January/February 2023

Sail

SAIL is the magazine of record on sailing.

Sail3 min read
Keeping The Hands In Hands-On
It was late afternoon just after the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis when I climbed aboard the last boat on the schedule. I and others who review and sail boats for the magazine’s Top 10 Best Boats had been on the water all day for several days, putt
Sail1 min read
Sail
PRESIDENT GARY DE SANCTIS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF WENDY MITMAN CLARKE MANAGING EDITOR LYDIA MULLAN WEB EDITOR EMME HURLEY CRUISING EDITOR CHARLES J. DOANE TECHNICAL EDITOR JAY PARIS ELECTRONICS EDITOR BEN ELLISON CHARTER EDITOR ZUZANA PROCHAZKA CONTRIBUTING
Sail3 min read
Are You Out There Sailing, Cruising And Living The Sailing Life?
Share your experiences with other readers. Send your photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com And don’t forget to sign up for our free eNewsletter, Under Sail, via our website sailmagazine.com This was taken while on a TradeWinds cruise in the Grenadines
Sail3 min read
United States v. The Amistad
Life for enslaved Africans working on early American plantations was bleak, but among the worst atrocities committed during this period was the transatlantic trafficking operation itself. It is difficult to overstate the horrors experienced aboard th
Sail7 min read
A Gunkholer’s Guide
You climb from your berth and start the stove for coffee, warming the cabin. You check your position, looking out the ports as the sun is about to rise. The pristine forest of an uninhabited island is visible out one port, open water out the other. T
Sail1 min read
Under Sail
Nothing says salty like a big ol’ bowsprit, and few vessels can claim more bred-in-the-bone saltiness than the ageless and heroic Jolie Brise. Launched in La Havre in 1913 as a workhorse pilot cutter, she was the last boat to carry the Royal Mail und
Sail3 min read
Cruising Tips
It’s easy to imagine that all neat berthing maneuvers result from smart boathandling. It’s a sorry business if the person at the blunt end stuffs the bow into the woodwork at 3 knots. However, even if the skipper slides her in like a pro, it doesn’t
Sail3 min read
A Certain Uncertainty
AT THE HELM September 16 was supposed to be the closing date on the sale of Icebear, our Swan 59. We’d had a contract in place since May with the buyer, a nonprofit that was set to purchase the boat along with the $40,000 entry fee in the retro round
Sail6 min read
Off To The Races
It’s been a long five years since the conclusion of the 2018 Volvo Ocean Race, and a lot more than the event’s name has changed. Here’s everything you need to know about this season’s premier ocean race before it kicks off on January 8. Throughout ev
Sail7 min read
Breaking Bad
Is any command less welcome on a boat than “all hands on deck!”? And short of “man overboard!” is any cry more guaranteed to wake you instantly from the deepest of slumbers? It came, as such things do, in the wee hours of the darkest of nights. “The
Sail14 min read
The Sail Top 10 Best Boats Of 2023
Every year, sailboat manufacturers around the world launch their latest models, and every year, SAIL magazine’s experienced boat reviewers spend days and weeks learning what’s new, talking with boatbuilders, examining the boats top to bottom dockside
Sail9 min read
Four Days Before The Mast
It’s probably the first world history lesson that U.S. kids get in elementary school: In 1492 America was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus in the Niña, Pinta, and the flagship Santa María. He was lost and would never set foot in America, but to h
Sail8 min read
Blue Collar, Blue Blood
In 1851, the New York pilot schooner America sailed to England, beat the Brits at their own prestigious yacht race (which came to be known as the America’s Cup), and launched an evolution of the East Coast’s pilot craft into vessels that were the env
Sail4 min read
From Ballast to Berths
Our Open 66, NV, was originally designed, built, and raced by Hungarian sailor Nándor Fa in the singlehanded around-the-world races Around Alone and the Vendée Globe. Like many such boats, she carried water ballast, up to 4 tons in six tanks (three o
Sail8 min read
Timing is Everything
Cruising the Maine coast in our own boat has been a long-held dream for me and my wife, Kris. Last summer we made it reality on a four-month cruise aboard Orion, our 1987 Sabre 38, from southwest Florida to Maine and back to Virginia. After traveling
Sail3 min read
Mission to Mars
CHARTER NEWS In the wake of the pandemic, many sailors are seeking adventure and grabbing onto a vision of their best lives. For some, that may mean sailing across the Atlantic with the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) while for others, it could be
Sail3 min read
A Star to Steer By
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS I first met Steve and Irene Macek in the proper way—in an anchorage full of bluewater cruising boats. This was in St. Georges, Bermuda, in the spring of 2019. Theirs, without doubt, was the most distinctive boat there—an immaculate,

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