Featured Articles
by John Kretschmer Sailing
CRUISING MAINE: A COAST OF MIST AND ISLES
by Vivian Vuong
December 20, 2021
Nathan picked up our anchor in Roque Harbour in a light breeze, with a plan to sail to nowhere in particular. We were to spend time cruising Maine and discovering the vast cruising grounds tempted us with options in every direction.
Miguel was at the helm, steering out of our idyllic overnight spot while crew Peter, Debbie, and John watched for lobster traps. We settled on making a course towards Portland, and the Maine coast disappeared in our wake as noon approached, promising an overnight sail in moderate breezes.
September was just around the corner and the temperature gradually cooled the further offshore we sailed.
Passage to nowhere
June 1, 2021
Close your eyes. You can hear the waves washing along the hull and feel the raw power as Quetzal sails into the heart of the Caribbean Sea on a sweet close reach. She rides the building easterly swell with the confidence of a boat at home in blue water. With two reefs in the main, the staysail, and just a hint of the genoa peeking out from the furler, we are making a steady 8 knots. The motion is easy and surprisingly soft in blustery trade wind conditions. The hard dodger takes the brunt of the spray. The boat is nicely balanced and the crew is happy. We can sail faster, but why? We were already at our destination; we are at sea, and in these challenging times it’s hard to imagine a better place.
Plotting a course to Caribbean sabbatical cruise
May 28, 2020
I recall my first Caribbean landfall like it was yesterday. And trust me, it wasn’t yesterday—it was 40 years ago. It was November and we were heading south from Bermuda. After five days we escaped the gloom of the variable weather and burst into sunshine and fresh trade winds. At first light on the seventh day, St. Martin loomed on the horizon. I sure didn’t expect it to take another six hours to make landfall, and that was one of the first lessons I learned about Caribbean sailing: to control your excitement because you see the islands from a long way off. We eventually dropped the hook in Marigot’s spacious harbor. I was spellbound. I could see the CQR imprint on the anchor 20 feet below in crystalline waters. Rowing, yes, rowing the dinghy ashore, the collision of vivid colors in the bustling street market and the ramshackle wooden buildings precariously lining the waterfront reminded me of a Gauguin painting. I know, he painted in Polynesia, but the tropical magic translated across hemispheres. I’ve been sailing to the Caribbean ever since.
The Wonder of an Offshore Sail
April 07, 2020
Aboard Quetzal, anchored off Christmas Cove, USVIs, April 5 2020.
Tempers were short as a newly arrived sloop anchored too close to his neighbor. Sailboats at anchor social distance naturally, but if they don’t, like in this case, a discussion ensues, sometimes a heated discussion, until somebody moves a lot more than 6 feet away. Cooler heads prevailed and the new boat re-anchored and blew socially responsible kisses to his neighbor, all was well. Sailors, cruising sailors in particular, are friendly, helpful almost to a fault, and quite social. Prickly Bay, one of several inlets along the serrated south shore of Grenada, is a cruiser’s retreat with room for a lot of boats. There are often more than 100 at anchor and on moorings, with flags dancing astern from all over the world. As anchorages go, Prickly Bay is not beautiful, at least by Caribbean standards, and it can be roiled by a stealthy swell. But it lies a smidge south of 12 degrees, a magical line in the water as far as insurance companies are concerned. It’s deemed safe during hurricane season. But last week, when I wrote this, (which seems like a lifetime ago) few if any boats had left and others were desperately trying to clear into Grenada months before the usual storm season rush. Of course, that’s the new reality of the cornonavirus pandemic. There are no guidebooks or GRIB files to help navigate this storm-tossed world.
9 Best Used Sailboats
April 17, 2019
My list of some of the best liveaboard sailboats is eclectic and includes a mix of well-known and obscure manufacturers, but all the boats are linked in three ways: All are top-quality vessels capable of crossing oceans. They’re affordable, although in a few cases you have to look for older models in less-than-stellar condition to stay below $100,000. (Indeed, in some ways, this list is a function of age; most of the boats were priced at more than $100,000 when new but have dipped below our self-imposed threshold in middle age.) And finally, they’re all boats that I have encountered in the past few years in far-flung cruising outposts.
Sailing through the wilderness: Interview with John Kretschmer
April 08, 2019
All sailors are adventurous, but it’s more than that. Everyone who signs up for a sailing expedition knows adventure is a given — a big storm in the Atlantic or challenging winds are always on the horizon. But what most of us seek is an interlude from life. Sailing provides a sense of freedom that seems harder to find these days. And you need patience. Ocean sailing is an activity that reveals its charms slowly. Sometimes it seems like you’re putting in a lot of energy, effort and expense and not getting much back. But like a lot of athletic endeavours, you go over a curve and it starts to pay dividends.
Replacing Teak Decks is a Monumental Job
February 13, 2018
Like many Taiwanese boats built in the 1980s, my Kaufman 47, Quetzal, was slathered in teak. Side decks, foredeck, cabin trunk, handrails, coamings — a veritable forest afloat. As someone capable of rationalizing almost anything, and because I was able to buy the boat for a great price, I not only accepted the abundance of teak, I embraced it. Of course I knew that practical-minded sailors scorned external wood; indeed, I was one of them before I felt the magic of teak beneath my bare feet, at least on cloudy days when the decks were not scalding. And yes, I knew that teak decks were becoming scarce on new boats and seen as a liability on older boats. But that didn’t stop me from bragging about teak’s unrivaled nonskid capabilities and excellent insulating properties. And I loved the aesthetic, boasting that a handsome renewable resource like teak softened the cold, oil-derived glare of a utilitarian fiberglass deck. I was more than a teak-deck apologist; I was a teak-deck snob.
Passage Planning
March 1, 2017
The notion of ditching the job and house, buying a boat and sailing away to the tropics, across an ocean, or even around the world, is a fantasy that lurks in the mind of every sailor. Some actually follow their dreams and find a suitable boat and prepare it for serious sailing. Dreams collide with reality when it comes to the daunting task of route planning logistics, literally, “When to sail where?” Timing the right seasons and prevailing winds for offshore passages with the need to avoid hurricanes and heavy weather requires a bit of forethought.
The Great Circle Route: Connecting the dots of a sailing life
July 01, 2017
You can’t escape history when sailing in the Mediterranean, not even your own. We were off the Lycian coast of Turkey. My wife Tadji was at the helm, searching for zephyrs as Quetzal ghosted over a shimmering sea. I was below, rummaging through the nav station looking for a detailed chart for the approach to Kekova Roads. I am a luddite, I still use paper charts and I knew it was in there somewhere. Picking through my well-used Imray Mediterranean charts I couldn’t find it. Then I stumbled upon a few neatly folded old Turkish charts. In the upper left-hand corner I saw my mother’s unmistakable script, “KAS – CAVUS BURNU – TURKEY.” She always wrote in caps. I had forgotten that I had tossed some charts from her around-the-world voyage aboard before my last Atlantic crossing.
Launching and boarding a life raft
July 1, 2016
There’s an old saying, “Step up into the life raft,” implying that you should not launch your life raft prematurely in an emergency. And while many old sayings are often just that, old and out of date, there’s merit to this wise advice. A life raft is a vessel of last resort, to be deployed only when all efforts to save the mother ship have been exhausted. I have been aboard two seriously leaking boats in my long career and while I considered abandoning both, in each case I managed to eventually find the source of the leak and make emergency repairs. There are plenty of documented cases of crews abandoning what seems to be a sinking boat for the perceived sanctuary of the life raft. Tragically the crew perishes while the supposedly sinking boat survives and washes up on a distant beach. But make no mistake about it, there are genuine emergencies afloat when the only bridge between life and death is the life raft.
Books by John Kretschmer
“John Kretschmer’s superb writing transports you to the sea – and so much more.”
editorial reviews
Book Review: Sailing to the Edge of Time by LYDIA MULLANJAN 2, 2019
An accomplished sailor and writer, Kretschmer tells the poignant, yet relatable tale of a lifetime’s love of sailing in his new book Sailing to the Edge of Time. Beginning with his first fateful trip around Cape Horn in a 32ft sloop named Gigi, Kretschmer takes readers with him as his adventure unfolds, covering hundreds of thousands of miles in the company of everyone from friends to celebrities to teachers and kids. As he does so, he also seamlessly weaves in plenty of practical sailing advice with his sea tales, making this book as useful as it is entertaining. There’s no shortage of joy, peril and watershed moments as Kretschmer tells an insightful and quietly triumphant story of how he experiences life to the fullest by leaving onshore toils behind…
A familiar storyteller and seaman goes deep in his latest book. 2018 December 14 By ERIN L. SCHANEN
SAILING readers will be more than a little familiar with Contributing Editor John Kretschmer’s vast collection of sailing stories; you’ve been reading them on the pages of this magazine for decades. They are alternately funny, terrifying and tear-jerking.
With several books under his belt, Kretschmer’s style as a storyteller is well defined, but in Sailing to the Edge of Time, readers will find hints of a new side of the sailor, one that contemplates bigger questions.
Although they might be a bit more introspective, the nature of Kretschmer’s stories hasn’t changed much. They are still fast-paced, full of characters you long to meet and laden with enough rich detail to make you taste the salt on your lips and feel the wind in your hair. Thanks to a life at sea he’s got enough of them to always bring something fresh and, in the case of Sailing to the Edge of Time, he also brings a healthy dose of practical information on choosing and refitting a boat and basic tenants of seamanship….
For the Times-Union By Tim O’Connell / Nov 25, 2018 at 2:01 AM
If you have ever sailed out to sea in a small boat, you will find this memoir by professional sailor John Kretschmer evocative and profound. If you are thinking about doing it and/or looking for a sailboat, you will find it indispensable. If you are just seeking a story of an adventurous life well spent, you will find it fascinating.
In “Sailing to the Edge of Time,” the lifelong sailor’s sailor tells his story in vignettes about his trips, his boats, his philosophy and his many friends, all the while dispensing the invaluable knowledge gained from 300,000 offshore sailing miles, including 20 transatlantic and two transpacific passages.
With his many friends and fellow adventure seekers, the captain takes us across the Gulfstream to Bermuda, crisscrosses the Caribbean, from Hawaii to Seattle, north to Newfoundland, and across to Ireland, Scotland and the Mediterranean.
A must-have for any sailor’s library.