MAY 2013 ISSUE OF BLUE WATER SAILING.

World Cruising: New Zealand’s Unknown Isle. Discovering rugged yet laid-back Stewart Island by Katie Thomsen. Sailing Smart – Atoll Cruising 101: The Tuamotus. How to safely negotiate atolls of the South Pacific by Nadine Slavinski. Classic Passage: Bermuda to Newport – The Long, Fast Way. An end run was the best route home for Waianiwa and her crew by George Day. Safety at Sea Special Section: Safety Electronics for Offshore Sailing What features make the newest safety gear right for you? by Daniel Collins. Night Moves: Crew tips for completing safe passages at night by Andrew Cross. Crew Overboard: A sailor’s guide to new overboard gear by Andrew Cross. Your Cruising Medical Kit: Well stocked first aid and medical kits are essential for safe, healthy cruising by Denny Emory. Boatswain’s Locker: A Sole with Soul. Fitting a new cabin sole takes time and careful planning by Pete Dubler. Weather Routing Software: The good, the bad and the ugly truth of it all by Bill Biewenga. eBooks Onboard: Love them now, or love them later by David Burch.

The Three P’s. As the sailing season around most of America gets underway this spring we are happy to bring you our annual special report on Safety at Sea, starting on page 40 with an in depth look at “safety electronics” by our regular columnist Daniel Collins. As the old saying goes “safe sailing is no accident.” All that means is that if you have done your job as a boat owner, skipper, navigator and chief bottle washer then things shouldn’t go wrong, but when they do you have procedures in place to minimize the emergency. Continue Reading…..

The New Lagoons Arrive – The new 52 and 39 are the trend setters for the future of the Lagoon fleet.

On the Tuesday following this winter’s Strictly Sail Miami boat show, the two Lagoons that debuted at the show were cut loose from the docks so we could get a chance to sail the innovative new designs from the world’s leading builder of cruising cats.

Despite the ongoing recession in new boat sales worldwide, Lagoon—like its sister companies in Groupe Beneteau—has made a commitment to introducing new models that steadily advance the way we think about catamaran cruising. Renowned French multihull designers VPLP have designed the new boats so the hulls, which are roomy, have good fast shapes that allow them to sail well. Continue Reading…..

S & S 30 • This Olin Stephens design from 1935, updated by the S&S team, is one of the sweetest little cruisers ever built.

For those who may have forgotten, Olin Stephens was the Twentieth Century’s resident genius of yacht design, our own nautical Da Vinci. In every aspect of the sailing game from dinghies like the Lightning to offshore racers like Finisterre to America’s Cup defenders, Stephens created fast boats that were always a step ahead of their time.

Some years ago, when asked which of his designs he would like to see brought back and renewed, Stephens immediately suggested design number 97, a 30 foot racer-cruiser named Babe. Designed and build in 1935, Babe was a noted performer in coastal and offshore races—yes, regular people used to race 30 footers offshore. And, she was an able, compact coastal cruiser for a couple or small family. Continue Reading…..

200 Issues and Counting • When Rosie and I returned from a five-year circumnavigation with our sons, Si and Tim, we needed to launch ourselves into the next chapter of our lives. We’d sailed 40,000 miles aboard Clover, our Mason 43, and had visited 38 countries. Along the way we had become, as you might imagine, pretty self-reliant. Working for someone else did not seem such a good option, or even possible.

I had been editorial director of Cruising World magazine for most of the decade before we took off sailing and had always thought there was a niche in the sailing market for a publication that opened the doors to extended sailing and cruising in a straight forward, informative and modern way. So, we took the leap. In 1996, we launched BWS as a 16-page, two-color newsletter with three holes down the side so you could keep them in a binder.

The response to our first direct mail efforts was surprisingly positive and the circulation grew rapidly. We knew we had found a large and avid group of passionate sailors who wanted and needed honest information about boats, gear and the seamanship skills you really need to make your cruising dreams come true. Our goal was, and still is, to be the real deal for offshore sailors—not just about sipping rum drinks with parasols and talking like a pirate. Continue Reading…..

Hunter 40 • Life begins at 40 for this innovative new cruiser by Andrew Cross.

Last year, when Hunter filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was subsequently purchased by Marlow Acquisitions, LLC, it was hard to see what direction the new company would be headed. The big question within the industry was will this be a Hunter of the past or will the new owner, who builds cruising trawlers in China, take the company in a different direction? With that in mind, I arrived to test sail the new Hunter 40 in Annapolis, Maryland, and came away with a positive understanding of what Marlow-Hunter, LLC, has on the horizon.

Continue Reading…..