The Sailing Scene

Are you out there sailing, cruising and living the sailing life? If so, we’d love to see it. Send your sailing photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com for a chance to have your sailing memory featured in these pages. Here are a few pictures from our readers of their latest cruising adventures. This picture was taken during our four-day cruising in the San Juan Islands, Washington, during the Fourth of July weekend. We tied up in the north cove in Jones Island State Park for the second night. This small island can be only accessed by boat, so it’s very quiet. I woke up in the morning and had a short hike along the beach, which is when I took this picture.

—Ziying Zheng

I took this picture in October last year when I was taking my mother and grandmother out for a sail on the Tennessee river in Knoxville. My grandfather had passed away about a week prior after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s. It was the first time I had been able to get my mother on my boat since I purchased it last year.

—Chris Borden

In his piece “Draken Harald Harfagre: Viking Raid On Great Lakes Repelled by Ruthless Bureaucrats,” posted on SAILFeed on July 18, Charles J. Doane wrote of the landfall of the 115ft Draken Harald Harfagre, a Viking longship replica, and the bureaucratic headache it encountered when entering the inland waterways of the U.S. He wrote, “Legend has it the first time Vikings came to North America they were driven away by irate natives … Now more than 1,000 years later it’s the U.S. Coast Guard who are handling the job, wielding regulations rather than weapons. This time the Viking raiders got as far as the Great Lakes before they were stopped in their tracks by bureaucrats demanding they pay up to $400-an-hour in pilot fees.” Here is a bit of what you had to say about these Norse raiders and their run-in with the law.

If only there was some wealthy, powerful organization in the region, maybe in Minnesota, that prides itself with its Viking heritage that maybe could step up and help their brother Vikings from across the sea. How about it? @Daniel J Tooker

While the U.S. Coast Guard has in the past and in the future been all about safety as well as search and rescue and have done a wonderful job … when it comes to administration etc. they’re a bit weak to say the least. @Shafer

Hey USCG, why don’t you like fun? What are you afraid of, Congress? Ha! @Anthony