Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2025 i Practical Boat Owner

Power draw Almost every boat I have sailed is sub-40ft, at least 20 years old, and basic on the ‘modern convenience’ front; we used one gas ring for cooking on our S&S 34 and had no hot water. So, when I stepped aboard the Dufour 40 for our recent Sunsail charter holiday in the Ionian, I was pleasantly surprised to see we had a microwave, two fridges, a freezer and four hot showers, as well as a windlass, air conditioning, wifi, and USB charging ports in every cabin. Of course, all of these conveniences need power, and I must confess to spending some of my time on board checking the switch control panel to see how much power we were using. Luckily, we were mooring on quays and in marinas…

A new project is bringing together seaweed, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) in a bid to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. The University of Graz in Austria has partnered with UK start-up Carbon Kapture, based in Poole, Dorset, for a project to show how nature and technology can work together, using kelp farming and underwater robotics to monitor and restore aquatic ecosystems. At the heart of the project is the BioDiMoBot, a mobile robotic platform that operates autonomously in lakes, rivers, and coastal waters, collecting long-term data using a mix of physical sensors, novel biohybrid technology, and AI-supported analysis. Unlike traditional methods, BioDiMoBot captures detailed behavioural and environmental signals to reveal subtle changes in ecosystem health before they become critical. Kelp farming is also central to the project’s vision.…

National Historic Ships UK has appointed four historic vessels from around the country to act as its Flagships of the Year for 2025. The vessels chosen to ‘fly the flag’ for maritime heritage are: ■ Barnabas – 1881 Cornish fishing vessel, now teaching the unique skills of sailing and preserving traditional boats to the local community. ■ Sir Walter Scott – Victorian passenger steamship celebrating 125 years of steaming on Loch Katrine in the Scottish Highlands. ■ Llanthony – 1930s gentleman’s motor yacht which saved 280 lives at Dunkirk and recently completed an award-winning restoration. ■ Dane – 1947 narrowboat which carried cargo in the Potteries and is now a vital part of the educational offering at the Middleport Pottery heritage site. Each ship will receive a special broad pennant…

British yachtswoman Ella Hibbert is undertaking an expedition to become the first person to sail solo, non-stop, around the Arctic–an achievement only made possible by the alarming pace of sea ice decline. At the time of going to press Hibbert (28), a Yachtmaster Instructor, was counting down the days until her departure from Haslar Marina, Gosport, at the end of May. Hibbert has spent the past three years preparing for the 10,000 mile journey aboard her 1978 38ft Bruce Roberts offshore steel ketch, Yeva. After departing the Solent, Ella’s circumnavigation will begin between Norway and Iceland at 66.5°N, marking the edge of the Arctic Ocean. From there, she’ll sail to northern Iceland, across to southern and western Greenland, through the Northwest Passage, over the top of Alaska and into northern…

Round here in my part of Essex, we’re pretty good at recycling, especially the bloke at number 25, who’s so committed to saving the planet he empties more green and brown bottles of their contents than anyone else in the street [Ed’s note: that’s Dave’s house]. As for wheelie bins, most have been recycled into outboard motor trolleys and flushing tanks. We also used to use them as bins until the bin men went on strike after an outbreak of back injuries. The industrial action was settled when the council issued a notice banning collection of Seagull outboards. At the top of my road on the verge and on virtually every roundabout, there’s an old dinghy that, at this time of year, is a riot of floral spring fragrance and…

The first sailing cruiser I owned had a fixed fin keel which was great while at sea, but I only wanted to mess about around the coast and, of course, I was very restricted as to where I could land. I needed a marina, mooring buoy or anchorage and a tender to get ashore. The beaches were not available to me to land on. Can you imagine the Vikings sticking a fin under their boat or Captain Cook trying to land on tropical islands with a fin keel to careen and attend to his hull? And what about the Thames sailing barges that, with no engine, would deliver goods all around our coast? These would land on beaches in places like Broadstairs and Hastings to deliver coal and get off…

I have never liked reversing into a pontoon in my boat, because there is no keel to speak of, and the Bernoulli effect invariably causes the bow to swing out of control, especially if it’s windy. Going forward is easy because the Bernoulli effect helps keep the bow on track, quite the opposite of going backwards, not surprisingly. I bought a remote control for my new bow-thruster. The old thruster gave up the ghost after 12 years of useful, reliable service. So, a new one was fitted. The remote was just an afterthought, which has turned out to be a super addition to my armoury of boaty gadgets. First, the caveats: my boat has a single outdrive with contra-rotating props, and it weighs just over two tons. The contra-rotating props…

PART 2 The shipping sector is on a mission to reduce emissions and cut running costs, and some of its ideas will translate directly to pleasure boats. There is a lot of pressure on the commercial shipping sector to improve fuel efficiency ahead of a 2030 deadline, with full decarbonisation by 2050. Although this sector, comprising around 56,500 vessels of over 1,000 tons, carries 90% of the world’s goods for just 3% of global emissions, it is still a major international target for sustainability. As fuel makes up a major ongoing cost, the industry has been seeking new ways to reduce the amount it uses. A champion in this field is the Norwegian assurance and risk assessor DNV, which has just produced a 91-page document entitled ‘Energy-efficiency measures and technologies.’…

After a lovely week-long trip up the River Rance, I purposefully approached Port des Sablons, St Malo, on a hot, sunny day. I’d chosen this marina because its facilities included a black water pump-out station. The tank aboard Let’s Go, my Mitchell 28 Classique, had filled up while away and for some reason wouldn’t empty. When I used the pump, I could hear the motor whirr, but nothing was happening. I suspected either an air leak on the tank side or that the impeller had disintegrated. The pump and tank were located under the cockpit hatch, that could be lifted out of the way exposing the set up. I had tried tightening the hoses with no result except for producing a water leak, seemingly from the tank to seacock hose.…

New blades for oscillating multitools can be expensive, so it’s worth sharpening the old ones. There are several online videos showing different methods, ranging from hand filing to power grinding. If the teeth are still partially there, use them as a guide and recut them with a small file. A traditional triangular saw-sharpening file works, but I’ve found a cheap, diamond-coated one is even better. You don’t have to be too precise, because once recut, any oscillating blade with a serrated edge seems to work well. However, a powered mini grinder makes the job much quicker, especially if the teeth are worn away like the blade in the photo (below). Some people even advocate grinding off any old worn teeth and starting from scratch. Just clamp the blade between two…

Seasoned sailors can now explore the more peaceful side of Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast with Sunsail’s ‘off-grid’ charter option. The seven-day ‘Off The Beaten Track’ itinerary on bareboat charters from Agana is available for those who hold RYA Day Skipper and VHF qualifications, and have anchoring experience. Less experienced charterers have the option to add a skipper. The adventure has the peace of mind of Sunsail’s ‘4-Hour Commitment’ where the local team will attend a yacht within four working hours of any essential equipment breakdowns. ■ pbo.co.uk/off-grid-sunsail…

The latest review of the voluntary no anchor zone (VNAZ) established to prevent anchoring over seagrass beds in Studland Bay, Dorset has been published. It has been three years since the VNAZ was introduced, and the review indicates there has been an increase in sailors using ecomoorings when available–and they’re also anchoring outside the VNAZ when no moorings are available. Activity was monitored via shoreside observations, visits from the offshore patrol vessels and automatic identification system (AIS) remote monitoring methods. The Studland Bay Marine Partnership will be offering a wider selection of mooring payment options for boaters in 2025, including the Sippi App. Fees to moor on the ecomoorings for 2025 are: £7.50 for up to four hours; £15 for up to 24hr (overnight); and £150 for a seasonal pass.…

Campaigners took a 26-strong flotilla of boats to Westminster to deliver a message to the nation’s policy makers about the need to protect the future of Britain’s inland waterways. Some participants had travelled more than 275 miles – from Strawberry Island Boat Club in Doncaster–to join the Fund Britain’s Waterways (FBW) effort on 7 May. FBW is a coalition of organisations calling for ‘adequate investment’ to protect the failing infrastructure and to safeguard the future of the 5,000-mile waterways network. The flotilla included working fuel boats, a Dutch barge and privately owned narrowboats from across the country. Hazel Owen, chair of the Association of Waterways Cruising Clubs and a member of the FBW steering group, said: “Not even broken locks or pollution from a fire closing the Maida Hill Tunnel…

Got a news story that would interest a fellow PBO reader? We want to hear from you! Email PBO news editor Laura Hodgetts at pbo@futurenet.com SOUTH COAST & CHANNEL ISLANDS Sail recycling Boat owners can now dispose of old sails at a collection point at Hamble Point, Southampton. OneSails GBR South, situated in School Lane, has joined ReSail by Clean Sailors, a sustainable sail re-use network that aims to reduce waste and extend the life cycle of sail textile. The company’s loft on the East Coast has been part of the scheme since March 2023. Made from complex synthetic materials, with the exception of OneSails’s 4T FORTE membranes, sails aren’t formally recycled anywhere in the world; currently, over 97% of sails end up in a landfill or are incinerated. Wilf…

Summer is icumen in and no mistake. The varnish is gleaming, the antifouling is impeccable and soft breezes stir the burgee. What remains to be done? Nothing. No, wait a minute. Think transom. A perfectly-polished wineglass shape, exquisitely perforated at the splay by the exhaust skinfitting. An abstract shape that fills the soul with joy. But something is missing. What? A name, that’s what. Your boat will almost certainly already have a name. One hopes that it may not be Costa Plenty or, like a matched pair of semi-derelict river craft that once polluted the upper Severn, Stimula and Fiesta, named, apparently, after exotically modified brands of gent’s personal requisite. Some like to call their darlings things like Physiological Ineptitude III, though the difficulty of spelling this to the coastguard…

Yacht design demands a compromise between form and function, between reducing holes that could sink and perforated topsides that would look ugly. Discharges fitted to the topsides leave unsightly stains from sinks, rusty, oily, sooty exhausts, rusty anchor chains and limescale from water tank vents. Yet boats need to have holes through their hulls to allow air and water in and out. It’s best if as many as possible are above the waterline for obvious reasons, but the toilet inlet and engine coolant intakes must be below. Toilets discharge below the waterline to avoid stinky embarrassment, while speed log and depth sounder transducer would be useless above the waterline. Any discharge, vent, air intake or drain above the waterline must have a hose or baffle moulding that extends as high…

This article follows on from my introduction Smart Boat article (PBO, October 2024), which showed how to use Home Assistant (HA) and a Raspberry Pi (Rpi) circuit board to build a central boat computer. Now, we’ll take that system to the next level by integrating essential engine monitoring sensors, all connected through one versatile ESP32 microcontroller. Whether you want to add new sensors for engine temperature and rpm, or harness existing analogue gauge signals for fuel and oil pressure, the setup described here will help you transform your boat’s instrumentation into a more modern, connected solution. Why add smart monitoring? Most boats already include some level of engine instrumentation–fuel gauges, temperature dials, and oil pressure lights – but these analogue gauges can be limiting: they don’t save historical trends, their…

The saloon windows on our Lagoon 410, Cushla, have been crazed since we bought her, but listing her for sale made us realise just how ugly they’d become over the last four years, semi-circumnavigating from Europe to New Zealand. Luckily, we found ourselves with the time and access to materials to tackle the job. But the big challenge was that the windows have a slight curve to them. Over the 700mm width, they bow out by 15mm. My first thought was that this could probably be curved to shape in the frame and held in place by the strength of the adhesive. A couple of sage boaters advised me that a heat gun would soften it into place, so buoyed with the confidence that this was a job we could…

After years of dinghy sailing and kayaking, I bought a 1969 Snapdragon 24 fin-keeler in Plymouth and we bonded through navigations up and down the River Tamar and around The Sound. Many a happy night was spent on the Yealm, and anchored off Cawsand, along with the occasional trip to Salcombe or Fowey. Rather than having Draken lifted for the winter from her river mooring at Calstock in Cornwall, I decided to overwinter my Snapdragon at Emsworth marina–in my old stomping ground and nursery sailing classroom of Chichester Harbour, to take advantage of their affordable winter rate. Much had been learnt at Calstock about overhanging trees, vicarious channels switching sides in a parabolic path and rates of the ebb. My first fin keeler had certainly focused the mind! Passage planning…

For more adventures visit www.pbo.co.uk/cruising June 12th 2024 was my last day at work before retirement, at Seamap (UK) where I’d worked for 14 years. What a great feeling, to be free to go sailing whenever the weather suits. A longer cruising holiday was planned… but where? My friend Ray Capp is the cruising co-ordinator at Weymouth Sailing Club (WSC) and an experienced yachtsman, so when he said “I’m thinking of sailing to Brittany, do you want to come?” I jumped at the chance. The timing couldn’t have been better as Lorraine, my wife and sailing partner, had previously suggested the Channel Islands, which got us thinking–because we can, let’s do a longer cruise. The date was set for 13 June, leaving Weymouth at 0500 for maximum daylight hours. Howeve,…

A report into the death of a crew member who drowned while sailing a Sonar-class keelboat off the Isle of Wight in 2022, has highlighted several safety concerns. On 1 October 2022, Elizabeth Wood, 43, fell overboard from the Andrew Cassell Foundation (ACF) boat LimbItless while racing with an experienced skipper and two other crew. The keelboat quickly returned to Ms Wood’s location, but its crew was unable to recover her from the water. Some 15 minutes later, an unconscious Ms Wood was recovered with assistance from the crews of three other vessels that had responded to the skipper’s Mayday broadcast. Despite CPR being administered as she was taken ashore and professional medical attention on arrival, she did not recover. The ACF’s aim is to enable disabled sailors to race…

Bidirectional charging of electric boats is said to be ‘a game-changer for the maritime industry’ as it not only enables vessels to charge efficiently but also allows boat owners to discharge their batteries and return surplus energy to the grid when not in use. Aqua superPower, which leads the Virtual Bunkering for Electric Vessels (VBEV) project, in collaboration with energy company EDF, software innovator Fuuse, research experts CENEX, the University of Plymouth, City College Plymouth and RS Electric Boats, says this capability could help reduce energy costs, optimise battery health, and generate income for boat owners by selling energy back to the grid. The team hope their recent demonstration of the technology will be a step towards the widescale adoption of electric boats supported by ‘Vesselto-Grid’ infrastructure. Adam Marshall, chief technology…

Email pbo@futurenet.comor write to us at the address on page 5. Photos are appreciated, letters may be edited. Portishead Radio memories I’m a former radio officer at Portishead Radio, which closed 25 years ago. The station provided vital radio links to and from ships and yachts during its time of operation, and latterly provided communication facilities for many of the world’s major yacht races. In the 1990s, it also provided free high-frequency (HF) radio courses for sailors to enable them to operate their HF/single sideband (SSB) radios efficiently and effectively, for which the station won a Royal Yachting Association (RYA) award. I am currently researching the ‘complete’ history of Portishead Radio, and one chapter will be dedicated to the leisure market and the international yacht races (Whitbread, BT Global Challenge,…

Exploring unfamiliar territory is always exciting, and I started my sailing season with two good trips aboard Shetland’s own tall ship, Swan, a 75ft Fifie built in Lerwick in 1900. This spring’s crew training was an overnight voyage, and it was a great idea – we got so much more done, like anchoring for real, trying out the emergency tiller and cooking aboard. Swan’s winter berth is in Scalloway, on the west side, 10 miles south of my usual sailing patch. We used the morning to check out the engine, deck and galley, and the start of the afternoon doing man overboard drill. Then we cast off from the pier and headed into a clear patch of water between salmon farms to do man overboard again. After that we sailed…

Rupert Holmes looks at his favourite Westerly model of all time and other alternative boats you might consider Westerly had a reputation for building sturdy, though unexciting, cruising boats that offered a lot of space and comfort by the standards of their era. However, it also produced some less well-known, more performance-oriented boats that can be an excellent choice for many owners. Among the 60-plus models produced by Westerly in its long and chequered history, the 32ft Fulmar is often cited as the best boat the yard ever built. In many ways, this Ed Dubois design broke ranks with earlier mainstream Westerly models, offering a more performance-oriented boat with a powerful fractional rig. Yet it was still easily handled and offered decent accommodation. The Fulmar also quickly gained a deserved…

When I bought my schooner Britannia, it only had a small 1,500W inverter that was not powerful enough to run the additional electrical devices I fitted as I modernised the 1977 yacht. She’s American-built, so the AC electrics are all 120V, but the principle of an inverter is exactly the same for any output voltage. Simply put, inverters work the opposite way to a transformer; they take 12V current from the batteries and miraculously convert it to run the AC devices on your boat (120V or 240V). Even small boats with hardly any electronics can benefit from an inverter, provided they have adequate batteries, because it offers an easy way to be able to operate equipment like a laptop or to recharge a phone. Small camper vans nearly always have…

Email your projects and tips to pbo@futurenet.com including high resolution photos where possible. We pay at least £30 for each one published The swivel car on my 40ft yacht seized last year when half my genoa was wrapped around the forestay, making it impossible to pull down. I was able to roll the loose flap of sail back on itself until I was able to pull it down. The outcome could have been very different in bad weather. Removing the swivel car was too big a job for me, so I paid for the services of a professional rigger. Although this article is specific to my 2004 Facnor model C38 swivel car, much of the work described here could be applied to other makes. ‘Open’ cars like mine don’t have…

Things you need to do before leaving the UK ■ Register your vessel and all crew members with the Border Force and HMRC, with all the passport numbers and your planned trip. www.spcr.homeoffice.gov.uk ■ It is also important to go online before returning, and register with the same authorities via the same website of your intention to return. ■ You should display a Q flag when entering any of the Channel Islands, entering France and returning to the UK. ■ At Alderney, Guernsey and Jersey, you must fill out a customs form and leave the form in the post box provided at Alderney and Guernsey or the marina office at Jersey. You will also need a passport. ■ If entering France at the main ports of entry, your passport will…

1 It’s great fun to go ditch-crawling, but do check that your raw water strainers are not getting too clogged with weed and muck. 2 When you clean them out, it’s also a good idea to add a small ball to the strainer. This moves about when the water is flowing and saves you having to look over the stern to check the flow of cooling water through the exhaust. Most marine engines rely on a constant supply of cold water to cool them, so any blockage at the water intake can be serious. Some boats install a rodding access point above the intake to clear any obstructions. 3 If the access point is below the waterline, it will need a valve. 4 But if there is space above a seacock,…