Mississippi Sound Article in Current Issue of SAIL

One of my most recent magazine projects was an article for SAIL, that is featured in the current issue (May 2010). The article is part of SAIL's "Great Coastal Cruises" series, and highlights the Mississippi Sound and the barrier islands of the Gulf Islands National Seashore as a great destination for weekend or longer cruises on the northern Gulf Coast.

My friend, Dick Dixon, a photographer who lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and frequently sails out to the islands contributed this awesome photo of a Horn Island sunrise:

All of us who love these islands and the cruising grounds of the northern Gulf of Mexico are waiting with dread to see what will happen with the massive oil spill that is threatening to destroy it all.  It seems at this point no one has the answers, only speculation about what will happen and how bad it will be, and whether we can do anything about it.  After such a battering from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a blow like this is the last thing we need.  All we can do his hope and pray for the best and that it won't be as bad as some predict.

If you don't have a subscription to SAIL, you can get it here:  Sail

My Article in the Current Issue of Cruising World

I have a short article in the current (April, 2010) issue of Cruising World, in the "Shoreline" section.  The piece is about David Halladay receiving James Wharram's blessing as the first officially licensed professional builder of Wharram designs in the U.S.  Hopefully articles like this will bring more attention to the beautiful boats David is creating in the Boatsmith shop and more sailors will consider a Wharram cat a viable option among the many choices out there.  Look for it in this issue on newstands now:

I'm not sure how long this link will work, but for now you can click on the inside button in this embedded version of the article and view it at a readable size: 

Switching from a Steel Mono to a Plywood Catamaran

There's an article in the current issue of Good Old Boat that I found of great interest, particularly with my fondness for Wharram catamarans.  This magazine is of course, primarily focused on restoring and sailing older fiberglass boats, which generally means monohulls simply because there are so many more of the them available in the used marketplace. 

New construction is not often mentioned here, but in this issue there is an article by frequent contributors, Dave and Jaja Martin about their choice to sell their steel monohull, Driver, and build of all things, a Wharram Tiki 30.  Now I've followed their writings for years and reading of their exploits such as sailing a modified Cal 25 around the world and cruising Arctic waters on Driver sometimes caused me to question my own choice of a plywood cat over a good sturdy monohull.  But in this article Dave explains his rationale and the solid reasons he chose a Tiki 30 when he decided a multihull would be the best choice for the kind of sailing they intend to do next.

Not surprisingly, his list of reasons in his choice mirror my own reasons for choosing a Tiki 26 after losing a 26-foot monohull in Hurricane Katrina.  The Tiki 30 works better for them, because they will be sailing as a family and they wanted the largest demountable cat that could be reasonably trailered and still powered by a single outboard.

In the next issue of Good Old Boat there will be another installment on this project where Dave gets into details about material choices in modern plywood boat construction. I will be eagerly awaiting it, and I especially look forward to the inevitable future articles that will likely be published in several of the major sailing magazines about the Martin's adventures on  their new Tiki 30.

Boatsmith's Tiki 30 Abaco is on the Cover of Cruising World

I should have posted this earlier in January, but it slipped by.  If you subscribe you may have seen this cover image on the February issue of Cruising World.  That's David Halladay's Tiki 30 Abaco, the Boatsmith demo boat I was involved with building and blogging about on Pro-Built Tiki 30. 

This shot was taken in the Exumas by yacht photographer, Onne van der Wahl, after David Crawford and I sailed it over to Nassau back in June to deliver it to him for that purpose.  Unfortunately, Abaco is almost lost in this sweeping wide angle of sand, sea and sky, but hey, regardless of that, she's a cover girl now, and Cruising World is nothing to sneeze at.