I read car magazines with interest and envy.  Interest because, as a semi-reformed sports car buff, my clutch-foot still twitches when I read about high-performance automobiles.  Envy

Footage of the foiling IMOCA 60s is sci-fi. And I’m not just talking about the sailing shots.  Watching the new Apivia emerge from its shed is like seeing a stealth fighter jet for the first t

Among the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written in pursuit of my calling as an ink-stained wretch, I can’t think of any combination of them that has achieved the status of a deathless phrase

I admit it: I belong to way too many yacht clubs. I realize this, but it seems to be a chronic issue, like keeping every copy of the New York Times for 30 years or creating huge balls of string.

Back at the dock after Saturday afternoon racing, the boat was shipshape, the genoa folded and in its turtle bag, two spinnakers repacked, the mainsail neatly flaked and under its cover and the crew r

Last August a friend issued a challenge. John and his partner Pat were enjoying frequent summer weekends at a cottage on Flathead Lake in Montana, but their sailboat—a 15-foot centerboard trailer-sa

I hope I’m not too agitated to write my usual dignified publisher’s column, but I have to admit to being in an awestruck state of amazement and bedazzlement. I just read a news release about

I was skimming a boating blog when my eye was caught by a plaintive headline: “How do I stop a Seagull?” I thought for a moment and then I started laughing, to the point of tears running down

On any given day in 2019, the average person in a supermarket checkout line knows more about the weather than I did when I set off on my first cruise in my first cruising-racing sailboat. Americans a

Sailing friends who sail the Chesapeake endeavor each year to join a select group called the Century Club. To qualify, one must sail 100 days in a year. Of course, this is easier for folks who don’t

 A friend, poking gentle fun, once told me that my august position at the top of the masthead as publisher just means that I get to drive the magazine bus. If that’s true, then I’ve been going on frequent busman’s holidays. I read magazines obsessively. Maybe that should be called an ink-stained wretch’s holiday.  I consume magazines with omnivorous taste, on subjects ranging from cars to cooking, but, naturally, sailing magazines get priority. I read every one I can get my hands on, good and bad, domestic and foreign.
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The college admissions scandal, aside from being distasteful and embarrassing, has taught me a new term. To all of you from nasty northern climates with very short sailing seasons, a snowplow is somet

I had to check the proofs of this page extra carefully, lest some snarky editor garnish this column with the headline, “Ancient mariner goes back to school.” It’s true, I did go back to school,ScheduleSchedule

In our family, every gift-giving opportunity—birthdays, Christmas and Hanukkah, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day—are less about thoughtful and creative generosity, and more about collecting what

A real estate ad I saw recently boasted of properties with a “pond view.”  No kidding. No matter that the pond was a storm water retention basin that was required by the building code

I really do understand that “it’s-all-about-me” seems to be pre-installed in today’s precious snowflakes at the factory before delivery, and snowflakes are apparently old enough to have t

Decluttering isn’t the first trend I failed to exploit for financial gain. In one unfortunate example, I missed the bitcoin investment boom out of some quaint and no doubt age-related mistrust of m

Sailors usually have more stories than their nonsailing friends have the patience to hear. Surround a sailor with sailing friends and liquid refreshments and colorful and unforgettable tales will flow