Almost All is Lost In 1973 there were 46 boat builders in Costa Mesa California and 24,000 boats were produced. A year later that number shrank to 22. Today there are less than a handful. Nonetheless Costa Mesa California remains a Mecca for boat owners, a sacred historical place to any who ever owned or…
I have been asked many times for proof that the Murrelet can be considered ocean worthy. Until November of 2001, I was unaware that proof (outside of the mathematical ratios) existed. Because the uninitiated do not consider a trip across the English Channel, which is done by Mac26x boats, or a trip from Key West to…
The perfect blue water sailboat is a work in progress. Novice builders and beginning yacht designers have been trained in the US to accept the notion of a trade off between sea worthiness, comfort, performance and cost. This notion is prevalent on the east coast of the United States. The notion allows architects to rationalize…
Time to wake up! This happens all the time I’ve seen people discussing liferafts and such, but for me this big issue here is keels. The four crew on Cheeki died because the boat’s keel fell off, probably very suddenly, and this is not, as some have suggested, an unusual occurrence. It is frighteningly common. Modern fin…
There are four modes of sailing. Displacement mode, forced mode, planing, and the 4th mode. Obviously many ocean sailboats do not plane and hence there is no reason to learn sail planing techniques on those boats. In fact it is just the opposite. There are good reasons to learn how to prevent planing on displacement…