The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast

Welcome to The Shooting the Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP) Episode 185, which is our 2024 Annapolis Sailboat Show extravaganza!

The boat show was a blur of runnin and gunnin, hanging out, doing interviews, a party or two, meetups, and all sorts of fun sailing related stuff.

This Episode will be a series of shorter interviews done on the fly with vendors and sailing friends.

I did run into a few that I did not interview that I want to highlight here in the show notes. One being The Boat Galley, with our friends John Herlig and Carolyn Shearlock. They have the best cruising tools and guides around.

I was able to speak to Lin Pardey for hot second and buy her new book “Cape Horn and Beyond”, which I was able to get autographed. It is so awesome seeing her out there doing it, and she got some recognition from the International Cruisers Awards! Check out the Livestream, you’ll see her and others win awards, and you might catch someone you know being interviewed on the Red Carpet!

The Time Stamps for this episode are as follows:

Darren and Amanda Seltzer from Outer Passages – 30:52

Roam Devices – 37:47

Portland Pudgy – 40:00

Sailors for the Sea – 51:48

Sea People – 58:12

Crab – 1:03:32

Peter Gibbons Neff – 1:10:41

Sail Beyond Cancer – 1:17:51

Chasing Bubbles/Rust – 1:20:45

Sailing Avocet – 1:27:13

You can listen to Episode 185 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
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Welcome to this episode of The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP) which is a Cross Podcast with Bela Musits from the Sailing the East Coast Of the USA podcast whereby we interview a fan of both of our podcasts, Gene Martel, who started sailing recently after getting interested a few years back. He searched around for Sailing Podcasts, and found ours, among a few others. I met Gene back a few years ago at the Annapolis Sailboat Show, and he reached out to Bela as well, asking about what sort of boat he should look into buying.

Now a few years gone by, Gene has a year of sailing under his belt and he wants to tell his story so it might inspire others to learn how to sail and make it happen. He reached out to both Bela and I and we decided to do a group chat a release it across both of our platforms.

Also in this episode I talk a bit about the Upper Chesapeake Bay Sailing Group on Facebook meetup we had last weekend, a sail in event at Lighthouse Point Marina in Baltimore called the Boat Show and Tell. It was a fun event, and planning has already begun for next years event.

And I also talk about the upcoming Annapolis Sailboat show, my slots at the podcast booth, and other plans for the show.

You can listen to Episode 184 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
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Welcome to episode 183 of The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP). This episode we are talking Upper Chesapeake Sailing with Facebook group founder Bryant Gorrell, and we chat about his upcoming Upper Chesapeake Boat Show and Tell, being held on the weekend of October 4-6 at Lighthouse Point Marina in Baltimore. It is a boat show for the rest of us, where you can show off your boat, look at other folks boats, talk about projects, experiences, modifications, et al.

We started talking about doing something like this years ago, thinking maybe it would be a good idea to do it at a yacht club with lots of space, maybe include a car show or motorcycle show, food trucks, and what not. This year he came across newly renovated Lighthouse Point marina, just up from Canton in Baltimore, MD and started to set things up. Then the Dali hit and collapsed the Frances Scott Key bridge, essentially closing Baltimore Harbor indefinitely, so plans were put on hold. Once the harbor opened, he set up the show for October 2024, and here we are.

The show will be a sail in event for those showing off their boats, and a come as you are for the rest of us, with happy hour events, best in show awards and lots of fun activities, set in the hip and happening neighborhood of Canton.

Check out the flyer, go over to the Upper Chesapeake Sailing group over on Facebook, and come have a great time!

You can listen to Episode 183 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
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Welcome to this episode of The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP) with our guest, Sailor, Olympian, America’s Cup winning team member, and founder of PredictWind, Jon Bilger!

With the Olympics fresh on our minds and weather creeping into our daily lives with Tropical Systems in our news feeds, it is a great time to talk to Jon about the Olympics, his time as a member of Team Alinghi, and how he took all that sailing experience and the technology used by his weather forecasting team out into the public space as PredictWind.

If you are even half serious about sailing you probably have used PredictWind, or at least have heard about it. It began creeping into my consciousness back around 2015 as it showed up in various YouTube channels as part of their passage planning. The graphics make the program very easy to visualize how the weather is going to impact the area’s where you are planning on sailing.

It comes down to a safety at sea issue at times, as you do not want to be stuck in the middle of a deepening low pressure system at sea. With Predict wind you can get real time and historical data from sailing grounds all over the world. You can install a data hub on your boat that sends live data to the grid via recently available tools like StarLink.

You can run virtual regatta’s, you can plan a passage, you can do all sorts of things on Predict Wind. Many of the features are free, but you can also upgrade to make use of the advanced features available.

Jon has such a great sailing venue over there in New Zealand, and takes advantage of it as much as possible with his family, a special memory of which he talks about where his father is helping his daughter wrangle a boat ashore that was built for him when he was a kid by his dad. He also talks about high tech and very adventurous Foiling boats taking us into the next phase of sailing.

You can listen to Episode 182 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
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This episode we have a grand old chat with Author and Sailor Richard J. King, whose new book “Sailing Alone: A Surprising History of Isolation and Survival at Sea,” which has recently been released.

The book is a mix of his personal story of voyaging across the Atlantic by himself, aboard a Pearson Triton 28 back in 2007, and a fairly comprehensive history of men and women throughout history that have sailed alone all over the world, for varying reasons and with varying levels of comfort and success.

He delves into the reasons why they go in the first place, and what they see when they get “Out there.”

His reason to go is both simplistic and complex at the same time, depending on how you look at it. He isn’t, by his own admission, any sort of Master Yachtsman, nor would he win any races by his skill or drive to win, he isn’t even really an extreme adventurer looking for the thrill, yet his appetite for sailing was whet during teaching English to wayward college students on tall ships in far flung locales, where he delved into the history books on sailing, including the ones who went against the norms by going it alone.

Intrigued, he began to ponder why someone would go about doing such a thing, and came down to a handful of common reasons for them leaving the dock initially, but more interestingly, how they each dealt with what they saw and how it transformed their lives in a mix of Spirituality, Oneness with Nature, Reflecting upon and interpreting the world around us from an entirely different perspective, in the way an artist would look at the world, while doing something that tests the mettle and determination of accomplishing a goal.

Thus his own voyage Sailing Alone was born as he contemplated crossing the Atlantic Ocean back in 2007. He didn’t make a fuss about it, barley even told anyone he was doing it beyond the few he cared to share it with, wasn’t even sure he was going to go through with it until he was “Out There” after his shakedown cruise with friends up to Maine. He was prepared, his ship was ready, he just wasn’t sure he was. He decided to go for it, and now he’s got a great story to tell, but after sitting on it for 15 years, he decided to compare his experience with those throughout history, some of whom you may never have heard about.

You can listen to Episode 181 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
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Welcome to The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP) Ep, 180, a porch chat with Mahlon and Linda Stauffer, who have been cruising the ICW to Florida and the Bahamas, from the Chesapeake Bay, for the past 5 seasons, aboard their Island Packet 35 “Just Ducky.”

Having met them years ago on a Hot night in the mooring field at Hances Point Yacht Club, we’ve been sailing and hanging out swapping stories for a good long time, and it has been way past due that we sit down for a chat on the podcast. This will be the second Hometown Lancaster, PA cruising couples I’ve had on the Podcast, Maris and Linda aboard S/V Amekaya were the other ones on episode 71.

Nothing to sell, no blogs or YouTube channels to promote, just great stories and tips for venturing up and down the east coast in and out of the ICW. I love that they made the plans to go cruising in retirement and they are out there living the dreams year after year. Inspiring stuff for the rest of us workaday grunts.

If you see Just Ducky out and about, wave a greeting and exchange boat cards!

You can listen to Episode 180 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
Support the Podcast on,

Welcome to episode 179 of the Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast with our guest Olympic Sailor Lara Dallman-Weiss who is representing the US Sailing Team in the 470 class with sailing partner Stuart McNay.

I was honored to be considered to interview Lara on our little Sailing Podcast. I must say I had a little bit of imposter syndrome beforehand as I thought about the questions I might ask a world class athlete and sailor. I am fascinated by the level of dedication you must have to reach this level and how to physically and mentally prepare to compete in such an environment, with all the hurdles you have to manage along the way. I was also very interested in whether she considered herself an Athlete first or Sailor first and what plans she may have after her Olympic campaign is over.

A big part of the journey is finding the support along the way, so if you are so inclined you can donate to the team over at Lara’s Website, www.larasails.com where you can find updated information, buy some merch and support the team. You can also find her on Instagram. US Sailing is the umbrella organization under which the Olympic sailing teams operate and who gives support to the teams at this level.

The Olympics start in late July with Lara starting sailing on August 2nd. Not sure on the Television schedule in the US, but NBC Sports will be covering the summer olympics.

You can listen to Episode 179 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
Support the Podcast on,

Welcome to this episode of The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP) in which we spend a rainy Saturday in Annapolis at Bacon Sails with Stevie Reeves, in his podcast studio, with alcohol, and Captain Boomies and the Bear crash the Party. This is part two of what ended up being almost a three hour tour. If you want to watch it on Stevie’s YouTube Channel, the link is here. It gets kinda crazy, but it was a fun time and there’s some good stuff in here. Check out Unfurled with Stevie Reeves on Insta and Youtube.

This is Part 2, if you missed part 1, go back and check out episode 177.

Started Cleaning the boat up a bit, got some bottom paint, waiting on some good weather next few weekends to get the boat ready for the season!

You can listen to Episode 178 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
Support the Podcast on,

Welcome to this episode of The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP) in which we spend a rainy Saturday in Annapolis at Bacon Sails with Stevie Reeves, in his podcast studio, with alcohol, and Captain Boomies and the Bear crash the Party. This is part one of what ended up being almost a three hour tour. It gets kinda crazy, but it was a fun time and there’s some good stuff in here. Check out Unfurled with Stevie Reeves on Insta and Youtube.

This is also a terrible time in the Chesapeake Bay/Baltimore area as the day before I recorded the intro for this, the Frances Scott Key Bridge collapsed due to being struck by a large container ship. Some details have emerged since then that maybe differ from my take on it, but it is a catastrophic situation for this area, and we hope for a speedy resolution to the situation and feel for the families of the victims.

Looking forward to the start of the season in these parts, hope to get the boat ready in April, and launch sometime before middle of May!

You can listen to Episode 177 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
Support the Podcast on,

Welcome to Episode 176 of The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP)! This episode we chat with Photographer and Portrait Artist Kristin Rutkowski about her Chesapeake Bay Based project called Her Helm.

The Her Helm project got started during the Summer of Covid, and culminated last year with the release of the book, Her Helm Chesapeake Bay. In it, Rutkowski, showcases 51 women that make their own way on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay as captains of their own ships, whether licensed or not, large and small, sail or power. The book also contains art, poetry, and stories from invited guests.

We talk about how she came to the project, how she went out and found all those amazing women, how you set up the shots and subjects to be able to tell their story in one photographic snapshot, what it takes to wrangle everything together into a cohesive, tangible object such as a book. We also talk about how this goes on to affect the folks involved, the artist, and the culture as a whole.

You can find out more about the Her Helm project with the following links:

Her Helm: https://www.herhelm.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HerHelmPortrait/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/herhelm/

Kristin’s portrait business: https://www.kristinrutkowskiphotography.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristinrutkowskiphotography/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristinrutkowskiphotography/

This month, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum will host a forum of women from the Her Helm project. Thursday, Feb. 29, 5:30pm Register at: (virtual and in person)
https://cbmm.org/event/her-helm-a-panel-discussion-about-women-making-their-own-way-on-the-water/

The Her Helm project is in a special exhibit at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum https://cbmm.org/her-helm-portraits-of-women-on-the-chesapeake/

The book is available from the Her Helm website (https://www.herhelm.com/book-2023)
and in local stores on the Eastern Shore: Local-ISH Art in Cape Charles, VA (https://www.livelocal-ish.com/about-the-gallery)

The Book Bin in Onley, VA (http://bookbinva.com/)

Kristin’s next event will be a talk about Her Helm at Ker Place in Onancock, VA https://visitesva.com/events/listings/her-helm-chesapeake-bay-book-signing-lecture-with-kristin-rutkowski/

You can listen to Episode 176 of the STBSP, by right clicking and downloading here,

You can find it on all your favorite Podcast Apps and Aggregators

or push play on the embedded link below.

Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, of The Incoherents, a band I managed in college. The song is called Never Tell and is available via email. Find the other songs they did at The Incoherents. The Lean Years Volume 2, on Itunes.

Break music, “Wild Winds of Misfortune” by Leo Disanto of The Vinegar Creek Constituency, and “The Wild Rover” as performed by The Ogham Stones
Support the Podcast on,