What would sailors do without foul weather?  Sailors spin yarns. By definition, yarns are sea stories enhanced by exaggeration, but sometimes the subject matter needs no hyperbole to be a grippi

My dad was an executive for Douglas Aircraft and we lived in Tucson, Arizona, when I was a kid. As a young man, my father had run away to sea, shipping out on tankers and working his way up to navigat

I never met Jimmy Buffet, but I wrote about him. “Buffett was the muse, the piper who led sailors and wannabe sailors to the Caribbean to rent sailboats and live the dream.”—Full and By Se

Our team—sailing on our midsized boat—has experienced both sides of the looming wind-shadow debate. This is when a big boat in Division 1 is about to overtake a smaller boat in Division 3, and the

The butchers at Bernie’s Fine Meats are yacht racing fans.  Bernie’s is an institution behind a downtown storefront dating to the early-20th century in the small city that is SAILING’s hom

OK, I promised you no more America’s Cup rants but, hey, you know you can’t trust me. The Cup is a sad, broken, shadow of an event that once enthralled sailors worldwide. How many of us sat up int

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