Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i Yachting World

Go sailing enough, and stuff will go wrong. It’s nice to think that as you get more experienced, you make fewer errors, but in truth though the improvement curve may flatten out, the potential for a ‘snafu’ is always there. As the saying goes, it’s good to learn from your mistakes, but it’s better to learn from other people’s. Which is why it’s so refreshing to read highly experienced, professional skippers like Nikki Henderson sharing what she learned when handling an MOB situation for real (see page 24). Though Nikki was fully prepared, her crew well drilled, and the MOB recovered safely and swiftly, there were still surprises. Sam Goodchild’s chilling recollections of going overboard during his first round the world race (page 58) also serve as a reminder that…

An investigation into the mysterious deaths of two cruising sailors who were discovered on a remote Canadian island has identified a fire onboard their yacht as the most likely scenario. The bodies of Canadian Brett Clibbery, a retired engineer, and Briton Sarah Justine Packwood, were discovered in their inflatable dinghy, washed up on Sable Island, Nova Scotia last July. The couple had departed Dartmouth, Halifax on 10 June 2024, bound for the Azores in their Gib’Sea 42 Theros. No distress call was received, and the yacht was never found. The couple had previously sailed from British Columbia to the Panama Canal, through the Caribbean and up to Nova Scotia. They documented their voyages on a YouTube channel, Theros Adventures, and posted a last video shortly after their departure. While the…

Pioneering sailor Andy Cassell has died aged 82. Cassell was born without legs and with hip disabilities, but was a lifelong competitive racer. A tribute posted by Ratsey & Lapthorn sailmakers, where he was most recently a classic sail designer, notes that: “Andy’s passion for sailing began at age 9, inspired by the voyages of Thor Heyerdahl and the Kon Tiki expedition, and his first vessel was indeed a raft with pine logs.” Having launched from Norris Beach on the Isle of Wight, Cassell’s raft promptly sank. His first proper dinghy had no mast or sail, so with his grandmother he fashioned a sail from a tablecloth and a mast from a washing line pole, before sailing in Wootton Creek. His mother initially tied the boat to shore with a…

The messages have been confusing. The America’s Cup had barely left town on its long-haul flight back to New Zealand before news broke that Barcelona would not be hosting the event for a second round. Given the local rumblings during the event where some of the anti-Cup protests started to gather momentum, this was disappointing to hear for those who enjoyed having the Cup in Europe. But it didn’t come as much of a surprise. Yet, a few months later a report on the economic impact of the America’s Cup in Barcelona put the value at just over €1 billion. That’s quite a difference of opinion. Even stranger was that the report had been produced by The University of Barcelona and the Barcelona Capital Nàutica Foundation, which said 1.8 million…

Though the IMOCA class is usually a design race between ever-more technologically advanced foilers, two brand new boats were built without foils. Why? Despite their lack of foils, Eric Bellion’s and Jean Le Cam’s David Raison-designed IMOCA sisterships (Stand as One Altavia and Tout Commence en Finistère – Armor lux respectively) were actually the newest IMOCAs in the Vendée Globe. After his remarkable 4th place finish in the 2020 Vendée on a 2007 design, veteran racer Le Cam contended that a modern daggerboard boat could perform competitively at a fraction of the €7m-plus cost of a latest generation foiling boat. Eric Bellion – who finished 9th in 2016 as first ‘rookie’, and was returning for 2024 – agreed. He was seeking an easier to sail design which could potentially be…

Spending hundreds of thousands on a yacht you have never seen in the flesh: madness? Or one of life’s great adventures – and maybe even a way to secure a deal? Buying a brand new yacht off-plan grants the owner, at least for a few weeks after launch, the promise of owning the very latest technology and design development. Buying an as-yet-unseen production model is where new yacht and new car ownership perhaps share the most similarities. Choosing a semi-custom or even fully custom design from renders and plans is even more of a leap. Purchasing off-plan demands not only deep pockets, but a deep level of trust in designer and builder, and perhaps a willingness to step into the unknown. Yet there are many owners willing to do just…

A team bidding to break the World Speed Sailing Record has surpassed 50 knots in preparations for an attempt on the record later this year. SP80 is a kite-powered foiling vessel from a Swiss engineering team, with a stated target speed of over 80 knots. The crew report they intentionally slowed once they had exceeded the 50-knot barrier – the speed at which rudder and foil cavitation becomes a significant problem. “This run above 50 knots allowed us to finally observe the behaviour of our foil in a speed range that remains largely unexplored in the world of sailing,” explained Benoît Gaudiot, kite pilot aboard SP80. “We deliberately slowed the boat down just before reaching 52 knots as a precaution, but our analysis of the data indicates that it did…

Tom Slingsby’s Australia SailGP team had a lucky escape when their F50 rig dramatically collapsed while racing at San Francisco in March. The Australian team had just powered up in the final approach to the startline when their rig disintegrated, falling onto the deck and cross beams. Fortunately no sailors were hurt. This is the second F50 rig to suddenly give way while racing, after the New Zealand team experienced a similar failure in St Tropez in 2023. We understand a third rig has also collapsed in training. Though the incident took Australia out of the San Fran final, the team still lead the season overall. The technical team has until 3-4 May to repair the boat for the next event in Rio, Brazil. The Royal Western YC in Plymouth and…

Peter Bruce, former Naval engineer, renowned racing yachtsman, and author, has passed away aged 83. Bruce represented Great Britain four times in the Admiral’s Cup, twice on the winning team and once as top individual boat. He was also the sighted skipper of a British Blind Sailing Team crew, and won many trophies at Cowes Week, in RORC races and national titles. In later years, he bought a succession of cruising yachts called Owl. Aboard his fourth, a Maxi 1100, he cruised extensively in Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia, Spain, Turkey and Newfoundland, while regularly contributing to Yachting Monthly, Yachting World’s sister title. His Heavy Weather Sailing was the authoritative book on boat handling during storms at sea, and Bruce’s regular updates meant his work remained relevant and essential for 50 years,…

Sailors commonly share an aversion to paperwork, though when it comes to racing, it’s unavoidable. Some of the admin is practical as well as theoretical though. As an example, the safety checklist of the RORC Caribbean 600 race requires you to have undertaken an MOB drill and an evacuation drill. Drilling muster points for an evacuation all felt a bit ‘close quarters’ on a 40-footer. Collecting everything you need to take with you, liferafts included, when it is all within arm’s reach of the cockpit was honestly comical. Grab bags, VHF, EPIRB, water, torches, medical kits and all the other ‘to go’ stuff, plus 10 race crew, makes for quite a squeeze in the cockpit! The MOB drill is easier to take seriously. But no one actually throws anyone over…

After two recent deliveries across the Pacific to Hawaii and back, on two very different boats, with two very different crews, I’m starting to realise that, more than anything else, it’s really the crew that makes the voyage. Crossing the Pacific from San Diego to Hawaii is widely considered a bucket list trip. It’s mostly downwind in the trades, it gets warmer by the day, and the goal is well… Hawaii. It’s a paradise, and one that I call home. I had the great fortune to skipper a fine sailing boat that I knew well: a 2017 Jeanneau Yacht 53 named Kaimana. Best of all, my crew were what I would call the ‘Dream Team’: my two nephews, both 24 years old, who – after a number of ocean crossings…

New formats, vastly improved software systems and new players in the market are radically transforming the world of marine electronics. So much has changed that it invariably comes as a surprise when I step on a cruising yacht much more than a decade old. Many don’t have the kit that can inform strategic navigation decisions, or even display basic functions such as a plot of wind speed and direction that can help identify trends. At the same time, the availability of inexpensive small format multi-function displays (MFDs) mean that the old industry-standard 4in display is now increasingly relegated as a legacy product. MFDS FOR SAILING B&G ZEUS B&G’s Zeus Touch MFDs in 2013 incorporated functionality I’d previously only used on expensive and complex PC-based software for high-level race navigation, while…

Match racing puts huge emphasis on getting a great start. World champion Ian Williams shares his tips for calculating time to the line with Andy Rice “When I go out on the Solent to go racing, I often see a lot of boats not even doing a single practice run before the start,” says Ian Williams. “And if you don’t do a practice run, you’ve got pretty much zero chance of getting your time on distance right.” To a match racing helmsman like Williams, time on distance is part of his religion, although he understands why some sailors might be loath to practise such a critical part of the race. “Practising a timed run does require a little bit of planning. Maybe you’re late off the dock, you’ve got other…

‘The M32 can fly a hull in as little as 4 knots of wind’ IAN WILLIAMS NOMINATES THE M32 As a match racer, Ian Williams frequently jumps into different classes of boats, but the Marström-designed M32 is his pick. “What I love about the M32 is the simplicity of design allowing for such a light weight boat (550kg all up) which makes for a number of sailing and practical benefits. “The boat can be towed behind a normal car, and rigged and launched from a slipway in a few hours. “On the water the boat is incredibly responsive, flying a hull in as little as 4 knots of wind. The C-boards and relatively full bows mean they are also controllable in strong winds, but if you do capsize they are…

Ian Williams adds his name to the impressive roll-call of winners as 2024 Yachtsman of the Year, awarded by the Yachting Journalists Association. Williams last year won an unprecedented eighth World Match Racing Tour title. Speaking from South Africa, he said: “It’s an incredible honour to add my name to such an illustrious list and also shine a bit of a light on my corner of the sport. “Firstly, I would like to thank the YJA and everybody who voted for me. “Secondly, my family for their incredible support over many, many years; it’s not easy. Thirdly, the sponsors who have allowed me to compete over the years, and especially, of course, Andrew Pindar, who was with me for my first back in 2007, and also the last and many…

Italian-American skipper Francesca Clapcich has announced her campaign for the 2028 Vendée Globe, with sponsorship from 11th Hour Racing. If successful, Clapcich’s team believes it will make her the first sailor ever to compete in the ‘big four’: the Olympics, where she represented Italy in the Laser Radial in 2012, and the 49erFX in 2016; the America’s Cup, having helmed for American Magic in the 2024 Women’s America’s Cup; the crewed Ocean Race, which she won in 2023 with 11th Hour Racing; and the solo Vendée Globe. Clapcich will take delivery of Boris Herrmann’s IMOCA Malizia-SeaExplorer after The Ocean Race Europe. The qualification cycle for the 2028 Vendée Globe begins with October’s Transat Café L’Or (formerly Transat Jacques Vabre) Clapcich said: “For this first attempt at the Vendée Globe I…

Cruising hidden Italy The winding archipelagos of the Tyrrhenian Sea offered shelter and spectacular shoulder-season cruising for Phil and Roxy Johnson as they made their way west across the Med. Powered up: the Big ARC Survey Our annual, unmissable survey of every yacht in this year’s ARC transatlantic rally on the gear that worked, the gear that didn’t, plus fitting and fixing tips learned from 3,000 miles of sailing. This year we focus on power: real-life advice on generating it, storing it and using it mid-ocean. Taking on the pros Offshore racing isn’t just for professionals: Rupert Holmes meets the couple beating some of the biggest teams in racing at their own game, and finds out how. Enduring favourites Some boats simply never go out of fashion or favour: Will…

Our RORC Caribbean 600 delivered everything on the J/122 El Ocaso: an MOB, sail damage, unrelenting seas, broaches, spinnaker wraps, emergency drops, broken tack lines and jib peels. My – largely amateur – crew contended with body slamming seas, seasickness and sunburn, and conditions that refused to go easy on us. For most of the second half of the race, we had been locked in a battle with Ross Appleby’s Team Scarlet on the Elan 45 Emily of Cowes, and Mojito (Peter Dunlop and Victoria Cox), another J/122. Mile by mile, we pushed, trying to close the gap and climb the podium. It was the second time in two days that we had approached Redonda, an uninhabited island south of St Kitts & Nevis. Some 40 hours earlier, we’d passed…

Rob Hamill wasn’t supposed to be in the water that day. Although he was tempted by the gentle cyan waves in the remote Thai anchorage, doctors had treated an infected area on his neck a few days prior and ordered him to stay out of the sea. But his three sons – Finn, Declan and Ivan – were knocking about in Ko Roc’s clear water, free diving to impressive depths, pushing each other to new limits. Finn was squeezing the last drops of adventure – along with some precious family time – out of his too-short visit before returning to Europe to continue his training for the New Zealand Olympic rowing team. The 21-year-old carried the same competitive spirit as his dad and was keen to match his 19-year-old brother…

Replacing a very successful model is a huge challenge for any boatbuilder. Is it best to take a conservative approach, opting for a similar design to the original with only incremental updates and improvements? Or should they take a much more radical line, introducing innovative features that turn long established thinking on its head? The new Lagoon 43 has a very different hull shape to its predecessor, with much broader forward sections above the waterline. Key motivations for this were to create a charter version with four equal double cabins, all with large peninsula beds, and to move the berth in the owner’s suite to the front of the boat in three-cabin layouts, without compromising the size of the bed. This moves it as far away as possible from noise…

Hitting rocks is one of a sailor’s worst fears: Joshua Shankle explains what to do if you’re unfortunate enough to be grounded With one foot on the beach and a fresh breeze in her sails, our old yacht seemed to come alive as we raced along the Panamanian coast. It was the perfect first sail of the season. We’d left Marina Vista Mar and Rachel and I were ecstatic to finally be sailing Agápe south once more. As we pinched every last mile we could out of the dwindling wind and light, we made our way past the first of the Perlas Islands and into the shallow waters of the archipelago. Dropping the sails, we fired up our trusty diesel, and prepared to make our way around the Isla Viveros.…