On the Wind Sailing

#108 is a followup to the very popular blog post I wrote last week about our too-close encounter with a Navy ship en route from Bermuda to NYC. Douglas MacDonald, owner of the HR43 we were sailing, comes on the show to discuss what happened from his perspective. He's very humble about the experience, and wants to provide his insight on how you can avoid this kind of thing yourself.  If you haven't...

#107. Paul Exner sits down with Brian Duff in Tortola. Brian's old friends with both Paul & Andy. Brian started Southbound Rigging in Annapolis, MD a few years back, where Andy first started working as a rigger in 2009. Brian sold the shop to Mike Meer (who's been on the podcast!) and sailed his Westsail 32 south to the BVI to start a new life as a boat broker. Paul of course lives in the BVI, and...

#106. Hank and Andy go back several years, having continually bumped into each other in various landfalls around the US and Caribbean. Those of us who work in sailing full-time are few and far between, so it's a small world. Andy sat down with Hank in Bermuda during the ARC Europe stopover and chatted for almost an hour and a half! Hank talked about his career working on offshore oil rigs, how he...

#105 is an essay in which Andy describes the ups and downs of starting a sailing business. Financially and emotionally it's been a roller coaster ride since buying Isbjorn. Andy talks about that process and how far he and Mia have come since buying the Swan 48 in February. Want to go ocean sailing with Andy? Book a berth on Isbjorn, a classi Swan 48, at isbjornsailing.com.

#104. Tania Aebi spoke at the ARC Europe Rally in Bermuda last Sunday, and Andy recorded it. Tania was skippering Jojo Maria, a Beneteau on it's way back to New York from the Caribbean. During the Bermuda stopover she regaled the packed house of crew with her tales of circumnavigating in her 26-foot Contessa in the 1980's at age 18. She was the youngest woman to ever do so single-handed. Her book...

#103. The beautiful and charming Anna Vinnars, voice of the podcast, on the show today to talk about her epic cycling trip from South Africa to Sweden (yes, you read that correctly!). Co-hosted by Ryan Briggs, Andy's best friend. This is a re-run from one of the very first podcasts Andy ever did, back in the 'Two Inspired Guys' days. It's not so much about sailing, but it's all about adventure. Yo...

#102 is Mike Meer, a dear friend of mine and my former employer, who taught me everything I know about yacht rigging. It's all about yacht rigging in the context of ocean sailing, in Mike's witty, fun-loving style. He's a cool guy, and he gets across complex rigging issues in a very understandable manner. The slides from Mike's talk are available at this episode's blog page on 59-north.com/sailing...

#101. I had a nice little chat with Elodie at the dock after sailing with Team SCA on their TP52 in New York. Elodie is one of the crewmembers with the Volvo Ocean Race's Team SCA, the first all-female crew in 12 years in the race. This is a bit shorter than normal, but Elodie has promised to come back on the show for a longer chat after the Volvo, so look forward to that! For now, enjoy a few min...

#100 is Paul Exner & I on the road talking business. It occurred to me shortly after releasing Paul's first interview with Victor Hempel that a lot of my listeners might not know who the hell this Paul Exner guy was. So we re-hash some of Paul's sailing experience, focusing on his technical knowledge of the sport. Ultimately though we ended up talking more about the new business than anything else...

#99 is legendary America's Cup s ailor and local Annapolitan Gary Jobson . Gary told stories of growing up in New Jersey sailing dinghies, sailing with Ted Turner and winning the 1977 America's Cup, commentating for ESPN, winning two Emmy wards, watching the foiling catamaran's at AC34, his thoughts on AC35 in Bermuda and lots more! Want to go ocean sailing? Book a berth on Isbjorn, our Swan 48, o...

#98. Retired Senator Tom Harkin invited me and my dad to his house in Hope Town, Bahamas, a place he's been going to since the 70s to escape the rat race in DC, and which he'll spend a lot more time at now in retirement. We took the ferry over and had lunch with Tom and his wife Ruth on the dock overlooking the sea of Abaco and Tom's new sailboat, a 26' lifting keel Seaward. We recorded the podcas...

#97. At about 0200 in the morning last Wednesday, after we'd tied the dock lines up in Little Creek VA, I got out the recorder and we debriefed the passage north on Sojourner from Marsh Harbor to Annapolis. The crew were myself, my dad, and Les and Jim, two podcast fans who'd signed up for the expedition online ! The trip was ideal sailing - broad reaching under a full moon for most of the way, an...

#96. Live from World Cruising Club's  Ocean Sailing Seminar weekend in Annapolis. Andy spends 90 minutes discussing boat types and how to prioritize outfitting your boat for deep ocean sailing. He emphasizes that basically ANY boat can complete an ocean passage when properly outfitted and with a properly trained crew. But sometimes it's nice to have a few luxuries, and Andy talks about how to prio...

#95. Despite the intro, this is not the first Thursday episode…but it is another business-oriented episode, kind of a hybrid actually. Andy sat down with Forbes Horton of his namesake Yacht Sales brokerag e in his office in Annapolis. Forbes' firm, thanks to Lloyd Cooper, put together the deal to buy Isbjorn, the Swan 48 we talked about previously. Andy has known Forbes for a while - they talk abo...

#94. Paul Exner talks to single-handed sailor Victor Hempel aboard Paul's boat 'Solstice' in Tortola. Paul and Andy also announce their partnership between 59º North & Modern Geographic to offer sailing expeditions aboard the Swan 48 'Isbjorn' and Paul's 'Solstice.' Paul will be regularly co-hosting '59º North' during the normal Tuesday releases. What do you think of the new co-host? Want to go oc...

#93. You know that intro music you love from the podcast? It's Blaggards! Andy spoke with lead singer and co-founder of the band, Patrick Devlin just in time for St. Paddy's Day. Patrick's story is a classic one of following your passion into a passable career, and he's had remarkable success with it. Patrick talks about not drinking, starting a band, U2, growing up in Ireland, sadness in his fami...

#92. Buying a bigger boat and using it to take people across oceans has long been a dream of mine. I can't pinpoint when exactly this happened, but it was probably in the mid-2000s when I was working on the schooner Woodwind in Annapolis. That was the first time I realized that it might be possible to have a career not in sailing, but as a sailor.  So at Christmastime I did a yachtworld.com search...

#91. Andy's seminar about sailing to Europe and back from the 2015 Toronto Boat Show in January. Recorded in front of a live audience! Episode includes Q&A at the end, tips on weather routing, northern versus southern routes to Europe, and how to get back! Want to go ocean sailing with Andy? Book a berth on at 59-north.com/events .

#90. This week's episode features another LIVE lecture from the Toronto International Boat Show about sailing offshore to the Bahamas! The tried and true route is down the ICW from the Chesapeake. But that takes weeks! Which ic great if you have the time to meander and enjoy the nice towns along the way. But if you're really keen to get to the islands and enjoy that time there, there's a much fast...

#89. This one is for the sailors who are also skiers - Drew Hardesty is a forecaster with the Utah Avalanche Center. How does he relate to sailing? Drew is the definition of an outdoorsman, and the wilderness envrionment that is the backcountry in the mountains of Utah is strikingly similar, philosophically, to the wilderness that is the high seas, and both are blessed and cursed with the same adv...

#88. Franz Amussen, host of the 'Sailing the Med' podcast , joins Andy to discuss his namesake podcast. They recorded over Skype, Andy in Toronto for the boat show there, Franz in his home in Salt Lake City.  This is the first part of a two-part episode, and is mostly Franz interviewing Andy about his own sailing career, cruising in the Baltic, Swedish customs and other fun stuff. Towards the end...

#87. Andy spoke with Brenda of the schooner Mahdee, which is currently berthed in California. Brenda and her husband David got inspired to go sailing in their college years while on a cycling trip around Lake Superior. Eating from a camp stove, they looked at a sailboat on the lake and thought, 'that's how we ought to travel!' Years went by, and Brenda and David traveled all over the world followi...

#86. Andy sat down in person with Liza Copeland at the Toronto Boat Show not too long ago. In fact, they shared a booth alongside Paul & Sheryl Shard, who were all part of the seminar program at the show. Liza has sold an astounding number of her books, all about the cruising lifestyle, which has made her a household name in the sailing world. She first circumnavigated with her young family aboard...

#85. Eric Forsyth, legendary ocean voyager with over 300,000 sea miles and whose visited both Antarctica & Spitsbergen on his Westsail 42, joins the podcast! Andy and Eric chat about his days in the 1950s flying the first fighter jets with the Royal Air Force, how Eric got into sailing, navigating on Celestial only in the Newport-Bermuda Race in the 1970s and what it's like to endure a 75-knot gal...

#84. Webb Chiles is a sailing legend.  Andy and he spoke about his sailing philiosophy, what it's like to survive for 26-hours floating in the ocean, rounding the Horn and whether or not religion plays a role in sailing (yep, it's deep).  You may not have heard too much about Webb, and that's kind of by design. Webb is an artist as much as he is a sailor (read his work at inthepresentsea.com ), an...