Out The Gate Sailing

Mark Hensley, knows sailing - he’s sailed his entire life. But he’s spent most of his time on the water at sea as captain of an oil tanker during a 20-year career with Arco Marine. He’s got plenty of stories from his time on the water and subsequent years teaching at the Maritime Academy in Vallejo, CA.

Jim Antrim , often called the Wizard of El Sobrante, is a naval architect who apprenticed under Dick Carter, Britton Chance and Gary Mull. He’s designed record breaking multihull and monohull sailboats as well as popular production boats. He’s an expert in composite material engineering and has developed several computer programs used in performance analysis and prediction. I met him in his office...

Matt Rutherford made a name for himself when he completed a solo, 309-day, non-stop, record-breaking trip around the Americas in a 27-foot Albin Vega. Today he’s focused on putting the finishing touches on a 72-foot, Brucer Roberts designed steel schooner that will be the flagship of his non-profit: Ocean Research Project . Matt and I talked about the 60-day research expedition he and Nikki Trenho...

Cameron Albin is a marine and an Iraq war veteran who suffered a traumatic brain injury while on deployment. After being discharged from the military he found himself struggling, until he rediscovered sailing. Now, he’s started American Odysseus Sailing Foundation to help other veterans and first responders living with PTSD by taking them to sea. The organization is organizing an entry into the 20...

Billy and Sierra Swezey are better known to their online fans as the couple behind Tula's Endless Summer . The two met at a surf shop in Florida when Billy sailed in on his small boat. Not too long afterwards both of them were living on the boat, with their dog Jetty, cruising the waters of Florida and beyond. Since then they've had a series of fixer up boats - and a camper - that they've gotten o...

Tyler Walkey and Julie Sinusia fell in love with a ketch rigged Ingrid 38 in Monterey. Trouble was they needed to get it down to Los Angles within days of purchasing her because they had flights home to Japan they had to make. That’s where I came in. They posted online looking for experienced crew and I happened to have the time to join them for the few days it would take to sail down the coast. I...

When Lauren Sloss met Alex Kleeman in San Francisco, she was planning on moving to New York to study journalism. He was planning on sailing the world. They managed to do both of those things and stay together as a couple - eventually getting married and sailing far and wide together. As well as being a sailor, Lauren is a Journalist who recently wrote a wonderful article in the New York Times abou...

Sonya David and Jack Patton met while sailing, and really haven’t stopped. They live together on their Passport 42, along with their cat Fathom, and together run Spirit Marine Services a business they started to do boat projects and maintenance for others. They have sailed extensively all around the Bay Area and plan to head off further afield in the near future. You can follow their adventures at...

The former editor of Good Old Boat magazine got into sail ing when his mother mistakenly subscribed to Cruising World when he was a kid. He met his wife Windy through a Latitude 38 crew list and ended up cruising together aboard an Newport 27 down to Mexico, through the Panama Canal and around the Caribbean. Later, they set sail again, this time with their two daughters, aboard a Fuji 40 and saile...

This week we go below the waves to learn more about how what we humans do on the water while fishing, sailing, or shipping impacts humpback whales and other marine mammals. I’m joined by Kathi George and Bekah Lane both of whom work with the Marine Mammal Center in Marin. Kathi, Director of Field Operations and Response at the Marine Mammal Center, works on whale entanglement prevention. Bekah is...

Cree Partridge started building boats in his parents front yard while still in elementary school. His passion for being on the water started at a young age and continues to this day. In college, he channeled his desire to be on the water into racing and traveled all over the world to crew aboard big, fast boats. He then got into boat building. For the past twenty years he’s run the Berkeley Marine...

Ben Pedersen-Wedlock grew up on boats and is an experienced ocean sailor. Anna Behrens had little to no sailing experience - until she met Ben. About a year after meeting, the two took off cruising in a 28-foot, ferro cement, William Atkins designed boat named Inga. They sailed south from San Francisco, down around South America and back up to New England, all without an engine. We talk about thei...

Kevin Wasbauer is an experienced sailor, having competed in the Fastnet, the Heineken Regatta, the Transpac and many other races. In 2020 he purchased a Farr 53 named Atalanta and refit her during the pandemic in order to launch a charter business out of Monterey called Shearwater Sailing . I recently joined Kevin for a chat and a sail aboard this beautiful boat.

In 1967, my father Sidney Shaw was shipwrecked on a small reef just south of Vietnam while sailing aboard an 87-foot steel schooner named Dante Deo. The crew of seven, including a young child, were attempting to navigate the reef strewn South China Sea when they struck the Bombay Reef. Over 50 years later, my dad’s memories of the disaster and survival are still vivid as he recounts the story.

When Bianca Bahman and Fernanda Schlender, two Bay Area women decided to go on a surfing trip in Indonesia together they had no idea what kind of adventure they were in for. The small boat carrying them to the island resort where they were to vacation hit a reef in the middle of the night, forcing the two to take charge of the situation and fight for their lives. The two share the harrowing tale w...

Erden Eruç is an accomplished ocean rower who is the first person to complete a solo circumnavigation by human power and the first to row the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. In the spring of 2021 he launched his boat from Crescent City with the goal of reaching Asia and climbing Mount Everest. He stopped in Hawaii to fix some gear and better time his crossing. That’s where I caught up with hi...

Ryan Foland, together with John Arndt, the Publisher of Latitude 38, recently launched a new sailing podcast called Good Jibes . The podcast, hosted by multiple members of the crew at Latitude 38, features stories and tips from west coast sailors and is focused on community, cruising, and racing. Ryan and I talk about the show’s origins and where its headed. Ryan grew on the water in Southern Cali...

My parents, Sid and Rebecca Shaw have been sailing together for over 50 years. Starting in the 60s as a newlywed couple aboard their 33-foot ferro-cement ketch and then later aboard their 35-foot Hallberg-Rassy, they cruised all around the world. We talk about how they got into cruising and what kept them at it. From learning to sail in Florida to a near sinking in St. Thomas, they share stories f...

When Lin met Larry Pardey in Newport Beach in 1965 he was just starting to build Seraffyn a 24.4-foot Lyle Hess designed cutter. The two quickly became inseparable and went on to sail more than 200,000 miles together, circumnavigating twice. Together they wrote twelve books on sailing and inspired many would-be cruisers with their “go simple, go small, go now,” philosophy. Larry passed away in 202...

My wife Lauren Keane and I share a love of adventure. I brought sailing to the marriage. She introduced me to long-distance, back-country hiking. To celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, we traversed the High Sierra Trail , a 72-mile hike across Sequoia National Park that took seven days and ended on Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48. Lauren joins me in this episode to debrief the tr...

Marga Pretorius stumbled into sailing while a freshman at UC Berkeley and quickly realized if she wanted to head off towards the horizon on her own boat one day she’d need to learn how to fix all things nautical. Work on her own vessels and a career at the Berkeley Marine Center had her tackling all kinds of boat projects. Today she lives and cruises aboard her Kelly Peterson 44 - with an impressi...

In March of 2021, during the Corinthian Yacht Club Midwinter race, Jim Diepenbrock was dismasted while sailing his Swan 48, Wingman 5. It was a dangerous situation, but Jim handled it with a calm demeanor that allowed him to get his boat and his crew safely back to the dock. We talk about this incident and other scary situations he’s encountered while racing on the west coast.

Roughly 15 years ago, Barry Walton and two of his surfing buddies bought a 24-foot sailboat, sailed it out the Golden Gate, turned left, and spent months sailing down the coast to Mexico. Though the trip wasn’t at all what Barry was expecting, he brought along a camera, filmed the adventure and just recently turned the footage into a 5-part documentary called Reaching Reality .

Noelle Brewin and Laura Levy met while sailing on San Francisco Bay. They bonded over a desire to create quality sailing apparel for women. Together the recently started Somand and launched the Farallon Jacket with an anatomical cut, and many other design features, specifically crafted for women. We talk about getting the business up and running during the pandemic and their plans going forward.

Cyril Derreumaux is attempting to solo paddle his kayak across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Hawaii. French-born, Cyril now lives and began paddling here in the Bay Area about a decade ago. Since then, he’s raced the Moloka’i Hoe in Hawaii, paddled the Cal100 down the Sacramento Rive, done the 444-mile Yukon River Quest race in Canada twice, and in 2016 skippered a 4-man row from CA to H...