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

We were full of ourselves, bold seafarers reveling in boisterous sailing conditions, bursting with exuberance, on the verge of exchanging high fives every time a wave broke over the bow. We were sail

As faithful (and even unfaithful) readers of this column know, I’ve teed off in the past about products that promise to take us sailing. No, not boats, but offerings such as a perfume that vowed to

One of the 18 people who paid the $10,000 entry fee, documented meeting the requirement of having sailed 8,000 ocean miles and signed up for the 50th anniversary Golden Globe Race had climbed Mount Ev

I’ve been captivated by the intentionally regressive singlehanded Golden Globe Race, which has knocked out more than half of its entrants and unleashed months of Southern Ocean drama with giant stor

This will seem strange, coming from the publisher of a magazine whose trademark is pixel-perfect digital photographs reproduced in vivid color, but there are times when grainy black-and-white film pho

To quote Peter Finch as newscaster Howard Beale in the movie “Network,” “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” What led to this state of affairs was a phone call to an

I thought they would roar off into the sunset after “Miami Vice,” the TV show that showcased their macho glory, went off the air. That didn’t happen, but then I was sure the $4-per-gallon-

Full disclosure: A product endorsement is embedded in the following column. I affirm that no consideration was received for this, not even a free sample of the product or, sad to say, a paid advertisement in SAILING.

Listening to racers talk about handicapping is like listening to patients explaining the health care market. In health care, nobody knows who is paying what, to whom and for what. In handicapping, nob

Hello, my name is Chris. I’m a charterholic. It’s been four months and 12 days since my last bareboat charter.” Whoops, wrong meeting. Or maybe not. If you’re reading this, you might be a char