The day Sally Helme fired me was pretty rough. I could’ve used a life coach. Like the dude who was brought in to replace me. 

The year was 2005, and I was five years into my tenure as ­editor-in-chief of this magazine. It was a different era. My mentors, the preceding editors—Murray Davis, George Day, Dale Nouse and Bernadette Bernon—had always emphasized that in publishing, there was a church and a state, equal but separate, with an emphasis on separate. The churchly editorial department, the words and stories, represented the scripture. Publisher Sally ran the business side—the state—responsible for generating the advertising lucre that kept all the wheels spinning. 

I’d been taught that it was not only beneficial, but also essential, to maintain an arm’s length from business decisions and to refrain from granting favors to clients. My job was to represent and satisfy the readers and subscribers. If the publication was the least bit phony, there was nothing to sell. And if the publisher-editor relationship was a bit tense, to the point of even being slightly antagonistic, that was a good thing. Healthy. Necessary. 

Man, I was outstanding at that part of the job.

Honestly, I wasn’t shocked when I was sacked. But the one thing that really ticked me off was that my executive editor, Tim Murphy, whom I’d been grooming to take my place, was passed over for the job. (Which contributed to his decision to quit, which made me respect and love him even more than I already did.) Thinking back, though, even that didn’t surprise me. Tim would’ve definitely wreaked even more havoc than I had. 

A short time before all the drama, I went in to work on a weekend. There at the door to my office was a pile of fresh dog poop. I’d seen Sally’s car, so I knew she was there and, sure enough, so was her pooch. She apologized profusely and cleaned up the mess, but I’m fairly certain that doggie got a treat shortly thereafter. 

Oddly enough, my first connection with Sally was through my mom, who ran an employment agency in my hometown of Newport, Rhode Island. Sally had come to Newport to launch an upscale marine magazine called The Yacht, and my mother had played a role in staffing it. It was how I first came to know Sally.

As has been made clear in this issue’s tribute to Sally (see page 8), she was a force of nature. The marine industry was super-macho in those days, led by hard boys like the Harken brothers, Ted Hood, Everett Pearson and similar characters. And while Sally cast a commanding presence, she wasn’t the type to curry favor by batting her eyelashes. No, to succeed in that hypermasculine world, she always had to be the smartest person in the room. A Princeton grad, she always was. 

All that said, it’s absolutely true that for me, getting canned was not a bad thing. I pivoted to writing more of my own stories, not editing ones that I’d commissioned. I wrote a few books, sailed my butt off, and did things that I’d never have contemplated had I remained in the editor’s chair. Though it stung at the time, I came to be very grateful that it had happened. 

And Sally and I, amazingly enough, eventually became pals. Real ones. She was always supportive, and connected me with more than a few fine opportunities. Sure, we still tangled a bit. She was on the board of the National Sailing Hall of Fame, and in its early days, I was one of that organization’s most outspoken critics, which I knew bugged Sally to no end. It was just like the old days.

The last time I saw Sally was at, of all places, a beauty parlor: We had the very same hairdresser. (It was our mutual scissors friend who texted me the news about her passing, a good day before anyone else knew.) We’d caught up, gossiped, had a few laughs, even shared a quick hug. There we were, after all this time, a pair of old mates still trying to keep up appearances.

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.  

The post Requiem for a Mate appeared first on Cruising World.

The mid-February day started out like so many other sailing events I’ve enjoyed over the years: meeting up with a new crew, scoping out the particulars of a boat I’d never sailed, reviewing the sailing instructions and forecast for the day’s race, and then dropping the dock lines and heading out. Such is the life of an itinerant sailing writer, and I’ve never taken any of it for granted. 

Little did I know, however, that before this day was done, I’d hear something bordering on the profound. 

It was the opening day of the St. Petersburg, Florida, edition of the Sailing World Regatta Series, sponsored by Cruising World’s sister publication. As he often does, my longtime J/24 mate Dave Reed, the editor of Sailing World, threw me an assignment: Go racing with a team of seasoned homeboys from the St. Petersburg Yacht Club on the day’s distance race, a relatively new element of the regatta for the cruiser/racer set. I was more than happy to oblige. 

Which is how I made the acquaintance of Tim Landt and his close pal Doug Jones, who attended high school in the same prehistoric era that I did, and who have been racing sailboats together ever since. The pair were in the same class as a couple of other St. Pete luminaries, Ed Baird and Allison Jolley, who each rose to the pinnacle of the sport—the former as a winning America’s Cup skipper, the latter as an Olympic gold medalist. “Doug and I were different,” Landt said, laughing. “We had to go to work.”

Landt grew up racing Optimists and Lasers, moved into crewed boats with a Columbia 24 and a Cal 40, and even owned a couple of big Ted Irwin-designed cruising boats. But he seemed proudest of his current ride, a relatively rare Nightwind 35, a centerboard sloop designed by his friend and hero, the late Bruce Kirby, who also created the ubiquitous Laser. “I’d been looking for one for years,” Landt said. “They never come up for sale.” This past October, one did, and he pounced. 

This was only the third race aboard his new Charisma, but he downplayed it. “I got all my old buddies together,” he said. “We’re just out here to have fun.”

But Landt was—how shall we put this?—an aggressive and vocal racer, and he wasn’t there to fool around. He nailed a port-tack start; was on the foredeck for a sail change as the breeze built; called out spinnaker trim early and often; and was more or less a cyclone the entire race, in which Charisma scored a respectable fourth in the 13-boat Cruising division. A very good sailor, Landt’s enthusiasm and exuberance were infectious; it’s always great to sail with a dude who just bloody loves it, and it was clear he did.  

Back at the dock, Landt shared a cool story about naming Charisma: As a kid, he landed a gig as a gofer for a wealthy captain of industry in the days of the great Southern Ocean Racing Conference series. The guy had a boat by the same name. “He was so humble,” Landt said. “I always said if I got a nice race boat, I’d call it Charisma.”

And then, he added: “You’re a writer, you might appreciate this. An old commodore, who was also my coach, once told me that the key to sailing is recreation. That’s what you have to turn it into. Now take that word apart, it’s re-creation. You always have to re-create yourself through your recreation. And that’s what sailing does for me.”

In the moment, I laughed and thanked him for a fine day. Only later did it occur to me that Landt had put into simple terms something I’ve always felt about sailing. I’m sure that a ­truly manic surfer or alpinist would say the same thing. That time away from the daily grind, laser-focused on the natural world, is priceless. Every time I’m on the water, whether on a daysail or after crossing an ocean, I come away refreshed and renewed. A new man. Hopefully a better one. Re-created. 

It always keeps me coming back for more.

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

The post The Re-creation: My Day at the St. Pete Regatta appeared first on Cruising World.

There are folks who like a casual sail from time to time. There are sailors who own boats who enjoy them frequently, but who are not necessarily deeply committed to the sport or lifestyle. And then there are flat-out maniac mariners, guys who’ve sailed since they were kids, and who live and breathe every facet of it: cruising, racing and chartering. And everything in between.

Dudes like Californian Ron Boehm, the skipper and owner of the twin-hulled 52-footer Little Wing, one of the cooler vintage catamarans you’ll ever see. 

I first crossed wakes with Boehm and Little Wing during the 2016 Conch Republic Cup, a memorable regatta from Key West, Florida, to Cuba and back. It included a trio of inshore races, and a pair of wild-and-woolly Gulf Stream crossings of the Straits of Florida. I was sailing a pretty flash 60-foot offshore cat myself, but Little Wing cleaned our clock, winning all five races in the series to completely dominate the multihull division. Let’s just say that it made an impression.

Happily, however, in this past February’s Caribbean Multihull Challenge in St. Maarten, I had the chance to hop aboard Little Wing on a sweet sail from Simpson Bay to Orient Bay while it participated in the rally portion of the annual event. From the perspective of the boat and its rather fervent but laid-back captain—a potent combo—I now have a much better understanding of exactly how we got waxed in Cuba. 

Boehm has enjoyed a successful career in business and publishing, but in essence, first and foremost, he’s a sailor. He got his start racing prams as a junior sailor in Santa Barbara, California; graduated to skiff sailing as a teen in the highly technical and competitive International Fourteen class, in which he still campaigns; eventually took up more one-design racing in Santa Cruz 27s, where he became a national champ; and got into catamaran sailing with the purchase of a couple of charter boats from Leopard and Fountaine Pajot. When he decided to buy a dedicated cruising boat that he could still occasionally race, he knew he wanted a cat. “No ­heeling, which my wife likes, and so much more room,” he says.

He found what he was looking for in Little Wing, a story in and of itself. In 1994, a young Microsoft exec commissioned the cat from, of all people, renowned naval architect Bob Perry. He was not exactly known for multihulls, but he was ably assisted by someone who was: engineer Jim Antrim. The Perry/Antrim 52 was built in the Pacific Northwest by Shaw Boats with generous helpings of surplus carbon sourced from another local manufacturer by the name of Boeing. The cat changed hands several times in the ensuing years before Boehm bought it in 2015. 

Since then, it’s been driven hard and fast, from the United States to the Caribbean, and is now based in St. Croix, in the US Virgin Islands. There, Boehm’s mate, Steve Sargent, often stacks up the trampoline with prams and sails local kids over to St. Thomas for regattas. Little Wing is nothing if not well-sailed and cared for.

“It’s not a light boat, but it’s rock-solid and so safe to sail offshore,” Boehm says. “There’s no flexing whatsoever. We hit 18 knots coming down the back side of a wave off St. John’s. It’s a lot of fun to sail.”

The breeze started light on the day I sailed Little Wing—its original name, after the Jimi Hendrix song—and even though we were in a rally, Boehm had us tweaking things as if we were in the America’s Cup. As the day progressed, the breeze filled into the low teens, and we sliced along at an easy 8 knots jibing downwind with the code zero. The sailing was absolutely delightful. 

At day’s end, as we approached the anchorage, I snapped a picture of Boehm at the wheel and said, “Now there’s a man in his element.” 

And while he loves his cat, he laughed me off. “No,” he said with a smile. “I’d rather have a tiller.”

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large. 

The post Winging It appeared first on Cruising World.

Gary Jobson motioned for me to step aboard his pretty, impeccable C.W. Hood 32, Whirlwind. Before anything else happened—and plenty was about to—he offered a thought. 

“I’m a lot different than a lot of professional sailors,” he said, referring to his peers in the America’s Cup and the upper strata of inshore and offshore sailboat racing. “I really like to sail.”

Boy, does he. Jobson is a winning member of the 1977 America’s Cup and historic 1979 Fastnet Race crews; an author, filmmaker, television producer, award-winning TV commentator and fellow Cruising World editor-at-large; and a member of the National Sailing Hall of Fame who still regularly competes in major regattas. He annually gives more than 100 lectures for yacht clubs and other venues. On top of all that, he also takes several dozen lucky folks for daysails on the Chesapeake Bay each year from his home in downtown Annapolis, Maryland.

And now, it was my turn.  

Given the sporty forecast for that Sunday afternoon this past October—a cold northerly gusting over 25 knots was already raking the bay—I was prepared for a cancellation, but Jobson waved me off. “It’s supposed to ease off later,” he said. 

And with that hopeful ­sentiment, Whirlwind was eased from her lift into the drink—and we were off. It was a short motor under the boat’s silent electric auxiliary from its Spa Creek berth to the ­nearby drawbridge for the 12:30 opening. Jobson mentioned that he maintains fine relations with its tenders. “Good guys,” he said. “I drop off a case of Heineken every year to show my appreciation.” 

With the bridge negotiated, up went the mainsail, and—as we fairly sizzled past the seawall fronting the US Naval Academy—Jobson laid out the day’s itinerary. It would be a tight reach up and under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Sandy Point Lighthouse, a spinnaker run to the Thomas Point Lighthouse, and then a beat back to the city. 

Given the conditions, this seemed quite ambitious to me, but I was sailing with Gary Jobson. What the hell did I know?

We never did make it to the first lighthouse (did I mention the weather?), but Jobson wanted me to have a spell on the tiller under the kite, and expertly set it from the cockpit, which was cool. “I do foredeck, but not on the foredeck,” he said. 

And man, did Whirlwind ever haul the mail, slicing downwind in double-digit fashion as I steered for dear life. I enjoyed a lot of great sails in the past year, but none better.

It was all going swell until we rounded Thomas Point Lighthouse and turned back upwind. The breeze had not eased off. We took a couple of waves aboard that pretty much filled the cockpit. The motor’s battery was swamped and fried, along with the bilge pump. There was much bailing. 

A crew of midshipmen on an Academy race boat idled alongside for a bit to make sure we were OK. They of course had no idea who I was, but I’m sure they realized: “Whoa. That’s Gary freaking Jobson.” Amid the chaos, it was pretty amusing. 

There was just one last bit of drama. Under sail on the last wisps of the fading northerly (at last!), we eked through the drawbridge at the 4:30 opening. Gary had been counting down the minutes from a quarter-mile out, and I was sure we’d be late, but I’m certainly not in any Hall of Fame. The bridge’s rails were of course lined with stranded refugees from the Annapolis Sailboat Show waiting to move, and I have no doubt that at least a few made the same “Is that who I think it is?” connection as the middies. 

Had the tender left the bridge open for a few extra ­moments as a favor as we passed through? Perhaps. “I’ll bring up another case of Heineken tomorrow,” Jobson said. 

As a sailor, I’ve been a lucky lad to knock off more than a few of my bucket-list voyages. And now I have another. I’ll always be able to say that I sailed through the Spa Creek Bridge on a windy day with a legend. 

The post A Legendary Sail appeared first on Cruising World.

As every sailor and music lover knows, the world became a quieter place in September, when the one-of-a-kind songwriter, mariner and balladeer Jimmy Buffett passed away after a bout with skin cancer. The outpouring of grief, appreciation and remembrances on social media was substantial, and nearly everyone seemed to have their own personal memory or tribute. Here’s mine.

I met Buffett in Fremantle, Western Australia, in the Down Under summer of 1987. I was there covering the America’s Cup during what became Dennis Conner’s Redemption Tour, when he won back the trophy he’d lost four years earlier. Buffett was a huge fan of Conner and his Stars & Stripes crew, and had flown to Oz for the duration, often playing sets at their waterfront base. It was pretty cool.

We had a mutual friend in writer P.J. O’Rourke, on assignment for Rolling Stone, where he’d more or less been handed the “gonzo journalist” baton from Hunter Thompson. P.J. knew absolutely nothing about sailboat racing, and we became press-boat mates. I could explain a jibe-set spinnaker hoist or leeward mark rounding, and he could crack me up with his endless array of anecdotes. They included his time roaming through the islands under sail with his pal Jimmy on Buffett’s Cheoy Lee cruising boat. Through P.J., I caught a couple of Buffett’s impromptu gigs in Fremantle dive bars, and was always happy to hang with that crew. 

All that said, at that stage, I wasn’t all that much of a Buffett fan. My taste changed in the ensuing years after I caught a couple of his live shows with the Coral Reefer Band (it was always hilarious to see 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley shaking the castanets). But what finally sold me on Jimmy Buffett’s music was when I started to pay serious attention to his lyrics. Specifically, those on one of his earlier records, the one named after the ­highway running down Florida’s Atlantic shoreline: A1A. 

A1A is not only my favorite Buffett album, but it’s one of my favorite records ever. So much so that I’ve come to think of the person, JB, and the album, A1A, as a single entity, one and the same. None of his truly famous hits are on it; there are no paradisiacal cheeseburgers or soothing blender drinks or folks getting drunk and getting down. Instead, there are 11 exquisitely crafted tunes, only about three or four minutes apiece, but with tales, lessons, and wordplay as carefully rendered and nuanced as almost any 300-page novel. If I were marooned on an island and could bring only five CDs with me, this would be one of them. 

Buffett’s genre has been dubbed Gulf & Western, which seems pretty accurate, but A1A is known for being part of his “Key West phase,” which also fits. By whatever term, one thing is certain about this collection: Nobody without a deep understanding and affection for the sea, nobody but a sailor, could’ve written them. 

Oh, the lyrics, like “Squalls out on the Gulf Stream, big storms coming soon” from “Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season.” Or “I’m hanging on to a line from my sailboat, all Nautical Wheelers save me” from “Nautical Wheelers.” Or “Got a Caribbean soul I can barely control” from “Migration.” Or this, from my favorite Buffett song, “A Pirate Looks at Forty”: “Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call, wanted to sail upon your waters since I was 3 feet tall.” 

The ode to Mother Ocean. Our very essence, our lifeblood. Damn straight, brother. 

Even the spare, inviting cover of A1A is just about perfect. Before he was an author, pilot, restaurateur, real estate mogul, Broadway producer, cultural icon, and just about every other bloody thing under the sun, he was just Jimmy, tanned and smiling in his rocking chair, under a palm tree with the white sand and blue sea behind him. A man in his element. It’s how we all should remember him. 

So, RIP, A1A. And thank you. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large. 

The post So Long, Jimmy Buffett appeared first on Cruising World.

Among the many ­revelations I’ve ­experienced since purchasing a 1970s-era classic-plastic cruising boat and setting up shop on the Gulf Coast of Florida for half the year is the fact that yachts don’t get hauled out annually here for a fresh coat of bottom paint. In New England over the years, I’ve owned a series of sailboats, all of which spent every winter on the hard in a boatyard safe from the ravages of endless nor’easters. Their bottoms were all prepped and repainted before getting launched again the following spring. It’s not a particularly pleasant task, but one I’d always tackled myself—yet another annoying yin to the rewarding yang of owning a sailboat. 

So, when I bought my Pearson 365, August West, a year ago, I was pretty psyched to learn that I wouldn’t have to undergo the labor (and cost) on a yearly basis. In fact, I thought that I might get a pass altogether for a season or two. Then, two things happened: First, the diver I hired for a monthly bottom scrub, when asked about the condition below the waterline, had a pithy answer (“poor”); and second, the previous owner, when queried about the last time he painted the bottom, was equally succinct (“um, good question”). There really was no alternative: It was time to haul the vessel for new paint.

In Rhode Island, if in possession of a pulse and a ­valid credit card, this had never been an issue; plenty of yards in or near Newport were more than willing to relieve me of cash. In Florida, at least in the greater Sarasota area, it was more of a challenge. The first couple of places that I called flat-out said that they didn’t work on sailboats. And it was quickly apparent that, if I did find a spot, doing the work myself was out of the question. Finally, on a tip from a local sailor, I learned of an outfit called N.E. Taylor Boat Works, just a few short miles up the Intracoastal Waterway from my slip on Longboat Key, in a place called Cortez Cove.

The tiny adjacent community of Cortez, measuring just 2 square miles of real estate, was an oasis from the strip malls. Cortez is a commercial-fishing village founded in the late 1800s that still retains its old-timey Florida vibe. Home to a great fish market, a big fish processing plant and a couple of seafood shacks, it seemed of a different time and place, and an extremely welcoming one at that. 

The cove, however, is not such a simple spot to get into. Peering in from the ICW, the fleet of rather large fishing boats would suggest otherwise, but the actual channel is narrow and marked by hand-painted signs, one of which I, of course, missed. In what’s becoming a disturbing new habit, I ran aground…directly in front of one of the busy waterfront restaurants right at dinner hour. Free entertainment for all. Luckily, I’m getting good at getting off the bottom, and I made it to the yard unscathed. 

Descendants of the Taylor family, part of the original group of Cortez settlers from North Carolina, still run the yard. It’s both friendly and funky, and I mean the latter as a high compliment. From the time I pulled in until the time I pulled out, nobody ever bothered asking me for, well, anything: my full name, an address, payment details, nada. Almost as an afterthought, it occurred to me that, since I was in a boatyard and all, and I’d purchased a pair of deck hatches that were sitting in my V-berth, I might as well get them installed (a task I’d originally planned to do myself but was not relishing). No muss, no fuss, just two hours of reasonable labor costs that would’ve taken me much longer. 

Getting out of the boatyard was a lot easier. Back in my slip a few days later, my diver returned (he does several boats in the marina), noted the paint job, and said I was good to go for a while. “That could last you a few years,” he said, which made me smile. Whenever that time does come again, though, I’ll know to return to Cortez Cove. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large. 

The post A Haul Out In Southwest Florida’s Cortez Cove Comes Packaged with a Few Surprises appeared first on Cruising World.

It’s difficult to say who came up with the brilliant idea of collecting and chronicling all the strange newspaper headlines that begin “Florida man…” These stories go on to recount the never-ending litany of strange crimes or occurrences that afflict or attract confused or deranged male denizens of the Sunshine State. For example: “Florida man trapped in unlocked closet for two days.” “Florida man desperate for ride to Hooters calls 911.” “Florida man arrested for trying to get alligator drunk.” And on and on. 

These headlines always struck me as totally hilarious until one morning last spring, after I spent a snowbird winter on my Pearson 365, August West, on a barrier island off Florida’s Gulf Coast. I realized that, uh-oh, I too had become “Florida man,” complete with personal moments that could’ve generated their own bizarre headlines: “Florida man befriends, converses with stowaway lizard.” “Florida man runs hard aground in sight of own boat slip.” “Florida man makes political statement by banning own books.” “Florida man, fearful of bridges, remains on island.” 

It was a tough pill to swallow, but to paraphrase an old cliche, if the Top-Sider fits, son, wear it.  

The notion of wintering in Florida had never struck me as one of life’s viable options until a longtime buddy made me the proverbial irrefusable offer to purchase his old Pearson. The deal-sealer was an awesome liveaboard dock space on Longboat Key. Early on, I was astounded one evening to watch a small lizard board the boat from my stern line, a feat of acrobatics akin to a reptilian Flying Wallenda. Florida man—ahem—had downed a couple of beers, and of course offered greetings. (I was hoping that the lizard would respond in a British accent, like the Geico gecko.) When it was time for Wallenda (yes, I named him) to go, a few noisy taps with a nearby winch handle had him scurrying back ashore, and before long, honest to goodness, this became a nightly ritual. Florida man had made his first Floridian friend. 

Accustomed to the deep waters back home in New England, I had to get used to sailing in shallow Sarasota Bay. It was a long motor out through the sandbars and mangroves to reach navigable water and hoist sail, and nary a tack or jibe took place without a nervous glance at the chart plotter to avoid any lurking hazards. I was feeling pretty chuffed after my first uneventful outing when, just outside my marina on the return trip, I stupidly cut a channel marker and squished to a stop in full view of my amused dock neighbors. It took many rpm and an unfurled genoa to extricate myself, but my local mate took it easy on me. “Welcome to Florida,” he said. “We all do it. At least it was sand.” Florida man agreed.

As a refugee from a bleeding-­heart blue region of the country, I did of course at times wonder about the state’s overall ­political climate. To show solidarity with my new surroundings, I personally banned all five of the books I’ve written. All are nautical titles, and there is no sex or pornography in any of them, but I confess to entertaining carnal thoughts during their writing. Which I believe somehow supports the case for book banishment, which otherwise has me completely confused. 

About that bridge-o-­phobia: I was born and raised in Newport, Rhode Island, on the southern end of an isle called Aquidneck, and am so ancient, I remember when you had to take a ferry to get off it. That changed when the Newport Bridge opened in 1969, and it’s an old joke among old Newporters that nothing good happens if you cross it. My new island, Longboat Key, is but 10 miles long, and within a mile of my slip are excellent grocery and hardware stores. A handful of times, I’ve slipped over the two bridges that connect mellow Longboat to crazed civilization, and I’ve mightily regretted every trip. You’ve heard about the traffic in Florida, right? Now I stay put, just like home. 

So, I’m happy to report that I’ve embraced the new ­Florida-man me, and I long for just one thing: If only Wallenda could drive me to Hooters, I’d be all set. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large. 

The post Off Watch: Becoming Florida Man appeared first on Cruising World.

Yes, of course, Cruising World is a magazine dedicated to the glorious pastime of cruising. But, from time to time, it’s worthwhile to examine this basic truism: Racing sailboats will make you a better cruising sailor. Tacking and jibing at full speed, paying extra attention to windshifts and currents, trimming sails to get every last tenth of a knot of performance from them—these are all things you can apply to cruising that will make your life on the water a little more fulfilling. 

And there’s another, perhaps even greater, benefit as well. With the right crew on a sweet boat on a beautiful day, racing is also just a ton of fun.

This, I discovered, yet again, on a lovely Saturday in February when my colleagues at sister magazine Sailing World wrangled me aboard the Beneteau 40 Liquid Time for the North Sails Rally Race during the St. Petersburg, Florida, stop on the nationwide tour of six events that comprise the Helly Hansen Sailing World 2022 Regatta series. The 40-foot racer/cruiser is owned by a trio of pals who sail out of nearby Davis Islands: Pemmy and Ed Roarke, who set and trim the sails, and champion Sunfish sailor Gail Haeusler, whom I’d soon witness was one heck of a helmswoman. 

The name has two origins: Liquid Time is the title of a favorite tune by the progressive rock band Phish, with these appropriate opening lyrics: “The sea is so wide, and the boat is so small.” The name is also a running joke with the tight, nine-person crew, one of whom always pops the same question before a race: “What time is it?” To which the collective answer is, well, always the same: “Liquid Time!” It’s a joke that never gets old. 

My time on Liquid ­unfolded over a 20-mile course in a shifty northerly breeze around government marks on busy Tampa Bay, with plenty of visual treats to spice up the proceedings: the ever-­expanding St. Pete skyline; the weird, lopsided arena known as Tropicana Field, home to baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays; and the distinctive Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which replaced an earlier span that a freighter creamed in a 1980 storm. 

The starting line for our Racer/Cruiser division was a busy place, indeed; we shared it with a fleet of maniacs sailing light, twitchy L30 one-designs. Plus, unusually, it was a downwind start in about 8 knots of fluctuating wind, which meant a spinnaker set right off the bat. The Liquid team flowed through the maneuver like water running downhill (sorry). Haeusler timed it all perfectly. Off we went. 

It was pretty obvious right from the get-go that it was going to come down to a head-to-head match race with a Sarasota-based O’Day 40 called Mother Ocean, a name I assumed was borrowed from the opening line of Jimmy Buffett’s A Pirate Looks at Forty. (Also, what’s up with these Florida folks, their boat handles and their beloved recording artists?) 

In the early going, Mother was definitely a mutha, and we had a wonderful view of her transom as she assumed the lead. But all that changed when the kites were doused about two-thirds of the way through the race; the northerly ratcheted up to 14 knots, kicking up whitecaps as the skies cleared to reveal a spectacular sailing day. We hardened up for the closehauled beat back to the finish. Thanks in large part to Haeusler’s skilled driving, Liquid Time was both higher and faster, and before long, it was Mother Ocean in arrears. Which is how everything concluded, with Liquid Time the overall class winner. 

“We won that race in the second half,” said Ed Roarke, who then invoked another name, that of a recent Tampa Bay arrival—yet another cliched snowbird from New England—whose prowess has won over the local populace. “It was a Tom Brady special.”

The tunes came on, and, in the time-honored tradition of nearly all competitive sailing, the icy-cold beers were cracked and passed around. 

So, hey, what time was it again? 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

The post Off Watch: A Cruising Sailor Joins the Race appeared first on Cruising World.

Way back when, in the early 1980s, I landed an ­editorial assistant’s job at this very magazine. I was at the outset of my own journey not only as a journalist, but also as an offshore sailor. As such, a helpful colleague handed me a book called Sea Quest: Global Blue-Water Adventuring in Small Craft, written by Charles A. Borden and published in 1967. “Read this,” he said. “It’ll explain a lot.”

Man, he wasn’t kidding. I didn’t just read it; I devoured it. Borden, a long-range voyager himself, produced a remarkable, highly researched work that somehow managed to combine the history of seagoing craft and the magic of bluewater sailing with intimate profiles of dozens of sailors and their boats. One of them was a handsome, strapping dude (in his accompanying photo, he’s a dead ringer for actor Ed Harris) named Peter Tangvald.

Of Tangvald’s boat, Borden writes, “Dorothea I [is] a 32-foot cutter with no motor, no electricity, no transmitter, no cockpit, no head, no skin fittings—a true wanderer with no home port [that] completed a five-year voyage around the world at Brixham, England, in 1964.” And here’s Borden’s take on the skipper: “A former loner, an original, and a competent individual, Tangvald is as good an example as Slocum of the innate independence of the devoted small-ship sailor.” Well then. 

But in the mid-1960s, Tangvald was just getting started. And in the years to come, he would leave not only countless miles in his wake, but also plenty of havoc. Twice he went to sea with young wives who never again set foot ashore. Were Tangvald’s accounts of their disappearances truthful or—gulp—as it was often rumored, was the “former loner” the one responsible for their absence?

Oh, and one other thing: Tangvald sired a son, the complex subject of a remarkable new biography by marine journalist (and former CW senior editor) Charles J. Doane entitled The Boy Who Fell to Shore: The Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Thomas Thor Tangvald. The title brings to mind the 1976 science-fiction movie The Man Who Fell to Earth, in which David Bowie plays an alien who crash-lands on Earth and discovers unexpected success and debilitating despair in his new and strange surroundings. It’s an apt comparison, for Thomas Tangvald very much suffered the same fate. 

Hopefully without giving too much away, I can reveal that Thomas’ disastrous crash landing was not from space, but rather on the reefs off Bonaire at age 15 while being towed south from Puerto Rico on a leaky sailboat by his father on another compromised vessel—a ridiculous episode that was somehow even more bizarre and half-baked than it sounds. Neither his father nor his sister, Carmen, survived, but half-naked Thomas was able to scramble onto his surfboard and somehow managed to make it to safety. 

It’s the opening scene in Doane’s riveting narrative. Now, Thomas, orphaned and in shock, was the one just getting started. So too is the author. 

It turns out that Peter Tangvald made one sound decision in his later years: With a faltering heart, he enlisted his old sailing mate Edward Allcard and his wife, Clare, to take care of his children in the event that anything happened to him. And when Thomas fell to shore, the Allcards indeed took him under their wing. Clare, in particular, became an insightful primary source for the incredible tale that follows. (As his way of giving back for all the assistance he received, Doane is donating proceeds from the sale of the book to the young family Thomas left behind.) 

Like father, like son, in more ways than one. Indeed, like his eccentric old man, Thomas was a talented and tenacious sailor with the desire and ability to sail far on the simplest of vessels, not unlike the ones he was raised on. Furthermore, like Peter, he left behind confusion and heartache, and far more questions than answers. 

It’s a legacy nobody wishes for, a “sea quest” that went very, very wrong. It also makes for a story that’s hard to put down. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

The post Falling Ashore appeared first on Cruising World.

One year ago this month, as director of this magazine’s annual Boat of the Year contest, I joined our judging team aboard the CNB 66 Escape in Annapolis, Maryland, to conduct our sea trials on Chesapeake Bay. The high-end, long-range cruising boat was owned by a vastly experienced German couple named Karl and Annamarie Frank, who’d been based in Annapolis the past several years while rambling up and down the East Coast. Generally, our test sails involve yacht designers and manufacturers’ representatives. It was unusual, though not unprecedented, to go sailing with a couple on their own boat (our earlier dockside inspections occurred on a newer sistership model of the CNB 66). When it happens, though, it’s always interesting and enlightening. 

Karl Frank was clearly one hell of a sailor who’d optimized the deck layout for singlehanded sailing; we all shared a joke about “German engineering.” He’d put a lot of thought into everything, and quickly got our attention and respect. (Annamarie told us that she didn’t care much for offshore sailing but loved the destinations, and opted out of passages when she could.) Later, in deliberations, judge Gerry Douglas said: “The build quality was just impeccable. The owner understood how to sail it well, and he had a system where he could handle it solo. He proved that you could operate a big, sophisticated boat alone.”

Here are a few excerpts about this ultra-sophisticated yacht from my own notes that day: “German couple on board their personal boat… Have laid it out beautifully… Running backstays with split fixed backstays adjusted belowdecks w/ hydraulic ram… Complicated… Carbon rig, in-boom furler… Huge Park Ave.-style boom….”

I hadn’t thought anything about Karl and Annamarie until late in July, when I learned that they both died in mid-June after a reefing maneuver gone very wrong in stormy conditions en route from Bermuda to Nova Scotia. Both had been airlifted from Escape by a US Coast Guard helicopter but succumbed to their wounds before ever reaching shore. 

A lengthy report, first published by Blue Water Sailing magazine and later reprinted in the newsletter Scuttlebutt, recounted the entire horrible tale, as told to veteran cruising sailor Sheldon Stuchell by one of the two additional crew on board for the trip (I was surprised by this detail because Karl had been quite clear that he preferred sailing without outside assistance). In essence, it appeared that Annamarie, handling the mainsheet, lost control of that big boom, and both she and Karl subsequently got tangled in and clobbered by its flailing sheet. 

So, if there even is one, what’s the moral of all this? Pretty simple. If it could happen to the Franks, it could happen to any of us. 

Earlier this year, I took a sailing trip with a famous, world-class mountain climber. Late one night after a few belts, we got around to talking about the perils of our respective passions, and of our friends and acquaintances who’d perished pursuing them (see “The Sail to Nowhere,” September). As I started to mentally take inventory of the longish list of ocean sailors I personally knew who have been lost at sea, it occurred to me that offshore sailing isn’t quite as hazardous as high-altitude mountaineering adventures. But it’s a damn sight closer than most of us would ever care to admit. 

A decade ago, as I’ve written before, I was part of a 28,000-nautical-mile ­expedition that sailed around North and South America via the Northwest Passage and Cape Horn. Before we shoved off, our core crew had a sobering conversation about what to do with our bodies if we didn’t make it back to shore. My answer was quick and straightforward: Commit me to the deep. I’ve got a few mates waiting for me.

And now Karl and Annamarie are waiting there too. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

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