Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2024 i Yachting World

Some places forever lodge themselves in a special place in your heart. Many years ago, the Grenadines and Tobago Cays was the first place I sailed that truly blew my mind. I left feeling so lucky to have experienced its beauty while accepting that I’d likely never visit again – or if I did, that it could never be the same. A decade later I got the opportunity to return – this time for longer than the fleeting visits this job usually entails. I rented a room in the hills from a lady farmer who gave me a discount rate if I brought her Yorkshire Tea from the UK, and wrote features on the deck while lizards scuttled at my feet. Over a few weeks I got to see not…

The roster of 40 solo skippers for this November’s Vendée Globe has been confirmed. IMOCA teams have been anxiously counting the qualification miles for this year’s around the world race after 44 skippers initially entered, but organisers stood firm on a limit of 40 competitors (increased since previous editions). With 13 skippers gaining priority after building new IMOCAs for the race, and one ‘wildcard’ entry to be awarded by organisers, that left 26 spots determined by how many miles skippers clocked up in qualifying races. Inevitably, some skippers had to drop out of the hunt due to funding or their boats not being ready in time, including Briton Phil Sharp, who is building an ambitious hydrogen-powered IMOCA. Gear failure brought some campaigns into jeopardy, such as Clarisse Crémer, who was…

The true cost of cruising How much does it really cost to go cruising or become a liveaboard sailor? Jeremy Wyatt has seen thousands of crews set off on the adventure of a lifetime: he asks the tough questions to find out how big a sailing fund you really need to join them. Treading the Thorny Path Sailing against the tradewinds to the leeward islands is known as the ‘Thorny Path’ thanks to the route’s challenging conditions. James and Jayne Pearce reveal how they avoided its spikiness for a memorable Caribbean passage. Do you really need radar? In the era of smartphone navigation, does radar still have a key role in collision avoidance? Rachael Sprot puts latest technology to the test to find out. The perfectionist’s daysailer Serial boat owner…

For over a decade, my wife, Rachel, and I lived aboard what could aptly be described as a traditional bluewater cruising yacht. Our 1984 Tayana 42, Agápē, was an excellent choice for us to begin our cruising adventure. Everything about her was robust and designed to withstand decades of abuse from the relentless ocean. We sailed her through Mexico, Central America, and into French Polynesia where we have spent the last five years exploring countless remote islands and anchorages. The longer we spent on the water, the more we fell in love with the cruising life. Yet simultaneously, the remote lifestyle left us longing for friends and family. A sailor’s life is filled with farewells as new friends sail in and out of each other’s orbits. Two years ago, when…

Watch our YouTube series with America’s Cup designer Thomas Tison discussing the AC75s We admit it, we’re excited. The 37th America’s Cup has all the signs of being a good one. At six teams in total it may not match the entry numbers of the last Challengers series in Spain (the 2007 Louis Vuitton Cup in Valencia, when 12 teams duked it out for a chance to race Alinghi), but the intriguing thing about this Cup is that there are no real ‘wildcard’ entries. Even the newest or latest entries have the potential to deliver a strong showing in the Louis Vuitton Cup. For this second edition held in the AC75 class there have also been some rule changes. From a spectator perspective the primary change is likely to be…

Ice 66RS In a departure from Ice’s long-standing relationship with Felci design, this stunning Italian offering, with crisp and minimalistic styling, is the result of a collaboration between Micheletti & Partners, who were responsible for interior and exterior styling, and Farr Yacht Design. Construction is of infused hybrid carbon sandwich for the hull and full carbon for the deck. Spars are also of carbon, with EC6 carbon standing rigging. The deck layout, including a pair of electric winches ahead of each helm station, is designed to enable the boat to be handled by a single watch keeper. Yet this is a beautifully spacious yacht with three or four cabin layouts that offer plenty of privacy, plus generous saloon and galley areas. Ice founder Marco Malgara is particularly excited about this…

If you need to ‘lock up and leave’ your yacht, gardiennage services can keep it safe far from home. Will Bruton shares advice on what to expect Pass any marina in the Balearics and you’ll see yachts with a notice on the guardrail with details of who is responsible for its – usually highly polished – condition. In the Mediterranean gardiennage, or handing over responsibility to someone else, is commonplace. From a washdown once a month, to a recorded maintenance schedule that looks great when the yacht is sold on, it’s something that’s becoming increasingly popular. Rory Gillard of Minerva Technical Palma and Pete Stirling of PSA Prime Marine UK are both ex-Clipper Round the World skippers who now run gardiennage businesses as part of their wider marine service operations.…

Record-breaking Hurricane Beryl wrought devastation across northern Grenadian islands and St Vincent and the Grenadines in July. Forecasters had already been predicting an exceptional hurricane season for 2024, but Beryl became the earliest Category 5 hurricane since records began when it developed into a Category 5 storm on 2 July, peaking with sustained winds of 165mph (270kph) before weakening slightly to a still violently destructive Category 4. When US military research aircraft flew through the eye of the hurricane on reconnaissance flights they recorded winds of 182mph. Over 30 people are known to have died, with a dozen fatalities in Grenada and the Grenadines, while more deaths were confirmed after Beryl continued to impact Venezuela, Jamaica and the US mainland. Hurricane Beryl made landfall in the Caribbean on 1 July,…

SailGP organisers have confirmed that Season 5 of the multi venue foiling championship will include a British event for the first time in three years. The British SailGP will be held on 19-20 July, though it hasn't yet been confirmed which locations are being considered. Previously SailGP events have been held in Cowes and Plymouth. The fifth season will also feature a stage in Brazil, following the signing of a new Brazilian team entry, funded by Abu Dhabi, as well as events in Germany, and on Lake Geneva. In total 14 events are scheduled over the year-long programme, which restarts in Dubai in November, after a break while many key competitors will be racing in the America’s Cup. With at least one other new entry still to be confirmed, it’s…

For a great pub quiz question, when was the first America’s Cup race? The answer to sailing fans is obvious: 1851 in the famous race around the Isle of Wight. For a bonus point you could add that it resulted in a humiliating British defeat and an apocryphal quote given to Queen Victoria about the absence of a second place. Except this wasn’t the first America’s Cup race. The 1851 event was actually the £100 Cup. The first America’s Cup race was in 1870, 19 years later in New York and was a 40-mile race starting from Staten Island and heading out to the light ship off Sandy Hook and back. It was a fleet race with 14 American yachts and one British yacht, James Ashbury’s 113ft, 188 ton Cambria,…

Terysa Vanderloo and her partner Nick Fabbri have candidly documented their shift from a monohull Southerly 38 to performance catamaran on their YouTube Channel Sailing Ruby Rose – from choosing and spec’ing a new Seawind 1370, to the many challenges of commissioning and learning to live aboard a brand new boat. “Nick and I have been sailing monohulls for 20 years and 15 years respectively, and lived on board a 38ft sloop for five years. Since taking delivery of our 45ft catamaran almost a year ago, we’ve felt pushed to and beyond our limits several times,” she explains. “While we expected a steep learning curve, the reality was that shifting from a monohull to a catamaran was so much more challenging than we ever expected – although I’m happy and…

‘I’m quite happy being the underdog’ It’s been dubbed the longest losing streak in sports history: 173 years since America claimed the Hundred Guinea Cup on 20 August, 1851, Britain has never once won the Cup. AC37 marks 10 years since Sir Ben Ainslie’s first Challenge. This is his third, and the second backed by one of Britain’s richest men, Sir Jim Ratcliffe. But in the Cup world, if you’re not progressing, you’re hurtling backwards compared to your opposition. So what has Ainslie changed for his third tilt at the Auld Mug? THE F1 COLLAB “We definitely sat down, took a long, hard look at what didn’t work, and what the opportunities were,” he recalls of the aftermath of AC36. “The F1 relationship was an obvious direction, with Jim and…

What makes the perfect saloon for a cruising yacht? Ask anyone of a certain age and they’re likely to start with safety aspects – snug, with at least a couple of good sea berths, plenty of handholds and no big, wide open spaces that might be dangerous when thrashing to windward. But as we’ll see, Dufour has thrown away the rule book allowing Ardizio Design to create an interior with a refreshingly different style to most. I sailed a prototype boat from La Rochelle a few months ahead of the Dufour 44’s official launch at Cannes in September. The Umberto Felci-designed hull has beam carried well forward at both deck and chine level, though there’s lots of flare above the waterline, especially forward, giving a relatively narrow waterline beam and…

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A sextant is essential, but you don’t need to buy the finest instrument by the likes of Cassens & Plath that I used during the GGR, nor do you need to settle for a plastic emergency or lifeboat sextant. Excellent second- or third-hand sextants can be found online and via specialist dealers. You’ll also need a Nautical Almanac for the correct year, a set of Rapid Sight Reduction tables for the latitudes that you’re sailing in, and have an accurate watch to time your sights. Time is critical for accuracy – four seconds of time equates to 1 mile of distance – but a $10 Casio digital watch will give you all the accuracy you’ll need. You might not be able to remember how to work out sun sights when…

‘In wet, breezy conditions the boat just keeps going and never fills up’ ONNE VAN DER WAL NOMINATES THE DABCHICK “The ‘Dabbie’ was a very popular youth boat and one of the best training boats ever. Every person that made it in sailing in South Africa started out on the Dabbie. Designed by Jack Koper and made of three sheets of plywood over a wooden meranti frame it is very simple and inexpensive to build. “The boat has a flat deck, and a scow-like bow with no cockpit – so in breezy conditions the boat just keeps going and never fills up. The mast is very simple: deck stepped with a main and fractional jib. “The boat was perfect for the windy Cape Town sailing scene where the south-easter’ regularly…

A British-Canadian couple who had set off on an eastbound Atlantic crossing from Canada to the Azores have been discovered dead in a liferaft off eastern Canada. Canadian Brett Clibbery and Briton Sarah Packwood were passionate cruising sailors, documenting their voyages aboard their Gib’Sea 42 Theros on their YouTube channel, Theros Adventures. The couple departed from Dartmouth Yacht Club in Halifax Harbour’s Bedford Basin on 11 June 2024. They’d hoped to arrive at the Azores around 21 days later. However, when contact with the yacht was lost Brett’s son reported the couple missing on 18 June. Theros was fitted with AIS, which shows the boat’s last known position 40 miles off Sable Island on 13 June. Despite extensive air and sea searches, and all-vessel alerts in the North Atlantic, no…

Recently I was fortunate enough to find myself on the bow during a race. Well, I thought it was fortunate but appreciate that sentiment could be up for debate… I don’t get so much opportunity to play on the pointy end these days. It was fun! I was readying the symmetric spinnaker for a bear away set. Having just fed the sheet and guy around to the starboard side and under the jib, I was bracing myself in some sort of yoga-starfish position. Right foot braced on a stanchion, left foot on the pulpit, my core muscles just about keeping me upright as I rolled the lines around to make sure they weren’t twisted before attaching them to the clew. Thankfully, it all went up smoothly. It was a good…

“That sea sure is mean,” our kind driver observes as my salty trio climbs into his truck, fresh off a rough-and-tumble crossing of the Gulf of Carpentaria. After 48 hours of swift sailing – double-reefed and surfing at 14 knots ahead of a 25-30 knot breeze – we wholeheartedly agree. The downwind surfs might have had us smiling, but the gulf ’s walloping, sides-wiping, tidal swell comes at you from another angle entirely, giving rise to its reputation as the so-called ‘washing machine’. Having arrived in Australia’s Northern Territory we hitch into Nhulunbuy from Gove Harbour for fresh supplies, staring out the window at the parched Arnhem Land scrub. Our new mate – an indigenous Yolngu elder – yarns about sailing and one gnarly trip when his Indonesian wife threw…

I’ve been hiking out on the windward rail for over eight hours without a break as we battle our way upwind on a 600-mile starboard tack. With just 30 more miles to the finish line of the 53rd Newport Bermuda Race, the end is finally in sight. Exhausted, I’ve intentionally slowed down my digestive system after the seat of the boat’s head was sheared off on day two. But I don’t think I’ve been missing much in the way of culinary delights as I watch the rest of the crew load their freeze-dried food pouches with an ungodly amount of hot sauce to make it palatable. We’re sailing on Final Final, an IRC41 racer designed by Mark Mills, and owned by Jon Desmond. I met Jon over 20 years ago,…

What does a genuine cruiser-racer look like today? Spicy and seriously appealing if we take Swan’s latest model as an example. Granted, the dark brown water surrounding the CS43 during this first photoshoot doesn’t quite sell it, but believe me, the lines and details of Juan Kouyoumdjian’s latest rocketship really does get the heart rate spiking. This is one slippery weapon, potentially as stunning to sail as her fiery looks promise. And it’s rare to find a new yacht that properly fulfills a dual-purpose role. Admittedly this design is skewed more towards racing, which will likely be the focus of most owners. But like its predecessor, the CS42, it features a fitted interior for occasional fair weather cruising – the modern shape of the new boat helps provide large volumes…

Given its strategic position in the heart of the western Mediterranean, it’s hardly surprising that Corsica has been invaded, conquered and colonised many times throughout its long history. But that same accessibility by sea – coupled with the wild, rough beauty of Corsica’s coastline, and the world class beaches and crystalline waters of its southerly neighbour Sardinia – make this region exceptional for cruising. ISLAND APPROACHES The islands span the central Mediterranean and are accessible from all directions. The north coast of Corsica is relatively close to the French and Italian Rivieras, whereas southern Sardinia is within easy reach of Sicily and the African coast. The majority of northern European yachts will reach the islands from the French or Spanish coasts and Balearic Islands. The shortest route is from Elba…

Olympian and pro tactician Alain Sign shares asymmetric speed tips with Andy Rice One of the most significant advantages of racing with asymmetric spinnakers is the simplicity of handling compared with symmetrical spinnakers. But the finer details of how to get the best out of the gennaker are quite subtle and take some practice and coordination between the whole crew, particularly the communications and understanding between kite trimmer, helmsman, mainsail trimmer and the foredeck crew. In the tightly fought Cape 31 circuit, semi-pro teams are looking for every tiny advantage on the race track. Here are five great tips from Alain Sign for how to find that extra edge on the downwind, whether in marginal planing conditions or full-power. 1 SELECT YOUR SAILS Inthe Cape 31 we’re limited to carrying two…