Since we live and sail on Mahone Bay and have come to know most of its islands by sight, I read Frank Parker Day’s 1928 novel Rockbound with great interest. I wasn’t the only one. Thanks to CBC’s Canada Reads program, the previously obscure novel has been lionized by the Canadian literary establishment and the [...]
It’s a laborious but joyful spring chore for boaters in Nova Scotia: taking off the winter cover, cleaning her, fixing her up, painting her bottom, waxing her sides perhaps, and getting her ready to launch. Owning a boat means using a lot of elbow grease, unless you’re wealthy enough to hire someone to do it [...]
Here’s a lovely account of Rob Dunbar’s adventure, in 2006, of sailing solo along the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia in a sailing dinghy. Took him 8 days. He was going in the right direction; coming the other way you could expect it to be harder with prevailing winds against you. The story is well [...]
We did it because we could. The ice is gone, the tide was high. My son and I dipped the canoe in the ocean and paddled out to a nearby island. He hiked around it and then we paddled back again.
Canada’s Derek Hatfield (who makes his home in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia), was forced to retire from the Vendée Globe round the world, non-stop solo sailing race in December, due to damage to his boat. He nursed his Algimouss Spirit of Canada to Hobart, Tasmania, where he fixed the damage, and on February 27, he [...]
Got some serious cash and top-notch sailing skills? Want to sail the Southern Ocean in a very fast, well-equipped boat with an experienced skipper, take her round Cape Horn and up the South and North Atlantic to France? Does Derek Hatfield have an opportunity for you! Stranded in Tasmania after broken spreaders on the Open [...]
Derek Hatfield is in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, having carefully piloted his Open 60 sailboat, Spirit of Canada, to the closest shelter of land after the boat was damaged in the Vendée Globe solo, non-stop, round-the-world sailing race (“the Everest of sailing”). Spirit of Canada had been hit by a huge wave that knocked the boat [...]
Canada’s Derek Hatfield hit an oilslick at 16 knots today, and it washed over the boat making a big mess. Now he has to clean up while still trying to make up for time he lost at the beginning of the race due to equipment problems. At least he’s not dead last anymore in the [...]
