Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2025 i Sailing Today

I was at a dinner with like-minded cruising people. Conversations, as usual, started off on a fairly high plane of adventure on the high seas, but quickly descended into wailing over marina prices, cost of diesel, harbour master grumbles, and anything else which breathes a whiff of sadness into the souls of anyone who owns a boat. So, hoping for more uplifting conversation I turned to the woman on my right and said, “I go cruising, what do you do?” Such a banal question I hoped she might change places. What she came back with nearly had me off my seat. “I ADORE cruising,” she declared. “Oh, it’s such a GORGEOUS experience.” I’ve heard it described many ways but never quite as enthusiastically as that, often quite the reverse. But…

This article was meant to be about an adventurous trip from Southampton to North Brittany (ST July 2025) with my friend Keith, his daughter Jess, and sister Corinne, in his syndicated Sigma 362 Fast Escape. In reality the voyage soon became a sequence of disasters and triumphs. These two imposters created an adventure in themselves that in their own way added challenges and satisfaction to the trip. The adventure begins We left Ocean Village on the last of the ebb and had an excellent sail down Southampton Water under blue skies. Past Calshot we were then head-to-wind for our passage to Yarmouth, which was to be our harbour for the night. Rather than spend hours tacking into a now adverse flood tide, we decided to roll away the genoa and…

If ever proof was needed to illustrate how success can be obtained by pure team effort, then look no further than the WLYC 24 Hour Race that’s held annually in mid September and run by hundreds of club volunteers and supporters. This iconic International-sponsored Southport-based event, which is sailed on the floodlit Marine Lake in town, and open to GP14s, Enterprises, and Fireflies has been running since 1967. Despite its forced cancellation in 2000 (fuel crisis), and then again in 2020-23 (Covid) however, its recent revamp and the support it has gained from those passionate about its success, means the popularity of this event is now as strong as it’s ever been. The 2025 event was notable in many ways not least because of the mixed and challenging weather conditions…

No need to toe the line with teak these days. When it comes to replacing the deck of your boat, there are a multitude of alternatives to real wood. You can choose between cork, PVC, foam and a host of others. Costs vary depending on the material, design complexity and how much of the work you’re willing to do yourself. But they all have one thing in common: you’ll have to get the old stuff off first, and that can demand a lot of grunt. Whether we’re talking about cork, PVC or Esthec, surface preparation is key, and this can add significantly to the time and cost of installation. “The steps are to remove all hardware and seal holes to ensure no water ingress, then take out any existing screws…

RUSTLER 44 | SEA HAYES Designed by Stephen Jones to produce a swift, comfortable passage, and built by Rustler Yachts for stunning, durable living, this Rustler 44 is an ultimate bluewater cruising yacht. She has recently returned to the UK following a season in the Caribbean, and is a fine example offered in ready to sail condition with many features including a generator, inverter, heating, bow thruster, electric halyard winch, and electric primary winches. Sea Hayes also has a comprehensive electronics package, davits, white sails (2020), cruising chute, recent batteries, recent standing rigging, dinghy and outboard, and much more. She is in very good condition and is currently located outside the Rustler factory in Falmouth. Year: 2011 LOA: 13.50m (44'5") Beam: 4.28m (13'9") Draft: 2.10m (6'11") Displacement: 13,700kg Hull Construction:…

Dalin reveals he beat cancer enroute to Vendée victory Followers of the 2024/25 edition of the Vendée Globe could not fail to be impressed with the performance of Frenchman Charlie Dalin, whose disciplined campaign aboard his IMOCA 60 Macif Sante Prevoyance saw him outdistance his rivals in the notoriously tough solo, non-stop around the world race. What few knew at the time was the Dalin was also enduring the fight of his life against cancer even as he put his rivals to the sword on the racecourse. Dalin has now revealed his battle in his new biography, La Force du Destin. Dalin states that he first noticed symptoms in late 2023 during a training sail, and received his diagnosis after emergency scans. His participation was in doubt until the last…

It’s not often that Olympic sailors choose to leave their lane. They’re a highly focused breed, always asking themselves, ‘What can I do to make the boat go faster?’ Whether it’s honing their boat speed, testing new equipment, working out in the gym, avoiding chocolate or alcohol, they are single-minded in how they approach the day-to-day of their lives. Anything else is surplus to requirements. Whenever I ask an Olympic sailor about the format that they’re competing in, mostly they haven’t given it much thought. If they can’t change it, they don’t waste mental energy thinking about the alternative. ‘Control the controllables’ is one of the British Sailing Team’s favourite mantras. However, our ILCA 7 and Nacra 17 representatives from Paris 2024 – respectively Micky Beckett and John Gimson –…

When I opened this morning’s paper, I skipped the usual political leads which are becoming depressingly predictable and moved instead to President Trump’s cosy family visit to the King and Queen at Windsor. As I perused the columns, my wife, who was sipping her morning tea, demanded to know about the outfits of the Queen, the First Lady and the Princess of Wales. To my surprise, and well against the odds, as I read on I found myself taking an interest in Melania’s hat and Kate’s tiara. I pinched myself. Was I losing all rational perspective, reading this stuff? Perhaps I was, but it made a welcome change from studying matters over which I have no control until the next general election. Also, it started me thinking about how fashions…

If you were asked to describe the design needs for a modern sailing cruising yacht to someone new to sailing, you might tell him/her that they were: a seaworthy/seakindly hull with easy, and safe to handle, efficient sails, for all courses of sail good for carrying a relatively heavy load – of food, water, spares and fuel for a small (singlehanded even) crew in all weathers you might encounter Oh, wait... surely the pre-engine era fishing or work-boats in past centuries had the about same design criteria? Boats good for: a heavy cargo a small crew with easy-to-handle sails and rig seaworthiness and a need for good speed to get back to port for the market quickly? History of cruising rigs In the early 20th century, when sailing became a…

The students of the state school Greig City Academy in Haringey have been taking the racing circuits by storm this year, with some thrilling leaderboard positions across the dinghy and keelboat classes. Located in one of London’s most deprived boroughs, where a significant portion of the population is on low income in temporary housing, this inner city school continues, against the odds, to produce fast rising stars in the sailing world. Despite facing a range of economic, geographical and social barriers, with the support of the Scaramouche Sailing Trust, a number of students from Greig City Academy have taken to sailing with spirit and determination and have achieved remarkable success on and off the water. I caught up with some of the students to hear about their journey into sailing…

“These volumes came aboard for bedtime reading and were swiftly devoured ” I wished we’d brought more of our own books from home when we moved onto our boat. I remember putting out our new, shiny copies of World Cruising Routes and World Cruising Destinations onto the saloon shelves alongside the start of what we considered to be a sailing canon: Slocum, Moitessier, Knox-Johnston and MacArthur. We had bought a book by Hal Roth called How to Sail Around the World, which seemed like as good a place to start as any. This sat on our bigger bookshelf with Nigel Calder’s invaluable manual, a book on heavy weather sailing and a bunch of Imray cruising pilots for Europe. However, with all those safely stowed away, there were still great swathes…

Dufour 54 Dufour Yachts has been revamping its range over the last couple of years and the new generation of Umberto Felci-designed yachts feature quite remarkable levels of volume thanks to big beam and fuller forward sections. The 54 will be the new flagship of the range and, like its smaller sisters such as the new 48, volume will be a priority. dufour-yachts.com Fountaine Pajot 48 French multihull manufacturer Fountaine Pajot continues the revamp of its range with an all new 48 footer which replaces the old Tanna 47. The 48 is designed by the tried and trusted team of Berret/Racoupeau and the new boat is a tad larger than her predecessor. Squarely aimed at a cruising couple, the boat is easy to handle and tailored for cruising…

Anyone planning a bluewater sailing adventure for the first time will appreciate that turning the dream into a reality can be daunting. It takes time, expertise, and a healthy budget to get the boat ocean safe and the crew ready. Whether venturing off independently or joining an organised ocean-crossing rally, skippers should always plan for self-reliance and must have the boat prepared for any eventuality, long before leaving the dock. Going offshore means precision planning; systematically going through lists and prioritising. It’s a huge task, so we find it helpful to break it down into manageable chunks, such as spares, safety equipment and protocols, crew and provisioning. Spare a thought For the cruising sailor, the process begins, just like the start to the new sailing season, with a very thorough…

From the very outset, The Ocean Race Europe brought surprise. It began with a heart-stopper – the kind no-one wanted, or predicted... The seven IMOCA60s with their mixed gender crews of four (plus on-board reporter) had just crossed the line for the start of the 4,500nm, seven-week, port-hopping marathon – from Kiel, on the Baltic Sea, to Boka Bay, on the Adriatic – bound for their first stopover in Portsmouth, when a collision occurred moments into the race. Fortunately, no-one was hurt, but extensive damage proved race-halting for both Rosalin Kuiper’s Holcim-PRB and Ambrogio Beccaria’s Allagrande Mapei Racing. The incident gave a taste of the high-stakes nature of this fast-paced race format; shore-crews speedily began the super-human task of repairing the boats, hoping they could rejoin the fleet in time…

Surfing, it’s a funny old sport – if it really is a sport or perhaps just more of a lifestyle. Perhaps the most legendary surfer of all time was Gerry Lopez; who rode Hawaii’s Pipeline with a fluidity and insouciance that became legendary. Pipeline remains one of the most feared waves in the world, on a good day it’s so hollow you can get buried deep in the barrel – any surfer’s ultimate thrill. Yet look down through the limpid water and you see dark black twisted coral heads sticking up. Death lies just one fall away. Yet, despite riding this death-defying wave better than anyone else, Lopez was calm, understated, casual almost. Lopez was born in Honolulu and it was in this same city this summer that another surfing…

Think of the Cote d’Azur and you think of refined opulence; F Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night, Brigitte Bardot, Cannes Film Festival; glitz, glamour. The reality if you actually drive there is very different; endless traffic jams, insane drivers, hordes of people and a good deal of Botox. I therefore wanted to explore the coast fully by boat. That way I could see the coast without actually having to mix too much with the great unwashed. Having already extensively explored the area west of St Tropez (Porquerolles and the Calanques) I wanted to go more in depth on the area west of this; the stretch from St Tropez down to Menton on the Italian border – billionaires alleyway, essentially. I felt I had the boat for the job too;…