Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2024 i Yachting World

Two changes have come into play in Europe this summer which should ease the bureaucratic demands for British and US cruisers in both Greece and France. Yachts arriving in France from outside the EU’s Schengen zone can now clear customs in one of 53 marinas rather than a very limited number of official ports of entry, as of 1 June. “Effectively, many sailors were no longer coming to France, nor indeed were French sailors visiting the UK. This meant there was a huge drop in visitors to our ports and our shoreline,” said Michaël Quernez, president of the French Federation of Marinas (FFPP – La Fédération Française des Ports de Plaisance). To simplify the procedure and encourage visiting sailors, French authorities agreed on a new protocol which means the 53…

Moving to a multihull The multihull sector has seen huge growth in recent years, but what is it really like to swop from a much loved monohull to two hulls? We ask those who’ve done it – often to a bigger, higher perfomance cat – to spill the beans on everything they wish they’d known and top tips for anyone considering making the shift to multihull life. Boat test double We put two very different 40-footers through their paces: the exciting, and very newly launched Swan 43, and Dufour’s eyecatching and spacious Felci-designed 44. On show for 2024 It’s boat show season: we preview all the latest launches making their debuts at this September’s Cannes and Southampton boat shows. Thrash to the Onion Patch The classic American offshore, the 365-mile…

I distinctly remember the first time I parked a yacht with an inboard engine, badly. It was in Cowes marina and I was 18 years old. One moment I was following my well thought out plan to the tee, the next we were hanging off a yacht’s guard rails by our anchor, perpendicular to the berth, closing off all through traffic. Thirteen years on, I consider the experience a rite of passage which I feel relieved to have taken so young, before I had too much to lose. Manoeuvring a sailing boat under power in confined spaces can raise even the most competent sailor’s heart rate. Walk the docks on a charter fleet’s changeover day, and the air will be so thick with stress and adrenaline, you too might start…

The Vendée Globe is one of the most quintessentially French sporting phenomena. Fans who make the four-yearly pilgrimage to Les Sables d’Olonne – rising long before dawn to secure their spot on the town’s Atlantic-swept sea walls so they may wave their heroes off at the start – are probably only rivalled in passion by the obsessive Tour de France followers who spend summers camping roadside on mountain passes. A whole infrastructure is built in France around the Vendée race and the IMOCA class. In Lorient and Les Sables armies of specialists handle the complex rigging, electronics and sails maintenance needs. There are the famed training camps out of Port-la-Forêt, where the best sailors in the world push each other harder and harder in the hunt for marginal gains. For…

Granted, the sight of Grand Soleil’s president Gigi Servidati sailing this beauty off Portofino arm in arm with his partner, tanned and clad in white linen, screams Italian cool. It’s picture poster stuff, sailing’s equivalent of an Italian supercar pinup from a lifestyle photoshoot. But that’s not what draws my eye. However well Grand Soleil has perfected such a chic theme, we’ve seen this type of imagery before. Rather, there’s a certain angle of photography showing the yacht’s lines that hooks me – the aft quarter shot – everything else becomes peripheral. Show me those flared sections. Sexy lines sell. And the GS 65LC boasts the blend of qualities that befit a pure performance cruiser: contemporary powerful lines mixed with a look that stands out yet should age well. It…

GET FOILING Hydrofoils have not only revolutionised the high-end world of dinghy and yacht racing, they’ve had a transformational impact on most things that float. From kite, wing and prone surf foiling to the powered e-foil boards (a couple of which are listed here), the ability to fly silently above the water is addictive. Those who’ve already tried wingfoiling will know it’s an ideal sport to practice from your yacht – the equipment is compact, and you have a near constant access to the two things you need: water and wind. WINGFOIL FROM YOUR YACHT A foil can be disassembled into compact parts, and if you choose a versatile size it can be used on paddleboards, surfboards and wingfoil boards. To fly silently a metre or so above clear water with only…

Buying a boat located halfway around the world is a scenario few cruisers might dare to pursue. Quite apart from the giant leap of faith required, there are very real costs associated with a cross-your-fingers inspection where you have to fly a significant distance, and the risk that once you get there, the yacht might not turn out to be ‘the one’. But the upside to buying a yacht that’s a long-haul flight away is the chance to start your next sailing adventure in a totally new region. This kind of adventure is especially worth considering if you have a flexible rhythm to your work and family life, and if the boat in question doesn’t need a lot of work to get her ready to set to sea. Cruising boats…

J CLASS IN PALMA The wonder a skilled drone pilot brings for giving a true bird’s eye view. What strikes us about this photo is how modern technology has transformed a traditional yacht, the revered J Class in this instance. The eye is not only drawn to how clean the deck is, and how tight the kite is sheeted – the boom is hardly eased – but how much roach there is in that 3Di mainsail and the power going through that massive carbon rig. This is the newest J, the 2017-launched Svea, on her way to a class win at the Superyacht Cup in Palma. More overleaf. Then there’s the curious fish-eye view of the same J, Svea, as she ghosts to weather on an unusually calm Palma afternoon…

The eighth running of the Race to Alaska, or R2AK, welcomed one of its most eclectic fleets to date. The race is a two-stage event covering 750 miles from Port Townsend, Washington, to Ketchikan, Alaska. The race begins with a 36-hour time-limited leg from Port Townsend across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria, British Columbia, known as ‘The Proving Ground’. For those that finish it, the marathon stage is 710 miles from Victoria to Alaska. Teams may stop ashore, but they may not have shore support, and can pedal or row (or otherwise human-power their vessel), but cannot use any form of engine. This leads to some extraordinary conversions of boats of all kinds fitted with pedal-power or rowlocks. “This year’s fleet of 32 was among the most…

Unrelateable? The editorial in the June edition of YW mentions the America’s Cup foiling boats, elite sport and how that pushes the boundaries. The point missed is that elite sport inspires, because participants can relate to the performance of the elite – not possible with the foiling [AC75s]. I may not have sailed a 12mR, but manually trimming sails, the teamwork of hoists, gybes and drops is much more relatable than the hidden cyclors and high tech control systems of the AC75s. Track and field events, cycling, skiing, golf etc all use equipment that we relate to. The performance of elite athletes inspires because we can give it a go and feel for ourselves just how awesome their performances are. For sailing to lose that link makes the Cup irrelevant…

I completed my eighth and most recent Atlantic crossing in February, sailing from Mindelo, Cape Verde, to Barbados aboard our Farr 65 Falken with 10 crew. The 2,200-mile passage took just under 11 days — fast, comfortable and dreamy, exactly as you hope for a tradewind crossing in the tropics. I have never, ever said ocean sailing is boring, but I had more free time on that trip than in any in recent memory. Time to get out the sextant and teach some celestial navigation, time to read, to fly the drone and mess around taking photos; time to do whatever I fancied! To me, that’s the goal of a well-planned and executed ocean crossing: to have the time to truly enjoy it. But with so many things to think…

British sailing dominance at the Olympics is fabled: from 2000 until the most recent Games the GBR squad has been an unstoppable force, winning 28 medals. The most successful was 2008, when amid fog, tempest, and plagues of weed, the British team returned home from Beijing with six medals, four gold. Britain took gold in both the men’s single-handed classes on the tricky waters of Qingdao that summer. One went around the neck of Ben Ainslie (his fourth), in the Finn, the other to Paul Goodison, in the Laser. Sixteen years later, the pair will be lining up against one another off Barcelona in a few months time, each helming for the America’s Cup. But while Ainslie will be racing Britannia, Goodison’s red, white and blue are the colours of…

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Transiting the Suez Canal is now a rarely followed path by circumnavigating yachts. The threat of piracy around the Gulf of Aden has long been a concern: British cruisers Paul and Rachel Chandler were famously kidnapped — and held for over a year before their safe release– by Somali pirates in 2009. Although the danger posed by Somali pirates has lessened considerably since attacks peaked between 2000-2011, more recent attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen on Red Sea cargo ships with apparent links to the US, UK and Israel have once again made the situation high risk, with activity escalating since the end of 2023. Yacht owners heading to Europe westbound from Asia have two sailing options: to double the Cape of Good Hope, or to pass through the Suez…

Extreme conditions severely depleted this year’s Round the Island Race fleet, with winds reaching 30-40 knots, gusting over 50. The annual event, which traditionally attracts one of the largest fleets of any yacht race, saw 939 boats originally entered for this June’s start. However, just 153 yachts completed the 50-mile course around the Isle of Wight. First around was Irvine Laidlaw’s Gunboat 80 Highland Fling in an elapsed time of just 3h 39m 5s. Boat captain Xavier Mecoy commented after: “[The] boat is only a year old and it’s the first time we’ve sailed her in a big breeze. We’ve never had two reefs in the main before, so that was pretty exciting, and we spent quite a bit of time sailing bare-headed as it was safer. “We were charging…

Could Paris 2024 be one of the best Olympic regattas yet? Hosted by a country truly passionate about sailing, combined with – hopefully – stunning Mediterranean weather, and sailing fans should be in for a treat. The 2024 Olympic regatta will be held at Marseilles on the Mediterranean. Marseille’s coastline, flanked by the Calanques cliffs to the south and the Frioul islands to the west, can create challenging conditions – with everything from stifling hot and light wind days to full-on Mistral conditions possible. France has fielded a strong home team, with the Netherlands also hotly tipped for medals in several classes. But can Britain retain its position as the top sailing nation? As the only visiting nation to qualify a sailor in every class, we’re off to a good…

The America’s Cup is as much a confidence game as it is one of design, technology and boat handling. Whether you’re a Challenger or Defender, asserting your authority wherever you can is all part of gaining the upper hand. On my most recent visit to Barcelona I was delivered a showcase display of just that. The whistle of the foils came first, followed a split second later by Alinghi Red Bull Racing under full sail and at full noise as the Swiss scorched through the canal-type entrance, leaving the French base to port before spinning into the breeze in the modest sized basin. Stopping with a flamboyant handbrake turn, their chase boat locked into position as the sails came down. It was a spectacular display of the size, power and…

Rummaging through some old boxes in the attic of my childhood home, I came across a weathered captain’s log. It was my late father’s chronology of our purchase and preparation of Falcon, a Baltic 38DP, for the Marblehead to Halifax Ocean Race. The log’s pages opened a floodgate of memories and crystallised a long-held dream: I needed to cross an ocean before turning 50, my father’s lifespan on earth. My dad and I would talk about sailing around the world together one day, and my favourite memories are of night sails across the Gulf of Maine, or laying on deck in a quiet anchorage, stargazing together. Sailing with him shaped me. After his fatal plane crash in 1996, I didn’t have a choice but to take over as captain. When…

ClubSwan 28 LOA (inc sprit) 10.7m 35ft 1in • LWL 8.5m 27ft 11in • Beam 2.5m 8ft 2in • Draught 1.8m 5ft 11in • Displacement 1,000kg 2,205lb • nautorswan.com The average size of new yachts has been growing consistently for decades. Nautor Swan’s newest model therefore bucks the trend in a big way, especially given it’s the smallest model by far that the yard has ever produced. Yet in the inshore racing sphere it’s impossible to ignore the ongoing successes of one-design fleets such as the Cape 31 and the J/70. Some 1,800 of the latter have been built and the 2024 world championship in Palma, Mallorca is 30% oversubscribed. Equally, this doesn’t appear to be a price sensitive market, at least towards the front of the fleet, where wage…

Super crew, coach, and keelboat and dinghy champion Richard Parslow shares tips on how to form an effective crew, with Andy Rice Every crew has its own DNA, its own ecosystem. Making that the best and healthiest crew dynamic possible is a big part of what interests Richard Parslow. “Psychology is a huge part of the sport,” he says. “They say the longest four inches in golf is between the ears, and how we interact with each other in the boat also has a huge outcome on the race course. I’ve been fortunate to be on a lot of successful teams where we’ve had a shared outlook on the campaign, usually pretty laid back, laughing a lot, but in the background really organised and committed to doing the work.” When…

‘There’s no tweak the 470 hasn’t undergone’ VITA HEATHCOTE NOMINATES THE 470 The two-man 470 dinghy was designed by André Cornu over 50 years ago and been an Olympic class since 1976. In 2024 it will be sailed by mixed pairs. “Very complex and fine-tuned, there is no tweak the 470 hasn’t undergone!” says Heathcote. “Everyone goes through the class rules with a fine-tooth comb and strives to forge a new, faster, more effective modification for the already highly developed boat and systems. But what really stands true to its Olympic nature is how this obsessive search for technical perfection doesn’t tint the fierce competition on the water. “A positive to the boat’s complexity is that a balance can be found for pretty much any size and style of team…