Kittery Point Yacht Club and Blue Water Sailing Club co-host speaking event March 10. Made possible in part through underwriting by the Kittery Point Yacht Yard
Portsmouth — Charlie Doane has crossed oceans in sailboats a half-dozen times, sailed alone between New England and the Caribbean, and spent a career writing about the adventures of others on the sea.
But in winter 2014, 300 miles off Cape Hatteras on a brand new 42-foot catamaran, Be Good Too, Charlie and the rest of the small crew found themselves in deep trouble:
“The wind tears at the sail without mercy, flogging it back and forth, and two battens near the top break loose as we claw them down into the bag. In just a few moments the sail is secure and we are lying dead in the water, broadside to the seas. The wind is still howling and seems only to be growing stronger….
“We are at the mercy of the ocean. If we meet another wave like the one that has just crippled us, we just might be capsized. And if this boat flips over—as wide as it is, with now ballast down deep to bring it rolling back up again—it will stay flipped over, and we’ll all be in serious trouble.”
Doane chronicles and analyzes what turned out to be a dramatic offshore abandonment and rescue in his new book, The Sea is Not Full: Ocean Sailing Revelations & Misadventures (Seapoint Books). As the Cruising Editor of SAIL magazine and the voice of the popular sailing blog “WaveTrain,” Doane has long been known for digging into the story behind the stories of sailing, sailboats, and sailors.
Doane will be telling the story of the first and last voyage of the Be Good Too, as well as offering practical insight and advice on heavy weather sailing at a talk and book signing on Saturday, March 10, 2018 at 10 a.m. at the Kittery Point Yacht Club in New Castle.
Doane’s talk is co-hosted by the Blue Water Sailing Club and the Kittery Point Yacht Club (KPYC, where the talk will be held). KPYC member are drawn primarily from New Hampshire and Maine, and well represented in local, regional and occasionally national sailing events. KPYC sponsors the KPYC Sailing School, the Seacoast’s only public sailing school and youth racing program (www.kpyc.net).
The talk is made possible in part through sponsorship from the Kittery Point Yacht Yard. Located in the protected Back Channel in Kittery and serving both local boaters and cruisers, KPPY offers moorings, slips, winter storage and a full complement of maintenance and repair services (http://kpyy.net).
The Blue Water Sailing Club dedicates itself to safe cruising, racing, boating education, and good fellowship among its more than 300 members. Centered in eastern Massachusetts, BWSC members sail the waters of New England, New York, Chesapeake Bay, the Carolinas, and Florida.
Doane’s “Heavy Weather Sailing” talk is open to the public and is free of charge, but pre-registration is required. Visit the BWSC website (www.bluewatersc.org) to register, or contact Jack Savage (jacksavage@roadrunner.com).
Copies of the book will be available at the event for those interested.
Doors open at KPYC at 9:15 for coffee and muffins thanks to our sponsors, Kittery Point Yacht Yard.
About the Speaker:
Charlie Doane has worked on the staffs of three different boating magazines, New England Offshore, Cruising World, and SAIL, and currently serves as Cruising Editor for SAIL. He has been sailing on the coast of Maine since childhood and took up bluewater sailing in 1992. To date he has sailed some 80,000 miles offshore, including seven transatlantics and a few singlehanded passages between New England and the West Indies. He has sailed in the Newport-Bermuda, Fastnet, and Sydney-Hobart races, among others. He is author of The Modern Cruising Sailboat (International Marine, 2010) and most recently The Sea Is Not Full (Seapoint Books, 2017)