I first met Sebastian and Samantha in St. Augustine, Florida, at a meet and greet for cruisers. We had to be the youngest people at the function and certainly the only ones sporting dreadlocks. We were riff-raff sailors on production boats. We were also semi-broke and looking for work. They were smarter than I in that category and had arrived with a plan to network with the owners of larger cruising yachts.

I went for the free beer, snacks, and to meet Seb and Sammi—as I now know them six years later. On three separate occasions, from North Carolina to Florida, mutual friends informed us we all had to meet. And I’m so glad we did.

Their unique southern accents were distinctive in the historic Floridian tavern. Sebastian is a mix of Louisianan and Columbian-American, and Sam’s Tennessee-meets-Carolinas.

A networking plan for the boring cruiser’s function wasn’t the only way the pair was ahead of me in the logistics department. They were quick to pick up seasonal work outside the marine industry, and they also lofted brand new sails for their Cal 29, Dancin’ Lions, which was already a pretty tricked out liveaboard.

Sebastian was becoming something of an expert when it came to canvas, masterminding Dancin’ Lion’s sails, dodger, bimini, and more, but Samantha was the right hand in much, if not all, of the process.

Not long after our meet-up (and a short-term gig where the couple dressed as elves for holiday tourists), Sebastian was working full-time at a local canvas shop while Samantha continued with odd jobs.

Later they headed north to the Chesapeake Bay and a 20-ton Tayana 37 with room for Sebastian’s industrial sewing machine. He also put me on to a job on a tall ship nearby, a 100-foot schooner docked on one side of the deep, exposed York River in Virginia. On the other side was a protected creek and yacht basin where Samantha worked restoring their new boat, which they renamed Rhythm, and where Sebastian got a job in the boatyard.

I sailed back and forth between the yacht basin where they worked and the ship where I worked. At the end of the season, we went our separate ways again.

In 2020, Sebastian started his own canvas-making business, Black Dog Sail Loft, from the salon table of their 37-foot boat, measuring, fabricating, and installing on yachts of all kinds with the utmost attention to detail.

From there, the pair returned to the North Carolina-South Carolina border, where they first met through their mutual love of dogs. Oh yeah, they each have their own pup aboard, a tiny poodle named Gypsy, and Shadow—the namesake of what is now Sebastian’s very own bricks-and-mortar, full-service sailmaking loft.

Black Dog Sail Loft officially opened in 2022 in Calabash, North Carolina, less than a mile from the Little River Inlet and Intracostal Waterway. Home to traditional seafaring and now charter fishing, the town is a natural fit for Sebastian the sailmaker…

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When he competed in the first Golden Globe Race in 1968-69, French sailor Bernard Moitessier achieved legend status not for winning, but rather for precisely the opposite—opting instead to keep on sailing, “because I am happy at sea, and perhaps to save my soul.”

It’s a sentiment that Kirsten Neuschäfer understands—“Moitessier just kept going and became more esoteric. I liked that aspect,” she said. Some may have wondered whether the adventurous South African would consider the same, but in the end, her history was made in another way, by becoming the first woman to win a solo round-the-world race when she crossed the 2022-23 Golden Globe Race (GGR) finish line in Les Sables-d’Olonne, France, on April 28. After 30,290 nautical miles and 235 days—a course record—she and her 36-foot Cape George cutter, Minnehaha, won without needing the 35-hour time allowance she earned by rescuing fellow sailor Tapio Lehtinen when his boat sank south of Cape of Good Hope.

As she edged her way to the finish line in excruciatingly light air, Neuschäfer—who didn’t even know she’d won until she was within hours of the finish—laughed and talked with the sailing luminaries, journalists, race officials, and well-wishers who’d come out to greet her. “I want to walk on solid ground,” she said in her calm and commanding voice when I asked her what she wanted to do when she touched land for the first time in nearly eight months…

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When it comes to the quality of sailing life, bigger is not always better. What really counts is getting time on the water, comfort, convenience, and having fun. And for many, the daysailer provides the perfect panacea to the landlocked blues.

Unlike many of the larger boats we design, daysailers provide a lot of advantages when it comes to maintenance, ease-of-operations, and access to smaller bodies of water including lakes, near-shore waterways, and shallow bays. Read on.

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How much demand can there really be for such a boat? They need breeze to really make it work, but we hope they both have success in this endeavor. And promoting one sailmaker as part of the deal is a big mistake. I’m sure the other sailmakers are just thrilled…

McConaghy is delighted to announce its appointment as the exclusive build partner for the next generation of Infiniti 52 racing yachts.

The Infiniti 52 is designed and engineered to deliver next-level offshore racing performance. Built around a highly efficient transverse DSS foil, the Infiniti 52 provides proven performance without the risk and cost of more complex class-driven foil solutions.

The 52ft yacht has proven to be an ideal size, performing successfully both inshore racing and offshore, regularly achieving 30-knot speeds. It is large enough to sail comfortably for an overnight, but light enough to exhilarate and excite. The DSS foil provides the Infiniti 52 significant righting moment allowing the yacht to be sailed with a smaller crew, sometimes half the number of a comparable yacht, increasing competitive efficiencies. More here.

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“What? Are you kidding me? That never happens!”

Such was the response from a sailing buddy when I told him I was joining the Rio 100 crew for the 800-mile Newport to Cabo race.

His reaction was certainly justified. While I’ve sailed off and on my whole life, my racing experience is limited to some fun times I had on an old 39-foot R-Boat back in the 1970s. So how did I come to be a walk-on to Rio, a 100-foot super maxi and the favored monohull to win?

Hold that thought and let me start with three things you must know about racing on a rocket like this. First, there is a world of difference sailing with a professional crew. It’s akin to a high school football player suiting up and playing in an NFL game. Second, it’s off-the-charts exhilarating to be ripping through the dark of night at 24 knots. Third, you’re almost always nanoseconds away from a catastrophe.

Rio 100 is a custom Bakewell-White specifically designed to win downhill races like the Transpac, Pacific Cup, and Newport to Cabo. It set the record for the Pacific Cup in 2016, won the prestigious Transpac Barn Door first to finish in 2015 despite breaking one of its rudders early on, won it again in 2017, and won the Merlin trophy in 2019.

The crew nicknames her “the aircraft carrier” for good reason. So beamy is the aft deck you could probably land a Harrier jet there. At 145 feet tall, the mast towers over anything in the harbor. Indeed, when bowman Ben Bardwell gets hoisted to the top to check things out, you can lose him in the fog. The main is so large it takes six guys on the grinders to raise it.

Because Rio 100 will often run two jibs plus a kite or reaching jib—plus the main, of course, and running backstays—there is a complicated plethora of lines on deck at most times. After five days of practice and three days of racing, I still only had a rudimentary idea of which sheet and line did what. Belowdecks, you can see straight down 100 feet from bow to stern. Aft of the galley I counted 14 pipe berths, but it was always dark—almost pitch black—and I may have missed some.

Surprisingly, the boat has a commercial kitchen-sized grill. While most maxi crews get a pouch of freeze-dried mystery and a cup of boiling water, we ate well on Rio 100. One night the crew even dined on grilled rib eyes…

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