Archive for 'General'
Things they never told you (winter edition)
Every boater knows that there is a list, a long list, of things they never told you before you bought your boat. It’s like a secret handshake in the nautical world, the unrevealed mysteries of holding tank plumbing, the 0300 anchor checks, the bumps in the night when someone else fails to make their 0300 [...]
Full StoryTreading Water
The 50-knot wake-up howl in the rigging this morning was an apt reminder that this is always a hard time of year to be a boater. Coming on the heels of all the snow and freezing rain of the past week and the promise of only rain and wind (and possibly more snow) to come [...]
Full StoryBoth sides of the table
My wife and I idly look at boats for sale all the time, playing the same “what if?” game that most sailors confined to a single sailboat play, wondering how much bluer the sea might look from the cockpit of a brand new Hallberg-Rassy. Since we have pulled the trigger and listed our current boat [...]
Full StoryOne Big Fish
In the otherwise made-for-TV-moviesque 1980 “The Final Countdown” there is a scene in which an officer aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz walks over to an enlisted rating who is monitoring radio traffic. “Neem-itz?” says the officer, repeating an accented phrase heard over the radio. “Who’s that?” “A Russian trawler,” says the enlisted man, euphemistically [...]
Full StoryA boat is no place to be sick
I don’t mean seasick, although boats are obviously popular sites for that malady as well. No, I just mean plain-old, stuffed-up, head-achey, nose-drippy sick. Which I have been, for the past week. When we were in high school, some friends of mine dubbed this sort of illness “The Mongolian Death Flu.” It’s the one where [...]
Full StoryKinetic Weekend
If you have no plans for the first weekend in October, then a quick autumn trip up to Port Townsend is never a bad way to fill the time. The winds are brisk, the marinas are on off-season rates, open slips abound, and best of all, you will be in town for the annual Kinetic [...]
Full StoryDecisions and Consequences
Awake at 0200 with the wind howling in the rigging on a cold morning this spring, I got up and started browsing Yachtworld, as idly docked sailors are sometimes wont to do (particularly with looming tasks of boat repair hanging over them). Like everyone, we have our bouts with “three-footitis,” that burning, feverish desire for [...]
Full StoryWooden is wonderful
There is just nothing more salty and nautical looking than a finely cared-for wooden boat. Big, small, power, sail, a wooden boat glowing with oil and varnish applied by a diligent and loving crew tugs at the salt in the blood of even the most lubberly spectator. Combined with blue skies, fair winds, and warm [...]
Full StoryFlying through the air with the greatest of ease
We wandered back up our finger pier the other night after dinner to find our neighbors shifting supplies out of a dock cart and into their cockpit. “Hi Bob,” I said. “Where are you headed?” “Well,” he began, “There is this French couple who are sailing around the world, and they fill up their cruising [...]
Full StoryNeighbors
We have never spent enough time in our slip to really get to know our neighbors. The fellow on the other side of our finger pier has been the only constant. Until this week, I’d never before seen anyone on the boat that shares our slip. Every other time we have come back to the [...]
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Marty McOmber
Scott Wilson