Lifestyle

Safety at Sea - Dealing With An Actual Threat

Safety at Sea - Dealing With An Actual Threat

What to do when a small boat approaches you from behind? How do you determine whether it is a friend or foe? A potential intruder comes aboard in port, what do you do? Let’s take a look at these situations, and discuss how to make sure the odds are on your side. Eliminating opportunity keeps you safer at sea and in port. Here are some ways to make that happen.

Monday Minute - The Meaning of Memorial Day

Monday Minute - The Meaning of Memorial Day

Today is the 150th anniversary of our country’s Memorial Day. Instead of simply enjoying a long weekend at the beach or backyard grill, or buying that new mattress on sale today, take a moment to reflect on the real purpose of this special day. On Memorial Day we honor our nation’s soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and others who lost their lives defending our country.

Safety at Sea - What Are The Risks?

Safety at Sea - What Are The Risks?

This begins a series of posts that offer an updated look at staying safe while cruising. This has been a hot topic over the years, but is even more important today. This series will look at current threats, provide insight and suggestions for keeping you and your crew out of harm’s way, and taking the proper steps to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You see the risks young people take walking down the street staring at their phones, texting their friends, oblivious of their surroundings. That is not the safe way to go cruising today.

Monday Minute - Consider Night Vision

Monday Minute - Consider Night Vision

Carrying night vision on your boat offers great utility, and is great fun. It makes night travel a lot safer, providing you with the tools to see in the dark. Highly recommended equipment, more affordable than ever before.

Monday Minute - What's In Your Dinghy?

Monday Minute - What's In Your Dinghy?

Like that credit card commercial, “What’s in Your Dinghy?”

What you carry in your dinghy may make a difference if the unexpected happens. Whether it is a handheld radio, sunscreen, or a working flashlight, it can make an unexpected situation just another cruising adventure instead of something less pleasant.

Monday Minute - A Pilgrimage Not Unlike Cruising

Monday Minute -  A Pilgrimage Not Unlike Cruising

I now savor my first taste of the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain, which last year attracted over 300,000 people from around the world. I purposely did not set any expectations for this walking trip, rather deciding to let it happen and see where it went. I was rewarded with new friends, and an experience that I could never have imagined.

While the last bit of jet lag conspires against me along with a strong allergic reaction to the pollen now covering Annapolis, I am sure this trip will linger on in my daily life as I plan my third act in life.

Know the Boarding Drill

Know the Boarding Drill

Knowing the process of a boarding can help reduce the stress when it happens to you. It is routine business for the Coasties, but can be especially stressful offshore where the Coasties are loaded for bear as they deal with drug running, contraband smuggling, and other serious situations.

The Bucket

The Bucket

One of my all-time favorite true stories about a couple, alone in an anchorage, when something terrible happens that neither expected. Proof that great things never happen in comfort zones.

Have a box of Kleenex handy.

Stormy Petrel

Stormy Petrel

When you dream of the perfect boat for all the cruising dreams you want to do now, stop thinking you need a battleship. Take a chill pill and read about a couple who went way beyond the cruising plans of most anyone wanting to liveaboard and see the world.

Cruising with Children

Cruising with Children

Pam Wall makes a case for the outstanding life choice to cruise with a young family, as she and her husband did in their 39-foot sloop. Whether the vessel is a sailboat or trawler, it can be a life-defining adventure that so totally exchanges today's social media "experience" with the real world in all its diversity and beauty.

Getting Ready for the Next Generation of FollowingSeas

Getting Ready for the Next Generation of FollowingSeas

Taking the time this week to work on expanding the site for new content beginning next week. Have a great holiday season, and I wish you the best for 2018!

Monday Minute - Cruising to Stay Close

Monday Minute - Cruising to Stay Close

The struggles of many of today's young parents are quite a contrast to the families who choose to take the family and go cruising. The dynamics of living and working together on a boat are more intimate and focused than the hurried routines of family life ashore.

Perhaps more people could benefit from the synergy of living together aboard a boat. 

Monday Minute - Summary of the Navy's Official Incident Review

Monday Minute - Summary of the Navy's Official Incident Review

We've heard the unbelievable reports of Navy warships colliding with merchant ships, with loss of life among the Navy crew. How can this happen in our modern world, with all of the technology and control systems at our disposal!?!

Here is a comprehensive review of the four recent incidents in 2017, which reveal amazing issues and problems to be addressed at all levels. Reading these summary review findings gives insight into the complexity of today's warships.

And please take away from this that the initial fears of Russian cyberattacks did not occur, yet such a threat adds a chilling, what-if component to the reported scenarios.

This is serious business in a world that is increasingly dangerous, with threats we have yet to experience.

What's a Trawler - Continuing the Discussion

What's a Trawler - Continuing the Discussion

Continuing the discussion of selecting the right cruising boat, we take a look at hull shapes. There are lots of choices! Consider the options, and the advantages.

Monday Minute - Life in the Fast Lane

Monday Minute - Life in the Fast Lane

The pace of change has picked up and we need to move a little quicker to keep current. This used to the case in one's professional career, but now it reaches every aspect of our lives. 

Goofballs on the Water

Goofballs on the Water

There are many reasons to go sailing across the horizon. But to do it without proper preparation, skill, and experience is not just stupid. It can put others at risk when they must brave the elements to save these people.

Also a few pictures of the Dashew's FPB 78-1, Cochise.

Monday Minute - Benefit Party to Help Hurricane Victims

Monday Minute - Benefit Party to Help Hurricane Victims

A special hurricane relief event is scheduled for the first day of the sailboat show in Annapolis. For those who donate $75 or more to several relief organizations, the Donor Appreciation Party will be held at the close of the show, with free food and drinks. The donations will go directly to relief efforts in the BVIs.

What's Life Without A Little Adventure

What's Life Without A Little Adventure

Scott and Mary Flanders begin a new journey, a new path, with a new design concept for a cruising ocean motorboat. This begins a series of posts that will follow the philosophy behind the design spiral, the construction, and all that will follow....

Please subscribe to FollowingSeas.Media to come along...the adventure has begun!!!

Monday Minute - An Admiral's Secret to Running A Ship

Monday Minute - An Admiral's Secret to Running A Ship

The Recovering Warrior Sailing Regatta took place this weekend in Annapolis. It takes disabled military out for a day of sailboat racing with midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy, put on by the USNA, National Sailing Hall of Fame, and Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating (CRAB).

I got a chance to spend time with Admiral Phil Cullom, who shared his approach to commanding a Navy destroyer.