Welcome to episode 189 of The Shooting the Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP), our chat with Upper Chesapeake Bay Sailing Facebook groups resident Guru, Thad Van Gilder.

He started sailing when he was a young kid, building small boats as he went along. The backwaters of the NJ shore were his playground where he honed his skills running into bridges and shallow water. After college he spent his summers sailing the Delmarva bays and rivers on a variety of boats. Later on he started working on boats and delivering boats on the side.

He is a wealth of knowledge about all things Good Old Boat, and he tells us all about his adventures in this conversation.

He is a staple over at the Facebook group, doing zoom calls, and helping others with sailing questions. You will probably find him hanging around Rock Hall, MD on his Cape Dory 36 with his wife, or down at Anchors and Oars, checking out the Good Old Boat parts!

Someday, we will hang out onboard in person, or meet up out on the water. There may even be a book in his future!

You can listen to Episode 189 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.

Please leave us a comment or send us thoughts to [email protected].
Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, available via 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 188 of The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP)! This time around we are chatting with new friends of ours from the Annapolis Boat Shows the past two Octobers, Chris and Kell, who have a YouTube Channel called NowHere, which documents their travels aboard Drifter, a 37ft NautiCat Monohull around the Sea of Cortez and west coast of Mexico.

We caught up with them at the Podcast booth set up by the Boat show this year and chatted all about how they got into cruising, buying a boat, and setting off on adventures on the West Coast of the US and Mexico. This was, of course, a day after all our adventures in and around Annapolis and the International Cruisers Awards and the now infamous after party.

Chris and Kell are great folks to hang out with and follow along with and I really enjoy watching their channel. We met up later that evening after the show and were able to introduce them to some of the Hances Point Crew, who have been following along with their adventures.

Having left Drifter on the hard in Mexico, they have bought a used RV and have been traveling the country, with videos just now coming out about this adventure on land. They are returning the boat in the summer, and will continue sailing, possibly making it into the Caribbean via the canal.

I particularly find their journey intriguing since Kell works a full time remote job as they cruise, and has to balance out working and traveling at the same time, as Chris keeps the boat and deals with most of the provisioning and planning, all while managing a YouTube Channel.

You can listen to Episode 188 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.

Please leave us a comment or send us thoughts to [email protected].
Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, available via 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 187 of The Shooting The Breeze Sailing Podcast (STBSP) where we have an awesomely fun conversation with Andrew Hesketh of The Ocean Cruisers Podcast and The Odyssey Sailing Festival while hanging out at the Podcasters Booth at the Annapolis Sailboat Show.

Andy is a high energy, ambitious sailor who lives aboard with his family, currently sailing around Greece, and hosts podcasts, regatta’s, does red carpet interviews for the International Cruisers Awards, and loves Dunkin Coffee! (We got him some this time around! )

We met him last year at the Annapolis Sailboat Show when we ducked into the Young Cruisers tent and he offered us a beer. We were able to catch him again this year, and were able to hang out with him throughout the show, and got the chance to chat for the podcast.

He’s been doing the podcast since the pandemic and started the Odyssey Sailing Festival last year and has run 2 events so far and a third is scheduled in the BVI in April. You can find out more at www.theoceancruisers.com.

You can listen to Episode 187 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.

Please leave us a comment or send us thoughts to [email protected].
Intro Music by yours truly and Greg Young, available via 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) brought to you by The Escape Pods Dot Com! This time around we catch up with Lian and Brioni from Sailing Red Seas YouTube Sailing Channel, winners of last years Best Emerging Sailing Channel at the International Cruisers Awards.

It was a super fun chat we had at the podcasting booth provided by the @annapolisboatshow. They are a high energy couple who sold everything just prior to the pandemic lock downs, leaving them stranded in a home with nothing in it, waiting to catch a plane to the Caribbean to see a boat that may not exist. Kind of a sketch situation, if you ask me. But that did not deter them, getting on a plane as soon as was possible and chasing after the dream of sailing towards the horizon.

Now, 4 years later, they have been exploring the remote islands of French Polynesia, with loose plans to continue where ever the winds take them. They recently have been upgrading the Highfield Dinghy they won as winners of the Best Emerging YouTube Sailing Channel at the International Cruisers awards last year, and have posted up some video of the YouTube Channel seminar held during the boat show.

You can listen to Episode 186 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) 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,