Cruising

By Wilson Fitt Olivia at the helm Many years ago, when our three children were small, we spent an idyllic week on Cape Breton’s Bras d’Or Lakes on our Herreshoff 28 ketch, putting the bow up on the shore at Marble Mountain and pitching the tent on the beach. The kids swam, learned to row the dinghy, and messed around in boats to their hearts’ content. They say you can’t go back, but this summer we did…

“Zookeper” is one of very few sailors to complete a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the world, and the first to do it in a 40-year-old Westsail 32.

Ex Scientia Tridens, “Through Knowledge, Sea Power” is the motto of the United States Naval Academy, and in mid-June 2018, five Navy 44s (44-foot navy blue sloops) took station near the lighthouse just off the Stamford, CT breakwater before dousing sails and entering Stamford Harbor as part of their ten-day sail training exercise “at sea” from Annapolis, MD.

The Salty Dawg Sailing Association (SDSA), a Middletown, RI, based non-profit educational and charitable organization that hosts rallies, rendezvous and blue water sailing seminars, has expanded routes for its Fall Rally to the Caribbean. For the first time, a departure point in Essex, CT offers advantages for those not planning to cruise through the Chesapeake Bay to the primary starting venue in Hampton, VA.

The 19th Annual North American Rally to the Caribbean departs Saturday, October 27, 2018 from Newport, RI (or the best weather window after that date.) Now a free rally, the NARC Rally is offering a new Mid-Atlantic departure point. “Boats are invited to depart from the Chesapeake Bay to join the NARC Rally in Bermuda and sail south to St. Maarten,” said Hank Schmitt, President of Offshore Passage Opportunities (OPO).

The Fools’ Rules Regatta, a family-oriented event for fun-loving folks of all ages sponsored by the Jamestown Yacht Club, is celebrating 41 foolish years on Saturday, August 18, 2018 on the Town Beach, East Ferry in Jamestown, RI.

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m an O’Day Mariner fanatic. I have owned my 1970, 19-foot Mariner Orion, hull #1922, since 2007 and have held three different positions on the Mariner Class Association Executive Board including President (twice). I have a website for my own boat and have organized fleet and national rendezvous since 2009.

Who knew back in 1981 when two single women decided to start the Shoreline Sailing Club (SSC), that it would continue to flourish and be responsible for many marriages, lifelong friendships and a social life that’s unstoppable, 37 years later?

Co-founded by brothers Kilian and Sean Duclay of Huntington Station, NY, SailAhead is a non-profit organization that uses sailing and the ocean as a therapeutic platform to help heal U.S. Armed Forces veterans suffering from PTSD.

More than 100 women sailors, from amateur day sailors to experienced offshore cruisers, arrived at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Marblehead, MA on Saturday, June 2, 2018 to share their expertise and learn new skills at the 17th NWSA (National Women’s Sailing Association) Women’s Sailing Conference.