With an abiding, lifelong love of Lake Michigan inspired by the gift of A Childs’ Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson when she was a child, Mary McKSchmidt met the man she would marry, a self-described “boataholic” named Rubin, shortly after graduating from Michigan State University and was soon crewing on his Hobie Cat. Larger boats and adventures throughout the lakes would follow over the next three decades.

You’d do well, however, to increase your knowledge of the subject by reading good books, and The Complete Day Skipper by Tom Cunliffe, originally published in 2002 and now in its 5th edition, is among the best.

Recorded in 1979 at a folk club in Toronto called The Groaning Board and lovingly remastered by the folks at Borealis Records, Between the Breaks…Live! captures the formidable power of Stan’s concerts.

A Sailing Surfer’s Voyage of Awakening

By Captain Liz Clark

Sailors coached by Victor Kovalenko have won ten medals in eight Olympic Games, six of them gold. As John Bertrand (who skippered Australia II to victory in a certain regatta in the waters off Newport, RI in 1983) observes in the Foreword, Kovalenko is the most successful Olympic sailing coach the world has ever seen.

The 10th Annual Robie Pierce One-Design Regatta will be sailed June 1- 3, 2018 at Larchmont Yacht Club, and you’ll find no competitor in this wonderful event for sailors with disabilities with greater determination to win than Chris O’Brien of Trumbull, CT.

Now in its 7th edition, The Atlantic Crossing Guide is well established as the standard reference for sailors planning an Atlantic voyage, whether from the USA to Europe or via the trade wind route to the Caribbean. Packed with the collective wisdom of cruising sailors from more than four decades, this new edition includes updated advice on a variety of topics.

Chapters cover such topics as the advantages of multihulls, essential things to look for when shopping for a cruising cat, design, dynamics, and construction, hulls, appendages and rigs (with diagrams by the author), along with checklists for long range cruising and routine maintenance.

Every year, approximately 3,500 people drown in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control, drowning is the leading cause of accidental death in children under age 14, and it’s also one of the top causes of death for young men in their teens and twenties.

Based on a concept used to train Israeli Air Force pilots, the SeaWise Emergency Action Guide & Safety Checklist for Sailing Yachts has a tab-based flip book design that makes it easy to use for emergencies at sea that demand fast and effective responses.