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.

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.

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.

With the events of this year’s America’s Cup well underway, and just ahead of the final races taking place in October, longtime Cup journalist Magnus Wheatley has released a “forensically researched” book about the first race around the Isle of Wight in 1851.

There Is No Second aims to be the definitive account of that race, which went on to become the America’s Cup after the yacht America beat the best of the British fleet and took the prize back to New York. The book covers the time period dating back to the formation of the Royal Yacht Club and the New York Yacht Club, which challenged for the Cup with America.

Wheatley spent about two years researching and writing the book from original archive documents and naval records. He located the name—never before associated with the America’s Cup—of the signal master who uttered the famous phrase “Ma’am, there is no second” to Queen Victoria.

“This phrase has haunted the America’s Cup ever since but has never before been attributed,” Wheatley says. “However, via a piece of investigative journalism due to the fact that no ship’s muster or records were kept, I found the name. Realizing that naval servicemen actually sent their wages home to the wives or parents to stop them from boozing it away—they called it ‘consumption’—I was able to trace the bookkeeping record for the signal master and then cross-reference it to the ship and the individual’s service record.”

The book also details how, after the first Isle of Wight race, Queen Victoria went aboard the winning yacht, a visit that helped change Britain’s public opinion about the Americans and the New World. 

The post <i>There Is No Second: The Definitive Account of the First America’s Cup Race</i> 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.

Early on in my offshore sailing career, I discovered something that has been driven home repeatedly in the ensuing years: At sea, many miles and days from the solid comforts of terra firma, a person’s true character is revealed. It’s not always pretty. On a small boat of defined length, the opportunity to take even a short walk to push the reset button is unavailable. It’s definitely rare, but I’ve certainly encountered my fair share of stifling bores, outright slobs and dangerous clowns. (No doubt, of course, that some of them would say the same of me.)

Why bring all this up? Because I was recently reminded that it makes me really appreciate one of my favorite dudes with whom to set sail, a Renaissance man of sorts from Seattle named Dave Logan.

Together, Logan and I have put a lot of water in our collective wake, well over 30,000 nautical miles. One of our earliest adventures was the 2005 Transpac from Los Angeles to Honolulu aboard our mutual friend Mark Schrader’s Cal 40, Dancing Bear. An incident at the very end, screaming past Diamond Head at double-digit boatspeed with the spinnaker up, sort of speaks to our respective temperaments.

As we bore down on the finish line, I started to panic at the tiller when we couldn’t douse the spinnaker. “Cut the sheet!” I screamed. That is when Logan casually climbed the forestay and tripped the sheet with his marlinspike, immediately defusing the situation. No damage, no worries. I could feel my face go red; my heartbeat immediately settled back into its usual rhythm. “Thanks bro,” was about all I could manage.

Read More from Herb McCormick: And The US Sailing Capital Is?

But our major voyage was a 28,000-mile circumnavigation of North and South America via the Northwest Passage and Cape Horn on a 64-foot steel cutter called Ocean Watch. Logan served as the first mate/engineer, and we shared the same watch the entire journey, through calms, gales, ice, snow—the whole shooting match. Logan likes to cast himself as the silent, stoic type, and we were 18,000 miles and seven months into the trip when we rounded the Horn. Suddenly, standing on the foredeck with my pal, we were both overcome with emotion. “I didn’t think I was going to feel this way,” he blubbered.

“Me neither,” I sputtered.

It was my favorite moment of the best sailing day of my life.

This passage down memory river was triggered last March, when Logan showed up for a Florida family vacation, and I invited him for a sail aboard my Pearson 365, August West, on Sarasota Bay. Logan has always raised an eyebrow at my rather liberal-arts approach to mechanics and maintenance, and I could almost hear the gears in his brain grinding as he cast a critical glance around my deck as we were getting underway. “That backstay could really use tightening,” he said, among other observations, and I felt like a kindergartner getting scolded by his teacher. But, of course, he was right.

And then we went sailing. There was zippo breeze at the outset, and I feared we were in for a drifter. But a northerly filled in soon after, and I literally couldn’t get Logan off the wheel. As always, his pure joy being aboard a sailboat gurgling to weather was infectious. We might as well have been back off the coast of South America, cracking jokes, calling puffs, just enjoying the hell out of the entire situation. It was terrific.

It also reminded me, yet again, that when you go to sea, some of the shipmates you encounter may be some of the worst. But also true, and why you keep going back, is this: A few of the souls you meet along the way are some of the best.  

The post Reflections on Offshore Sailing appeared first on Yachting.

Royal Huisman in the Netherlands continues to make its mark on the superyacht world by building some of the most ambitious private vessels afloat. The shipyard just announced a contract to construct Project 411, which is a 264-foot sailing yacht with the code name Noir. The yacht will be a Malcolm McKeon design with what will reportedly be the world’s tallest sloop rig, at 305 feet high.

McKeon is known for contemporary styling, having also worked on the 195-foot sailing yacht Sarissa that Royal Huisman delivered in 2023. Noir will have a reverse bow, a flybridge, foldout platforms, and what Royal Huisman calls “large areas of glass.” The deck gear and all the windows will be black, according to the shipyard.

The owner’s specifications call for space to bring along a 45-foot tender, allowing the owner and guests to explore coastlines and to transport provisions from shore without having to reposition the yacht closer to any harbor.

Royal Huisman says construction of Noir will be entirely aluminum, with electric-drive auxiliary power. The mast, boom and integrated sailing system will all be from Rondal.

According to the shipyard, Noir will be among the world’s 10 largest sailing yachts, with her air draft exceeding the current tallest rig by about 14 feet.

“We are very pleased to be building again at Royal Huisman,” McKeon stated in a press release, adding that having built the award-winning Sarissa there, “ we are well acquainted with the shipyard’s engineering skills, innovations and the level of craftsmanship.”

Less information is being revealed about plans for the interior layout and décor aboard Noir, but GCA Architects of Barcelona, Spain, is involved in the design. That firm is also known for a contemporary approach, having worked on Spain’s first “smart” building and the world’s first platinum-certified LEED structure.

Designer Josep [KK1] Juanpere Miret, in the same press release, said the interior aboard Noir will complement the contemporary exterior styling, and will mix woods, natural materials and textures for a relaxed yet luxurious atmosphere.

In other big-sail Royal Huisman news: The 265-foot Sea Eagle, launched in 2020, just joined the charter fleet at Y.CO. It’s headed to the South Pacific this summer, with itineraries possible to book in French Polynesia and Fiji. The yacht then will have charter availability in New Zealand during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. The crew includes two scuba instructors for making the most of the underwater sights.

Take the next step: click over to royalhuisman.com for the new build, or to y.co for charter.

The post Royal Huisman to Build 264-Foot “Noir” appeared first on Yachting.

It was a breezy fall afternoon on Chesapeake Bay, a perfect day for a sail, and I felt fortunate to have been invited out for a spin on Gary Jobson’s C.W. Hood 32, Whirlwind. Jobson—an America’s Cup winner and a member of the National Sailing Hall of Fame—keeps his boat on a hoist near his backyard in Annapolis, Maryland. As the director of Cruising World magazine’s Boat of the Year contest, I was in town for the annual Annapolis Sailboat Show and a week of boat tests. I’ve spent a lot of time on the bay in recent years and have come to know and appreciate it.

My Annapolis pals, however, never fail to remind me that their waterfront city has been called “the sailing capital of the United States.” Which, not coincidentally, is the exact same moniker that’s been applied to my very own hometown of Newport, Rhode Island. As we raised Whirlwind’s sails, I pondered the question of which town deserved the title. Only one can wear the crown, right?

Both cities began their existence in the 17th century, largely as shipping ports. The US Naval Academy is located in Annapolis, while the Navy’s North Atlantic fleet called Newport home for several decades, and the naval base remains a major local fixture. Historically, you could make the argument either way, so we’ll call that a toss-up.

Geographically, when it comes to the adjacent waters, I have a strong bias toward Newport. The Chesapeake features some excellent nearby cruising grounds, particularly along the Eastern Shore. But for me, it doesn’t match up to the neighboring Elizabeth Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, with Maine just an overnight sail away. The Chesapeake is shallow and really doesn’t hold a candle to Narragansett Bay and the deep blue Atlantic lapping Newport’s shores. Advantage: Newport.

One thing you don’t get in Newport, however, is the abundance of rivers and creeks that you have in Annapolis to moor a boat, so many of them right along the waterfront. And there are certainly far more options when it comes to marinas and facilities. The nod goes to Annapolis here.

As a destination in and of itself, thanks to that deep water, Newport attracts huge numbers of amazing yachts, from modest cruisers to multimillion-dollar superyachts. The America’s Cup was contested there, and the town remains home to many of the classic old 12 Meters. But Annapolis is every bit as attractive as a tourist spot, and the sailboat show each fall is easily the country’s best. Flip a coin on this one.

As far as actual sailing, the southwesterly sea breeze that fills in off Newport nearly every summer day is steady, wonderful, and hard to beat. There’s plenty of sailboat racing; the New York Yacht Club’s Newport station is an amazing, iconic landmark, and there are plenty of dedicated sailors. But I have to admit, the Annapolis Yacht Club, rebuilt after a devastating fire, is every bit as dynamic as the NYYC. I don’t have hard numbers at my disposal, but my overall take on participation leans toward Annapolis. I see plenty of moored boats in Newport that never seem to go anywhere. The weekly yacht racing out of Annapolis blows Newport away on that front.

So where, exactly, does that leave us? As Jobson and I doused the sails on Whirlwind after a cracking great sail, my fondness for Annapolis was sealed. Sure, for its homegrown passion, let’s call it the sailing capital. But I think that we can still dub Newport the nation’s yachting capital, with the grandness that title suggests. And yes, I’m waffling. What’s that saying about having your cake and eating it too?  

The post And The US Sailing Capital Is? appeared first on Yachting.

On the blacktop of a boatyard adjacent to the bustling harbor of Anacortes, Washington, a warhorse of a 1970s-era racing yacht is stripped down and propped up, and is clearly in the throes of a keel-to-masthead reincarnation. The boat’s name is Improbable, which is fitting, because that also described the chances I’d run into an old sailing friend named Bruce Schwab when I arrived in the Pacific Northwest last summer to hop on a cruising boat headed north. Improbable is Schwab’s boat and the object of his current labor of love, and the entire story borders on the unlikely and implausible—which is why it’s pretty cool.

Schwab, a self-confessed “certified boat bum and sailing nut,” is also an accomplished sailor who has twice raced alone around the world and was the first American to successfully compete in the nonstop Vendée Globe in 2004-05. These days, he runs a business fitting out systems for onboard energy management and charging. It’s called OceanPlanet Energy, and it’s in Maine—which is why it was, well, improbable when I ran into him at a taco joint in Anacortes. After he invited me to come look at his latest project, the tale got stranger still; Improbable was a big reason he fell hard for the sport.

Designed by Gary Mull, the lean 42-footer was built of cold-molded kauri, a New Zealand wood renowned for its lightweight and superior strength. Schwab’s dad bought the boat in 1976, when Schwab was 16 years old, and he spent his teenage years campaigning the boat with his family and friends. Mull was a highly respected naval architect based out of California’s Bay Area, where he had almost a cult following among the local sailors. And Improbable, created and built to excel in long, downwind races like the ones to Hawaii, did extremely well in the old IOR measurement rule, which was the premier rating system of the day. It all laid the groundwork for Schwab’s long and successful career as a professional rigger and sailor.

Read More from Herb McCormick: Cruising Haida Gwaii

Improbable remained in the family all that time, but, when Schwab inherited the boat several years ago, it had largely fallen into a state of disrepair. As he sailed the boat from Northern California to Anacortes, where he had some local connections, the idea was to find it a new home. “I’ve done six races to Hawaii, four trans-Atlantic races, the ’round-the-world stuff, and I was thinking I’ve done enough sailing,” he said. “I thought I was over it. But on that trip north, it all flashed back. I remembered how much I liked the boat. And I wanted to know how it would feel if it was modernized. I have a vision for what it could be. And I just can’t let it go.”

So, he’s bringing Improbable back to fighting trim. He found an excellent carbon-fiber mast from a Farr 40, and he reckons there are some good used sails from that class that will also work well on this project. He’s completely reconfiguring the boat’s rudder, which, he says with a laugh, is a project he started when he was a teenager. The entire deck layout will be transformed with the latest and best go-fast hardware. Lithium batteries and solar panels will completely transform the systems technology. He’s doing it all slowly but surely, making regular commutes from the East Coast to the West Coast, as time allows.

Today, almost five decades after first stepping aboard the boat, Schwab is preparing, once again, to hoist sail, set the kite and haul the mail. Hawaii beckons. Perhaps a new generation will feel the thrill, pass the torch. Improbable? With this boat, it’s safe to say, probably not.  

The post The Family Sailboat appeared first on Yachting.

After a fortnight underway and with 500 rugged nautical miles in our wake, in late June, our Cal 40, Dancing Bear, nudged up to the dock in the little British Columbian burg of Daajing Giids, formerly known as Queen Charlotte City. I tossed our dock lines to a helpful young man named Max, who’d scrambled over from his little cruising sailboat to help us tie up. On the pier, Max was boiling up a potful of crab. He even had some butter, garlic and saffron sauteing alongside. The aroma was mesmerizing.

We’d just completed a winding cruise from Anacortes, Washington, through the remote archipelago of Haida Gwaii (the former Queen Charlotte Islands), the last week of which was in true wilderness, where we’d shared the protected cruising grounds and nature preserve with whales, eagles, bears, sea otters, Sitka deer, elk, racoons and assorted other creatures, none of whom were humans. In fact, we hadn’t encountered a single other soul the entire week. Daajing Giids, the one-time queen of this region, has a population of around a mere 1,000 folks, but it somehow seemed more frantic than Manhattan. I was scheduled to fly out of the nearby airfield in Skidegate the next afternoon, so I would basically be in “the queen” for a day.

During my years of cruising and racing sailboats offshore, I’ve wrapped up many a voyage in countless exotic ports of call, but I’m not sure any were quite as fetching as funky Daajing Giids. It had me from the get-go. Moments after docking, a huge roar emanated from up the hill, where the crowd at a kids baseball game apparently had much to cheer about. I’ve been in Boston’s Fenway Park for a Red Sox game with less-enthusiastic fans.

Haida Gwaii is an overnight hop from the British Columbia coastline, just far enough to deter many cruising boats from visiting, as most opt to continue up the Inside Passage to Alaska. But it’s definitely worth the effort. And the half-dozen yachts in the anchorage were surely a salty mix, consisting of a handful of expedition-style metal boats and a ketch-rigged Amel Super Maramu flying a French flag.

Read More from Herb McCormick: Silent Running

Likewise, in the little yacht basin, there was a mix of well-used fishing craft and an equal number of well-traveled cruising boats, including a couple of full-keeled Bristol Channel Cutters and even a replica of French solo sailor Bernard Moitessier’s famous Joshua. Plenty of folks were living aboard.

Over in the nearby shallows, a tidal grid had been erected so boats could come alongside and complete a quick bottom job on the deep ebb. It had been quite a while since I’d seen one of those. And, I have to say, the fresh salmon and black cod fillets at the little waterfront pub were perhaps the tastiest I’d ever had.

Fortuitously, we’d arrived the day before the national celebration of Canada Day on July 1, and it was a pleasure to be in such a friendly place. As we were walking up the dock, a passing mariner asked how I was doing. “Great,” I said. “I mean, I’m in one of the greatest countries in the world.”

“I agree,” he replied. “And we’re privileged to have you guys as our neighbor.” Heavens, if only the entire world were so pleasant and agreeable.

The next day, I hopped a ferry over to Skidegate and caught my hourlong flight to Vancouver, then my connection home. As we lifted off and wheeled overhead, I got one final glimpse of the old Queen City. It had been a quick visit but a splendid place to wrap up an adventure. I hope to make it back sometime.

The post Cruising Haida Gwaii appeared first on Yachting.