Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2017 i Yachting Monthly

I don’t know about you, but as Christmas looms on the horizon, I heave Old Man Thrift out the porthole and invest in some quality beverages. There’s the ritual vintage port, perhaps backed up with Madeira, the malt whiskies and, of course, the serious claret for Christmas dinner. Away in the tropics, some of this indulgence has to be modified. The malt’s OK, so long as you can get it, but the port is generally a washout except in Portuguese waters. Then it’s a winner, given that you steer clear of anything that must be decanted. The motion of a boat at sea will ruin it. On the other hand, Madeira’s fine. It was designed to be at sea and much loved by British naval officers in the glory days…

1 Which of these words or phrases does not have maritime origins? A Barrel fever B Skyscraper C Crack on D Lay of the land 2 According to Colregs, when is there no such thing as a give-way and a stand-on vessel? A In a precautionary area B In a narrow channel C In restricted visibility D Close to PWCs 3 Which knot is this? A Halyard knot B Round turn and two half-hitches C Blood knot D Anchor bend 4 Which type of wind is ‘heaviest’? A Warm and dry B Cold and moist C Cold and dry D Warm and moist 5 Bill Anderson retired this year. In which year did his first Question of Seamanship appear in YM? A 1991 B 1981 C 1986 D 1996 6 Which type…

Soon after the Second World War my dad Jack Coote, who had taught himself to sail on the Norfolk Broads and Regent’s Park Lake, bought an old Broads boat which he kept at Shepperton on the River Thames. He began venturing down the Thames to Holehaven, Leigh-on-Sea, the Medway and the Swale, but the Broads boat was nowhere near seaworthy enough for the tidal reaches, let alone any longer cruises. Jack’s next boat, a leaky, wooden 11-ton centreboarder, was built at Southend-on-Sea in 1929 and had been kept for many years on the foreshore at Westcliff-on-Sea. For the next decade or so the Coote family (me and my sister Judy, and Ellen, our Mum) spent almost all our weekends and summer holidays exploring the rivers and creeks of the Thames…

‘A tranquil anchorage with an abundance of wildlife’ Scotland is known for its wild countryside, numerous islands and beautiful anchorages, and Caladh Harbour is a perfect example. It is nestled between steep Scottish hills and Eilean Dubh, a small, forested island with rocky cliffs, in the Kyles of Bute. This harbour is perfect to shelter in from bad weather. Caladh is Gaelic for harbour so Caladh Harbour literally means harbour harbour – clearly referencing its sheltered waters. Being Scotland, there is no charge to visit Caladh Harbour. The anchorage is between Eilean Dubh and a shallow bay in the mainland. It is quite a cosy anchorage with space for up to four or five boats. The harbour is sheltered from all directions except for southwesterly gales. The approach to the…

If something is easy to do, it will get done often. So said someone older and wiser than me. This might explain why I’m less enthusiastic about changing my genoa sheet leads than I should be. I know it improves sail shape by controlling the twist in the leech and the upper sections of the sail. I know I should move the sheet lead when I’m part-furling the headsail or sailing off the wind. However, when I’m sailing singlehanded it is a bind to release the genoa sheet, go forward, kneel on the sheet and drag the car forward, go back, winch the sail in, only to find I’ve either over- or under-adjusted and have to repeat the procedure. The time lost faffing around usually outweighs any performance advantage. I…

‘Making yachts carry flares is dangerous’ A charter boss is calling for rules forcing yachts to carry flares to be scrapped. Barrie Neilson, owner of Sailing Holidays, which operates a fleet of 175 yachts in Greece, is asking the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to change its regulations that require all yachts over 13.7m (45ft) and all commercially operated yachts of any size to carry pyrotechnic flares. ‘Regulations still force us to carry dangerous explosives on vessels that sail only during day, supervised, in non-tidal waters, with novice crews. This seems ridiculous, when so many safe and effective methods of distress alerting are available today.’ A number of accidents involving pyrotechnic flares have been reported in recent years. In May 2016, the RNLI Skegness Inshore Lifeboat caught fire and subsequently…

The Cotswolds market town of Chipping Norton is seventy odd miles from the nearest salt water and yet it has a yacht club, as I discovered recently when they asked me to give them a talk. It’s a bit like discovering a mountaineering club deep in the Fens, a sub-aqua centre amid the deserts of Chad… Or, to be fair, like finding a bobsleigh team in Jamaica. It all began some years ago when a yachtsman, enjoying a charter in the Ionian, offered a glass of retsina to a neighbouring yacht’s crew and discovered they were neighbours in Chipping Norton, too. When a third yacht’s crew, in the same flotilla, also owned up to residing in the Oxfordshire town, it seemed to be written in the runes that a yacht…

THE DANGER OF DODGY DODGERS Cockpit spray dodgers are a grand idea most of the time. Like most good things on board, however, there is a downside, which I learned about the hard way many years ago in a North Atlantic storm. I’d been hove to in a big sea for 24 hours and had just popped up into the cockpit to see how bad things really were when I heard the dreaded express train noise and knew that, at best, I was in for a soaking. The breaking wave didn’t knock the boat over, but the dodger took the full force and, amazingly, it didn’t burst. Instead of ripping out of its lashings, it stayed attached and took the stanchions with it when it went. They were bolted through…

I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. I looked to Rosie and my father for any suggestions and they returned a searching look. ‘I think we’ll just have to cut the genoa sheets,’ I said, with as much certainty as I could muster. They didn’t look convinced. We were three days in to a crossing from Brighton to La Coruña in Spain aboard our 20-year-old, 42ft steel cutter Morvargh, at the start of an Atlantic circuit that Rosie and I had been planning for a few years. For the crossing we were joined by my father and two non-sailing friends along for the ride. The window for departure had been tight. Rosie and I are doctors and we had both been working full time until two days before…

The UK’s most comprehensive yacht tests Imagine having the whole interior of your boat as a single cabin for you. No saloon, galley, companionway, engine or cockpit to rob space, just an 8.5m long cabin and an en suite heads for you and you partner. While you ponder that, consider having an extra two double cabins, both en suite, and a vast amount of living space, both inside and out. While monohulls have to compromise their hull shape and sailing performance to accommodate a spacious interior, there are fewer restrictions for catamarans. There are many differences between mono- and multihulls. So, when monohull giant Bavaria wanted to move into the catamaran market, instead of starting from scratch it bought a French multihull manufacturer, Rochefort-based Nautitech, three years ago. The Open…

The UK’s most trusted sailing gear tests Sailing usually requires the use of both hands for much of the time. So, when it comes to working on deck at night, or delving into a dark locker or working in the engine space at any time, a head torch is invaluable on a yacht. Virtually all new torches use LEDs as they are extremely bright, electronically dimmable and use a tenth of the power of the older filament bulb types. Because of their much reduced power requirements, the battery packs are smaller and lighter, making them more comfortable to wear for long periods. Controls Most have one simple pushbutton switch, which provides a variety of functions and modes, depending on how it is pressed. The bigger the button the better, if…

WIN The confession of the month wins a floating Standard Horizon handheld VHF radio worth £140 PLUS an original Bill Caldwell cartoon STANDARD HORIZON 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 Rother Bother CONFESSION OF THE MONTH By Edward Sutton Many years back, my wife, teenage son, his friend and I headed east from the Solent, but a gale warning diverted us into Rye Harbour. Noting that our 25ft Tomahawk had bilge keels, the harbourmaster advised us to take the midnight flood tide up the River Rother, to shelter at Rye Quay. As we turned into the narrow town channel we spotted a potential peaceful night’s mooring alongside a barge. Its tyre fenders…

EMAIL yachtingmonthly@timeinc.com POST The Editor, Yachting Monthly, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU Please send us your letters in less than 200 words 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 LETTER OF THE MONTH Inspire the next generation of cruisers Photo: Peter oswald I write regarding Lisa Lord’s letter about her son: Young, strong and keen to go cruising (November 2016 issue). Earlier this year, we introduced crew pool membership. It’s aimed at young people like Lisa’s son who would like…

Keeping a log is as old an exercise as going to sea. I don’t know how our earliest maritime ancestors did it, but before long they were recording courses, bearings, depths, speeds, sail combinations, weather data and, most importantly, actual or estimated positions. These last two are still perhaps the most important items for the log. There’s nothing like being able to look back when the plotter screen goes blank and see from the log that you passed Reassurance north cardinal mark at 1133. Just work up your EP from there and you are in a strong position navigation-wise. Two logs are better than one I’ve always run a navigator’s log with all the above data and terse comments about reefing or ship sightings alongside a separate narrative log describing…

RYA Yachtmaster Christopher Barker and his wife Zoë sail Belle Serene, their 39ft Bénéteau, from the Royal Southern Yacht Club It’s a scenario that many cruisers dread. It’s your summer cruise, you’ve clearly had too much fun on the water and you’re late back into port to find you have been left with the Hobson’s Choice of moorings: the windward berth. In fact, if you can get alongside, you’ll have a very quiet night as the boat lies off the pontoon, giving you less buffeting and no squeaking fenders, but first you have to get your boat alongside. The marina’s bar is busy, the crowd relaxed and ready to be entertained. Soon you realise that you’re a floating cabaret motoring out of the wings onto centre stage, where your performance…

Huw Williams left the UK in 2014 and, since circumnavigating, has been travelling and working on a sailing-themed novel In 2013 I came to a decision that would change my life and the way I view the world. I had a career, interesting friends and varied interests including sailing on friends’ boats, but I was increasingly aware that this wasn’t enough. I was bored. Mountain biking on the South Downs no longer gave me a buzz and sailing to the Isle of Wight isn’t actually that exciting when you’ve done it a few times. I’d just turned 50 so there may have been some mid-life crisis mixed in somewhere. I needed an adventure. I was in a chandler’s in Cowes when I found a book that would shape the next…

Swinging the Lamp By Nick Ardley (Fonthill, £18.99) This is the latest of Nick Ardley’s rambling accounts of exploring the Kent, Essex and Suffolk marshes, from his Finesse 24, mainly, it seems, to track down the sad old hulks of Thames barges and identify them. It will please his followers and it’s nostalgic stuff for those of us who grew up with these majestic ladies of trade and watched them running away down Swin or turning up the Maldon river to the Fullbridge mills. My concern, as ever with Ardley’s books, is whether I can survive another entirely written in the third person – the author is always ‘he’ or ‘the skipper’ and his long-suffering wife ‘the mate’. It grates so much! Many of the photos and drawings are of…

Criccieth in North Wales must be one of the easiest anchorages to find. Dominated by a castle that stands on the island-like headland, this landmark provides the perfect identification to lead you into the anchorage. Dating back to the 13th century, Criccieth Castle dominates both the town and the beach, and the headland on which it stands offers reasonable shelter for the anchorage to the east. There are no offlying dangers at Criccieth apart from what appear to be either moorings or more likely fishing marks, so once you have identified the castle you can head in with the castle on your port bow, using the echosounder until there is adequate depth, allowing for any fall in the tide. As you get closer you should be able to identify the…

Ring LED Headlamp £4.99 The Ring cost a fiver including batteries from Screwfix; we weren’t expecting miracles. It’s quite big, looks a little dated and is definitely not waterproof, but it’s simple to use thanks to its two-level control button. A full push turns it on and off, whereas a half push cycles the beam between low, high or quick flashing. It lacks a memory function, so each time you have to cycle through modes in the sequence. It’s a passable head torch for close-up work in the dry. Supplier Screwfix Web www.screwfix.com Coast FL14 £11.95 This budget model takes just two AAA cells but manages 9½ hours of use at full power and 20 hours on low. It has a single button on the top with four modes that…

Whether you’re after a yacht for coastal port-hopping or ocean crossing, the Sadler 34 offers proven seaworthiness in a tough, unsinkable package . Around 260 were made from 1983 to 1995 and they provided owners a good deal more headroom, accommodation space than previous Sadler models. Whilst retaining a sleek profile on the water, she had above average beam for her day and less ‘pointy’ ends than her predecessor, the Sadler 32. The yard offered a variety of keel options, including a shallow or deep fin, bilge keels and even a centreboard model. Post-1990, customers were also offered a Stephen Jones-designed, deep-ballast fin option, which lowered the centre of gravity by 4in (10cm), increasing her stiffness under sail still further. Her deep rudder is supported by a full skeg, which,…