Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2026 i Sailing Today

Anyone who’s watched – (and let’s face it, who hasn’t) - the celebrations erupt among Emirates GBR crew as they sailed the final hundred metres to win the overall 2025 SailGP Season Championship in Abu Dhabi in late November, surely cannot help but smile – unless perhaps you’re an antipodean accepting defeat. As a first for a British team, it felt like a victory that ran way deeper than the final winner-takes-all race, and it’s one that driver Dylan Fletcher says, ultimately meant more than the $2m prize money that the team walked away with as a result (though, they weren’t going to turn it down!) Since re-joining the team in late 2024, Season 5 has seen Dylan steer the British F50 to success over 80+ races in 12 venues…

Choosing a new tender for the boat is a big decision that can set the tone for your adventures afloat. It determines whether you can get in to explore a rocky beach or ashore to the pub up the river. It’s a workhorse and a people carrier, but also a plaything if there are children aboard. In short, unless you are planning the sort of marina-to-marina cruising that keeps your feet warm and dry, the tender is key. A multitude of possibilities awaits the unwary, from a second-hand Avon Redcrest on gumtree.com to a Williams Minijet tender. Your budget will play a big role in what you look at, but also the means of storage and number of crew aboard. “A great tender is one you’ll actually use,” says Boatworld…

The United States is far down the list in terms of popular cruising destinations for the European market but with its vast cruising area, and the fact more and more charter guests are looking for alternative sailing holiday options, this part of the world is starting to become more of a place of interest. From Alaska, San Diego on the west coast, to Florida Keys, to the bustling hubs of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, sailing hot spots like Annapolis/Chesapeake Bay, and the rugged coastlines on the east coast as far as Maine, it’s easy to understand why charter sailors are increasingly drawn to this part of the world. Although the USA is not as well served for holiday charter as Europe, the Far East and the Caribbean for example, there…

Art by Holly Sutherland Every self respecting sailor needs some marine art on the walls of their home to keep them breaming of those stolen moments of joy and beauty out on the water. Holly Sutherland is a Southampton-based artist who has spent her life by the sea, having grown up in St Helena in the South Atlantic before moving to Britain. Her love of the sea and appreciation of its form, moods and the diffents shades of colour it can generate are clear in her selection of prints recently made available on this new website. The prints are textured giclee prints and are priced between £40 and £75. An ideal addition to any sailor’s wall – or even aboard. ⬤ sailorshop.co.uk TRIED AND TESTED Helly Hansen Women’s Crew Insulated…

RUSTLER 42 | CRUACHAN Cruachan is an iconic Rustler 42 from 2011 that has had very little use. She has been sailed in UK waters only and is in pristine condition. She has a blue hull and teak decks with oak interior, and two heads, and she’s had recent upgrades to standing rigging, plus electronics, sprayhood, electric tender outboard, and safety equipment. The package includes bowthruster, Webasto heating, hydrovane wind steering, Parasail and a cruising chute in snuffer. The broker tells us Cruachan is located in Falmouth on the hard ready for viewing, and offers a great opportunity to own one of the best bluewater yachts on the market. Year: 2011 LOA: 12.8m (42ft) Beam: 4.06m (13.32ft) Draft: 1.88m (6.17ft) Displacement: 11,763kg Hull Construction: Glassfibre Keel: Long fin Engine: Nanni…

Dylan goes electric as Emirates GBR win SailGP After a nail-biting Grand Final in Abu Dhabi, Emirates GBR have won the 2025 SailGP title. In the City’s Zayed Port, coming from third, the British team overhauled the Australian and New Zealand teams on the 4th leg of the final. Co-owned since 2021 by Ben Ainslie and Chris Blake, the Emirates GBR team included Dylan Fletcher (driver), Hannah Mills (strategist), with Luke Parkinson (flight controller) and Iain Jensen (wing trimmer) in the final, and have become the first ever team to triumph across the board - winning the Grand Final, the season standings and the award for Impact League for 2025. The team secured the latter, for the second consecutive year, through both top sporting performance and social/environmental impact, via Ben…

Dylan Fletcher has been on quite the journey over the past two years. To steer Emirates GBR to victory in the Grand Final of this season’s Rolex SailGP Championship places him firmly in the top echelon of the world’s best professional sailors. Two years ago he was struggling to get noticed, and this coming after winning an Olympic gold medal and the International Moth World Championship. For many years on the Olympic circuit, Fletcher was one of a cohort of sailors playing second fiddle to the unstoppable Kiwis Pete Burling and Blair Tuke in the 49er skiff class. While Fletcher pushed the New Zealanders hard, he never managed to beat them at a major championship - until it mattered the most. Sailing with crew Stu Bithell, Fletcher went into the…

It’s easy to get downhearted during these long weeks in the dead of winter, but all sorts of little treats can pop up to help us through. A wet day only six hours long doesn’t have a lot to offer to the bon viveur it’s true, but when the weather serves up a sharp frosty morning with blue skies and light airs, everything changes. A roaring log fire after a brisk afternoon walk takes some beating, especially if you can get the right side of a Whisky Mac while toasting your toes at sundown. Then, if you wait an hour or so for darkness to fall and you’re as lucky as I am to live in an area of low light pollution, you can step outside and contemplate the night…

Efforts to design a true ‘one size fits all’ racing dinghy continues to keep technical teams busy. Over the years there have been many new designs introduced with interesting ideas to increase the weight range spectrum in one-design classes. The Laser 5000 from the early 1990s, for example, pioneered the fancy wing, and crew weight-equallising system with the idea to allow crews of all weights and sizes to race on a more level playing field one-design environment. The D-Zero with two rig sizes, and, of course the ILCA with its range of rig options are among the singlehanded classes that caters for a wider range of crew weights. Earlier singlehanded classes designed from the 1950s onwards such as the OK in 1957, Contender in 1968, plus the International Canoe in…

The end of the Ionian charter season does not mean our team can take a break. On the contrary, the boat yards around Vliho bay are alive with private owners, contractors and winter staff. It’s a busy time – essential for keeping our yachts in top condition. It’s when a lot of effort goes into ensuring our fleet – and our company – stay at the top of the charter market. The winter work is essential to prevent problems during the season and to keep yachts in the best possible condition. These long days of work, often in a cold wet boat yard, are vital. Our engineers, skippers and maintenance team work away unseen whilst the island sleeps. Right after the last charter finishes, the winter preparation starts immediately. At…

I never sailed the Amazon and I never reached Brazil Oh, I’d love to roll to Rio, some day before I’m old! (Songs of Rudyard Kipling) We’d been to Rio de Janeiro once before and many years earlier, by air. I remembered learning within a couple of hours of landing that in Brazilian Portuguese the term ‘Motel’ doesn’t mean what you might think; the price list in reception with room rates by the hour and the red/green traffic lights above our door were a bit of a giveaway. Then Jenny and I had been robbed on Copacabana beach and had to walk back barefoot and in swimsuits. My parting memory was of the husky, sexy voice of the announcer at Galeão airport as she whispered enticingly that Aerolineas Argentinas’ flight…

Nothing can really prepare you for how completely your relationship with the water changes when you’re living on it. From vibrant ceruleans and cobalts to bleached-out leaden greys; vivid azures of the sandy shallows to dark navys and indigos of the deep sea, all of them become a familiar backdrop to the cruising life. Before we moved aboard to sail full-time I had lived in London and acknowledged, in passing, the churning brown tidal activity of the Thames. At university I was based in Brighton and would pick my way across its pebbly beach to get closer to the crashing waves or else gaze out at a pink and orange-streaked sunset reflected in the sea below. But those seem like almost passing acquaintances compared with the sea that I know…

Pogo RC Yachts designed specifically to conform to a rating rule can be curiously deformed things. Who can forget some of the contorted designs of the 1980s bent into peculiar shapes to profit to the maximum from the IOR rule. Thankfully, the IRC rule tends to encourage more balanced designs and the Pogo RC is an interesting experiment, having been designed specifically to optimised for IRC racing. The result is a speedy yacht that boasts a full sectioned scow bow, married to a short (8.17m) waterline relative to her overall (10m25cm) length. This is a yacht designed for winning on the offshore racecourse and she looks well capable of it. pogostructures.com Stem 50 Did I mention that the French were dominant in the sector of aluminium ‘go anywhere’ rugged blue…

Passage planning – why bother? Passage planning may not be of great concern to sailors who do most of their sailing in familiar waters and who follow the main channels to 24 hour-access marinas. With the latest auto-tracking facilities on chart plotters you can even tell the system where you want to go, engage the autopilot and disappear below. Whether or not this is adviseable given the manufacturer’s disclaimer “Not to be used for navigation”, is up to you to decide. In this article I hope to show why passage planning is important, and how it can greatly enhance our enjoyment of the sport, while also opening the door to less visited, and often more attractive destinations. I assume a boat speed of 6kts and refer tides to HW Dover…

If you haven’t already visited Linjett’s boatyard in the sleepy hamlet of Rosättra just to the north of Stockholm, I highly recommmend it to you. If you love sailing, you cannot fail to be seduced. It’s like being transported into some sort of Scandinavian utopia; There is a marina at the head of a tranquil inlet packed full of slender, stylish Linjett yachts of all ages, all looking immaculate. Set back from that is the Linjett yard from whence emanates the scent of pine and teak and the buzz of sanders. The whole place feels like some sort of advert for the merits of the Scandinavian lifestyle. Indeed, Linjett remains a powerful testament to the glory of Swedish boatbuilding; a blend of attention to detail, a desire for quality and…

Ever sailed on a Hobie cat? Even if it’s just a knockabout Hobie Wave you soon discover that these compact, uncomplicated dinghies provide some of the most exhilarating sailing imaginable. Founder Hobie Alter was a man who took multihull sailing from relative obscurity in the 1960s to becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Now, another question – ever sailed a Cruising catamaran? Well, if you were unfortunate to sail some of the early models then you’ll know that many of them (not all) seemed to owe almost nothing to the nimble Hobie cats. Switching from a Hobie to cruising catamaran used to be like going from your lightest most comfortable trainers and suddenly donning a pair of ill fitting lead lined boots. Sailing these boats was the opposite of life affirming and…

Sailing might not be for everybody, but there is certainly something for anyone who wants to try it. With so many clubs and classes, there really is something out there for all, regardless of age, size, fitness and physical ability. There is no doubt that sailing has, in recent years, become more and more inclusive. Whilst every class will have an optimum weight, and some classes may have a weight limit, there are so many classes out there that there’s plenty of choice for everyone. The beautiful thing about sailing is that it is a sport for life and while the boats we sail may change as we age from Junior to Youth to Senior to Master, the enjoyment never goes away. Whilst elite sailing, as with any sport, is…