Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2023 i Yachting Monthly

The sharp exhale of a blowhole is often the first sign that you have company at sea. I know I’m not alone in rushing forward to gaze down as dolphins play under the bow. The desire to somehow make contact and communicate with these playful and sociable creatures, across the elements, is as old as the myths of selkies and sirens. Coming face to face with an animal the size of your boat, however, is a rather more sobering experience. Normally extremely rare, the number of physical encounters between yachts and orcas around Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar have increased dramatically since 2020, driven, it seems, by a single family group. What lies behind the animals’ behaviour remains a source of speculation, with theories including training, playfulness, fighting back against man’s…

The yachting community is mourning the death of legendary offshore sailor Peter ‘Piet’ Vroon who raced offshore for six decades, including competing in the Fastnet race as skipper 25 times. Piet won the Fastnet Challenge Cup on his 20th attempt in 2001 and continued to race until 2015 when he was 85 years old. He raced a series of grand prix racing yachts named Tonnerre de Breskens and scooped a plethora of prizes over the years: Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) Yacht of the Year; Overall RORC Season’s Points Champion on two occasions; Class winner for the RORC Caribbean 600; and Round Ireland Race winner. Piet Vroon was also awarded the Somerset Memorial Trophy for outstanding racing achievement. Piet encouraged the passion of hundreds of sailors aboard his yachts as…

A group of British Army Royal Engineers set sail in June on an ‘Atlantic Quest’ expedition to South Georgia in a trip designed to test their mental and physical resilience as well as to carry out research for the Global Oceanic Environmental Survey, run by the University of Edinburgh. The soldiers set off from Chatham to sail some 15,000 miles to South Georgia in their 72ft Challenger Class steel yacht, Adventure of Hornet. A team of climbers aboard Adventure will scale the mountains of South Georgia, on the fringes of Antarctica, including Mount Paget, the highest peak in UK territory. Whilst in the South Atlantic the expedition will take advantage of the opportunity to discover more about the impact humans are having on the environment, carrying out research to examine…

Tracey and I have just commenced construction of our very own Grand Designs in so much as we are self building a long dreamed of off-grid house in our little corner of Cornwall. It’s cool to be using technology that we used to test and develop during the early days of short-handed racing. Our sense is that the build will take two years and so trips on Oddity won’t be measured in months until after the topping out party. Until then Oddity will be more a refuge from long hours, frustrations and hard graft. A tranquil escape to recharge and ease aching muscles. It’s funny how a change in emphasis can influence other areas of life. After a couple of days laying blocks and in need of a break I…

Nighttime can have a big impact on wind strength. We’ll often notice that on land or in harbour the wind strength falls, often until it’s completely calm at nightfall. This is because the land cools quicker than the air above it, causing something called a temperature inversion where air lower down becomes cooler than the air above it. This is stable, since there is no hotter air to rise through the cooler air, thus this thin layer of stable air cannot be easily penetrated by the wind. Although the wind may be blowing high up in the sky, there may be no wind on the surface. As the morning sun heats the land, the air becomes unstable again, allowing wind on the surface until the sun begins to get lower…

We have all seen boats coming in to marinas with lots of shouting, lines not prepped, and people jumping off or sometimes in. This is so unnecessary, as it can all be taught before you depart. The time spent preparing is equal to the sailing in having a safe and happy day on the water. Before you depart, show your crew how to slip lines, where you want them to place fenders, how to use a roving fender, and how to rig mooring lines. Ask your crew: are they ready? Are lines attached? Are cleats and coils split ready for pontoon cleats? Please do not let them jump off, rather step off when YOU have decided to moor and they feel safe. Explain that you may change your mind and…

OFFICIAL SPANISH MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT SAFETY PROTOCOL If orcas interact with your vessel, take the following measures if possible without creating greater danger: ■ Keep people away from the sides of the boat, ensuring they have the best possible protection against sudden movements of the vessel, falling into the water, or displaced loose items. ■ It is always preferable to navigate under engine rather than sail. Avoid stopping the boat. Navigate in a straight line at the highest possible speed (within constraints of vessel and conditions) towards shallower water until the orcas lose interest. ■ For sailing boats, stability may be affected if the keel is damaged, and it is therefore better to motor rather than sail. ■ Navigate as close to the coast as it is safe to do…

Departing Nazaré, Portugal at around 0900, we headed south. The day started with no wind and a sizeable swell. The flogging of the sails was incessant but we – my reliable crewman Pál and I – were well rested and were very accustomed to this coast’s flaky morning winds. Around midday the wind picked up and backed 90° to our starboard side. We enthusiastically engaged Wendy the windvane and set about what we do best: staring at the sea and meandering through conversations, keeping a keen eye on those troublesome and very often barely visible fishing pots, the biggest concern for most sailors along this coast until recently… We passed Peniche around 1600, our alternative destination had the wind not picked up. We continued south, made a curry, drank a…

CANAL STATS 1 Anyone taking their own boat through the French canals is required to hold an ICC (International Certificate of Competence) qualification, equivalent to Day Skipper, as well as the CEVNI (Code Européen des Voies de la Navigation Intérieure), an online, multiple choice ‘highway code’ exam specifically targeted at inland waterways. In practice, the only documents we were asked to show, at the few marinas we visited, were the boat’s registration papers and the insurance certificate. You do not need any qualifications to charter a boat on the French canals. 2 You can have your mast(s) transported by lorry to various destinations either in the north or south of France. Fastmast (fastmast.de) quoted us €1,300 for one mast and €1,800 for two, plus storage. 3 We saw a vast…

www.yachtingmonthly.com/books Eyemouth was our port of refuge from the expected winds: we got in at half-tide, its long narrow piers rising around us like a ravine. Inside was a bewildering crush of trawlers, a racket of fish-marketing and welding, a noisy funfair for Herring Festival Queen Week, and, mercifully, a gesticulating harbourmaster pointing to an unlikely but reasonably comfortable perch at the very end of the middle pier. It seemed a happy enough spot to be. Our aversion to fish had faded in the healing philosophical atmosphere of St Andrews and we smiled again upon the tender sentimental names of the last Scottish trawlers we would probably see: Children’s Friend, Golden Hope, Valhalla, Radiant Way, Bright Ray, Golden Quest. I spent the evening trying to persuade two excited children to…

Astern of the gearbox (described in ‘How It Works, YM Summer 2023) you will find the coupling that connects the power output shaft to the propeller shaft. The propeller shaft itself is usually made from a mild steel – a material that’s very good at transmitting power and absorbing sudden load changes, such as going from ahead to astern quickly. The propeller shaft then exits the boat via a stern tube, and then, of course, the propeller is located at the end of the propeller shaft, to finally transmit the power produced by the engine into the water. FLEXIBLE MOUNTINGS Modern engines and gearboxes (which can be considered as a single unit) are mounted on flexible feet (mountings) to reduce noise and vibration. These mountings can deteriorate or fail completely,…

Three Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) volunteers, with a tremendous 114 years of service between them, have been recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours list for their outstanding contributions to helping the RNLI save lives at sea. Judith Richardson, who began as a lady launcher aged 20 and has worked for 56 years at Dungeness, was awarded a British Empire Medal. President of RNLI Arbroath Fundraising Guild, Maureen Morrison, with 34 years of service, was also awarded a British Empire medal and retired volunteer lifeboat helm Michael Buckland of RNLI Weston super-Mare was awarded an MBE. ‘Volunteers are the heart of the RNLI and make up the vast majority of our people. These three volunteers epitomise our values of selflessness, courage, dependability and trustworthiness in everything they do,’ commented RNLI…

A lone sailor was rescued by the Holyhead RNLI late in June when his yacht drifted onto the rocks after the anchor dragged overnight. The 29ft yacht was sailing from the west coast of Scotland down to the Bristol Channel and had anchored in the area overnight after sailing from the Isle of Man. The lifeboat crew were alerted shortly before 0200 on 19 June and plucked the man from the yacht, at which time it was too dangerous to remove the boat from the rocks. At around 0830 the lifeboat crew relaunched to save the yacht as she was lifting with the rising tide. She was towed to Holyhead, pumped out, and found to have a hole in her bow. ‘The man was a very well equipped and experienced…

I am fortunate to have three big cockpit lockers with the disadvantage of not having an aft cabin. The big advantage, however, is that we have plenty of room to store fenders, sails, SUP-boards, and the like. Another plus is that I was able to mount some electronics in the cockpit locker including the charger/converter and the hot air diesel heater and fuel tank. The combination of heavy equipment on one hand and the 12V wires, diesel fuel hoses and a hot exhaust on the other hand is, however, a potential source of trouble, especially when sailing in a heavy sea. For that reason, I mounted two aluminium profiles which keep away the heavy stuff from the more delicate electronics and hot sources.…

Happiness of the crew is paramount for a safe passage, however long. I normally sail as skipper, but occasionally enjoy the freedom from responsibility of crewing for others. This also helps me grow as a skipper. A good skipper to sail with will need to have both enthusiasm and spatial awareness. Everything else can be taught. The key is that the skipper teaches the crew, by way of proper briefings including safety, the heads, the engine, seacocks, deck gear, and of course, the cooker – and where the tea and biscuits are!…

Who likes sailing with a good breeze and beautiful sunshine? Don’t we all?! The trouble with that pesky sunshine is that it causes damage to many parts of your boat. Whilst faded gelcoat and brightwork is annoying, spare a thought for your safety equipment. Liferings and danbuoys, if left out in perpetuity, can degrade very quickly. However, the main victim of ultraviolet light will almost definitely be your jackstays. Many people fit these and then forget about them. They degrade quickly when left out in the UV and left to gather verdigris over the winter. If you take safety seriously, you should be fitting your jackstays when you leave port, and removing them when you return. If not, they may not be strong enough when you need them. Don’t forget…

Could you moor in a tricky windward slot? Q Andy’s home berth is alongside a walkashore pontoon on a river. Outside is another pontoon not attached to the shore. There is quite a strong tidal stream, up to 2 knots at mid-tide. Although the berth is convenient for getting ashore there are only two or three metres clearance at each end as it is sandwiched between a large and beamy motor yacht and another sailing yacht. Andy has a 10m standard production fin-keeled yacht, Aries, with a three-bladed prop and with a prop kick to port when engaged astern and no bow thruster. He is arriving back from a day sail on his own. There is a fresh wind blowing diagonally off the pontoon and no one nearby to help.…

Perhaps your treasured yacht is in the wrong place at the wrong time? Does it need to be somewhere else, soon? Don’t have the time, crew, or experience to remedy this yourself? Well, it might be time to book a delivery. While it sounds simple, handing over your pride and joy to another skipper you’ve never met before can be a daunting prospect, so I’ve collated some advice on what the process would look like. We’re talking about sailing your vessel from one port to another here, as opposed to loading it on a larger vessel, for which a range of choices are available. This article concentrates on hiring a crew to sail your yacht to its destination. While it is possible to hire private individuals (more on that later)…

1 SEAWORTHINESS IS SUBJECTIVE I’ve always thought of the rudder as the most integral part of a vessel after the hull itself, something which should always be overbuilt. Yet now, arguably, the greatest current danger to sailors in these waters are orcas, and counterintuitively an incredibly strong spade rudder spells destruction to a vessel’s hull in the face of persistent, unfriendly grampuses. Had Periwinkle’s rudder been destroyed in 20 minutes, the attack would have only lasted 20 minutes, although she’d have been incapacitated – hence the consideration of a ‘fuse’ within the repair design. 2 MODERN BOATS MUST BE MADE STRONGER Many modern boats are losing their rudders within five minutes of an attack, or the hull is being torn open by the leverage forces placed on the rudder stock.…

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Falmouth Classics sees 206 entries Blue skies welcomed 90 vessels from France, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, the Essex Coast, the Thames and the Solent to the Falmouth Classics series in June, joining local boats to make 206 entries, a tremendous number that is back to pre-COVID levels. The event attracted a brig Phoenix, ex fishing luggers, crabbers, a post boat used in Scilly, oyster dredgers, gaff and Bermudan cruisers, Bermudan rigged racers and gigs. New this year was a fleet of steam boats including steam launch Emma from the National Maritime Museum of Cornwall. The oldest participant was the St Ives Pilchard Driver Barnabas (1881), with the Gorran Haven Crabber Ellen and the Falmouth Working Boat Victory just a year younger. Ellen and Barnabas are both owned by the…

POWERWINCHER £1,750 Ruggedly engineered for reliability, the Australian-made Powerwincher has a 5,000mAh battery and a speed trigger that maxes out at 80 rpm and operates to suit two-speed winches. www.powerwincher.com.au WINCHRITE £649 Designed in a flatter format than the Ewincher, the WinchRite packs a 3,000mAh lithium battery for up to 130Nm of torque. It has an integrated handle with a built-in trigger. www.foxschandlery.com IWINCH BIT £44 A handy adapter that allows you to power a manual winch using an electric drill. With the familiar eight-armed star fitting at one end and a hexagonal bit at the other, it is suitable for drills that have up to 95Nm of torque. www.iwinch.de…

If you want to tell us why you love your boat, get in touch by email yachtingmonthly@futurenet.com or by post Future PLC, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6JR ON CHARTER David Harding and his partner Judith are not the owners, but chartered Elektra for a few days from Mylor Boat Hire. David tested the Sun 2500 when it was first launched in the UK in 2005 and was keen to get to know the boat better by living on it, as well as sailing it. Size is often an overrated feature in a boat. Bigger can be better in some instances but, to my mind, the old adage that the fun derived from a boat is in inverse proportion to its size still holds true in most instances. It’s particularly true if…

An orca has rammed a yacht off the coast of Shetland in the North Sea in an unusual development that sees the first recently reported orca attack on a yacht outside the Iberian peninsula, where orca encounters have been common in the last few years. Dr Wim Rutten, a 72-year-old retired Dutch physicist, was sailing alone from Lerwick to Bergen when an orca appeared and hit the back of the aluminium-hulled, 7-tonne Koopmans 34, The Guardian reported. At the time Dr Rutten was fishing for mackerel and had a line out of the back of the boat. Dr Rutten told The Guardian that the orca hit again and again creating ‘soft shocks’ throughout the hull. It stayed behind the boat, he said, ‘looking for the keel. Then he disappeared… but…

Former soldier Chris ‘Cam’ Cameron has called time on his attempt at setting a world record for the number of days of living on Rockall, a barren granite rock in the Atlantic, more than 200 miles west of Scotland. Cameron (53) landed on Rockall on 30 May, aiming to spend 60 days at the top of the 17-metre high rock, to raise money for the Royal Navy, Royal Marines Charity and ABF, The Soldiers’ Charity. Overnight on 27 June, the weather significantly worsened and a lot of Cameron’s equipment was destroyed by the wind and waves. He was almost swept away several times. ‘It was apparent Cam had suffered a really rough night, and we needed to make a quick decision on whether to abort the expedition or push on,’…

You know the stars have aligned when you get Force 4-5 and bright sunshine, as well as a boat, crew, photographer and RIB all in the right place at the right time. Conditions could not have been better for testing the Mark 2 version of the hugely successful X-Yachts X43. This was going to be fun. We were lucky to have Pieter, the proud new owner of Lexi aboard, and as we motored down the river, he told me why he’d chosen this boat. ‘I previously owned a mass-produced 38ft family cruiser, which was great, but I wanted something a bit bigger and with three teenage children who really enjoy sailing, we needed more for them to get involved with on the boat. We wanted something that was really engaging…

As part of my work inspecting safety equipment on Atlantic crossings, I found an alarming number of shackles seized with cable ties and, indeed, failed shackles on headsail halyards. Upon investigation, in the majority of these failures, the shackle had been seized using cable ties. Cable ties, or zip ties, degrade very quickly in UV light and fall off. Then in time, the pin can wiggle free and lead to equipment failure. Using Monel (an alloy of nickel and copper) can be a more reliable way of securing shackle pins. Twist the ends together, but don’t forget to push the sharp ends into an area where they won’t damage sailcloth, lines or a crew member! Finally, Monel and stainless steel are very close together on the Galvanic Series, so the…

Q The rules around anchoring in the Yarmouth to Cowes Marine Conservation Zone, or any MCZ for that matter appear somewhat opaque, as we found from our recent experience. As we approached Thorness Bay at the weekend, we noted that our Navionics charts on both our Axiom plotter and backup tablet stated that anchoring and fishing are prohibited in Thorness Bay on the Isle of Wight, west of Cowes and throughout the MCZ, whereas our Admiralty paper charts made no mention of this. It was a beautiful day and I’d been through the Notices to Mariners Corrections only a fortnight earlier, so we concluded that the Admiralty knew what they were about and dropped our hook. I’ve since read the MCZ information on the government website but can’t find a…

There is a new buzzword amongst cruisers heading in and out of the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar… orcas! Wind, tide and shipping are no longer the only planning considerations in making passage through the Straits; it is avoiding an encounter with the family of Iberian orca that have developed a taste for sailing boat rudders. This issue is largely isolated to this geographical area and the distinct orca population of 50 or so animals that live there. However, shortly before we went to press reports came in of a yacht being repeatedly rammed by an orca near the Shetland Islands, over 1,500 miles away. This remains a one-off at the moment, though over the years there have been a number of reports of orcas interacting physically with yachts.…

The north face of our planet is literally changing colour. As the Arctic Ocean loses sea ice, it turns large areas from white to dark blue. At the same time, the land loses snow coverage for longer and longer periods every summer, going from snowy white to brown then greens, with the tree line creeping further north every year. Maybe with recent heatwaves, melting airport runways and buckling railways, climate change is starting to catch up with a few of us, but it is still viewed by many as a distant and uncertain threat. The Arctic is warming three times faster than the global average. This is what made me sail there in the summer of 2020, despite an ongoing global pandemic. The climate would not wait, nor would I…

Ancient Greek odyssey One couple step back in time with a trip to NE Greece The islands in northeast Greece immediately have a different feel from the west and south. Not only do the flotillas fade away but the western tourists are replaced by eastern Europeans, for whom this area of Greece is just a short drive away. There are fewer islands, though Thassos, right in the middle, and Samothraki, close to Turkey, are gems. The three indented fingers of Halkidiki provide much to explore and a few beautiful small islands. The winds during our two month trip (June and July) were usually a gentle Force 1-3 coming from a different direction almost every day though in the far northeast, the Meltemi can prevent upwind progress. We waited a week…

POP FENDER COMPACT PROTECTION £109 www.arthurbeale.co.uk Designed to reduce the space needed to store fenders on board, the Pop Fender is claimed to be the world’s first telescopic fender, able to reduce its volume down to just 40 per cent of its extended operational size. Constructed with a specially formulated non-toxic vulcanised rubber to ensure it won’t squeak or leave streaks on your topsides, it opens and closes like a large concertina. In keeping with the times, it’s built to be fully recyclable, and can be easily disassembled for regular cleaning, either by hand or in your dishwasher on a recommended 65°C cycle. Weighing in at a stout 1.38kg it can also be used safely under water, if need be, for up to three days. There’s only one size available so…

Earlier this year, the UK’s largest supplier of portable LPG cylinders, Calor, expressed its intention to discontinue its very popular 3.9kg propane and 4.5kg butane cylinders. However, after much pleading by user groups throughout the country it has now agreed to phase them out more gradually, allowing cylinders that remain in good condition to be refilled for a while longer. It suggests users upgrade to its 7kg bottle. Unfortunately, apart from being too big to fit most boat gas lockers, this will also mean more expense when buying the larger cylinder and regulator to go with it. There are a few voices in online boating groups suggesting you simply refill your existing 3.9/4.5kg bottles from larger cylinders using a cheap decanting kit. However, self-refilling is against the law and can…

BENETEAU FIRST 260 SPIRIT Jeanneau and Beneteau have often built comparable boats. Beneteau’s equivalent of the Sun 2500 is the First 260 Spirit (and the successive variants), but it’s slightly heavier, narrower and higher. The design of the Beneteau pre-dates the Jeanneau, having started life in 1994. Beneteau then used the same hull in several reincarnations: the Spirit became the First 25.7 in 2004, then the 25.7 made way a few years later for the backstay-less First 25 with its square-top mainsail. In terms of the hull, accommodation and underwater profile, all the models are fundamentally the same. Although a fixed fin was offered, most boats have a cast iron keel that swings up beneath the hull to give a minimum draught of 2ft 9in (0.85m). As on the Jeanneau,…