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Archive for July 2019
Hurricane Barry

When a Butterfly Flaps its Wings in China

July 12, 2019
In the 1990 film Havana, Robert Redford’s character says, “A butterfly can flutter its wings over a flower in China and cause a hurricane in the Caribbean . . .” While the sentiment is somewhat mythological, it’s not irrelevant to the upcoming 2019 hurricane season, or the arrival of tropical storm/hurricane Barry on the Louisiana coast. More »

The Plastic Plague, Part 1

July 10, 2019
In era of deeply polarized opinions over basic environmental truths, there’s one area of overwhelming consensus: People are unanimously appalled by plastic in the ocean. “In the last year, there’s been unprecedented media coverage and an increase in awareness in the challenge associated with plastic,” said a spokesperson for a major Bay Area recycling facility. More »
Damaged Outremer 51

Bad Night on the Bora Bora Lagoon

On the evening of July 2, San Francisco-based cruisers Seth and Elizabeth Hynes suffered a shock that most sailors only endure in nightmares. After dining ashore with their three young kids, they discovered that their five-year-old Outremer 51, Archer, was missing from the mooring field off the Bora Bora Yacht Club, as was the commercially administered mooring she was tied to. More »

‘Maiden’ Coming to a Theater Near You

July 8, 2019
When 24-year-old Tracy Edwards, a stewardess who was working on charter yachts, decided to put together an all-female boat for the 1989 Whitbread Round the World Race, the doubt, lack of financial support, and raw sexism she and the team encountered was unparalleled by anything before seen in sailing. More »

Craving a Sailing Adventure Story

Randall Reeves had been in port in Halifax, Nova Scotia, for about a month, when we started losing our minds. We didn’t realize how dependent we’d become not just on Reeves’ regular blogs, but, more to the point, on his adventure itself. More »
Shirley Heights Antigua

Getting It On in Antigua’s ‘Off’ Season

Though weather gurus and insurance companies declare hurricane season to ‘officially’ run from about June 1 to November 30, the peak activity is usually around September and October. Antigua Sailing Week, which happens toward the end of April, was created as a kind of last hurrah for island sailing after which most transient boats start to migrate north or south to get out of the hurricane belt and comply with their insurance companies’ requirements. More »