May 2005 By Dodge Morgan The sail to my Mystery Harbor was close-hauled in a 12-knot southeasterly breeze. There is a soft one-foot bright-blue sea chop and clear, blue skies. Air temperature and water temperature are both 80 degrees. The horizon is pocked with cookie-cutter white sloops obviously sailed byRead More

April 2005 By Dodge Morgan Wintertime Maine locates sailors in a squat posture drooling over memory inventory. Memories do come packaged in a very wide variety of actions and images oriented quite uniquely by the leading sensory input that captured them in the first place. An olfactory memory is liableRead More

Midwinter 2005 By Dodge Morgan Solo sailor Bruce Schwab and his open 60 Ocean Planet will be in the Southern Oceans, probably having passed the Indian Ocean and well across the South Pacific’s “Roaring Forties and Ferocious Fifties” latitudes at the time you read this missive. Schwab is the onlyRead More

September 2004 By Dodge Morgan A crew in a sailing voyage or cruise or race can take on several functional roles from vital skill provider to engaging companion to extra baggage. I am so used to sailing alone that I refer to anything aboard with me that is living asRead More

August 2004 By Dodge Morgan I find the wonders of technology overwhelming in practice and underwhelming in concept. While I find myself failing to master the technical gear I own, I have also developed a deep distrust of technical solutions in general. Consider my boat, Wings of Time. The numberRead More

July 2004 By Dodge Morgan There are a number of indicators we use to determine the arrival of summer in Maine – greening and flowering of the landscape, return of the osprey, geese goslings, striped bass, songbirds. The lawn needs mowing, heating bills abate, boats cry for bilge cleaners andRead More

June 2004 By Dodge Morgan The naming of a boat should be treated with at least as much care as the naming of a child and must always be done by her owners. It is said that it is bad luck for a new owner to change a boat name,Read More

May 2004 By Dodge Morgan There is a surreal color to thoughts of sailing in the void of social contact. “Don’t say it, just do it.” The sails feed each other on a close reach, fight each other on a hard beat and rob each other on a run. ItRead More

April 2004 By Dodge Morgan There are some current (meaning “present” and not “water flow”) boating-related dilemmas that should be noted. They come to me and I puzzle over them at inadvertent, odd times in my daily life, when watching the tumbling numbers on a gas-pump display, when celebrating theRead More

Midwinter 2004 By Dodge Morgan Human beings can be classified into just two major species and two sub-species of the one primary species. The two major species are “Boat Persons” and “Non-Boat Persons.” The primary species “Boat Persons” holds two categories, “Wood Boat Persons,” defined as those with boats madeRead More