Fear is part of the boating experience — It’s how you handle it that counts. We asked readers to recount their experiences with fear on the water. These are their stories. “If we get through this, let’s get married” Watery nightmares turn to dream realized A gift of calm inRead More

The boat is lost. Will the replays ever end?

A fall delivery to the boatyard seemed such a simple thing. It was only a few miles. What could possibly go wrong?

April, 2005 By Bob Knecht For Points East Tiger Rag, our Beals Island 22, is one hell of a seaboat for her size. She was born in Calvin Beal’s boat shop and designed for Maine waters, and that’s why I bought her. On this day last summer, my daughter, SamanthaRead More

The tourists cheered. The locals loved it. The tanker crew cursed. And we had a boating story to tell. Big deal.

Even with everything going wrong, a Downeast shakedown leaves a father and his teen-age daughters with a deeper appreciation for the joys of cruising – and of engines.

Readers write: Scariest moments at sea

February, 2000 By Carlene M. Grossi For Points East It had been a relatively uneventful August cruise for the two sailboats from Newport, R.I., a Catalina 30 and a Pearson 30. Oh sure, there had been fog, and the broken spreader, and the calls in “sick” to work, and theRead More

I was flabbergasted. It was hard to believe this was the ocean I had feared just a few months ago. Here we were 200 miles offshore plopped in a circle of velvet seas.

We were 124 miles off Bermuda in 70-knot winds and 30-foot seas. A pressure gradient created by Hurricane Gordon lingered indecisively off Cape Hatteras, and a characteristically decisive Bermuda high hovered over Bermuda. For 48 hours, we struggled to keep our boat in one place in order to avoid the hurricane to leeward.