Author: Chris Szepessy

By Nick Bowen   The Twenty Hundred Club had their third race of the season on Saturday, July 17. This was also their first of two destination races. The Cuttyhunk Race starts just south of Rose Island near the “G3” buoy, takes the sailors about 4 nautical miles south to buoy “R2” at Brenton Reef. This mark is about 2 nm south of Castle Hill where the boats turn east for a 19.5 nm run across Rhode…

A handy guide for sailors By Joan Wenner, J.D. Most of us sailors have thanked one or more Gods of the Sea on more than one occasion for safely delivering us from a potential disaster. In veteran sailor John Kretschmer’s 2014 highly popular book Sailing A Serious Ocean: Sailboats, Storms, Stories, and Lessons Learned from 30 Years at Sea (and I might add more than 300,000 offshore sailing miles, circumnavigations, numerous transatlantic an transpacific crossings, and captaining…

Another fantastic Colgate Sailing Adventures® flotilla By Heather Hild Atwater Editor’s note: Flotilla cruising is an excellent way to enjoy an unforgettable charter vacation, particularly if your sailing experience is limited. And you won’t find nicer or more capable flotilla leaders than Heather Hild Atwater & Nate Atwater, who lead Offshore Sailing School’s Colgate Sailing Adventures® Flotilla Cruises to exotic destinations around the world. What do a pilot, a librarian, an artist, a cowgirl and a financial…

By Christopher Cole, S/V Ticker Editor’s note: A popular part of Mudnite Madness is the Mudnite Photo Contest, and we’ve selected a few entries taken during Mudnite Madness 2021 to illustrate this report. The Mystic River Mudhead Sailing Association Race Committee always enjoins its competitors, “Go fast, pass boats, tell stories!” Having done the first two during this epic overnight race, I began a brief account of it – which grew ever less brief as I wrote…

New York City is home to some 520 miles of shoreline, but the Harbor is unlikely to be the first thing that comes to mind when you talk to New Yorkers about their city. At Billion Oyster Project, a nonprofit headquartered on Governors Island, a small crew is working to elevate New York Harbor in the minds of New Yorkers by restoring oyster reefs with the help of students, volunteers, and community scientists. When European settlers arrived…

By Paul Heiney Published by Adlard Coles, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Comical in appearance with black and white plumage and colorful parrot-like beaks, puffins are known to many as “the jokers of the sea.” Although they spend most of their lives at sea, Atlantic puffins have roosted in large numbers on or near Iceland for millenia. The population of these loveable little auklets is declining alarmingly, says author Paul Heiney, who sailed his 38-foot cutter…

By Javier Roman-Nieves, ecological communications specialist At the time of this writing, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the world’s leading authority on climate science—had just issued its latest report on our ongoing climate catastrophe. More than eight years in the making and based on the peer-reviewed work of hundreds of researchers around the world, the report’s findings are the direst yet. The 2015 Paris Agreement goal of stopping temperatures from rising more than 1.5° C, or between…

The Herreshoff Legacy Lives On   By John Burnham By far the most distinctive trophy in the Fishers Island Yacht Club (FIYC) for the last 55 years is a scale model of a 15-and-a-half foot Bullseye in a glass case. Awarded to the club skipper who finishes first in the summer series each season, the trophy is named for its former owner, H. Lee Ferguson, and houses a model of Ferguson’s boat, Peregrine. Known as Lee, Ferguson…

Our friends at the New England Science & Sailing Foundation (NESS), a nonprofit ocean adventure education organization in Stonington, CT, have announced the appointment of Eric Isselhardt, PhD to the position of President. Isselhardt joined the NESS team as Executive Director of Education in January 2020. Spike Lobdell, who founded NESS in 2002, will continue to lead NESS in his role as Chief Executive Officer. “The title of President reflects Eric’s leadership role at NESS,” Lobdell said.  “We are excited…

Our friends at Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, CT have appointed Chris Sanders as the new director of the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard. Sanders succeeds longtime director Quentin Snediker, who will stay on at the Museum in his role as the Clark Senior Curator for Watercraft. “Chris brings a wealth of ship and boatbuilding experience to the leadership of the duPont Preservation Shipyard,” said Peter Armstrong, president of Mystic Seaport Museum. “He has proven his knowledge…