk” by parachuting out of their damaged aircraft. I’m

Interest in sailing saw a remarkable uptick starting in about May of 2020 that hasn’t let up. Google searches for the phrase “How to sail” had been increasing steadily since 2004, but doubled du

I am an admirer of the late William F. Buckley Jr.  Buckley was a man of politics, not as a practitioner, but as an acerbic commentator in his magazine and syndicated newspaper columns and

Disclosure: I love sports cars. I’ve loved them since I didn’t have a driver’s license and, since then, I’ve owned them, restored them, raced them and often sworn at them. It’s exactly like

Call me Ishmael.  I can relate to Moby-Dick’s narrator because I too have tales to tell of creatures tormenting sailors at sea. I’ve never been threatened by a whale trying to bite my leg o

Golf course greens turning tan. Ski jumping off of artificial turf towers. Scuba diving on monochromatic reefs where rainbow coral once grew. Mountaineering to peer into one last crevasse. Climate cha

Kudos to the crew. They were stellar in this year’s Chicago Mackinac Race. In fact, they were stellar before the race started.  They managed to be alert and engaged as I delivered a homily th

As often happens for my musings in this column, three things converged like a perfect storm to make me start thinking. First, being a car nut as well as a boataholic, I visited a friend who is in the

It has been said that whenever two sailboats are sailing near each other on the same course, it’s a race. The saying probably exaggerates the competitive nature of sailors. Still, who among us has

Every spring we assemble our crew lists for the season and pack key sailing events into our best friend’s calendars. We draw a Venn diagram of teams to race on weeknights and weekends (since not eve