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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, hey, what time was it again? 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

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

While cruising around the world, one of the things we seek is a connection. Whether it’s a fellow cruiser lending a hand or a local ­resident with a good story, people stand out in our cruising lives. They make us remember a time and place better than we might have otherwise. 

The same could be said for beaches. The last thing I want is to become indifferent to the white sand and azure waters. So, I look to build a connection to the beaches I visit, through shells.

In my seven years as a liveaboard and circumnavigator, I’ve walked across a hundred beaches. At first, I was excited by shells that I thought were prettyor whole. But after enough beach walks, I learned to find shells that are rare because they are delicate or come from an uncommon species.

Then I get the pleasure of trying to identify what animal the shell used to belong to, using a book called Seashells of the World. Although it covers a fraction of the thousands of species I might find, at least I can narrow down the possible identity.

While many shells are beautiful, having a basic understanding of identity and rarity will make a beach walk a little bit more exciting. When you find something truly rare, it’s rather exhilarating.

I rarely keep shells, preferring to ­photograph and identify them before putting them back on the beach. But I do have a few shells that come with special memories of our travels.

In Fiji, my husband and I were in a small village on Waya Island, paying our respects to the chief and asking for permission to visit. As we walked past the small homes, a bright, pretty shell—a spider conch—caught my eye. I touched a finger to one of the horn-like tips, and the man walking us through the village immediately offered me the shell. I was touched by the kindness but ultimately told him, “No, thank you.” To my surprise, walking the beach the next day at the opposite end of the island, I found my own spider conch shell. This one I kept, a memento of my visit to the Yasawa and Mamanuca islands.

Whole sea urchin shells are rare because they are delicate. In the Ha’apai group of Tonga, on an island called Tatafa, dozens of broken sea urchin shells scattered the beach, along with a few whole ones. Carefully, I carried a green, whole shell back to the boat.

While enjoying an island tour with a local resident in French Polynesia near Huahine, my guide, upon watching me stop a few times to pick up shells, joined the hunt. Soon I was overwhelmed with a surplus of beautiful shells. One that I didn’t keep—and regret putting back—was an operculum, the “trapdoor” of the shell, as big as my hand. 

A beach walk can also turn up live creatures. A beautiful shell that I pick up and hold in the palm of my hand might give me a scare a few steps later when a hermit crab pokes me. Tide pools hold snails and chitons, or maybe the treat of a cowrie, with its squishy mantle covering the glossy shell inside. I never intentionally pick up anything alive, but I have occasionally been in the middle of identifying something only to have it try to crawl away.

Learning to identify shells helps me build a deeper connection to the places I visit. My memories, photographs and small seashell collection keep my travels unique in my mind, and prevent the many sandy beaches and clear waters from blending together. I recommend having at least one seashell-identification guide with you on your boat, and keeping a sharp eye on your next beach walk.

The post Connecting to the Natural World Through Rare Shells appeared first on Cruising World.

We were tied to the fuel dock in Marathon, the midpoint of the Florida Keys, in the early part of 2022, when I realized our mistake. 

Other cruisers traveling the Great Loop were on the loop’s southern stretch of the route, while some bluewater cruisers were starting to stage for passage to the Bahamas and beyond. I asked the dockmaster if any slips were available, and learned that it’s perpetually high season in the Keys, including at that moment. Along with cruisers and sailors, fish migrations change throughout the year, calm summer conditions attract divers, and festivals bring in the party crowds.

“We’re always booked out,” he said, shaking his head. Then he paused, perhaps realizing that he’d just sold us a total of 6 gallons of diesel. “Wait, what size is your sailboat?”

We were on Jackalope, a Nor’Sea 27. He shifted into a smile. “Oh yeah, we can probably squeeze you in down there,” he said, pointing to the inner harbor. 

We were grateful for the offer, but in the end, we stuck with our plan to anchor out. We had stayed on a dock—at Bahia Honda State Park—only once during our monthlong Keys cruise. While a lot of people on bigger boats doing the loop preferred marinas, anchoring out seemed to fit with our small-boat cruising style. We were basically camping, which required few amenities and created a lot of options. We took bucket baths when we couldn’t go ashore for showers. We cooked from simple ingredients that didn’t have to be refrigerated: lentils, rice and pasta. We paddled our inflatable kayak to shore for an occasional restaurant meal. 

We laughed when we were once mistaken for homeless people on a resupply walk, but how could we argue? We don’t have the same look as those who can blow-dry their hair and pull clothes off a hanger. 

But our small boat makes for a big adventure. We crossed the Gulf of Mexico from Fort Myers Beach directly to Key West, and because the 90-mile crossing took us three days and two nights, we had the experience of a much bigger, more challenging passage than other boats would. Our sails go up quickly and easily, so we take advantage of every quarter-hour of good wind that we can find.

Moving slow and low, we don’t fear crab pots; they’re easy to see and steer around, even in the dark. And since a keel-hung rudder protects our small propeller, hitting a crab-pot float head-on doesn’t cause trouble. At our top motoring speed of 4 knots, we can see dolphins, turtles and manatees before they dive for cover. 

We can’t avoid getting tan because we steer from an open center cockpit. Nor can we avoid getting exercise because we have to paddle ashore rather than motor. (Jackalope’s canoe stern means we don’t have a motorized dinghy on davits.) 

Like the mythical Western creature that shares its name, Jackalope has a small stature. Just right for us.

The post Small Boat Cruising in the Florida Keys appeared first on Cruising World.

People handled the COVID-19 shutdowns in all kinds of creative ways. My wife, Pat, and I had hoped to buddy-sail our Pacific Seacraft 34, Taravana, through the Bahamas and Caribbean with our friends Teri and Lee, aboard the Hallberg-Rassy 37 Glendora, but instead, we all decided to explore the Northeast. We christened our trip the Lobster Roll Rally, and set out to taste and rate as many lobster rolls as possible throughout New England. 

We set sail up the Intracoastal Waterway in mid-March, just enough ahead of the crowd to enjoy beautiful, empty anchorages, along with space in restaurants. We explored the Chesapeake Bay in May, overindulging in crab cakes. (We unofficially christened this leg of the journey the Crab Cake Crawl.) While it was unseasonably cold and wet for much of the month, we were blessed with good wind and some cracking sailing. At night, we would alternate drinks and dinner aboard each other’s boats, increasing the fun factor and reducing the cooking workload. After dinner, we’d play cards or strum our guitars. 

We sailed into Manhattan in June and, after a two-year absence, pulled back into our home port of Rowayton, Connecticut. Friends David and Cindy, aboard their motor vessel Moondance, joined us there, and the Lobster Roll Rally began in earnest. T-shirts, lobster paraphernalia, stickers and lobster-roll rating sheets were all handed out, along with generous gin and tonics. 

After a couple of weeks of preparation, we all set out eastbound in Long Island Sound, stopping first at Northport Harbor, New York, and its beautiful Victorian-era town center. From there, we sailed northeast to Stonington, Connecticut, which first prospered in the 1790s when it was home to a large fleet of seal-hunting ships. Moondance has a shallow draft, so we all climbed aboard for a day trip to Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and an expansive stretch of pristine beach.

Following some spirited sailing up the coast, we moored in Jamestown, Rhode Island’s Dutch Harbor. It’s a quiet spot across from the bustle of Newport, where we sampled the Newport Lobster Shack—a solid waypoint for any lobster-­roll aficionado. Our float plan then took us to New Bedford, Massachusetts, once the whaling capital of the United States and the setting for the 1851 novel Moby-Dick. The New Bedford Whaling Museum is a must-see. It not only brings to life what the whaling trade was like, but also reveals why the town is so progressive and diverse today. Lobster rolls at the Quahog Republic Whaler’s Tavern had a new twist—a nicely toasted brioche bun—so they rated well. 

Boston Harbor was our anchorage for July Fourth. I’m English, so I felt that it was imperative to celebrate our arrival with a nice, hot cup of tea. It turned out that we needed a lot of it because the weather was dreadful. Despite the cold and rain, we had a blast. After seeking out the requisite lobster rolls, we toured the town, ate Italian in Little Italy, tried Chinese in Chinatown, and sampled pints of Guinness in the many Irish pubs. Another highlight was the USS Constitution sailing its turnaround cruise right across our bows.

Continuing north, we ventured up to the coastal fishing village of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and then through the skinny Blynman Canal up to Kittery, Maine. While we were anchored in Back Cove, Maine, some friends who live locally took us to their favorite lobster shack: the Rye Harbor Lobster Pound. Those lobster rolls won the summer for us. The lobster was fresh, plentiful, served nice and hot, and lightly basted in sherry butter for a rich, slightly sweet flavor. The pièce de résistance was an open-ended cardboard sleeve that prevents messy bun collapse. (Yes, this is something we measured.)

From Kittery, it was up to Portland, Maine, and the remote, rock-lined anchorages of Casco Bay. We’d made it 1,300 miles all the way up from Georgia.

En route back south, we explored the vibrant town of Provincetown, Massachusetts. During a crazy night celebrating Pat’s birthday, we got matching henna (you guessed it) lobster tattoos inked on our ankles. Lee also debuted the official Lobster Roll Rally sea shanty: “Yo ho rally my friends, along New England’s shore; yo ho rally my friends, lobster rolls for evermore.”  

From P-Town, we sailed to the ­ever-buzzing Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts, and the fun raw-bar boat where they shuck fresh oysters boatside. After stops at Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Block Island appeared on the horizon. There we were able to relax on the beach and drink too many mudslides in the Oar restaurant. 

Then, forces beyond our control (again) drove us to change our plans. Hurricane Henri was barreling north, so we skipped our final stops and shot home before the storm. 

At the end of August, after months of fun and many miles under our keels, the Lobster Roll Rally came to a close. Or did it? We all hope that it might never end.

The post The Lobster Rally Rolls On appeared first on Cruising World.

Of all the ways I have traveled, I love my sailboat the best. A wanderer since childhood, I have climbed glaciers with a heavy pack, forded African rivers by motorcycle, and ­landed on remote fjords by floatplane. None of it compares with cruising. I am certain there is no better way to encounter the world than by boat.

I’ve discovered that my humble craft has an alchemical quality, a certain trick of distilling the places, weather, events, people, and, yes, the scares and repairs too, into an extraordinarily pure essence, a rare and wonderful possession for life. This treasure can only be earned, never purchased, and cannot be lost or stolen. A few words are enough to conjure it all. 

“Did you go up the Rio Dulce?” another sailor might ask, and we are instantly in Guatemala. We feel the alertness and unease of anchoring off Livingston, an unpredictable frontier town, waiting for the tide to rise high enough to bump and scrape our keel over the river bar. We know the sense of wonder around every bend in that lush and mighty river canyon. We’ve seen a man from another century approach in his dugout canoe and ask if we might help charge his cellphone. 

When I began roaming on my own boat, the 36-foot Beneteau Liberte, a salty friend put it best: “Right now, all you see is charts,” he said, “but sailing will turn every one of those places into a story.”

Today, I still have the crude map I drew for myself before I began cruising. It was mere wishful thinking. I didn’t even have a boat. Still office-bound, I sat through many meetings where the clients probably thought I was taking diligent notes. Instead, I was tracing and retracing my dream route, making lists of gear and ports of call, my head already out to sea. 

My anticipatory dotted line led from Bellingham, Washington, to Cuba and on to the Bahamas, a course I did indeed follow with my wife, Rebecca, during 10 incredible seasons. Today, every one of those dots puts a massive grin on my face. 

First there was Vancouver Island, which Liberte circumnavigated counterclockwise in 2009 as a shakedown cruise. I went in March, April and May, with three buddies as crew. It was definitely early season. The lads and I wore our fuzzy caps most of the way and kept a close ear on Environment Canada’s weather forecasts. The payoff for this gamble was clear skies, consistent wind, no fog and no bugs. I remember running tidal narrows, feeling our way into stunning anchorages we had all to ourselves, and flying the spinnaker up Queen Charlotte Strait on a rare and glorious easterly. I remember rounding notorious Cape Scott under sail alone, tacking furiously against a foul current, and then shooting down the coast once we rounded. As we came into Quatsino Sound that evening, a family of bears was feeding along the water’s edge at low tide, scarcely giving us a glance as we crept past, wing on wing, riding every remaining zephyr. The boys and I didn’t want to start the engine and break that spell, so we simply coasted to the dock at Winter Harbour.

There was one big blow, with hurricane-force winds ripping down Brooks Peninsula, but my crew and I were safely tucked into shelter, playing pool at the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 180, in Port Alice, where they deemed us local celebrities (“You’re the guys with the big blue sail!”) and would never let us buy our own drinks.

At Nootka Sound, we met Mark and Joanne Tiglmann, some of the last remaining lightkeepers in North America. They told us that we were the first boat to round the island that year. In Tofino, we waited until all the day-trippers had gone, and then we hiked through the rainforest to the best hot springs I’ve ever found. We saw wolf tracks on the beach. I watched three ravens steal baitfish from a charter fishing boat. They were nimble grifters, with one bird on high lookout, one perched on the rail, and one helping itself to the bait. Then they would rotate so that the next bird got its share. They spoke in murmurs so as not to tip off the seagulls.

I saw all that, and so much more, with my own eyes, felt it with every bit of my senses. All of it made possible only by running away on our own boat, by being intimidated, overwhelmed, sleepless, but always there. 

Cape Mendocino will always be that place where I underestimated the weather and paid the price all night long, running hard in big seas in the dark, waiting for something to break. At dawn, a pod of spinning dolphins told us that we would be OK.

I remember humpback whales breathing. I remember crossing under the Golden Gate Bridge, the pea soup clearing just enough to see the legendary span above, high-fives all round. I remember the sound of sea lions all night long on Pier 39. My crew and I rang the bell for admittance to the Dolphin Club, where we took the ceremonial plunge into chilly San Francisco Bay, and then felt the blood return in the sauna amid the banter of bums, poets and billionaires.

On Catalina Island, we hungry sailors tried our best to get into a private buffet line and got busted by the host. Later, he brought us three plates of food, with all the filet mignon, lobster and mashed potatoes we had coveted earlier. “At least you guys weren’t jerks about it,” he said. “There’s plenty. Eat up.” He was a top-selling yacht broker. As we devoured his food, he let us in on a trade secret: Moor the prospective buyer’s boat next to an even bigger boat. “They can’t stand the other guy being higher than they are,” he said.

To the uninitiated eye, the Baja peninsula looks like a whole lot of nothing. But that stretch of rock and sand is filled with hidden delights. My fellow cruisers and I can point out where the whales come right up to your dinghy at Bahia Magdalena. We can show you Los Frailes, where we took our first luxurious swim off the back of Liberte. We can guide you to Los Islotes and its frisky sea lions.

Not far from Isla San Francisco, one memorable day, I went overboard to rescue Samantha, our Jack Russell terrier, and suddenly needed rescuing myself. All these years later, I can still feel the intensity of that moment when Rebecca hauled the dog and me safely back onto Liberte, the huge adrenaline buzz and those first sweet deep breaths of air.

In the little fishing village of Agua Verde, people came out of their homes to wish us good morning. The dirt streets were swept and tidied, and the whole place was as neat as a pin. The headlines were filled with swine flu and travel warnings. Rebecca asked, “Why aren’t the news crews here instead?” The village Romeo, a black dog named Osso, took a shine to Samantha and trotted along, and when we kayaked back to Liberte, Osso swam after us for a long way, every bit the lovestruck village lad pining for a passing sailor girl. 

All along the Baja, I can show you where to find waterfalls in the desert, orange groves, and tiny mountain towns with their churches and horseback festivals. I know which vendor in Santa Rosalia has the best hot dogs.

As I dream backward now, the entire thing looks like those place mats of the West that I loved as a kid at breakfast diners. They were filled with routes that could take you anywhere, with miniature drawings of each marvel: redwoods, rivers, volcanoes and Sasquatch.

I was also obsessed with space as a boy, and even though I don’t expect to blast off with Elon Musk in this lifetime, I realize that my cruising boat has become a longed-for spacecraft. I have flown through stars. I have touched down on strange new worlds and climbed through primeval plants and mysterious stones, my faithful rocket ship waiting for me down there in the bay. 

In Acapulco, with warnings about violence ashore, we easily could have chosen to sail on by. Instead, we entered the bay, and I will always remember our anniversary night, snuggled up with Rebecca on Liberte’s rail, watching all the city lights come on around us, a sparkling bowl of diamonds. 

Zihuatanejo was the dinghy concierge, the huge outdoor market, and my day of surfing with two locals who carried their boards old-school on top of their Volkswagen Beetle, with towels for a roof rack and ropes lashed through the windows. It was where we helped rescue a boat that dragged anchor, which then proceeded to try to anchor in exactly the same place again (directly upwind of us!). Alan on motor trawler Beverly J, with an entire workshop on his aft deck, expertly crafted another metal pin for the one that had broken on Liberte’s autohelm. Thank you, Alan; thank you, buddy boats; and thank you, locals who helped us all along our way, most of whom we will never meet again.

We had read about the Gulf of Tehuantepec, and anticipated and dreaded it in equal measure, but nothing could prepare us for actually being in that place. There’s no way we could anticipate that, instead of spindrift fury, it could be mirror-calm. And that, on Rebecca’s birthday, she could dive into that infinite blue with dolphins so curious about us, we were certain that they had never seen another human.

As I consider our route, I still know the harbors and hazards by heart. I can still point, more or less, to the spot where I hit an unlit panga. It was dense-black in the early morning. Liberte had a nice head of steam, sailing upwind with full sails in that fragrant offshore night wind, so perfectly balanced that she was steering herself without the autopilot. At first impact, I thought we’d hit a log, which is not uncommon near these river estuaries. But when I aimed my spotlight behind the boat, two men looked back at me with wide eyes. My guess is they’d been fast asleep. Out of nowhere, I’d hit them hard, hooked their anchor line, and was now towing them. I had a sharp knife in hand but resisted the urge to cut their only line. I luffed sails, untangled our boats, and made sure that the guys were OK, apologizing profusely in my best broken Spanish.

Never did I ever expect to intentionally put my boat into a surf break. That is the stuff of a sailor’s nightmares. But along El Salvador’s coast, Rebecca and I did exactly that to get to the anchorage. We waited our turn, put Samantha below, cleared the deck, locked the hatch boards, and made sure that the engine would hit max revs. The previous day, a boat had come in slow, gone sideways on a wave, and been pooped and flooded. Our guide on his personal watercraft raised his hand and signaled us forward. Rebecca steered while I redlined the Yanmar. We surfed one, two, three quite-sizable breaking waves, and then we were through and into the flat lagoon. Rebecca grinned and said, “Let’s do it again!” 

Vast, unpredictable and a long way from anywhere, the Golfo de Fonseca is where I did my customary engine check and discovered a bilge full of oil beneath my faithful Yanmar, in the most remote place we’d been so far. All cruisers know that feeling. And they know the improvisation it takes to keep going without the right parts. Rebecca created a tray from aluminum foil to catch the oil, and every few hours of motoring, we’d pour all that oil right back into the engine again. We did a lot of miles that way. 

We had heard tall tales of the Papagayo winds, and one day, there they were, howling, as advertised. Liberte flew down the Nicaraguan coastline, a triple reef in her main. It was uncanny, sailing in 40 knot winds in absolutely flat water while being sandblasted from shore. In Bahia Santa Elena, at the north end of Costa Rica, we hunkered down for several days waiting for those gusts to dial down, just a little.

In Costa Rica, while other cruisers complained of their ­clearing-in woes—including surf landing while trying to keep ­documents dry, catching a local bus, and waiting around for hours
—I took the easy way out. I found myself squired around by an extraordinarily beautiful agent. At every stop in ­officialdom, the bureaucrats, obviously eating out of the palm of her hand, waved us through cheerily. It was the best clearing-in experience ever, and it was also the most expensive. That invoice was shocking.

Costa Rica was monkeys stealing our breakfast. Rebecca and I swam in waterfalls and went skinny-dipping off Liberte into the warmest water, the bioluminescence so powerful that it outlined our entire bodies as we moved—an utterly hallucinogenic encounter yet with an entirely clear head. 

Panama was astounding: a land of tall shiny buildings, riverbank tribes, and the bucket-list adventure of navigating the Panama Canal in our very own boat. As they rafted us together with two buddy boats, I looked over at our friend Steve in the middle boat as the first locks opened. “You feeling OK?” I asked. “You bet!” he said. “I’ve got the world’s biggest fenders, one on each side.” 

We cruised the San Blas Islands for six enchanted off-the-grid weeks. We anchored at Bug Island and fed our organic waste to the island pig. We were guests in a Guna Yala village when we smelled smoke and heard screams. Within a few minutes, the village was on fire, the flames jumping easily from wood hut to hut. We picked people out of the water. There were no lives lost, but more than half the village was burned to the ground, most likely from a cooking fire gone out of control.

We went back the next day, the ruins still smoking, and donated all the items we could muster. The villagers saw us coming and broke into a wailing, chanting choir of welcome, the memory of which still sends chills up my spine. We watched them test the fins and masks they needed for fishing, and try on our clothes. Within minutes, they had strung their new blue tarp overhead for shade and were stirring something inside the big crab pot.

All my life, I will remember these things. I will recall anchoring up Panama’s Chagres River, listening to the howler monkeys and other creatures we could not identify, the jungle coming alive at night all around our solitary boat. Sometimes these thrills come at a cost. I somehow scratched my eye. In the jungle and in that climate, infection happened quickly. By the time we reached the fabled island of Escudo de Veraguas, I was in bad shape and there was no time to search for those pygmy three-toed sloths. From Bocas del Toro, I flew to the Johns Hopkins hospital in Panama City so that a medical team could save my eye.

The next season, after the boat summered in Guatemala’s Rio Dulce, we enjoyed Placencia immensely and explored the outer atolls of Belize at a leisurely pace. Half Moon Caye, shared only with our buddy boat, was wild and alive with creatures above and below the sea. Our land-traveling friends had raved about Ambergris Caye, but we found that we preferred the peace of quieter spaces. By cruising in our own boat, we had become immeasurably spoiled.

The thing I love most about my boat, and some days hate, is that it always brings me into direct and undeniable contact with the world. I challenge you to come up with a better way to eat, sleep and move within the natural rhythms. 

In control of our own boat, we cruisers have what writer Tim Kreider describes so well (although he is talking about traveling by train) as “the ideal living situation…constant change within a framework of structure…the cozy in-betweenness of it, being suspended between destinations, temporarily exempt from the relentless press of time.”

My map always led to Cuba, where X marked the spot of my unending intrigue. As Americans on a US-flagged vessel, we were presented with a tough proposition. But in 2016, my dream came true when we signed up for the Conch Republic Cup. Instead of import and export regulations and travel bans, we were now participating in a goodwill event between nations, and Liberte was a piece of athletic equipment. With the all-important US Coast Guard CG-3300 form in hand, giving us permission to cruise to Cuba and return to the United States without penalty, we made the voyage. I’ve long been fascinated with Ernest Hemingway, and so to follow in his wake from Key West, Florida, to Havana across the Gulf Stream, in my own craft, was a special treat. Liberte even won a racing trophy for one epic stage: the Cuba Coast Challenge. If thieves ever decide to break into my house, they can have the few other possessions I own. Just leave that simple, sheet-metal Cuba trophy on my shelf, please.

And who does not dream of cruising to a place like the Bahamas, where we roamed for three fine seasons? Every spring, Rebecca and I would return to Indiantown, Florida, put Liberte on the hard, and fly home to earn what Jimmy Buffett calls “fun tickets.” Every fall, we’d splash and dash across the Gulf Stream. When I look at those Bahamas charts, I still remember watching intently, often impatiently, for favorable conditions to cross. I remember seeking shelter from those cold, blustery northers. I remember the Exumas rolling by, dreamlike, and the entertaining anchorage at Staniel Cay. In the Bahamas, we flew the spinnaker in wind and flat, warm water: a sailor’s nirvana. We watched curious rays and sharks under our paddleboards at Manjack Cay. We paddled the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, snorkeled the sunken drug-smuggling airplane at Norman’s Cay, and ran Liberte gingerly through the notorious Whale Cut Passage into our beloved northern Abacos. I remember sipping Goombay Smashes on Green Turtle Cay, perfectly in the moment and thoroughly on island time. 

In the town of New Plymouth, population 400, was a small customs office where I filled out forms in triplicate while an evangelist preached at high volume from the TV set. A Bahamian cut my hair in his living room and told me about his ancestors, the Loyalists who had fled there after the American Revolution. “Where are you going next?” he asked. “Back to the States,” I said. “You be careful there!” he admonished. Cruising is always a chance to flip the script and see things from the other side.

In every place we visited, we found what you might at first be tempted to call pluses and minuses. It’s easy to chase the mirage of the best place, even the perfect place. But as the world unfolds further beneath your keel, you realize that’s a faulty point of view. Any place you take your boat can be heaven or hell. It is entirely up to you.

True exploration means embracing and relishing it all, and always finding that cruising magic in the moment, even if the ­no-see-ums are chewing you to pieces, the norther lasts for days, and you’ve blown your whole budget on just one provisioning run at that shockingly expensive island store.

Every challenge offers a chance to open a little wider, to be curious instead of fearful, to invalidate your favorite biases. Do that and you will always have a good time, no matter where your own dotted line may lead. 

I still have my little hand-drawn map. By now, I know exactly where it leads and why. To other sailors on the fence, I would repeat Joshua Slocum’s advice: “I would say go.”

Cruising has a value that defies ordinary calculations. In deciding where to cruise, or whether to cruise at all, it would be a big mistake to analyze only nautical miles, engine hours and clearing-in fees, to pore over projections as if sailing were some kind of a business venture. How much does it take to cruise? As much as you have. Wherever I go, people tell me that “boat” stands for “break out another thousand.”

Fair enough. But the cruising sailor knows that’s not the whole story. There’s another acronym for boat that Rebecca and I have adopted during our travels in Liberte, one that feels much closer to the truth. For anyone who has cast off the lines, followed those dots, and found themselves wealthy beyond belief in anchorages, stories and friends, boat really stands for “best of all times.”

It stands for shooting stars on watch, sunrise at sea, and new islands off the bow. A world more vast, astonishing and splendid than seems possible. 

So grab that chart, draw an X on some destinations, then sail there. When you do, I promise that those little X’s will come wonderfully alive with stories all your own.

David Kilmer runs a private sailing yacht and wrote A Peril to Myself and Others: My Quest to Become a Captain.

The post Exploring By Sailboat, From Washington State to the Bahamas appeared first on Cruising World.

The requirements for designing a diesel-engine exhaust system are relatively simple, but when things go awry, they usually do so in a dramatic or expensive manner. Water ingress via the exhaust system is a common malady that affects auxiliary diesels, and it nearly always leads to significant damage, up to and including destroying an engine.  

Fortunately, nearly all of these failure modes are well understood and easily avoidable with proper planning and material selection.

While engine manufacturers don’t supply complete exhaust systems, virtually every one that I’ve encountered clearly details the design requirements necessary to keep water on the correct side of the engine. Following these instructions is of paramount importance. Engine manufacturers do not warranty against water damage caused by ingress from the exhaust system. 

Among other specifications, when inspecting your system, you should see a water-collection muffler, sometimes called a collector. Upon engine shutdown, water must never be trapped in the wet portion of an exhaust system, particularly between the exhaust mixing elbow (where dry exhaust and seawater mix) and the collector. If conditions are rough—and especially if the vessel is pitching heavily—water trapped in a section of hose could sluice its way into the exhaust manifold and then through an open exhaust valve into the cylinder. 

Once water is there, the engine cannot be started. Attempting to start it can severely damage connecting rods and pistons. If the water is left there for any length of time, corrosion will set in, and the engine will likely seize. 

RELATED: Troubleshoot an Overheating Engine

The solution? All the hose sections must be self-draining, with a minimum downward slope of no less than a quarter-­inch per foot (about 1.2 degrees). Mufflers should be a minimum of 12 inches below the mixing elbow. These must drain to a water-collection muffler or overboard.

Water can potentially enter from two other locations. One is the exhaust discharge at the transom. This can be prevented by using a sufficiently high riser or gooseneck just forward of the transom, by installing a flapper on the discharge, or by using an internal check valve—in that order of preference. While a check valve might seem like the obvious solution, it has pitfalls, primarily the inability to see inside it.  

The other potential pain point is the raw-water supply to the engine. Raw-water plumbing must be equipped with an anti-siphon valve, which is installed between the heat exchanger and mixing elbow (on the pressurized side of the raw-water system). Anti-siphon valves are simple devices, but they can fail, they can clog, and they can be installed incorrectly. Make certain yours is high enough above the dynamic line, at all anticipated angles of heel while motorsailing, to ensure that it will open. The general rule is for anti-siphon valves to be placed no less than 12 inches above the dynamic waterline. Higher is better. Valves should be inspected and cleaned annually. 

“But it’s been this way since I bought the boat, and it’s never been a problem. Why should I change it now?” is a refrain I often hear after pointing out a design flaw in an exhaust system.  

And yet, I’ve also encountered cases where engines have flooded with seawater after years of use. The mechanical stars aligned, enough water accumulated in a hose, and the vessel slid down a wave, shuddering to a halt when entering the trough, forcing water just far enough up the exhaust and through the elbow.  

If your exhaust system doesn’t meet the engine manufacturer’s specifications, it’s never too late to correct it. Doing so might save you untold grief and expense.

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

The post Engine Maintenance: Top Ways to Keep Your Exhaust System’s Water Out of the Engine appeared first on Cruising World.

When it comes to things I wouldn’t cross an ocean without, my list starts first and foremost with a windvane. While I am loath to recommend expensive items, windvanes are far cheaper in the long run than electric autopilots. They are also more dependable and require no electricity. Best of all, they work better (by steering the boat farther and faster, with greater force) as the wind builds. I use a Monitor windvane and rebuild it, on average, every circumnavigation and a half—which translates to every 10 to 12 years. 

I make a point of introducing myself to as many wannabe circumnavigators in the Panama Canal Zone as ­possible. Six months later, when I see them in New Zealand, I say, “I heard you had problems with your autopilot.” Rarely do they contradict me. Usually, they spew a sad-but-familiar tale of Tahitian repairs, defective parts in the Cook Islands, and lost air-freight shipments in Tonga.

Am I saying that there aren’t any dependable ­autopilots? Not all at. It’s just that they are often too heavy, too expensive and too energy-needy for most modest ­sailing yachts.

Let’s face it: If an electric-­drive autopilot lasts through 350 or 500 hours of sailing off San Diego, that’s three or four years of dependable service, and that offers good value. But in my world, the damn thing usually packs up a mere one-third of the way to Tahiti. It’s a huge difference in perspective and value.

RELATED: How Not to Install a Self-Steering Windvane

We’ve even used our Monitor in heavy weather. It worked well (if the boat is ­correctly canvased and balanced) in winds up to 50 knots—especially off the wind and used in conjunction with slowing drogues if the breaking seas exceeded 18 feet or so. 

Each boat is, of course, different, and your mileage may vary. 

Certainly, modern autopilots are convenient and easy to use. I have seen several frugal sailors use small electric-tiller autopilots attached to their windvanes to steer while under power. We circumnavigated twice with this ($250) rig. 

Why is having a device to steer the boat so important? Is it just laziness? No, it is not. Autopilots allow cruisers to rest, which allows them to be mentally engaged enough to practice proper seamanship. That’s what keeps you alive offshore: your sea sense.

And all the money in the world won’t help you offshore in mid-gale. 

Reefing system

The next-most-important thing is your reefing system—note the word “system.” This needs to work flawlessly in the pitch-black while it’s blowing 50-plus knots with waves breaking aboard. No excuses. For us, that means slab reefing on our main and mizzen, and quality roller furlers on our jib and storm staysail. Plus, of course, we fly our dedicated storm trysail around such heavy air venues as the Cape of Storms (you might hear it called the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa) and across the southern Indian Ocean. 

Here’s one of the most important truisms I know: An offshore sailor always has the proper amount of canvas showing. If you can’t reef your boat for the weather you might get, then you should not be out there, period. Hint: Most recreational craft have their aft reefing blocks too far forward. The sail should be able to be flattened in heavy air.

If we’re running before a gale in heavy airs, and Carolyn slides open the hatch, sticks her head out, smiles coquettishly, and says, “Why don’t we heave-to, skipper?” then I’m in her arms within five minutes. Yes, it takes a while to learn how to heave-to a specific vessel—but once the art of heaving-to is mastered, life offshore is bliss. 

Anchoring system

Our anchoring (and slowing drogue) system is next in importance. Our primary anchor is a big Rocna with a generous amount of 10 mm chain. We have three different snubbers, a powerful Lofrans windlass, and a variety of snatch blocks. We use our anchor windlass to haul our anchor—and to haul our Para-Tech sea anchor, our Jordan Series Drogue, and various other slowing or balancing drogues. Oh, and to hoist stuff aboard as well. For instance, we swung aboard our new Perkins diesel using the windlass, via a halyard on our boom.  

As far as anchoring goes, my goal is simple: I want to be able to safely anchor my boat in conditions of which most sailors would not dream. This requires a lot of gear—so much gear that we’ve removed a bunk and built a special “gear garage” in our walk-through between the main and aft cabins to accommodate our three spare anchors and the 1,200 feet of line we need to deploy them, as well as our storm gear. 

Solar cells

The reason the first three boats I sailed extensively offshore had kerosene running lights was because kerosene was so much more dependable than electric running lights. I’m happy to report that we’ve made massive progress on this front. Now, solar cells and LEDs allow our boat to be continuously well-lit. Back in the days of my wild youth, ­only the crew could be described that way. 

Best of all, solar cells let my bilge-pump system function dependably under battle conditions. I grew up on a 1924 carvel-planked schooner and moved from that to a 1932 Port Oxford cedar double-ender. I’ve swum around many a yacht interior as various vessels attempted to scuttle themselves. My bilge-pump system today includes a manually switched suction diaphragm pump (mounted high in my engine room) that can be run dry, and that pumps all but a few drops of water out of my bilge. I test this system every Sunday as part of my weekly “ship’s husband” chores. 

Next, a faint buzzer in the cockpit sounds as my small, submersible bilge pump turns on. If, for some reason, that pump doesn’t pump, a very loud (like, wake-the-dead loud) bilge alarm rings. This can be heard by other vessels in the harbor—and my LED spreader lights blink to alert me if I’m ashore partying on the beach. 

Next, my huge Big Daddy bilge pump kicks in. This throws a fair amount of water and, of course, draws a considerable amount of electricity. 

If, despite all this, I’m offshore and my engine or batteries are about to go underwater, I have a hose-and-valve system that allows my Perkins diesel to pump out the bilge water. This is a last-ditch device because after a second or two without water, it will burn the impeller and my engine won’t work. 

Finally, I have a large Edson manual pump that has proved itself to be handy in a pinch.

All this gear is independently wired and fused. Each pump has a massive bilge strainer.

Overkill? Perhaps. But in 62 years of living aboard and ocean sailing, I’ve never had a boat sink out from under me. 

Email

Sadly, it is difficult to circumnavigate these days without onboard email. We use a Pactor modem and Icom M710 SSB to do this; we know other sailors who rely on an Iridium satellite unit.

Noisemakers

I like buzzers and alarms—on my engine, on my knot meter, in my bilge, and in ­numerous other places. I have a 12-volt alarm called a Watch Commander that has a soft light, then a quiet buzzer and, finally, a brain-rattling sonic alarm. My wristwatch also has alarms, and can notify me with an audio or vibrating alarm (so that I don’t wake Carolyn). 

AIS

The recent technological advance that I love the most is our Automatic Identification System. AIS, to me, is all plus and no minus—and it is cheap and requires almost no electrical power. I consider it the single-most-important anti-collision device developed in my lifetime. 

Propane stove

The heart of a happy ship is its galley. We have a gimbaled, three-burner propane stove with an oven (and solenoid) that we love dearly. The moment our SSB radio tells us that a gale is coming, I go on deck to triple-lash our gear, and Carolyn fires up her stove. I’m soon back belowdecks and napping as Carolyn cooks. Thus, when the gale hits, I’m not only rested, but I’m also well-fed. Even better, we’ll continue to be well-nourished no matter how long the blow lasts because of the tasty, prepared meals awaiting us.

Auxiliary diesel

A dependable auxiliary diesel makes life easier. I cruised extensively for years without an engine on Corina and Wildcard, but those days are over. Ganesh weighs 35,000 pounds and takes an acre or two to turn around—plus, I’m beyond my 70th birthday. Thus, I have a muscular, low-revving Perkins. If I hit the switch, it fires up. 

Dinghy

Our dinghy is our car. And our truck. And our zippy motorcycle for coastal exploration. We have a 10.5-foot Caribe with a 10 hp Tohatsu that planes with both of us on board, plus a bag of groceries and a six pack of cold beer (the universal yardstick of cruising dinghies). 

We never allow it to sit in the water overnight; we always hoist it. While we use the davits in protected waters, it is always double-lashed upside down on deck offshore. That way, it can double as an instant, pre-inflated life raft. 

Because we always have a sun cover on them, we get, on average, about 12 years of hard service out of our inflatable dinghies. They are a good value, even for miserly cheapskates like us. 

All the rest

Here are some things we have but, perhaps, value a tad less than most cruisers: life raft, EPIRB, refrigeration and watermaker. 

Here are some things we don’t have and don’t want: air conditioning, a shore-power cord, cockpit speakers, a television set, electric sheet winches, a cockpit chart plotter, a wind-angle instrument, underwater lights, electric hatches, electric-hoisting ­davits, a satphone, a water heater and a cabin heater.

I believe the reason that we’re both so healthy, happy and energetic is that we know the universal desire for ease is a fool’s quest.

If you have plenty of money, budgeting isn’t important. If you don’t, it is. We focus on strength and safety issues first, and then buy ice cream if there are any freedom chips left. 

Some of my choices might strike you as stupid—that’s fine. Different folks, different strokes. My only defense is that for the past 62 years, I’ve happily lived in foreign ports with a pocketful of pennies, aboard shabby vessels on their own hooks that are able to go to sea almost immediately, and I continue to do so in company with the woman I love. 

Editor’s note: Carolyn and Fatty Goodlander are still refusing to grow up in Southeast Asia—or anywhere, for that matter.

The post Things I Wouldn’t Cross an Ocean Without appeared first on Cruising World.

Me, go around Cape Horn? Seriously? Do I want to brave roaring, high-latitude gales just to earn an earring in my left ear? 

Um, no. 

When Harriet and I decided to trade the Atlantic for the Pacific, we kept Cape Horn at the bottom of our bucket list, especially because there’s a safe, enjoyable, fascinating way to swap the Atlantic for the Pacific that doesn’t involve an 8,300-nautical-mile detour. The Panama Canal, a roughly 50-mile-long journey through history, is a cruising milestone that opens up both oceans to long-distance exploration. 

Life is short, so why not take the shortcut?

Lots of help 

For cruisers reaching the Panama Canal Zone for the first time—as we did in mid-December on our Dolphin 460 catamaran, Ocean, after beginning our transit from Colón, Panama, on the Atlantic side—there’s lots of research and reading to tap into beforehand.

Start with historian David McCullough’s 1977 book, The Path Between the Seas, and follow that with books and websites that look at more-recent developments, such as the 1999 transfer of the canal from the United States to Panama and the 2016 opening of a second set of locks to ­handle the mammoth Panamax and Neopanamax vessels (up to 1,200 feet length overall, carrying as many as 14,000 20-foot containers). 

While you are waiting your turn to transit, we recommend checking out the Agua Clara Visitor Center in Colón or the Miraflores Visitor Center and the Panama Canal Museum on the Pacific side in Panama City, which is a modern, cosmopolitan city.

We had a lot of questions about the requirements and mechanics of transiting the
canal, such as the official admeasurement of our boat (length, beam, draft, tonnage speed under power, and details about our crew and deck equipment), and the line handlers (Panama Canal Authority-supplied crew, your own crew or crew from other cruising boats), and the necessary fenders and lines. There’s lot of help available online, including from the Panama Canal Authority itself, and you’ll no doubt meet other cruisers who have done the trip before. 

The Panama Canal operates around the clock 365 days a year, and communication about all aspects of the transit, in these days of email, texts and WhatsApp, is well-organized.

Need an agent? 

How’s your Spanish? As first-timers, we contacted a few cruisers who’d been through the canal, and their advice was yes, get an agent for the transit, especially if your command of Spanish is, um, basic. 

Our agent, Erick Galvez of Centenario Consulting, proved invaluable. He spoke English well; answered our questions quickly; explained every step of the transit; arranged our canal booking, our admeasurement and line handlers; kept us updated as our time slot drew closer; and helped us with non-canal stuff too. 

The transit requires ­supplying the right documents to the right government official in the right office at the right time, and given the language barrier, there’s a fairly high chance of things getting lost in translation. 

Overall, the cost of this enterprise, including the $1,500 transit toll for Ocean—and the transit admeasure, security fee, fenders and lines rental, agent service fee, Panama cruising permit, and one line handler and a pilot/adviser—came to just over $2,900.

Our transit

Before heading for the canal, we spent about 10 days chasing down boat projects at Shelter Bay Marina, a full-service facility a few miles from the canal entrance. Two friends from our late-’80s cruise through the South Pacific, Karen and Paul Prioleau, joined our boat for the transit, so we needed only one more line handler. Our agent arranged for Juan, who was studying to become a canal pilot, to join Ocean, and a Panama Canal Authority pilot boat met us to drop off Roy, our pilot/adviser, as we approached the first lock. 

Once we were safely inside the Gatun Locks, the bells of the electric locomotives clanged and the sliding steel sluice gate closed behind us. Twenty-six-million gallons of water flooded in, silently lifting Ocean, along with the 45-foot powerboat we were rafted to, and an imposing container ship, 27 feet above the Atlantic. 

Our crew was excited: “How cool is this!” Yes, the Panama Canal is very cool—suddenly you find yourself in the middle of amazing history and modern technology.

The rush of water boiling up in the chamber combined with prop wash from the ship just in front of us was alarming, but Roy had positioned Ocean in the best spot in the lock. It’s safer to be alone, if possible, with your lines keeping you in the center of the lock, or to be rafted to another yacht that is tied to the wall of the canal; avoid nesting to a tug or alongside the wall. 

Keep your two bow and two stern lines taut. We rented 125-footers of seven-­eighths polypropylene and eight round fenders from the Panama Canal Authority. Be sure to ease the lines to avoid a high upward load that could snap your cleats. 

We found that the counter-­rotating props of our cat’s twin 40 hp diesels helped Harriet adjust our position as needed; the prop walk of a monohull’s single screw will require more anticipation by your line ­handlers. In any case, your pilot/adviser and local line handlers are experienced (Roy and Juan had each transited more than 1,000 times) with all kinds of boats.

Once released from the three Gatun Locks, most yachts spend the night on an official mooring in Gatun Lake, resuming the transit early the next morning. Swimming from your boat is not allowed, however, because of crocodiles. This shortcut between the seas is also a slash through the jungle: howler monkeys, which are pint-size creatures swinging through the canopy, let loose a roar that sounds like an 18-wheeler, while jaguars and pumas pad through the rainforest. 

Oh, and if you transit during the May-to-November rainy season, it likely will be pouring: Panama receives 12 feet of annual rainfall. The timing of our one-day transit was a bit unusual, beginning at 0430 and finishing by 1700, so we missed the overnight stay among the crocs and jaguars and howler monkeys. We missed the rain too.

The rest of the transit was easy. The interoceanic waterway eases into long, winding stretches, including cuts through mountain ranges that were won at a tremendous cost in human life—an estimated 25,000 people perished from tropical diseases and industrial accidents during the canal’s 1880 to 1914 construction. Just two final sets of locks—the Pedro Miguel and the Miraflores—and the canal dropped us into the Pacific.

Well worth it

History and politics weigh heavily upon the Panama Canal, but for cruisers, the experience is equal parts educational and magical. 

More than 100 years ago, the ditch was dug with steam-powered diggers and men with shovels. Some of yesteryear’s leading-edge technology, such as the line-handling electric locomotives running on both sides of the locks, are still operating today. The canal’s million-dollar tugboats with omnidirectional propulsion are present-day cutting-edge. The six new Panamax locks are a showcase of engineering and construction; the colossal project consumed more than 1.5 billion cubic feet of concrete and 192,000 tons of steel reinforcement. The Panama Canal has functioned in spectacular fashion from its opening in 1914.

Our transit of the Panama Canal was memorable—a milestone for Harriet, me and Ocean. It’s also difficult to sum up. As McCullough wrote, “The 50 miles between the oceans were among the hardest ever won by human effort and ingenuity, and no statistics on tonnage or tolls can begin to convey the grandeur or what was accomplished.” 

For cruisers, it is all that, of course—plus it’s a fantastic shortcut. And worthy of an earring in your starboard ear.

As of press time, Tom and ­Harriet Linskey were headed to the ­Marquesas.

The post Panama Canal: A Shortcut Between the Seas appeared first on Cruising World.

So, you’ve decided that you are sick and tired of hearing your boat’s diesel engine clattering away for hours on end while you’re recharging your batteries via your engine’s alternator.

You keep your boat on a mooring, so gaining access to shore power to run a dedicated 120-volt-battery charger isn’t normally an option. Solar panels or a wind generator could help, but you’re not too keen on the aesthetics or the reliability. 

That leaves three options to satisfy your appetite for amps. 

You could install an onboard AC generator, which will take up a considerable amount of space, is expensive, and will be just as noisy as running your main engine. 

You could add an additional alternator that is dedicated to supplying your house battery bank, leaving the original alternator to service just your main-engine starting battery.

Or you can replace your ­original alternator with a high-­output unit that can meet all your DC amperage needs. 

I’m going to focus on those last two options, which are most likely to be your short list.  

How hungry are you? 

The first step in determining battery-charging needs is to perform an electrical-load analysis. You need to be brutally honest with yourself when you do this. Odds are that you are not going to be using all of your loads simultaneously. Many of your electrical loads will be considered intermittent. Conversely, many loads are going to be what technicians refer to as mission-critical. 

The American Boat and Yacht Council, in its E-11 Standard covering AC and DC electrical systems on boats, provides a good guide for performing a meaningful load analysis. Examples of mission-critical loads include navigation lights and VHF radios. Examples of intermittent loads might be an anchor windlass, a horn or a potable water pump. 

You can access the worksheet in ABYC E-11 by going to abycinc.org and clicking on “recreational boaters” at the top right. Then, click on “join ABYC.” Scroll down to the free five-day trial membership to access the E-11 appendix Table 1. Substitute your own electrical appliances for the ones shown, and fill in the current values. Add the ­columns, but for column B, take 10 percent or the largest load, which is usually an anchor windlass. 

Going through this important step will reveal your appetite for amps. Keep in mind that this list is for DC appliances only. If your boat has an installed DC-to-AC inverter, consider it a DC load, and probably a large one at that. 

Battery-recharge acceptance rate

Also consider the ­batteries you are attempting to recharge. All batteries have what we know as an acceptance rate. This means that no matter how much recharging capability you have, the batteries are going to accept only a percentage of that available electrical current (amperage). 

Traditional flooded-cell batteries have an approximate acceptance rate of about 25 percent of charge. This means that if your existing alternator has a 100-amp output, your battery is going to accept only about 25 amps at a time. 

AGM batteries have a higher acceptance rate. They come in at around 30 percent to 35 percent. 

Lithium batteries have a much higher rate, but that is a story for another time; there is much to consider before you take that route. 

The AGMs are my choice today because a higher recharge-acceptance rate means they can be recharged faster. And they can typically be discharged to a lower level without damaging the battery. These facts mean more amperage is actually available to run your equipment. 

How about the alternator?

Once you have established your electrical-use habits, you can think about how much alternator power you actually need to meet your needs, and to dramatically reduce your main-engine run time. 

No matter what you are told, trust me: This is not as simple as unbolting your existing alternator and bolting on a new, high-output unit. 

Alternators consume some of your engine’s horsepower when they are working. How much? The answer varies depending on amperage rating, but about 1 hp for every 25 amps of electrical power is a good general rule. This is an important consideration if your auxiliary diesel has only 25 hp or 30 hp to begin with. 

I share this information because one of the observations I’ve made in my many years as a CW Boat of the Year judge is that in every effort to meet price points for new boats, manufacturers will often slightly underpower them to save a few dollars in engine cost. We judge this by measuring boatspeed under power at various engine rpm. I learned this trick the hard way many years ago, when I installed a high-output alternator on a boat that had a one-cylinder Yanmar diesel engine as its main propulsion engine. The engine had about 7 hp. With the new high-output alternator, the boat couldn’t get out of its own way. It was a stupid and expensive mistake. 

Another example: A 3GM30 Yanmar engine has a single V-belt drive for its standard 55-amp alternator. Let’s say that you need a 125-amp alternator to meet your needs. Well, you have gone beyond the threshold for the single-V-belt drive, which is generally considered to be 100 amps. This means you are going to need to replace all of the alternator drive pulleys on the front of the engine with either a double-V-belt set or a serpentine-belt set. This is a great upgrade and, in most cases, can be accommodated by installing one of Balmar’s AltMount serpentine-pulley conversion kits. 

One thing we are seeing increasingly these days is dual-alternator installations. This setup is often configured as one alternator to recharge the engine start battery and a second for supplying house loads and recharging the house battery bank. 

If you have space, this is a great way to go for a cruising boat because you have a spare alternator in case one fails. It won’t charge everything as quickly, but at least you will have a battery-charging source on board. Balmar offers second alternator kits. 

What else?

Regardless of whether you go with one or two alternators to achieve your amperage needs, you’ll need to consider the mechanics of mounting these units to your engine. Is it a double- or single-foot mount? What about belt adjustment? Wiring and voltage regulation? 

The tachometer for my original installation was driven by an electrical connection on the stock alternator. Does the new replacement have that same connection? If not, what about my engine tachometer?

If you are upping your ­amperage considerably, then you will definitely need to replace the wiring harness to your alternator. 

And what about cooling? Alternators generate considerable heat, a primary cause of premature electrical-­component failure. In ­extreme cases, thermal sensors are integrated with the voltage regulator to reduce output from the alternator when a certain temperature is reached. Considering that the larger high-output units cost more than $1,000, this monitoring and regulating is worth the added cost. 

Using a matched external voltage regulator that is programmable is the only way to go, in my view. Considering the overall cost here, which may include new batteries, being able to program voltage regulation to maximize battery-cycle life is just common sense. 

Is Balmar the only show in town?

No, although Balmar has done a great job of creating complete upgrade packages, and the company is a regular presence at boat shows. Several other sources are cruiserowaterandpower.com, boatid.com, dbelectrical.com and mastervolt.com.

Longtime Boat of the Year judge Ed Sherman writes frequently on a vast array of technical topics for CW. 

The post Amping Things Up: Adding High Output Alternators appeared first on Cruising World.

Anytime a sailor can set a spinnaker is special. A boat just seems to come alive and say thank you for adding the colorful, carefully shaped sail. 

Spinnaker fabrics, shapes, setting techniques, graphics and trimming methods have all improved in recent years. When the first spinnakers appeared during America’s Cup races in the early 1900s, sailors named the innovative downwind sails in honor of film stars such as Greta Garbo and Mae West. Today, thanks to sailmakers looking for advances in speed, spinnakers are lighter, stronger, easier to set, more efficient to trim and, best of all, fast. For many boats, awkward ­spinnaker poles have given way to ­asymmetrical spinnakers.

I’ve learned that simpler is better. The key to setting a spinnaker is spending some time folding the sail ­properly before setting it. This is similar to the protocol of a paratrooper packing his chute. Prepare the sheets and halyard, and secure the shackles to the three corners of the sail. When everything is ready to go, the sailor at the helm needs to steer a course that allows the sail to be hoisted behind the mainsail before the sail is trimmed. It’s a magic moment when the sail fills and the boat accelerates. The crew feels the energy, and it lifts everyone’s morale.

On my 32-foot Hood ­daysailer, Whirlwind, I hand over the helm to my crew, and then I set up the spinnaker. I’ve arranged the tack, halyard and clew to be attached to the spinnaker from the cockpit. I do not have a bowsprit or a pole. I do not need to go up on the foredeck. The sail attaches to the tack line, which is led under the foredeck so that I can control it from the cockpit. 

At one point, I was inspired to use an elaborate roller-­furling arrangement to set the spinnaker. I got the idea from around-the-world-racers. It was a mess. The roller furler would wind up in one direction at the head and the other direction along the foot. It was an impossible system to use.

To figure out what I should do, I called one of my sailing heroes, Jud Smith. He patiently listened to my problem and then calmly said: “I am going to send you a spinnaker bag. Put the sail in the bag. Attach the three corners, and hoist it. When you are finished, lower the sail, and put it back in the bag. That’s it.” 

I laughed as I listened intently to his sage advice. What he was really saying was, “Hey, knucklehead, just use the simple tried-and-true method of setting a spinnaker.” 

I haven’t had a problem since. 

Symmetrical-shaped spinnakers

These traditionally shaped sails are rounded evenly on both sides and are easily jibed with the use of a spinnaker pole. The sails work best when the deepest part of the draft of the sail is about 50 ­percent of the way aft. 

A good check is to set the sail so that the clews are level and the center seam in the sail is about perpendicular to the horizon. Use the spinnaker pole topping lift to adjust the height of the clews. Try to keep the clews at the same height off the water. Set the spinnaker pole on the mast so that it extends at a ­90-degree angle to the mast. This helps keep the spinnaker away from the boat. The air flows freely around the sail when it is set away from the mast and mainsail. 

In lighter winds, say less than 11 knots, it’s easy to trim a spinnaker with a 70- to 80-degree apparent-wind angle. As the breeze builds, the boat will start overheeling, and the course to steer needs to be lower. In 20 knots of wind, a comfortable apparent-wind angle is around 110 degrees. In a strong blow, steering can be tricky. If the boat starts rolling uncomfortably, then steer a higher course. This will end the rolling. If the wind seems too strong, then the best solution is to just take down the sail. 

Keep one person stationed near the spinnaker sheet. The sail should be eased out just before the sail luffs. Racing sailors adjust the trim constantly. When I am cruising or daysailing, I like to slightly overtrim the sail so that it doesn’t collapse, but I keep an eye on the sail at all times. 

Asymmetrical-shaped spinnakers

These have become popular in the past 30 years. They are easy to fly, and they make boats sail swiftly. 

Generally, one steers a higher course to make the asymmetrical spinnaker fly efficiently. This means that a boat will jibe through a higher angle, but the trade-off of additional speed makes the asymmetrical spinnaker a good choice. On Whirlwind, I am able to sail with the asymmetrical spinnaker with an apparent-wind angle of 60 degrees in winds under 11 knots. In a stronger breeze of, say, 17 knots, I find the most efficient apparent-wind angle to be about 105 degrees to 120 degrees.  

Bowsprits help the sail set more efficiently. I learned during countless days of speed testing on America’s Cup yachts that the farther forward you can set the tack of a spinnaker, the more speed you will generate. The luff of the sail should be relatively tight and the leech somewhat looser. The asymmetrical shape has a different draft or curvature in the forward part of the sail compared with the after part of the sail. There are times when I will ease off the tack line several inches to help the sail fly a little better, particularly in lighter winds. I suggest experimenting with the height of the tack to judge what makes the sail work best.

A convenient method of ­setting an asymmetrical ­spinnaker is to use a snuffer tube. The sail is zipped into a long tube that is hoisted to the top of the mast. Once the sail is all the way up, the tube is ­unzipped and the spinnaker fills. 

It is a thing of beauty to see the sail fill with air. The lead of the spinnaker sheet should be set so that the sail flies with a leech that is open but not fluttering. As the wind builds, moving the spinnaker-sheet lead aft helps to keep the sail under control. In lighter winds, the lead should be moved forward to keep the leech of sail a little tighter. Spend some time experimenting where the best position for the lead should be set.   

I suggest having at least two lead positions. If the sail seems to luff at the top of the sail first, then move the lead forward. If the spinnaker luffs near the foot first, then move the lead aft.

The trickiest part of using an asymmetrical spinnaker is jibing. On Whirlwind, I always use an inside jibe, where the sail switches sides of the boat with the clew inside the tack. Outside jibes work well when there is a good breeze of 11 knots or more, but they can be difficult to execute with a small crew. Prepare your crew in advance of a jibe. Good steering is important when jibing. Pick a point on land to head toward, or note the new compass course you will be steering before starting your turn. Trim in the mainsail as it swings across to control it. Make sure everyone’s head is down. Have some fun, and practice.   

I have been able to set the asymmetrical spinnaker to windward when sailing straight downwind. The mainsail is on one side of the boat, and the spinnaker is set on the windward side of the boat. The person at the helm has to be careful to keep the spinnaker flying to windward. Sometimes I steer a course that is slightly by the lee to make the arrangement work.  

A word of caution: Watch the boom. It easily can come flying across when you’re sailing by the lee. Easing the tack will help give the spinnaker a faster shape when you trim it to windward.

The spinnaker trimmer must be in a good position to see the whole sail. A slight curl in the luff of the sail is acceptable. Try to keep the sail from collapsing because it stresses the fabric, slows the boat, and makes the crew uncomfortable. 

Trimming spinnakers

The person steering and the spinnaker trimmer should work together. 

When the trimmer feels more wind velocity in the sail by the tension on the sheet, he or she should tell the person at the helm to bear off and sail a lower course. This will help you gain distance to leeward. When the wind velocity drops, ask the helm to steer a higher course to maintain boatspeed. 

Rotate crew during the sail so that everyone has a chance to trim and steer. If the sail looks out of balance, then make the adjustment to get the sail to set as discussed above.  

Staysails

Spinnakers fly best with little interference from additional sails. At times, staysails can add speed in moderate wind and when sailing on a reach. The slot created between a staysail and the spinnaker and the mainsail creates good airflow. 

If the wind is light (less than 7 knots), then the staysail will draw the spinnaker toward the hull of the boat and slow it down. A staysail on a roller furler makes it easy to experiment to see if the sail adds or subtracts boatspeed. In most cases, I find that the headsail should be rolled up or dropped to help the spinnaker set properly.

Be creative with your spinnaker’s color pattern. If you own a spinnaker, set it anytime you are sailing with the wind. Other crews will give you a hearty wave when you pass by with a spinnaker flying. 

If you don’t own a ­spinnaker, consult with your sailmaker and get one. It is as simple as hoisting the sail out of the bag and letting the boat take off.

CW editor-at-large Gary Jobson has a hard time deciding if he likes cruising or racing more.

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