Are you planning to sail to the Caribbean this fall? Are you excited about spending a few weeks bareboating in the islands this winter?

Dreaming about which island to visit next can lead to some serious reading. Here are a few suggestions about resources that will let you feed those dreams with hearty, nutritional content instead of junk.

There are stacks of references to check before hoisting the sails and anchor. I unfold Imray charts, check the chartplotter for distance, log onto Facebook groups—there’s one for every island—and download the weather forecast. Then, I see what’s up with the ActiveCaptain app. I flip pages in the Doyle Guides to the Leeward and Windward Islands, or in the Cruising Guide to the Virgin Islands by Nancy and Simon Scott. There are others, including a dozen guidebooks compiled by Don Street.

Today’s boaters don’t know how lucky they are to have all these resources. It hasn’t always been this way.

One of the first books I read about sailing in this region was Isles of the Caribbees by Carlton Mitchell, published in 1966. Mitchell takes us aboard the yacht Finisterre from island to island through the Eastern Caribbean, with images by National Geographic photographers. I could see what those islands looked like. This book sent me off dreaming of sailing to the tropics.

In 1978, I finally got to the Caribbean for the first time, on a Morgan Out Island bareboat charter out of Red Hook on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. While I’d grown up on lake boats and spent 10 years cruising the New England coast aboard Quinta, my 36-foot Alden sloop, I had no idea what I’d find in the tropics. The charter company gave us a spiral-bound guide, first published by The Moorings in 1974, with aerial photos of anchorages. It included a few words about anchoring, but no information about what we might find ashore. This was to be a DIY adventure.

When I decided to sail my second boat, Fair-Thee-Well, to the Caribbean in 1981, I needed to do some serious research. Street’s books caught my attention. I still have them. It was Street’s A Cruising Guide to the Lesser Antilles, published in 1964, that paved the way.

He not only provided advice on the various routes from anywhere north to the Caribbean, but he also provided detailed information about every cove, harbor and anchorage on every island. His writing was highly opinionated, and for good reason. He had sailed the Antilles for 50 years.

Street wrote for the serious voyager—the boat owner—not the bareboater. He was less interested in beach bars and French restaurants than in how to get into small coves and anchorages without hitting a reef. Reading Street is like sitting in the cockpit with a beer or a rum punch, listening to a crusty adventurer spin yarns and provide advice. His books are valuable and entertaining, a journey unto themselves. One of my favorites is Seawise, a collection of Street’s thoughts on every aspect of boat ownership and cruising.

His books haven’t been updated recently, but they are still valuable references. As he writes: “The bars and services ashore may change from season to season, but the rocks and reefs haven’t moved in a hundred years.”

Street’s website has a great deal of what he has written, too: street-iolaire.com/

Doyle Guides and App

Chris Doyle’s guides to the Leeward and Windward Islands have been around since the early 1980s. He’s an Englishman who sailed the Colin Archer ketch Sugar Creek across the Atlantic to Grenada in the late 1970s. He skippered charter boats and bareboats, made deliveries, and got to know the islands well. After being pestered by bareboaters asking for directions, he published his own guidebook, selling advertising to cover the cost of printing. He sold the book from boat to boat while paddling his Windsurfer around anchorages. He has been at it all these years.

I’ve been using Doyle Guides for 40 years. I even find the ads useful because they put a face to the services ashore. Doyle Guides also include colored sketch charts as well as information on marine services, hiking trails, restaurants and markets. New editions are printed every two years.

The Doyle Guides app is free and has the newest information. A map shows your current GPS location, and the app lets you locate post offices, Wi-Fi, ATMs, immigration offices, marine stores, dive operators, markets and restaurants. If you get lost ashore, it’ll show you where you are. I even use it while researching from my home in Maine.

You can also download the guidebook to your device. Lexi Fisher, a Grenadian who handles the day-to-day Doyle Guides updates, told me: “The Doyle Guides app has all of the same general information as the printed guides. However, I can instantly update the app version whenever any changes occur. This I do about every two or three days, as information comes in.”

Charts show locations for shoreside attractions and services. Click on one, and up pops detailed information. The app will even place a phone call for you. It’ll show you where there’s fuel and a hospital.

I find that the printed guides are easier to use while I’m on deck, steering the boat, but I like the app too. It lets you access the content offline if you don’t have Wi-Fi.

And yes, I’m paging through my 2009 edition right now, planning next winter’s adventures.

The post Sailors’ Helpers appeared first on Cruising World.

Weems & Plath has introduced BrightWind, the latest addition to the company’s OGM Series of LED navigation lights.

BrightWind is reportedly a first of its kind, combining an ultrasonic wind sensor, LED tricolor and LED anchor light. It is built with a low-power-draw, non-mechanical wind sensor (created by Calypso Instruments) and incorporates Weems & Plath’s navigation light with a strobe and photodiode. BrightWind also can provide wind speed and direction data to any NMEA 0183 or (with a converter) NMEA 2000 display.

“The top of a mast is a small yet extremely valuable piece of real estate on a sailboat,” Michael Flanagan, president & CEO of Weems & Plath, stated in a press release. “By bringing the navigation light and wind sensor together as one unit, we’re not only reducing the footprint that’s required to mount these two vital pieces of equipment, but we’re also consolidating the wiring within the mast. It was a logical step to combine our acclaimed navigation light with Calypso’s innovative wind sensor.”

BrightWind has no bearings or mechanical parts, which typically wear out over time and can degrade performance. This design makes it suited for long-term, outdoor use in all conditions, according to the manufacturer.

In place of mechanical parts, the wind sensor uses four ultrasonic transducers that measure how fast it takes for sound waves to travel back and forth between each transducer. The sensor then uses the speed of the sound waves to determine the wind speed and direction.

BrightWind’s anemometer can measure up to 100 mph and provide full directional data with accurate measurements not subject to mechanical friction.

Weems & Plath says the LX TriColor/Anchor LED Navigation Light (LXTA-SP) is one of its most popular navigation lights in the OGM series, with use by riggers as well as coastal and offshore sailors. While the LXTA light is US Coast Guard-approved at 2 nautical miles for sailboats up to 65 feet in length, its actual brightness exceeds that distance and uses less than 20 percent of the power of comparable incandescents. When the light is used in tandem with the wind sensor, the power consumption is only 0.35 amps at 12 volts DC.

BrightWind is built using military-grade anodized aluminum and a UV-resistant acrylic lens. There’s a limited lifetime warranty on the light and a two-year warranty on the wind sensor.  

How long has Weems & Plath been in business? Since 1928. The company is based in Annapolis, Maryland.

For more information: go to www.weems-plath.com/brightwind

The post Weems & Plath Introduces BrightWind appeared first on Cruising World.

There’s good news for the hundreds of thousands of boaters who use the 1,100-mile Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AIWW) each year to recreate, either as part of their home waters or cruising America’s “Marine Highway 95,” transiting the AIWW’s ten states from Norfolk, Virginia to Key West, Florida.

The Fiscal Year 2024 Energy and Water Appropriations bill recently passed with bipartisan support and with additional funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is delivering $48.5 million to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for a FY 2024 work plan to address critical waterway maintenance and dredging issues in five states. The breakdown of funding is as follows:

• Virginia: $5.3 million
• North Carolina: $26.6 million
• South Carolina: $8.5 million
• Georgia: $4 million
• Florida: $4 million

The waterway’s chief advocate, the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway Association (AIWA), has worked for more than a decade to restore sufficient dredging funding to return the waterway to its authorized depth of 12 feet. The Waterway was authorized in the 1939 Rivers and Harbors Act and the USACE is responsible for its maintenance. Shoaling in certain locations continues to threaten passage of recreational and commercial vessels.

AIWA members include Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS). Said BoatUS manager of government affairs and AIWA board member David Kennedy. “The Intracoastal is used by many kinds of boaters and anglers, and dredging is critical to safety and the economic development that boating brings to waterfront communities. This latest win, along with more sustained support for other shallow draft harbors, gives promise that the boater’s voice is being heard in the halls of government. Our thanks to AIWA for helping to deliver these dredging funds that help ensure safe navigation.”

“It was not that long ago that we had zero federal dollars for dredging, and the waterway’s future was being questioned,” said AIWA executive director Brad Pickel. “We thank Congress, the Biden Administration, and all of our local state partners and members for helping to deliver these critical USACE funds.”

The post ICW Boaters Will Benefit from $48.5M Dredging Funding 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.

Boaters worldwide can now access to the most comprehensive resource of ocean regulatory information, including marine protection areas, through the savvy navvy app. Made possible through a collaboration between savvy navvy and ProtectedSeas, a data-driven and ocean-focused business headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, the app aims to empower boaters with information to make more environmentally conscious decisions while out on the water. 

ProtectedSeas Navigator currently provides boaters with 22,000 marine protected and managed areas in more than 220 countries across the world. This includes speed-limit zones to protect marine mammals, fisheries management areas among other protections. 

“Working with ProtectedSeas enables us at savvy navvy to bring their valuable research to life and help anyone on the water to make better decisions to protect the environment,” said David Cusworth, head of innovation and partnerships at savvy navvy. “We like to do things differently, and building on our seagrass data from last year, we will now have a whole layer of information just about sustainability. This partnership is the latest in savvy navvy’s ambition to bring sustainability to the forefront of boaters across the globe, as we continue to make navigation safe and easy for everyone on the water.” 

ProtectedSeas scoured the globe to compile marine protection information into the Navigator database of marine protected areas (MPAs), both large and small, including creating the first public digital maps for over 2,400 areas—roughly 10 percent of the areas included in the database. Launching their digital data after eight years of research and development, savvy navvy now delivers the Navigator data to boaters and watersports users all over the world via their app. 

“ProtectedSeas is excited to see Navigator information in the hands of boaters on the water,” said Virgil Zetterlind, director of ProtectedSeas. “Through our partnership with savvy navvy, boaters are more empowered to know and comply with conservation rules on the water which help protect the ecosystems they know and enjoy.”

Since launching their first global view of marine life protections, ProtectedSeas has been complimented by several industry-renowned leaders and bodies, including the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Dr. Sylvia Earle, and the governor of California. Savvy navvy, often referred to as “Google Maps for boats,” is a revolutionary, award winning boat navigation app that aims to deliver information needed by boaters for a seamless experience on the water, all in one place. They were among the first to integrate multiple sustainable data sources from different conservation agencies and bodies. Some of the ProtectedSeas data is already live in the savvy navvy app now, with more to follow soon. 

To learn more about the sustainable data or to download the app visit savvy-navvy.com

The post Setting Course for a More Sustainable Future appeared first on Cruising World.

After owning the same sailboat for a good long spell, I naturally became quite familiar with the ­electronic navigation kit, including our modest (by today’s standards, anyway) Garmin chart plotter. That is to say, when I needed to, I knew where to find most of its features without pushing too many buttons or resorting to the dreaded user manual.

That’s not the case, though, when I step aboard friends’ boats and encounter less-familiar brands of plotters, often set up in peculiarly whimsical ways, or when I take the occasional charter and try to reset the previous skipper’s preference for, say, chart soundings in fathoms or meters instead of feet. 

And then there are those sea trials aboard newly launched sailboats that may or may not have calibrated instruments or even a cartography chip in the plotter, as was the case aboard a large cruising cat I found myself on in an unexpectedly shallow corner of Florida’s Biscayne Bay. 

Here’s my take on Situational Awareness 101: Having ­easy-to-use, familiar nav equipment isn’t just a convenience; it’s a real safety issue when you suddenly find yourself tacking into unfamiliar territory or when sea ­conditions change unexpectedly. That’s not when you want to go scrolling through pages of unfamiliar menus ­looking for settings and information such as tides and current.

As the Boy Scouts like to quip: Be ­prepared. And with relatively inexpensive prices for hardware and plenty of free or low-cost apps among which to choose, it’s pretty darned easy to put together a take-it-with-you navigation toolkit that can double as a backup should the primary system on your own boat fall prey to the electron demons.

I’ve used the free navigation app iNavX for a while now. I have it on my iPhone (it’s also available for Android) and use it mostly to check my surroundings underway, and to get an idea of what might lie between my location and the next waypoint. 

Call me old-fashioned, but I find ­planning longer routes much easier on a bigger screen such as what might be found on a tablet or multifunction display, or on paper charts. So, my first step was to contact customer support at iNavX to see what I should look for if I wanted to move up to an iPad. They promptly recommended any new iPad with cellular capabilities because it would have a ­built-in GPS receiver that works without a Wi-Fi signal; a used or ­refurbished device would need the same, I was told, plus it should have at least 64 GB of storage and be able to run iOS 13 or later software, or, even better, iOS 15 or newer software.

It took a little patience and hunting online, but I found an iPad Air 2 that met those specs on Amazon for just under $240. Had I searched longer, I probably could have found something suitable for even less, but with an upcoming trip, I was eager to get charts downloaded and sorted.

One of the things I love about iNavX is that it provides free access to charts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There’s also an in-app store with offerings such as iNavX Professional+ charts, Blue Latitude Charts for Mexico, Explorer Bahamas, Waterway Guide, AIS Live coverage and Theyr Premium Weather. iNavX is also adding inland waterway cartography.

In basic navigation mode, iNavX is easy to use. You can set waypoints with the tap of a finger, plan out routes, view bearings in either degrees true or magnetic, get speed over ground, and customize a long list of other chart settings. You can also pair it on your phone or tablet with a vessel’s networked chart plotter to monitor depth, wind, engine, batteries and the like.

If you already have an AIS receiver or transponder on board, the app can display targets in chart mode. If you don’t, iNavX AIS Live coverage is available in some areas for a fee. The AIS Live server provides AIS targets within 30 nautical miles of your boat.

The price is right, though I initially found juggling the free NOAA raster charts a bit daunting. They are listed by region, and each chart needs to be downloaded for use. The USA East, for instance, lists charts from the US Virgin Islands to Cuba and northward to the Canadian border. That’s a lot of unfamiliar place names to scroll through.

The Professional+ charts also need to be downloaded, but they are listed by state and are much easier to find. Regional sets, such as the USA and Canada, can be purchased for around $25, and updates are included in the subscription fee.

For fear of being perceived as a big spender, I also downloaded Navionics’ latest Boating app and purchased ­cartography for the US and Canada, also for just under $25. Navionics offers similar packages for just about anywhere in the world you’d care to sail, and the charts are the same as what’s available on Garmin (its parent company) chart plotters. Navionics recommends an Apple device running iOS 13 or later.

The newly launched iNavX Professional+ chart series offers premium vector charts delivering ­country-­specific coverage at a very reasonable price.­

The app lets you add a number of layers of information on its cartography and download daily chart updates. It also provides some serious navigation power, including Auto Guidance+, which will plot a route automatically. Basic ­navigation is fairly intuitive, and route planning is as simple as tapping the chart to set a waypoint or route, a feature that would be quite useful when planning a sailing vacation in some new, warm and sunny place.

A few precautionary words about auto routing, though: Before relying on it, carefully review where the route will be taking you. Setting a course from my home north of Boston into Boston Harbor, it would send me through a narrow piece of water called the Small Boat Channel, which is probably fine for a powerboat, but it can be a nightmare for a vessel under sail in certain wind and current conditions. And on any charter, remember that the software might not account for areas where the charter company doesn’t want you to go. Straying into the wrong place when following a machine-generated route might cost you your security deposit if the boat should be damaged.

Navionics provides a number of ways to customize charts, with overlays for satellite imagery, relief shading to show depths, and sonar contours. Weather, tide and buoy reports are all included, and the app can pair with onboard AIS receivers. 

C-Map cartography, which I also use on the iPad, has similar features, and the same caveat applies when using its route-planning capabilities. C-Map charts are free when connected to Wi-Fi; offline cartography access and extended weather are available only to premium subscribers. 

While all of these nav apps can provide AIS data when paired with an onboard ­receiver, another handy tool is the app from Marine Traffic, which displays near-real-time AIS information for vessels worldwide. The free version of the app provides interesting information about targets, including flag of registry, call sign, MMSI number, speed and size. You can use the app to search for ships and ­pleasure boats by name, or scan a harbor to see what’s anchored or underway nearby. Marine Traffic’s starter plan, which costs around $10 for a year, adds a number of other tidbits about vessels, ports, ship’s tracks and weather maps. It’s all pretty cool stuff to have at your fingertips.

Before relying on auto routing, carefully review where the route will be taking you. What may be fine for a powerboat could be a nightmare for a vessel under sail. 

I’ve also loaded up the iPad with a few of my favorite weather apps, such as Windy, Predict Wind, Storm Radar, WindAlert and SailFlow, and I’ve added links to regional NOAA text weather forecasts so that they are available as Wi-Fi allows. And I’ve downloaded PDF copies of a few other free NOAA ­publications, including Coast Pilot 1 and Coast Pilot 2, which give detailed coastal information about the waters from Eastport, Maine, to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. I also have the US Coast Guard’s Light List, Volume 1, covering the Atlantic coast.

With my new toolkit in hand, I’ll be ready to plan my next trip ahead of time and be able to change waypoints on the fly using apps that are quickly becoming old friends. 

Boat of the Year judge and CW editor-at-large Mark Pillsbury is a ­die-hard sailor who has owned a number of sailboats, including a Sabre 34, on which he lived for 15 years.

The post Gear Review: Navigation Apps Help You Get To Where You Want To Go appeared first on Cruising World.

Newport, RI — The Newport International Boat Show recently announced the winners of this year’s Newport For New Products (NFNP) Awards. Judged on Thursday during the show’s opening day and announced at an awards ceremony on Friday, September 15, the winners are:

• Best New Navigation Product (Including Marine Electronics) — B&G Hercules
• Best New Boating Operation, Maintenance or Safety Product — Ronstan Orbit Winch with QuickTrim
• Honorable Mention Boating Operation, Maintenance or Safety Product — Revolve Technology Emergency VHF Antenna
• Best New Sailboat — YYachts Y70
• Best New Powerboat 30 Feet and Over — Solara S-310 SC
• Best New Powerboat Under 30 Feet — Hyfoil 28, Hyfoil Marine
• Best Overall New Powerboat — Hyfoil 28, Hyfoil Marine
• Honorable Mention: Powerboat — Wolfeboro Boats Classic 15
• Accessible Product Award — Laguna 330, Further Customs
• Green Boat Award — Hyfoil 28, Hyfoil Marine
• People’s Choice Award — Solara S-310 SC

An annual industry highlight, NFNP entries were open to domestic and foreign products launched after April 1 that made their boat show debut at Newport. Category winners were selected by a team of industry experts (including CW Senior Editor Theresa Nicholson and CW editors-at-large Mark Pillsbury and Jennifer Brett) based on innovation, value to the consumer, safety and aesthetics. Show attendees selected the People’s Choice Award winner.

Celebrating its 52nd year, the Newport International Boat Show is one of the largest in-water events in the country and the premier show in New England. The show kicks off the fall boat show season in the US. It encompasses over 15 acres of Newport’s famed waterfront and hosts hundreds of exhibitors, dealers and manufacturers, and features new powerboats and sailboats ranging from 15 to 90 feet, plus an extensive selection of marine equipment, services, and accessories for boaters.

The post Newport For New Products 2023 Award Winners Named at the Newport International Boat Show appeared first on Cruising World.

In 2013, NOAA announced plans to end the production of traditional paper nautical charts, to the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth from many mariners. Ten years later, most cruisers do not rely on paper charts (arguably, many had moved away from them well before 2013). Is this a travesty, or just the march of technology and time? What do we do on Totem?

When Jamie and I were preparing to go cruising in the early 2000s, we spent several years gunkholing around Puget Sound with our growing family on board. We had a small handheld GPS, a Garmin MAP76, and a paper chartbook for the region. When we bought Totem in 2007, one of the changes Jamie made before our 2008 departure to begin cruising was a rebuild of the navigation-station table. Although Totem’s build predates the era of widespread GPS cruising, you couldn’t unfold a paper chart on the nav table. We expected to do this. 

The wider table let our West Coast chartbook lie flat. We also removed the slow, small, clunky chart plotter from the nav station. This we replaced with a ruggedized laptop running charting software, and connected to an NMEA2000 network for navigation data. The bigger screen, higher resolution and faster speed added up to a better mousetrap for our primary chart plotter.

Several years later, while we were putting coins in the cruising kitty in Australia, Jamie built a locker expressly for chart storage. Carved out of dead space from a portion of the pilot berth, the new locker allowed flat storage of our paper-chart collection.

Jamie began sailing more than 50 years ago and is skilled at navigating using paper charts. I am a confirmed map geek who finds joy in poring over them. Yet, as the years rolled by, we never pulled a chart from that locker to use for navigation. We did use paper charts for wrapping Christmas presents. We’re not the only cruisers who have done this. 

Tools and technology for cruising have changed within a generation. Recently, I posted a question on our Facebook and Instagram pages to gather opinions about whether to reinstall Totem’s SSB radio. Like paper charts, it’s been years since we made use of long-distance radio communication. Like paper charts, SSB is a tool that voyagers relied on for decades and remains in use by a shrinking minority of cruisers today. And like paper charts, the decision to use it or lose it elicits strong opinions from comments to the post. 

I went to a few forums to see what other sailors volunteered on the topic. “Real ocean sailors would rely on paper charts,” one tenured cruiser said. Well, then! Or how about, “See ya on the rocks,” another person lobbed from behind a pseudonym. Ah, internet. Scornful comments flung by the salt-crusted (or settee potato, hard to tell) to a newer generation ends up shutting down the ability to exchange thoughtful, different perspectives. Both comments are a dissonant clash with the 2023 reality where it seems most cruisers do not use the paper charts they have, and new cruisers don’t see the need to acquire them. I asked on Totem’s socials (find the posts here on Facebook, Instagram) how often folks use paper charts, or if they use them at all—then, held my breath waiting for responses.

Charting on Totem

Our philosophy isn’t chart-medium-specific, rather, simply put, our philosophy is: Don’t rely on a single source. Have multiple inputs and compare them, and most important, use your senses—especially common sense. We apply this for navigation and for weather, and it’s relevant for the SSB question as well. It happens that paper charts have not been among those inputs in a very long time aboard Totem. 

What exactly are we using? We have a primary chart plotter on a laptop, which is running OpenCPN with CM93 charts, pilot charts and KAP files (geo-indexed satellite images). We have two tablets—an iPad and an Android—each with different navigation software (currently, iNavx and Navionics). We are map geeks and will carry a few small-scale, large-area paper charts that we never expect to use.

For folks who love paper charts—cool, you do you! Hopefully you’re finding a way to compare them with other data too—partly for the intrinsic value in comparing different sources and because paper chart data might be outdated. We are astonished by how frequently different chart sources are different in the information or detail about the same location. Meanwhile, there’s a great rundown of the relative strengths of paper charts over electronic, and of electronic charts over paper, on the Starpath Navigation website’s blog.

Fostering navigation skills

Many sailing education courses are based on using paper charts and traditional skills. Do you feel cognitive dissonance there? Don’t! The skills are still valid, but we need a bridge to the tools used today. I sought opinions from instructors, and had a good conversation with Brady Trautman about how they manage this at Cruisers Academy. There, students coming aboard the program’s Passport 42 Lintika may have a chance to learn traditional skills (such as basics of a noon sight on the boat’s sextant), but instruction is grounded in modern reality. Brady noted how sailors accustomed to coastal cruising (where the internet is always on) need to be prepped for a cruising life where charts must be available offline on their devices, and to seek multiple electronic sources for redundancy and cross-referencing. Other traditional navigation skills we discussed still matter—and, they are not locked into paper charts. 

One example of how traditional skills play into digital tools is for understanding the different ways that latitude and longitude are given. A PredictWind tracking page for a vessel shows a given boat’s position in degrees and decimal minutes, such as: 6° 46.652 S / 179° 19.841 E. But the default setting (rarely changed; we see many) for a Garmin InReach tracking page uses decimal degrees, displayed as 6.777533° S / 179.33063° E. Perhaps you prefer the traditional presentation in degrees, minutes and seconds, such as 6° 46’ 39″ S / 179° 19’ 50”. All three waypoints given here represent exactly the same location in Savu Savu, Fiji. Examining a chart, plotting and analyzing your course ahead, and scanning hazards to avoid are equally important between paper and digital charts. Migrating from paper charts doesn’t mean navigation skills are lost. It means they evolve.

Meanwhile, most responses on my post to Totem’s social media about charts aboard were far more thoughtful than what the wild internet offered. In fact, they made me honestly feel so good about how people could share without judgment about what they do, instead of slinging “mine’s the best” drivel. MVP among comments came from our friend Fred Roswold. He has been cruising for nearly four decades aboard Wings, his Serendipity 43 (a custom IOR race boat), spanning from paper-chart-centric cruising into the digital-navigation era. Fred and his late wife, Judy, departed from Seattle with “more than 500” charts on board. His concern today? That mariners become lazy because electronic navigation appears to be so easy. “In my opinion, too many cruisers simply look at an electronic display, see where they are, and leave it at that. Even today, with all of our electronics, yachts get wrecked due to bad navigation.” 

One case for paper charts that must be considered is their value in the event of electronics failure. Power failure and lightning strikes do happen. This is partly managed with the redundancy of additional GPS devices. We have six or more on Totem, with a couple of them wrapped in aluminum foil as an imperfect makeshift Faraday cage. From a backup GPS (without chart plotter), traditional dead-reckoning and common sense (we know from last position, destination is 330 nautical miles away on a course of 264° magnetic), it’s not really so hard to make an approach to a destination with reasonable notion of when you should really be awake to avoid driving directly into something solid. Another case is that you can’t use auto-routing. We have a saying on Totem: FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS AUTOROUTE. We’ve seen the function recommend routes that aren’t just a terrible idea, but they also are boat- and human-threatening. One autoroute directed a crew in two different apps to drive right across the middle of the shoals off Cape Hatteras. As Fred pointed out, it seems so easy.

Paper or digital is not the fulcrum point. The real point is having multiple sources of information and broader fundamental skills. And common sense, which is something Jamie completely fails at when wrapping Christmas presents with old paper charts. They all turn out looking like a crumpled mess ready for the bin. A few of our old charts will still be stashed for wrapping paper, so just as the unused pilot berth was altered for chart storage, that space was reimagined and updated again in this 40-year refit.

We’re coming to Newport!September 14-16, Jamie and I will be instructors at Confident Cruiser Seminar Series: an educational seminar series designed to enhance your boating skills and confidence. Our courses include cruising for couples, offshore cruising essentials, how to make your dream a reality, and more. It’s just steps from the Newport International Boat Show. See you there!

The post Sailing Totem: Do We Need Paper Charts on a Cruising Yacht? appeared first on Cruising World.

What do I need to charter a sailboat? 

That’s one of the most common questions that ­prospective sailing-school students ask, says Jonathan Payne, executive director of the American Sailing Association.

“If someone wants to charter, they need to feel confident,” he says. “They should have confidence in their sailing skills, docking skills, and know how to troubleshoot an engine. They should have navigational skills to manage unfamiliar waters. And they should have minimal anxiety.”

Although some sailors may already have the chops needed to bareboat charter, many look to the ASA and US Sailing to gain the skills—and the paperwork—that charter companies around the world often require.

Basic Keelboat Sailing (ASA 101), Basic Coastal Cruising (ASA 103), and Bareboat Cruising (ASA 104) are the foundational courses for learning to sail and charter a sailboat. The ASA has over 400 schools around the world. Local and weekend classes are spread across six-week courses, while destination schools in Caribbean hotspots offer seven-day liveaboard training.

US Sailing, the national governing body for the sport of sailing, offers similar building-block tracks: Basic Keelboat, Basic Cruising and Bareboat Cruising. 

“Our students are often people who want to explore the world under sail and visit destinations you can get to only by boat,” says Beth Oliver, vice president and director of sales and marketing at Offshore Sailing School, which offers one-week training courses in Florida and the British Virgin Islands where students earn US Sailing certifications for boats up to 50 feet.

While many US-based charter companies do not require a ­specific license and will look at training along with a sailing résumé, most charter firms in European waters require an International Certificate of Competence, or ICC. US sailors can apply for the similar International Proficiency Certificate once they have completed bareboat-cruising classes. Many international charter companies accept the IPC, but sailors should check ahead of time. Understanding the process, selecting a course, and choosing where to train can be confusing. Companies that offer classes can help narrow the options. 

“When someone interested in a charter calls, we discuss options and steer them in the direction we think is right for them,” says Amanda Kurland, charter sales representative for Sunsail and The Moorings. These sister companies offer numerous choices. “The Moorings offers Royal Yachting Association courses in the Med and Offshore Sailing School courses in the BVI,” Kurland says. Sunsail has destination sailing schools in the United Kingdom, Croatia, Greece, Australia and Grenada. These are destination schools where a week of sail training is often part of a long-planned vacation.

Blue Water Sailing School, an ASA-certified company based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, offers destination charters closer to home. All levels of classes are available in Florida, Rhode Island, the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. The (relatively) close offerings might appeal to sailors who aren’t ready to commit to a week in Dubrovnik.

“We try to get people to the point where they are confident enough to take their family out for a daysail or, more advanced, maybe take a boat and live aboard for a week,” says Blue Water owner David Pyle.

West Coast Multihulls in San Diego operates a sailing school with training exclusively on multihulls. Students who complete ASA 101,103 and 104 can take ASA 114—the Cruising Catamaran Certification—a five-day liveaboard class offered around Catalina Island and in the Sea of Cortez.

For all types of sailors, once the foundational training and courses are complete, the world really is your oyster. US Sailing and the ASA offer auxiliary certifications on navigation and safety at sea, and advanced courses such as Offshore Passage Making. Barefoot Offshore Sailing School in St. Vincent and the Grenadines offered three trans-Atlantic courses in 2022 on board a Bali 4.1 catamaran. ASA and Sail Canada certifications were available on all three passages.

See the following pages for special charter education resources offering more information on sailing schools.

The post Start Your Bareboat Charter Dream by Earning Sailing Certifications appeared first on Cruising World.

Ever since we cruised from Acapulco, Mexico, to Bay of Islands, New Zealand, in 1988 on Freelance, our 28-foot Bristol Channel Cutter, my wife, Harriet, and I longed to return to the South Pacific. In spring 2021, while going through a closet full of stuff in our condo, out slid a box of old paper charts from our voyage. A large chart of Bora Bora unfolded in my hands. The perfect circle of reef, the lagoon of dazzling blue, clouds streaming like cotton from the island’s volcanic peaks—the South Pacific had enchanted us again.

We sketched a plan: From our home port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, we’d head to Bermuda, then Puerto Rico, then the Panama Canal, the Galapagos, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Fiji. We’d arrive in New Zealand a year later. It would be about 10,300 nautical miles, most of it ­downwind in the northeast and southeast trade winds. 

Ocean, our Dolphin 460 cat, had ­recently undergone an extensive refit and was up to the task. So, off we went.

Massachusetts to Bermuda 

Bermuda is an old friend for us. During the 13 years we operated our Caribbean child-literacy nonprofit, Hands Across the Sea, we called into the island 22 times. But getting to Bermuda from the US Eastern Seaboard in the fall is tricky. 

First, we looked for the tailwinds of a departing front to launch us off the continental shelf. Next, we looked for the Gulf Stream to quiet down. Finally, we looked for a favorable slant to get us into Bermuda after a three- to four-day hop.

Powerful autumn and early winter gales can be dangerous, so we checked and double-checked the forecasts (we find PredictWind helpful, and we rely on meteorologists at Commanders’ Weather to determine a weather window). We also had an old friend, Capt. Bill Truesdale, join us. Bill is a circumnavigator, and is cool, calm, and able to diagnose and fix anything. 

With breezy winds abaft the beam, we made great time on Day One. Ocean pushed through chunky, confused seas, flying a full main and the code zero. But after dinner, I felt seasick. Really seasick. Nine times over-the-rail seasick. Bill, who rarely gets seasick, felt similarly ill. He stood his watch, and Harriet held down the fort. 

In the morning, we decided we’d been pushing the boat too hard, sailing too fast for the sea state. Plus, I had started out the passage on four cups of coffee and not much breakfast; my stomach never had a chance. We knew all this was wrong, but we’d been away from passagemaking for a year and a half, and we’d forgotten. Lessons relearned: Ditch the coffee, eat enough noncombustible food to head off the stomach growlies, and take our foot off the gas until we get our sea legs.

The final two days into Bermuda were smooth and fast, pulled along by the code zero. 

Bermuda to Puerto Rico

Commanders’ Weather advised us that in a couple of days, a massive system would move south and overspread Bermuda, slamming shut the weather window to Puerto Rico. The choice was to leave the next day, or hunker down for weeks with uncertain prospects. We quickly wrapped up some engine maintenance, saw Bill off to the airport, and hoisted the main for Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

Harriet and I had both been looking forward to getting south, into the tropics and the soft, warm trade winds. It is certainly possible, however, that our hiatus from passagemaking had turned us into softies. Chunky seas bounced us. We slowed down Ocean enough to keep our stomachs calm, and to keep the off watch rested. Our sailhandling skills—reefing the main in the dark, rolling up the code zero before squalls—were a bit ragged, and we revisited our teamwork. We felt more tired than usual.

We’d been pushing the boat too hard, sailing too fast for the sea state. We’d been away from passagemaking for a year and a half. We’d forgotten.

On Day Five, the profile of Puerto Rico rose in the dawn light. We’d been there before only for connecting flights between the United States and British Virgin Islands, so everything about the island surprised us, mostly in a good way. Puerto Rico is larger than we realized, more developed (with malls that have US big-box stores and franchises), and uniformly welcoming to visitors. The shores are ringed with high-end marinas—we spent two nights at what’s now Safe Harbor Puerto Del Rey, the Caribbean’s largest marina—and the island has luxury housing developments, along with funky settlements behind barrier mangroves, and more. 

We spent 10 days exploring from the Spanish Virgin Islands to the sheltered south coast of the main island. Nature preserves have kept Puerto Rico’s cruising grounds in good shape, with lots of hidey-hole mangrove anchorages, plus some bioluminescent coves. On holidays, anchorages are crowded with raft-ups of local sport-fishing boats and personal watercraft.

Puerto Rico to Panama

Finally, an entire passage in the trade winds. The course from Boquerón, Puerto Rico, to the entry breakwater at Panama is nearly dead downwind, so we jibed to take advantage of shifts in wind direction and to avoid the near-permanent low-pressure system (possible winds to 35 knots with steep, ugly current-against-the-wind seas) that lurks off the northwest coast of Colombia. 

Our sail-carrying plan called for a single reef in the main, and Ocean’s 95 percent overlap jib (roller-reefable) and furling code zero (nonreefable) to suit the daily variation in wind strength. But just a couple of days out, we concluded that we’d idealized the trade winds just a wee bit. “I can’t recall seeing so many squalls like this,” Harriet said. “Maybe on the passage from Fernando de Noronha, in Brazil.” 

On Day Three, powerful squall clouds—to the south, west and north—triangulated on Ocean. Each announced itself with alarming gusts, and followed up with sheets of rain just short of a whiteout. We had little choice but to reef down or furl up. We’d peer out at the rain, then turn the ignition key and trundle along behind the squall in weak, ascending air and leftover chop. The squalls meant sailhandling work and slower progress—and nighttime squalls seemed worse in every way.

One evening, a prolonged 25-plus-knot blast sent us surfing down a steep sea at 18 knots. The autopilot steered blithely onward. (Ocean’s hull has lots of buoyancy forward, and a cat’s twin hulls are not prone to broaching, as a monohull might.) But the brief thrill ride through the darkness freaked us out. We double-reefed the main—we were happy averaging 8 to 9 knots—and concluded that we needed a better sail strategy for running deep in intensified trades. 

Later, we talked to a cat crew on the same passage who had used only a reefed jib. Their mainsail stayed in the lazy bag. We needed to keep reminding ourselves that, even though we are ex-racers, we were not in a race. We love fast ­passages, but quality off-watch rest for our ­doublehanded crew was the top priority.

When we pulled in the second reef, we disturbed a red-footed booby that had taken up residence on our solar panels; the bird squawked, moved to the tip of the port bow, tucked its beak into its wing, and continued sleeping. Later, we found a small black bird, maybe a petrel, snoozing on the dinghy davits. Later still, a flying fish flew into our dinghy. All of it seemed to say: “You are in the trade winds and you are a part of the trade winds, so pull up your socks. Enjoy.”

Some evenings, of course, were ­astoundingly beautiful, an impossible canopy of stars arcing across the horizon. “There’s the Southern Cross!” Harriet exclaimed, pointing out her favorite. 

Nearing Panama, the trade winds ­mellowed out: 15 knots, 20 in squalls, and far fewer of them. The seas grew smaller and kinder. These were more like the trades we remembered. 

By the time we jibed into the inbound lane of the ship-traffic separation scheme for the Panama Canal, I’d finished David McCullough’s 700-page The Path Between the Seas, so I was already in awe of the place. Unfortunately, we were stuck on the Caribbean side for three weeks because of issues with our mainsail batten pocket ends and steering cylinders (Ocean has hydraulic steering). We tied up in Shelter Bay Marina, at the Caribbean entrance to the canal, and the marina’s shipment wizard wrangled our repair materials for us. All the help we needed—a sailmaker and hydraulic guys—was on hand. 

After several weeks of work, Karen and Paul Prioleau, cruisers we’d met back in 1988, flew in to join us as line handlers for the canal transit. We also had a required Panama Canal Authority pilot and a specified line handler, who between them had more than 2,000 canal transits. So the 10-hour transit was easy. These 47 miles were a milestone and the gateway to a new life for Harriet, me, and Ocean. 

By the time 26 million gallons drained from the Miraflores locks, the final southbound lock, lowering us 27 feet to sea level, and we motored around the bend and under the final bridge, we saw a thin blue horizon waiting ahead: the Pacific. 

After 20 years of dinghy racing, the siren song of bluewater cruising called Tom Linskey, aka TL. In the ’80s, he built a 28-foot Bristol Channel Cutter in his ­backyard from a hull-and-deck kit, and sailed with his wife, Harriet, from Southern California to Mexico, French Polynesia, New Zealand, and Japan. Together, they’ve covered more than 50,000 doublehanded miles, most recently in their Dolphin 460 catamaran, Ocean.

The post Sailing From Massachusetts to Panama With Just Two Stops appeared first on Cruising World.