The Sailing Family Archive – Page 2

This is how we spent the summer! We wanted to ease the boys into living aboard, but also to spend time with friends and family. And we had a lot of small things to fix or improve for our world tour. We cover it all here in just four minutes, which was hard...

Gunboat vs Outremer - who will win!?!? It's not a fair fight. The Gunboat is 66 feet, has 12 foot daggerboards, a much higher mast, larger sail area and carbon fiber reinforced. The Outremer is 51 feet, has 3 foot daggerboards and is made of fiberglass. ...

It's a really odd feeling when you leave your dock knowing your boat will not return unless you sail all the way around the world to get there. It's a combination of very exciting and scary at the same time. It's also quite normal feeling, like we're just ...

We awoke to a perfect autumn day in Martha's Vineyard. We broke out all the toys, met a cruising boat with kids and just soaked in the reality of our new life aboard Archer. Looking back it was just too perfect. Almost like a dream, and we still pinch ours...

After a particularly bad docking experience with friends aboard (and maybe a little yelling), we gather back in the safety of the kitchen to discuss the experience - and hopefully learn from it. We thought it worth recording... While it's not the most exc...

After our magical first few days in Cape Cod it was time for us to start heading south toward New York and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. We had a great sail to Block Island but when we went to reef before a squall the Main Sail wouldn't come down because ...

Elizabeth and I have lived in New York, but we've never had the opportunity to take our kids there - so it was quite special to sail there with them! After anchoring just outside the city in Long Island we took the train into The Big Apple and hit the mai...

Crossing from Long Island to Manhattan is a stressful transit - no wonder they call it HELL'S GATE! You have to time your crossing to coincide with slack tide or you simply can't make it - at least not in a sailboat. But, the experience is a truly specia...

On our quest for the "best cruising cat" we looked at several models that fell squarely in the Bluewater Cruising category. In this video we share why we ended up with the Outremer and take an in depth look at the other boats we considered. We include com...

We anchored in Annapolis for the boat show and decided to rent a car to visit Washington DC. The kids had never been and we had an amazing but also emotional visit. We were glad to see our oldest soak in the history and the meaning behind all the memorials...

This is the beginning of our voyage as we prepare to leave Hampton, Virginia to sail 1,500 nautical miles off-shore to the Caribbean. We share why we chose the Salty Dawg Rally and the incredible support and family friendly fun that ensued. It's a tight e...

We had so much great footage of our 1,500 mile voyage off-shore that we will begin releasing DAILY videos all week. Today we kick it off with "Day 1," of course. The next day at 8am EST we will release Day 2 & 3. We think releasing them daily helps giv...

We are releasing DAILY videos this week of our 1,500 mile voyage south. Today we release Days 2 & 3 as we cross over the Gulfstream. We tried to time our departure to sneak over with following wind and seas, but there was so much wind the sea state rem...

We are releasing DAILY videos this week of our 1,500 mile voyage south. On Days 4 and 5 we finally sailed out of the heavy winds and found calm conditions. The "barf bowl" was put away and spirits improved! Now if only we had "some" wind to sail?! Actually...

Imagine getting that email in the middle of the ocean! Today's video is a little different as we review our strategy to deal with a potential Tropical Cyclone (aka Hurricane) development headed for our path. We are too far South to turn around, so should w...

We are releasing DAILY videos this week of our 1,500 mile voyage south. Today we release Days 7 and 8, which brought us ideal conditions for blasting south. After days of motoring the wind slowly clocked up. First we had our Spinnaker out, then full sail. ...

This is the final DAILY video installment of our 1,500 nautical mile journey south from Hampton, Virginia to Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. Unfortunately the final night saw us sailing into a Tropical Wave that brought lightning filled squalls...

We were told by many people to avoid the BVIs after two Category 5 Hurricanes leveled the BVIs just a year before - but we had so many lasting memories from our previous cruise that we had to share this special place with our boys. Despite visible signs of...

Sailing East in the Caribbean has always been called the "Thorny Path" because it's not all that easy to do. Ideally you wait for an unusual break in the highly consistent trade winds, or pray for the angle to shift just enough to the north that you can ee...

This is a personal video for us, but we thought we'd still post it. This is what Christmas is like on a boat! It was great to have Seth's parents visiting so they could see the boys excitement (and we kinda needed their help schlepping presents to Antigua!...

Antigua! Yep. It's a bold call but we can claim it. We've been to pretty much every part of the Caribbean, and Antigua and Barbuda take the claim for us. Today we visit Antigua (Barbuda's next week!), and while they could not be more different, that's what...

Warning: This video features poor parenting decisions. :) POSTING DAILY ON SOCIAL https://www.instagram.com/the_sailing_family/ https://www.facebook.com/the-sailing-family-voyage/ ----------------- ABOUT US: Welcome aboard. We are a family of five sail...

There are not too many places in the Caribbean where you can anchor alone on beautiful beach that stretches for more than 11 miles. But in Barbuda, it's pretty easy to find yourself all alone - perfect for spending New Years Eve from about as far away from...

We spent two more nights in paradise with our friends aboard before sailing back to Antigua's Carlisle Bay. We just can't get enough of Barbuda. Kite surfing, bon fires, tubing, beaches, and that water... It's just a beautiful and peaceful place. SOCIAL F...

Living on a boat has its ups and downs (but mostly ups!). Seasickness, homesickness, where to shop, where to recycle, where to put your trash? But then you see the fabled "green flash(er)," or you go on a scramble up a mountain river into a rainforest and ...

Despite all the sailing we've done in the past year, this is really our first day sailing around the world. Day 1 will be in Guadaloupe, which will mark the furthest East we sail. From now on we'll be heading West, and the next time we arrive in Guadaloupe...

If we wanted to cross through the Panama Canal this season, we needed to make tracks West. We were loving the USVI's but also had fun making small hops to new places: The Spanish VI, Puerto Rico, Rincon and then the Dominican Republic. Every place ends up ...

We stumble upon a place called the Scape Park. Was this the site of Jurassic Park? Where are all the tourists? Were they eaten? What's going to happen?! Hit play to find out... Click here for more about the Scape Park: https://www.scapepark.com POSTING D...

Is this the DR or Thailand? That's what we kept asking ourselves as we cruised the north coast to Ocean Wall. We also got to race a TS42 Marsdon Composites catamaran. Who will win? Watch to find out! POSTING DAILY ON SOCIAL: https://www.instagram.com/the_...

According to Trip Advisor, the #1 thing to do in the Dominican Republic is trekking the 27 Waterfalls of Rio Damajagua in Puerto Plata. Ironically, Hale had told us the #1 thing he wanted to do on our voyage was just that - "to jump off a waterfall." Well,...

The Windward Passage is a notoriously bad place to go sailing, especially when the winds are up. We had a mild forecast but the winds were double what we expected. And of course, it happened on a moonless night where it got really, really dark. With the ...

This is Part 2 of our Windward Passage video - Happy Earth Day all! After seeing up to 44 knots in our previous video, the wind all but died as we sailed behind Haiti. Another change was the significant amount of trash we started seeing in the water, which...

We finally make the big (scary) passage to Panama. 10 years ago we nearly lost our boat off the coast of Colombia - so was it worth sailing all the way to Jamaica to avoid that route this go around? Click the video above to find out! POSTING DAILY ON SOCI...

We arrive in Colon and quickly leave for a "vacation from our vacation" while our bottom gets repainted. It doesn't go smoothly. [This video was shot pre-covid.] POSTING LIVE UPDATES ON SOCIAL: https://www.instagram.com/the_sailing_family/ https://www.fac...

The Sailing Family crosses from the Atlantic to the Pacific in this 8 minute video, showing exactly how it's done. [Shot pre-covid]. POSTING LIVE UPDATES ON SOCIAL: https://www.instagram.com/the_sailing_family/ https://www.facebook.com/the-sailing-family-...

We tried to leave Panama, but disaster struck. Come join us as we kill time in Panama City and the Las Perlas islands. And eventually repair our boat... POSTING LIVE UPDATES ON SOCIAL: https://www.instagram.com/the_sailing_family/ https://www.facebook.com...