Out The Gate Sailing

The Race to Alaska runs 750-miles, from Port Townsend, Washington to Ketchikan, AK and has only two rules: 1) No Engine 2) No Support Crew. The eight members of Team Shut Up And Drive will spend a week together on a sparse, 33-foot racing boat with a bucket for a toilet. I talk with Nathalie Criou and Satchel Douglas two members of the team.

In September of 2017, I spent a week living and cruising San Francisco Bay aboard a 10-foot, mahogany sailing dinghy. I learned a lot about local waters and met some interesting sailors along the way. An article about the adventure was published in the May, 2019 issue of Cruising World Magazine. In this episode, I share an annotated version of the article.

Quincey & Mitchell are a young, inspiring couple who are working to get a charter business, Q+M Travels, up and running. They have a great boat for it, a Kelly Peterson 46, that they found in Panama and sailed back to the Bay just about a year ago. Mitchell has been teaching sailing on all kinds of boats for years. Quincey is a professional nutritionist. Together they love hosting people aboard their boat both for weekends and longer adventures.

Katie and Lyall Burgess met while sailing in the Caribbean. After purchasing their own yacht, they realized there was little info available to help boat owners go solar. This prompted them to found Sun Powered Yachts in 2018. Katie and Lyall live off the grid on the Big Island of Hawaii with their two girls. They have been spending more time at sea, preparing to spend a full year aboard with the girls in 2022.

My wife Lauren and I recently crewed aboard Andy Schell & Mia Karlsson's 59-foot Swan, ICEBEAR from Annapolis, MD to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. We talked with Andy about that experience and our goal to go cruising with our own kids some day. This interview originally aired as episode #270 of Andy Schell's On The Wind podcast.