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Read more: Liars, Damn Liars, And Sailors
My friend Kevin is tough. Tough enough that I have heard him called Kevlar. A veteran of tens of thousands of ocean miles, both racing and cruising, Kevin has seen some seriously nasty weather.
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Read more: Q&A: Sailing From Halifax To Bermuda In November
Question: I just brought my 34-foot sailboat down the Saint Lawrence to Nova Scotia, and I’m considering making the passage to Bermuda in November and then continuing further south for the winter. I’ve been hearing all kinds of differing opinions about the safety of heading out from Halifax in November, and I thought you could […]
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Read more: Gone SailingThree weeks ago we sailed away from our cottage in Nova Scotia where we had spent most of the summer while Morgan’s Cloud went round and round her mooring and we did boat chores in an effort to tie up the loose ends left over from our refit.
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Read more: Anchor Rode Questions and AnswersOver the years we have answered many questions about putting together a good anchor rode. In this chapter we have gathered some of those answers together.
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Read more: The Journey Is The RewardThough John and I always feel totally disconnected with our destination after flying somewhere, when sailing from place to place on Morgan’s Cloud we feel like active participants in the small bit of the world surrounding us.
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Read more: Q&A: Trans-Atlantic Singlehanded
Question: I’m at a point in my life when it’s time to live the dream that I’ve had since childhood and that’s to sail across the Atlantic single handed. I’m a complete beginner to sailing. I’m currently doing a skipper’s course which will take me up to advanced cruising, coastal navigation and radio operation, although […]
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Read more: Puke Therapy
We are in the third year of a one year refit and up until two weeks ago it was getting to me—big time. As far as I was concerned, all marine equipment was junk and almost everyone in the marine business was a crook. Our boat seemed to be a collection of half finished projects […]
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Read more: Anchor AngstThe other day I was idly paging through the posts on a cruising forum about anchoring and marveling at the level of energy and emotion, not to mention the sheer volume of posts, that this subject seems to elicit.
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Read more: Messing Around In Boats
Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in our neighbour’s Boston Whaler sounding out the inlet our cabin is on and then carefully positioning a plastic bottle anchored by a rock as a marker for the barge that will drop our new mooring.
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Read more: Discomfort
Discomfort is a bad word in our society. Our houses, our cars and our public buildings shelter us so totally from the environment that we rarely feel cold or hot or wet or windblown and, unless it’s a hurricane or tsunami, the weather very seldom stops us from doing what we want when we want.
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Read more: Why Go North? For The LightWhy do we keep returning to the north, you ask? For one thing, there is a quality to the light in the north that is indescribable—you have to see it to believe it!
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Read more: Champagne And Polar Bears: Romance In The ArcticApproaching the lee shore of Nordaustlandet (the uninhabited—or so we thought—icecap-domed island separated from Spitsbergen by Hinlopen Strait) in a building gale in early August of 2002, was intimidating to say the least.
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Read more: An Attainable Adventure Cruise?We spent Christmas in Nova Scotia. Phyllis’s family visited and her brother expressed interest in seeing the world record—there is some debate about this with some claiming that honor for Ungava Bay—tides in the Bay of Fundy; a great idea that spawned a car outing on a clear crisp day.
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Read more: Which Way Around Newfoundland?
Question:Based on your experience, would you do such a circumnavigation clockwise or the other way?
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Read more: It Takes Guts To Own A Wooden BoatOur neighbour here in Down East Maine, where we have been refitting Morgan’s Cloud for the last three winters, is Jeff: lobsterman, talented photographer, Persian carpet dealer and, for the last two years, wooden sailboat owner.
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Read more: Q&A: Winter Boat Storage In The North
Question: We are thinking of buying a 70′, 55 ton, steel motorsailer which we want to fix up and cruise on for 4 months of the year. We would be starting out on the east coast of the US and are contemplating going via Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Greenland to Northern Europe. We would have […]
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Read more: Q&A: Which Autopilot Drive?
Some thoughts on autopilot drive types and reliability.
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Read more: Q&A: Windvane Or Autopilot?
Do you prefer a windvane or an autopilot for longer passages?
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Read more: Autopilot Installation Problems and Lessons Learned
Lessons learned from a poorly installed autopilot, and how we fixed it.
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Read more: Q&A: Do You Carry Survival Suits?Question: Do you carry survival suits and do you do anything special for working in the dinghy? I’ve seen ice suits, and all sorts of combo work/survival suits and we are wondering if we should carry something similar for the wilder areas?
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Read more: Q&A: Rod Rigging Replacement
Question: Our Swan 51 is at Morris Yachts for a mini refit this winter and my plan, in addition to everything else, is to start to replace some of the existing rod rigging. It turns out that the rod is 24 years old. Navtec says it should be replaced every 11 years or 30,000 miles. […]
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Read more: What Happened To Teamwork?
Eleven years ago I met John and started scaling the voyaging learning curve. Since I was starting from scratch, it often seemed to me that the learning curve was vertical.
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Read more: Q&A: Newfoundland To Europe Via The Azores In JuneQuestion: We would like to seek your advice on my next summer’s trip from Newfoundland to the Azores, then on to Europe. We left our boat in Newfoundland last year and plan to leave for Europe in June to avoid the hurricane season.
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Read more: Q&A: Maine To Ireland In June
Question: I am a 46 year old professional in fairly good health and in good shape. I am wanting to reverse the steps of my great-great-grandfather, sailing from Belfast, Maine to Bantry Bay, Ireland. I plan to leave June 3rd, 2011. What is my best/safest route? What time frame should I use? I have calculated […]
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Read more: Q&A: BVI To The Chesapeake Bay In October
Question: We are bringing our Beneteau 411 from the BVI via the Bahamas to the Chesapeake Bay, leaving the end of October. The first leg of the trip, from the BVI to the Bahamas, is going to be the two of us (my husband and I). From the Bahamas to the Chesapeake Bay we will […]
