The dreadful reputation of the Delaware Bay is overblown, I think. A trip down its 45-mile length can be boring, blissful or brutal, just as with any body of water. Yesterday’s run was well within this range. (Read More…)

There is a difference between standing watch on Chesapeake Bay and doing the same thing 100 miles offshore. On the Bay — or any inland or coastal waterway — the chances are there is something nearby for your boat to hit, so you can never relax. On the ocean, it’s nap time day and night. (Read More…)

The weather screams: Don’t go! (Read More…)

There was a Catalina 380 named Andiamo — a boat bigger, no heavier and, in certain conditions, notably faster than Robin — out on the Choptank River when we went for a sail Sunday. When it overtook us, edging by in small increments, the race was on. (Read More…)

The wind Saturday morning was light and cool, refreshing in the same way as water spilling over the rocky edge of a small mountain spring. Coming through the trees ashore from the south of the marina, it seemed like the perfect air in which to try the new spinnaker for the first time. (Read More…)

There remains only one thing I know I need to do to head north for the Bermuda One-Two, and it isn’t installation of the winches. I just completed that job after a modest delay. (Read More…)

Then there was the day when no longer could servicing the engine be postponed. Before it was over, I would give honest thought to ending the life of one red-painted diesel. (Read More…)

The wind is building and the ocean is calling. I can hear it, feel it somewhere in my chest. It has woven its gentle fingers through my mind and, massaging my thoughts, it whispers: Come out. I have been waiting! (Read More…)

Robin’s backstay is anchored to a boomkin, a stainless steel platform protruding abaft the stern that, in turn, is held down by a whisker stay on each side. When Robin is hauled, the backstay has to be detached from the boomkin for the rig to fit in most  Travelifts. This causes a problem. (Read More…)

Never a slave to planning, I veered sharply from my list of must-do projects when I got back to Robin and instead completed a task that had never made it on any list. I put her name back on her topsides. (Read More…)