Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i SAIL

Alain Janet is pretty talkative these days, and with good reason. The head of the UK Sailmakers loft in southern France, Janet has spent most of his adult life making sails and working on how to make them better—not just for sailors, but also for the environment. Three years ago Janet and the folks at UK Sailmakers developed an eco-friendly line of sails known as Titanium Blue, which eliminated the plastics in the sail by replacing the polyester and mylar with cellulose-based film and swapping out carbon yarn with yarn made naturally from basalt. But Janet wanted to take the environmental angle and push it a little further. “I wanted to bring something to the sailor or the racer, and that is free energy,” he says. This led to the…

Racing to the Onion Patch in the classic Marion to Bermuda Race is one of the country’s great Corinthian-level offshore challenges. It’s also a perfect way to experience bluewater racing, sans a huge amount of racecourse pressure or the unspoken prerequisite of buying a new inventory of carbon racing sails. Now, the time-honored bluewater classic has become more user-friendly still by adding a youth-sailing element to this already family-style race. Announced over the winter, the Offshore Youth Challenge Trophy has been specifically designed to bolster interest in offshore sailing amongst “juniors” (defined as sailors aged 16-23 at the time of the race’s June 19 start) and seeks to match up greenhorn sailors with experienced salts to foster safe learning environments. Boats are eligible to compete for the Offshore Youth Challenge…

No one ever said professional offshore sailing was gonna be easy, but over the years Alex Thomson has received his share of hard knocks, and then some. 2004—Structural hull damage forces retirement from the Vendée Globe Race 2006—Structural hull damage forces retirement from the Velux 5 Oceans Race 2008—A collision at sea forces retirement from the Vendée Globe Race 2011—Retires from the BWR due to a medical emergency involving his son, this after trouble joining the race because of appendicitis (his son recovered fully) 2014—Dismasted on delivery from England to New York 2014—Misses New York to Barcelona Race because it conflicts with the due date for the birth of his second child; Ribes and U.S. sailor Ryan Breymaier go on to win 2015—Dismasting forces retirement from the BWR…

Young Gun at Key West The J/70 class boasted 54 boats at this year’s Key West Race Week— impressive, given that the event saw 146 boats, total. Equally impressive was Gannon Troutman—age 12 and believed to be the youngest skipper in the race’s history—and his Pied Piper crew (including his dad, Dan) who finished fifth overall, smoking plenty of great one design sailors. All told, Pied Piper racked up first, second and third-place finishes, and seven other top-20 finishes. Bravo! Paralympic Sailing Cut from 2020 Games One of the greatest aspects of sailboat racing is that it can be enjoyed and loved at almost every phase of life, be it as a wide-eyed junior, a gray-haired tactician, an able-bodied deckhand or as a disabled skipper competing against a stiff international…

Beneteau’s groundbreaking Oceanis 38, which featured a dramatic new approach to accommodation space in a cruising monohull, scored a host of awards during its 2013-14 debut season, including a Best Boats nod from SAIL. Now comes a slightly smaller sibling, the new Oceanis 35, with the same sort of flexible modular interior. The question raised is, why would you want one boat as opposed to the other? The new boat, not counting the fixed bowsprit available on some versions, has an overall hull length of 32ft 9in versus a hull length of 36ft 6in in the larger boat. In boats with more traditional interiors this extra length might count for a lot, but in boats like these, with striking open-plan interiors, the differences may be more subtle. CONSTRUCTION The new…

How about the dramatic plunge-dives of Northern Gannets? Or the beauty of elegant, long-tailed Roseate Terns fishing in your wake? Have you enjoyed the company of the “swallows of the sea” (Wilson’s Storm-Petrels) as they pitter-patter over the ocean’s surface feeding? If these raise a memory and bring a smile to your face, you’re already a sailing birdwatcher! There’s so much to enjoy about birds while afloat. And you’re in an enviable position. Many of these species are never seen by avid land-birders, as many pelagic birds spend their entire lives at sea, only coming ashore briefly to breed on remote islands. And as a sailor, if you’re passionate about the sea and environment, you should consider joining citizen-science efforts and contributing to seabird conservation by taking photographs and reporting…

1. As you squeeze the trigger of the spray gun the air starts pumping, and as you keep squeezing the paint will finally get to the tip. Getting used to the rhythm of when to start the air and when to start the paint takes some practice. 2. Use your wrist rather than your elbow as the pivot point when moving the gun. If you move the gun with your wrist locked the gun moves in an arc and more paint is applied in the middle of the arc than at the ends. Using your wrist as the pivot point will help keep the spray tip the same distance from the surface and you get a more even application of the paint. 3. Get a couple of 4-by-8-ft sheets of…

Beaufort, South Carolina—pronounced Byoo-for—has, in my opinion, the most attractive waterfront on the Intracoastal Waterway. Its design is very people-friendly, with a park behind a long promenade next to the seawall. Backing that park are several great restaurants and pubs, including the Saltus, arguably the best of the lot. The buildings are historic—Luther’s, for example, harkens back to 1906 when it was a pharmacy operated by Charles Luther, and continued in that family until the mid ‘80s. Now it’s one of Beaufort’s most popular restaurants. Stepping through Luther’s onto Bay Street, you’ll discover a beautiful downtown, replete with historic buildings and interesting shops. A few steps farther, and you’re in a designated historic residential district with many remaining homes from the English colonial settlement. It’s a great place to explore.…

One of the coolest new builds to emerge from a boat shed in years is Rambler 88, a Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed all-out monohull monster that was completed by New England Boatworks, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, this past winter. While Rambler 88 brims with bleeding-edge design concepts, her rudders, which carry nodules on their lower leading edges—much like those seen on humpback whales’ fins—caught our eye at SAIL, so we called the world’s foremost foil expert to find out more. “I believe the nodules do two things, one that has been proven, one that has not,” says Paul Bieker, one of Oracle Team USA’s core designers and a principal at Bieker Boats in Seattle, which has successfully employed nodules on some designs. “The proven effect is an increase of the maximum lift…

BIKES ONBOARD One of the best parts of arriving in a new port of call is the opportunity to go exploring—whether you’re looking for a place to get some food and drink, a secluded beach where you can kick back or somewhere to provision for the next leg of your journey. And what better way to do all that than by bicycle? But bikes are big, and space onboard is limited. Enter the folding bike—the cruiser’s best friend. Here is a selection of functional folding bikes. Grab one and stow it onboard for your next cruise. You’ll be glad you did. FOR THE DIRT The SwissBike X50 from Montague is a multi-use folding bike, rugged enough to handle dirt roads in the islands while still being compact and easy to…

There’s an argument to be made for starting with a clean sheet of paper, but there’s one just as compelling that says, if it works, don’t even think of starting over, just refine. Morris Yachts has taken the latter route with the newly launched Morris Ocean Series 48 GT (Grande Touring) by taking an existing hull and then re-thinking the rig and the interior to leverage the good and make it even better. CONSTRUCTION After consulting with owners, Morris decided to stick with the proven 48-foot hull by Chuck Paine and add a more powerful rig. The highmodulus carbon fiber mast from Offshore Spars gained over 6ft in height, adding over 100 square feet to the working sail area. A self-tacking jib was added, leaving room to put a Code…

From the moment we left the mooring I knew what was wrong. The boat had sat, hardly used, for nearly a month; now, as I opened the throttle, the engine note changed to a complaining rattle, black smoke belched from the exhaust, and the boat moved reluctantly off as if tethered to the bottom by an elastic band. From past experience, I knew the propeller was covered in barnacles. The only bright note was that it was late October and we were taking the boat to be hauled out, so there would be no plunging into frigid New England waters to scrape the growth off the prop. The problem of keeping your prop barnaclefree is by no means restricted to the Northeast. From the Florida Keys to the Bering Strait,…

While pro-level sailing events showcase world-class moves and grand prix-level gear, we at SAIL especially respect high-level Corinthian events, so we were particularly excited to learn about the recently announced Premiere Sailing League (PSL). This new transcontinental racing series—the first series of its kind in the United States—is being modeled after the super-popular Sailing Champion leagues that have been developed in Germany (the Segel-Bundesliga) and Denmark (the Sejlsportsligaen), and will see teams competing aboard J/70 one designs for both regional and national bragging rights. The PSL is expected to kick off this August with teams from 72 different sailing clubs divided by geographical region competing in four separate qualifying events unfurling in Chicago (north), New Orleans (south), Newport, Rhode Island (east) and San Francisco (west). Each club will effectively act…

No self-respecting sailor could resist taking a last sail before hauling out for the year. Not this sailor, anyway—even with 20-knot northeast gusts that sent the wind turbines ashore moaning and the waters of New England’s Buzzards Bay squirming. As I rowed the dinghy out to our mooring, my gut—or was it the soft voice of the dinghy?—told me to tow our 12-foot Barnstable Cat Finn around to the landing in Megansett Harbor. But my heart said sail. So, after tying in a reef, I dropped off the mooring, dinghy in tow. I planned to head to Scraggy Neck, come about and beat past the breakwater into the inner harbor to the landing, where my wife and Ben from the boatyard waited with the trailer. Within a few feet of…

For many lake sailors and coastal cruisers, crossing the Atlantic is little more than a fairytale. It certainly was for us. But ours is an “if we can do it, you can too” story of a husband and wife who took time off work to sail their production sailboat from the Mediterranean back to the Western Hemisphere. We had such an amazing adventure we can only encourage others to make their dream a reality, too. I’m writing this in mid-December in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, where we’ve just arrived along with 48 other sailboats participating in the ARC+ rally, sailing from Gran Canaria to St. Lucia via the Cape Verde Islands. But our story actually ends with the ARC rather than starting there... My wife, Brenda, and I had enjoyed…

Although the odds of losing someone overboard are minimal, it’s vital to practice and master an MOB drill so you can get back to and retrieve your crewmate quickly and efficiently. It’s an important skill and one that your shipmates will certainly appreciate; it is also a great confidence booster, whether you are the captain, the first mate or a crewmember. There are several ways of getting the boat back to a person in the water. However, never forget that getting back to the MOB is only part of the equation. It is no use getting back to the MOB only to find you cannot get the casualty back on board, so we have developed a retrieval technique that does not depend on raw physical strength. Almost every boat has…

When I bought my 1962 Alberg 35, Magic, in 2001, she was equipped with a pedestal-mounted wheel connected to the rudderstock with wire rope running over sheaves and a quadrant. The steering pedestal looked very yachty and provided a nice place for a cupholder, but I never really liked the arrangement. A boat of this size and hull type rarely needs a wheel’s extra leverage to turn its rudder, and I’ve always liked the responsiveness of a tiller. Also, at 6ft 5in and 230 pounds, I require a bit more maneuvering room than most, and the 32in destroyer wheel ate up a good chunk of the cockpit and made the companionway difficult to access. Several years of ownership did nothing to change my mind, and after sailing on some much…

To my mind the best material for a holding tank is polyethylene (PE). It’s light, clean, easily worked, nonpermeable and won’t stink, unlike the bladder tank that our boat was originally fitted with. I’m a fan of bladder tanks for water, but not for sewage. They must be carefully installed and protected from chafe; if one springs a leak I’d rather it was filled with water than the other. There was a definite stink about the one I removed from our boat. Don’t use metal—you’ll be amazed and possibly horrified at the potency of urine as a corrosive liquid. Fiberglass is a good option, if you have a mind to make your own tank. Several companies offer ready-made PE tanks in various shapes and sizes. It will be up to…