In January 2024, Dr. Deborah Fish became the first woman ever to be elected commodore of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. For 99 years, RORC, as it's better known, has been regarded as a premier organization for offshore racing globally, as well as a leading authority for safety at sea. Its most famous event – the Fastnet Race – Deb has completed in impressive 11 times. Despite having started sailing only in her 30s, Deb has an incredible sailing resume and now heads up one of the most influential organizations in offshore sailing worldwide. Not only is she promoting, but also living the truth – that offshore sailing is a sport for anyone, provided they are up for the challenge.

Kiera and Tripp are the couple behind Apparent Winds, a nonprofit they run aboard their sailing research vessel Resilience. As they sail around the world, they collect and share stories of environmental and cultural preservation while conducting marine research. Their journey started in Washington State in 2022, and led them here to Maine via Alaska, Mexico, Panama, and South Carolina. On their diverse expeditions, they might offer a research platform for scientists, an educational platform for students, and now an immersive charter experience for clients. They interview local people in the places they visit and tell stories focused on environment and culture. Emma got to sit down with them in person while they are in town before heading south this fall.

Porter Fox is a writer, lifelong sailor and author of the new book Category Five: Superstorms & the Warming Oceans that Feed Them. I was referred to Porter by our mutual friend John Kretschmer, who is a major character in the book. Porter is also the son of Able Marine founder and grew up in Maine amongst sailboats and boatyards. Porter and I had a long and winding conversation about sailing, weather, science and family. His new book is out now and widely available - I highly recommend it.

Jon Amtrup is an avid environmentalist, and one of the world's top high latitude skippers. He was an obvious choice for GREENPEACE for their arctic research expedition this summer, aboard their recently acquired sailboat WITNESS. She used to be named “Pelagic Australis” and was designed and built by Skip Novak. She is a unique expedition sailboat, as well adapted to the high Arctic as Jon himself.

Vendee Globe sailor Pip Hare returns to the show for a 3rd time only one month before the start of her second Vendee Globe. In 2020, Pip became only the 8th woman to ever complete the Vendee Globe, and on a shoestring, crowdfunded budget to boot. In the years since, Pip has parlayed that hard work and early success into a second campaign aboard a new, faster and foiling IMOCA 60. I caught up with Pip to talk about everything from her fitness routine to making an IMOCA 60 fly in this super fun and meandering episode.Emma talked to Liz while she was home in Australia, simultaneously recovering and preparing for the next challenge: rowing the World's Toughest Row Pacific. Liz tells stories from her solo row across the Atlantic, reflects on her path into sailing and now rowing, and shares plans for the double-handed Pacific row.

Blue & Brady of Cruisers Academy return to the podcast to tell some sea stories! This episode is an adaptation of a video that Mia & I filmed with them a few weeks ago, us on FALKEN, them at their shore base in Tahoe, as we started prepping for our Boat Show workshop coming up in Annapolis. We talk about some of the gnarliest things to happen to us at sea and on boats and had a lot of good laughs to boot.