Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2017 i Yachting World

Britain’s Dee Caffari is to skipper a team in the Volvo Ocean Race this autumn which brings together many of the aims of the new edition: a mixed gender crew with a strong component of under-30s and a focus on environmental sustainability. Caffari, who competed in the last edition aboard the all-female Team SCA, will lead the race’s sixth boat under the banner Turn the Tide on Plastic. The campaign arose from the race’s sustainability partnership with the Mirpuri Foundation, a non-profit organisation set up by Portuguese businessman and philanthropist Paulo Mirpuri, and is to fly the flag for the UN Clean Seas programme The project came together in June, meaning Caffari has to choose crew, put a team together and complete training in time for the first VOR fleet…

Britain’s Sam Davies has signed up with French sponsor Initiatives- Coeur for the 2020 Vendée Globe solo round the world race. It will be her third time in the race; she finished 4th on Roxy in the 2008- 09 race, and was dismasted in 2012. Davies takes over from skipper Tanguy de Lamotte, who raced under the same sponsor in this year’s Vendée. Before bowing out of the relationship with Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque he will race in the two-handed Transat Jacques Vabre with Davies starting in November on Initiatives-Coeur. Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque is a non-governmental organisation that carries out heart surgery on children from disadvantaged countries. During the last Vendée it ran a social media campaign with backers Initiatives and K-Line donating €1 for every ‘like’. Sam Davies and her…

A complete overhaul of the 80ft maxi Lion New Zealand will make her the latest in a growing fleet of revamped ocean and round the world racers. The Ron Holland design, which was built for the late Sir Peter Blake to race in the 1985-86 Whitbread Round the World Race, is being refitted at Yachting Developments in New Zealand. The yacht has been owned since 2008 by the NZ Sailing Trust, which uses her to provide sailing experiences for young people. In the last nine years, she has covered more than 200,000 miles. The Trust’s other yacht is another famous ocean racer sailed by Peter Blake, Steinlager 2. The refit will include a new rig and rigging, new keel, deck gear, nav systems and interior revamp.…

Inviting the J Class fleet to sail in Bermuda during the America’s Cup finals was one of the smartest decisions made by Russell Coutts and the organisers of the event. The largest J fleet to ever assemble in the 88-year history of the class put on a true yachting spectacle – sailing at its finest. The America’s Cup catamarans divide opinion sharply among long-term sailing fans. For all those who love the high speed, high adrenaline format, it appears to repel at least an equal number. Hosting the J Class in Bermuda proved the ultimate foil to the foilers. It was an exhibition of timeless design and sail handling skill that the modern Cup lacked. When five Js raced for the first time in 2012, it signalled the true renaissance…

We approached Cocos Keeling at first light and had to pick our way through the coral to approach the anchorage in the lee of Direction Island. Safely through the pass we were greeted by the most amazing colours – the deep turquoise blue of the anchorage, the brilliant white sand and the rich green of the coconut trees on this island, which has no inhabitants. In a voyage worthy of many superlatives with stunning paradises where each one seems to better the last, we decided that Cocos Keeling wins hands down; in fact the best tropical island that we have visited. Cocos Keeling has a fascinating history having been owned by the Clunies- Ross family from Scotland since the 1700s with a history of a thriving copra business here. Darwin…

Dimensions LOA 16.47m (54ft) LWL 14.34m (47ft) Beam 4.79m (15.7ft) Disp (loaded) 22,200kg (48,940lb) Amel has garnered cult status by building truly distinctive and innovative go-anywhere yachts – typically centre cockpit ketches with trademark features such as faux teak decks, solid surround guardrails and hardtop sprayhoods. Over 2,000 of these ultimate cruising yachts have been launched over the last four decades. Eight years ago Amel broke ranks from its rigid design formats by producing a 64-footer followed by the 55. These comparatively modern designs were the first Amels not designed in-house and signalled a new approach, allowing owners a little flexibility in their choices. This new Amel 50 takes that modern design twist a step further. It’s a sloop with powerful Berret Racoupeau lines and is the first Amel to…

Within months of the HR440 making its debut at the Düsseldorf Boat Show this January, which we tested and featured in the June issue, the Swedish yard has now announced a smaller sibling in this 340. And where the HR440 marked a departure for Hallberg-Rassy, with plenty of contemporary features including twin rudders, this HR340 follows suit. In fact this is the first time the builder has offered twin wheels (although a tiller comes as standard). The new model also shares the modern shape of the HR440, with maximum beam carried aft, twin rudders, a straight stem with integrated bowsprit and a clean deck design. A folding bathing platform is another unusual option for this size. The HR340 replaces the 342, of which over 300 were built in the last…

Pump flow rates are measured in gallons per hour (GPH). A 500gph bilge pump will pump 1,890 litres in one hour, or 31 litres in a minute. The average bucket holds 9 litres of water, so a 500gph pump is not much quicker than manually scooping the water out! (source: www.safety-marine.co.uk) THIS MONTH bowman’s tips • tornadic waterspouts • radical 72ft mini maxi • sync your instruments Twenty miles south of Salcombe, in deteriorating weather, Timothy Meo realised that the new 36-footer he was helping to deliver to the Solent was sinking. “The engine compartment was flooded with a lot of water. Initially neither of us could tell where it was coming from. “We found the rate of ingress reduced when we were making way, so we changed course towards…

Invincibility Avenging their oh-so-painful defeat of the America’s Cup in San Francisco in 2013, Emirates Team New Zealand proved near invincible in Bermuda. The Kiwi team’s 7-1 defeat of defenders Oracle Team USA in the hands of skipper Glenn Ashby and helmsman Peter Burling was a popular David-and-Goliath victory, with the ETNZ team demonstrating devastating boat speed throughout thanks to a complex combination of superior hydraulic controls and foil systems. See our full report and analysis on page 24. Ship shape Post-race calm. Order descends on the record-breaking fleet of eight J Class yachts, six of which are pictured berthed stern-to in Hamilton, Bermuda. These 130-143ft racing machines are also luxury superyachts – beneath the high-performance rigging and deck gear there lies sumptuous accommodation, plush carpets and hardwood panelling. From…

Volvo Ocean Race CEO Mark Turner has announced that the race is to switch from running every three years to every two, helping teams to attract sponsors. “Losing the long gap of over two years between the races helps solve many problems, including the sales process for teams, who end up trying to sell sponsorship when there is no race on,” says Turner. The 2017-18 race starts on 22 October from Alicante and will finish at the end of June next year in The Hague, Netherlands. The three races after that will run from 2019-20, 2021-22 and 2023-24 and the VOR says ‘the tender process for host cities is now open for all three editions’.…

After a brutally early start off Cowes, Isle of Wight (0530 for the first fleets), flat water and a north-westerly breeze on 1 July saw the MOD70 Concise 10 shave a minute off the Round the Island Race record. Tony Lawson’s bright blue trimaran has been enjoying a running battle with her sister ship Phaedo3 for the course record, but with Phaedo sitting this year’s race out, the way was clear for Concise, skippered by Ned Collier-Wakefield. His team, which included world speed sailing record holder Paul Larsen, completed the 50-mile course in 2h, 22m 23s, knocking a minute off Phaedo’s best time. The fastest monohull round was the Reichel/Pugh 82 Highland Fling in 4h 19m 44s. The coveted Gold Roman Bowl went to Solent expert Adam Gosling, with his…

When Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) launched their AC50 in Bermuda in mid-April, they were the last to arrive and no one knew how quick the boat was going to be. The team had done its early training alone in Auckland, away from too many prying eyes, and had elected to skip two rounds of practice racing with the other teams. When they did join in, Oracle Team USA and ‘sister’ team SoftBank Team Japan refused to race them. But the team were sure they had a fast boat. Four days after launching in New Zealand, the crew had pulled off their first foiling tack. The most glaring difference was their use of pedal grinders to produce power rather than traditional pedestal arm grinders. ETNZ’s Sci-Fi style term for their…

Solo sailor Mervyn Wheatley set out from Plymouth for Newport, Rhode Island on 29 May this year with stirring tunes belting out from his beloved Tamarind, the Formosa 42 that he had owned for nearly two decades. This was to be the 73-year-old’s fifth OSTAR, and a 19th transatlantic for the former Royal Marine and Clipper Round the World Race skipper. Eleven days later he was preparing to scuttle the yacht that he described as “like another limb”, and step aboard the Queen Mary 2 luxury liner after a 70-knot storm rolled Tamarind, battered the 21-boat OSTAR and TWOSTAR fleet, and set in motion a huge multinational rescue effort across the North Atlantic. On the morning of 9 June a plunging low pressure system swept across the fleet, reading 964mb…

Dimensions LOA 14.7m (48ft 2in) LWL 13.05m (42ft 8in) Beam 4.46m (14ft 6in) Disp 17,250kg (38,030lb) Najad has a superb reputation for building premium class bluewater cruisers, but business was poor for the Swedish brand after the recession. Under new ownership since 2013, the yard’s fortunes have improved. Last year Najad launched a N450CC model. But it is the announcement of this 395, a fresh new design at a modest size, that could springboard the yard back to household name status. Najad describes its 395 as a ‘mini superyacht’, referring to its high profile design and styling, the level of comfort it offers and the long list of choices available to customise for each owner. The lines are by Farr Yacht Design, the looks by superyacht specialist Ken Freivokh, a…

Air Buddy €1,205 What is it? A low-power, compact air compressor for shallow diving Who is it for? Anyone with limited stowage who needs to shallow dive It’s great to be able to carry dive kit on board, whether for cleaning the hull, exploring coral reefs or freeing a fouled anchor. However, for most it’s a non-starter unless your boat is large enough to fit a dive compressor. Which is where Air Buddy comes in. Instead of having to fill bottles with dry air at a very high pressure, Air Buddy floats on the surface and feeds air directly to the diver. The low-power compressor is powered by a lithium battery with capacity for a 45-minute dive at depths of up to 12m, allowing for a reserve, and for longer at…

‘TO ME, IT IS A PRIVILEGE TO HOLD THE AMERICA’S CUP. IT IS NOT A RIGHT’ ETNZ CEO GRANT DALTON Italian team Luna Rossa Challenge is confirmed as the challenger of record for the 36th America’s Cup and will help shape the new conditions for the next Cup. The announcement was made by Emirates Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton within hours of his team winning the Cup. Dalton stated that a challenge had been received by Circolo della Vela Sicilia (CVS) and accepted. The news suggests there was truth behind the speculation that Luna Rossa’s backer, Italian billionaire Patrizio Bertelli, gave Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) design expertise and computer tools, plus $30 million of funding, in 2015 when he pulled out in protest at the change to the…

Southampton-based Discovery Yachts has bought fellow British cruising yacht brand Southerly, specialist builders of variable draught monohulls. The news comes after Discovery’s recent management buyout by new investors whose aims are for the group to become one of the UK’s leading yacht builders once more. It means Discovery will have a highly versatile range of quality cruising yachts, both swing keel and fixed keel monohulls and catamarans from 32ft to 67ft. A new product launch for the Southerly brand will be announced at the Southampton Boat Show this September and Discovery Catamarans will have its own ‘Bluewater’ branding too. The Southerly brand, under Northshore Yachts, went through two bankruptcies in 2013 and 2014. The builder, which once employed 165 people at its Itchenor Shipyard, was rescued from receivership with debts…

Prosecutors in the Cheeki Rafiki trial told Winchester Crown Court that the 40ft yacht was “neglected and not maintained”, as the trial opened in June. Four British sailors died after the Beneteau First 40.7 lost its keel and capsized on delivery from Antigua to the UK in May 2014. The bodies of skipper Andrew Bridge, 22, James Male, also 22, Steve Warren, 52, and Paul Goslin, 56 were never found despite an extensive search operation in the North Atlantic. Stormforce Coaching company director Douglas Innes, which managed the Cheeki Rafiki, denies four counts of manslaughter by gross negligence. He also denies a separate charge of failing to operate Cheeki Rafiki in a safe manner between 18 March 2013 and 18 May 2014. Prosecutor Nigel Lickley QC told the jury Innes…

1940-2017 Tom McNally, one of yachting’s greatest eccentrics, has died at the age of 77. McNally famously set a world record in 1993 when he sailed across the Atlantic in a 5ft 41/2 in micro-yacht built from scrap, with a hatch made out of an old washing machine door. During the journey his self-built Vera Hugh-Pride of Merseyside suffered a crack to the hull, and the watermaker failed, forcing the skipper to drink saltwater to stay alive. However, McNally completed the crossing, Lisbon to Florida, via Puerto Rico, in 113 days. The record was the culmination of over a decade of attempts, which included an aborted crossing from Newfoundland to England in 1993 in the 6ft 9in Big C, which ended when he lost all sails and was rescued by…

‘WE WON THE CUP BECAUSE WE DID IT A DIFFERENT WAY’ Baby, you’re coming home.” You could see the eyes of Grant Dalton, the tough, straight-talking CEO of Emirates Team New Zealand, filling with tears as he lifted the America’s Cup out of its great Louis Vuitton trunk to cradle it like a first born. It was exactly the look you might give a new infant: expected, longed for, yet still a surprise. Dalton – Dalts – actually touching the big, famous silver claret jug that has obsessed sailors and billionaires for more than 166 years. The New Zealand press described it as redemption, the same media that crucified the team in 2013 when they lost from the brink of victory. But from the Kiwi perspective, it was a deliverance…

Ben Ainslie’s start-up team did so much that was right: Ainslie, flanked by backers Sir Keith Mills and Sir Charles Dunstone, built a superb new base in Portsmouth, assembled an almost fully British team of some of the world’s best sailors, set up a sustainability programme and the 1851 Trust to promote education in science, engineering and maths. They came into it as winners of the America’s Cup World Series. And with a £90 million budget, Land Rover BAR had all the money as well as the talent needed to win the Cup. But they didn’t. They did not even come close. Why? What will Land Rover BAR be looking at in their debrief? “When we arrived in Bermuda in November and lined up for the practice regattas we realised…

This started showing up in forecasts as a very powerful system with four or five days’ warning. By this point the fleet had already been at sea for a week and had passed though two low pressure systems, one of which produced gusts close to 40 knots on the nose. Six had already retired. Initially it showed up as a disturbance between Bermuda and the Chesapeake, but the GFS, ECMWF, Metoffice and PredictWind models all agreed it would very quickly develop as a powerful storm of an intensity rarely seen in mid-summer Predictions were for sustained westerly winds above 50 knots and gusts into the mid- or upper 60s on the south side of the system, and for a time north-north-westerlies of a similar strength associated with the cold front…

FACTS Where we tested: Jakobstad, Finland. Wind: 7-14 knots over calm sea. Model: hull no 1, three-cabin version with carbon rigging and 3di sails. Photos by Richard Langdon For a yard that has reinvented itself under Italian ownership, latterly producing a range of new superyachts and a radical one-design, it is this unassuming new model, designed for couples to cruise long distance, that helps reconnect Nautor’s Swan to its roots. The Swan 54 is designed as a pure bluewater cruiser that is ideally suited for a couple. It uses the hull mould of the Swan 53 (a 2005 Frers design), but the rest of the boat is completely reconfigured to give a more contemporary look and feel. But is Nautor’s decision to re-use an old design a step backwards, or…

Hard landing for Red Bull The Atlantic outpost of Madeira hosted the third act of the 2017 Extreme Sailing Series in June and on day three, Red Bull Sailing Team capsized before the start. “It was our first downwind leg with the kite and the foils up, then suddenly the rudder snapped and the boat turned and gybed on its own. So, not a good day,” said skipper Roman Hagara. After repairing the boat overnight, the team was back for the final day, winning two races and climbing one place to finish 4th in the event. yachtingworldmagazine #ywbackfire…