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I’m back from the Heineken Regatta now and here’s what worked and didn’t work with my ASUS.
Overall the ASUS was a terrific little machine both on and off the water. In addition, it drew lots of attention and when I told people the price, they were flabbergasted!
Pluses

Portability was outstanding. I was able to wedge it [...]

Okay, okay! so it was way harder to get online for daily posting than I anticipated. The series is over now and I’m waiting for Monica to arrive for few days R&R. All I can say is that it was the most sailing fun I’ ve had in a long time! Tomorrow I will begin chronicling the event, complete with adventures, misadventures, and pictures. Check back!

Many years ago I would drive up Highway 1 from Santa Cruz to San Fransico with my young son to survey the sea conditions before racing my sailboat along that notorious section of coast. I kept him entertained during the drive with stories about monsters that inhabited the region. In stormy weather, Pigeon Point, the location [...]

Seventy-Year-Old Sailor Rescued Off Santa Cruz Island
Rescuers say a lone 70-year-old sailor lost all electricity on his 50-foot yacht near Santa Cruz Island and was airlifted to safety by a U.S. Coast Guard crew before his vessel ran aground and was destroyed.
A Coast Guard official said that without electricity, the man could not start his [...]

We landed in Saint George Harbor, Bermuda, in late May of 2002 after a boisterous and eventful five-day crossing from Norfolk, Virginia. There we met the crews of other eastbound sailing vessels, all closely monitoring daily weather forecasts. Every afternoon we gathered in a little waterside pub to talk about the 1800 miles of water [...]

“It’s fear of the unknown. The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that—-it’s all illusion.Unknown is what it is. Accept that it’s unknown and it’s plain sailing. Everything is unknown—-then you’re ahead of the game.
That’s what [...]

As a sailing instructor, my favorite teaching topics include all things having to do with handling boats under sail. Auxillary engines and motors were a rarity on most of the boats I operated as a youth.  Even when I operated vessels with an engine, I never really expected them to work when I most needed them.  Time [...]

Most cruising guides tell you that stopping in El Salvador is not a very good idea. They say that the place has no safe harbors and has been at war for a long, long time. But we’d been at sea for almost five days, including the night we spent hove-to off the entrance to Bahia del Sol.

Last week a sailing student of mine asked the question, “Can you water ski behind a sailboat?”
If you want to water ski”, I replied, “you’d probably be better off getting a powerboat”.
I stand corrected. Here’s proof that, when it comes to scurfing (and water skiing I suppose), a big, high performance trimaran will do the trick. [...]

What drove us to do something as crazy as making a sailing DVD? Here’s the backstory.

Click here to purchase the whole DVD
In late 2004, we returned to Santa Cruz, California after a six-year voyage that took our family through the Panama Canal, across the Atlantic, around the Mediterranean, and home again. Once returned, Monica, a physical [...]