On the Wind Sailing

The rumors are true - 59º North has bought the Schooner Woodwind business in Annapolis! Andy, Mia, founder Jen Kaye & new GM Ryan Ellison share some behind-the-scenes at the top of today's show. Come help celebrate with us at Annapolis Sailboat Show, and meet today's podcast guest Mara, who will be at the show and hanging around with 59º North in tent O-8!

Mara Løvenskiold is a Norwegian athlete-turned-sailor, getting ready to star...

Sidse Johannsen is a Danish solo sailor with major plans. When Andy spoke to her in June, she was in final preparations to sail her C&C 40 from Denmark to Greenland, where she'd worked as a teacher some years ago and always longed to return to. She talks about the trials and stresses of buying and outfitting a new boat for northern sailing, what life was like teaching in Greenland and how she hopes to inspire other women sailors li...

Cole Brauer made history in 2024 as the first American woman to race solo, non-stop around the world. She crossed the line wearing a hat that read Wild Feminist — a bold and powerful statement from a sailor who’d once been told she was too short for the Southern Ocean. Clearly, she proved them wrong — and along the way, captured the hearts and minds of over 450,000 fans by sharing raw, vulnerable glimpses into her life alone at sea...

Daniel Alfredsson is a commercial diver living in Bergen, Norway. He is preparing himself and his boat to sail around the world solo, unassisted, non-stop with an old boat and retro technology as a participant in Don Macintryres 2026 Golden Globe Race. I had the pleasure of meeting Daniel and to record this conversation aboard the boat that will take him, hopefully, all around the world.

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Dan & Kika of Sailing Uma return to the podcast to talk to Andy this time, and boy do they go deep! What started as a chance to catch up on the latest refit progress on Uma, turned into a winding tale of botched visas, border agents, airport jail cells, deportations, almost buying a new boat - in Canada! - and finally the ups and downs of rebuilding Uma, their home. Dan & Kika have never told this story before on any platform, so g...

August Sandberg has returned from paternal leave and vacation, and together with Andy Schell they catch up and talk about anchoring in the archipelago of Sweden and Norway – something which is done quite differently amongst sailors in this part of the world. Back in summertime a video Andy posted on Instagram went viral when he showed how he had removed the bow anchor from SPICA completely. This sparked many discussions in the comm...

Founders of SeaPeople, Logan and Caroline Rowell take us through the motivation behind creating an all-encompassing app for cruiser connectivity. It's basically a "Welcome to 2025" to the next generation of cruisers. Much of offshore communications are quite frankly, decades behind tech. SeaPeople is embracing techs ability to create community in the most remote corners of the earth. In this engaging conversation, we discuss the fi...

AUDIO ISSUE FIXED :) Max Campbell returns to the podcast, talking to Andy from New Zealand where he's been in refit-mode on his Swan 37 ELIXIR. Since Max was last on the show in 2019, following his solo Atlantic Circle, he's rebuilt and sailed the ELIXIR halfway around the world, taking friends and strangers across oceans as part of his "Untide" project. Max is truly living the dream, funding his cruising through clever partnership...

Mark Sinclair returns to the podcast, live from FALKEN's cockpit in Nuku Hiva! Andy caught up with Mark after FALKEN & COCONUT have been shadowing each other across the Pacific - they even shared a raft-up through the Panama Canal! Mark is midway through his fourth circumnavigation attempt since the first GGR in 2018, this time following the Mini Globe Race fleet. We covered a lot of ground in this one, from Mark's career and philo...

Victoria Low is the newly appointed CEO of The Magenta Project. I first met Vicky back in 2021, after being told she was the person to talk to if you’re planning any serious international sailing campaign — and it’s easy to see why. With over three decades in sailing public relations and communications, including five Volvo Ocean Race campaigns, she really understands how this sport tells its story. What is so impressive about Vick...

Dan Turner is a 40-something Australian with extremely high ambitions for himself. When he was just a teenager, he wrote a list of bucket-list items that he wanted to accomplish during his life — things like ultra-running and becoming a martial arts champion. In a quite short time, Dan completed every last one of them — except sailing around the world. We met in Nuku Hiva and I talked to Dan onboard FALKEN about his attempt to circ...

Women and the Wind are three exceptional and multi-faceted women who embody courage, creativity, and pose a rare example of primal femininity at sea. Kiana, Laerke and Alizé, cross the Atlantic using all traditional sailing methods aboard "Mara Noka" a 50-year-old plywood catamaran with nylon sheathing and tar coating. The girls grinded away on a year-long refit in Florida, before heading out for their mission to follow, document, ...

Ben Shaw returns to the podcast, this time in-person and onboard DOVKA, his family's Hallberg Rassy. Ben is the host of the Out the Gate sailing podcast and a former crew of 59º North. Ben and his wife Lauren sailed with us on ICEBEAR in 2019 to prepare for their own cruising adventures, and we met up quite spontaneously in Hiva Oa, after both crossing the Pacific to the Marquesas. We talked about Ben and his family's cruising plan...

Will and Sarah Curry are the perfect example of a young family who has managed to create and sustain a life between land and sea, managing and operating "Hydrovane" from their catamaran with 2 littles, and from their home in Vancouver. First and foremost we discuss the ins and outs of the fantastic and hardy product itself — but on a more personal level they share a bit about finding their limits aboard, adjustments they had to mak...

Richard Clarke was raised on Toronto Island and first sailed at 4 years old. An impressive performance with Canadian Youth sailing led him to compete in the Finn Class in four consecutive Olympic Games with Team Canada. This opened the door to a wildly successful professional sailing career. Richard was part of a winning Volvo Round the World crew, has broken the 24-hour sailing distance record four times, holds both the Transatlan...

Bob and his wife Jody spent most of their life as live-aboards and at sea. Their marital dynamic and life long friendship is infectious. Bob dives into his younger years as a Hells Angel, his entrepreneurial mindset, and how sailing literally saved his life. Bob has owned and operated more businesses than he can barely count, and has written and self-published eleven books on the side. We discuss some of the darker times in Bob's l...

Longtime friend of the pod Jessie Zevalkink returns to the show ahead of her debut as host of ON THE WIND! We first met Jessie back in 2017 at the Annapolis Sailboat Show, interviewing her after she'd completed the Great Loop with her friend Katie. As it happens in the sailing community, we kept running into her, and starting next week she'll be co-hosting the show! Andy caught up with Jessie to talk about life after cruising, sing...

Ben Doerr, longtime friend of the pod and founder/skipper at Sail Bainbridge in Seattle, returns to the show to spin some yarns with Andy. This episode is really a catch-up between Ben & Andy, who haven't spoken in a while, and is a wide-ranging episode on everything from sailing & skiing in Alaska to being away from home when you've got a young family. We also briefly touched on Ben's new Sail2Run project in the San Juan Islands. ...

Louay Habib is a true sailing insider. Everyone who participates regularly in any of the major offshore races around the world will know Louay. In fact, if you yourself follow sailing – say races like the Fastnet, the Ocean Race - you probably know Louay too – well his writing at least. Currently he is the communications manager at the Royal Ocean Racing Club. But for two decades, Louay has reported on sailing. He is a master in co...