All At Sea / OceanMedia Podcast

In part one of the podcast we take a look at powerboating and poker runs, something that is becoming more and more popular in the Caribbean, and we talk about sextants. In part two of the show we delve into the archives and bring you an interview with author and serial circumnavigator Captain Fatty Goodlander. I recorded this for my radio show Yachtblast in 2011. Fatty was in Turkey and preparing to leave to sail across the Med and in this interview he and his wife Carolyn were still sailing aboard their Hughes 36 Wild Card.

In this podcast we explore ways to secure your boat ahead of a tropical storm or *gulp* HURRICANE. We also take a look at ciguatera poisoning in fish and humans, a subject that proved highly controversial when we ran an article about it online and in All At Sea Caribbean magazine.

This month I take you aboard the 1928 50ft, 22-ton Alden Schooner Charm III as we race in the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta. You’ll hear interviews with the crew and meet the film maker who recorded the event for the sponsor Panerai. After the drama of having the engine blow up on the day we were due to leave Anguilla for Antigua and having found and installed a rebuilt engine in St. Maarten, three of us sailed Charm to the regatta where we picked up our crew, most of them strangers. It made the regatta a whole lot of fun.

In this month’s podcast we brings you interviews with winning skippers, owners and crew as they leave the stage having picked up their trophies at the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, the largest regatta in the Caribbean. Interviewees include Lloyd Thornburg, owner and co-skipper of the record breaking and record setting 70-foot trimaran Phaedoᶾ; Gerd-Jan Poortman of the Volvo 65 Team Brunel; America’s Cup sailor Peter Holmberg from Highland Fling; St. Maarten Melges 24 champion Frits Bus; Ross Appleby of Scarlet Oyster fame, the boat that almost sunk; the owner of the winning Gunboat, Elvis; and Tadzio Bervoets, staunch environmentalist and crew on the very successful local First 45F5 L’Esperance.

This month we talk to Garth Steyn. Steyn is the driving force behind Kidz at Sea, a program designed to help and support teenage students from St. Maarten’s Milton Peters college, a local school, successfully build a 26ft Dudley Dix design race boat which they will campaign in regional regattas. In our second interview we talk to regatta guru and Heineken Regatta race Director Paul Miller about the growing Melges 24 class of race boats.

Join me down below as we tour the Volvo 65, Team Brunel, the boat that finished second in the 2014/15 Volvo Ocean Race. You have got to be tough to race one of these boats. Have you got what it takes?

In the January edition of the OceanMedia/All At Sea podcast we discuss the pirate attacks on two cruising yachts between Trinidad and Grenada, which is certain to rekindle the 'guns on board' debate.

In this podcast we talk to Suzanne Chappelle about a new sailing rally that goes from Curaçao to Aruba, Colombia, San Blas, Panama, Belize, and beyond. I join the crew of a tugboat as it hauls a massive barge through a narrow bridge into St. Maarten's Simpson Bay Lagoon. The short voyage doesn't go quite as planned and is a study in 'Keep Calm and Carry On …'

This month we go sailing on a famous West Indian Workboat and I take the helm. Later, we ask the boat's First Mate, Deborah Vos, about running a day charter boat in Anguilla and what makes their charters so special. We talk to the organizer of a new 'destination' yacht race being organized in St. Maarten. The Budget Marine Challenge will start in Simpson Bay and instead of the usual windward start, all the boats will line up at anchor with the crew down below and just one person on deck. When the gun goes off, the anchorman will start hauling, the crew will hurry on deck and set the sails and the race is on. The race finishes off the marina in lovely Anse Marcel, French St. Martin, where the boats enjoy free overnight dockage and the crews have a good lime. On the next day, the do it all in reverse, finishing back in Simpson Bay.

This month we visit the office of the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta and talk to the new race director. The next Heineken Regatta will be 36th and is the largest sailing event in the Caribbean. The director makes an exciting announcement about two new classes as the regatta continues to grow and strives to keep ahead of other regattas in the region. From the archives we talk to Anthony Smith, the 86-year-old who in 2011 crossed the Atlantic on the 40-foot raft An-Tiki. The raft was built of water pipes, had one square sail and a corrugated pig pen for a cabin. Elsewhere on the podcast you can hear what's on offer in this months magazine, where you can find a copy and how to download the entire magazine for free.

On the latest podcast we talk to a sport fishing specialist about what equipment you need to buy if you want to catch dinner by towing a hand-line behind your boat or move into the big league and fish for blue marlin. Tugboats have fascinated me since I played with the clockwork variety in my bath as a kid, so when I was given the chance to tour a vintage tugboat, I grabbed my microphone and jumped on board. As you will hear, the story doesn't have a happy ending.

In this month's podcast we talk to two young people who, along with several friends they grew up with on St. Maarten, were given a boat and told to sail it around the world. Which they did! The two year voyage took them across the Pacific, Indian Ocean and South Atlantic. I caught up with them on their return to St. Maarten, where they were given a hero's welcome. Safety at sea is this month's editorial and it looks at snap decisions that go right, and go wrong. In the final part of the podcast, I take you (gasping) up the mast of a square rigger.

Author Fatty Goodlander and his wife Carolyn are on their third circumnavigation of the world aboard their sailboat. Fatty joins the editor of All At Sea Magazine in the studio of Island 92, St. Maarten. Tres Hombres is the world’s only sailing freighter. We take you on board the brigantine. Part 1: Meet the ship and crew.