Share AND Share ALIKE
We get a lot of inquiries from readers who want to share their experiences in the pages of Cruising World. Letters and emails arrive on an almost daily basis from all parts of the globe and from a range of mariners spanning amateurs to veterans, old-timers to teens, thrill-seeking singlehanders to families raising kids aboard. We read every single one of them.
Sure, all of these letters speak to the popularity of a magazine that’s been around for nearly five decades and has grown deep roots in the worldwide cruising scene, but what’s really special about hearing from so many like-minded cruising enthusiasts on a regular basis is the stories they (you) tell. These are stories that always have and will continue to pump blood into the veins of Cruising World, for as long as we’re able to bottle, package and share them. Fact is, our readers—and the cruising world as a whole—are having adventures on the water these days that are well worth writing home about.
Take 78-year-old Michael Pschorr, whose recent submission describes going way outside his comfort zone on a 2,850-nautical-mile Pacific Ocean passage with his son. “At 78—you are loco!” was the consensus among his friends prior to embarking on the voyage, according to Pschorr. It was his first bluewater passage, and he even enlisted a trainer at his gym to help him undertake a rigorous fitness regime to prepare physically for the endeavor. The offshore trek from San Diego to the Panama Canal aboard his son’s vintage sloop found plenty of rough stuff, and Pschorr recalled “staring down Neptune in his angry moments.” He ultimately accomplished his goal, arriving to port safely, and with a newfound respect for Mother Nature and his own cruising capabilities.
Just this summer, we saw the youngest all-female crew ever to compete in the revered Newport Bermuda Race. Many people consider this 635-mile “Thrash to the Patch” to be the most challenging sailboat race in the North Atlantic. Team Bitter End, organized under the auspices of Oakcliff Sailing and featuring female sailors primarily between 16 and 19 years old, trained during weekends on a Farr 40 in Oyster Bay, New York. (Oakcliff is a nonprofit sail-training organization run by Dawn Riley, a member of the first all-female team to sail around the world who is slated to be inducted into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame on October 14.)
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for the teenagers. Three hundred miles into the race, their kite wound up severely wrapped around the headstay during a jibe. It took eight of the 12 crew on the bow to get the sail down in one piece. Team Bitter End finished the race 28th in line honors, and eighth overall in its division. The broader hope is that their performance will open doors for more women to move up the ranks in offshore racing, in strength-based positions on the boat that are traditionally dominated by men.
And in this issue, you’ll meet Cal Currier, a 16-year-old California high schooler who left the US mainland in June to sail solo across the Atlantic to Portugal aboard the 1976 Tartan 30 Argo, which he purchased for $12,000 with earnings he made tutoring other kids. He completed the 3,600-mile journey in just 28 days. But that’s not the whole story: Prior to January, Cal had almost zero sailing experience. Yes, you read that correctly. Catch this remarkable journey penned by award-winning writer and CW editor-at-large Herb Mccormick on page 64.
For however long they let me sit here at the CW editor’s desk, you’ll probably notice an implied edict in many of my monthly musings: that of pushing your nautical boundaries once in a while. There’s no worse thing you can do to a boat, in my opinion, than not use it. And letting a great sea story go to waste? Well, that just feels like a missed opportunity for us all.
So, keep those letters and stories coming our way, and we’ll keep publishing them. Because until we can all get out there and cross oceans or undertake circumnavigations, the next-best thing is living vicariously as an enthusiastic member of the global cruising community.