Taking advantage of our sailing charter’s off season, Captain Al and I headed down under to New Zealand. After one long flight and a few shorter flights we spotted the shoreline of New Zealand. What a beautiful coast line that is! We arrived from the west and on a beautiful clear day and we could see miles and miles of coastline . Continue reading “Traveling to New Zealand: Home of the 2021 America’s Cup”
So you’ve found the perfect person to spend the rest of your life with. The hard part is over! Now all you need to do is figure out how to propose. Continue reading “A perfect way to propose”
Sailing downwind in a cruising cat is not much different than any other sailboat. In this post two conditions, one of heavy wind 20 plus knots and one of light wind say 10 knots or less, are explained. Continue reading “Downwind Sailing a Cruising Catamaran”
This post, written by Captain Al, explains some of the sailing terminology you’ll need to understand while learning to sail. It’s all about how the wind and currents impact your sailing speed and direction. Continue reading “More Nautical Terms: Apparent and True Wind, Boat Speed, SOG and COG”
The last weekend of July is my favorite weekend of the year, as that is when the Newport Folk Festival takes place. It has become such a popular event that it sells out in minutes before a single artist is announced. Three outdoor and one indoor stage provide great performances from 11 am until sunset. Continue reading “Newport Folk Fest is my Favorite Weekend of the Year!”
The Volvo Ocean Race in on again. The 7 boats are currently on their fourth leg having left Melbourne, Australia on January 2nd for Hong Kong. Continue reading “I love the Volvo Ocean Race”
Great visit from our long time friends, Susan, Nick and Gracie the wonder dog. Nick helped Al sail AlyKat from Fort Lauderdale to Newport RI in 2013. Great to have him back onboard! Safe travels back south.
Tuesday was a lovely day in Newport. It was probably the last day of “summer” with a high of 78, so we decided to stay another day. We went for a great sail with Kia and Al Girard on AlyKat! This was Gracie’s first sail on a big boat.
Relaxing on a bean bag on the netting.
Kia and Al getting ready to raise the sail.
Enjoying cocktails and watching a great sunset on the mooring in Newport harbor.
We ended the evening with Al grilling some great steaks!
Today we are headed to Greenpoint on Long Island.
We have decided to go slow for a while as we will need to leave the boat in a week or so for a few days and go to New Hampshire for Tom Tobey’s funeral.
Have you ever wondered why boating and sailing have so many specialty words instead of using the non-boating words that could easily be used and understood everyone? Is it just to separate the boaters from the non boaters or are there any other reasons for this lingo? Continue reading “Nautical Terms — The Basics (Part 1)”
Spoiler Alert: This post has some geeky sailing language. To help all you beginners we’ve put a glossary at the end of this post. (We’re nice like that.)
The asymmetrical spinnaker is our favorite sail. It is used for sailing downwind and you wouldn’t want to sail a cat without one. So what is this fancy sail? Continue reading “Learning to Sail: The Asymmetrical Spinnaker”
Newport, R.I and The America’s Cup are forever linked, as Newport was the venue for over 50 years. The Newport Daily News still carries the news of the America’s Cup races as the cover story on the Sports page. I doubt many other US newspapers do.
Captain Al and Kia are linked to the Cup in very different ways: Continue reading “America’s Cup Then and Now”
Charter a Catamaran out of Newport RI 