John's Sailing Web
As you might guess from the title of this web and the picture below, sailing is what this web is about. Sailing has been my primary interest since I was a teenager, working summers at a camp just off Lake Michigan north of Muskegon. When I moved to the Washington DC area in 1971, I took advantage of my proximity to the Chesapeake Bay to purchase my first sailboat.
This first boat was a
1968 Hinterhoeller HR 25, which
is a 25' fiberglass sloop. In 1976 I sold the HR 25 and bought a new
Columbia
8.7. The Columbia 8.7 is a 29' fiberglass sloop, which I named
Vela Llena
(Spanish for "Full Sail"). For a long time Vela Llena was the perfect boat
for me, large enough to take on extended cruises along the US East Coast, but small
enough to keep maintenance work and costs within
reason. I sailed Vela Llena for nearly a quarter century before selling
her in the spring of 2001. The previous year I purchased a 1978 Pearson
424 , which is a 42' fiberglass ketch. The Pearson , which I
named Sarah, is the boat I intend to use for extended off shore trips for the
next 5 - 6 years, or possibly longer. As a shake
down off shore cruise I and five friends sailed Sarah to
Bermuda and back in the
summer of 2001. In June, 2007 I completed an
Atlantic Circle
cruise (transatlantic to the Azores, Portugal, Spain and the Mediterranean and
then transatlantic again back to the USA) on Sarah. When Sarah is underway you can also check my current location via
Winlink
Position Reporting or click on the SV Sarah link at the top of this page
then select Sarah's Location from the menu for that section of this website.
The initial step on the Atlantic Circle was accomplished in the fall of 2004 when I moved Sarah from the Chesapeake Bay to Fort Pierce, FL via the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and an off shore sail. Mike Repass and I departed on the transatlantic leg of the cruise in May, 2005. We stopped in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Azores before making landfall near Lisbon, Portugal. I spent the winter of 2005-2006 on Sarah at the marina in Cascais, Portugal. During the spring and summer of 2006 I cruised Sarah from Cascais to the Balearic Islands of Spain. Sarah spent the winter of 2006/2007 in Lagos, PT. In May, 2007 Bob Calt and I sailed Sarah back to the USA by way of Madeira and Bermuda. Currently (summer, 2007) Sarah is back at the Town Creek Landing Marina in California, MD.
The website is divided into five sections, which are listed at the top of this page.
The contents of the website sections are described below. To navigate within the site click on one of the section titles at the top of the page and then use the menus on the left to view pages on the various topics in those sections.
| This is the Home section of the site. Here you will find
an overview of the site and information on its history. Each
section of the site has its own menu on the left side of the screen.
This can be used to navigate to the various pages and topics in the
section. For the Home section the topics are:
|
The contents of the other sections are described below.
| SV Sarah | Sarah is the name of my 42' ketch sailboat and this section provides pictures and descriptions of this vessel |
| SV Whoosh | Whoosh is the name of another Pearson 424 Ketch owned by Jack and Patricia Tyler. This section of the website contains articles written by Jack & Patricia on cruising under sail. Many of the articles are specific to cruising in Europe. |
| Sailing | This section of the website documents my life-long interest and participation in sailing. Included in this section are pictures and descriptions of many of the cruises and off-shore races I have participated in. |
| Non-Sailing | This section covers that small part of my life that was not directly related to sailing. |