After a bit of early morning maneuvering to thread our way past a scatter of low islands, Hazel is finally under sail and heading southeast toward Panama. The moment the engine went silent, everything changed. Suddenly it was just the splash of water, the creak and groan of Hazel’s rig under load, the wind, and the occasional snap of a sail. That soundscape is a sailor’s dream. And then dolphins. A whole pod of them, pacing us, weaving through our wake, playing as if they had

At last, we slipped the lines, left NOLA behind, and pointed Hazel toward the Gulf of America. This time it was the real departure. The day began with an ominous mood. Winds were blowing at twenty‑five knots, the swells were large, and the wave chop was relentless. Sailing was impossible because the wind was coming straight at Hazel’s nose, which happened to be the exact direction we needed to go. In the shallow waters of the Mississippi Delta, there is no room to tack back a

It is amazing how one tiny bottleneck can bring an entire operation to a standstill. That is the essence of the Theory of Constraints, and Hazel delivered a textbook demonstration. As the photos show, a single 92 dollar part brought her to a dead stop on the water. The culprit was a Vetus ASD anti siphon. In simple terms, this little device allows seawater to mix with the exhaust to cool the Yanmar diesel engine through the heat exchanger. It is a one way flow system designed