The Tasmanian tourist board has a pithy, catchy slogan to attract visitors to Australia’s rugged island state, some 150 miles south of the continent’s southeastern coastline: “Come down for air.” Last winter, I paid my fourth visit to the wild isle widely referred to as “Tassie,” which is saying something, as most mainland Aussies consider it too remote and give it a wide berth. That pure, fresh air is certainly a selling point, but for me, the allure has always been a different element: I come down for the water.

From the open Tasman Sea (named for Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, the first European to lay eyes on it, in the 1600s) to the picturesque River Derwent to the fetching D’Entrecasteaux Channel (one of the world’s most underrated cruising grounds), there’s a word for all that water: magnificent.

The capital of Tasmania is Hobart, and it’s also the finish line of one of the world’s great ocean races. Commencing every year on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, the Sydney-Hobart Race was always on my personal bucket list. In 2007, I scored a ride aboard a 35-footer called Morna, one of the fleet’s smallest participants. That year the race played out in usual fashion: a spinnaker run down the coast from Sydney, a stretch of nasty weather in the open water of the Bass Strait, a long upwind beat along Tasmania’s shore, and one final agonizing stretch up the Derwent and into Hobart. After a little more than four days, we took second in class and then downed about a hundred beers. I’d surely gotten off easy.

Read More from Herb McCormick: Ireland’s Wicklow Sailing Club is Warm and Welcoming

A decade earlier, in my previous foray in and out of Hobart, that wasn’t the case. I’d been recruited by an old pal, Australian explorer Don McIntyre, to join the crew aboard a 60-footer called Spirit of Sydney for a round-trip sail from Tasmania to Antarctica to pick him up after he’d spent a yearlong expedition on “the white continent.” I had always wanted to sail through the storied waters of the Great Southern Ocean, and McIntyre granted my wish. We had a relatively easy 10-day trip south, but the return voyage was one I hope never to repeat. A trio of westerly gales, with gusts topping 60 knots, stacked up seas down which one could ski; long surfs with boatspeed topping 20 knots were recurring events. After nine sporty days out there, we gratefully eased into Tassie’s protected and far calmer waters. I’d gotten the Southern Ocean out of my system.

By comparison, my latest trip was a happy lark that included a lazy boat ride through Storm Bay out to Bruny Island, where on a pretty beach I came across a rock with this inscription: “Resolution Creek. Capt. Cook’s Ship Watered Here, 27-28 June 1777.” Afterward, we tied back up in Little Oyster Cove Creek, where the docks were full and a fleet of salty cruising boats swung on moorings. My mate spun tales of all the Sydney sailors who were now keeping boats in Tassie, where the costs were low and where the beautiful, empty anchorages were almost endless. I’d always come to these waters for adventure, but he had my full attention. Two words came to mind: “Why not?”

The post Sailing in Tasmania appeared first on Yachting.

One of my favorite movies of the past several years was The Florida Project, director Sean Baker’s masterful take on the seedy underside of the Sunshine State as experienced by a feisty 6-year-old in a rundown budget motel just a stone’s throw from Walt Disney World (code-named “the Florida project” during its planning stages). For the past couple of winters, I’ve conducted my own personal Florida project, living aboard my Pearson 365, August West, in a tiny cove on Sarasota Bay tucked behind a barrier island called Longboat Key.

I was aware from the outset that I was tempting fate by keeping a boat on Florida’s west coast during hurricane season, and was especially fearful last summer when the steamy, adjacent Gulf of Mexico topped out with seawater temperatures approaching 100 degrees. I was terrified that the soupy brine would turn into an incubator for tropical activity, which proved to be precisely the case. We were mostly spared the wrath of brutal Hurricane Helene, but two short weeks later, when Hurricane Milton made landfall on Siesta Key a handful of miles south of my berth, my little marina was creamed.

Unlike several of my dock neighbors, which sank or were dismasted, my rugged old Pearson—built like the proverbial brick outhouse back in the mid-1970s—remained afloat, its bilges dry. But August West did get punched in the nose: The bow pulpit, anchor platform and headsail furler were swept away, along with several forward stanchions. All repairable, but now I’m facing several actual projects. Boat projects.

All of which has led me to some existential questions. I’m seriously grappling for answers. Should I double down, make the repairs here, and cross my fingers that Milton was “the big one” and all shall be well going forward? Or do I cut my losses, bail out, and point that scruffy bow northward toward my Rhode Island home waters? After all, August West may not look like much at the moment, but it’s still a perfectly capable, oceangoing sailboat.

At this precise moment in time, the option of bailing seems to be the more sensible one.

Part of this has to do with the marina. Several of the docks took direct, wipe-out hits, and it’s unclear when or if the condo association that owns them will wish to invest the considerable sums it will take to fix them. After all, it’s wrestling with the same question I am: When’s the next one coming?

Read More from Herb McCormick: Category Five: Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them

It’s impossible to arrive at a comfortable, optimistic answer. You can debate “the climate” all you want, but the fact is, the Gulf Coast has been belted repeatedly during the past few years. It will be years before Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island will ever be the same, and you can now add Siesta Key, Longboat Key and Bradenton Beach to that sad list. What’s that line about insanity—expecting different results from the same repeated activity?

The Florida Project concludes on a devastating note. The little protagonist, in the face of youthful tragedy, makes a break through Disney World. She runs and runs, bound for the Magic Kingdom. It’s all so lovely, so fresh and polished and inviting.

It’s all a bloody mirage.  

The post Hurricanes & Sailboats Don’t Mix appeared first on Yachting.

In Fall 2001, a group of sailors in Newport, Rhode Island, organized a regatta called Sail for Pride to raise funds for New York City firefighters and others affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The 180-plus-boat race around Narragansett Bay’s Conanicut Island raised more than $100,000.

Now called the Sail for Hope, it’s become an annual event benefiting a host of nonprofits. I’ve competed in this event on multiple occasions on a wide variety of yachts, but last fall’s edition, sailing aboard the C&C 30 Chinook, was easily the most interesting. Never before had I sailed with a crew that included several Iraq War veterans, including a helmsman named Steve Baskis who lost his sight while serving in Baghdad in 2008 when an improvised explosive device blasted his vehicle. I’ve raced with some tough hombres, but never on this level.

Chinook was on the starting line, flying a figurative flag for the nonprofit Sail to Win (sailtowin​.org), an organization founded by another decorated Army vet, Aaron “Ike” Isaacson, and professional sailors Mike Patterson and Whitney Curtin, whose family owns the vintage 12-Metre Intrepid. Isaacson is also an accomplished alpinist who met Baskis on a climbing expedition to Nepal.

“But mountaineering is a young man’s game,” he told me before we set sail. “I also love sailing because it’s a sport you can continue to do well throughout your life. I approached Mike and Whitney about doing something to help disabled and wounded veterans as well as first responders, to teach them sailing, which was the start of Sail to Win. We approach racing from a mission mindset: You get your team, you train up, you work out the logistics as a team, and you conduct the mission. Today’s mission is the Sail for Hope.”

Read More: Doublehanded Sailing Hits Stride

Ultimately, the group intends to score a larger, donated boat—which is how they acquired Chinook—for offshore racing, and perhaps even a transatlantic race. They also conduct regular daysail trips aboard Intrepid, which is why I asked Baskis the difference between driving a stately 12 compared to the skittish C&C.

“On Intrepid, you’re standing at the wheel, and you can feel the tension and the weight and the energy it takes to carry it through the water,” he says. “On Chinook, you’re steering with a tiller. It’s way more reactive. You feel like you’re dancing through the water.”

During my time on board, it was a demanding day for steering, to say the least, with fluctuating breeze just above a zephyr mixed with occasional double-digit puffs in the low teens. As we made our way around the 20-odd-mile racecourse, there were plenty of sail changes, including a long spell under spinnaker. With Patterson camped beside him, keeping him informed of the ever-changing conditions, Baskis never missed a beat.

“We didn’t spend a lot of time sailing upwind,” Patterson says. “So, the fact that we were reaching a lot, with the pressure constantly changing, was very challenging.”

When all was said and done, Chinook finished a respectable sixth in our 10-boat class. We may not have taken top honors for the day, but for the Sail to Win squad, it felt like winning just the same.  

The post Sail to Win Gets Vets On The Salt appeared first on Yachting.

For the past decade, I’ve served as a judge for Cruising World magazine’s annual Boat of the Year contest, which takes place at the US Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland. During that time, I’ve sailed every new production sailboat launched in the United States. I’ve had a ringside seat to test the fastest-growing segment of the sailing market: cruising catamarans.

Coincidentally, Annapolis is also the headquarters for Farr Yacht Design, the international naval architecture office with which I also have some familiarity. I’ve covered numerous Volvo Ocean Races, America’s Cups and other events where Farr boats were prominently involved. Last spring, I sailed a Farr-designed Beneteau 44.7 in the rugged Round Ireland Race. In my opinion, the Farr office’s stellar reputation is well-deserved.

But take note: The Farr legacy was built upon a long roster of monohulls, not catamarans. That makes the next part of this story interesting.

These days, the Farr office is run by Patrick Shaughnessy, an Annapolis native who worked his way up from an entry-level job to become the company’s president. Along the way, Shaughnessy sailed professionally aboard Grand Prix yachts for nearly three decades. Also, with his wife, Gisela, he’s undertaken several high-latitude expeditions to places like Antarctica. The common denominator for all that sailing? Single-hull vessels.

Now with retirement on the horizon, Shaughnessy has commissioned his own cruising boat. “Every time we went exploring, at some stage I really wanted to get home,” he says. “So we started thinking, what if we just brought home? We looked around at the marketplace and found a boat that we think suits us. So, we’ve got an order in for a Balance 464 that’s going to be home for us as we go traveling around to do some exploring.”

Wait, what? A Balance 464? That is a slick, performance-cruising catamaran built in South Africa.

“To me, it just makes sense,” Shaughnessy says. “They have reasonably shallow draft and are usually pretty quick for their size. There’s a duplication of systems, like multiple engines. The lack of heeling is pretty appealing. I think the quality of living, compared to a monohull, is pretty superior. You have a big saloon area where you can look out the windows and be part of the environment you’re in. You have good accessibility to the water and can bring a lot of toys. It just seems there’s a lot of goodness there. So we’re going to give it a try and see how we go.”

The next question is inevitable: With a go-anywhere boat, where does he wish to go?

“Ideally, we’d like to sail the boat from South Africa to Grenada, and then do some cruising up the East Coast and down to the Bahamas,” he says. “If we feel comfortable, we’d like to get out to French Polynesia. Since I was a little kid, the idea of exploring the atolls and finding beaches with few or no people seemed pretty appealing. So I guess we want to see what cards we’re dealt and how we react to them.”

It’s a good plan, and Shaughnessy feels he has the right tool for the job. For him, for now, two hulls are better than one.  

The post A Catamaran Convert appeared first on Yachting.

The big one is coming: “The most powerful storm ever seen on Earth will form from a cluster of convective supercells sometime around 2100. The hurricane will be presaged by a half-century of droughts, wildfires, floods, famine and sea-level rise.” And New York City will take a direct hit: “Those lucky enough to live in a modern, structurally sound skyscraper in midtown or upper Manhattan will watch from upper floors as foaming brown channels of water rush through the streets and float cars, ferries, trees and buses down Third Avenue and Broadway.”

Mercy.

This dire, doomsday forecast is just one arresting moment in award-winning writer Porter Fox’s book Category Five: Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them. For seafarers, especially, this work is vitally important.

Fox comes from a sailing family. His father, Crozer, was a Maine boatbuilder who founded Able Marine, maker of the salty Whistler line of yachts. A few years ago, Fox and I sailed together on mutual friend John Kretschmer’s cutter in the Caribbean. (Full disclosure: That voyage plays a significant role in Category Five.)

Fox’s previous book, The Last Winter, was a deep dive into the effects of climate change to northern climes. Category Five is another examination of extreme weather, but unveiled on a much broader canvas: the vast oceans from which all weather derives.

Literally and figuratively, Category Five covers a lot of water. It delves deeply into the scientific realms of oceanography and meteorology that shape our contemporary understanding of the seas, and the ways oceans “have shaped the arc of human civilization and the genesis and growth of nations throughout history.”

What makes this book such an absorbing read, however, is the sometimes eccentric and always eclectic cast of characters—all intensely intertwined with the oceans across multiple pursuits, studies and disciplines.

Kretschmer, a lifelong offshore sailor and noted marine author, is the first of these characters; his harrowing tale of getting ambushed at sea by lethal Hurricane Bob in 1991 is not for the faint of heart. Next is Jimmy Cornell, a Romanian refugee turned broadcaster and then circumnavigator; his oceanic obsessions led to a career in nautical publishing, and his book Cornell’s Ocean Atlas charts the snowballing growth and intensity of tropical cyclones.

Then there are the scientists. From his base in South Florida, Greg Foltz of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was able to enter the eye of Hurricane Sam virtually in the North Atlantic—with 125 mph winds swirling—via a 20-foot unmanned sail drone, a vessel “never intended to outrun hurricanes, [but] designed to sail into them.” The builder of that drone, oceanographer Richard Jenkins, launched his career chasing land-speed records across lake and salt beds in wind-powered vehicles.

And then there’s “carbon modeler” Galen McKinley, whose studies “transect many fields: computer science, oceanography and climate science.” She’s a carbon-dioxide detective, chasing a riddle with elusive clues. Fox writes: “The journey of CO₂ from the sky to the ocean—where gradients, currents and processes yet to be fully defined either sequester or release it into the air—was in fact the tale of climate change itself, of our fate on this warming planet, and of the future of superstorms. I wanted to see the carbon cycle for myself and find some answers.”

Woven through it all is Fox’s journey as a sailor charting his own course through life, the son of an enigmatic father who navigated his own bumpy seaway. In that regard, Category Five is not only a beautifully written rumination and dissertation, but also a memoir. One that comes from a mariner. One of us.  

The post <i>Category Five: Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them</i> appeared first on Yachting.

The fastest-growing segment of inshore and offshore yacht racing is the doublehanded division. This makes a lot of sense. For a fully crewed offshore race, you need to recruit, feed, transport and accommodate a small platoon of skilled sailors, a task that’s just as costly and complicated as it sounds. For a doublehanded contest, you grab a good, trusted mate, and you set sail. Clean and simple.

In recent years, the Newport Bermuda Race added a doublehanded class; in the 2024 edition, it attracted a respectable fleet of 14 entrants. Doublehanded sailing is even more popular across the Atlantic. In 2023, the Fastnet Race—which begins in England, rounds Fastnet Rock off the coast of Ireland, and concludes in France—drew a whopping 45 boats for the “two-handed” division. There’s no denying that it’s catching on.

I got my first taste of doublehanded racing a good two decades ago, sailing with stalwart American shorthanded sailor Steve Pettengill in the 2003 running of the Bermuda One-Two aboard his 50-foot Hunter’s Child II. The Bermuda One-Two, which starts and concludes in Newport, Rhode Island, is just that: one lone sailor down to Bermuda, two crew on the way back.

Sailing “two up” offshore is kind of a weird deal: You essentially race solo for long stretches while the off-watch sailor snatches some sleep, and you generally only cross paths for quick meals and sail changes. I recall two things vividly about that experience: a nasty northerly in the Gulf Stream and staggering ashore utterly spent.

Last spring, however, I had another go at doublehanded racing, and it was a far more pleasant experience. On the lush Caribbean island of Dominica, I paid a visit to participate in the weeklong PAYS Dominica Yachting Festival to benefit the local “boat boys” who run the Portsmouth Association of Yacht Services. The midweek highlight was the Race to Mero, a quite informal, roughly 12-mile contest from Portsmouth’s Prince Rupert Bay to Mero Beach on day one, and a return race to Portsmouth the next day.

Peter Bourke was cruising the islands singlehanded aboard his cool Class 40 yacht, Illusion, and needed a crewman for the laid-back event. I was more than happy to hop aboard.

Read More from Herb McCormick: Ireland’s Wicklow Sailing Club is Warm and Welcoming

This wasn’t exactly the America’s Cup; there was no starting line or finish line, and you could motor for the first five minutes while getting off the mooring and raising the sails. The six-boat fleet got underway in a zephyr of a breeze, which eventually filled in from the south. Sliding down the pretty west coast of Dominica was pleasant. Following a delightful sail (we finished midfleet), the beach party was loud and raucous. Good times.

We were greeted with a northerly the next morning. It actually filled in pretty sweetly as the day progressed, and Illusion lit up in these ideal conditions. Meanwhile, a few skippers decided not to bash upwind. They instead kicked their engines over. A few had done the same the day before. This time, Illusion was at the front of the pack back in Prince Rupert Bay.

The awards ceremony that evening, with a five-piece band and a tasty barbecue, was fantastic. And at the end of it, there was a pleasant surprise. By virtue of the fact that Illusion had completed both legs entirely under sail—and was the only entrant to do so—we were named the winner. Peter was ecstatic. The whole thing had been a hoot.

After that initial doublehanded ordeal in the Bermuda One-Two, I wasn’t all that keen to try it again. But now, after my taste of victory in Dominica, this two-person racing has a whole new appeal.  

The post Doublehanded Sailing Hits Stride appeared first on Yachting.

We tied up alongside the pier at the Wicklow Sailing Club just after midnight on June 28, following a five-day, 11-hour voyage in the latest edition of the SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race. Along the way on this 720-nautical-mile spin around the Emerald Isle, sailing aboard Barry O’Donovan’s solid Beneteau 44.7, Black Magic, I’d seen the so-called “40 shades of green,” as Johnny Cash once crooned. We’d also had dead calms, thick fog, swirling currents and, over the final, interminable 24 hours, persistent 25-knot headwinds on the nasty Irish Sea. It had been a memorable trip, and I was seriously gassed.

As I wobbled onto the pier, my gait unsteady, I asked my mate who’d greeted us if the docks were moving. He looked at me like I was insane. “Um, it’s a concrete pier,” he said. “It doesn’t move.” Luckily, at the end of the breakwater stood the host club’s compact headquarters—a veritable oasis. Moments later, I was safely planted on a bar stool sipping a fresh pint of Guinness. I’ve downed a few beers in my day, but none tasted better.

As it had prior to the race’s start, the Wicklow Sailing Club—some 30 miles south of Dublin on Ireland’s eastern shore—was the gift that just kept giving. There are larger, more prestigious Irish yacht clubs—the Royal Cork Yacht Club and the Kinsale Yacht Club leap to mind—but the fact that the funky little WSC puts on the nation’s premier offshore yacht race (one the bigger clubs covet) is a major part of its appeal.

The Round Ireland Race was first run in 1980 with a fleet of 13 boats. This year’s event attracted 59 entrants. It’s quite easily the lovely port city’s major biennial undertaking. The whole town turns out for the start, with live music and plenty of food trucks, a proper festival of sail.

The current commodore, Karen Kissane, told me: “I’m not a great sailor. I like it when it’s calm. I don’t understand this heeling-over business.” Like many WSC members, she joined after her 8-year-old daughter got involved with the club’s junior sailing program and her husband took sailing lessons there. “Now I really love it here,” she said. “Everybody knows each other. It’s very welcoming. Sometimes you get sailing clubs that can be kind of snooty. There’s none of that here. We’re all just like one big family.”

Read More from Herb McCormick: Rediscovering the Legend: Sailing the 12 Metre “Intrepid”

That family really comes together for the Round Ireland festivities. The club will celebrate its 75th anniversary next year, but the race has become its signature affair, and everyone chips in. “We’d be lost without our volunteers,” Kissane said. “Everything here is volunteer-led. The only staff that’s paid is the barmaid. And they’re amazing because when the boats start coming back in, it’s 24 hours a day. We don’t close during the race. We can track them on the race tracker, and we know within an hour when they’re going to be here.”

That was certainly the case in the wee hours of our arrival, when another quartet of boats finished within an hour. And that first Guinness was just the start of a party that lasted past dawn. But the best part was when one of my Black Magic crew tapped me on the shoulder and said, “C’mon. Breakfast.”

I always limit my food intake when I sail offshore. I had basically been living on apples and protein bars for the previous five days and was famished. In the next room over, a posse of volunteers were dishing up the full Irish breakfast: fried eggs, baked beans, mushrooms, sausages, black pudding, and hot toast with creamy Irish butter—heaven.

It was, no kidding, one of the best meals of my life. And one more reason I fell in love with Wicklow.

The post Ireland’s Wicklow Sailing Club is Warm and Welcoming appeared first on Yachting.

My first real memory of the classic 12 Metre Intrepid was way back in 1970, an America’s Cup summer during my teenage years in my hometown of Newport, Rhode Island. The sleek Twelve had won the Cup three years earlier with Emil “Bus” Mosbacher calling the shots. For this Cup defense, there was a new skipper at the helm, a bald Californian with a strong resemblance to Mr. Clean named Bill Ficker. He was easy to remember. One night, my dad came home and gave me one of the buttons that were pinned to the chests of Cup fans all over town. “Ficker is quicker,” it read.

So too was Intrepid. Conceived by Olin Stephens, the legendary naval architect who was at the height of his powers, the wooden Twelve (the last of its kind before aluminum became the class’s material of choice) was a revolutionary design. It was the first Cup boat with a separate keel and rudder, and a trim tab added for good measure. Those separate underbody appendages reduced the wetted surface, and less drag means a faster ride. Plus, a slight adjustment to that trim tab let the boat point to weather a bit higher when closehauled, another huge advantage. All that, along with Ficker’s prowess, made Intrepid rather unbeatable.

The Twelves continued to be the weapons of choice in Cup competition until 1987, and were at first replaced by the larger International America’s Cup Class boats. Today, the Cup is contested in spindly, wing-sailed catamarans that fly on foils, a far cry from the stately 12 Metres of yore. But in Newport, the Twelves retain a strong presence on Narragansett Bay. Fans can charter one or book a daysail from several outfits, including America’s Cup Charters (americascupcharters.com), which operates a fleet of them—including Intrepid.

When I received a call from a group of old college friends who were arriving in town following a reunion and wanted to go for a sail, I couldn’t think of a better alternative. I’ve actually sailed quite a few of the vintage Twelves over the years, but never Ficker’s steed. Secretly, I booked Intrepid as much for me as for my old pals.

Read More from Herb McCormick: When Offshore Sailing Forces Tough Decisions

The weather simply couldn’t have been better: an early June day with the prevailing southwesterly pumping to more than 20 knots and whitecaps lashing the waters. Under skipper Mike Patterson’s easy command, his crack crew hoisted the reefed mainsail and we were underway.

The conditions were a bit too sporty to venture out into Rhode Island Sound, where the Cup was once contested, but Narragansett Bay was the perfect track, and we ranged all over it for the next several hours. Everyone got a turn at the wheel, and I relished a long stint hard on the breeze with the rail down, making more than 9 knots. At one point, Capt. Mike adjusted that famous trim tab a few degrees, and Intrepid roared to weather like a proverbial freight train.

Only a few of my friends were sailors, and I’m not sure they fully appreciated how magical this outing was. But one of them did.

Self-professed “shrink” Peter Davidson actually had a bit of his own history with a Twelve: Back in his youth, for a spell, he ran the beautiful 12 Metre Weatherly. I knew he was as excited as I was to sail Intrepid. When my turn was up, I waved him over. “You’ve got to get a taste of this upwind,” I said.

He took the wheel, sat down to leeward for a good look at the headsail trim, and drove Intrepid hard and well, with a huge grin on his face. “This is so great!” he hollered. “I could do this the rest of my life.” I knew exactly what he meant.  

The post Rediscovering the Legend: Sailing the 12 Metre “Intrepid” appeared first on Yachting.

There comes a moment in almost every offshore racing sailor’s life when unforeseen circumstances (dangerously deteriorating weather, broken gear, injured crew) conspire to put an abrupt end to the proceedings. It’s not always easy exercising discretion over valor, particularly if a lot of time, money and planning have been invested. On some occasions, it’s an excruciating call. But it can also be pretty straightforward. Sometimes there’s no other option. It’s just quitting time.

They say bad things come in threes, and late last April, during the Regata del Sol al Sol from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Isla Mujeres, Mexico, I bailed out of a distance race for the third time in my sailing career. I’m certainly hoping it will be my final such abandonment. But each incident was also a learning experience.

The first time was during the 2005 running of the Pineapple Cup, from Miami to Jamaica. I was aboard an impeccable 60-footer called Serengeti. It was blowing like hell out of the north. We were in Bahamian waters, in the Northeast Providence Channel. That is when we heard a ping—the sound of the carbon rudder stock snapping off right at the waterline. It happened in a pretty fortuitous place, 40 miles north of Nassau. We were able to set a drogue and hoist the small staysail. With just enough steerage, the northerly breeze more or less blew us straight to safety.

Read More from Herb McCormick: Unforgettable Caribbean Voyage

My second time was last summer while competing in the Ida Lewis Distance Race off Newport, Rhode Island, aboard a 60-foot catamaran called Impossible Dream with a crew that included a number of sailors in wheelchairs. It was rough right from the outset, and many in the team were laid low with seasickness soon after the start. I was on the wheel after midnight, about halfway through the 160-mile contest, when the wind rose dramatically into the mid-40-knot range. I was concerned that if it continued to build, the goal wouldn’t be racing but instead avoiding a potentially catastrophic capsize. The owner agreed, and we pulled the plug, much to the relief of practically everyone.

Third was last spring’s 450-mile race to Mexico, this time aboard a powerful Hylas 54 cruising boat called Split Decision. The forecast was sporty but favorable; after a light-air, midday start in Tampa Bay, the breeze would fill in hard from the east right around midnight. And that is precisely what happened.

It was a bumpy night that got far bumpier as the hours passed and the seas began to stack up. I came on watch at 0600. We had a lot of sail up, and the boat was on autopilot (which was permissible in our cruising-class division). Exactly an hour later, out of nowhere, the boat rounded up to weather, more or less out of control. I put the autopilot on standby, took the wheel and, after a lot of effort, got us slightly back on course—which is when it happened a second time.

It was pretty obvious that our race was over. A hundred miles from St. Pete, more or less upwind, it wasn’t entirely clear how we’d make it back. We put in the emergency tiller, which, in addition to the wheel, added a little extra steering control. Yawing through a course heading that swung some 60 or 70 degrees side to side, we were able to point the boat toward the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, where the whole adventure had begun. In the final miles, after 17 testy hours, the US Coast Guard dispatched a towboat to get us into the anchorage on the Manatee River. The next morning, skipper John Hamm took a swim and confirmed what we’d suspected: Another rudder had gone on hiatus.

The bad news? It’s always tough to quit. The good? It always comes with a decent sea story.

The post When Offshore Sailing Forces Tough Decisions appeared first on Yachting.

We’d slipped through the drawbridge at the entrance to Simpson Bay Lagoon on the southern shore of St. Maarten at the 1030 opening late last March, bound for the island of Dominica, some 170 nautical miles more or less due south. My old sailing buddy Hank Schmitt’s well-found Swan 48, Avocation, was headed for the second annual Yachting Festival in support of PAYS (Portsmouth Association for Yacht Security), a recently formed group dedicated to serving cruising sailors calling in the island. It sounded like a cool event, but what I was really savoring were the overnight sails to and from in the steady easterly trade winds. It had been a while since I’d spent a night at sea.

The derivation of the word “posh” is supposedly from British passengers who booked tickets for steamships bound for India. They were happy to pay a premium price for staterooms on the shady side of the vessel, which meant to port on the way over and to starboard on the way home (POSH: port out, starboard home). But the word also described our passage down the trades, a port tack (wind coming from the port side) heading south, and a starboard tack on the return trip to St. Maarten.

We were closehauled on the voyage south, and it was a bumpy ride, but there were some definite highlights. Off St. Barths, we caught a glimpse of the fleet of superyachts competing in the annual St. Barths Bucket regatta. At sunrise, we enjoyed a respite from the relentless easterlies, sluicing down the lee of Guadeloupe. The last 17 miles were sporty, but Dominica was straight ahead, the light at the end of the tunnel. Exactly 26 hours after passing through the bridge, we picked up a mooring in the coastal town of Portsmouth on Dominica’s northwest coastline.

It was a good, hard sail. The one back to St. Maarten a week later was even better.

As it was a relatively short passage, Hank did not set up a watch schedule, and I took the opportunity after our departure to hit a bunk for a few hours. I wanted to get the full night-sailing experience. And man, did I ever.

Read More from Herb McCormick: Reflections on Offshore Sailing

I popped up on deck at exactly midnight and was greeted by something I really didn’t expect: the Southern Cross, sitting pretty above our transom. Who knew it was visible in this part of the Caribbean? The moon had not yet risen, and the sky was brilliant, a virtual planetarium full of stars, including many a shooting one. It was mesmerizing. The rising of the three-quarter moon dimmed the light show a bit but was also magnificent.

We had to point a bit higher to skirt the windward side of Montserrat, but the wind had freed a little, and once around that volcanic isle, we were able to crack off a few degrees onto a powerful reach. I’d grabbed the wheel and was in no hurry to let go. The sailing was as good as it gets. The gusty trades fluctuated between 15 and 22 knots, the absolute sweet spot for a thoroughbred like Avocation. The boat was locked in at 8.5 knots of boatspeed, with the occasional burst over 9 and even 10 knots. We were definitely hauling the mail.

There’s never a better place to catch a sunrise than on the ocean, and with St. Kitts on the horizon, it was a pretty great one. We shaved a couple of hours off the trip on its return leg, and precisely 24 hours after departing Dominica, we dropped the anchor off Simpson Bay to await the next bridge opening, with plenty of time for a refreshing swim.

I’ll always recall with fondness the lush island of Dominica, but what I’ll really remember is sailing through those Caribbean nights.  

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