Spinnakers popped up on the horizon like Easter bonnets on parade during the third and final day of racing in the 50th St. Thomas International Regatta (STIR). The breeze, blowing 10 to 17 knots, gave a glimpse of its traditional easterly trade winds direction on the final day of racing, a change from the unusual westerly winds that gave sailors a tactical run for their money during the regatta’s first two days. While the IC24 Class raced round-the-buoys in Great Bay, the rest of the fleet sailed a nearly 14 nm course that wove round-the-rocks across Pillsbury Sound to the north and south of St. John and back. In the end, Flying Jenny, Apollo, Exodus, Wild T’ing, Bill T and OT the App were the class winners.

The winner of the CSA 1 Class, filled with One-Design Cape 31s, wasn’t decided until the last leg of the one race of the day and the last of the regatta.

“We knew whoever won would win the regatta,” said Rob Greenhalgh, tactician aboard class champ and US-based Flying Jenny. “There was a hard fight at the start, and we won it by being at the pin end. That was the key for us. However, it was still a battle as the wind changed halfway through the course from off Moravian Point up to Henly Cay. But we crossed the finish line a minute before the other boats in our class.”

Michael Wilson’s ShotGunn, a UK entry, placed second, with the US-flagged Marc McMorris on M2, third.

The third time sailing STIR proved a charm for Donald Nicholson’s J121 (US), Apollo, in the CSA 2 Class.

“We had a well-prepared boat, fabulous crew, fair winds, good luck, and the magic of the STIR regatta,” said Nicholson, as to the secret to Apollo’s success. “We’ll be back.”Trinity IV, a J42 with crew from Tennessee, finished second, and the UK-based race charter Beneteau First 40.7, Escapado, took third.

In CSA 3, it was Puerto Rico’s Keki Figueroa driving his Melges 24, Exodus, which capped the class. It was a podium position in which Figueroa was familiar.

“I won the Hobie class here twenty years ago,” said Figueroa. “We sailed an IC24 for a while and now the Melges. My crew and I have been together for a long time. Between that and constantly watching the wind is what gave us the advantage.”

Team St. Maarten Island Water World, another Melges 24, with Jan Bus at the helm, ended the regatta as class runner-up. Puerto Rico’s Julio Reguero’s J35, Umakau, finished third.

St. Thomas sailor, Lawrence Aqui, raced his Dufour 40, Wild T’ing, to the top of the CSA Non-Spinnaker Class.

“Our team has been sailing together over a decade,” said Aqui. “That means we know the boat well, what it can and can’t do well to go fast. Local knowledge definitely helped, especially avoiding the shallows around the islands.”

In second place was Hotel California Too, US-based Steve Schmidt’s Santa Cruz 70, while Trinity VI, US-based David McDonough’s J40, finished third.

The One-Design IC24 Class was the largest grouping, totalling 15 boats. It was also the class that competed in the most races: 13 starts and finishes over three days. St. Thomas’ two-time Olympian, Cy Thompson, on Bill T, successfully defended his class-winning title.

“We had conditions this weekend that no one had seen before, but we had many of the same crew, so our team was spot on for the transitions,” said Thompson, whose crew included Maurice Kurg, Eric Cusin, Spencer LeGrande and Emma Walters.

PJ’s Magic Coffee Bus, chartered to race STIR by Guy Williams from New Orleans, placed second. In third was St. Croix-based Peter Stanton’s Big Island.

St. Thomas Sailing Center, the racing arm of the STIR host, St. Thomas Yacht Club, chartered out its Hobie Waves for STIR in addition to IC24s. Nine Waves teams raced over two days with St. Thomas’ Chris Curreri first on OT the App.

“I liked the heavier breeze today and capitalized on it,” said Curreri, past winner of the STIR IC24 Class. “It was a tough class, but a lot of fun.” 

St. Thomas’ double-handers, 12-year-old Will Zimmerman and 11-year-old Finn Hodgins, finished as runners-up with US-based Mike Compton’s Mike’s Windsurfing grabbing out third.

STIR is a Sailors for the Sea Clean Regatta featuring green initiatives such as paperless event management and a water refill station. For more information, click over to stthomasinternationalregatta.com.

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The Moorings and its sister company, Sunsail, are powerhouses of the charter industry. Their bareboat and crewed offerings can be found all around the world, including the Americas, Caribbean, Mediterranean and more exotic locales such as the Seychelles, Tahiti, and Thailand. 

In the British Virgin Islands—long the most popular destination for bareboating—the company now has 19 new monohulls, 35 new sailing catamarans and 24 new powercats as part of its fleet. These 78 yachts reportedly have a combined value of $70 million, and bring the two brands’ combined number of boats to 254.

The company, in a press release, called the additions to the BVI fleet “a welcome influx of inventory in time for peak sailing season in the Caribbean and another step in the continuous renewal of the sister companies’ fleets.”

Also in response to increased demand, The Moorings and Sunsail have stepped up their hiring process. They’re already one of the largest employers in the Virgin Islands, with a workforce of 300 employees.

“As a business, we have invested heavily in our BVI operation,” Josie Tucci, vice president of sales and marketing for The Moorings and Sunsail, stated in a press release. “As the largest charter operator in the world’s most popular charter destination, we take great care to ensure a welcoming experience for our guests, and have gone to great lengths to maximize the guest experience through our marina revitalization project, and new fleet replenishment. Ultimately, our aim is to provide an unparalleled customer experience to the many thousands of visitors we welcome each year.”

According to the company, charter business in the British Virgin Islands has been experiencing annual double-digit growth. There are new direct flights to the islands out of Miami, landing at Tortola, with all expectations for another strong year in 2024.

The Moorings also has a base at St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, with itineraries that explore around that island as well as St. John and St. Croix. Much like the British Virgin Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands is a destination that’s well-suited for first-time charterers as well as returning veterans. As The Moorings says, “The smooth cruising conditions, combined with the sensational views, countless islands to explore, and laid-back island living make St Thomas one of the best destinations in the world to visit on a sailing vacation.”

How long has The Moorings been in business? Since 1969.
How to book a boat for a bareboat or crewed charter: Click over to moorings.com

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At some charter companies, the fleets of boats can feel cookie-cutter and impersonal—stripped of any details that make clients feel like they’re aboard a true home away from home.

That’s why Waypoints Yacht Charters strives to provide a boutique-style, elevated yacht charter experience aboard boats that have character and high-end amenities, with everything from the softest blankets to the best coffee machines ready for guests to enjoy.

“The boats each have their own story,” says Susan Restauri, who, along with Waypoints president Kirstie Palmer, brings a combined 45-plus years of charter-industry experience to helping Waypoints Yacht Charters’ clients have the best possible experience.

The company’s fleet of new-model yachts is housed at four bases—in the British Virgin Islands; US Virgin Islands; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Annapolis, Maryland—always in the heart of these incredible locations for easy access to all the best sights and activities.

Waypoints BVI is located at Nanny Cay on Tortola, just a short walk from local restaurants, beach bars, provisioning spots and more. The location has an on-site spa and swimming pool, free Wi-Fi, and luxury showers, among other amenities, so charter clients can relax and feel at home even before they set off to explore the islands. There are several grocery stores in nearby Road Town where bareboaters can provision, and there are several beverage companies to choose from as well.

The US Virgin Islands location is at Frenchtown on St. Thomas, a hub of activity in the island chain. In fact, guests who start their charters here can go from the airport to the base in a 10-minute cab ride, which puts them afloat in their anchorage in less than two hours after getting off the plane. Or clients can linger near the base and take some time to check out all the local restaurants and duty-free shopping. Grocery stores are bountiful for provisioning, and some services will do provisioning in advance of the client’s arrival, so the food and stores merely have to be stowed on the boat before setting off.

In downtown St. Petersburg, the Waypoints Florida base marina is at an award-winning hotel that adjoins Vinoy Park and Beach Drive, overlooking the Vinoy Yacht Basin in Tampa Bay. Clients arriving from nearby locations can leave their vehicles in one of several easily accessible public parking lots, and access for clients flying in from farther afield is easy from Tampa International Airport, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport or Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport.

Up in Annapolis, the Waypoints base is in historic Eastport, overlooking the United States Naval Academy. Charter clients can walk or take a dinghy ride to the historic Annapolis downtown, which is filled with quaint shops and restaurants, before heading out to explore Chesapeake Bay on the boat. Grocery provisioning is convenient at this base too, with delivery available from several stores. There’s also the option of a private onboard chef from the Annapolis base, with sample menus available on request.

And no matter what other questions clients have at any of the Waypoints locations, the staff is highly experienced and prepared to answer.

“Everybody who works with us has sailing experience,” Restauri says, adding that the Waypoints staff is composed of far more than just people who take bookings over the phone. “We can actually tell you about these boats and locations.”

Options for how to enjoy time on board abound in each of the four base locations. Clients can choose to book as bareboaters or with a captain, and can select from sailing monohulls, catamarans and motoryachts from top-notch manufacturers, including Fountaine-Pajot and Dufour. Each yacht is privately owned with comfort and performance amenities such as generators, air conditioning and watermakers—again, setting the fleet apart from those that offer stripped-down boats with virtually no creature comforts at all.

Making sure clients can choose from a fleet of high-quality boats is a hallmark of the Waypoints Yacht Charters brand. One of the things that helps the team at Waypoints ensure access to top-notch charter boats is the company’s exclusive partnership with Atlantic Cruising Yachts, one of the top yacht dealers in the world, with locations across North America. ACY introduces the Waypoints brokers to yacht owners at the time they are buying and outfitting their boats, a process that lets the Waypoints team make sure from the start that everything charter guests expect will in fact be on board.

And, after a charter is booked on any boat, the Waypoints team goes above and beyond to make sure that everything the client requested is ready to go.

“We had one situation in Annapolis where a charter client didn’t get his beverage order, which he had placed himself at a local store,” Restauri says. “A member of our Waypoints team drove to the liquor store for him. That’s the kind of personalized service that sets Waypoints apart. It’s the extra step that we’re willing to take. We want people to feel totally special.”

To learn more about Waypoints Yacht Charters and to receive exclusive charter offers and event invitations, sign up for the Waypoints newsletter.

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There is nothing quite like a sailing vacation. Whether you’re after sunshine and beam reaches, rum drinks and reggae, or quiet anchorages and adventures ashore, a charter with The Moorings can have it all. Now that the world is opening back up, it’s time to ditch the staycation and choose a destination. Let’s take a look at where the hottest destinations are for 2022 and 2023, what’s changed in the world of charter sailing, and what you need to know before your next vacation.

Back to the Bahamas, BVI and USVI

Long the most popular destinations for North American sailors, bases in the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas have had major setbacks from hurricanes and the pandemic. Fortunately, those days are mostly in our wake, and charter sailors can once again easily cruise the storied waters of the Sir Francis Drake Channel, the Sea of Abaco and the Bahama Banks. 

The Moorings base is fully open in Road Town, British Virgin Islands, at Wickhams Cay II, where you will find resort-like amenities to enjoy before casting off. Travelers no longer need to preregister at the travel portal for entry clearance and all Covid entry testing requirements have been lifted as of July 15, 2022. Once aboard your boat, the rest of the BVI is yours to discover—explore the magical Baths on Virgin Gorda, sip a Painkiller at the Soggy Dollar on Jost Van Dyke, and check out the Indians, one of the best snorkeling spots in the area.During the pandemic, the US Virgin Islands surged in popularity as a charter destination due to ease of travel for US residents. Once a well-kept secret, the allure of these islands is now getting the attention it deserves. From The Moorings base at the Marina at Yacht Haven Grande, you can explore all that St. Thomas offers, including abundant shopping and nightlife, then head out to explore beautiful and laid-back St. John, where you can experience the pristine beaches of Cinnamon Bay, excellent snorkeling at Leinster Bay, and even some hiking trails at Virgin Islands National Park.

The Moorings base at the Abaco Beach Resort in Marsh Harbour, Bahamas, reopened at the end of 2021 after recovering from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Dorian in 2019. “While the impact of the storm can still be seen on the main island,” says Ian Pedersen, senior marketing manager for The Moorings, “the cruising ground and outer cays have returned to form and are a spectacular sailing destination once again.” The central location of Marsh Harbour makes it the perfect place to start your exploration of the Abacos—a longtime favorite destination for cruising sailors. Enjoy sailing in the protected waters of the Sea of Abaco to destinations that include quaint villages, such as Hope Town and Green Turtle Cay, and abundant secluded anchorages.

If you’re looking for an Out Islands experience, an Exumas charter might be for you. Departing from The Moorings base at Palm Cay Marina in Nassau, Bahamas, visitors can then cruise down to the Exuma Cays, a string of 365 islands and cays that stretch for 120 miles. Many sailors who have traveled the world agree that the Exumas are their favorite cruising ground. Once you go, you will understand. From exploring the mangrove creeks of Shroud Cay and the incredible Thunderball Grotto, to the friendly settlement of Black Point and colorful Staniel Cay, the Exumas offer a wide variety of experiences—and unforgettable sunsets on the Great Bahama Bank.

Both Bahamas destinations are fully open to vaccinated travelers, while unvaccinated visitors will need to show a negative COVID-19 test at check-in.

The Magical Med

If your dream sailing vacation includes exploring ancient ruins, villages steeped in history, and a variety of sailing conditions, a sailing vacation in the Mediterranean might be just what you’re looking for. “After so many people were unable to sail in Europe during [the pandemic], the Med sailing season is back and as popular as ever,” Pedersen says.

From The Moorings bases in Italy, Greece and Croatia, visitors can choose the Med experience that suits them best. Looking for sun-soaked beaches, quaint tavernas and excellent scuba diving? Try a charter from Corfu in Greece. Does visiting an abundance of islands offering everything from wild, barren landscapes to historic towns and lively nightlife sound ideal? A Croatia and Dalmatian Islands charter is for you. How about a view of mountain peaks, incredible cuisine and soaking in hot springs? Check out a sailing vacation from Sicily.

Whichever you choose, a charter in the Med is an incredible experience. If you are looking to do a bareboat charter in one of these destinations, you will need to have an approved sailing license, such as an International Proficiency Certificate, or have passed ASA 104 (Bareboat Cruising) or US Sailing Bareboat Cruising courses. No certifications? No worries. Crewed charters are available with a captain and a chef.

Ready to Go?

After two-plus years of various lockdowns and travel restrictions around the world, it’s no surprise that stir-crazy sailors are ready to get out there. If you’re considering a charter vacation in the near future, The Moorings strongly suggests booking as soon as possible to ensure you can get the yacht you want. “We are already seeing strong bookings for next summer and even fall of 2023,” Pedersen says.

So, gather up your crew, choose your destination and go sailing.

For more information and to start booking your charter vacation, visit www.moorings.com or speak to a vacation planner directly by calling 800-416-0247.

The post Back to Chartering (and Better than Ever) with The Moorings appeared first on Cruising World.

I was gloating about winning the first and probably only Flamingo Cup when a small crew of us gathered for Captain’s Hour aboard Luna, a ridiculously handsome Spirit 47 in Frederiksted, St. Croix. An impromptu race of four boats, all spending the season in the US Virgin Islands, had set off earlier from Christmas Cove, St. Thomas, and headed 35 miles south to St. Croix. It was great sailing, a classic Caribbean reach with lively trade winds and well-mannered loping seas. We often topped 10 knots. As the setting sun exploded into fiery ­twilight, we all agreed that the sail from St. Thomas to St. Croix is one of the best in the Caribbean.  

While it was possible to sail to other Eastern Caribbean islands this past winter, the pandemic protocols of testing and quarantines made it complicated. Like many other cruisers, Tadji and I took the opportunity to rediscover the USVI. It was a reunion of sorts for me—St. Thomas was my first Caribbean landfall back in 1980. In those days, St. Thomas was the center of Caribbean sailing and of the chartering industry, and the sprawling natural harbor draping Charlotte Amalie was a forest of masts. Gradually the British Virgin Islands wrestled the charter business away from the USVI. The BVI concentrated on bareboats instead of crewed yachts, and mooring balls eliminated the stress of anchoring. Most importantly, they perfected the beach bar.  

Today, the USVI is back as a sailing and charter destination
—and for good reason. The islands are geographically beautiful and abound with anchorages, mooring fields, marinas, and friendly residents. There’s no place in the Caribbean better for provisioning, chandleries are well-stocked, and boatyards can tackle most repairs and refits. And yes, there are plenty of beach bars. The resurgence has been partly fueled by the fact that the USVI has been on top of the pandemic from the start. It was an oasis for cruising sailors and remained open while many other islands shut down. It continues to find ways to accommodate cruisers. It requires a negative test within five days of departure from your last port, and there is easy access to testing throughout the islands when you arrive. Tadji and I were vaccinated in St. Croix  this past spring.  

The USVI consists of three main islands—St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix—and countless other small islands and spits. Christmas Cove, in the lee of St. James Island, was our most frequent anchorage. It’s swept by a cool current with nice swimming and snorkeling, and dinghy access to St. Thomas. While St. Thomas is bustling ashore, the island has several uncrowded and protected anchorages. We spent a blustery New Year’s Eve, with winds gusting to 35 knots, anchored in Brewer’s Bay near the airport. Magens Bay on the north shore is lovely, and the beach is always voted one of the best in the world.

Even devotees of the BVI admit that St. John is the most beautiful of all the Virgin Islands. Two-thirds of the island is a national park. The park service maintains moorings around the island and has cleared miles of hiking trails ashore. We often picked up a mooring in Caneel Bay, and after a morning swim, walked over a lush hill to the quaint village of Cruz Bay. St. Croix to the south is the largest and least-visited island in the USVI, at least by sailors, but that’s changing. We made the lively sail to St. Croix, departing from St. Thomas and St. John, several times. The approach to Christiansted Harbor is well-marked, but the anchorage can be a bit rolly. Christiansted is the boyhood home of Alexander Hamilton. It’s one of the most beautiful towns in the Caribbean and was the former capital of the Danish West Indies. We often tarried at Frederiksted on the western edge, anchoring near the old cruise-ship dock. The pilings are draped in healthy coral, and sea turtles nonchalantly join you for every swim. It’s not a bad place to savor a win over your fellow cruisers either, even if our trophy was a pink inflatable flamingo.

The post The USVI Remain an Oasis in Challenging Times appeared first on Cruising World.

With international travel restrictions disrupting sailing plans across the Caribbean, Americans will now have another option for getting their feet wet without ever needing to clear customs. Dream Yacht Charters will open a U.S. Virgin Islands base on June 1 in partnership with Virgin Island Yacht Charters. Boats will be docked at Compass Point Marina in Benner Bay, located on St. Thomas’ East End, close to the Red Hook area.

The USVI encompasses St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix, and the new base also can be a jumping off point for the British and Spanish Virgin Islands. Both bareboat and skippered charters will be available. According to the company’s website, the St. Thomas fleet numbers 23 boats. Multihulls include a new Bali 5.4 and Fountaine Pajot Saona 47; an FP Helia 44; and four Lagoon models, the 40, 42, 450 and 52. Monohulls include a Beneteau Oceanis 41 and Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 519.

The post New Charter Options in St. Thomas appeared first on Cruising World.

During our 13 years of world cruising, we have raised our yellow quarantine, or Q, flag dozens of times. It has flown in all four hemispheres and under all conditions—rich blue skies, dark stormy skies, during the day, and in the night. The flag has shaken the halyard, whipping and snapping in heavy weather when sailing close hauled into New Zealand with cold wet decks under tight sails and low clouds. It has hung quietly in still humid tropical air while motoring over glassy seas into southern Thailand; and it has waved gently in warm Caribbean trade winds where volcanic peaks on the horizon marked our destination after 16 days crossing the Atlantic.

At times the yellow flag has flown for two days while we have waited patiently for our turn to be cleared by officials, while in most countries it is on display for just a few hours. Frequently it flutters over an empty boat while we take our dinghy ashore to wander on sea legs through busy streets in foreign cities, searching for customs and immigration offices that have, on occasion, been located miles apart.

To the casual observer this plain yellow flag may seem rather uninspiring—after all, it bears no markings or design—yet raising it to the starboard spreader, for us at least, has always been a time of celebration and certainty. It marks our approach to land, our arrival, and the promise of a new country to explore after days, weeks, or even a whole month at sea.

But our flag has never flown in these conditions, during a global pandemic. When the majority of countries are fighting a virus behind closed borders, and where lockdowns have left many mariners literally stranded at sea with an entire ocean separating them from the nearest port offering refuge.

To the modern mariner, the Q flag represents a request for clearance. But in the 18th century “Yellow Jack,” a name given to the yellow and black checkered quarantine flag, symbolized not an arrival, but likely that of an ultimate departure. It flew as a warning from ships already riddled with infectious disease, from yellow fever, smallpox to cholera. It was an ominous and frightening message to mariners and to officials ashore that contagion had stowed away and that ship, and passengers, were contaminated. It was a haunting signal and one that resulted in quarantine, a word derived from the Italian quaranta giorni, meaning “forty days,” the length of isolation.

Our Q flag was flying above Dream Time in the US Virgin Islands when COVID-19 spread into the Caribbean, and while these islands are not home waters, they are, thankfully, home territory. And so by chance we found a sanctuary just 1,000 nautical miles from the mainland we sailed away from over 46,000 nautical miles ago, not stranded at sea or isolated in a remote corner of the world.

Our Q flag is faded now, it is no longer the vibrant yellow it once was but a softer memory of its original color. Its edges are weathered too. The fabric is worn thin and a little tattered around the edges. It has travelled with us around the world and is a welcome prelude to the milestones of our journey, unfurled and released to fly into each new country we have sailed, a satisfying and comforting ceremony that results in the raising of a new courtesy flag.

Soon we will set sail for mainland America. But as borders are closed between the Virgin Islands and Florida, we will not be raising our Q flag again on this world voyage, at least not in another foreign country. And while we do not know which overseas port our Q flag will fly next, of this I am sure: We shall sail clear of these uncertain times, Q flags will soon fly again, whipping, waving and fluttering around the world under starboard spreaders, over calmer waters, and that is an arrival we will all celebrate together.

To read more about Dream Time’s world voyage, visit: www.zeroXTE.com.

The post Raising Hope, and a Q Flag appeared first on Cruising World.

It is rare that we meet a cruising couple as enthralled with boats as Carolyn and I are. Lin and Larry Pardey come to mind. Don Street still cares. So do Alvah and Diana Simon, and Mike Litzow and Alisa Abookire. And, on the tiny island of St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where we are currently resting from the sea, there are Vicki Rogers and Thatcher Lord. Thatcher, a shipwright originally from Maine, is also a fine ship’s husband. Vicki knows her way around a brush, be it in the service of fine art (they have spent years living off her drawings) or simply to put that 10th coat of spar varnish on their sailboat’s perfectly prepped cap rail. Whenever we get together as couples, we talk boats. While we don’t always agree on specifics, we always admire our mutual passion. We have firm ideas based upon a lifetime of service to our hard-used craft, and we aren’t shy about sharing them. Sometimes it gets heated.

One of the reasons I’ve been thinking about all this is because we currently live in a yacht graveyard. Endless numbers of wrecks line the shore from Coral Bay to Cruz Bay in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is estimated that more than 63,000 boats were lost or severely damaged during the 2017 hurricane season. Each holed hull cries out to us, every forlorn mast top poking up through placid harbor water stabs our hearts. We care, deeply. We just can’t bear to see noble boats savagely wounded. It insults who and what we are as lifelong sailors and yacht caregivers. What makes our concept of life, love and liberty so intertwined with boats and the sea? One factor is long-term involvement. Boats aren’t just a hobby, they are the centerpiece of our watery lives. We comb our hair in their reflection. You can judge us by our craft, and you can judge our craft by us. Thatcher’s father, Franklin, taught him how to sail and race. But he also taught him that boats own you as much as you own them, that true sailors are more custodians of their vessels than their dictatorial owners, that boats are, for some of us sea gypsies, a sacred responsibility.

It’s a hard concept to put into words. I’ve thought about this for decades, with my pen poised over the page. The closest I can get is to say that certain sailors have the same compassion for their vessels as they do for their crews. This sets us apart, this romantic idea that we owe our boats something and that there is a sacred trust between us. This goes to the heart of what being a good ship’s husband is all about.

Thatcher purchased a rotten wreck of a boat while in his early 20s, not because there was any wood worth salvaging in its decayed bones but because it was an Alden design, built in the 1930s by Morse Brothers, of Thomaston, Maine. The boat had a spark he couldn’t allow to be snuffed out by time or circumstance.

Don’t even think about it,” as Thatcher hauled his beloved Bounty out of the water.

“I’ll be damned,” said the foreman when Thatcher relaunched the pristine wooden yacht a few years later.

During those years, Thatcher used to eat at a tiny in-yard restaurant staffed by special-needs adults, and met the young lady who organized the experimental self-­empowerment effort. She started hanging around the building site, (purposely) getting more and more in the way.

One day, while Thatcher was climbing up the ladder with a plank in one hand and a wood plane in the other, Vicki asked, “What? I don’t even get a tour of the interior?” The rest, as they say, is his-and-her-story.

Carolyn and I met them while anchored in St. Augustine, Florida, in the early 1980s. I was immediately drawn to the boat. Vicki was alone in the cockpit. She answered every technical question I had without hesitation. I was impressed. But I was even more struck by how she said, “You’re going to love to meet my husband, Thatcher Lord.”

I admire a woman who loves unabashedly. In the ensuing 40 years of friendship, every time I’ve watched Vicki glance at Thatcher, I’ve seen her love for him shine through as bright as the sun.

We cruised in company through Florida, the Bahamas and, ultimately, the Lesser Antilles. When Thatcher started skippering giant sailing yachts, I was flown in for the ocean crossings. I called sail trim on their beloved Bounty during a dozen Wood Boat Regattas at Foxy’s Bar on Jost Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands. We raced together on some of the finest American yachts during Antigua Sailing Weeks, Rolex Cups and Heineken Regattas in St. Maarten.

Back in the day, my retirement idea was pretty simple: avoid dirt dwellers and the vexations of shore. It worked for Carolyn and me. But people are different. Vicki and Thatcher weren’t quite as fond of poverty as we were, so they decided to build a house on St. John and then rent it out so they could go cruising into the sunset without money worries.

It was a good plan and a long-term strategy that many of the folks reading this story might have today.

In order to afford the land and the materials to accomplish this dream, they sold Bounty to a wealthy entrepreneur. The new owner received a pristine, now famous-in-the-Caribbean yacht, and they got a pile of money. Thatcher banged his hammer above some dirt, and one of the nicest, most serene houses on St. John was conjured up, a home so tranquil it felt like a snug boat in a safe harbor.

But nothing is safe in the world. In fact, life itself can be viewed as one long risk assessment gone awry.

The first thing that went wrong was the deterioration of Bounty. Thatcher had reincarnated her, and couldn’t bear to witness her slow degradation.

“You sold her,” I’d say, and he’d glance away guiltily and mutter, “I know I did, Fatty, but, damn it!”

One day, Vicki called Thatcher with sad news, and he ran down to Round Bay. There was Bounty‘s mast forlornly sticking up from the water. She’d sunk. Thatcher asked me what to do.

“Do nothing,” I said, grimacing. “It’s not your problem.”

But Thatcher is Thatcher, and wouldn’t be if he could bear to see his beloved Bounty resting on the bottom. So, illegally, without permission and at his own expense of time, money and sweat, he raised her from the sea.

Then he went back to working on his house. As the building project finally wound down, he and Vicki purchased a derelict Rhodes 41 — a graceful, beautifully designed fiberglass 41-foot yawl — and began the long process of restoring it to better-­than-new condition.

Thatcher doesn’t mess around. He took the Rhodes to bits. Over the course of several years, he replaced its wooden rudder, re-laid its teak deck and disassembled the wooden box spars and laboriously reglued them with epoxy. His attention and devotion to detail was amazing. He even wove new cane mats to mount behind the interior’s ventilation holes.

A decade or two went by, and Trinka, the Rhodes, became nearly as famous a classic as Bounty had been.

But fate wasn’t done with Thatcher. His boat’s halyards seemed as though they were jamming on something. He was having difficulty raising sail. Once he realized all the masthead sheaves were spinning freely, he went to Doc Clayton, had some tests done and then traveled to New York City for more exams.

Now, I’m not a physician and don’t understand exactly what kind of cancer it was, only that it was going to kill him unless he could come up with a bone marrow donor and go through a tricky, debilitating two-year medical procedure. Everyone in his family raised their hand.

One of Thatcher’s sisters was a perfect match, and in the end, it all worked out. Hooray! He was cancer-free and perhaps might be called the luckiest man in the world. All he had to do at that point was to regain his strength and he’d be right back to where he was before the hospitals siphoned every cent from his pockets.

But so what of the dollars? Life is life, and life is precious. Modern miracles cost money. Who cares about their depleted bank account or their once sensible, logical, carefully implemented plan to go cruising into the sunset?

Still, the whole ordeal was a roller-coaster ride, I’ll tell you. Not just for Thatcher and Vicki but for their family and many dear friends. Then came last fall’s hurricanes Irma and, soon thereafter, Maria. It doesn’t matter which one sank Trinka — or which one damaged the house. It matters only that as the storms sputtered out, the flooding ceased and the rain stopped, Vicki and Thatcher were financially back where they’d been when he’d happily taken her hand to help her up Bounty‘s ladder.

So you see, dear readers, I don’t have time to grieve over those 63,000 sunken or destroyed boats. I’m too busy worrying about friends. And I guess Thatcher still values my opinion because he invited me down to Bjork Creek to survey and assess the damage to his sunken craft.

I looked at those masts sticking up out of the water and wanted to cry. I wanted to tell Thatcher something jaunty and hopeful to make him laugh. He’d had a rough patch.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie. Trinka had been underwater too long. Its box spars were already beginning to delaminate, the new teak decks to curl. The sailboat was worthless, and that wasn’t even mentioning the large hole in the hull, the rusted-tight engine or all the ruined electro-doodads.

“Walk away,” I said coldly, staring at the masts. “It will take years in the yard, Thatch. We’re too old. We don’t have that many years left.” Then, I heard a terrific grunting sound behind me, someone straining with all their might. I turned to look.

There were scuba tanks standing beside Thatcher’s pickup, and he was laboriously dragging some yellow air bags through the mangroves. I shivered. He was going to raise her — a sacred trust.

The Goodlanders wintered over in the Virgin Islands, readying their Wauquiez Amphitrite Ganesh for its next round-the-world adventure. Fatty’s latest book, Cruising Boat Basics, is now available at Amazon.

The post Virgin Island Sailors Bounce Back appeared first on Cruising World.

Forget the hurricanes: It’s business as usual at Blue Water Sailing School, which reopens December 2, 2017, in St. Thomas, in the United States Virgin Islands. Most of its fleet was not in the Virgin Islands and sustained no fall storm damage.

The school’s base, at American Yacht Harbor in the village of Red Hook, St. Thomas, offers courses through the American Sailing Association curriculum. Among them are Course A+ Cat: Bareboat Catamaran Skipper, a one-week liveaboard cruising course, and Course A: Bareboat Monohull Skipper, starting mid-January 2018.

For more details contact Blue Water Sailing School (www.bwss.com).

The post Blue Water Sailing School Opens in December appeared first on Cruising World.

As a serial circumnavigator, I’m addicted to the new: new harbors, new oceans, new people. But we are currently back in our beloved Virgin Isles, where we are instead contentedly cruising the intimately familiar. My wife, Carolyn, keeps asking me, “Do you need a chart?” and I keep replying happily, “No, I know these waters like the back of my own hand.”

Once upon a time, I thought St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, was the most beautiful island in the world. I now know that there are islands around the world that share the beauty of St John. Fatu Hiva’s harbor is dramatic; Chagos is remote; Cape Town is impressive; Phang Nga Bay is otherworldly; and Bora Bora is beautiful because of its encircling reef, jagged ridgeline and breathtaking lagoon.

Though we hail from the Midwest, Carolyn and I have spent more time living and sailing in the U.S. Virgins than in the continental United States, and thus, there are more people we love on tiny St. John than in all of the 50 states combined. That is why we’ve been returning for a year or so between circumnavigations to hug those continentals and West Indians we love so dearly and who have treated us so well through the sun-kissed decades.

St. John is home in every sense of the word, regardless of whether we are anchored in Great Cruz, Caneel, Maho, Coral Bay or Salt Pond.

The very best thing we did while headquartering out of St. John from the late ’70s to the year 2000 was raise our daughter, Roma Orion, aboard. She allowed us to experience the delights of the cruising life anew through her fresh eyes. Yes, our cup runneth over in terms of family love and family cruising, which are one and the same to us Goodlanders.

And so it was immediately apparent these past few months that Carolyn and I were missing something precious as we sailed through our hometown islands and Virgin memories: our daughter, Roma Orion. “But Dad,” she said over the phone from her Asian island home, “Singapore is so far away. It is so expensive to fly. And I don’t think I can get time off work.”

“Honey,” I said softly, “I didn’t raise you to value mundane pencil-pushing over extraordinary sailing, and while Singapore might be far away, these modern jets are extremely weatherly. Loosen up the purse strings, OK? Work can wait. The ocean calls. Come visit.”

So we recently spent a wonderful month cruising small distances in very familiar places with our daughter, Roma, and her daughters, Sokù Orion and Tessa Maria. In a sense, our laughter-filled journey was twofold: Roma was reliving her aquatic youth while Sokù and Tessa were inventing theirs.

Roma’s favorite moments this trip came as we were anchored off the Bitter End Yacht Club on Virgin Gorda, in the British Virgin Islands. This has been one of our favorite anchorages since the 1970s. We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Sand Palace, a free-of-charge palm-fronded video hut on the beach, and explained to 6-year-old Sokù and 3-year-old Tessa that this sacred palace was the only place their mother had a chance to watch a movie until she went off to Brandeis at age 18 on scholarship.

“But she could watch her iPad, right?” asked Sokù.

“Nope,” said Roma. “Nor did we have a 12-volt TV aboard. And it was an all-day beat to windward to get here on the engineless Wild Card from St. John, but it was worth it to see an actual movie!”

Roma also still remembers every business from St. Thomas to Trinidad that sold Ladybird books or Archie and Veronica comics. They were two items that almost bankrupted me as a struggling writer.

“Turtle!” Tessa screamed on the east end of Jost Van Dyke, when she spied one slowly poke its nose in the air.

“The USVI is one of the few places in the world with a growing turtle population,” Roma told her. Then she recounted her tales of helping turtle hatchlings on St. Croix find the sea on a full-moon night as an environmentally aware teenager.

“Gosh,” said Sokù while looking down at Barry the Barracuda, who lived under our boat while in Salt Pond. “Those grinning teeth sure look nasty!”

“Snake!” yelled Tessa at a moray eel a foot or two beneath the surface. “I see a green snake!”

Both girls love being toyed with by the Mysterious Wave Splasher, the patient underwater god who waited and waited as we sailed to windward, and then splashed them when they least expected it.

Sokù, being older, helped us with our ship’s chores. She especially enjoyed raising and lowering the dinghy on its davits, paying out the staysail tag line and helping Grandma pick up a mooring in national park waters.

And, of course, we sang songs as we sailed. “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor,” “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” and “A Whole Boat of Mixed Up Animals” were our family favorites.

We all laughed when I asked Tessa what her favorite sea chantey was and she immediately replied, “‘She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain when She Comes’!”

Close enough.

“Can I switch on the anchor light?” asked Sokù as the sun set astern of us. (In this part of the tropics, the sun always sets astern while we’re at anchor because our vessel is always pointed into the easterly trade winds.)

We found it interesting to sail with our daughter while she was actively parenting and nurturing her own two children, a much more stressful job than merely being a kid aboard while we were doing the same with her.

“Now I realize why you always made me wear my safety harness offshore and a life jacket while in the cockpit,” Roma informed us. “Although, it drove me nuts at the time.” For the record, Roma could swim at an early age. We began “drown-proofing” her at 3 months.

In our month together, there were little surprises that delighted us. I was reading a book on the aft deck when Sokù approached and asked unexpectedly, “Grandpa, can we check the oil?”

I immediately stopped what I was doing. We went below and I watched her remove the dipstick from our still-warm diesel, wipe the oil off with a soft cloth, reinsert the dipstick and finally check the oil level. “Never use a paper towel,” I reminded her. “Tiny bits can adhere to the stick and eventually clog up the engine.”

“The level is a tiny bit low,” she said, showing me the dipstick.

“That’s only about an eighth of a quart down,” I replied. “This Perkins M92B never burns a drop. She’ll be fine until the next oil change.”

Besides mastering the mechanical, there was a larger lesson there: Never get overly complacent, and always check to confirm what you think you know. Perhaps Sokù was too young to fully grasp it, but I’ll show her again and again when she visits, until she absorbs it.

How do you know when you demonstrate something to a young sailor that it might benefit them for their entire life, both ashore and afloat? That’s why I always try to seize the teachable moments when the kids are totally engaged, not just when it’s convenient for me.

At 65 years of age, I value my privacy and the silence of the sea that normally embraces me. Carolyn and I are a solitary couple, for the most part, but I love the chaos of visiting family as well. I consider it a great compliment that Roma, who could easily vacation in any luxury destination on Earth, often chooses to spend time with us aboard our boat. Then again, she’s been on the boat in Tahiti, Australia, Thailand, Asia, South Africa, South America and the Caribbean.

Perhaps the best times of this most recent voyage came after a highly active day when the grandkids fell asleep and Carolyn, Roma and I sat in the cockpit under a million stars. “How is The Sea Gypsy Manifesto coming?” Roma inquired about my current writing project.

“Fine,” I replied. “And how is corporate life on the fast track of Singapore?”

The questions are not important, really, nor are the answers — but the asking and the replying is everything. Love is made from such mundane evening mutterings.

Too soon, the blissful month was up. The kids were both sunburned. They had boat bumps, mosquito bites and stories galore. I luffed up into the bay beside the St. Thomas airport. Carolyn and Sokù seamlessly lowered the dinghy into the water as though they were practiced partners. Then our daughter gave us the ultimate compliment by sighing and saying, “I’m not ready to leave yet; I want to sail just a few more miles.”

“Don’t worry,” Carolyn told her while hugging Tessa. “We’ll sail Ganesh back to Singapore soon.”

The sea had worked its magic, as it always does. We were tired but not weary. We were comfortable in our own skins, and happy within each other’s embrace. Sokù said proudly, “Ganesh is the best boat in the whole wide world!”

One thing is for sure: This sailing family agreed.

Please consider donating to the relief efforts currently underway in some of Cap’n Fatty’s favorite cruising destinations affected by recent hurricanes, including St. John in the USVI.

Click here to learn how to help.

Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn are getting ready to point the bow of Ganesh toward the southern Caribbean, just south of the hurricane belt, where they’ll slowly prepare to shove off on their fourth circumnavigation in early 2018.

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