On The Wind Sailing

#27. Ben & Teresa Carey Return! Andy spoke with Ben & Teresa from his couch in Lancaster PA. No, they were not on the couch - they were in Maine! In a sweet little cafe while their new boat was anchored offshore1 And that’s much of what this episode is about - their new-to-them Norseman 447, how they decided on buying it, what it was like getting down to Panama (the country!) to bring her home, and the adventures they had along the way. Of course Andy, Ben & Teresa take a few detours along the way, talking about sailing philosophy, shipwrecks at sea, this that and the other thing, but that’s what old sailing friends do when they haven’t caught up in a while. Check out Ben & Teresa’s new adventures - and sign up for their sail-training courses this summer! - on morsealpha.com, or on their new oceancourier.org conservation-media site. Thanks guys!

#26. You might not recognize their names, but Jean-Charles & Antoine have been at the top of the multihull game for some time, and I had the chance to chat with them in Bermuda during the ARC Europe stopover. Both guys are French through and through (and I love their accents), and the French are nuts about multihulls. They were commercial mariners and fisherman, respectively, but got invited to join the crew of Geronimo, a 110-foot trimaran that was purpose built to break all the speed-sailing records in the early 2000's. They were both onboard for much of the campaign, including the Jules Verne Trophy (63 days nonstop around the world), the trans-Pacific California to Japan record, the round Australia record and on and on. We spoke aboard the one-off VPLP-designed cat Tosca that had just sailed the 650 miles from Portsmouth, VA to Bermuda in 3 days (!), with a top speed of 18 knots. And this is a cruising boat...Jean-Charles & Antoine couldn't have been nicer hosts - two days later, they invited Mia

#25. Paul & Sheryl Shard are well known to many sailors for their Distant Shores TV series and DVD collection. They've been sailing for over 25 years on three boats now, and Andy sat down to Skype with them and talk about it! A very sailorly episode, this one was recorded in Bermuda (where Andy was), while the Shard's were aboard their Southerly 49 in Georgetown, Exuma, Bahamas, actually anchored out! They talked about how they got into sailing, how they built their first boat from a bare hull, started cruising and documenting their trips on video (film back in the day), and how that has all evolved into a career! Buy their DVDs right on 59-north.com.

#24. Magnus Olsson was on the Two Inspired Guys podcast a while back, and I'm relaunching this episode now on 59º North. I interviewed Magnus in downtown Stockholm, at the 'Sprit Museet' (Alcohol Museum) on Djurgården. Our boat Arcturus was tied up in the harbor there after we'd sailed her across the North Sea. Magnus and his partner Vica cycled down to the harbor and had coffee with us on Arcturus before he and I did the podcast. It was initially about an article I wrote for Yachting World on code sails, but turned into a discussion on sailing in general Magnus was truly larger than life, which comes through in this episode, and it was with great sadness that the sailing world learned of his passing last summer in Lanzarote, where he was training with Team SCA, the all-female entry in the next Volvo Ocean Race. I only knew him for short time, but it was a privilege. Thanks for the memories - and the podcast! - Magnus.

#23 is Patrick Shaughnessy, President of Farr Yacht Design. Andy spoke to Patrick in his office in Annapolis, Maryland, where he grew up sailing and worked his way up from the 'basement' of the famous design office to the top dog. They talked about the Kiwi Spirit project and Stanley Paris' record attempt, Patrick's sailing history, yacht design (obviously), and spent a lot of time towards the end of the chat discussing the new Volvo 65 one design project that Patrick and his team at Farr have been developing over the past several years. He couldn't be specific, but Patrick assured me that we'd see 7 teams at the starting line of the next Volvo Ocean Race this coming fall. Awesome chat this one, so thanks to Patrick and the Farr Yacht Design team!

#22. Ashley Rogers is an old friend of mine from my Broadreach days, when I worked out of St. Martin on liveaboard sail-and dive-training expeditions. Ashley was a SCUBA instructor and we got to know each other at Broadreach's 'Pad' during the 2009 summer. Though she was living and teaching diving aboard sailing boats - and actually sailing between isalnds and dive sites - she hated it! Originally from Guatemala, Ashley now lives in New Zealand and spoke to me via Skype about how she got into sailing after reading the classic book 'Dove' by Robin Lee Graham, and decided she wanted to give it a go. Now she's preparing her boat for the 2018 edition of the Solo Trans Tasman race, a big event held every four years that sees sailors cross the Tasman Sea from New Zealand to Queensland, Australia. The 2014 edition of the race just got underway on April 22, so folow the fleet here! Ashley will be only the 5th woman to ever attempt the feat. Follow her on her Facebook page, The Solo Challenge.

#Bonus. Thanks to Weems & Plath for sponsoring this episode of the podcast! Matt Rutherford joins the show once again to discuss his imminent departure for Japan and the whirlwind of a time he's had in California for the past fortnight getting the boat ready. Matt and Nicole Trenholm arrived at the WD Schock facility on April 1 to find their loaner boat, hull #1 of the new Harbor 29, still in the mold! Over the next two weeks he and the team at Schock managed to finish the boat in time for the Strictly Sail Pacific show in Oakland, and Matt and Nicole hope to shove off on the Ocean Research Project's second major expedition on April 20. Matt tells Andy the story of how it all came together in California over the past two weeks. Check out 59-north.com for more content from this episode. Enjoy!

#20. Andy chatted with Nicole Trenholm last week just before she and Matt Rutherford departed for California, the Strictly Sail Oakland boat show, and their voyage across the Pacific to Japan. Nicole talked a lot about her life before the Ocean Research Project, how she got into sailing, what it was like working on a tall ship and later as a scientist for NOAA, and finally, how she met Matt and got involved with the ORP. She wasn't much of a sailor before she moved to the Chesapeake area, but certainly has the chops now - she's done 6,000+ miles already with Matt and the ORP, recently got her captain's license and is about to set out again for another 7,000 miles in the Pacific! Nicole also has the distinction of being the first chick on the 59º North podcast! Thanks Nicole!

#19. Etienne Giroire! Andy and friend Billy Rudek (the third voice you'll hear) sat down with Etienne in his home in Ft. Lauderdale on their way to Marsh Harbor to deliver a sailboat back to Annapolis. Etienne is most know for his namesake sailing company, ATN Inc. (get it?), which produces spinnaker sleeves, trampolines for catamarans, the 'mast climber' harness system and other bits and bobs. But more interesting, Etienne is a sailor in the truest sense of the word. Raised in France on Eric Tabarly and Bernard Moitessier, Etienne became in his own right a single-handed hero just like those heroes he grew up with, winning his class in the famous OSTAR race and going on to sail maxi multihulls with some of the most famous sailiors in the game. He did a leg of the Whitbread with Magnuss Olsson and sailed his own boat single-handed in the Route du Rhum (which ended in disaster, but I'll let him tell that story!). Etienne now is a dual citizen of the USA and France, having come to Florida back in the 1980s and n

#18. Peter Trogdon. New intro song from the Blaggards, 'Botany Bay'! Andy sat down with Peter in January in Annapolis to talk all about Weems & Plath, Peter's history as a sailor, the history of navigation, and the new exhibit on navigation at the Smithsonian Institute in DC. Peter also discussed some of his other non-sailing hobbies. This episode was sponsored by SpinSheet magazine, and is the first in a series of podcast/article projects. Read the article that came from this podcast in the March 2014 issue of SpinSheet, available all around the Chesapeake or on SpinSheet.com. Thanks Peter & SpinSheet!

#17. Paul Exner of Modern Geographic sat down with Andy at the Strictly Sail Chicago boat show and recorded the first-ever LIVE 59º North podcast! Andy and Paul talked all things ocean sailing, from boat design and gear selection to how to handle heavy weather offshore. Thanks to everyone who came to the show, and we look forward to doing more of these in the future!

#16. Matt and Andy sat down again on Burnside Street in Annapolis to discuss the Ocean Research Project's upcoming expedition to Japan. Matt and NIcole Trenholm, his scientific partner, will set out from California in a newly built Harbor 29 to do a plastics research voyage in the Pacific. it'll be the longest-ever research trip of that nature (6,500 nautical miles nonstop), in the smallest-ever boat used for such a purpose. Nicole call it their 'vessel of opportunity' - far from ideal, but good enough to do the work that needs to be done. Matt and Andy also discussed the Kiwi Spirit failures towards the end, so listen through for that. Check out oceanresearchproject.org to get involved with Matt's project.

#15. Erik de Jong designed and built his own 52' steel boat for Arctic expeditions. It's called 'Bagheera', and you can go sailing with him! Erik was super cool to talk to - he and I have a lot in common, having grown up sailing with our dads. Erik has always known he's wanted to design boats since he was a little kid, and followed that dream. He now lives in Halifax working most of the year for a shipbuilding firm, handling engineering and business contracts, and sails for 4 months in the summer on 'Bagheera' up to Greenland and the Arctic.

#14. John Harries of Attainable Adventure Cruising chatted with Andy to announce news of the 'Adventure 40' ocean sailing yacht. John has many, many thousands of miles crossing oceans (most recently in his 56' McCurdy & Rhodes aluminum cutter), mostly in the far North Atlantic and high latitudes of the Arctic. That experience led him to believe that the ideal ocean going production sailing yacht doesn't exist - yet. Now, thanks to John's ideas and to the design and engineering of Erik de Jong, it does. John and Andy discussed how the idea came about, John's specifications for the ideal ocean cruising boat, and how the whole thing came together. It was a fascinating 50 minutes, and really refreshing to hear from someone I admire sharing the same ideas when it comes to ocean sailing. Thanks for the chat John, and come back to the show soon!

#13. I had some fun with this one. We recorded this at the Caribbean 1500 start in Portsmouth, VA back in November (and frankly, I'd forgotten I had the file, or I'd have posted it sooner!). It's my seminar on crossing the Gulf Stream, as told to the 2013 Carib1500 skippers. Yes, we're missing some of the visual aids I used (though you can see some of them online at 59-north.com), and at times it's hard to hear the questions that come up, but overall I think it works. If you've never been offshore, the Gulf Stream is one of those major challenges that everyone coming or going to the American continent is going to eventually have to face. Hopefully this chat eases the tension a bit, and sheds some light on that challenge.  Read on for some of the slides that accompanied the talk, which will hopefully shed some more light on the subject and clear up some of the stuff I mentioned in the podcast. And here is the link to the Ocean Navigator article I reference, and the rest of my archive. Enjoy!  

#12. Andy talked to Tom & Susie from the ARC yacht Adina about just what makes the ARC rally so special. For 27 years now, the event has attracted upwards of 200 boats. And 2013 marks the first-ever ARC+, that saw 43 boats head to the Cape Verdes before continuing across the Atlantic. Tom & Susie offered some excellent insight into just what it takes to complete such an audacious undertaking, and why they felt doing it with the ARC was a perfect fit for them. Thanks guys!

#11. Andy takes a look at breakages in the ARC this year and how crews coped with them. He spent some time on the docks interviewing sailors as they made their repairs. The story appears on the ARC website as one of this week's feature, and we've decided to turn it into a podcast episode as well. So here it is, with the full audio from the sailors on the docks. Thanks for listening!

#10. Russ & Laurie Owen sat down with me on their catamaran 'Nexus' in Tortola last week. They had just completed the Caribbean 1500, and are on their way to St. Lucia now to sail around the world with World ARC. I warmed to Russ & Laurie straightaway in Portsmouth at the start of the rally - they're just genuine, nice people! Russ is very proud of the refit he's done on the boat - he's an aerospace engineer by trade, and one look at the 'guts' of his boat will tell you that he's thought it all through and then some. We chatted about their plans, how they got into sailing and what motivated them to make the leap and embark on such a long adventure. Thanks Russ & Laurie!

#9. Andre and Marie-Claude sailed in the Caribbean 1500 two years ago aboard their Moody 'Dancing Lizard.' This was a conversation I had with them over good French coffee and scrambled eggs aboard their boat in Hampton, VA before the start of the rally. Andre and Marie-Claude were two of my favorite folks in that event, and I see them popping up here and there on Facebook, cheering on their French-Canadian compatriots in this year's rally! Thanks for breakfast guys, and thanks for chatting!

#8. Joe Elder and his wife Alison own and run Skipjack Nautical in Portsmouth, VA. it's one of the few places like it in the USA - a treasure trove of nautical artifacts and artwork stretched throughout a beautiful gallery overlookin the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth. Joe and I talked about how he got involved starting the business, his career as a professional diver and underwater archaeologist, how he and Alison lost it all at the original Skipjack due to a catastrophic fire and Joe's passion for history and all things nautical. We chatted in the back of Skipjack at a table where Joe was just working on valuing a series of swords from a local collector, some dating as far back as the War of 1812. The place is awesome! Thanks Joe!