Publisher's Log

For most sailors in the Northeast, March really is when things get going in our sport. Sure, some lucky ones have snuck down to Florida or the Caribbean for a week, an enviable break. But for me, sneaking down to the boat to examine the bottom and muse on when the cover can come off gets the mind working. End-of-year frostbite regattas, spring breaks, and summer season planning all come to the fore, requiring executive function to…

Support your local race committee! This photo, taken the same day as this month’s cover shot, shows a Dyer Dhow start at the Larry Goodwin Trophy Regatta at Norwalk Yacht Club in Norwalk, Connecticut.  Photographer Rick Bannerot reports a temperature of 20°F with 20-knot gusts. That’s Principal Race Officer Ed Cesare shivering atop the NYC Frostbite Shack.   © Rick Bannerot/OntheFlyPhoto.net     Welcome to the first issue of 2023! And since it’s winter time and other than a…

I just got home from the boat yard. It’s early November and one of those sixty to seventy-degree days that make you wish you had not pulled the boat just yet. These sentiments are not shared by the team at the yard, of course. Pulling boats while it is sleeting is not much fun, and you should not “be that guy.” But I must say, we are lucky enough to have a boat that really looks sweet…

We don’t always cover sailing events after they have happened. We tend to prefer to provide previews, to help organizers boost the number of boats on the line. There are many outlets that report on the results, and sometimes we do too if there is enough “color” that we think is important to you. But there is one event we cover every year with great pleasure. While much is being said about creating opportunities for women in…

I am sailing with a friend in the Shields Nationals (hosted by Ida Lewis Yacht Club and Shields Fleet 9 in Newport, Rhode Island September 6 – 10); thus the lovely cover shot. It is being sailed the first full week in September in Newport. It is not particularly convenient for my family. It is the first week of school for our 9th grader. Fall baseball practices will undoubtedly be called while I am away, and other…

We are very proud of our efforts to promote the activities of women in our sport. We are coming up on a year and half of our regular feature, Women on the Water. Not that WindCheck needed to really increase our coverage, but Coop thought it would be cool to lock in a monthly bio of female sailors in the WindCheck area, from New Jersey to New Bedford. Our first victim was Martha Parker which of course…

I confess that on the first truly summer-like weekend of 2022, a couple of weeks ago from when you are reading this, I found myself totally uninspired to write. I was very much more inspired to be on the water, or playing tennis or golf with my son, or eating and drinking outside or playing Canadian doubles with the now permanent badminton set in the backyard. Even cleaning the disaster of a garage ranked much higher than…

June is the best month for sure. Why? Because of the solstice of course! And not only should you be getting out to every weeknight race, pre-work fishing outing or on the water BBQ opportunity that you can, but there are also events aplenty to partake in. One we want to really push on was invented by our friend John Arndt, the associate publisher of kindred publication Latitude 38 from the San Francisco Bay area. Summer Sailstice…

As we emerge from March of 2020, and stride forth in the spring of 2022, and as we have mentioned before in this column, some things seem to be permanently different. And I have talked about how we are going to treat the newbies and how we shouldn’t act like the grumpy ranger but more like the hail-fellow well-met mentor. But then, once that effort has been made, mostly last summer, what will this summer look like?…

Well, it is pretty obvious that, overall, we in the Northeast are very lucky to live where we do. And within that good fortune, at WindCheck we are entering an outstanding quarter. Let’s start with the cascading effect of what is shaping up to be a record-setting Newport Bermuda Race. Gracing this month’s cover is three-time winner Carina, and it is an epic shot taken by world renowned photographer Barry Pickthall. Barry was kind enough to share…