I’m walking down the street with a roll of new navigation charts under my arm, and it makes me smile like a drunken fool. The tight, heavy roll gives off the sour scent of new paper, telling me that I’ll soon be smelling the salty air of the sea.

I want to shout, sing, crow out this welling of joy. I want to call out to the woman with the kid hanging off one arm and a shopping bag on the other: “Hey! I’m going off to sea. Look at my new charts! Yes, I’m going sailing ­somewhere new!”

The thrill began as soon as I stepped into the map seller’s shop. The fact that I stepped through that door meant I was a sailor because no one else does business there. I told him my plans, the region of the world I wanted to see in paper and ink. Out came the catalogs, and we compared scale and coverage for the waters I’d planned to sail. I jotted down the numbers of the charts I wanted, and he went to the storeroom to retrieve my order. I browsed the bookshelves filled with almanacs and pilot guides, and admired brass instruments measuring time, humidity, and pressure and space—and I waited for my treasures to appear.

I had second thoughts when the map seller jotted up the total—Holy! I could buy new running rigging for that! Heavyweight, 50 percent cotton nautical-chart paper isn’t cheap, with each sheet big enough to paper your bulkhead. But the ink doesn’t run when the sea finds its way through an open hatch to douse the navigation station. Paper charts are so expensive that I’ve been forced to sell mine after a long voyage to pay for my flight home.

Then the map seller updated my charts, accounting for all the changes that had taken place in the physical sea while this chart lay waiting for me. With a fine-point violet pen, he noted changes in depths, buoys that had moved, and coordinates that might be off by a second or two. If there had been land reclaimed or new sea walls built, he would have glued an entire patch onto the chart, bringing it up to date. Then he rolled them tightly and wrapped them in protective paper, and finally I felt their precious weight tucked under my arm.

I bought a chart that shows an entire sea, its ratio 1-to-3,500,000, which means I’m going on a long voyage. Long enough for the weather to change, the waves to turn against me, and the sea to show its rage. We’ll lose sight of land for days and nights, and maybe even a week, just to get across this one chart. The harbor charts, 1-to-10,000, show me the rocks that the locals know by heart, the sandbanks and the curve of the jetty wall. These charts mean I’ll arrive in unfamiliar waters, where strange lights will wink at me in the night. I’ve bought the chart for that little port, this protected bay. I have charts for places I don’t plan to go—small insurances in case we don’t make it across the sea and must run and hide due to a broken spar, a storm that blows too hard.

It’s a dying thing, these lithographic charts. Most commercial ships don’t carry them anymore. Charter yachts no longer have a navigation table big enough to spread out a chart, or a designated cupboard to store them in. On my yacht, the paper charts are a back-back-backup plan for chart plotters, a handheld GPS and a smartphone. I’ve sailed many miles with only the glow of a digital screen to guide me—it worked out just fine. Chart plotters track your every mile, show you exactly where you are, and contain more chart information than you will ever need. Paper versus digital has been debated ad nauseam, and paper lost. I don’t need paper charts—just like I don’t need to write with a fountain pen or whistle when I walk through the park—but I buy them because they give me joy. They give me a joy that a zoomable, adjustable screen with endless functions can’t deliver.

I know that once at sea I’ll spend more time staring at my chart plotter than I will poring over my very expensive paper charts. But it’s a tactile thing. The snap of the rubber band that holds the roll together. The yesteryear quality of the paper. The ritual of unrolling them on my dining table at home, weighting down the paper and letting my finger trace the depth lines. Tiny squiggles and letters and numbers, each rich with meaning. The comforting palette of mustard yellow and pale blue with magenta highlights marking the traffic zones. Calibrating my brass divider on the left-hand side, and then dancing it across a clean chart like a ballerina twirling across the stage. The deliciously monumental first pencil mark, the first tiny X at a crucial waypoint. Carrying the charts in a cardboard tube as I board an airplane that will take me to a foreign port and a waiting boat.

It’s the little surprises I stumble upon while perusing a chart, seeing the entire coastline in one sweep of the eye. Finding out that there’s a beach on the far side of that peninsula. Spotting the rock that lies in wait just outside the fairway into the harbor. Intricate observations of the land, towers, steeples and cliffs. And the names you’d never been aware of before, the wakes left by captains and heroes passing centuries ago.

It’s the pleasure I get from reading the notes in the corner, warning me of whirlpools and shifting sandbanks. And, on the most often used charts, for familiar home waters, notes have been added over the years, marking good anchorages and fishing holes. Like when I borrowed a friend’s boat and sailed it in the Finnish waters he’s explored for 70 years. With the boat came his charts, marked with tiny X’s where he had anchored over the years. He requested that I mark my own spots, adding to his boat’s long narrative.

I enjoy sitting inside a cozy saloon after a long day of sailing, planning the next day’s voyage with a wee dram of rum for company. I pore over the precious sheets of paper, imagining what each mile will bring. I explore the coastline and poke into little coves and find they are too shallow for my yacht. I land on pebble beaches and slip through turbulent channels—the tip of my finger a prow that leaves a wake in my mind.

All of this is yet to come as I exit the map shop into the sunny, crisp afternoon air, the stiff roll of charts nestled under my arm. I feel jaunty with anticipation of the voyage to come, the romance of a sailor heading off to sea.

I can’t hide my smile, and it’s all I can do to keep from laughing. To the guy in the suit, on his phone, walking and talking like he owns the place, I want to shout: “Look how thick this roll of charts is! They cost me an arm and a leg, almost as much as your suit, but these charts mean I’m going sailing!”

Cameron Dueck is a sailor and writer, based in Hong Kong.

The post Point of View: Paper Chart Dreams appeared first on Cruising World.

The first ankle biter struck while we were a couple of miles offshore, sailing past the twin lighthouses on Thatcher Island, off Rockport, Massachusetts. One moment, shipmates Herb McCormick and Tom Famulari and I were all chill, enjoying a lazy reach along Cape Ann. The next, we were boarded by a horde of flies with fangs. We swatted with ball caps, slapped with rolls of paper, but they kept on coming in an attack that raged until sunset—and resumed at dawn on the other side of the Gulf of Maine.

Who knew battling bugs would the hardest part of a Down East passage? The actual sailing? Pure delight: All it took were 25 hours and a southerly breeze for us to be snug on a mooring in pretty Tenants Harbor, Maine, with a fine sunrise in our wake, a refreshing beverage in hand, and more than a month’s worth of Penobscot Bay adventures about to begin with family and friends.

With a life moored in southern New England, my winter thoughts the past few years had often turned to a summer cruise along the Maine coast. But for a whole variety of reasons, time, distance and logistics repeatedly ruled it out. But then, out of the blue, the stars aligned this past July, and with minimal advance planning, the trip was on.

Our departure point was Nahant, Massachusetts, a small seaside town north of Boston where Tom and I live, and where my wife, Sue, and I had our Sabre 34, Jackalope, hanging on a mooring. Herb, who is Cruising World’s executive editor, and I had just finished putting out the annual charter issue, so we had a free spell to grab a good-weather window, which, as luck would have it, opened wide just two days after the issue shipped.

It’s roughly 125 nautical miles from Nahant to Tenants Harbor, or about a day’s run for Jackalope in most conditions. So while Herb drove to meet us, I grabbed a few provisions, loaded them up, and by Saturday morning at 11, we were good to go.

We motorsailed the first few miles until a sea breeze filled in off Gloucester. Late in the afternoon, with flies nipping and Cape Ann disappearing astern, we watched a steady stream of whale-­watching boats parade past on their way to and from the waters surrounding Jeffreys Ledge. Soon, they too were out of sight, and by dusk, we were well offshore, enjoying a stunning sunset, surrounded by nothing but open water and occasional patches of buoys and fishing gear.

To make things easy, we stood two-hour tricks at the wheel through the night. Just before dawn, I came up from a nap below to find Herb on the helm and Jackalope surrounded by shark fins that curiously seemed to be waving at us. They, along with a blazing sunrise, were a memorable way to begin the first day in Maine.

We were perhaps 10 or so miles from a waypoint we’d set off the southern end of Monhegan Island, and it wasn’t long before we heard the beefy rumble of diesel engines and spotted the glowing deck lights of fishing boats. Maybe that was what woke the flies, or perhaps it was the warmth of the day returning. In either case, soon Tom the Slayer was back at it, dispensing vengeance in a now-bloodied cockpit.

Past Monhegan, the mainland began to come into focus: bold granite shorelines topped by evergreens. First came the outer islands—Allen and Burnt and Mosquito—and then the coast, with cottages dotting the shore. By noon, we had Southern Island in sight, and then we were past it, making the turn down the channel into Tenants. As luck would have it, several salty-looking Friendship sloops were visiting, having just finished their annual rendezvous.

RELATED: Changes on the Gulf of Maine

Later in the day, after a nap and a bracing swim in the 61-degree water, we dinghied ashore to Tenants Harbor Boat Yard. In the guest center up the hill, I couldn’t help but wonder what prompted the management to post a sign politely asking visitors not to shower with their dogs. At any rate, we didn’t. Instead, we made the best of the remaining daylight and took an extended inflatable tour to check out the lobster boats, work skiffs, all manner of sailboats and visiting sloops swinging on moorings. Later, we enjoyed a tasty dinner of kielbasa and beans, topped off by a blazing redish sunset and star-filled sky.

The Rockland area, with Tenants Harbor nearby, is a convenient place to set up camp or juggle crew when cruising this part of the Maine coast. By car or bus, the city is about three hours from Boston, and there is regular ferry service out to the islands. Once a fishing town, the harbor today is teeming with residential and transient moorings. Ashore, there are well-stocked grocery stores, chandleries, several full-service marinas, shops, museums and restaurants. But better yet, Rockland sits at the southwestern end of Penobscot Bay, long a sailor’s playground filled with countless islands, coves and harbors waiting to be explored. During late July and August, weekend classic-yacht and full-on-racing regattas attract an array of yachts and their motherships, which move from one venue to another in an endless parade of sail.

With Jackalope’s delivery complete, Tom and Herb headed home, Sue and the dog arrived, and I shifted into vacation mode for a couple of weeks. First on the agenda: a few days sailing with my brother, Dave, and his wife, Peggy, who live just down the road from Tenants and on whose mooring we were squatters.

With the boat ­provisioned, refueled and tanks filled with water, we got a late-­morning start two days later. The breeze was light as we motored up Muscle Ridge Channel, a lobster- pot-studded waterway between the mainland and a series of off-lying islands. By Rockland, we set sail and rode a southerly sea breeze east to the entrance of the Fox Island Thorofare.

The Thorofare is a busy, meandering channel that runs between North Haven and the larger Vinalhaven to the south. With the wind behind us, it was an easy run, with plenty of time to gawk at the sprawling “cottages” along either shore. Even on a midweek afternoon, there was plenty of boat traffic to keep us company. Maine is Vacationland, after all.

In North Haven, we found an empty transient mooring near the ferry dock. It turned out to be a ringside seat to an endless stream of schooners, sloops, runabouts and, of course, lobster boats, which roared past, rocking ­everything with their wakes.

A work colleague and his wife have a summer home a couple of blocks from the waterfront, so eventually we dinghied ashore and went to find them. But not before a visit to Brown’s Boatyard, where we paid our $25 rental fee for the night. Brown’s is the sort of yard you’d expect to find in a working harbor. Its rambling red buildings are filled with boat parts, machinery and projects in various stages of repair. For a sailor, the weathered wharf and yard were a visual tapestry to behold.

From there, we walked a rambling route through the village to find our friends, enjoyed a cocktail on their porch that overlooks the Thorofare, then walked back into town for pizza at Calderwell Hall. The place was packed, and for the record, the food was delicious.

The next morning, we used the dog as an excuse to take a long walk along the one road that heads north out of town, and then we continued on through the Thorofare to East Penobscot Bay. It was another light-air day, but we were in no hurry and were content to reach across to Merchant Row, an island-speckled body of water between Stonington and Isle Au Haut. Even with a chart plotter, iNavX on my phone, and paper charts, it was easy to get quickly disorientated and lose track of just which rocky outcropping we were passing. Throw in a few thousand lobster pots to snag, and well, it was a navigational experience that kept everyone focused. We continued east into Jericho Bay, then swung north and eventually circled back toward Stonington through the Deer Island Thorofare.

Our plan was to spend the night in town, but of course, plans change. Instead, we met up with a friend of Peggy’s—who was sailing nearby—and dropped the hook alongside in a well-protected anchorage off Camp Island. It had been several hours since we were last ashore, and my ­attention—as well as the dog’s—was immediately drawn to a nearby rocky islet with the welcoming name of Hell’s Half Acre. Before we could get there though, a schooner dropped anchor and delivered its guests ashore. No matter, there were plenty more deserted granite knobs nearby to explore.

In the morning, the sea was glassy-calm as we motored toward the southern end of Eggemoggin Reach. That’s when we, or I should say I, snagged the first lobster pot. All of a sudden, there was a loud thunk, thunk, thunk on the hull and the diesel died. Luckily, I’d brought along a wetsuit, so I was able to dress for the occasion. In the water, the current tugged the boat and stretched the pot warp tight, so all it took was a slice with the knife and we were free. But then we began drifting along at a pretty good clip, and there were several wraps of rope still knotted around the prop shaft. The crew managed to grab a passing pot, which we used as a temporary anchor while I sawed away at the remaining line. Eventually, Dave donned the wetsuit and finished off the job while I caught my breath and kept a wary eye on the lobstermen working traps nearby. I wondered out loud what the protocol might be for meeting the missing buoy’s owner in such a situation.

The rest of the day more than made up for that inconvenient start. We emerged from the Deer Island Thorofare as the breeze filled in across Jericho Bay. Our timing was perfect, and we watched dozens of small sailboats cross our path in the Small Reach Regatta, put on by the Traditional Small Craft Association. The annual raid-style multiday event begins and ends in Brooklin, home to the Wooden Boat School and the Brooklin Boat Yard.

With a 10-knot breeze behind us, we had a long run up the Reach, jibing between Deer Isle to port and the mainland. To starboard, a couple of large schooners ghosted along the shore. Our destination was Bucks Harbor, where we picked up a mooring for the night and took full advantage of the marina’s outdoor showers.

Ironically, Buck’s Harbor Marina is now owned by a couple with the last name of Buck. Jon works in the medical field, but during summer, he manages to spend most of his time at the marina along with his wife, Jessica, and their hardworking kids. Together, they keep the place spotless and have even found time to launch a small fleet of charter boats.

Bucks Harbor, it turns out, would be as far afield as we’d go in our wanderings. Our shipmates had to get back for work, so in the morning, we sailed across the north end of Deer Island and headed for home by way of Islesboro, the long island that bisects this part of Penobscot Bay. A lively wind picked up from the south, and we were closehauled all the way back past North Haven. As we neared the southern tip of Islesboro, our timing once again proved perfect, even if our luck wasn’t. We found ourselves smack-dab in the middle of the Camden Classic Cup Regatta. Yawls and ketches and schooners, all under billowing clouds of sail, blew past us toward the windward mark just as we managed to snag our second lobster buoy. It was a scramble to get the sails down in the 20-knot breeze, and even after we got the line cut, it was too rough to think about going under the boat to pull what remained from the prop shaft. Instead, we unfurled the jib to get underway and avoid the rocks to leeward. But now, the fleet was upon us once again with spinnakers flying. They, of course, were on starboard tack, and we were closehauled on port. And yes, we had a few interesting crossings as we headed off in search of calmer waters.

Back in Tenants Harbor, I took a day to catch up on work, and our daughter, Lily, joined us. Now maniacal about avoiding lobster traps, we sailed back up Muscle Ridge Channel and caught the opening day of the Lobster Festival in Rockland. The waterfront was abuzz in anticipation of the coronation that evening of the Maine Sea Goddess.

From there, we headed back to North Haven to visit Pulpit Harbor, where we anchored with a tremendous view of the Camden Hills to the west. By the time the sun set, I was running out of superlatives to describe the surroundings.

Much of the rest of August, I had to work. Still, we found time for dinghy rides and daysails, and enjoyed quiet nights on the boat at the mooring. Then toward the end of the month, Dave and I made one last three-day visit to investigate the anchorages on the east side of Vinalhaven. Anchored in Seal Bay, we took the dinghy to explore long fingers of water cut into the granite shoreline. We motored deep into Winter Harbor to get a closer look at the towering granite cliffs that line it. And we spent a final afternoon and night on a mooring back at Brown’s Boatyard in North Haven.

But days were getting shorter and the weather cooler. It was time for this excellent summer adventure to come to an end. Sue and I had already decided to leave the boat in Maine for the winter rather than sailing back south, and had found a yard where we could haul out sometime later in the fall. We were hooked, and we knew it.

But as Dave and I beat our way south toward Tenants Harbor in the morning, I pondered my fall schdule and checked my phone to find the National Hurricane Center tracking multiple disturbances, any one of which might spin its way up the coast. It had already been a season filled with abrupt changes in plans, so why not the endgame too? A quick call to Spruce Head Marine sealed the deal. We’d leave the boat on one of their moorings, and they’d take care of the rest. A simple solution meant no need to worry. Turns out, aside from lobster pots and flies, staying in Maine was just as easy as getting there.

Mark Pillsbury is CW’s editor.

The post Cruising Maine, by Chance appeared first on Cruising World.

Over the past six years, Scarlet, our 47-foot Warwick cruiser/racer from the mid-’80s, sailed east with a rotating crew from Martinique to the Mediterranean. During that time, Scarlet’s longtime owner, Spencer Smith, and I visited Portugal, Morocco, Spain, France and Italy, which left us wondering, what’s next? Do we turn around now? Had we reached the end of the popular part of the Med?

If we had turned around before we reached the Dalmatian coast, we would have missed what we now consider the best cruising ground in the entire Med. If you want islands, warm water, protected bays with snug harbors, modern marinas, and unfamiliar—even exotic—towns and cities steeped in ancient history, well, Croatia is the place. Small, ancient harbors are everywhere. They have sheltered sailors since earliest maritime history, and here they are, still sheltering cruising sailboats.

And, if you’re like Scarlet’s crew and sail with one eye on the GPS and one eye in a book about the history of your sailing grounds, you’ll be a happy sailor in Croatia.

Croatia’s shoreline forms the long, eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea (along with Montenegro and Albania). The Dalmatian islands lie close to the mainland, and are parallel to the east coast of Italy. The area has a long and complicated history, starting with the legendary Greek tales of Odysseus and Calypso, the oared warships of the Illyrians, the ancient maritime culture of the Roman and Venetian occupations, Ottoman pirates, tribal wars, Nazi occupation and then Soviet domination of Yugoslavia. Followed, of course, by the punishing civil war of the 1990s. Croatians are enjoying peace now, and have optimism for the future and pride in their beautiful landscapes, making it a rich and joyful cruising ground. There are islands galore: large ones with cities and medieval towns to explore, and small agricultural ones still inhabited by sheep, donkeys and, happily, the occasional small waterfront restaurant. The best way to see this maritime nation, with the spectacular mountains as a backdrop and wild islands to explore, is from the deck of a sailboat.

History, Culture and Anchorages Galore

Superb destination cities such as Krk, Split/Trogir, lavish Hvar, and Marco Polo’s birthplace, Korcula, were built to trade by sea, providing a profitable sea lane between Venice and the East. Beset by centuries of marauding pirates and warlike neighbors—right up to the tragic wars of the 1990s—the cities present a fortified face to the sea. Within Croatia’s walled cities, there are cultural sites such as Venetian palaces, Benedictine monasteries, Ottoman mosques and, perhaps the most famous, the Emperor Diocletian’s elegant palace in Split. But the fortress walls are easy to penetrate now, and a sailor ashore has a fine choice of activities and culture to be discovered. The Austrian/Nazi submarine pens carved into the cliff faces are empty now, ripe for exploration by dinghy. Or you could lay your dock lines to a massive marble Roman quay on the sleepy island of Silba, where oared warships tied their lines a thousand years ago, seeking the protection of the same natural harbor.

All along the coast of Croatia you’ll find protected anchorages suitable for private boats, and others large enough for the busy fleets of chartered sailboats. The welcoming protective headlands provide a fresh choice of destinations every day, and even a selection of stops for lunch. In the lee of steep-sided islands, there are so many suitable anchorages that we stopped needing the advice in the otherwise excellent guidebooks—whenever we felt we needed relief from a headwind or sudden bora (the north to northeastern katabatic winds), we could find an anchorage near at hand. For example, we dropped the hook in the lee of the small island of Zut, where we walked to a delightful and good- natured restaurant on a hillside above the harbor. Another time we discovered a private swimming beach at the south end of Otok Lopud. Walking up the road from the wharf in Zlarin, we stopped to watch a family harvest green olives, and next to the ubiquitous olive groves, there was a perfect chapel, where votive bouquets were ­carefully arranged around the windows.

Whenever we needed some culture, we could steer a course for a port city. Hvar, Split (and its close neighbor Trogir), Murter and Krk to the north, are our favorite ports, steeped in beauty as well as history at the base of 3,000- to 9,000-foot rock-faced mountains. Each of these ports offers splendid waterfront establishments, hotels, Airbnbs, taxis and airport connections, plus a full menu of services for the fleets of sailboats sweeping in through the hot days of summer.

Every few days, Spencer and I found that we liked to restock at the farmers markets, often located near the waterfront, or visit one of the modern marina establishments near the bigger cities. The whole coast is studded with welcoming marinas, designed to get sailors out racing, out to the islands, or on to the next port city. Croatia is the home of the largest sailboat charter fleet in the world, with about 4,000 boats, and Adriatic Croatia International is a well-organized chain of 22 marinas along the Croatian coast that are often located right near the most popular harbors and charter centers. These marinas consistently offered well-protected slips, knowledgeable repair staff, and good water and fuel. And they were usually located within walking distance from the restaurants and major museums in town.

When cruising Croatia, be prepared to tie up Med-style, with the boat’s stern-to a stone quay and another vessel snugged right alongside. For the skippers who can steer in reverse gear at high speed and have use of a joystick and bow thruster to straighten out their craft, this looks easy. For the rest of us, with no joystick or bow thruster on the boat and little confidence in how it might steer in hard reverse, well, we just take it slow. The dockhands jump up when they see us approach, and with strong helping hands, take our lines and pass us the long underwater laid lines, which are secured to anchored chains far out in the channel. With many, many fenders, it can be done without mishap. We had better luck nosing in bow-first to the wharf, which protects the Monitor windvane hanging off the stern, and then climbing over the bow pulpit and the anchor roller to the wharf. This also makes the cockpit a little more private while on a busy waterfront, particularly in a popular town like Hvar, where crowds of tourists pass along the polished sidewalks and gaze at the boats.

Our Favorite Places

On the southeastern end of the long, ­narrow Dugi Otok, (otok means “island,” dugi means “long”), which some consider the most beautiful of the Kornati Islands, lies Telascica Nature Park. Two friendly park wardens, who manage the property and extensive anchorage, came by in a small boat and collected a fee, charged per boat; in our case, the fee was 380 Croatian kunas, or about $42, which we were happy to pay in view of the pristine preserve. Although well-protected, this beautiful bay can get crowded with boats anchored in the sailing season. The inner harbor of Luka Telascica has a perfect anchorage 4 miles up the bay, where we were the only boat in our quiet cove. The next morning, we were awakened by donkeys, braying gently as they wandered the steep slopes.

On the rough shoreline of Luka Telascica, the sharp rocks are made of karst, a carbonate rock that characterizes the Croatian coast. Karst is a porous limestone that dissolves over time in flowing water, leaving caves, sinkholes and bonelike surfaces, scoured by the water moving through it. From a small dock, we picked our way across the sharp rocky beach and hiked up to the radio tower at the top of Dugi Otok. There we were surprised to find ourselves on the edge of an unprotected cliff edge, with a shocking 150-meter sheer drop-off into the water and a spectacular view across the aqua blue Adriatic Sea toward Italy.

The next day, on the eastern side of Dugi Otok, in the protected harbor of the town of Luka, we anchored for the day and watched a young woman and her grandfather head out on a small fishing boat; they returned in the afternoon with her catch.

That evening, when we asked the proprietress of the restaurant if they were open for dinner, she said it was their first day of the season and they had one “tooth fish” that she had caught with her grandfather that day. In honor of their opening, we had a free drink and the grilled tooth fish. Her grandfather, the same fisherman we had seen earlier in the day, sat at a table with some friends, and then we all watched the sun set over the harbor and the fishing boat, with Scarlet anchored nearby. That is offseason cruising in Croatia!

The Kornati Archipelago is a chain of water-washed cones of karst. The remarkable white pyramid-shaped moonscapes rise from the deep water of the Adriatic Sea. These white mountains, stunning and wild, are beautiful to see up close from the deck of a boat as the light changes along their smooth angled slopes. Sailing between the islands in Kornati National Park feels like a peaceful cruise on the moon, with spectacular anchorages close by.

The enchanting, southernmost island of Mljet turned out to be our favorite stop. We entered a narrow opening into the long undeveloped bay to the small town of Polace. As we approached, I thought to myself: What is that high smokestack? An industrial ruin? Nope—it was a ruined palace! The walls of a Roman castle, built in the third or fourth century for the Roman Agesilaus and his poet son, tower above the small town. From the main pedestrian lane in the village, you can walk right up to the Roman walls, stare up at the stonework and marvel at the passage of history.

Most of Mljet is still wooded and green—a national park—laid out with manicured hiking trails, a lake and a picture-perfect island monastery. The modest park fee of 250 kunas (less than $40) covers three days of anchoring and hiking.

Some think Mljet may have been the home of the mythical nymph Calypso, who loved and entrapped the wandering sailor Odysseus, and held him captive in one of the caves on the island. After seven years, the immortal nymph was convinced by the goddess Athena to build Odysseus a boat and let him continue his journey homeward, according to Homer in The Odyssey. There is a nice seafood restaurant there named for her—the Calypso—where we sampled the local dish “Octopus Under the Bell.”

We found our own paradise, tied bow-in toward the Calypso’s terrace in Polace, and the stern anchored out on the long mooring lines provided.

Otok Krk is a large, settled island in the north end of the Adriatic, close to the Istria peninsula and Trieste, Italy, and it reflects the influence of the Venetian empire. The ancient town of Krk has a strong sense of history, marked by the obvious ruins of the Roman town of Curicum, where in 49 B.C., Caesar and Pompey fought a great sea battle. We were beyond thrilled to set the anchor outside an intact Roman sea gate—which to us looked like it could have been part of a movie set—where goods were traded through the fortress walls of Krk for the past millennia. We walked through the town and could see Scarlet at anchor, framed by the stone arch of the sea gate.

After a few years of seasonal cruising and visiting countries of the Adriatic Sea, we sailed Scarlet south into Greek waters. But for varied, well-protected harbors of sophistication and deep maritime history, Croatia remains dear to our hearts, and we are planning a return visit. There is a lot more to see there, and it is best seen from the deck of a sailboat.

Queene Hooper Foster sails her Concordia yawl in Maine these days, when not sailing for several months of the year on Scarlet, based in the eastern Mediterranean.

Chartering in Croatia

There is no doubt that Croatia offers a spectacular cruising ground, and that there is an abundant charter fleet available for visiting sailors. But there are a few hoops that American sailors will need to jump through before being allowed to charter a boat.

Croatia, like other European countries, requires ­bareboat-charter captains to produce internationally accepted paperwork demonstrating competency in handling recreational vessels.

What that means for Americans is that an experiential sailing resume and a US Coast Guard-issued captain’s license are of course helpful—yet incomplete—if you’ve set your sights on taking family and friends on a cruise along the Dalmatian coast.

The requirement dates back to the adoption of United Nations Resolution 40, a recreational boating safety initiative proposed by countries seeking to reduce accidents on the water and the corresponding strain on emergency services. The International Certificate of Competence required of sailors is laid out in detail as part of UN 40.

Because the United States isn’t a signatory of UN 40, alternatives recognized by the Croatian government and charter companies include the International Proficiency Certificate.

US Sailing and the American Sailing Association, as well as their extensive network of affiliate schools, offer the IPC as a viable path for Americans to charter abroad. NauticEd, an online-based sailing school, offers the Sailing License and Credentials course, which is also accepted by the Croatian government and charter companies. Other options include obtaining the ICC qualification itself through the Royal Yachting Association of the United Kingdom.

“Countries and charter companies have been accepting the IPC because it so closely aligns with the ICC,” says Rich Jepsen, vice president of the board of directors of US Sailing, the governing body of the sport. “It is the ICC in spirit, if not rule.”

Jepsen, whose background includes decades of certifying sailors with ASA and with US Sailing, is an advocate of ­certification and related requirements that keep vacationing sailors’ skills sharp in foreign waters.

While the cost of the IPC is nominal, it tests on-water practical proficiency and theoretical knowledge with regard to multiple nautical standards. For US Sailing members, the IPC is an extension of the organization’s Keelboat Certification System, which includes completion of the US Sailing Bareboat Cruising course. Experienced sailors can challenge the required prerequisite levels by successfully completing written and practical examinations.

ASA’s certification is similarly prerequisite-based. Member sailors qualified for the IPC are those who have successfully completed ASA basic and bareboat cruising courses 101, 103 and 104. Experienced sailors who want to challenge the course content and gain IPC certification must pass written tests and on-the-water skills assessments.

“Many excellent sailors fail the ASA written and on-the-water tests,” says Elbert “Ash” Ashbaugh III, an ASA affiliate instructor. “A prudent plan would be to study/review the appropriate ASA textbooks and self-analyze your skills before challenging the courses.” Another practical option for experienced sailors who haven’t taken any basic courses, Ashbaugh advises, is to take the 104-level course and arrange to also be tested for the 101 and 103 prerequisite courses.

The IPC issued by ASA and US Sailing is valid for five years from date of issue.

“The IPC is the cheapest and most dependable way to comply with the rules and get to see these sailing wonders,” Jepsen says. “Think of the expense and uncertainty of the average US sailor who wants to charter in Greece or Italy or Croatia. They will have to expand their vacation to include testing at an approved European facility, pay for and perform that test, and hope they pass so they can actually take their $10,000 charter they’ve had reserved for a year. The IPC isn’t perfect, but it’s a brilliant workaround to a large bureaucracy.”

Charter companies operating in Croatia include:

Activity Yachting

Adriatic Sailing

Dream Yacht Charter

Kiriacoulis Mediterranean

The Moorings

Navigare Yacthing

NCP & mare

Sail Croatia

Sunsail

Adriatic Weather

The high season in Croatia is June, July and August, and features mostly easy sailing weather. Light to moderate breezes from the north or south predominate, and they rise in the late morning and decline with the sun. The steep mountains that line the shore of Croatia, however, and the narrow “kanals” between the mainland and islands—and between islands themselves—can cause local weather anomalies that will have you scrambling to shorten sail. If you see a bank of clouds resembling a beard over the mountaintops, particularly the Velebit mountains north and east of Split, be prepared to reef down and find a lee under a nearby island.

In the shoulder seasons of April/May and September/October, the weather might be challenging. The bora can bring high barometric pressure, clear weather and severe winds off the mountains. It might blow steadily for a day—or for three days. The bora’s warm southerly counterpart, the low-pressure jugo, arrives with squalls, rain, thunder and high drama. It also can blow for a couple of days.

Both of these weather systems are predictable, however. Marinas post the weather daily and internet weather sites are useful, but there might not be enough detail to show the local changes. You have to diligently watch the cloud formations over the mountain summits.

We were expecting a strong bora in October—the late sailing season—and from the 5,000-foot mountains to the north and east, the strong winds came. Every morning we would watch for the gray beards, great swirling cumulous clouds, hovering over the rocky summits of the mile-high Velebit mountains. Within a day, the katabatic winds off those slopes would be howling down the narrow Velebit Kanal, at a steady 40 knots. To us it seemed odd that high pressure and bright sunshine often accompanied these strong winds.

Weather info is easy to get in Croatia and Montenegro. Excellent cellular service and Wi-Fi are readily available in marinas and restaurants, and maritime weather forecasts like those available on the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service’s website (meteo.hr) are easy to access, in the local language and in English. Most marinas post forecasts at their office. VHF weather is available, though the schedule can be hard to track. Be wary of nonmarine forecasts, which regularly underestimate the local wind strength.

Valuable Guides and Charts

Adriatic Pilot: Croatia Slovenia, Montenegro, East Coast of Italy and Albania, Eighth Edition By Trevor and Dinah Thompson 2020; Imray Laurie & Wilson Ltd.

The Adlard Coles Book of Mediterranean Cruising, Fourth Edition By Rod Heikell 2018; Adlard Coles Nautical

Imray Chart M23 Adriatic Sea Passage

Imray Chart M24 Trieste to Losinj and Rab

Imray Chart M25 Otok Rab to Sibenik

Imray Chart M26 Split to Dubrovnik

The post Sailing the Coast of Croatia appeared first on Cruising World.

Everyone knows there’s no such thing as a free boat. Just don’t tell Matt Rutherford, who can gaze from the deck of his latest one—which he hopes will take him to the ends of the earth—to the tarnished remains of his former one, which already did.

Pretty little St. Brendan lies these days on the hard, at the end of a gravel lane of old-timers that have seen better times and places. Eight years ago, in one of the great sea-voyaging triumphs of all time, Rutherford sailed the donated 27-foot, 40-year-old Albin Vega from Annapolis, Maryland, back to Annapolis—via the Northwest Passage and Cape Horn, some 27,000 nautical miles in 309 days, nonstop and singlehanded at an average rate of 3.5 knots (see “Fortitudine Vincimus,” July 2012).

Now St. Brendan, named for an Irish cleric who braved the uncharted North Atlantic in a leather curragh 1,500 years ago, sits on jack stands at Herrington Harbor North near Annapolis, waiting like a sleepy old dog at a shelter for a softhearted buyer who may never materialize. Rutherford can see her easily from the steel deck of his newest project, the massive sailing vessel Marie Tharp, which sits just two rows away and towers above everything. She’s so big, he had to buy a 20-foot extension ladder just to get up the side.

The schooner is 72 feet long from bowsprit to massive, barn-door transom, custom-built of fine Dutch steel following lines drawn by heralded offshore-yacht designer Bruce Roberts. Fully outfitted for sea, she’ll weigh a staggering 115,000 pounds, more than 20 times the displacement of little St. Brendan.

The price for both was the same: zero. And, of course, both needed work, which is right up Rutherford’s alley.

I first met Rutherford in 2010, when he was rooting around Annapolis looking for help on a most unpromising project. He’d been working as a volunteer fixing up boats for Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating, a local nonprofit with a clever acronym—CRAB— whose mission is to get disabled folks out sailing for recreation. He and the group’s founder, Don Backe, who had lost use of his legs in a car crash, hatched the idea of Rutherford taking a donated CRAB boat “around the Americas” to raise money for and awareness of the group’s mission. The aged Vega was wasting away in a boatyard then, but Rutherford saw in it the makings of an adventure he’d long wanted to tackle.

“I went down in the cabin and lay down on the bunk one day, and it fit me. I thought, This can work!”

He spent months ­dumpster-diving and cajoling bits of gear from local enablers, most of whom (including me) thought the whole idea was nuts. And he worked like a farmer, largely alone, installing bulkheads and a Samson post, redoing rigging, fitting sails and cramming the little craft with freeze-dried food, an old bladder tank for diesel that completely covered the cabin floor, a hand-­operated watermaker, sea anchors, radios, navigation gear, boots and foulies.

When he left Annapolis heavily laden in June 2011, few thought we’d ever see the then-30-year-old or his little boat again. When he popped back up at City Dock the following April, having survived the most perilous marine obstacles on Earth, the governor and local sailing celebrity Gary Jobson were there to greet him, along with hundreds more. He was a penniless hero, having left with $30 and come back with the same thin, soggy wallet.

Rutherford, who grew up rough and rowdy in the Rust Belt of Ohio, was used to being broke. But he leveraged his short, bright fame well, giving paid talks about his trip and making connections that helped him set up a nonprofit, the Ocean Research Project, dedicated to doing scientific research to save the aqueous two-thirds of the planet. He also found a fine partner, Nicole Trenholm, who is almost as fearless as him. Together they have gone to the ends of the earth, more than once.

Rutherford’s goal, ever since he graduated from an alternative high school for troubled kids at age 20, has been to roam the globe and do some good. He’s never had two nickels to rub together but figured out early that a sailboat costs nothing to operate as long as you stay away from land, and he’s grown adept at getting free or almost-free sailboats in which to do that.

His first was a Coronado 25 bought sight unseen for $2,000. When he went to claim it in a Maryland boatyard, “the weeds were higher than the boat.” He and an old Ohio girlfriend, knowing nothing about boats or the sea, patched it up, evicted the mud daubers, and made it to Key West before three straight hurricanes did the boat in. He acquired a succession of storm-damaged beaters after that, the last of which, a Pearson 323, took him solo across the Atlantic, down the West Africa coast, and back home.

He eventually fetched up on that boat, broke again, in Annapolis, where Backe and the Albin Vega awaited. Trenholm popped up shortly after Rutherford’s voyage around the Americas. He wowed her at a yacht-club talk he gave, and she wowed him when she said she was a budding scientist specializing in the marine environment—just what he needed to lend credibility to his nonprofit. She’s now a doctoral candidate in marine climate science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, studying when she’s not off at sea with Rutherford.

They did most of their traveling on Ault, a 42-foot steel cat-ketch Rutherford bought with the gains from his voyage around the Americas and some borrowed cash from family. It was a rust-streaked wreck that needed 12 steel plates welded on by an unemployed motorcycle mechanic before it could be trusted to leave the bay.

You’d see Rutherford and Trenholm around town that summer, looking like a pair of Welsh coal miners fresh from the job site, in tattered rags streaked with dust and grease. It was hot, as always for the Chesapeake, and as damp as a jungle, but Trenholm gave as good as she got with sander, chipper and paintbrush, and after a shower, she still looked like a movie star—without the peroxide hair.

They took the refurbished Ault across the Atlantic and back, gathering plastic bits and pieces for an unpaid study on a suspected garbage gyre in a remote patch west of the Azores. Then they crossed the Pacific from California to Japan in a borrowed Harbor 29 doing the same thing, arriving days before a typhoon struck that would have sunk them and all their data forever.

Back home, they readied Ault, which cruises at 4 knots and “goes to weather like a well-trimmed refrigerator,” in Rutherford’s assessment, for two summers of research in the Arctic. They charted the bottom in uninhabited Greenland fjords well above the 70th parallel north, and studied currents and temperature variations for NASA. They found evidence of a mysterious, deep warm-water current that’s eating away at glaciers from below. For the second of those missions, having proved their worth, they actually got paid, though barely enough to cover costs.

Scientists believe climate- change research is crucial in the high latitudes, where the effects of man’s addiction to fossil fuels is felt most severely, and Rutherford and Trenholm came back from the Arctic convinced there’s a niche for small, efficient and inexpensive platforms like Ault, and now Marie Tharp, to do that kind of work.

Most Arctic research falls to big, powerful research vessels that carry teams of scientists in comfort and style. Trenholm took part in one last summer, working for three-and-a-half weeks on a chartered Swedish icebreaker that had every convenience, including a sauna and a pingpong table. “We dressed for dinner. It was like a vacation,” she says.

But all that luxury comes at a price. “I was on a $6 million expedition,” Trenholm says, “and it showed me how much more Matt and I are capable of doing at a fraction of the cost.”

Rutherford reckons that the average cost of a big research vessel working in the Arctic is about $25,000 a day. “We can operate for one-tenth that,” he says, “and because the new scientific equipment is smaller and less power-hungry, we can do anything they can do.”

If small is good, Ault was unfortunately a bit too small. While their two summers in the Arctic were fruitful, the little steel boat was big enough only for Rutherford, Trenholm, and a deckhand or two. Rutherford was ruminating one day on his podcast, Singlehanded Sailing, about how much better they could do with a bigger boat, and his thoughts wandered to a vision of a steel Bruce Roberts 65-footer—a design he considered perfect for the job: big enough for a scientific team of four to stay in relative comfort, with berths for himself as captain and a crew of two or three, but still cheap to operate.

Amazingly, a random listener knew where just such a boat lay languishing and put them in touch with the owner, Zan Ricketson, a dreamer who’d spent 18 years building it up from bare hull and rig for a planned grand adventure in the high latitudes but was about ready to give up. The boat was in the water in Delaware.

“It was about 80 percent finished,” said Rutherford, who rushed up to the C&D Canal for a look-see and immediately began badgering Ricketson to donate it to the Ocean Research Project. The deal closed in 2018, and early the next spring, Rutherford got the freshly rebuilt, 212-horsepower Ford diesel fired up, and brought the boat south to Herrington Harbor, where she was hauled and blocked for a refit.

He named her Marie Tharp in honor of a hero of his and other seafarers. Tharp was a scientist in the 1950s who labored in relative obscurity creating three-dimensional images of the seafloor using data from sonar readings that had never been coordinated into a usable format. “She painstakingly took these numbers to create a map showing the ridges and valleys and contours of the seafloor, worldwide,” Rutherford says.

“Her boyfriend got most of the credit. She wasn’t even allowed on a boat in the beginning—they didn’t want women aboard.” Others in his position might have waited to name their flagship for some wealthy sponsor. But don’t even ask Matt Rutherford, champion of the downtrodden, to call his boat Amway Explorer or Jiffy Lube Jet. It just ain’t gonna happen.

About the boat: She’s impressive if you don’t get too close. Massive, of course, with a good 8 feet of freeboard above an expansive, long-keel bottom. It was built by venerated steel-boat builder Howdy Bailey in his yard near Norfolk, Virginia, from steel cut to order from the best quarter-inch-thick Dutch stock. Rust? Well, sure, there’s a bit if you start chipping away, but it all appears repairable with some skillful welding.

The deck is flush, with a big, enclosed center cockpit that Rutherford intends to fortify with more steel bracing and new, shatterproof windows. There are watertight steel bulkheads fore and aft, so smashing into an iceberg or two will not prove fatal. Two anchors are mounted in the bow, with 700 feet of chain led to lockers amidships to keep the weight out of the pointy end.

The shiny, 6-cylinder Ford diesel has just 85 hours since a full rebuild and lives in an airy engine room, alongside a Kubota 24-volt generator that has never been fired up and is capable of powering a watermaker in addition to making electricity. Fuel capacity is 800 gallons, cruising speed is 7.5 knots, and Rutherford expects he’ll burn 3.3 gallons an hour, giving the boat a 1,500-mile range under power. The engine ran well on the 80-mile run from Delaware to the yard.

The rig is stout, with keel-stepped masts. Sails are brand- new, still in the original bags, and he expects to use them a lot. “When we get on-site, it will mostly be motoring as we collect data, but as long as there’s wind, we intend to sail the boat whenever we’re in open water,” Rutherford says.

Inside is a mess, to be blunt. A lot of work has been started, but little is finished. There’s a forecastle big enough for four bunks for crew, a nice head with separate shower just aft of that, a galley amidships on the starboard side (with no cooking equipment installed), a big saloon aft of the main mast, and two cabins beyond that: one for the captain’s quarters and another for a scientific crew of up to four. Forward of the saloon, on the opposite side of the boat from the galley, is a work chamber for scientific equipment.

Everywhere you look, plywood and framing lumber, batteries, tools and gadgets are strewn about. It looks like a third-grade schoolroom if the teacher disappeared for a month or two.

Rutherford reckons it will cost about $100,000 to finish up everything needed. At the end of the day, he’ll have a seaworthy, spartan platform to conduct Arctic research in, but there are no plans for saunas or pingpong rooms. His hope is that the spirit of adventure and the chance to conduct important research at a fraction of the usual cost will lure scientists who are serious about tackling the perils of climate change.

He and Trenholm are passionate about the mission. They believe that understanding climate change in the Arctic is crucial to ­understanding this global phenomenon in its infancy. “We published a pretty important study on the way warm-­water intrusion is eating the glaciers from the bottom up,” Rutherford says. “The next step is to tie warming water and glacial melting to changes in plankton growth, which is the basis of the food chain.”

As for the $100,000 or so they’ll need to get the job done, they’re on the prowl. Rutherford makes some money selling boats as a broker for Eastport Yacht Sales in Annapolis. He’s doing deliveries, having recently taken a big Beneteau across the pond to the Mediterranean. He had a deal this past winter to take paying riders along on voyages to and around the Caribbean on a borrowed boat. Trenholm’s applying for government grants. They’re interviewing potential sugar daddies. If you know any, pass the word via the Ocean Research Project website, or listen to a Singlehanded Sailing podcast for details (see “Help Launch the Dream,” below).

“It’s all about who you know,” Rutherford says. “And it’s not easy. They all say, ‘It’s great, awesome, a wonderful project—but not for us.’’’

If it were anyone but Matt Rutherford, I would probably say the same. We all thought he was off his meds when he was ricocheting around Annapolis nine years ago, muttering about a preposterous scheme to sail around the world the longitudinal way in a battered old North Sea weekender. And again when he shot out the Golden Gate in a borrowed club racer with his girlfriend, in a half-gale, bound for Yokohama.

We shook our heads and clucked our tongues when he left the Chesapeake in a steel tub with unstayed masts and a 30-year-old Perkins 4-108, bound for the Arctic at the pace of a kid’s tricycle. And then we applauded each time he came back, having accomplished what he’d set out to do. He’s got a track record.

The new project with Marie Tharp is daunting, with unfinished business everywhere you look: holes to patch, deckhouse to build, plumbing to finish, electronics to install, furniture to find, watermaker, beds, insulation, stove, fridge, sinks and headliners. Where to even begin?

Fortitudine Vincimus was the family credo of Ernest Shackleton, Rutherford’s idol, who brought his men safely home from the wreck of his flagship in the Antarctic a century ago, after luring them there by advertising: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of compete darkness. Constant Danger. Safe return doubtful.”

“By Endurance We Conquer” is the translation. Those are words to live by for a fellow who has seen the remotest corners of the world from the decks of boats nobody else wanted. “I guess it would have been nice to be born a rich kid,” Rutherford says. “But then I never would have done any of these things. I’d just be a lazy rich kid.”

Angus Phillips is a longtime Chesapeake Bay-based racing and cruising sailor, former outdoor columnist for The Washington Post, and frequent contributor to CW.

Help Launch The Dream

Matt Rutherford is and always has been a driven sailor, and has financed many of his adventures through yacht deliveries and contributions to his nonprofit dedicated to Arctic exploration and research. To learn more about Matt, and Nicole’s backgrounds, accomplishments and future endeavors, or to make a donation to the cause, visit his website.

The post Matt Rutherford’s Arctic Research Dreams appeared first on Cruising World.

Lying awake in my berth, listening to the roaring wind, I whipped up this little classified ad—or was I dreaming it?—in my mind. “Boat for sale: Beneteau 361 in great condition. Includes dinghy, watermaker, solar panels and wind generator.”

As all sailors can attest, these moments of doubt come around. That night, I would have sold my beloved Liberte for pennies on the dollar.

It had been a day of ridiculous logistics. Some land-based friends in Florida wanted to meet at the Sanibel Marriott for sunset hour. Simple enough, but the hotel dock wouldn’t work. The docks next door were private. There was no anchorage for shelter in the predicted northerlies.

I found a place on the charts that might work, and for several hours, we motored the twisting Intracoastal Waterway against current to go just 2 miles as the seagull flies. We crept around a long shoal and through skinny water to drop the hook. We were far from shore with no wind protection, but in flat water, or so we thought.

A fishing boat came blasting by, so close that our mast rocked in its wake. Then another. It appeared I had anchored smack dab in the middle of a local shortcut. Each driver gave us the stink eye as they hit the throttle. Doubt crept in, the scourge of any untested anchorage.

A TowBoatUS boat pulled up, and the driver hollered over: “You guys OK? Never seen anyone anchored here.”

“Uh, yeah…. Just here for a couple of nights.”

“Wow, you’re here on purpose? All the boats run through here.”

“We noticed.”

“Can’t believe you got over the bar,” the tow driver said. “I’d get back out at the next high tide if I were you.”

“Thanks! Now go save someone else, pal.” (I said that last part under my breath).

Now the breeze was lively. My wife, Rebecca, and I hoisted the dinghy off the foredeck, and it wanted to sail away. I stepped into the rollicking dink and fitted the outboard, my limbs jerking like a character in an old-time movie. I yanked the starter, remembering to use my left hand because the right arm was tweaked from before. All the while I muttered versions of the phrase, “This is ridiculous!”

Rebecca still had her sunny smile, so much better at these times than me, and we motored upwind in our foulies against breeze and spray. We tied up to the hotel docks with the guilty manner of not knowing if we belonged. Our friends looked fresh, unwrinkled, sensible and sophisticated. We pulled off our wet gear and smoothed our crazy hair.

The sunset was a five-star masterpiece, but we apologized and made the transit back to Liberte before dark. As we tossed about in our inflatable, feeling oh-so-vulnerable, I looked up at the Sanibel Island causeway. There were the smart people, unbound by charts and shallows. To change their weather, they just summoned the heat or air conditioning. They were no doubt destined for crisp sheets in a quiet hotel room. Those lucky people.

Back at the boat, the anchor light was out, so I cobbled together a “nonapproved” version using headlamps. I tried to read a book but instead inserted some more details into my imaginary ad: “Boat for sale. High engine hours. Jib needs replacement. Bottom paint due. Wind instruments behaving strangely. Fridge needs three sharp raps on the thermostat to come back on.”

The wind whistled, and the cabin was colder than seemed possible this far south. There was a squeeze in my chest, the unsettling feeling of making a big mistake. This sailing life made no sense at all. I would have to find a broker in the morning.

I went topside for a look around. That one step still squeaked. The winches needed servicing. My makeshift anchor light was already fading. It would be a great relief to hand all this to a new owner. Let him deal with it.

And then the cool north wind smacked me upside the head. I stood there for a long while, just drinking in the sensation of it.

The wind I chased through hills as a boy and sent me to the islands on my first ocean passage. The wind that silently, wondrously, put Rebecca and me next to a mother humpback and her calf as they dived and surfaced for 20 magical minutes I will remember with a smile all my life.

I smiled now too, in the darkness. Thoughts of the winds that had carried us to so many places. The fragrant land breeze of Pacific Mexico at night and the sea breeze in the afternoons. The clean, sweet wind of the West Indies. The pleasures of the Pacific trades. That epic night off Cape Mendocino, surfing a narrow groove with a scrap of sail, nothing more important in the world than to steer a course and keep the boat in one piece until morning. This little boat named Liberte that had given me thousands of sunsets and a million sparkling memories.

The deck was familiar under my feet. I knew my route over it and could find the corresponding handholds by instinct. Looking around in the moonlight, everything was tidy and in its place.

Even the blemishes had meaning. Who else would understand how that scrape or ding came to be? I had put them there myself over the course of years and adventures aplenty. I knew with a warm rush of memory all the stories here.

My eyes darted again to the bridge and all the cars. Their brake lights crawled along, constrained by tollways, traffic, convention and routine. Perhaps there was one kid, a younger version of me, looking out the window at a lone boat under the moon and dreaming.

Maybe he was thinking, Those lucky people.

“Baby, are you coming to bed?” A beloved voice from below. The gleam of polished wood. The good books, well-appointed galley and simple pleasures.

Yes, I most certainly am. And tonight I will sleep the sleep of a sailor, wrapped in water sounds and rocked off to dreamland.

“Boat for sale?” Not a chance.

You’ll have to pry old Liberte from my banged-up sailor’s hands.

David and Rebecca Kilmer spent this past winter aboard Liberte exploring Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, and savoring every bloody moment.

The post Point of View: Boat for Sale appeared first on Cruising World.

We’re anchored in the Greek island of Symi, stern tied to a stone quay in the picturesque pastel-colored village of Yialos—a town so absolutely idyllic and harmoniously composed, you would think it the work of Athena.

It is a Med-mooring experience at its finest, one where you step from the transom of your boat right into a Mediterranean postcard: a local cafe or taverna just a few feet from your cockpit, where chairs and round tables draped in checkered cloth rest on cobbled streets warmed by the sun, and depending on the time of day or your mood, you can order a cup of coffee accompanied by a warm loaf of sweet tsoureki, or a glass of chilled local retsina wine.

Med mooring is a technique of berthing in the Mediterranean Sea that, due to the vast number of boats cruising the region and the absence of any discernible tidal range, allows vessels to anchor and tie stern-to a dock or quay, typically in the center of town.

This was our first stern-to mooring in a Mediterranean town, and it quickly became an unforgettable experience. By sheer proximity you feel a connection to the community, and after just a few days, when locals recognize you as being more permanent than the day tourists arriving by ferry from Rhodes, they begin to include you in their day, sharing smiles, pleasantries, local walks and island secrets. One merchant offered his car should we feel the urge to explore the island, and a store owner included a free bottle of local red wine with our groceries. Right away, we felt at home here.

It was early in the cruising season, so there were only three other yachts berthed alongside Dream Time, our 1981 Cabo Rico 38, but during peak summer months, dozens squeeze together on the quay, filling it past capacity and jostling for room with barely fender space to spare. But for now, at least, the cafes and quay are unhurried, and while sailors relaxed in their cockpits, locals and tourists smiled down as they passed, some stopping to ask questions about the boats or the voyages. For me, the relaxed intimacy of feeling connected to a small seaside community is one of the great pleasures of a Mediterranean mooring. But it can come at a price.

“Opa!” is a Greek exclamation traditionally reserved for smashing plates or shouting loudly after stubbing your toe on a deck cleat. But over the years, its meaning has evolved to also express joy and celebration. But because Med mooring can be a tricky business, more often than not, especially when berthing in Symi, the traditional cry of “opa!” can regularly be heard echoing across the amphitheatrical bay as new arrivals or departures struggle with their ground tackle.

Symi Harbor is 40 to 60 feet deep with a rocky mud bottom that a local pilot book describes as poor holding. The narrow harbor requires anchors not only to be carefully placed to avoid crossing the chains of your immediate neighbors, but also aligned to avoid snagging the anchors and chains of boats berthed on the opposite quay.

Dropping the anchor in the right location is a mild challenge, but backing your boat toward a crowded quay while paying out chain and negotiating your stern into a space barely the width of your beam can seem almost impossible, especially if you’ve had little practice with the maneuver or there’s a brisk crosswind and your boat is like Dream Time—a full keel, no bow thruster and stubborn as a Santorini mule when going astern. Let’s just say that the potential for an enthusiastic “opa!” runs high.

Local officials seem happy to add to the chaos, blowing whistles to get your attention before loudly shouting orders (in Greek) at arriving captains, and heckling those they deem incompetent or take a dislike to. And if that’s not enough to make you clench your jaw, all this typically happens under the amused gaze of hundreds of spectators sipping a drink while lounging in the cafes and tavernas that line the quay within perfect viewing distance.

With great relief, Dream Time’s arrival was one that found an almost empty quay and just a light breeze. We dropped the anchor in 45 feet, and with a scope of 4-to-1 had both stern lines passed to a local official and secured to bollards in just a few minutes, and received only one blast from the whistle. Other captains were not so lucky—one foreign yacht flying a rather weathered Greek courtesy flag was spectacularly reprimanded and ordered to immediately purchase a new one from the local chandlery. Another yacht lost its mooring pole when attempting to untangle a snagged chain, and after finally freeing itself, miraculously managed to snag another. And all this excitement occurred in just a single afternoon.

Dream Time, unfortunately, did not manage to escape an “opa!” moment. Frustratingly, when our neighbor departed, due to the poor placement of their ground tackle the night before, they dragged us down the dock before relocating our anchor just off our bow, shortening our scope and requiring us to completely reset our berth. But weather conditions were favorable, it was all good practice and, we later learned, a routine exercise of the colorful Med-mooring experience.

RELATED: On the Hook in Delos, Greece

Most captains here seem skilled in the art of unfouling ground tackle using a simple technique that involves raising their anchor, looping a line under the snagged chain to take the load, then releasing the rope, allowing their neighbor’s chain to fall back to the seabed. Considerate assailants will attempt to drop a lifted hook back to where they found it; if not, the victim will have to reset their anchor and scope, much to the amusement of those ashore cheering from the comfort of a lounge chair.

Our second “opa!”—and one experienced by all the yachts berthed in Symi that morning—occurred at 0700, when an early car ferry entered the harbor along with an impressive wake that cascaded around the stone walls, causing all the boats to stretch their lines and surge forward and aft over 6 feet. Boats with shorter stern lines and passerelles, and perhaps berthed a little too close, collided with the quay, where stone crunched without ­mercy against swim platforms and fiberglass transoms before captains and crew—most fresh from their bunks and wearing very little—emerged to start engines and engage transmissions.

Dream Time survived unscathed thanks to a giant fender ball we’ve been carrying around the world for 12 years and, until Symi, had used only once, while transiting the Panama Canal. Our outboard engine, however, which was clamped to the stern rail, clipped the wall, resulting in a mildly bent propeller. But this, we think, is a small price to pay to be stern-tied to one of the prettiest towns in all of Greece.

Neville Hockley and his wife, Catherine, have recently crossed the Atlantic and are spending the winter in the Caribbean before closing the loop on their circumnavigation. To read more about their voyage, visit zeroXTE.com.

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There are three situations where I greatly appreciate my old-fashioned ketch rig on our present boat, Ganesh: under sail, under power and while anchored. Truth be told, for the entire 23 years that I owned my sloop-rigged S&S-designed Wild Card, I had mizzen envy. Sad!

What, in layman’s terms, is a ketch? Basically, it is a sloop with slightly smaller main and jib set slightly more forward on a main mast, with a mizzen sail aft that’s carried on a second spar. Thus, the ketch has roughly the same sail area spread over a longer span and in smaller chunks. What’s the difference between a ketch and a yawl? The ketch has a comparatively larger mizzen than the yawl, and the ketch’s mizzen mast is set forward of where the rudder post bisects the waterline rather than aft of it.

What good is a mizzen mast at anchor? Plenty good! One, it can hold cool stuff such as nav lights, aft-deck spreader lights, anchor light, radar dome, PA speakers, wind generator, exterior stereo speakers and a radar reflector. It also serves as a small hoisting crane aft. We can haul up our 9.8 hp Tohatsu outboard using our mizzen boom—though some boats require a boom extension (think sliding pole inside) to do so easily. Some skippers clap a block and tackle on the mizzen if they need to hoist an injured crewmember back aboard.

Anything else? Sure! With the mizzen sail hoisted, it can passively dampen the roll in two ways: through air resistance and by changing the vessel’s angle to the swell. Will the mizzen eliminate anchorage roll? No, but at times it can make a considerable difference by knocking the boat off its natural roll period, with dramatic effect.

Just recently, we were anchored in a windy harbor in Indonesia, with a building breeze and an increasing swell working its way around the point. In the early morning we were fine, but by midday, we were uncomfortable moving around below. My first move was to hoist our fully battened mizzen with decent halyard and outhaul tension, then sheet it home hard. (It is intentionally cut flat.) Next, I added two preventers to the boom ends to immobilize it.

RELATED: On Watch: Clearing In

This made a noticeable difference, and I forgot about the roll until later that afternoon when the wind was really piping up and the sea had built accordingly. My next move was to run a line forward from the mizzen boom end to the bow, and crank the mizzen boom to the side I wanted the boat to turn. This further steadied the vessel in two ways. First, it made the bow turn more into the swell, which reduced the roll. Second, it put a constant additional wind pressure into the mix. Both helped steady the boat.

Of course, if the wind had built further, I’d have deployed my twin flopper-stoppers from my two downwind pole ends. But in this case, just the mizzen was ample enough to dampen the roll into an OK-we-can-live-with-it zone.

Some people think of the mizzen mast as an obstruction. I think of it as something to hold on to, clip on to, and brace against. I even like the mizzen shrouds—one last chance to catch a handhold before the deep blue sea.

In many instances, I think of my mizzen sail as an air rudder. Simply by sheeting it in and easing it out, I can change the center of effort of the sails in relationship to the hull’s center of lateral resistance. That’s something a sloop cannot do as readily.

If I need to drift straight backward from a mooring, I hoist the full mizzen and full staysail, and put crew on both to pull and push as I steer backward. It is amazing how far I can get astern before my bow pays off in a consistent moderate breeze.

When sailing off the hook with the mizzen, I can always be sure of which tack I will pay off on. If this isn’t too important, I just turn the helm and push the mizzen boom to the desired side. If it is important, I pre-rig and pre-cant the vessel by running a line forward from the mizzen boom end through the bow hawsehole and adjust the sail accordingly.

I’ve seen schooners in Maine reverse under sail quite a way. But the very best at this was Garry Hoyt on his Freedom 40 cat ketch. Why, he could back up that “ting, mon” like a car, during Antigua Sailing Week.

I’m now 68 years old, and I must admit, my heavy mainsail is beginning to intimidate me. As a result, my wife, Carolyn, and I seldom fly it. If broad- reaching, we toss up our nylon mizzen staysail instead. It is almost the same size, and is a snap to hoist and douse in comparison to the main.

While I don’t usually carry my mizzen staysail dead downwind because of the efficiency of my twin downwind trade-wind jibs, I do occasionally carry it on a beam reach.

The thing I like best about a ketch is being able to, in heavy air, just get rid of the mainsail, and still sail well under mizzen and staysail, with the ability to tack smartly even in a lull. Yes, we can round down and jibe as well, but this takes considerably more sea room.

But if I’m sailing into a harbor or onto a mooring with Ganesh and the wind is moderate to fresh, I come in under jib and jigger (the term we used back in the day) with good control.

Of course, a mizzen takes some getting used to, especially if you’re using a windvane for steering. Most windvanes don’t like mizzens or mainsails; they want all the sails far forward for easier steering. In gusty conditions, I have to take down my mizzen while broad-reaching; if I don’t, the boat will attempt to round up.

However, on Ganesh, I’m often able to fly the mizzen while our Monitor windvane steers dead downwind in moderate conditions, perhaps because of our nearly full keel. Regardless of gusts, there is seldom a problem flying a properly sized mizzen (we have three sets of reefs), with the wind from beam-on to closehauled.

Since the mizzen is so easy to hoist and douse, we use it a lot. Its steadying force often helps the efficiency of our other sails.

Let’s be honest. As a cruiser, I’m not tweaking my vessel nearly as much as when I’m on the racecourse. In fact, while underway, over half the time I adjust my sail controls, it isn’t to go faster but to go better: with less chafe, roll and noise.

What’s the downside of a ketch? Basically, speed. Two sails of a given total square footage are more efficient than three adding up to the same size. There’s also more weight aloft and aft, both bad locations that promote hobby horsing and wallowing.

If the ketch isn’t well- designed, the mainsail will backwind the mizzen, and the only solution will be to drop the smaller sail or head lower on your course.

However, a properly designed modern ketch can be very weatherly, and develop enough extra horsepower off the wind to pay for itself.

The mizzen mast, shrouds and sails all have windage. There’s no denying that. If I was going to sail primarily upwind or in light air, I would not consider a traditional ketch. Why lug around the extra gear to little advantage?

However, as a serial circumnavigator and confirmed trade-wind sailor, all the windage of the mizzen is just additional sail area 99 percent of the time.

The real day in, day out advantage of the mizzen is that you can easily dial in your weather helm. Is the rudder fighting you in the gusts and does your vessel want to round up? If so, just ease the mizzen until the helm is almost (but not quite) neutral. It’s one string, right? Easy peasy, no?

Do you have lee helm and the boat feels like it is almost refusing to go to windward? If so, sheet in the mizzen until a faint weather helm emerges. (Test this by letting go of the wheel or tiller and watching the boat slowly round up.)

In light air, a ketch offers few advantages, and in light air to windward, even fewer still. But let the breeze pipe up and a ketch comes into its own. Smaller sails are easier to douse, furl and stow. Once the mainsail is taken care of and the jib is rolled up, the mizzen and staysail can drive our vessel through a gale with relatively little force on the mainmast, shrouds and stays.

This also means Ganesh stays more upright. No sailor likes to live on his ear for too long on passage.

Both mizzen and staysail sails are inboard and thus easy to handle in hard conditions. Our mizzen is not only fully battened, but also has lazy jacks to guide it into its stack pack, making the sail a dream to douse from a broad reach to closehauled. (However, with the battens and a large roach, the sail can be a handful if I attempt to douse it dead downwind in heavy air.)

Different mizzen masts are stayed differently. Ours has a big footprint on deck with running backstays for use in gale-force conditions. It is strong. How strong? We often heave to under mizzen alone without worry, in winds ranging from 15 to 33 knots. This isn’t as safe as heaving to with our storm trysail, but it’s a good, quick-and-dirty way to ride out a sustained squall.

Another cool thing is that we can easily remove our tabernacle-stepped mizzen spar by tilting it aft and controlling it with the higher main halyard while lowering it, all the while with the loose shrouds attached.

We even use the mizzen under power to dampen our roll because it is the quickest and easiest sail to deploy.

Of course, everything is relative. There can be too much of a good thing. I know a guy who tosses up a mizzen mast on every sloop that he buys—an installation that is trickier than it might appear. But on a well-designed sloop, a mizzen isn’t needed because of the location of the single mast, while on a ketch it is needed by design, given where the main is set.

To my mind, our mizzen mast really pays for itself aboard Ganesh, as it does on other old-fashioned, two-masted cruising tubs. In fact, I write these words on deck under an awning held up by—you guested it—my mizzen boom!

Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander are currently cruising Southeast Asia.

The post On Watch: Mizzen Smitten appeared first on Cruising World.

Worried about having glass bottles on your boat? Quickly and easily create an upright wine rack from PVC pipe to safely store bottles of wine, liquor, olive oil, vinegar, olives, barbecue sauce, hot sauce and anything else that comes in glass. I use the same technique to create safe storage for glassware as well, including stemmed wineglasses.

For wine bottles and glasses, cut 4-inch PVC pipe to fit upright into a locker or storage bin. Use smaller or larger diameter pipe for other bottles, as necessary. The lengths of pipe do not have to come to the top of the locker, or even the top of the bottle, because the space between the necks of bottles can be used to store soft items such as bags of nuts, tea, coffee and drink mixes.

Either tightly fit the PVC into the locker or bin, or glue the pieces together with PVC glue so they won’t shift with the motion of the boat. When the glue is cured, put the bottles in tube socks and slide into the slots. You can use the gaps between the pieces of PVC for small bottles such as hot sauce. Short bottles and jars can be stacked on top of one another, with the socks acting as padding between them.

Once you have the supplies, this project takes about an hour, including fitting and cutting the PVC, gluing it, and putting the bottles in place. If you have one, a pull saw makes cutting the PVC much quicker than using a hacksaw. Absolutely no special skills are needed.

In over 11,000 miles of sometimes-boisterous sailing conditions, numerous squalls, and even two direct hits by hurricanes (admittedly in good hurricane holes), I’ve never had a glass bottle or wineglass break that was protected this way.

The post Safer Glass Storage on Boats appeared first on Cruising World.

Many simple meals that are easy to prepare in the ship’s galley come from the generation before mine and were handed down from beloved family and friends. I’ve updated and reengineered many of these recipes from their original form. In recent years aboard Scaramouche, our Tayana 58, I made my husband’s aunt’s recipe for Chicken Noel, a recipe that many people seem to have acquired the same way. The earlier-era recipe called for boneless, skinless chicken breasts, canned mushrooms, and a can of cream of mushroom soup as the base for the sauce, and specified baking in a roasting pan. To kick it up a notch, I use skin-on, bone-in chicken breast, which delivers a tastier and moister version than its boneless, skinless cousins, not to mention being easier on the food kitty. Fresh mushrooms, along with a couple of added ingredients, yield an easy homemade sauce. I prepare the dish in a 10-inch cast-iron pan and finish cooking in the oven. This recipe is not only delicious, but it’s also versatile: If you don’t have or don’t like portobellos, substitute button mushrooms. For a richer flavor, you can use creme fraiche instead of sour cream. No chicken? No ­problem—it also works well with pork chops.

New-Age Chicken Noel

• 1 whole bone-in/skin-on chicken breast, split in half or quartered
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1-2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 2 cups portobello or button mushrooms, sliced*
• 1/4 cup dry sherry or Marsala wine
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1/3 cup sour cream (or more as desired for thickness) 
• Paprika, to taste

*Portobellos add more flavor.

Preparation: at anchor

Time: 1 hour

Difficulty: easy

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Season chicken breast with salt and pepper. Use a cast-iron or other stovetop-to-oven pan if you have one. (If not, use a saute pan and transfer to greased baking dish before finishing in oven.) Heat the olive oil in the pan, and brown the chicken on both sides. Transfer chicken to a plate; reserve juices. Add butter to the pan, and saute mushrooms until lightly browned and firm, not soft. Deglaze the pan with sherry or Marsala, and reduce to half its volume. Add chicken stock and reserved juices, reduce the heat, and simmer until the sauce reduces by half. Remove from heat, stir in sour cream to thicken the sauce, return the chicken to the pan (or place chicken in a baking dish), and spoon mushroom sauce over it. Sprinkle with paprika, and finish in the oven until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees F (about 20 to 30 minutes depending on the size of the chicken breasts). Serve hot with cooked egg noodles or rice. Serves two, with leftovers.

Cook’s Notes

Proper mushroom prep is key to good flavor. To clean mushrooms, slice off stems and discard. For ­portobellos, scrape out gills (the dark webbing inside the cap) with a spoon. Wipe off any dirt with a damp paper towel. Avoid rinsing, or mushrooms will be spongy when cooked. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring often. Do not crowd the pan; mushrooms release liquid, which needs space to evaporate fully to prevent soggy texture.

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It still feels like yesterday, when the eyes of the world turned toward the Caribbean and watched as Mother Nature proved that she is a force to be reckoned with. Although nothing could have prepared us for the heartbreak and devastation that Hurricane Irma dealt our beloved British Virgin Islands in 2017, we also never could have imagined such a triumphant comeback story.

Last summer, boat-charter company the Moorings was blessed with the opportunity to participate in the BVI tourist board’s Seeds of Love campaign—an environmental initiative aimed at restoring and preserving “Nature’s Little Secrets” by replanting the islands’ indigenous trees and vegetation.

This past November, just one year after Moorings staff photographer Adam Rohrmann broke soil for his seedling on Virgin Gorda, he had the pleasure of returning to Spring Bay to check on the progress of his budding palm. Following a quick cab-ride detour and a short downhill hike, Rohrmann was pleased to discover that his Seeds of Love palm tree was still in its original place and standing tall.

A generous donation of 3,000 fruit trees from St. Vincent and the Grenadines launched the Seeds of Love program. Since then, the campaign has gained global recognition and received countless donations. There is even a monthly schedule of events and volunteer opportunities on the website, as well as a map that shows exactly where trees have been planted on each of the four main islands.

The sustainable efforts ­established by Seeds of Love are still blossoming today, and will continue strengthening the relationship between tourism and the environment in the BVI. To learn more about how you can donate or partner with Seeds of Love, visit the website.

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