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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 [...]

We achieved escape velocity on a foggy September morning. Songline, ship-shape and bristling with new boating gadgets, loped southward on a light westerly. Over the days and weeks that followed we grew accustomed to the rhythms and routines of voyaging. For the first month life seemed idyllic.
Then the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Entropy) began to [...]

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 [...]

Like you, the idea of voyaging under sail infected me at an early age. I don’t think I took it seriously. It was a fantasy. People who actually did push-off were wild-eyed adventures or rich jet-setters. The reality of voyaging crept up on me slowly after years of day sailing, racing, and weekend cruises. One day I [...]

 The Skipper always makes the RULES.

The Rules are subject to change at any time without prior notice.

No Crew can possibly know all the RULES.

If the Skipper suspects that the Crew knows all the RULES, the Skipper must immediately change some or all of them.

The Skipper is never wrong.

If the Skipper is wrong, it is because [...]

Blowback is the unanticipated consequences of your actions. Everything you do produces some blowback. Sometimes blowback can get serious.
This is the story of some serious blowback from living the dream of sailing away.
Stories about the trials of voyaging in small boats usually contain hair-raising accounts of life-threatening adventures and heroic deeds. Crews lash themselves to [...]

As a marine surveyor, I am required to bear witness to some sad events. In these examples, prudence and good judgment could have easily averted disaster. In coming articles I will discuss ways in which you can avoid events such as these.
Joseph Rodgers,
www.rodgersandassociates.com
Note: Dates displayed in the photos do not reflect the dates of the incidents.
(Click image [...]

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Here’s the story…
 
After a week of Tehuantepecers, a weather window finally opened and we departed Huatulco, Mexico in the company of several other boats bound for Costa Rica. We crossed the infamous Gulfo Tehuantepec [...]

Flowing northward at 4 to 6 knots, the Gulf Stream between the Florida mainland and Bahamian archipelago is effectively the largest river in the world. Even a mild wind blowing against it’s massive flow causes vertical waves to build, creating conditions that are dangerous. Marc Kraft, Owner and Operator of Pacific Yachting, remembers. (STC Ed.)

MANY [...]

Flying a spinnaker for the first time can be both exhilarating and challenging as LaLain, Yuka, Carl, and John discover during our Pacific Yachting class on the Monterey Bay.
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Kiteology 101 ONLINE book coming soon! Check back.
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