Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i Yachting Monthly

It might sound funny but for all the hundreds of thousands of miles sailed prior to our current trip I hadn’t really anchored. Cruisers often laugh at my earnest quizzing but I’ve never been shy about putting my hand up and asking questions, as that’s how you learn. I love anchoring because it maintains the sense of independence that a free spirit craves. It keeps you away from bugs, and being head to the wind promotes the flow of a cool breeze through the boat. The shower becomes a refreshing swim and, of course, it saves a fortune. Since there are innumerable weather conditions and sea beds, there is no one way to anchor. This calls for a menu of options and the more I cruise, the bigger my menu…

THE TEST VERDICT The rulebook for entry-level boats says they should be built to a price, and well, a little bit basic. With the 30.1 Beneteau have ignored the rulebook. Again and again she surprised me with the attention to the details that have gone into her. She is just what a starter boat should be, and she has lots of features that make life onboard easy and more pleasing – like the neat cubby holes, USB chargers where you need them and locker lights. By the end of the test, I’ll admit, I was little bit smitten by her, she’s a cute, fun boat that was great fun to sail but she also has a little cheeky streak, a glint in her eye, that says there’s more to her…

A stitch in time Sooner or later, most cruising sails will display signs of chafe damage. This often begins with the stitching – possibly just a few threads worn through on one side of the sail. Many major tears could be avoided by simply repairing those stitches before their seams become seriously weakened and open up. This is an easy process, requiring no particular skill, and is probably less trouble than carrying the sail to a sail maker. The essential equipment consists of sail needles, thread and a leather palm for pushing the needles while protecting the hand. If the threads are worn where exposed, but with some traces left through the sail, the layers of canvas will still be held together and the needle can be pushed through the…

Calamity strikes and a lee shore looms Q Luke is skipper of Windfall, a 32ft fin keel Westerly Fulmar. He is out for a weekend cruise from his home port of Lymington with the intention of going to Poole. Luke has been sailing most of his life and although he has not taken any courses he’s experienced and practical. His three crew are keen but almost novices. The forecast on Saturday when they set off is WSW Force 5-6, occasionally gusting Force 7. It’s marginal for Poole but as they set off with the tide, the wind is no more than 20 knots. Luke reckons with three reefs in the main and a storm jib it should be okay, especially as they will gradually sail into the lee across Poole…

1 SOLENT TO PORTLAND AND WEYMOUTH Solent crews can enjoy a two- or three-day mini-break to Portland and Weymouth. Carrying a full fair tide west from the Needles, it’s an easy day sail to Portland Marina, a sociable base with a pleasant open outlook. Their ‘Boat that Rocks’ brasserie is handy on the quay. Nearby Weymouth is a nostalgic stop, with The Cove visitor pontoons in the heart of this colourful seaside town. Between Anvil Point and Weymouth Bay, the coast feels like a complete change from the Solent. Chapman’s Pool and Lulworth Cove are interesting anchorages on the way. 2 DOWN TO THE WEST COUNTRY South Devon and Cornwall are idyllic for cruising, their timeless rivers and picturesque harbours discreetly served by well-placed marinas. The granite cliffs have a…

1 UNDERSTAND CONCUSSION Although the symptoms of concussion are usually quick to come on, a nasty bump on the head followed by any continued discomfort should be investigated fully by a doctor at the earliest possible opportunity. 2 GET CHECKED OUT Even though my headache had slowly disappeared over the course to the eight days it took to get from incident to clinic appointment, don’t assume just because you feel better now that you necessarily are better. 3 SAFETY BELOW DECKS It is easy to be complacent when it comes to safety down below, with sailors often minded to focus first on any potential hazards above decks. One immediate job I’ve identified is to fit a short, snap hooked tether bolted through into the chart table locker. 4 CHANGING PLANS…

The sun glinted off the snow-topped mountains as we navigated the waterways of the Fiordland, a large recreational reserve set into the Coast Mountains. Just as the name suggests, the mountains plunge directly into seemingly bottomless fjords. With the spring melt, waterfalls cascade down the sheer cliffs. We gingerly took our Nonsuch 324, Timaru Nui, within two metres of the rock wall, although there was more than 91m beneath her keel. This allowed her to have her first natural ‘boat wash’, a trip highlight. Living in the Pacific Northwest provides us with numerous destinations. Vancouver Island is the 43rd largest island in the world, measuring 286 miles long by 62 miles wide. It is in the north-east portion of the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of mainland British Columbia,…

UK search and rescue drone trial under way The use of drones to help in search and rescue operations around the UK is being trialled. The year-long study is taking place off the coast of Essex and will involve the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), the RNLI and Essex Police’s Drone Unit. The MCA has already stressed that drones will not replace coastguard helicopters, rescue teams, the RNLI or independent lifeboats. But, it said it was ‘entirely possible that they [drones] could be an additional tool to use in search and rescue and enhance our existing capabilities.’ At the end of the pilot scheme, the impact of the drones on coastal search and rescue activities will be assessed to find out if unmanned aerial vehicles, known as UAVs, have a…

Invariably at tide time I have watched a small tan-sailed boat sail around the Thames Estuary’s first leg in from the North Sea, Sea Reach. For many years I wondered who this intrepid sailor was as the little boat could be seen even on days in mid-winter when most craft were laid up. Then, one day, I watched her sail close in to the wharves of Old Leigh, the Domesday Book fishing village which is my home. Through the binoculars I read her name, Whimbrel, and later I got to know her owner, Nick Ardley, who I realised I knew from the pages of YM, where he often writes about his ditch-crawling adventures with his wife Christobel. Then, after a long period, I realised the boat was missing. No more…

VYV COX Vyv Cox has sailed for more than 50 years, initially racing dinghies but now cruising his Sadler 34 in the Mediterranean several months of the year. BRIAN BLACK Brian Black is something of an Arctic expert and has survived nine Arctic seasons. He cruises from Northern Ireland and often finds himself getting out of tricky situations at sea. JAMES STEVENS James Stevens is a well regarded sailor and cruiser and is author of the Yachtmaster Handbook. James spent 10 of his 23 years at the RYA as chief examiner KEN ENDEAN Ken Endean is a retired civil engineer and pilotage enthusiast. He regularly enjoys cruises onboard his twin-keeled Sabre 27 and has many miles under his keel.…

There’s something very comforting about seeing your GPS position overlaid on top of a chart on your smart phone, tablet or chart plotter, but this is often a simplified picture of our surroundings. There’s more to navigation than just knowing your position; it’s as much about understanding the environment you’re in and having a good overview of an area so that you can quickly respond to changes of conditions and unexpected occurrences. Digital navigation, with its small screens and constant zooming in and out, requires us to have a better command of our situational awareness, not less. It’s simply impossible for a 9-inch screen on a chart plotter to show the whole of the English Channel to the same level of detail as the equivalent paper chart. One day perhaps…

How do you measure sailing experience? For most of us it will be harbours visited and miles logged. But there’s more to it than just numbers; certain stretches of water pose unique challenges and their reputations hold a strange power in the minds of all who set sail. Completing one of these passages is an initiation, a rite of passage, that engenders the respect of others and a new self-confidence. With a nod to the 1980s YM book, Classic Passages, the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation and Imray have collated some of the milestone passages through and around British waters that should be on every cruising sailor’s to-do list. So how many have you done? This article is from the series Rites of Passage, commissioned by Yachting Monthly, the Royal…

Visiting yachts need a cruising permit, known as an autógrafos, to explore the islands. It lasts up to 60 days. Unless you want to pay for a guide, visitors are restricted to anchoring in just one main harbour on each island. All immigration procedures are carried out using an agent. You can apply for an autógrafos several months in advance. A fumigation certificate from your last port, a clean hull, and no fresh meat, cheese, oranges or fruit with berries onboard is also required before entry is granted. It is also mandatory to have a recycling programme aboard, with three well-labelled bins for organic waste, recyclables and any non-recyclables. Before setting foot on land, customs officials will board your yacht and a diver will inspect the hull. Exit papers, known…

THE SHADOW IN THE SANDS First published by Headline in 1998. Currently available via Kindle, £4.64 Her bow plunged into the deeps with a booming like the hammers of Hell Gloria was thundering under bare poles into a night no less black than when I had last seen it. The wind felt softer, which is always the way when that is blowing you along. There was a dirty square sea running, which is to say the waves were six foot high and six foot wide and not a lot more than that apart. And needless to say Gloria, that had her mast just about in the middle of her sail plan was not lying easy, head to wind or tail to wind. She was lying as close as she could…

ACTION 1-9 A 1,000-lumen dedicated search light, the beam is focused to just 9° wide, giving a claimed range of 315 metres. Its sturdy aluminium body measures just 12cm x 5cm (5in x 1.3/4in) and weighs 242g. It can run at full power for four hours or up to 16 hours at 250 lumens. It’s waterproof to IPX8 at 100m. MOB CARBON This personal torch also has 1,000 lumen max output, but a more diffuse beam. Light enough to float, submersion triggers an automatic strobe (20 hours). It measures 13cm x 4cm (5in x 1.25in) and weighs 95g. On full power, battery life is 1.5 hours, and 12 hours on low power. It is IPX8 waterproof to five metres. RAW XS This tiny torch weighs just 45g and measures 7cm…

12V COOLER These cooler boxes offer a reasonable level of refrigeration. This Dometic Tropicool TCX21 Cooler claims to hold contents at 30º below ambient temperature. Typically safe working temperature for refrigeration is between 0-8ºC so if your galley temperature is likely to get near to or exceed 35º, you’ll need to consider a fridge. Pre-freezing food going into the cooler will help things stay colder longer. www.force4.co.uk PACKET FOOD Freeze-dried food has gained something of a reputation as an unpleasant option but modern offerings can actually be quite good. Firepot offer decent interpretations of a wide variety of familiar meals, minus any chemical additives. Not a cheap option in the long run but useful when fresh food stocks are looking a bit thin on the ground. firepotfood.com THERMAL COOKER A…

New production yachts often come with systems that have been designed more for convenience while moored than with a sensible engineering solution in mind, resulting in significant loads placed on the boom, kicker, boom-end fittings, mainsheet tackle and crew. Making a few tweaks to how your mainsheet system is set up makes handling easier for you and prevents breakages and wear to your fittings. Keeping complex sail control mechanisms away from vulnerable areas of the boat is paramount, which is why cruising boatbuilders often position the mainsheet up on the coachroof ahead of the main hatch garage. Though this effectively keeps it ‘out of the way’, it’s often not ideal from an engineering point of view in that it invariably means the mainsheet is attached halfway along the boom, when…

1 CONSIDER AN UPGRADE Make sure your traveller is able to move easily while under load, and if possible can be adjusted from the helm. Consider upgrading your mainsheet track. Moving this to the cockpit will increase sail control and you can fit a removable track. At the same time, adding a purchase to adjust the traveller under load will also make sail adjustment much easier. 2 KEEP A CLEAN SHEET Ensure your mainsheet system is free of twists, is correctly reeved and has the right rope and sheave sizes. Any unwanted friction in the system results in more effort for the crew, so make sure your mainsheet is reeved through the blocks correctly. You can also lock the top set of blocks so they can’t swivel, which will help…

Essential kit for ocean passages Reading your article on the ARC (‘Lessons from the ARC’, YM, March 2019) made me think of some more essential kit for ocean sailing. I have made two return sails across the Atlantic and I would certainly recommend taking a wetsuit or two, a couple of hacksaws and a good mast ladder. On one voyage, I spent a good two hours cutting a piece of fishing net from the propeller mid ocean; only a hacksaw made any impression on the net and it destroyed the rope cutter. Replacing a halyard shackle with a sea running, causing you to smash against the mast requires a very safe way of going up, hence a good mast ladder is essential. I am surprised at boats being damaged by…

1 COAST TYPE Think about where you are planning on cruising and what sort of coastline you are likely to be sailing near. It's good to be mindful of the likely challenges you might face before you get there. Is finding a spot to anchor going to be difficult? Will it be helpful to brush up on your eyeball navigation skills? 2 SURROUNDINGS Always look at the coastline and consider what that means for the seabed beneath. Usually a steep-sided coastline will mean deep water even up close. A long shallow slope towards the sea will mean the same underwater. Check if this working hypothesis is backed up by your charts. 3 CONSIDER POSSIBLE CHANGES Charts are only as good as the information upon which they are based. If you…

The first summer cruise is one of the great treats of boat ownership. Gloomy winter is behind us, the days are long and light, and you can look forward to escaping aboard your comfortable little ship to savour the finest form of independent travel ever invented. Whether you are planning a weekend away or a more ambitious three-week trip, the sense of anticipation starts lifting you out of the humdrum world of work. But your boat has to be ready to sail, and you must be prepared too, brushing up on your passage-making skills. For cruising I like our boat to be fully stocked and ready to go anywhere, so that we are free of the shore wherever we decide to venture. You’ll find that, while making these preparations, all…

SHORT-HANDED SAILING Alastair Buchan, Fernhurst Books Alastair Buchan’s ‘broad church’ concept of short-handed sailing includes the single competent crew member in a boatload of seasick novices and the half of a couple whose attention is not devoted to childcare, as well as the inveterate ocean loner. He focuses on passage planning and boat handling, including useful checklists and inculcating an outlook ‘where safety depends on paying attention to small risks’. Buchan’s section on sleep management is especially interesting and his explanation of circadian rhythms illuminates his incisive discussion of watch-keeping: ‘Staying on watch for 24 hours is possible but it is not clever.’ An articulate guide with plenty of tips gleaned from experience. HAPPY HOOKING: THE ART OF ANCHORING Alex & Daria Blackwell, White Seahorse Publishing The third expanded edition……

ONAK 2.0 FOLDING CANOE Onak successfully launched its first folding canoe after a kickstarter campaign and have received a number of awards along the way. The company has now once again fully funded the launch of its second, updated version. The Onak 2.0 features easier set-up, thanks to a pulley system, fewer parts, wooden seats and increased leg space. The basic concept remains the same, however, with the boat folding into a wheeled box trolley weighing 15kg. www.onakcanoes.com TESTED: SUBTECH DRYCASE RUGGED LAPTOP CASE Laptops are now part of many yachts’ navigation and electronics set-up, and keeping yours dry and safe on board is vital. This zip-up case has a rubberised coating and zip, and opens fully so you can use your laptop without taking it out of the case.…

Reader Garry Parker, 57, has always loved the look of a ketch-rigged boat and, now he is planning to ‘sail away to sunnier waters’ in his retirement. He’s looking for a yacht with classic lines, but not too big, complicated or expensive. A practical man, Garry has only a few years of experience cruising and racing on friends’ boats, so is looking for a ‘forgiving’ yacht that he can learn the finer points of sailing on, while doing most of the maintenance himself. He has no plans yet to sail around the world, but once he’s had more experience with the boat his dream is to sail to Greece – slowly! Ketch rigs are ideal for blue-water cruising as they offer a flexible sail plan and the sails are smaller…

■ Traditionally you’re taught to pull in the mainsheet until you get the desired amount of twist (and so power in the sail), then take the slack out of the kicker, which will lock in that twist setting. ■ The problem with mainsheet systems located forward on the boom, is you can’t get the leech tension you need. In this situation you’re forced to use the kicker alone to shape the leech. It is rare you are able to get as much tension via the kicker as you are via the mainsheet without using a winch and when cruising few of us are likely to do this. ■ That is not to say it is always a negative outcome. The bonus to plenty of mechanical advantage is that when you…

Email yachtingmonthly@ti-media.com Post Confessions, Yachting Monthly, TI Media, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF Send us your stories in less than 200 words Tender loving care Lesley Black It’s was the late 1970s, quite early in our sailing careers, and we were off to the Hebrides in Tillew, our trusty Sabre 27. The crossing from Northern Ireland had been challenging, as below decks I’d acted as putative navigator, one-woman bucket chain for two seasick offspring, comforter-in-chief to Fletch, our Dalmatian dog, and provider of regular nourishment to the skipper up in the cockpit, dividing his time between battling the elements and cursing the autohelm. In dire need of rest, we made for Ardminish Bay on the Isle of Gigha. Today it’s a popular spot but…