About:

My grounding after seven years at sea. Seven years at the whim of the elements, calling a sailboat home. And with this return to terra firma, I bring stories – of doldrums and squalls, of far-flung atolls and the delicious isolation of ocean crossings.

In 2015 I hopped on a boat in my native Northern California and headed West by South. I was in search of an adventurous mode of travel for a time after college, and didn’t expect ocean cruising to so quickly become my identity and lifestyle for the entirety of my twenties.

During my passage from Mexico to the Marquesas aboard a thirty-foot steel gaff-rigged ketch, I found myself with time, and nowhere to be. I had 48 days of a very distinct, isolated reality; of sea and sky, sunup and sundown. I wrote, read, cooked, and stared at the horizon. I sewed. An old scrap of tanbark sailcloth became my hand-stitched take on a classic sailor’s ditty bag, using marlinespike and traditional sailmaking techniques. This little bag would eventually become the catalyst for Landfall Leatherworks.

Landfall Leatherworks is my landing; the tangible result of my desire to make sense of, and make something of, my years at sea. And what better place to start, than right here in Sausalito’s historic working waterfront.

The artwork featured on this site is all original, taken from the pages of my sailing journals.

— Emma Casey