Once, a long time ago, I was a poor starving college student and found myself living on a CAL 20… Fact is, living on a CAL 20 was not such a bad thing and with a little creativity/zen was actually quite comfortable. Made better because the CAL 20 is a very capable boat and could …
There are two non-boaty books I think everyone engaged in sailing/cruising should read… Especially for those considering jumping into the craziness that is VolksCruising. One “How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive” you already know about. The other one is “Just Ride”… It’s sorta/kinda about bikes and bike riding but to be truthful it’s more about …
Another book that’s not about sailing but all about sailing… Read More »
Have you noticed that Sail Magazine is now doing a rally so folks coming down the ICW won’t be so lonely? I suspect, that most folks of a VolksCruising bent, are not the sort who sign up and pay big bucks to do rallies. Well… Maybe if we had a stealth/flash-mob rally? Nah, there’s no …
We seem to live in a world of absolutes these days and, just between you and me, it drives me batshit crazy. Take two words that come up a lot where sailing and cruising are concerned… Easy Hard Now, in the world I grew up in those were just two words on a scale but …
It’s almost always easier to build rather than repair…
So, let’s say you went out and bought an old cheap plastic boat, rehabbed it a bit, and are ready to cruise… But you’re a little worried about being some sort of pariah because your boat, while seashape and freshly painted, is not as expensive or hip as some of those other boats you’ll come …
Someone wrote and asked me what I thought of an older Columbia 34 selling for cheap the other day… It’s not a bad boat at all. Of course, being cheap with an asking price of less than $7K (around 62-cents a pound) makes it a whole lot more interesting as well. Even if you needed …
The recent quest for that ill-fated airliner over the last weeks should be something of a wake-up call for those who think speed is a goodly thing in a cruising boat, To be more precise, a huge problem in the airliner search has been the plethora of debris viewable from satellite. There’s so much of …
To answer an oft asked question about why I don’t do more detailed critiques of boats. I try not to be a critical kind of guy… Given the opportunity I’m much happier to point out something interesting in a boat rather than nitpick its design flaws, issues, or failings. That said, I have been known …
WoodenBoat has an excellent article online by Reuel Parker (of The New Cold-Molding Boatbuilding fame) about an interesting way to build a mast… Really a must read.
