On the Wind Sailing

Lauren Topchik grew up in Maine and on boats. She was introduced to cruising as a high schooler driving the launch boat at her local yacht club. Word got out in the community that a young sailor was looking for her first boat, and soon Lauren was the proud owner of Cita . Lauren dove into living aboard, exploring the islands in Maine, and learning everything she could about being a sailboat owner....

ISBJØRN's rig towers over the other sailboats in her winter marina, but at the far end of the pontoons, there is one mast that makes even her spar look tiny. It belongs to a veteran of ocean racing, built as "Toshiba" for the last ever Whitbread Round the World race in 1997. She's now under the command of skipper Morten Landmark, who uses it for family cruising and to humble the Shetland Race flee...

In January 2024, Dr. Deborah Fish became the first woman ever to be elected commodore of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. For 99 years, RORC , as it's better known, has been regarded as a premier organization for offshore racing globally, as well as a leading authority for safety at sea. Its most famous event – the Fastnet Race – Deb has completed in impressive 11 times. Despite having started sailing...

Kiera and Tripp are the couple behind Apparent Winds , a nonprofit they run aboard their sailing research vessel Resilience. As they sail around the world, they collect and share stories of environmental and cultural preservation while conducting marine research. Their journey started in Washington State in 2022, and led them here to Maine via Alaska, Mexico, Panama, and South Carolina. On their d...

Porter Fox is a writer, lifelong sailor and author of the new book  Category Five: Superstorms & the Warming Oceans that Feed Them . I was referred to Porter by our mutual friend John Kretschmer, who is a major character in the book. Porter is also the son of Able Marine founder and grew up in Maine amongst sailboats and boatyards. Porter and I had a long and winding conversation about sailing, we...

Jon Amtrup is an avid environmentalist, and one of the world's top high latitude skippers. He was an obvious choice for GREENPEACE for their arctic research expedition this summer, aboard their recently acquired sailboat WITNESS. She used to be named "Pelagic Australis" and was designed and built by Skip Novak. She is a unique expedition sailboat, as well adapted to the high Arctic as Jon himself....

Vendee Globe sailor Pip Hare returns to the show for a 3rd time only one month before the start of her second Vendee Globe. In 2020, Pip became only the 8th woman to ever complete the Vendee Globe, and on a shoestring, crowdfunded budget to boot. In the years since, Pip has parlayed that hard work and early success into a second campaign aboard a new, faster and foiling IMOCA 60. I caught up with...

Blue & Brady of Cruisers Academy return to the podcast to tell some sea stories! This episode is an adaptation of a video that Mia & I filmed with them a few weeks ago, us on FALKEN, them at their shore base in Tahoe, as we started prepping for our Boat Show workshop coming up in Annapolis. We talk about some of the gnarliest things to happen to us at sea and on boats and had a lot of good laughs...

Nigel Calder returns to the podcast to talk about selling his beloved Malö 46 Nada . Nigel is of course the foremost guru of yacht systems and is at heart and inventor and science buff. He and his wife Terry built their 'dream boat' some 16 years ago and are sad to part ways with her now. We talk about many of the custom design details he's integrated, the systems onboard that made her unique and...

Skip Novak returns to the podcast to talk about his new book Skip Novak On Sailing: Words of Wisdom from 50 Years Afloat. There's not much Skip hasn't done in his remarkable sailing career, including 4 Whitbread races, a 5th round-the-world race on a maxi catamaran, and of course pioneering expedition sailing in Tierra del Fuego, Cape Horn and Antarctica. I talked to Skip about his new book and in...

Lydia Mullan is a sailor, journalist, and on board reporter. She is the managing editor at Sail Magazine and was the social media manger behind Cole Brauer's recent Global Solo Challenge campaign. She was aboard the vessel Alliance in this year's Newport-Bermuda race when they struck an object and had to abandon ship in the Gulf Stream. In this episode, we talk about that accident and their subseq...

Friend of the podcast Pam Wall & our own Laura Parent do an ON THE WIND takeover this week to interview sailmaker and America's Cup sailor Peter Grimm! On an impromptu afternoon in Pam's living room, stories started flying and Pam said 'get the mics!' and this entertaining and charming episode was born! Big shout out to Pam & Laura for literally running the show this week! Enjoy their conversation...

The RORC Caribbean 600 is one of the great offshore ocean races and in February we launched the 59º North offshore racing program with this as our debut event. The Whole Point? To try to open the door of offshore racing wider so that more people like you can get involved. In this episode Nikki has a chat with Alex to reminisce on trials and tribulations of the 2024 edition of the Caribbean 600. --...

Andy Schell. We know him, we love him, he's the founder of this very podcast! And of course the co-founder of 59º North Sailing. In this episode, Emma turns the interview table around on Andy to ask him about this past decade of 59º North Sailing. A lot has changed from the early inspirations of starting the business to where Andy sits now, in Sweden, a parent of a 4-year old, and an employer to a...

The BELAFONTE is underway on a great, big sailing adventure, and August was lucky enough to meet her and her lovely crew, Julien and Pieter in Bergen. They were on their way North to Svalbard, and the three had many things to talk about. They recently made it to the high Arctic, and are sharing their considerable experiences on @Aboard_Belafonte on Instagram. -- If you liked this conversation you'...

Since his On The Wind debut on episode 359 two years ago, Ian Herbert-Jones has raced 28,000 miles and rounded Cape Horn twice. In this episode, he tells the story of him joining the Ocean Globe Race last minute at the start in Southampton, and chasing the circumnavigation that escaped him during his Golden Globe Race. -- If you liked this conversation you'll LOVE  The QUARTERDECK , 59 North's 'de...

Since his On The Wind debut on episode 359 two years ago, Ian Herbert-Jones has raced 28,000 miles and rounded Cape Horn twice! In this episode, he tells the story of his remarkable Golden Globe Race, from the last polishing of his boat at the start in France, to losing her to a storm in the South Atlantic. -- If you liked this conversation you'll LOVE  The QUARTERDECK , 59 North's 'deep dives on...

Our own Emma Garschagen, co-host of ON THE WIND, former ICEBEAR & FALKEN First Mate and now entrepreneur joins me on todays show to talk about her evolution as a sailor since she joined 59º North. Emma started with us as an apprentice, took over as Chief First Mate for Mia when she was pregnant with Axel and has now gone on to start her own business, Sail Seabird , running coastal passages on her...

Friend of the podcast and legendary sailor Matt Rutherford returns to the show to shoot the shit aboard his schooner MARIE THARPE. Matt hosted a small gathering of friends in Annapolis back in April aboard his boat, and we got warmed up by getting out the mics and mixing it up at the salon table down below on a rainy, chilly day. Matt was sipping tequila I think, and I had a beer and the conversat...

Skipper Heather Thomas recently won the inaugural Ocean Globe Race aboard the iconic yacht MAIDEN. The crew made history again by becoming the first all-female crew to win a round-the-world race! At 27, Heather was the youngest skipper in this race and one of two female skippers. Emma and Heather talked about leadership, confidence, navigation and weather routing in a retro race, and much more. --...

Comedian Kristoffer Appelquist returns to the podcast to talk about his first trans-Atlantic passage with the Swedish reality TV show 'Över Atlanten.' Now in it's 6th season, the show — which puts celebrities onboard a big Swan with Whitbread skipper Gunnar Kranz for an Atlantic crossing — has become a huge hit. Kristoffer, Mia and I talk about how his dream of ocean sailing has evolved since we f...

August Sandberg is the owner and skipper of our beloved Swan 48 ISBJØRN, which has sailed over 60,000 miles since the beginning of 59º North. August lives outside Bergen, Norway, where the boat is now based, and recently finished overseeing a second major refit, which we had done at Vindö Marin on the west coast of Sweden on the famed boatbuilding island of Orust. I caught up with August to talk t...

Suzanne Heywood was raised on a sailboat. What started as a three year circumnavigation with her family turned into a decade of living aboard, sailing, and struggling to get an education. Suzanne's book, ' Wavewalker, ' tells the story of that voyage. In this episode, Emma and Suzanne talk about 'Wavewalker,' Suzanne's relationship to sailing now, and her thoughts on giving kids an unconventional...

Alex Laline is a lifelong sailor and one of our full-time staff at 59º North. Growing up in a multinational family, he sailed dinghies as a kid in the UK, Spain and Indonesia, then got inspired to sail around the world when he saw an ad for the Clipper Round the World Race. As a teenager he saved all his money and joined Clipper as a paying crewmember, completing a circumnavigation and later going...

Sailing was never a part of Lutz Kohne's life growing up — it hit him square in the face as an adult, and completely changed his trajectory. He has since worked as a professional skipper, as Race Director for the OGR and the GGR, and he is now preparing to set sail himself, around the world, solo, retro and unassisted as a participant in the Golden Globe Race 2026. -- If you liked this conversatio...