South: the story of Shakleton's 1914-1917 expedition "How to Put Your Life in Prespective"

I just finished reading Sir Earnest Henry Shackleton's personal account South: the story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 expedition. Not only does Shackleton recount the unbelievable adventure of managing his 28 man team in an effort to cross Antarctica, but he also goes into detail to explain what happened to the team assigned to lay up depots of supplies for his team to use as they crossed the southern continent.

Most sailors know the fate of the Endurance, trapped in the ice pack of the Weddell Sea, only to be slowly crushed and pulled to the fathoms below, leaving the men whose expedition changed

I Slipped My Disco!

My friend, Bert, my daughter, Haley, and I were sliding in from a decent day of sailing.  The temperature had dropped with the sun and we had that nice tired feeling you get from too much sunshine, fresh air and minimal exercise.  The sails were down and Bert was at the helm as I busied myself with all the little things that need to be put in order

And Now For Your Viewing Pleasure...

Every once in awahle I come across a video that inspires, thrills or informs me, maybe it will do the same for you.

How To Get an 85ft Mast Under a 65ft Bridge.

The Doctor is In...Part I

Why sail?

Ask a hundred different sailors and you'll get a hundred different answers. For some it's a quest for knowledge, for others it's the search for adventure and for others it's the drive of competition.  Challenging, solitude, ability, wonder, escape, acceptance, self-satisfaction, the list could go on and on and I'm sure for most it is a combination of some or all the things listed.

But I can only speak for myself.  When I look back to when I began to where I am now in my sailing and my life, the essence of sailing has had different meanings.  As I grew as a person, as a way of thinking and living in the world, my sailing grew and reflected that time in my life.

Let's Take a Ride On a Watermelon Seed!

I came across this the other day and thought I'd share. I love all the information that is laid out in the video and I'm sure most of you who read my writings already have some reasonable understanding about the topic at hand, but the truth is my sailing gets defined at the 8:50 mark of the video. Enjoy!

How to Ride a Watermelon Seed

"An intuitive feel and a practical understanding", that has to be the yin and yang definition of most sailors. Using that hard practical understanding of our world and how it works in order to achieve the emotional and spiritual release from that same world. 

A Boat By Any Other Name Is Still a...

When we first bought our Helms we were immediately faced with a major dilemma, one that supersedes any other problems no matter how large or how small that may have been discovered. Bottom paint, who cares, standing rigging, so what, running rigging, maybe later. We need to get down into the meat and potatoes...what to name the boat.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, and you would know this had you been following along and paying attention, when we bought the boat the previous owners had named it Doo-Dah. I have to say right up front, I completely respect a persons' right to name their boat anything they like. It's a lot like naming your children. With all things being equal I think we can all agree that discretion needs to applied in two major areas of our lives, when deciding on names and tattoos. But I digress.

Sometimes You Meet People in the Strangest Places

Lisa and I went sailing yesterday. I know, big deal you say, those two nuts are always going sailing. Yesterday wasn't anything but unusual...except one thing.

The winds were light when it existed at all and it was hot. I mean it was middle of August in Columbia, South Carolina hot. Columbia is so hot that the official logo is "Columbia Famously Hot" . Pretty much all we did for the first couple of hours was float and sweat, or in Lisa case, perspire. I spent my time trying to coax the sails to capture any faint breeze all the while that breeze clocked around the compass teasing me into submission. I finally just let the