Don’t ask how many sailboat shows I’ve been to. I couldn’t tell you. There are so many of these rituals that command the attendance of people engaged in the business of sailing embedded in my memory that they’ve blurred into an uncountable mass.

 Had we heeded the forecaster’s gloomy wind warnings, we would not have started the race, but 20 sailboats slipped over the line at 18:30 and inched up the 21-mile course. An hour—and two tedious miles—later, a red sun set leaving a starless sky. Two hours and barely four miles in, the fog came down like a black velour lining a coffin. Wet. Dark. Deadly.

 One day when my mind was obviously a black hole utterly devoid of anything stimulating to think about, I wondered why so few presidents of the United States and aspirants for that office were sailboat owners.I think I found a partial answer when I came across an article in an online archive with a headline that read, “Boxer calls out Fiorina as a multiple yacht owner.” 

 In 1995, in the quaint era when logo T-shirts (non-technical 100% cotton) were considered as important to business promotion as a Facebook page is today, SAILING created one that featured a portrait of Joshua Slocum and a drawing of his yawl Spray. It’s a classic. If you’re lucky enough to possess one, it might fetch a tidy sum on eBay, but better to preserve it as a tribute to a great sailing trendsetter.

 I think I take disappointments fairly well. When I found there was no Santa Claus, I managed to pick up the shattered pieces of my life and move on. Same with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. I was going to start this column by shouting, like the crazed newscaster Howard Beale played by Peter Finch in the movie “Network,” that “I’m mad as hell and not going to take this anymore.” But then I had an epiphany. I’m not mad at US Sailing, the U.S. Olympic Committee, the International Sailing Federation, or the International Olympic Committee. I’m just disillusioned. I thought they set a higher standard to protect sailors. I was wrong.

 The shapes arrayed on the windward rail are rounded mounds. In the dark they look a bit like a row of igloos.The simile is apt. It’s a cold night. The 15-knot northeasterly wind is heavy with vapors rising from 48-degree water. The sailors are padded in layers of fleece or down under foul-weather suits and inflatable life vests, with boots on their feet, wool caps on their heads. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, they ride high above the choppy water as the heeling boat close-reaches toward a distant waypoint.

 Ten years ago we had an Excel-jockey crewmember; a numbers whiz-kid so proficient with a spreadsheet that he’s since left sailing for a high-powered banking gig.

Long live the America's Cup! Yes, I know, some of us have been disappointed by the morphing of this historic yachting institution from a respected international competition among sailors representing yacht clubs and their countries into a spectacle that features participants in helmets and body armor and is fueled by the inflated wallets and egos of billionaires and marked by shameless rule-rigging, but now we can again proudly embrace this once beloved sailing icon, for the America’s Cup has finally delivered on its promise to sailors.

For shoreside spectators, it had all the makings of an epic race. The two dinghies were side by side, their masts flexing in unison as dark blue wind lines danced across the water from the tree-lined shore. Both skippers were focused intently on the luff of their sails, neither looking at the other and neither giving an inch. It was clearly a well-established rivalry reminiscent of great races fought during the Olympics or the America’s Cup.

I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, or Outboard Cheapskate Disorder. It’s a malady that owners of sportboats seem predisposed to. The symptoms are clear. 

When I started sailing in offshore races, all of the boats in the fleet were hyphenated. They were all racer-cruisers. This included the hottest new designs, even radical ones with exotic features suc

I’ll tell you right now what this column is about: Don’t do as I did, do as I say. As She Who Must Be Obeyed would happily agree, I’ve been a complete idiot many times in my life and I now realize I’m very lucky to be alive.

I’m pretty sure I sailed before I walked. I know I sailed before I talked. I don’t remember it, but it’s family lore. My parents’ idea of a nice family outing was to put their first-born, while still in the babe-in-arms stage, aboard their 18-foot Seagull sloop and go sailing on Lake Michigan. There is no record of whether I wore a life preserver. I’m guessing I didn’t. The kapok models in vogue at the time would have outweighed the child.

Sailing ranks among country churches, Amish barns and potlucks as institutions substantially built and shaped by volunteers. Their work is all around us and it is mighty impressive. 

The politics of international amateur athletic competition are so inscrutable and Byzantine they make professional sports look wholesome in comparison. Professional sports are driven by the simple and pure imperative of an entertainment business–to make money. International amateur sports are driven by a mysterious something else. Whatever it is, it's not pure or simple, judging from the bizarre decisions issued by the ruling authorities. 

 As a kid, I had a conversation with my mother almost every weekend after I departed in the morning, not to return until dinner time.  

If there is a more wonderful invention for sailors than bareboat chartering, I haven't heard of it.  When I experienced it the first time, it seemed too good to be true. 

Three stout but dignified denizens of Navigator Heaven were gathered at a local pub for their afternoon pint. “What do you make of that sailing vessel fetching up on Cargados Carajos Shoals near Mauritius?” Captain James Cook, the legendary 18th-century explorer and cartographer, asked his mates.