Imprinted on the Sea

Eighty-four years ago, aboard one of the storied schooners of the age, a father was performing chores on the topmast rigging, up where the seabirds fly. Suddenly he discovered he was not alone there, with 60 feet of air between his feet and the hard.

It was a heart-stopping moment.

Pearl of the Pacific

Somewhere in the vast Oceana . . .

“Is It Always Windier On My Watch?”

Being thoughts about a book, Convergence, by Sally-Christine Rodgers, on cruising the Pacific in relative luxury and stress and discovery

Sailing in My Head + eb1 Labs + Oculus Rift

Wanna have some fun? Wanna see the future of sailing engineering and training? Jump under an Oculus immersion headset and skipper an AC45 in virtual reality, with audio, with gyro, with accelerometer, with gusto.

Under Sail on the Eagle
All 22,000 square feet of sail

Once upon a time I was invited to sail from Portland to San Francisco, on a rather special ship, the US Coast Guard Cutter Eagle. And that raised the question, what do you do wsith 22,000 square feet of sail?

Changing Dreams in Midstream

It was a thing of beauty: Young men fresh out of service, members of the greatest generation, if you must, delivered from the threat of war, determined to take a bite of the sailing life before they settled into what they assumed would be the inevitable, consuming obligations of work and family. Looking for adventure, they went. And how many of us have ever wandered into a forest looking for a mast? Or had the varnish stripped by a relentless Tehuantepecker? Once upon a time, Stan Honey handed me a cardboard box of old writings, clippings and photos. His dad’s writings, clippings and photos . . .

Forever Young ARC Gloria

Posted October 25, 2013 by Kimball Livingston Some things just never get old. At dawn today I was crowded into the bridge of the ARC Gloria with umpteen officers and men of the Colombian navy’s training ship, and the VTS channel was on, of course, and every time I heard a check-in with the phrase

Ted Hood: 1927-2013

Sailmaker, designer, builder, skipper of 1974 America’s Cup defender Courageous, Ted Hood in 1994 bought back his 1959 ocean racer, Robin (“Sue, my wife, wouldn’t let me name any of the kids Robin, so it had to be the boats”) for $4,000. If anybody needs a reality check regarding the cost of old, wood boats,

“It Was Magic. I Don’t Know Why”

Night of the Imp, Cove House, The San Francisco Yacht Club Once upon a time ocean racing was going gangbusters. Every new boat seemed important, and the new boats kept on coming. In the 1970s, the racing yacht Imp was born in a sketch on a napkin at the bar at The San Francisco Yacht

Brave New World

I witnessed two moments of beauty at the awards lunch for the sailor of the year awards, AKA the ceremonials for US Sailing’s Rolex U.S. Yachtsman and Yachtswoman of the Year. In one moment, it was Johnny Heineken distilling this kiting thing by describing how “all the power goes straight through you.” Compared to the