The Backstory

In the summer of 2006, I was sitting around at home feeling a bit bored. I had no access to a boat and had little prospect of sailing in the near future. I was also very interested in the then emerging field of social media. This was the early days of blogging, and Facebook was a 2-year-old.

I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and start a blog on sailing. This could be a vicarious way to fill the gap if I could not sail. And along the way, I could learn about social media. 

Messing About in Sailboats

I called the blog Messing About in Sailboats, a play on the famous quote by Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows. I created my first blog on the Typepad platform. Back then, there were three leading platforms vying for dominance and I liked Typepad's ease use.

Initially, the site had very little traction. After a couple of months I was about to give up, but thanks to the encouragement of other sailing bloggers, I resolved to stick at it. Then a few posts struck a chord, and traffic started to build. I wrote one post about how sailing sites sucked other than blogs (back then, it was true), and things took off.

For a while, if you googled "sailing websites," this post on Messing About in Sailboats was the top search result. Traffic blew up after that. I had unwittingly discovered how Search Engine Optimization worked. (I wrote about this on my business blog).

I was committed. I posted 3-4 times per week, including sailing stories, songs about sailing, stuff I liked from other blogs, news I thought was worth sharing, and photos sailing photographers sent me.

The online sailing community was growing, and we had several meetups.

One area that Messing About became known for was sailing music. I had asked the online sailing community for their favorite sailing songs. Thanks to the kindness of a major sailing site, word got out about this, and I received over 300 submissions. I ranked them based on the frequency and created a top sailing music chart and many other related posts.

I loved running Messing About, but in 2014, work started to get in the way. I had started a software company (ironically, with someone I met through the blog). I couldn’t afford the time, so I put the blog on hold. Frankly, I needed a break too as I was getting a bit stale.

Recently, a couple of friends asked why I didn’t re-start the blog. So, I decided I would come back to it. I was missing it and started writing again. So I have releaunhed Messing About and moved it from Typepad to WordPress. I plan to stick to it.

My Sailing Story 

With all this blather about blogging, you may be wondering if I have actually do any sailing. The answer is very strongly, yes.

My wife, Alice, and I learned to sail in 1989, soon after getting married. We wanted a thing we could do together and neither of us liked golf. We were taught by a very amiable pastor come sailing instructor on his lovely yacht in Galveston Bay, TX. We lived in Houston at that time.

Initially, we owned and sailed Alad, a lovely Cape Dory Typhoon. She was like a bath toy but with pretty lines. We also had an old Seagull outboard that ran well most of the time. We day-sailed her most weekends, with friends and even with our two Westie terriers.

After a few years, we made a step up and took a course on live-aboard cruising with Offshore Sailing. For the next fifteen years or so, we chartered all over the Caribbean, Mediterranean, English South Coast, the Chesapeake Bay, and other nice spots. We had a blast, and our sailing skills improved too. However, sailing a few weeks per year was unsatisfactory. It was time to take it up another notch.

In 2007, my wife and I joined Raritan Yacht Club. This got us back on the water. It’s a great club with an active racing program and many very good sailors. We made many friends, raced on their boats, and became active members. 

One Wednesday evening, after a mid-week race, I was riding back in the launch when a crewmate asked me, “Hey do you want to buy a boat?” At first, I laughed and said no, but after a few beers and a lot of persuasion, I agreed to take a look. By the weekend and $5,000 later we were owners again. 

She was a 25-year-old 26’ S2 racer sailer. She wasn’t much to look at but sailed well, and we called her Messing About. We even had T-shirts made: “It’s a boat, it’s a blog, it’s a way of life”. 

We had fun sailing her in Raritan Bay. It got us back into ownership and I learned a lot about boat maintenance. We sailed her every weekend from May through September, but we felt limited after a while. We were hankering for something a little bigger that we could feel confident in for more adventurous sailing.

In 2010, we decided it was time to take the plunge and buy a bigger boat. We bought Cadence, a 1988 Sabre 38 Mk II. She was well-maintained, and while she was old, she had been sailed in fresh water for half her life. The previous owner had taken great care of her and not sailed her hard. She was also a very beautiful boat. Those Maine boat-builders know what they are doing. 

For a couple of years, we sailed her in Raritan Bay. Once per Summer, we cruised her East, eventually getting to Newport. This is my spiritual home, and I was moved to tears when I sailed Cadence, up East Passage into Newport Harbor. 

In 2013, we moved Cadence to Newport RI. I was then a member of New York Yacht Club. NYYC has a beautiful base in Newport and we were able to get a mooring in Brenton Cove close to Harbor Court, the NYYC Newport clubhouse and away from a lot of the ruckus in the main part of the harbor. It was perfect!

For seven years, we had a blast on Cadence, sailing her all over Southern New England every weekend, every Summer, rain or shine. I calculated that we sailed her 5,000 miles, all told. As the blog was on pause, I never wrote about this, but I will do in the future.

In 2019, we moved from New Jersey to Austin, TX, to be closer to our son and also for a change of life. Sadly, we decided that having a boat in New England was not going to be practical. So we parted ways with Cadence. Despite my best efforts and many big checks, she needed a considerable upgrade to be sellable. We devised a better alternative and donated her to the Mass Maritime Academy. They were wonderful to deal with, and we felt that she was going to a good home. 

After moving South, We joined Austin Yacht Club. A great club on Lake Travis. It’s a club, like Raritan Yacht Club, run by the members for the members. There is a real passion for small boat racing. We put our membership on hold when COVID blew up and will probably get back to it soon.

Most recently, I got to scratch a bit of an itch. Despite all my sailing, I had never sailed seriously offshore. I just got back from helping a friend sail his yacht back from Bermuda to Newport. This was quite an adventure. You can read about that here.

Next up is Croatia in September. We have chartered a 42’ sloop for a week of island hopping.  Blog posts to be expected!