Regardless of your position on climate change, two undeniable truths have emerged in recent times: Our oceans are warming, and severe weather events are occurring more sporadically and with greater intensity. As has many a cruiser, I’ve had the displeasure of witnessing both of these happenings firsthand.   

On one boating excursion with friends this past summer in the Florida Keys, not too far from Key Largo, we floated over branch after branch of lifeless white coral that looked more like something from a snow globe than a tropical paradise. Those silvery corals, which are becoming more the norm than the exception these days, are but a small telltale of a much broader issue: In and around the tropics, coral reefs are bleaching at an alarming pace, and many of them are dying.

As the science has been telling us, one culprit is extreme heat. Raise your hand if you thought this past summer felt a little warmer than usual (read: “like the fiery pits of hell” in some locales). As I understand it from some of our islands-based readers, the Caribbean was cooked—literally. Some buoys where I live in South Florida registered temperatures in excess of 100 degrees in July. That’s not a nice, warm bath; that’s a hot tub. And it’s well beyond the threshold for coral bleaching in the region.

Not only are oceans warming, but they are also becoming more acidic as they absorb carbon dioxide from the air, posing a threat to marine life that relies on calcium carbonate to form hard shells and other vital components of marine ecosystems. It’s not only about aesthetics. Climate scientists, with decades of research, foresaw these consequences, and we are now witnessing the realization of their predictions with stronger storms and more-frequent extreme-weather events.

As the consequences of these changes ripple through the maritime world, the global sailing community is facing unprecedented challenges. More than any other group, sailors possess an acute awareness of nature’s nuances, from wind and waves to storms and calms. Climate change has entered their glossary, becoming a defining factor in their cruising endeavors. The impacts are far-reaching.

As we reported in our November/December 2023 issue, changes in global weather conditions across the world’s cruising routes prompted the need for an update to the book Cornells’ Ocean Atlas. According to its co-author, Jimmy Cornell, trade winds, once reliable companions for sailors, are now shifting in strength and consistency because of the accelerated warming of polar regions. Once regarded as one of the most reliable trade-wind routes in the world, the trans-Atlantic passage, a traditional route for more than 1,000 boats annually, has become less predictable, prompting sailors to seek alternative paths to find favorable winds.

Fast-forward to Cornell’s latest findings, which reflect on a forewarning he made in 1994 about the impact of climate change on sailing routes, emphasizing the increasing unpredictability and intensity of weather conditions. In the 30 years since, global weather patterns have in fact undergone significant changes, marked by rising ocean temperatures, melting ice caps, and more-active hurricane seasons. Interviews with fellow sailors reveal unanimous concern about climate change’s threat to voyages and its broader impact on humanity, while issues such as overfishing, pollution, and rising sea levels are also raising concerns.

Despite these challenges, sailors express a determination to embark on long voyages, emphasizing safety measures and reliable weather information. While the insurance industry anticipates increased challenges and costs because of climate-change-related events, an increasing number of sailors are heading to high latitudes for more-favorable conditions, acknowledging the impact of climate change on sea conditions in these regions.

If there’s a positive somewhere in this, it’s that the Northwest Passage is more accessible to pleasure boaters than ever before. And as temperatures continue to increase, that passage is likely to be open more often in future summers. Don’t miss world wanderer and Cruising World contributor Ben Zartman’s exciting recount of his recent trek from Greenland to Alaska, which graced the pages of our March 2024 issue.

Like it or not, as sailors, we find ourselves on the front lines of these changes, intimately connected to our surroundings and witnesses to the impacts of a changing climate. As we navigate the future, I expect our big little cruising community to play a vital role in raising awareness, advocating for action, and minimizing our own impacts on the waters we cherish.

The post Winds of Change appeared first on Cruising World.

Your vessel’s spars undergo a constant torture test, almost from the day they are stepped. They are compressed and tensioned, exposed to cyclical loading, and battered by sunlight, salt spray, rain and potentially extreme temperature variations. It’s a wonder they hold up for as long as they do.

Most spars are made from aluminum alloy, typically 6061 series. Its strength-to-weight ratio, durability and corrosion resistance make it well-suited to the task. When exposed to the atmosphere, it immediately develops an invisible yet tough aluminum-oxide coating, which slows the corrosion process to a veritable crawl, provided a few criteria are achieved. Chief ­among these is near-­continuous exposure to ­oxygen. Herein lies the problem for spars that are painted.  

Aluminum is subject to a type of corrosion called poultice when it is exposed to water (typically, stagnant) that’s oxygen-depleted. When aluminum is painted, its surface no longer has access to oxygen. This prevents the formation of corrosion-preventive film. 

However, because the paint also excludes water—a necessary element in the poultice corrosion process—the aluminum remains corrosion-free.   

The challenge arises in maintaining a contiguous coating of paint. Wherever there is a breach, water can enter, setting in motion the poultice corrosion demon.  

Because spars are filled with holes, fittings and fasteners, and are subject to chafe and the occasional impact, maintaining this contiguous coating can be challenging.  

With nearly all painted spars, and with virtually all other painted aluminum deck components, poultice corrosion begins at hardware and fastener installations. By virtue of the installation itself, the paint coating is invariably fractured. Once water migrates beneath the paint, it interacts with the oxygen-deprived aluminum, generating an aluminum hydroxide blister. Beneath that blister, you will find a ­powdery (if the water has drained away) or gooey and whitish substance. Unchecked, it will cause the aluminum surface to waste away, leaving behind indentations or pits, ultimately compromising the integrity of the structure and leading to failure.

Poultice corrosion can be exacerbated if the paint breach is covered with a material that retains water. A classic location for this scenario is beneath spreader boots, where coatings are often fractured by standing rigging. The damage, even if to paint alone, can be costly to repair. 

I’ve also learned that spar poultice corrosion is relatively easy to prevent. First, wherever possible, avoid damage to paint. When it does occur, touch it up as quickly as possible. 

Because spars are filled with holes, fittings and fasteners, and are subject to chafe and the occasional impact, maintaining this contiguous coating can be challenging.

Second, make certain that every fastener and hardware flange that contacts the spar’s painted surface is thoroughly bedded in polyurethane or polysulfide bedding compound. While this does not prevent the paint breach, it does immediately fill it, preventing water from entering.

 Note that compounds are available for use on the threads of stainless fasteners that are screwed into aluminum substrates. While those are valuable in preventing galvanic corrosion and fastener seizure, they do not address the paint breach issue specifically, and they are not suitable for bedding of flanged components such as padeyes, winches, steps and antenna bases.  

Maintain coating integrity by bedding all hardware and fasteners, and you will keep your painted spars free of unsightly blisters while eliminating most poultice corrosion.

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting. 

The post How to Protect Your Spars from Corrosion appeared first on Cruising World.

Chafe has many sadistic variations. I’ll never forget reaching into my hanging locker after an ocean crossing and taking out my favorite shirt, which had been reduced to lace from the constant swinging. My wife, Carolyn, laughed—until she realized her favorite party dress was now see-through as well. 

From then on, we’ve always put our favorite apparel in the center of the clothes bar and then shock-corded our clothes tightly to the bulkhead. (Better to arrive with wrinkled clothes than holey ones.)

Similarly, we almost never carry jugs on deck. However, if we must, we make sure their contact points have bits of rubber glued to them so that our rough nonslip doesn’t rasp through the plastic in the first week or two of a trans-Pacific passage. 

With the exception of our veggie nets (which allow our veggies to breathe), we have nothing swinging belowdecks. Why? Because my wife finds the motion to be seasickness-inducing, and I hate discovering arcs of ruined varnish on bulkheads where swinging items rub. 

Yes, sailors of yore had to be particularly vigilant against chafe. I can remember being a child aboard the schooner Elizabeth and chanting, “Worm and parcel with the lay, turn and serve the other way” as we protected our three-strand running rigging with this three-step process. 

While wave frequency varies widely, a common belief is that there are eight waves per minute. (Many scientists say six to 12.) At eight per minute, that’s more than 11,000 corkscrewing waves per day. Since most of our circumnavigations have totaled more than a year of being at sea—because we’re slowpokes and don’t cruise in a straight line—that translates to around 4 million waves per circ. That’s a lot of random motion. 

Let’s look at it another way. My wife loves pearls. Each time we pass through Polynesia, we visit pearl farmers so that I can dive her up a few more. Of course, we ask permission, and then open and pay for the resulting cultured pearls. We find it interesting to harvest our own pearls. When giving them as gifts, we like to be able to say, “As I opened the oyster in Kauehi and saw this lovely pearl, I thought of you.” 

However, as lovely as pearls are, they aren’t robust. Thus, when I put my favorite gargantuan eggplant pearl—a dark pearl with a lustrous nacre that flashes green—into a rough wooden container and stowed it for safekeeping—oops. It was ruined by rolling back and forth a zillion times across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans. 

Why do I mention this? Because, for boaters who spend a lot of time at sea, chafe isn’t something that only occasionally happens to anchor rodes or dock lines. It is anything that results in damage as a result of the vessel’s back-and-forth movement at sea.  

Most modern cruising boats have spreaders, and sails that rub against those spreaders. This is a problem for ocean sailors rolling downwind continuously. On two occasions, we’ve purchased a new mainsail, sailed it across an ocean, and then added chafe patches at all the discolored spots. This allows a mainsail to last longer than a circumnavigation—not get holes rubbed through it during its first ocean crossing. 

Of course, sailors can solve spreader chafe from the opposite direction as well. Often, just gluing a tiny slit hose to the after side of sharp aluminum spreaders can dramatically reduce mainsail chafe. 

I have running backs on my mizzen. Dacron is wonderful stuff, but it doesn’t allow the stitching to “set” into the fabric like the soft Egyptian cotton of my youth. Thus, on my mizzen, I have to guard against thread chafe as much as fabric chafe. 

On my first few boats, I used baggywrinkle. This was fun to make, and it looks ultra-traditional. But, of course, you have to carry that windage upwind as well as down. Baggywrinkle is also heavy when wet. Thus, I’ve discarded my baggywrinkle on the garbage heap of bygone tradition. 

Numerous vessels with permanent staysail stays have their jibs fail early from thread chafe against the stay while tacking or while slatting in the doldrums. And cockpit awnings, while optional in northern climes, are almost mandatory in the tropics. They too suffer from chafe in unexpected forms. Ditto wind scoops, which we carry in different sizes and designs. (Carolyn’s “Big Shoulders” scoop turns the whole boat into a wind tunnel.)

Which brings us to hurricanes, during which chafe plays a major (and sometimes fatal) role. I could write a whole book about chafe at 100-plus knots—and basically did so after Hurricane Hugo in 1989. This is a very complicated subject. What follows is just a taste.

We carry three nylon snubbers for our anchor chain: a 35-foot, ¾-inch snubber, and two slightly shorter ones. All of them are protected by a long plastic hose at the spot where they go over the anchor roller or chock. 

During hurricane season, we also carry a square foot of ¾-inch plywood with four holes and Kevlar attachment lines, in case a chock or bow roller shears off. A nylon rode or snubber can’t bear on anything hard for more than a few minutes while surging. 

Why? Because we don’t want to experience what one boat I know had happen in Culebra, Puerto Rico. This boat’s anchor chain chafed through the bottom of an aluminum chock, mahogany cap rail, fiberglass toe rail and, eventually, the hull and deck. It just kept going until the chain had a straight line from its windlass attachment point to the anchor. The boat ended up with the jagged chain slot a mere 2 inches above the surface of the harbor.

That’s right: Anchor chains can turn into linear chainsaws while surging in winds of Force 12 on the Beaufort scale.

Another hurricane-season must for us is having a tub of cheap automotive grease and a crowbar in our anchor locker. 

The grease is to smear the boat, plywood and line. Isn’t that messy? You’re damn right it is, but a grease-smeared vessel above the water is better than a pristine vessel beneath it. And why the crowbar? To ease the rode or snubber without it escaping or running too far. 

On the homebuilt 36-foot Carlotta, I had two 4-by-4 hardwood bitts that ran from my stem. They were through-bolted up the forward crash bulkhead, and they emerged from the deck with a bronze pin (old prop shaft, actually) driven through both. Super strong.

During Hugo, I went forward every hour or so wearing a mask and a safety harness. Once at the bitts, I’d use my crowbar to work slack into the snubber (from the slack side) until the nylon would re-cinch onto the bitts. This allowed the chafe point to be moved only a couple of inches with no danger of it getting away from me. (Later, I was amazed to see the resulting deep, deep gouges in the hardwood.) 

Temperature plays a part in nylon-rode failure. Heat buildup can be a problem. Thus, some old hands in the Caribbean use a short section of Dacron line at the chafe point, claiming it isn’t as weakened as nylon is by the frictional heat, but I personally don’t have the hard science to recommend this practice. 

Each Caribbean hurricane that a sailor survives, especially if they lose the vessel, has steep learning curves that aren’t forgotten. During Hurricane Hugo, a Category 5 with steady 120-knot winds gusting to 140, a rare storm phenomenon that I’d never even heard of came into play. 

We were anchored in Ensenada Honda, a relatively shallow bay off Puerto Rico. The boats, starting with the full-keel vessels and soon involving the fin-keelers, started turning at odd angles to the wind. Some actually walked to windward against more than 100 knots of breeze.

Impossible? I would have thought so, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The result was extreme shock-loading on the anchor gear and anchor rollers, from radically different angles. 

I believe that in the large but shallow bay, the 120 knots of wind caused the surface water to move downwind at a high velocity, ultimately forcing all that water to get back to windward along the bottom (or lower portion) of the bay. Thus, some of the full-keelers were turning almost sideways and appeared to be “leeway-ing” themselves to windward. Really strange.

Of course, the problem with eliminating chafe is often one of unintended consequences. In the Indian Ocean, I was spending so much time double-reefed that my braided Dacron reef lines were severely chafing in the area of the foot cringle. I put ultra-lightweight high-tech blocks at the cringle, eliminating the line chafe—only to have the flailing blocks start to damage the fabric. 

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. And we’ve just barely scratched the surface of chafe, really. 

For example, I installed my M92B Perkins diesel 12 years ago, with more than an inch between my steering sheeves and the 4-inch exhaust hose above it. Unfortunately, this water-filled hose sagged over the decades and began touching the rough-cast whirling bronze sheeves just beneath. I caught the problem in time, but it could have resulted in dangerous exhaust gases getting belowdecks while one of us slept (and, potentially, didn’t wake up). 

While my engine runs smoothly at rpm, it jiggles like a maniac at idle. Thus, three times in the past 64 years of living aboard, I’ve experienced fuel leaks by the hose or copper fuel tubing coming into unexpected contact with the shaking engine. 

We’ve also overheated from a hose sagging or heeling into a fan belt. Chafe, chafe, chafe. We almost never touch a dock. We live at anchor or on a mooring. Thus, our home is almost never stationary. And the truth is that our boat is filled with hoses, wires and plastic bits. This means that even a rolling soup can will become dangerous if the boat is allowed to roll, roll, roll long enough. 

And we haven’t even touched on dinghies and their davits. Or our Para-Tech sea anchor or Jordan Series drogue. They all come with massive chafe issues.

Yes, experienced seamen and seawomen nobly fight back against King Neptune’s and Mother Ocean’s sickest chafe tricks, but often with scant success. My father used to say, with great sadness, “A greenhorn wanting to install a strap eye in his bunk area just stupidly drills through the top of his water tank about half the time, while an experienced sailor knows that the water tank is there and so carefully measures, and drills through the tank nearly 100 percent of the time.”

And yes, the weirdest stuff happens on boats. Two of my friends were sinking off Panama’s San Blas Islands during a severe gale in the ’80s. Everything in the boat was floating and had clogged the three bilge pumps. They were wading around in waist-high bilge water, attempting to hand-bail with buckets, hour after hour. At midnight, totally exhausted, one said to the other: “This is horrible. What the hell could be worse than this?”

Just then, the poly straps keeping the holding tank in its cradle chafed through. The tank broke loose, twisted off its hose, popped to the surface next to them, and spewed its odiferous contents like a white whale with diarrhea. 

“You had to ask, didn’t you?” the other friend screamed.  “You had to ask!”

The post Fatty Goodlander: Dealing with Chafe While Cruising appeared first on Cruising World.

I wrote these words in the foreword of my book World Cruising Routes: “Sailing routes depend primarily on weather, which changes little over the years. However, possibly as a result of the profound changes that have occurred in the ecological balance of the world environment, there have been several freak weather conditions in recent years. The most worrying aspect is that they are rarely predicted, occur in the wrong season and often in places where they have not been known before. Similarly, the violence of some tropical storms exceeds almost anything that has been experienced before.” 

I continued: “The depletion of the ozone layer and the gradual warming of the oceans will undoubtedly affect weather throughout the world and will increase the risk of tropical storms. The unimaginable force of mega hurricanes Hugo and Andrew should be a warning of worse things to come. All we can do is heed those warnings, make sure that the seaworthiness of our boats is never in doubt, and, whenever possible, limit our cruising to the safe seasons. Also, as the sailing community depends so much on the forces of nature, we should be the first in protecting the ­environment, and not contribute to its callous destruction.”

It’s been 30 years since then, and every word still holds true. Global weather conditions have seen major changes, especially in terms of the location, frequency, intensity and extra-seasonal occurrence of tropical cyclones. In its sixth assessment on the impact of climate change, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stressed the urgency to act, warning that climate change is causing dangerous disruption in nature, and is affecting billions of people.

Our oceans are getting warmer.

The Arctic ice cap is melting at a faster rate than in any ­recorded time, as reported from Greenland.

The ice shelf surrounding Antarctica is diminishing at an unprecedented rate.

Tropical-storm seasons are less clearly defined and more active. Extra-seasonal tropical storms are more common.

The Gulf Stream rate is slowing down.

Coral is dying because of warming oceans.

According to one recent report, the astonishing pace of warming in the oceans is the greatest challenge of our generation. It’s altering the distribution of marine species from microbes to whales, reducing fishing areas, and spreading diseases to humans.

Warmer ocean temperatures and higher sea levels are expected to magnify their impact and intensity. Areasaffected by hurricanes are shifting poleward. This shift is likely associated with expanding tropics caused by higher global average temperatures. 

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an increase in Category 4 and 5 hurricanes is likely, with hurricane windspeeds rising as much as 10 percent. Warmer sea temperatures also are causing hurricanes to be wetter, with 10 percent to 15 percent more precipitation from cyclones projected in a 3.6-degree Fahrenheit increase in mean global temperatures.

The timing of the cyclone seasons is an essential factor in ­voyage planning. One result of climate change is that tropical storms are now occurring outside of the accepted time frame. Although the official North Atlantic hurricane season continues to be June 1 to November 30, in the past 10 years, five of the 161 named storms occurred in May. The earliest among them was Tropical Storm Ana, which affected the southeast United States from May 8 to 11, 2015. The latest-occurring hurricane in recent years was Otto, which caused much damage in southern Central America between November 20 and 25, 2016. 

More-active hurricane seasons are also expected in the eastern North Pacific—in the area between Mexico, Central America and Hawaii. The behavior of hurricanes here is similar to that of the North Atlantic, and the critical season, officially lasting from May 15 to November 30, is also lengthening. Among the 205 named storms recorded in the past 10 years, nine have occurred in May, four of them in the first half of the month. The earliest, Andres, occurred between May 9 and 11, 2021, while the latest, Sandra, struck between November 23 and 28, also in 2021.  

These examples have a direct bearing on voyage planning. They show the importance of not arriving in the critical area before early December, and of leaving it before early May. The critical season should be considered to last from May 1 to November 30.

In the Northwest Pacific, the frequency and force of typhoons are also increasing, with some super typhoons having gusts of 200 knots or more. Typhoons have been recorded in every month of the year, with a well-defined safe season now a thing of the past. 

Similarly, in the North Indian Ocean, the severity and destructive power of cyclones have also intensified. The trend in the Southern Hemisphere points in the same direction. In the South Indian and South Pacific oceans, the cyclone seasons last longer, and the frequency of extra-seasonal cyclones has increased. 

I have been monitoring global weather conditions since the 1980s, and I’ve regularly surveyed long-distance sailors for more than 40 years. Most recently, I interviewed 50 sailors about their views on climate change and its effects on future voyages. Most of them are active sailors, with more than half having completed at least one circumnavigation. 

In 2018, a similar survey found a few who had doubts about the seriousness of climate change’s effects, but this time, with one exception, everyone agreed that the threat is serious, not only to future voyages, but also to mankind itself. 

Some sailors also expressed other concerns, such as ­overfishing, widespread pollution, and the threat that rising sea levels pose to tropical atolls and low-lying areas. Another area of concern is the change in attitudes toward visiting sailors. This was highlighted during the pandemic, when many countries imposed restrictions that forced visiting boats to stay at anchor for long periods of time. There were several reported cases of hostility toward sailors from authorities and local ­people, even in areas where previously visiting sailors were warmly welcomed. 

I also asked these sailors whether climate change would influence their decision to plan a world voyage now. With only one exception, they said that while they were aware of the considerable effects, they would still leave on a long voyage. Basic safety measures would include arriving in the tropics well before the safe season, and allowing a safe margin by leaving before its end; avoiding the critical period altogether; monitoring the weather and having a Plan B; and making sure their insurance company agreed with any plans they made to leave the boat unattended.

Ric De Cristofano, director of underwriting at Topsail Insurance in the United Kingdom, tells me that climate change is likely to be the main topic for insurers throughout the next ­decade. Internal models at these companies are forecasting higher frequency and severity of hurricanes, and even of lesser weather events such as electrical storms.

“The impact on boat owners planning to go cruising will be both direct and indirect,” he says. “The former is likely to include increased coverage restrictions along the lines of no Caribbean windstorm cover, and for such risks to be rated higher by insurers. As for the latter, the insurance industry is preparing itself for large and catastrophic insurance events to become more frequent, which ultimately will lead to cost increases across a whole range of services.”  

The sailors whom I surveyed all stressed the even greater ­importance of having reliable access to weather information in this world of changing conditions. PredictWind is the most popular source of weather data and forecasts for sailors on ocean passages. Nick Olson, business development manager at PredictWind, says that, yes, weather events will become more extreme, “but that is the type of event we aim to avoid already.”

PredictWind will have new tools aimed at extreme weather coming online soon, he says: “One will alert you when there are certain factors, which could produce extreme weather that would trigger potential thunderstorms. Another extreme we might see is having more light winds. Our departure-planning and ­weather-routing tools both rely on forecast modeling, which will adapt to climate changes and predict the expected conditions like they do now in producing the short-term forecasts.”

One visible result of climate change is the increasing number of sailors heading for high latitudes, to capitalize on more-­favorable polar conditions. I benefited from this myself with the successful transit of the Northwest Passage in 2015, which was possible as a direct result of climate change. 

Voyages to Antarctica fall into a similar category, and no one is in a better position to comment about that region than Skip Novak, widely considered the world’s authority on high-latitude sailing. He sees weather and sea-ice concentrations changing.

“For those of us who sailed regularly in the Southern Ocean from 40 years ago, the consensus of colleagues is that sea ­conditions seem much more volatile than before,” Novak says. “One theory of substance is that in the Southern Ocean, the westerlies are being compromised by winds pushing through this band from the north, certainly more often than in previous decades. This causes the steady, long swells that we have formerly experienced to be less consistent with more ­washing-machine-like conditions.”

It’s tricky to postulate on sea-ice concentrations for ­navigation. Novak says that for sure, temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have spiked from 40 years ago, but this does not necessarily mean less sea ice in any given year. A cold winter and lack of strong winds from spring into summer will leave inshore waters ice-choked, sometimes into late January. 

“It remains, as it has always been, the luck of the draw on where you can go,” Novak says.

Some of the more-experienced sailors in my survey, such as Pete Goss of Pearl of Penzance, a Garcia Exploration 45, stressed the importance of “having a well-built, strong boat that you have confidence in and that would be able to stand up to the weather, and ensure you survive it.”  

Retired French Admiral Eric Abadie, currently on a world voyage on Manevaï, a vintage Garcia Nouanni 47, was more concerned about “the impact of climate change in the countries we plan to visit, and even more by the resulting political instability caused by it. For me, the answer is very simple: It’s on the water that I am truly happy. And that will not change.”

The post Route Planning in the Face of Climate Change appeared first on Cruising World.

As sailboat races go, the first Wednesday-night race of the season was off to a cracking start. Our crew maneuvered ungracefully prestart, and we were sloppy tacking aboard the J/35, but our winter fog lifted as we beat toward the windward mark. 

Then the sailing therapy abruptly ended with a crash. 

As dismastings go, this one was uncomplicated. The windward cap shroud failed at the upper T fitting. What had been installed by a rigger the week before became a mess of wires, crumpled aluminum, and torn Kevlar. I was a sailmaker at the time, and my takeaway was clear: Never trust riggers.

Two decades later, I was aloft on our Stevens 47, Totem, to inspect newly fabricated and installed standing rigging. All was fine up to the second spreader, where I found several missing cotter pins. The memory of the dismasting came to mind. Our dream of sailing to the South Pacific with three young children suddenly felt riskier. We had hired the best rigger around, but the entire project was a fraught with mistakes and delays. A couple of bucks’ worth of missing parts could’ve toppled the mast, our dream and our safety.

Most sailors don’t think it’s necessary to inspect a rigger’s work, just as most drivers never inspect a car’s engine before driving away from a mechanic’s repair shop. But there is a difference. If a car repair is faulty, resources are nearby. Rigging problems at sea can be complicated, and there’s not usually an expert rigger around the corner. 

To prove reliability, you have to own it—really own responsibility for the condition of rigging, steering cables, through-hull fittings and more. This can feel daunting because it’s technical. 

For beginners, forget about rigging terminology and engineering. Also, don’t focus on finding cracked wire strands or fittings. That’s not to say ignore them if you find them, but cracked metal is a late discovery, well past safe limits. Instead, learn to spot clues that indicate early stages of a problem. 

For instance, look for rust on stainless steel and for corrosion on aluminum. Question why a line is getting harder and harder to pull. Sight up the mast while sailing to see if the mast profiles look smooth or lumpy, stable or dynamically bouncing. Look from side to side and from front to back. Note how slack the leeward shrouds are while sailing in different windspeeds. And get to the chainplate behind your bookshelf to look for water stains, especially rusty water stains that trail downward. 

These are all clues to potential problems. You don’t have to know the solution, but rigging failures happen mostly because nobody identified the clues.

Rigging Inspection Tips

Stainless steel should be shiny with a smooth, fluid look. Being rough, dull, splotchy or striated might indicate lower-quality metal, or it can mean that the metal has changed properties from age or use. Stainless steel is least effective at resisting rust when its surface is frequently abraded, such as a clevis pin securing the articulating parts of a boom gooseneck. This is also the case when the surface is deprived of the oxygen necessary to form a protective layer, such as bolts passing through a chainplate and bulkhead. 

Have a 10x loupe to amplify what you cannot see well enough with eyes alone. Look for general surface smoothness, pitting and cracks. Light-orange rust is probably superficial, and is easily cleaned with white vinegar and a rag. Darker red and brown rust can indicate failing or failed metal. 

Does the rust have a pronounced line or edge? This could be a crack, even if it’s not opened up yet. Photograph the area to note the date and condition. Then clean away the rust to assess surface problems. If rust reforms in the same areas within several weeks, the metal is not right and needs further attention.

Additional checks for rigging wire include looking for uneven gaps between the wire strands. Run your hand over the wire, feeling for any strands that are slightly raised. These can be broken strands, which might be hidden inside a swage fitting.

Understanding Alignment

Another thing to consider is alignment. It’s the relationship between the direction of a rigging load (force) and the orientation of the rigging component meant to carry that load.

Take a pencil, grasp each end, and try to pull the pencil apart. You probably can’t. Now secure half the pencil length to a table, with the other half extending past the edge. Push down on the overhanging end. It breaks easily. 

The pencil is surprisingly strong when load is parallel to the length of the pencil. The more misaligned the load is to the length, the easier it is to break the pencil. 

It’s the same concept with rigging. Chainplates should be shaped and oriented to transfer load down the length of the metal and into the bulkhead. If the chainplate has an angle out of alignment with the shroud, then the metal flexes to pull it straight if there is enough load. The more it flexes, the weaker and more brittle the chainplate gets. 

This was the cause of our J/35 dismasting. The T fitting at the top of the shroud was set incorrectly in the mast slot. The forced misalignment was too much for the metal, and it failed.

The most common misalignment I see on rigging is with toggles—the U-shaped linkage used at the bottom of every turnbuckle and numerous other parts of standing rigging. A toggle fitted over a chainplate is often wider than the chainplate. There is room enough that the toggle slides, so one side is against the chainplate. The other side, with a gap between it and the chainplate, is misaligned to the load. The rounded-end portion of the toggle (the bottom of the U) is stressed and flexed, ever so slightly. This cycle loading, coupled with the metal pieces scraping against each other and no oxygen, is a recipe for trouble. 

Where the surfaces come together is a good place to look for dark-red or brown rust on the toggle. This misalignment is easily corrected by adding a few bucks’ worth of nylon washers to keep the chainplate centered within the U of the toggle.

A Sad, Common Tale

We did sail Totem to the South Pacific in 2010. In one year sailing between Mexico and Australia, I counted 15 boats that had dismasted along the way, and a few near dismastings. One occurred on friends’ Tayana 52 after the headstay chainplate sheared off at deck level on passage to remote Suwarrow in the Cook Islands. 

Their chainplate was ­oriented fore and aft. After years of sailing with the wind force in the genoa pushing the headstay side to side, imperceptible flexing in the chainplate without ­structural support to counter the misaligned force weakened the metal to the point of breaking. 

Fortunately, in that case, the inner forestay and a downwind sailing angle (where forces pushing the mast forward create less load on the headstay) were enough to support the mast through the midnight fire drill to reduce sail and destress the rigging. But the lesson remains the same: Try to spot and fix these problems before they reach this point.

As I write this, Totem is nearly ready to sail west across the Pacific Ocean again. Our 30-month refit has left much of Totem new, except the mast, which is original at 42 years old. The standing rigging is only four years young, but I’ll be aloft with my 10x loupe regularly in hopes of keeping the trip uncomplicated, as ocean crossings go.

The post How to Rig Everything in Your Favor appeared first on Cruising World.

Pegasus Yachts has found strong momentum since the European premiere of its Pegasus 50. With the latest two hulls, Nos. 9 and 10, going to US owners, that momentum is now swinging over to North America. 

Located in Slovenia, Pegasus Yachts was founded in 2019 by the same team who, for more than 20 years, built large carbon-displacement ­cruising yachts with oceangoing capabilities. Miha Breskvar and Marko Paš established Pegasus Yachts for bluewater cruising. The Pegasus 50 is for clients who value fast, lightweight displacement, as well as comfortable living spaces. The Pegasus 50’s flexible layout forward of the salon allows for configurations tailored to cruising plans, crew preferences and the owners’ ­accommodations needs.

Among the Pegasus 50’s features are a convertible roof with retractable canvas over the cockpit. A tempered-glass sliding door protects the two-step entry to the salon from the cockpit. The living spaces take a note from catamaran design, with 360-degree views from the cockpit, salon and navigation station. Two technical lockers isolate the wet and dry onboard systems from the living space for quieter cruising.

A 75 hp Volvo Penta diesel engine is standard, though Pegasus offers an electric option, found on three of its existing hulls. The P50’s energy package includes a generator, a hydro-generator, and solar integrated into the deck with a 716-watt peak capacity. An optional third LiFePO4 battery adds a capacity of 600 amp-hours at 25.4 volts.

The Pegasus 50 also has an induction cooktop, a watermaker, heating and air conditioning, and a dinghy with an electric outboard that’s stored in the garage for launching from the swim platform.

Construction is vacuum-­infusion, with extensive use of carbon and composite for light weight and strength. Displacement is just over 29,000 pounds. A double wing keel reduces leeway, improving the upwind angle with less drag and enhancing close-quarters maneuverability. A carbon mast, performance full-batten mainsail, and self-tacking J2, larger J1 (650 SF) and asymmetrical furling spinnaker are standard. An optional furling reacher/code zero is available. 

The Pegasus 50 is rigged for short crew or solo sailing (a P50 won the 2022 OSTAR singlehanded race across the North Atlantic), with all working lines brought back to the helms, each equipped with two electric winches—a convenience for couples and families cruising offshore, as well as the solo speed-seekers who value a certain degree of comfort underway.

The post New to the Fleet: Pegasus Yachts 50 appeared first on Cruising World.

Where does the fabled Northwest Passage—that ­tenuous, long-sought sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans—­properly begin?  

For the keepers of official records, jealously counting how many of each sort of boat makes the transit each year, the answer is the Arctic Circle, at 66°30′ N. It begins when you cross into the Arctic going northward, and it ends when you cross out of it again southbound, 100 degrees of longitude away.

Others—often those attempting to kayak, paddleboard, kitesurf or dinghy across—count it from Pond Inlet at northern Baffin Island to the hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, which is nearly on the US-Canada border. That’s a far shorter distance, and it cuts out nearly 1,000 miles of the difficult coast of Alaska, not to mention about 500 miles on the Atlantic side. 

Surely, we can forgive those with the audacity to try it in any sort of open craft. With our Stevens 47, Polar Sun, however, although we had crossed the Arctic Circle halfway through a cruise of Greenland’s coast from Nuuk to Ilulissat, we didn’t feel like our bid for the passage had properly begun until we wriggled out of the untidy raft-up of sailboats at the fish wharf in the inner harbor at Ilulissat. It was midafternoon and raining lightly as we dodged past icebergs at the harbor mouth, but neither time nor atmospheric moisture matters a whole lot in a place where the sun doesn’t set and you’re bundled head to toe against the cold anyway.

Having been going hard for weeks on end, with uncertainty and ice and everlasting cold, it was the longest sailing leg of my life.

We were bound across Baffin Bay for Pond Inlet, a four-day leg that took us closer to seven, and taught us that just because we’d gotten to Ilulissat ahead of schedule didn’t mean we were always going to get easy sailing.

We were used to icebergs by then. They’re mostly huge and visible. They’re easy to sail around, and their dangers are predictable and avoidable. But halfway across Baffin Bay, we encountered pack ice for the first time. We found it a far more chilling prospect. Being mostly flat and close to the surface, it doesn’t show up well on radar or forward-looking sonar, and it tends to hang tight. If you see one floe, there’s probably a whole bunch of them nearby, drifting amiably around together.

By the time we beat our way against a 20-knot breeze close to the craggy Baffin Island shore, we were hardly surprised to find icebergs drifting amid the barrier of pack ice that blocked the shore. Who says you can’t have it all?

When we had finally worked our way through the ice and up along the coast for another day, we were in for several surprises. The first was that a brand-new harbor with breakwalls and docks had just been built at Pond Inlet, so we didn’t have to anchor in a rolly roadstead like we had expected. The second was that although the town there was relatively close to Greenland, it couldn’t have been more different than the ones we’d just left. Lacking the warm current that Greenland enjoys, this area stays locked up in ice most of the year. There isn’t a whole lot to do in one place, and it’s easy to see why the native Inuit were once nomadic. It makes sense in a place where nature is so savage.

Pond Inlet was the first of only four settlements we visited in the next 2,000 miles. Between them lie mind-numbingly vast stretches of barren, cliff-filled islands where even lichens struggle to grow in the whorls and rings of frost-heaved gravel.

We didn’t linger too long in any one place—at least, not by choice—but ­hastened always, feeling the shortness of the navigable season, and knowing that the later we got to the Bering Sea, the ­better chance we had of getting clobbered by something nasty. After an iceberg-­fraught, lumpy, breezy passage of the Navy Board Inlet, we had an ­exceedingly pleasant sail diagonally up Lancaster Sound to Beechey Island.

Between the Beechey and King William islands is where the most pack ice can be expected. Some years, it’s so abiding that no small boats get through. We were lucky. A violent south wind flushed all the ice out of Peel Sound, our projected route. After a day anchored in Erebus and Terror Bay, a band of pack ice that had barred the way opened up just enough for Polar Sun to get through.

I had always heard of iceblink, a ­phenomenon where distant pack ice throws a glow along the horizon, making it impossible to judge how far off it is. I had thought I wanted to see it someday, but I realized as we raced toward the rapidly shrinking opening to Peel Sound that I could have done without it, at least when a fogbound island, a foul current and a whole lot of ice coming out of the blink were converging on Polar Sun.

It wasn’t the last time we would squeak through a narrow gap at the last minute. The next 500 miles saw us often in and out of ice. Twice, we were denied passage out of a bay where we ultimately spent nine days trapped in the pack, shifting from one ice floe to another. We almost didn’t make it out of there at all, and when we did, it was to find the way nearly shut farther along.

At last, though, we made it to Gjoa Haven on the south side of King William Island. We sighed with relief that the ice, at least, would trouble us no more—but given the trouble we did see for the next several thousand miles, perhaps a little ice would have been the least of it.

What we hadn’t accounted for was that Gjoa is barely halfway across the Northwest Passage. There was still such a long way to go, and now, each night was dark for a little longer than the prior.

Given the lateness of the season—those nine days in the ice had really set us back—we considered leaving the boat in Cambridge Bay for the winter, but the crane that had once hauled the occasional stray sailboat was no longer there. To leave the boat in the water would be to lose it. We had already lost two crew, who had to return home for work, and couldn’t lose the time to find more.

So, Mark Synnott, the expedition leader, and I doublehanded the six weary days to Tuktoyaktuk. It’s not that doublehanding is normally that bad, but having been going hard for weeks on end, with hopes raised and dashed, with uncertainty and ice and everlasting cold, it was the longest sailing leg of my life. Before we finally rounded Cape Bathurst and raced with a strong following wind into Tuk, we had spent eight hours hove-to in a midnight blow, overheated the engine, sailed the wrong direction with a lee shore wherever we could point the bows, and did I mention the cold?

Tuktoyaktuk is on the shallow, oil-rich shelf of the Beaufort Sea. The channel barely carries 2 fathoms into the harbor at the best of times. This was not one of those times; the strong wind that rushes unopposed over the featureless peninsula tends to blow water out of the harbor. Polar Sun grounded gently just abeam of the half-wrecked public wharf. We got lines ashore to take in when the tide should float her again, and we went ashore to eat with the relief crew, who had flown out to meet us.

Without that extra crew, that last leg across the north coast of Alaska and down to the Bering Sea would have been not just exhausting, but also dangerous. Even with the new life that David Thoresen and Ben Spiess breathed into our souls, the strong following wind and seas required constant watchfulness. We rounded Point Barrow, the northernmost point in Alaska, in a welter of muddy, breaking waves, with sleet whitening the weather side of every shroud and halyard. We had thought of stopping in Barrow for a rest, but the seas were too rowdy along the shore. Besides, the wind was fair to sail south, and south is where we wanted to go.

South, that is, until Point Hope, where we needed to tuck in and hide from a typhoon—yes, a typhoon. It had strayed beyond its reasonable bounds into the Bering Sea, not only bringing record flooding to the coastal communities, but also having the audacity to pass through the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea, where Polar Sun sheltered in the tenuous lee of a permafrost-topped sandbar.

The eye of the storm, still well-defined although weakening, came abeam of our anchorage and made it untenable. We weighed anchor for the last time and sailed deep-reefed straight toward the center of it. Tacking some hours later to claw across Kotzebue Sound, we had occasion to wish that Cambridge Bay had worked out. The wind drove Polar Sun farther from the Bering Strait, toward a shoreline guarded by poorly charted shallow sandbars and lagoons.

It was nearly dark when the wind relented enough that we could make a run toward Cape Prince of Wales. That was the last obstacle, and we hand-steered around it in pitch-blackness, hugging the shore as close as we dared to avoid a current offshore. With the lights of Wales close abeam, and with Polar Sun surfing at 9 knots down-sea, we were grateful that we couldn’t see.

Once properly in the Bering Sea, all the jumble of the strait settled down, as if turned off with a switch. We motored sedately into Nome, Alaska, in the late afternoon, just hours ahead of the next southerly gale that pounded that ­unforgiving coast.

For the record-keepers, the Northwest Passage was officially completed halfway across Kotzebue Sound, when Polar Sun crossed the Arctic Circle just north of the Bering Strait. For Mark and me, the only two of the 12 people on the trip to sail every mile, it wasn’t fully over even in Nome. There were sails to unbend and stow, halyards to messenger out. A whole winterization had to be done, and there were long flights, which undid in 12 hours the distance we had taken 112 days to sail, to endure.  

Where does the Northwest Passage end? For me, at least, it ends when you get home. 

The post Cruising the Northwest Passage 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.

For me, for many reasons, certain boats and brands are synonymous with the waters or regions where they were created. The places are an essential component of the boats’ DNA. I’ll always associate a varnished mahogany runabout with upstate New York, or a cool little vintage catboat with Buzzards Bay and southern New England. Every classic Hinckley or Morris that I come across paints a vivid portrait of coastal Maine. Even yachts that sail or cruise far and wide all over the world still convey a sense of place. Recently, aboard a new Tartan 455, we pointed the bow into choppy Lake Erie, and I intuited an instant connection to the nearby northeast Ohio plant where the boat was spawned. It all felt like home. 

Other people see different things. After I uploaded a photo to social media of myself steering the 455, an old pal quickly hit me back with a comment, asking: “Tartan is still building boats?” 

The answer is an emphatic yes, and pretty darn good ones at that. The company has certainly had its ups and downs over the years, but it’s now navigating smoother waters for a couple of major reasons. First, it was recently acquired by Seattle Yachts, which made significant investments in the product and facilities, and appears firmly committed for the long haul. Second, longtime Tartan designer Tim Jackett is running operations, and the native Ohio homeboy is giving it his all. 

Jackett says that the 455 evolved from powerboats by Legacy, a company Tartan acquired in 2010. “The roots of it came after having some exposure to the Legacy brand and looking at how the deck and interior of that sedan style of powerboat works out so nicely,” he says. His first swing at the design in sailboat mode was a 37-foot motorsailer with a substantial trim tab that powered up at 14 knots. (It was never built.) When the owner of a Tartan 3700 approached him about commissioning a larger boat, Jackett returned to expand upon his earlier incarnation.

“But the concept was the same,” he says. “More of a sailing hull, but a nice, big, well-lit living space with inside steering, and then an aft cockpit that gave you the normal sailing experience of wind and water in your face when you wanted it.”

Jackett says that the 455 evolved from powerboats by legacy, a company tartan acquired in 2010. His first swing at the design was a 37-foot motorsailer.

Down a few steps into the deep ­cockpit, sliding doors open into the salon, which transitions into the forward living areas. The bulletproof laminate is a vacuum-bagged, infused sandwich that employs epoxy resin with a foam core in the hull construction and end-grain balsa in the deck. The lead keel supports a hefty ballast bulb and is available in deep- and shallow-draft configurations.

There are a couple of accommodations plans, including a two-stateroom version or the three-stateroom layout employed in the model we sailed, with guest staterooms to port and starboard, and an owner’s space forward with an attached head. The well-executed joiner work and furniture were cherry, though teak and maple are available (much of it sourced from northeast Ohio’s Amish mills). I’d say that this is primarily a comfortable couple’s boat with space for occasional visits from family and friends. 

Aesthetically, I found the lines plan of the 455 to be handsome and pleasing­—not a particularly easy task with a large ­deckhouse, which Jackett incorporated nicely into the profile.

This is ​​­primarily a comfortable ­couple’s boat with space for occasional visits from family and friends­—A big boat but an easy one to negotiate.

Wraparound windows allow light to pour in from all directions, as does the deckhouse’s overhead window. A split hydraulic backstay provides easy access to the drop-down transom and boarding platform between the twin wheels, which are stationed well outboard. (There’s a single, deep spade rudder.) Moving forward, an outboard ramp rises from the cockpit to the side decks, which makes for easy egress to the topside and foredeck. I believe that this feature originated with the Jeanneau line, and I always thought it was a trend that would spill over to other builders (see the Moody 41DS). It’s just too simple and elegant a solution to an age-old design conundrum. There are grippy stainless-steel handrails just about everywhere. This Tartan is a big boat but an easy one to negotiate.

The carbon-fiber double-spreader rig is fashioned in Tartan’s in-house autoclave, as are the rudder post and other reinforcements. The company’s Cruise Control Rig double-headsail sail plan (also known as a Solent setup) has become a fixture across the brand, with a code-zero-style reacher on the forward stay and a smaller, self-tacking jib on the aft one. The powerful, full-battened mainsail is stashed in a Leisure Furl in-boom furler, and there’s a wide traveler atop the deckhouse that facilitates the end-boom mainsail sheeting. All the running rigging is led into the cockpit and handled by a combination of rope clutches and Harken electric winches. The excellent sails come from Sobstad’s loft in nearby Rocky Hill. 

Over the years, I’ve sailed many a Jackett design, and the common denominator is they sail exceedingly well. We sailed the 455 on an early-fall afternoon after a cold front rolled through, offering up ideal 10- to 15-knot northwest breezes. The waves in the relatively shallow lake were closely spaced. As I took the wheel and came onto the wind under the smaller jib, it took me a while to stop pinching and get in the groove. But once I fell off a good 10 degrees, the boat and I settled in, and it muscled through the chop with aplomb. 

The steering was tight and accurate. Jackett says that he was still playing with the optimal rudder configuration, but it all felt fine to me. Topside, the Jefa wheels are cable-controlled, while the deckhouse steering station is on a hydraulic ram. You toggle between the two, depending on where you’re driving. We swapped out the self-tacker for the large reacher and bore off another 10 degrees, and the boat absolutely lit up, trucking along on a beam reach at bursts over 9 knots in complete and utter control. We even jibed the big sail through the exceedingly tight ­foretriangle, a maneuver I wouldn’t have thought possible. It was quite the sail. 

Fittingly, the first Tartan 455 is going to live on the Great Lakes, with Lake Huron’s North Channel a likely regular cruising ground. But I can envision this being a terrific yacht for the Pacific Northwest and beyond, and ideal for high-latitude adventures. You might not be able to take the Ohio out of a Tartan, but you can take this Tartan just about anywhere.

Where It All Began: Tartan 27

On the back lot of Tartan’s headquarters in Painesville, Ohio, the exact boat that started it all—Hull No. 1 of the sweet little Tartan 27 line, of which more than 700 were eventually built in a production run that lasted until 1979—is awaiting a complete refit. It was fun and ­enlightening, after sailing and reviewing Tartan’s latest offering, to consider how ­production-boat building and design has evolved during the past 60-plus years. The changes have been extensive.

The Tartan 27 was a collaborative effort between Douglass & McLeod Inc., an Ohio-based builder of one-design wooden dinghies such as the Thistle and the Flying Scot, and Charlie Britton, a sailor and businessman who was also reared on the shores of Lake Erie. Following his service in the US Navy, Britton sailed his 42-foot yawl from Japan to the West Indies, a rather unheard-of voyage in the late 1950s. Once home, he joined forces with D&M to commission a 27-footer for coastal cruising and club racing. Being Scotsmen, they decided to name it Tartan.

There were a lot of firsts ­involved here: The T27 was D&M’s first fiberglass boat, and it was one of the initial glass designs from the venerable East Coast firm of Sparkman & Stephens. The chief designer for the project was a young naval architect named Bill Shaw, who would go on to become the principal design chief at Pearson Yachts, where he designed dozens of models. 

Hull No. 1 launched in 1961. With its boxy coachroof and low-aspect masthead rig, it’s hard to believe today that the T27 was considered a performance racer/cruiser at the time, but as such, it was an immediate success. It was designed to compete under the popular Cruising Club of America rating rule of the early 1960s. Like other yachts of that period, including the Pearson Triton and Hinckley Bermuda 40, it featured long overhangs and a short waterline, a narrow beam (8 feet, 9 inches), moderate displacement, a long keel, shallow draft, an aperture-mounted propeller for the Atomic 4 gas engine, a keel-hung rudder, and slack bilges. Most of the early T27s were sloops, though it was also offered as a yawl, which did well under the CCA rule. 

At 7,400 pounds ­displacement, it was not a light boat, but when slightly cracked off, it tracked to weather like a demon. Unlike the Triton, which had a fixed keel, the T27 was a keel-centerboard boat that drew 6 feet, 4 inches when the board was lowered, and a mere 3 feet, 2 inches when raised, making it highly versatile as a pocket cruiser. The original centerboards were bronze, which must have raised some mighty maintenance issues, and is likely why it was soon switched over to steel encased in fiberglass. The ¾-inch fiberglass hull was a proverbial brick house; the deck was balsa-cored. At the time, the construction was state of the art.

D&M followed up the T27 with a couple more venerable “classic plastic” legends, including the Ted Hood-designed Black Watch 37 (which eventually was remodeled and relaunched as the Tartan 37) and another S&S benchmark, the Tartan 34, an expanded version of the T27 that also had a centerboard. Man, for many years, I was bewitched by the 34-footer, and you can still find all of these models in harbors everywhere. 

After a fire in 1971, D&M sold Britton the Tartan division, starting a whole new chapter in the company’s storied history.

As I steered the latest Tartan—a systems-rich yacht finished to an incredibly high degree—I could only wish that Britton were still around to experience the power and speed of a contemporary, long-range cruising yacht. I have no doubt that he’d be amazed, but that sweet little Tartan 27 of his was the inspiration for all that followed.

The post Sailboat Review: Tartan 455 appeared first on Cruising World.

It was a rainy day in the Philippines aboard Kate, our Newport 41. Though my husband, Steve, and I have been cruising full time in the tropical Pacific since leaving California in 2008, I still find myself occasionally craving a warm bowl of something—­particularly during rainy season, when the blahs set in. 

I knew exactly what to make. I discovered this miracle porridge when I was fresh out of college. Armed only with small-boat coastal-­sailing experience, I’d landed a job as second stewardess aboard a 164-foot sailing yacht. The boat was preparing to sail from Phuket, Thailand, to Darwin, Australia, via Singapore and Bali. I had no idea what to expect from an ocean crossing. 

Our passage to Singapore was flat and uneventful. As junior crewmember, I drew the graveyard shift: se­­condary watch keeper, 0300 to 0700. My job: Make coffee and keep the primary watch keeper company. 

The Singapore-to-Bali leg was a little more exciting. The seas kicked up a bit, and moving topsides to deliver coffee became a timing and agility test. Occasionally, I felt queasy, but no more than that. 

By the time we set sail for Darwin, I had nearly 3,000 nautical miles under my belt. I felt like I’d earned my sea legs. I would soon learn otherwise. As seas became steep and confused, our sturdy yacht pitched and rolled like a bathtub toy. Soon, it wasn’t moving around that I was concerned about; I was struggling to keep down even a sip of water. 

I’d thought I was hiding my mal de mer, butZam, our Malaysian chef, spotted my green gills. I was lurching back to my cabin to rest when he called my name. Standing by the stove looking cool and calm, he ladled something thick and white into a bowl. He held it out, and the scent of chicken broth wafted from it. 

“What is it?” I asked. (He’d had a history of serving “delicacies” such as chicken’s feet concealed in soup.) “It’s good for body,” he replied, thrusting the bowl into my hands. 

I ran my spoon through what looked like creamy rice speckled with vegetables. It had the soft consistency of porridge. Like a bowl of chicken soup made by my mom, it made me feel hugged. Spying nothing sinister in it, I lifted a spoonful to my mouth. 

It tasted oddly familiar, somehow reminding me of childhood. The delicate, plump rice with bits of peas and carrots was comforting. It was so easy to eat that I finished the whole bowl before ­retiring to my cabin to await the inevitable nausea. 

Instead, I woke several hours later, hungry for the first time in days. I returned to the galley, bowl in hand. Zam nodded knowingly and dipped his ladle once again. His never-ending pot of porridge saved me.

Later, I learned its name: congee (pronounced KON-jee). It’s a traditional comfort food throughout Asia. I ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the remainder of the passage. 

I never did ask for Zam’s recipe, but I’ve used the indelible memory of that first bowl to re-create my own version. This dish has endless variations and names. “Cheat’s Congee” uses leftover or already cooked rice. The vegetables I add depend on what I have on hand, although the simple combination of carrots and peas is still my favorite. 

The next time you’re under the weather, or simply in the mood for comfort, this quick and simple porridge will make you feel better in no time. It’s a miracle in a bowl.

Cheat’s Congee (serves 4)

• 1½ cups high-starch white rice*
• 4¼ cups chicken or vegetable stock 
• 1-inch piece of ginger (or to taste), peeled and grated
• ½ cup carrot, diced 
• ¼ cup frozen green peas or frozen green beans, chopped

*Carolina or jasmine; do not use basmati 

Toppings (optional):

• 2 cups cooked chicken, sliced
• 1-2 green onions, chopped finely or curled

Cook ¾ cup rice according to package directions and let cool thoroughly, or use leftover rice. Add 1½ cups of the cooked rice, 2 cups of the stock, and grated ginger to a medium pot. Stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, breaking up any rice clumps. Boil uncovered for 5 minutes. 

Add remaining stock and diced carrots. Bring back to a steady simmer. Leave pot uncovered. Cook for 15 minutes. 

Add frozen vegetables. Bring to an active simmer; cook until the rice absorbs most of the stock and starts to break down slightly and veggies are cooked, 15 to 20 minutes more. Check and stir every now and then to prevent rice sticking to the bottom. 

The congee is ready when it turns thick and creamy, like a porridge with a smooth texture. If the mixture is too soupy, simmer longer; if it’s too dry, stir in ¼ cup additional hot stock or water. 

Ladle into bowls, add optional toppings, and garnish with sliced or curled green onions. Serve warm.

Prep time: 45 minutes to 1 hour
Difficulty: easy
Can be made: Underway or at anchor

Cook’s Notes: Use whatever veggies you like. Alternative toppings: cooked pork, shrimp or fish. If desired, drizzle with soy sauce, sesame oil or ­sriracha. To curl green onions: Slice green tops into 1/8-inch-wide by 3-inch-long matchsticks. Soak for 10 to 15 minutes in a small bowl of ice water; drain briefly on a kitchen towel.

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