Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i Yachting Monthly

Biggest tides for 18 years The UK can expect the highest tides for 18 years around 21 March this year. A ‘syzygy’ (an alignment of celestial bodies), and the equinox will result in a tidal range at Avonmouth of 14.5m. See p64 for more info. Sailing dropped from Paralympics There will be no sailing at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics due to lack of ‘worldwide reach’. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston is leading a petition for its reinstatement. New Thames barge A new Thames barge has been commissioned by the Sea-Change Sailing Trust. The charity, which takes disadvantaged youngsters sailing, is adding a replica of the steel barge Blue Mermaid to its fleet. The last working barge was built in 1930. GRIB forecasts upgraded Forecasts received as GRIB data from the NOAA Global…

Most letters are edited for brevity. You can read more correspondence, online, at www.yachtingmonthly.com/letters WIN A BOTTLE OF RUM The letter of the month wins a bottle of Pusser’s Rum, produced to Admiralty specification and served daily to every sailor in the Royal Navy for more than 300 years (UK residents only) www.pussers.com Calling Round the Island Race Nics! Until now, Nicholson 35s have had their own Round The Island Race start, under the ISC (Island Sailing Club) handicap/cruisers class. My yacht Trutz has won it several times, but participation has been low. Understandably the ISC is trying to keep down the number of races within the Race and it was proposed to let the Nic 35 trophy slide in to extinction. I suggested re-designating it ‘The Nicholson Cup’ and…

Spring! The first warm days, primroses, zephyrs, dew burning off the warmed grass! So down to the boat, climb on board, survey the pale horizon, throw out your chest, take a deep breath. Wish you hadn’t? Oh dear. Yes. We romantics must bravely face the topic of boat smells. There was a time – in the world of old gaffers it still exists – when you could rely on a yacht to smell primarily of tarred twine, with a not unpleasant topnote of paraffin. Indeed, when we first took possession of a new-built glassfibre Cornish Pilot Cutter many years ago, the crafty boatyard manager sneaked into her a full roll of tarry string, filling her with a powerful aroma of trustworthy tradition. Shops do this sort of thing – coffee…

What’s she like to sail? An impressively powerful passage-maker, the Rustler 42 is built to make ocean passages at good overall speed whilst looking after her crew along the way. I’ve sailed her several times since the model was launched in 1999. The first time, the wind rarely dropped below 30 knots and the seas had had a week of gales to build up. The second time there was only 5 knots of wind, so without a spinnaker we struggled to move through the water. With a double-reefed main and full staysail in heavy seas and winds gusting above 40 knots, we sailed her 40-45° off the apparent wind, making a comfortable 6 knots and even kept fairly dry in the cockpit. The more the weather threw at us the…

■ Read the manual. I read the brief guide on the device – press the ‘start-up’ button then the ‘send tracking’ button – and thought that was it. My 12 successful test signals confirmed my assumption, but in big seas, maintaining a satellite link isn’t easy. Sending a position can take several minutes. ■ There is no substitute to real familiarity with any piece of equipment. It is no good thinking that I can gain experience while using new gear, I must drill and practice until it is almost a part of me. ■ I violated my own policy of being physically fit at the start of any long passage. After the bike accident, Chris and Ana had seen me looking beaten up before setting off but I did not…

In an illuminating meeting with Navionics, whose iPad app I use for cockpit navigation, one of the subjects covered was ‘Community Edits’, whereby users can submit and upload chart corrections. I’m sure you understand why I have always given these a wide berth. What I didn’t know was that I can turn these updates on and off – I am not stuck with them on my charts. Navionics said that most ‘community editors’ are responsible folk, and if some guy enters a duff update, they will tell the firm and it will be removed. I turned the feature on and off (It’s in ‘Menu – settings’) with the Emsworth chart, and saw a new tide gauge that isn’t on the main charts, or any other so far as I know.…

‘Which side of you is she going to pass?’ Nick knew that he might be taking on a hard sail when he decided to bring his Rustler 36 home from Portugal in early November last year. Common sense told him it was really too late in the year for crossing Biscay but he had confidence in his boat, a really bulletproof ocean crosser. He had a strong crew. He could always put in to one of the ports on the north west corner of Spain if the three-day forecast looked bad. The Biscay crossing turned out to be easy, they made good time in fresh but not threatening southerly winds. Approaching Ushant the weather was deteriorating with a deep Atlantic low moving rapidly towards Ireland. They were in for a…

Keep it simple Skippers Julian and Lyn Ronnie Boat Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 349, Domini Crew 2 Sailplan 1 Poled-out genoa Sailplan 2 Cruising chute Steering used Autopilot Life at sea ‘Sailing the Atlantic was harder than we expected – we were in oilies and drinking Cup-a-Soups for the first week. It’s a fabulous sense of achievement,though, to have done what we set out to do and got here safely, particularly just as a couple. We couldn’t have done it without each other.’ The sails ‘We got a hammering at first, but after we turned south things got much better. We sailed mainly with the poledout genoa and a reefed mainsail on a preventer. We tried to gybe as little as possible, because it took a long time to re-rig the…

The ‘best’ sail plan depends on your boat and crew, but our crews agreed on a few points: ■ Mainsail and poled-out genoa are more than adequate to get you across the pond, and most boats have these already. It may be underpowered in light winds, and getting the mainsail down in a squall isn’t easy.■ Twin headsails are simple, give a good amount of sail area and are easily furled. They lack power in lighter conditions and can make the boat roll.Two poles with guys and good sheeting angles are important.■ Coloured sails boost speed in certain conditions, but they require practice to build confidence. Mid-ocean, with large swells running, is not the time to try it for the first time. A symmetric spinnaker is best, but a cruising…

Size matters, so my wife tells me, then again she also tells me she’s right 99.9% of the time. So why should I worry about a few millimetres here or there? Most of the time I don’t, but looking around the Danish built XC35 my eyes kept coming back to the fiddles and their thickness. On other boats with that quality feel, the fiddles are thicker; thick means strong, strong means quality. It’s a simple equation that has served me well through my life, but it doesn’t mean I’m right. The galley fiddles might look thin, but while the crew on deck were bracing themselves in a nasty squall that sent the toerail under in seconds, I grabbed the first thing to hand to stop my sideways lurch. I’m happy…

High-performance autopilot It’s Garmin’s most responsive autopilot yet. Designed to mount nearly anywhere and in any orientation, the GHP Reactor has a new, solid-state, 9-axis attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) that yields less heading error and course deviation, and reduced rudder movement, giving a smoother ride with lower power consumption. Once installed, it takes a mere five minutes to calibrate. The Shadow Drive feature automatically disengages the autopilot with a turn of the helm, allowing you to instantly take back control of the vessel. The Reactor can be controlled via the screen of any current Garmin plotter or MFD, which also gives the option of ‘auto guidance’. This allows the navigator to enter a destination and the chartplotter searches the relevant charts to create a safe course, based on…

WIN The confession of the month wins a floating Standard Horizon handheld VHF radio worth £140 PLUS an original Bill Caldwell cartoon POST Confessions, Yachting Monthly, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU EMAIL yachtingmonthly@timeinc.com Please send us your confessions in less than 200 words Dredging… with our keel CONFESSION OF THE MONTH By Janet Safarovic We were stonking along on a tight reach up the German Baltic coast in a sunny Force 5 to 6, heading for the lovely Hanseatic city of Stralsund. In brilliant sunshine and flat seas, we rounded the Darss peninsula onto a broad reach. Before joining the channel between the islands, we had to sail 15 miles across a shallow bay, with depths ranging between 5 metres and nothing at all. We’d sailed here…

Consultation on a second tranche of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in England was launched in January. Defra is inviting all those with an interest in UK seas to express their views on the proposed areas by 24 April 2015. This is the second of three rounds of MCZ consultations in a process that aims to create an ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas in UK waters. Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland are also designating similar protected areas. Tranche Two MCZ sites The 23 areas in the consultation cover 4,174 square miles of English territorial waters, with a mixture of inshore and offshore sites containing wildlife, plants or geological features that require protection. Following consultation, the new MCZs will be designated by January 2016. The first tranche saw 27 sites…

Fears of website hacking have led the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) to exercise caution over a new search-and-rescue (SAR) mobile phone app. While other nations are using the Safe Trx App with their SAR services, the MCA has instead asked the RYA to handle the system. Internet security fear With the recent hacking of the US military’s Central Command by ISIS sympathisers, the decision will be seen as prudent. The Safe Trx App, created by DeCare Systems Ireland, is made for sailors using Apple and Android smartphones who don’t usually register passage plans or use chartplotters and AIS. ‘The MCA is concerned to keep its computer firewall in place. We are happy to offer this safety app on its behalf,’ said RYA cruising manager Stuart Carruthers. ‘What’s great about…

We’re very close to saying goodbye to the gales of winter. I for one will be relieved to see the equalisation of night with day as the spring equinox and its associated stormy weather passes. The high winds of the laying-up period brought me more anxiety this year than normal. It started like this. Back in late November, mine was one of eight yachts to be hauled out at the boatyard. I arrived early and took a turn on a fuel barge while the travel hoist was backed down the slipway. I had told the lay-up officer my draught – 4ft 3in – and was surprised that shoaler boats were being pulled out ahead of Wendy May, my 26ft, six-ton gaff cutter. But I remained sanguine: although High Water had…

Barney Green has cruised the Channel coast for 40 years. He cruises a Bavaria, and runs mast climbing courses for cruisers ashore in winter There are many reasons why you should be able to work at your masthead. There are sheaves, shackles, split pins and rigging terminals, all of which need inspecting during the season as they can jam, crack, fail or work loose. Masts don’t just break, there are always warning signs. You can use binoculars from the deck but will you be able to spot hairline fractures or split sheaves from there? Probably not. Halyards can fray and fail too, bringing an expensive hiatus to your season while you wait for a visit from the world’s busiest marine tradesman, the rigger. Most of us have a VHF antenna…

Caroline Alexander is a Yachtmaster Offshore and an RYA Cruising Instructor, based in the Solent How many times have you got on to a charter, sailing school or friend’s yacht only to discover that the bit of chart you need the most has literally been rubbed away along with long-forgotten passages, or reduced to a ragged hole by dividers? When it’s wet on deck, you’re unlikely to dry yourself off completely before updating your position, so your costly, crucial paper chart could end up a warped, torn, useless and pulp by the end of the passage. About three years ago I was attending a boat-handling course and the skipper who was running the course had all the charts in sealed plastic folders without a pencil or rubber in sight. Instead…

My boat has a balsa core deck. There are a lot of these around and owners blessed with average imagination can find ourselves suffering sleepless nights worrying about what happens if water gets in, especially when a boat has achieved middle age. So far as I know, mine is OK, but one chap in my owners’ association has been badly smitten. Our members are a hands-on bunch and I was interested to read an answer to this issue that doesn’t involve mega-buck yard bills. It sounded very familiar and rang true with a technique I’d used with an old wooden boat. Inspection holes are drilled to determine the extent of the problem. Once defined, so long as it is not too extensive, any rot can be addressed as follows: Inject…

Merchant Adventurers By James Evans, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, at £9.99 This is an astonishing account of a voyage begun in 1553 with three ships searching for a Northeast Passage to ‘the mighty and rich empire of Cathay’. The expedition’s leaders, brave soldier Sir Hugh Willoughby, and brilliant young scientist and seaman Richard Chancellor, suffered very different fates. Chancellor returned to England via the Moscow court of Ivan the Terrible, but Willoughby and his crew froze in the ice. The author, a meticulous historian, used original log books to produce a dramatic story of excitement, hardship and deprivation. Not a light read, but an enthralling one. For the Love of Sauntress By Martin O’Scannall, published by Lodestar Books, at £12 After owning many boats, the author took early retirement,…

Growing up in beautiful Snowdonia has given me a passion for nature, history and walking, often barefoot, in the hills I call home. Much of my time is spent caring for my father and elderly grandparents and I almost stayed at home for their sake, rather than going to sea – but if I had, I would never have stood alone on Ben Nevis or discovered the true joys of sailing. In recent months I have developed a passion for writing. It brings me great pleasure, and in many ways, an escape. This is an account of my first sea voyage, from Bangor in Wales to Oban in Scotland. Day 1 – Bangor to Moelfre After delaying our excursion a day due to poor weather, we boarded Sealark and left…

1 Learning to use ‘coloured sails’ with confidence really pays off when running in light or moderate winds. 2 Production boats are usually under-specified for ocean sailing. Replace fittings with stronger ones. 3 Sail together beforehand. A long ocean passage can be really intense. 4 Take lots of water, you’ll need it. If in doubt, take more. 5 Take foul weather gear as it can be cold and wet. It is, after all, the North Atlantic in December. 6 Know the noises your boat makes. A different sound is the first warning when something isn’t right. 7 Food is important for morale. Seasoning and herbs go a long way. Little treats make a big difference. 8 Clean out the fuel tank and take plenty of spare parts and filters as…

A good read . . . If you’d like to see an excerpt from your favourite sailing book in Yachting Monthly, please write to theo.stocker@timeinc.com We’ve teamed up with Martyn Mackrill, the Royal Yacht Squadron’s artist in residence, to serve up a richly illustrated taste of the best sailing books. There ’s always a good read lurking among the pilot books and almanacs of the cruising sailor’s library. Email: studio@ martynmackrill.com My 18-ton gaff yawl, Chula, was lying in the yacht harbour at Lowestoft ‘in all respects ready for sea’. I was setting the jib in stops when I noticed a forlorn-looking group consisting of a youth and two girls standing on the pier, where my stern warps were fastened to a bollard. ‘You’re a lucky man to have a…

I first heard about the Visually Impaired Sailing Association (VI-SA) in Yachting Monthly and contacted Colin Fowler, one of the founding members, to find out more. Nearly two years later I was invited to assist with a fotilla week on the sea lochs and islands of the Clyde. I ‘d sailed in Scotland twice before and loved it despite encountering miserable weather on both trips. I was allocated the position of mate on Able 2 Sail, a Bavaria 46 donated for the week by a local charity, alongside a sighted and experienced VI-SA skipper John. Also aboard were midshipman Mat, a VI-SA virgin like me, and five visually impaired crew with experience ranging from novice to Day Skipper. After a long drive up from the south of England, the lunch…

What’s she like to sail? The XC35 strikes the right compromise between performance and comfort – fast enough to be fun, relaxed enough to remain in control. When the apparent wind piped up to 25 knots, although overpowered she just heeled and showed no tendency to lose grip. I tried to make her misbehave, but lost my footing before she did. There’s no traveller, but the double-ended mainsheet is taken to the winch next to both helm positions. I found I really had to sail her through a tack, rather than throw the helm across and hope for the best. She benefits from a gentle hand – tack too quickly and she gives you the lack of enthusiasm you deserve. Tack her well and she’ll reward you by maintaining speed…

A good fridge is essential for cruising, in my opinion. Besides, nothing beats a cold beer whilst swaying gently in your favourite anchorage on a balmy summer’s eve. A dodgy fridge, however, can create more problems than it solves – draining batteries in a matter of hours and reducing your provisions to dollops of slush oozing about in the depths. The following guide should ensure you have a successful refrigeration system without draining all of the boat’s valuable power resources. How much insulation? The first stage of the operation will be to plan the installation to ft both your boat’s physical and electrical limitations. When calculating the size of the cool box you must take into account the thickness of insulation that will be necessary to create a thermally efficient…

Boat buyers are cashing in on cheap boat prices as the pound sterling hits a seven-year high against the euro. The boost for the British currency puts sailors looking to buy a boat abroad in the strongest position since the credit crunch in 2008, but with an election on the horizon, the boom can’t last, say currency traders. A strong exchange rate means dealers for European boats can cut prices, giving sailors more for their money. Having hit a low of an almost one-to-one exchange rate in 2008, February 2015 saw £1 able to buy more than €1.35. European quantitative easing and concerns over Greece’s debts has caused the euro’s drop. In February, UK Bavaria dealer Clipper Marine offered ten per cent off all new Bavarias. Another UK dealer said:…

The Recreational Craft Directive (RCD), which stipulates how boats must be built in the EU, has been updated. The latest edition requires sailing yachts to be designed so a man overboard (MOB) can re-board the boat by themselves. While many boats are already built with boarding ladders or bathing platforms, the means of getting on board must now be ‘deployable by a person in the water unaided’. However, Stuart Carruthers, cruising manager at the RYA, points out that ‘the only situation in which the changes have any real impact is when the man overboard is alone, the boat is stationary, the MOB is still in contact with the boat, and is conscious and able-bodied.’ Nevertheless, someone who falls overboard while picking up a mooring singlehanded will be grateful for the…

My liferaft comes due for servicing this spring. One of the benefits of no longer owning a yacht that’s coded for charter is that this unwelcome expense doesn’t fall annually, but now is the time, according to the manufacturers, and who am I to argue? So off I went to the nether regions of Southampton to discover how much this important task was going to cost me. Even after shopping around I didn’t like the bottom line one bit, so, like any sailor brought up with the primary assumption of self-help, I decided to look into doing the job myself. I asked a few pals first, and the fact that they all seemed to think it was a viable proposition probably tells you something about the company I choose to…

Practical advice for all sailors Tom Cunliffe has sailed tens of thousands of miles all over the world and has been a Yachtmaster Examiner since 1978 Fuel consumption and range is really all about ‘hull speed’. This is the maximum at which a boat can sensibly be driven and is equal to some constant multiplied by the square root of her waterline length (LWL). My boat’s LWL is 37 feet. For convenience, I say its square root is ‘around 6’. Very roughly, the constant will be something like 1.35. This makes my theoretical maximum hull speed 1.35 x 6, or a little over 8 knots. My 55hp Yanmar will give me well over 7 knots, but if I keep water speed down to the square root of LWL, fuel consumption…

Last year, I handed out a tip on stopping the topping lift buzzing in the wind at anchor like a hairy guitar string. Here’s an even better answer, secondhand from a retired airline pilot who lifted it from the construction industry. It seems that they have similar issues with tall chimneys. Unclip the main halyard from the sail as usual and take it aft to the topping lift attachment point. Many of us do that anyway to keep it away from the mast and stop it clattering. The difference is that, instead of just shackling it onto the boom end and taking up the slack, we are advised to flip it round the lift six or seven times. Once it’s well wrapped up, it can be tensioned and the problem…

‘Mouse’ Here’s a word whose meanings are proliferating in our times. There’s dear old Mickey, of course, and the computer mouse, but on board the word has two meanings. The first is the light messenger line we send down a mast as we withdraw an internal halyard. Get it right and all we have to do to re-reeve is tie the new halyard onto the mouse and pull it through. Mouse or Mowze’ Traditional boats often attach blocks to spars or ring bolts by means of a hook. All very well, so long as it doesn’t flip off, but it won’t if we ‘mouse’, or ‘mowze’, it by winding a twist of seizing wire across its carefully designed jaws. Some hook blocks never fall off, such as the ones on…

WIN A BOTTLE OF TALISKER The question of the month wins a bottle of Talisker 10-year-old single malt Scotch whisky (UK residents only). Talisker is an official supporter of the RNLI and the only single malt made by the sea on the shores of the Isle of Skye. www.malts.com Is the Triangle Race for me? Q Could you please tell me more about the Yachting Monthly Triangle Race? It sounds great fun and as I’m not a racer it would be a great way to expand my experience. I look forward to hearing from you. Hopefully see you in 2016. Clive Thomas A Kieran Flatt replies: The Triangle is a unique and absolutely first-class event. It’s organised impeccably by David Rayment and the Royal Torbay Yacht Club. What makes it…

For a couple of years I had worked hard converting my triple-keeled Achilles 24 Mingming II into the ultimate pocket ocean cruiser. I had strengthened her and made her unsinkable and watertight. I had given her a large and powerful junk rig. I had used many a pot of grey paint on her, inside and out. She was now ready for the sea, and so was I. I needed a nice little voyage to test out all the innovations of the boat. It had to be to my favoured cruising ground, the Arctic, but where? I pulled out my charts and settled on Björnøya – Bear Island. This is an island I had always wanted to have a look at. Lying halfway between the North Cape of Norway and Spitsbergen,…

■ Start Las Palmas, Gran Canaria■ Finish Rodney Bay, St Lucia■ Rhumb-line distance 2700 miles■ Fastest crossing Leopard by Finland (100ft Maxi), new record of 8 days, 14 hours, 39 minutes and 51 seconds.■ Average cruiser crossing 18 days, 11 hours■ Slowest crossing Efwa (Allegro 33), 25,days 13 hours, 34 minutes■ Shortest distance sailed Atalanta (Oyster 575) 2,690 miles■ Longest distance sailed Sanuk (Bavaria 47) 3,298 miles■ Average number of crew per boat in cruising division 5 adults■ Damage 22 boats suffered damage to sails rigging or autopilots, mostly due to the forces of wind and waves on fully-laden boats■ Drop-outs 6 boats dropped out for medical or gear failure reasons.…

A Parasailor is a symmetrical spinnaker with a difference. It is the same shape as a spinnaker, but it has a gap across its middle, held together by cords. Attached to these cords is a fabric wing that inflates like a parachute. Its makers claim it does three things: ■ The gap allows air to flow over and through the sail, creating a steady airflow and making the sail more stable.■ The wing holds the width of the sail out and dampens the speed and force with which the sail can collapse.■ The wing creates lift, reducing the force pushing the bow down into the water, making the boat more directionally stable and less prone to roll. Using a snuffer, it can be set from the bow, a pole, or…

The West Cork coastline resembles a splayed hand with fingers of mountainous countryside pierced by three long, deep inlets. One of the best known is Bantry Bay with the beautiful anchorage of Glengarriff at its head. Bantry Bay runs south-west to northeast; it is wide and deep with virtually no hazards until, some 15 miles from the entrance, you are almost at the head of the bay. Whiddy Island on the south shore shelters the historic town of Bantry; don’t be discouraged by the trappings of the major oil terminal on Whiddy as the island, the town and Bantry House are all well worth a visit. But the jewel of Glengarriff lies on the northern shore. The approach is straightforward. Leave Gun Point to starboard and Ilnacullen or Garinish Island,…

If you think syzygy is a Polish sausage you are, I’m afraid, well off the mark. It’s an astronomical phenomenon where three or more astral bodies fall into perfect alignment. 2015 is the zenith of an 18-year cycle when the Sun, Moon, and Earth fall into syzygy with the added refnement that the moon’s orbit is at its closest to the Earth. The resulting gravitational pull on the Earth’s oceans takes our tides to extreme levels. And how! Most sailors will have heard of the Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT) – and, conversely, the highest. Each year’s maximum tidal heights and lows occur at the Vernal Equinox in March and during the Autumnal Equinox in September. In 2015, these peaks and troughs will be at their greatest for 18 years. The…

As winter melts into spring, thought turns to the promise of a new sailing season, to launching and fitting out. There’s a great deal of kit to fetch out of its winter berth and haul back down to the newly-floated boat, and possibly the most important item in that considerable load is your sail wardrobe. At the end of last season, some will have sent their sails to a sailmaker for routine maintenance, cleaning and winter storage. Others may have unbent the sails, still damp with spray, stuffed them into sailbags and poked them into the forepeak. This test is likely to appeal to the latter, more carefree band of cruisers. While bundled up in its bag, it’s quite possible that your sail will have become stained with rust. Perhaps…