Sail Far Live Free

Above the Palms (Osprey on Cayo Costa by K. Walters)

"The sea is a great university of the story-telling art." -Norman Freeman I really enjoy writing content for SailFarLiveFree.com . In fact, writing sailing related content is second only to time spent with my family and actual sailing in bringing me fulfillment. The more I write and the more I get to interact with readers, the more I find I'm inspired to continue writing. So thank you to my longtime readers, new readers who have started following my blog sometime during 2012, and to all those who comment and contact me. There's a lot of great bloggers in the sailing and cruising community and I also get a lot of inspiration and enjoyment out of reading their content. And so, this blog post is an attempt to recognize and thank some of my fellow sailing bloggers. If you read SailFarLiveFree via the webpage (as opposed to an RSS feed or email subscription), you're probably familiar with a lot of my favorite sailing bloggers from seeing them listed in my blog r...

Storm Warning ( by K. Walters, Grand Haven, MI) NOAA & the National Weather Service are forecasting a storm warning for the next couple of days on Lake Michigan: THIS STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM THURSDAY TO 4 PM CST FRIDAY. THE STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT. * WINDS...NORTH TO NORTHWEST STORM FORCE TO 55 KT . * SIGNIFICANT WAVES...TO 25 FT. * OCCASIONAL WAVES...TO 33 FT. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A STORM WARNING MEANS WINDS OF 48 TO 63 KNOTS ARE IMMINENT OR OCCURRING. RECREATIONAL BOATERS SHOULD REMAIN IN PORT...OR TAKE SHELTER UNTIL WINDS AND WAVES SUBSIDE. COMMERCIAL VESSELS SHOULD PREPARE FOR VERY STRONG WINDS AND DANGEROUS SEA CONDITIONS...AND CONSIDER REMAINING IN PORT OR TAKING SHELTER IN PORT UNTIL WINDS AND WAVES SUBSIDE.

"Odysseus spread his sail...while he sat and guided the raft skillfully by means of the rudder. He never closed his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiades, on late-setting Bootes, and on the Bear...which turns round and round where it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the stream of Oceanus - for Calypso had told him to keep this to his left. Days seven and ten did he sail over the sea..." - Homer from The Odyssey , 700 BC My sailor's cap comes off to those of you who know celestial navigation and can competently find your way across oceans with little more than a sextant. I'd like to learn to navigate by the sun and the night sky and have my nav station uncluttered by wires and spent batteries, but until that day I'll be relying on electronics as my main means of navigating.  Mobile devices have rapidly leveled the playing field for the marine navigation market. It wasn't long ago that color LCD GPS chartplotters cost thousands of d...

Walking into the Sun by K. Walters (Cayo Costa, FL, Dec. 2010)

Running Colors by K. Walters

If you've been following SailFarLiveFree.com for long, you know my interests and passion are for cruising and exploration rather than racing and speed. I've spent a season crewing on a race team, but I did so to learn about sail trim and to see the other side of sailing rather than to scratch some competitive itch or see how far to the right I could get the knotmeter needle to point. However, if you're a fan of sailboat racing, there are a ton of huge events that have occurred over the last several months ( Volvo Ocean Race ) or will take place in the very near future ( America's Cup ). But the only sailing race I really pay attention to is the Vendee Globe . The Vendee Globe is more than a race, it's a non-stop solo adventure around the world the hard way. In fact, it's the ONLY non-stop single-handed 'round the world race (the VELUX 5 is raced in stages with stops in between). I personally think this race is for the insane and ranks in my book as the m...

The racer-cruiser concept has been around since the early 1960's (see Ted Brewer's 50 Years of Cruising Sailboat Evolution ). Today's examples seem less of a compromise and are able to offer excellent cruising accommodations while still being competitive on the race circuit. But compromises still exist, nonetheless. Now there's a new kid coming to the racer-cruiser neighborhood and I'm intrigued because the project collaborators are two designers who have produced several models that fill my cruising spirit with envy. Island Packet's founder and current CEO/Chief Designer, Bob Johnson, has teamed with his old buddy Tim Jacket, ex-President and Chief Designer at Tartan and C&C, to begin producing a "performance cruiser" called the Blue Jacket 40. The BJ40 is planned to be the first in a series of boats to come out of this collaboration. They'll be built at Island Packet's facilities and are said to be a melding of Bob's cruising design...

"...in the dismal fog I felt myself drifting into loneliness, an insect on a straw in the midst of the elements." - Joshua Slocum from Sailing Alone Around the World , 1900 Clouds on the Water  by K. Walters

"When I said I liked a sea life, I did not mean to be understood as liking a merchant ship, with an airless cabin, and with every variety of disagreeable odor." - Frances Calderon De La Barca from Life in Mexico  (1843) referring to her experiences onboard the packet ship Norman . Frances seems to be voicing my opinions too, as I also like a sea life but not because of the odors that living in a confined space can sometimes produce. The fact is, cruising boats carry more than just their crew and associated gear between ports. Human waste is also along for the ride, presumably well-contained in a proper holding tank. But said waste tends to promote biotic growth and thereby some funky odors and bi-product gases. Invariably, the gases need to escape somewhere. A proper holding installation includes a vent to the exterior of the boat where the gases can exit and relieve tank pressure and mitigate the build-up of odor. However, sometimes the gases escaping carry with th...

" It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind  that determines which way we will go. " -Jim Rohn Changing Directions by K. Walters

"And there's this one particular harbor, sheltered from the wind Where the children play on the shore each day, and all is safe within A most mysterious calling harbor, so far but yet so near I can see the day when my hair's full of gray and I finally disappear" - Jimmy Buffett from One Particular Harbor Playing on the shore in the cozy harbor at South Benjamin Island We all have "one particular harbor" where we go to get away from it all, where all is safe within; a place of peace and comfort. Some of us only ever physically visit that one particular harbor a single time, but revisit often in spirit. Some are blessed to live life in the shelter of their one particular harbor for as long as they please. Others must share time away from the harbor, but find a relaxing sigh in the memory of a past visit or a smile in planning the next. For me, a tiny little gunkhole on the south side of South Benjamin Island in Lake Huron's North Chann...

" A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries. " -Unknown While I don't know who first made the above statement, I'm pretty sure they must have made it before LED flashlights powered by lithium batteries became available. Reliable lights are a near necessity while cruising and LED's have made it so battery powered lights use very little energy while still providing bright, usable light. This past season I made a wholesale switch to LED's on our sailboat, both in the cabin fixtures and flashlights we carry. I'll save my thoughts on using LED's in cabin fixtures for another post, but today I want to shine the spotlight on a brilliant little flashlight. I'm not going to profess to you that I've found the holy grail now that I've got an LED flashlight. In fact, I'm guessing most of you probably already have one too. They've become so common now that you can buy them at the dollar store and throw them away for a new one wh...

Gaining Leverage  by K. Walters

"Being hove-to in a long gale is the most boring way of being terrified I know." - Donald Hamilton There are plenty of times in life where things get crazy-busy and we need a break, or the environment surrounding us gets stormy and we simply need a way to ride it out. Times like these are when I wish there was something in our daily life analogous to heaving-to aboard a sailboat. For those that do not know, heaving-to is a sailing tactic that allows the sailboat to slow forward progress almost completely while requiring no input from the crew once the sails and rudder are set. I like to think of heaving-to as a way to anchor in open water. Heaving-to can be useful for taking a break form sailing and having a meal down below or fixing equipment that can't be tended to under normal sailing circumstances. It can also be used as part of a man overboard maneuver or as a way to ride out a storm, both of which require special considerations (see below). We practice heavin...

"Oh Lord above send down a dove with beak as sharp as razors, To cut the throats of them there blokes what sells bad beer to sailors." - Lyrics from A Sailor's Prayer Haul Out Stout (by K. Walters) I brewed a hearty cherry stout ale on the day that Island Bound was hauled out to mark (and commiserate?) the official end of our 2012 sailing season. " Haul Out Stout " seems like a fitting name for this beer. Now that fermentation, bottling, and bottle conditioning are complete, we cracked open a few bottles recently and had a taste. Memorable and delicious...just like our sailing season!

"And I advise all sound cruisers to anchor properly in a harbor, not tie up at a marina, the yachtsmen's slum."   - Samuel Eliot Morison , Pulitzer Prize winning author and Rear Admiral of the US Navy Reserve We've always enjoy the simple pleasures of staying on the hook. There's something peaceful about the way the boat gently bobs and floats around the anchor. But I have to admit, even with our massive Bruce-style anchor and chain rode, we sometimes roll over in the middle of the night and wonder if we've dragged or drifted. That's when setting an anchor alarm is reassuring.  We don't always set an anchor alarm because we have the right ground tackle and we take our time to get a good anchor set. However, when the wind comes up or we're in a very crowded anchorage, we typically set an anchor alarm using our Garmin handheld GPS. But during the last couple of cruising seasons our iPhone and iPad have begun to take over some duties from the...

"Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood." - Ralph Waldo Emerson , from Self Reliance Few that know the Great Lakes question what makes them great, but I've come to realize there are many folks who know nothing about the Great Lakes, or totally misunderstand their significance. Once when I was visiting San Diego, a local at the bus stop asked me if the lakes ever completely thaw in the summer. Another time someone wanted to know if I was able to see Wisconsin across Lake Michigan while standing in Michigan. And like many Great Lakes sailors, I've heard multiple times from our salty brethren that we're just "pond sailors". I think I know what Emerson meant when he said; "To be great is to be misunderstood." Words like "great" and ...