Cruising by boat is an activity that involves living for extended time on a vessel while traveling from place to place for pleasure. Cruising generally refers to trips of a few days or more, and can extend to round-the-world voyages.
Yachting is the use of recreational boats and ships called yachts for racing or cruising. Yachts are distinguished from working ships mainly by their leisure purpose. "Yacht" derives from the Dutch word jacht ("hunt"). With sailboats, the activity is called sailing, and with motorboats, it is called powerboating.
A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to yachting.
Jolie Brise is a gaff-rigged pilot cutter built and launched by the Albert Paumelle Yard in Le Havre in 1913 to a design by Alexandre Pâris. After a short career as a pilot boat, owing to steam replacing sail, she became a fishing boat, a racing yacht and a sail training vessel.
Yacht chartering is the practice of renting, or chartering, a sailboat or motor yacht and travelling to various coastal or island destinations, for business or vacation.
A pocket cruiser is a sailboat designed for recreational cruising and club racing, under 30 feet (9 m) in length.
Denys Arthur Rayner DSC & Bar, VRD, RNVR was a Royal Navy officer who fought throughout the Battle of the Atlantic. After intensive war service at sea, Rayner became a writer, a farmer, and a successful designer and builder of small sailing craft – his first being the Westcoaster; his most successful being the glass fibre gunter or Bermudian rigged twin keel Westerly 22 from which evolved similar "small ships" able to cross oceans while respecting the expectations, in terms of comfort, safety and cost, of a burgeoning family market keen to get to sea. Before his death in 1967, Rayner had founded, and via his pioneering GRP designs, secured the future expansion of Westerly Marine Construction Ltd – up until the late 1980s, one of Britain's most successful yacht builders.
Lieutenant Colonel Ewen Southby-Tailyour, is a British author, sailor, and retired Royal Marine. He served for 32 years in the Royal Marines and, after retiring, he concentrated on his sailing and writing careers and has written a number of books on military history and the Royal Marines.
Lin Pardey and Larry Pardey (1939-2020) are sailors and writers, known for their small boat sailing. They coined the phrase, "Go Small, Go Simple, but Go Now., and have been called the "Enablers" as their example encouraged many others to set sail despite limited incomes. The Pardeys sailed over 200,000 miles together, circumnavigating the world both east-about and west-about, and have published numerous books on sailing. The boats they sailed during these circumnavigations were engine-free.
The Cruising Club of America (CCA) is an international organization of cruisers whose objects are to promote cruising and racing by amateurs, to encourage the development of suitable types of cruising craft, to stimulate interest in seamanship, navigation and handling small vessels, and to keep on file all information which may be of assistance to members in cruising in any waters.
Andrew James "Bart" Simpson, was an English sailor who won a gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, as crew for skipper Iain Percy in the Star class representing Great Britain. Simpson died in the capsize of the catamaran he was crewing on 9 May 2013, while training for the America's Cup in San Francisco Bay.
The Cruising Association (CA) which was founded in 1908 is the largest British-based organisation which caters exclusively for cruising sailors. Membership is composed of sailors based in the UK and around the world who cruise inland, inshore and offshore by sail or power.
Eric Charles Hiscock was a British sailor and author of books on small boat sailing and ocean cruising. Together with his wife and crew Susan Oakes Hiscock, he authored numerous accounts of their short cruises and world circumnavigations, accomplished over several decades. His works also include several technical how-to books on sailing and ocean cruising and a film made on board Wanderer III entitled Beyond The West Horizon.
John Rousmaniere is an American writer and author of 30 historical. technical, and instructional books on sailing, yachting history, New York history, business history, and the histories of clubs, businesses, and other organizations. An authority on seamanship and boating safety, he has conducted tests of equipment and sailing skills, and led or participated in fact-finding inquiries into boating accidents. He has been presented with several awards for his writing and his contributions to boating safety and seamanship.
Miles Smeeton (1906-1988) and Beryl Smeeton (1905-1979) were an outstanding couple of travellers, pioneers, explorers, mountaineers, cruising sailors, recipients of numerous sailing awards, farmers, prolific authors, wildlife conservationists and founders of the Cochrane Ecological Institute, a Canadian non-profit charity responsible for successfully reintroducing the swift fox to Canada.
Roderick Stephens, Jr. was one of America's best known and respected sailors. In 1933 he became Associate Designer, later promoted to President, of Sparkman & Stephens naval architecture and yacht design firm, a company founded in 1929 by his brother Olin Stephens and Drake Sparkman.
Miles Clark was a sailor, journalist and writer from Northern Ireland. A few months before he died, Clark circumnavigated Europe through several of Russia's waterways which led him to winning the Cruising World Medal for Outstanding Seamanship.
The Blue Water Medal is an honor awarded annually by the Cruising Club of America for a remarkable sailing feat. The first award was issued in 1923.
A Bristol Channel pilot cutter is a type of sailing boat used until the early part of the 20th century to deliver and collect pilots to and from merchant vessels using ports in the Bristol Channel. Each pilot worked individually, in competition with other pilots. Especially after 1861, the level of competition required larger and faster cutters, as pilots went "seeking" at much greater distances. The resulting boats were known for their ability to sail in the most extreme weather, for speed and sea-kindliness. They were designed for short handed sailing, often manned only by a man and an apprentice, with one or sometimes two pilots on board.
Jeanne Socrates is a British yachtswoman. She is from Lymington. She holds the record as the oldest female to have circumnavigated the world single-handed, and she is the only woman to have circumnavigated solo nonstop from North America. She was awarded the Cruising Club of America's Blue Water Medal and the Royal Cruising Club Medal for Seamanship in 2013.
