Earl R. Hinz was a career aeronautical engineer and inveterate Pacific Ocean sailor with more than 40,000 miles logged. In 1975 he retired to devote his time to sailing and writing about boats and boating. He became technical editor of Sea magazine, pioneering instrumentation and techniques for evaluating the performance of power and sailboats. He personally conducted quantitative sea trials on 104 recreational boats.

In 1979, he won the prestigious Boating Writer's International Award for a test program he conducted on boating equipment. In 1980, he started a monthly column on Pacific cruising for Sea. This column later became a bimonthly feature of Cruising World and ran for eleven years. His extensive freelance writing included columns in Multihulls and Latitude and Attitudes magazines with additional contributions to Pacific, Ocean Navigator, Passagemaker, and Seaworthy.

In 2001 Hinz was awarded the Cruising World magazine medal “For Outstanding Contributions to Voyaging and Seamanship.” He has authored several books on boating, including The Complete Book of Anchoring and Mooring; Revised Second Edition.