Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2017 i Yachting Monthly

Have you ever wondered what the general flow of cruising yachts around the world looks like, and how it changes over time? Jimmy Cornell’s survey of yacht movements around the world paints an interesting picture. Around 1,200 boats crossed the Atlantic from Europe to America in 2015, according to his analysis published in the American magazine Sail, but only about 800 returned – nearly all via the Azores. What about to the other 400? There’s a one-way valve effect on trade wind passages. With a fair breeze and current, it’s much easier to carry on than to turn back. After crossing an ocean some crews decide not to continue, so boatstend to accumulate at the downwind ends of the trade wind routes. A few are shipped home but many are…

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 LETTER OF THE MONTH A windward berth without the effort The difficulty of docking alongside with an offshore wind is well known. Various solutions are proposed including the use of a bow thruster (Skipper’s Tips, Feb 17), but you need neither a bow thruster nor a bow line to keep the bows in. Instead, get a stern line on from a quarter fairlead, never mind how short or long. Once it is secured and under tension, motor forward hard with the rudder set to push the stern towards the dock in…

White sand beaches, romantic hideaways and erotic coconuts make the Seychelles a haven for honeymooners, but what is it like for sailing? I knew almost nothing about this little archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 600 miles north-east of Madagascar; but with consistent wind and a tropical climate all year round, it sounded ideal for cruising. With a week’s charter booked up, I couldn’t wait to find out what sailing in paradise is really like. A few short months and a long flight later, my wife Georgie and I were coming in to land on Mahé, the Seychelles’ main island, excitedly gawping out of the window at the dense forests, turquoise waters and rain-smoothed granite crags. After a short taxi-ride to Sunsail’s base at Eden Island Marina and…

For those travelling through the inland waterways of France with a view to exiting into the Mediterranean from Port St Louis on the River Rhône, it is useful to consider what your first sea passage may be and to where. The confines of the inland waterways left us itching to catch a fair wind in our sails and be at sea again, as well as ensuring all systems were in working order. We decided to make our first passage in the Mediterranean a short one of about 23 miles. Our options were a marina berth in Marseille or the Iles du Frioul, where there’s an overnight anchorage as well as a marina. Given the fair weather we opted to anchor and avoid perhaps a more chaotic entrance into Marseille. The…

They knew a few tricks those old boys, those shipwrights. Their tricks have been handed down from old boy to apprentice but, over time, many a trick must have been lost. Some years ago my Eight Metre cruiser racer, Charm of Rhu, required a seven-month sojourn in a warm, dry shed for refurbishment. Her timbers contracted and would certainly leak when back in the water. The Vikings devised clinker boats to overcome the problem but Charm of Rhu is carvel, the planks abut. She was launched on a Friday. Water poured in and she had to be held in the strops over the weekend for fear of sinking. On Monday she was taken to her berth but only after a highpressure pump had been placed aboard. By Tuesday her own…

Before spending time and money upgrading your boat, it is important to ensure you are an accomplished sailor who likes sailing offshore. It’s not for everyone. Crewing an offshore racing boat is a great way to hone your sail trimming and onboard skills, and to experience sailing offshore, out of sight of land. It’s best to get your early offshore passage miles on someone else’s boat to ensure that you enjoy being at sea on the ocean and are familiar with sailing at night. Time spent offshore will quickly clarify your priorities as to the necessary equipment upgrades to your own boat plus the extra skills you need to acquire. Get good training Increasing your skill level with courses will prove to be a wise investment of money, time and…

In 2015 I took part in the Jester Baltimore Challenge, a singlehanded sailing event for small yachts: from Plymouth, or Pwllheli, to Baltimore in Ireland. It is run on a gentlemanly basis with no regulations and the skippers are responsible for their own safety. After two years of caring for my poorly wife, I needed a break. What could be more relaxing than a sailing trip to Ireland? During the winter I prepared my Moody 29, Crusoe Too. She needed few modifications, fitting AIS was the main one. I had an old autopilot, but worried about its reliability. Short of money, I had a cunning plan. I bought an identical autopilot but kept it boxed. I would use it in an emergency, otherwise I would return it later and get…

This summer, and so far it really has been a summer, we had planned a descent on the southwest coast of Ireland. “We” consisted of the writer and his wife, and a dandy Dinmont pup, and for three weeks we were to have the assistance of “the Navigator”, a really first class hand in a small boat, who, among his other qualifications, holds a yacht master’s ticket, and can find his way among cosines and tangents with the dexterity of a monkey in a banana plantation. Our vessel is a 21-ton cutter, LOA 39.8ft, beam 12.1ft, drawing 7ft of water, and with a very snug sail plan, as without the Navigator we are not over-crewed for a vessel of this size. We always carry as crew a boy of about…

First-time visitors to the East Coast would do well to begin with the Orwell and Stour rivers. Whether you are approaching from the South Coast or from Holland, Harwich Harbour is an accessible destination port, conveniently situated at the confluence of these two rivers. The approach to the Orwell from Harwich Harbour is busy. As well as huge container ships with attendant tugs coming and going from the Port of Felixstowe, there are also regular ferries and cruise ships in and out of Parkeston on the River Stour. Criss-crossing the harbour and often adding to this traffic are pilot boats, dredgers and survey ships. Care must be taken navigating around The Shelf, and Shotley Spit while avoiding the dredged shipping channels. The original, time-honoured Stone Heaps anchorage, used by Thames…

Readers’ Cruising Stories Yachting Monthly’s founder Herbert Reiach wrote in the first issue in 1906: ‘We shall be glad to receive the best logs and cruising stories offered to us from all parts of the world’ 111 years later, nothing’s changed! We’re still publishing your cruising stories PLEASE SEND YOUR STORIES TO yachtingmonthly@timeinc.com Expectations and reality don’t always match, particularly on a sailing boat. When Nicky and I arrived in Oban for a ten-day Northern Lights adventure aboard Tonic, Elite Sailing’s 46ft Bavaria, we were looking forward to spending the night in the marina before setting out early the following morning. We hoped that the trip to Tobermory would take the scenic route around Mull, via Fingal’s Cave, sailing north past Muck and Rhum, negotiating the tidal race of Kyle…

Your local chandler’s is more than just a shop. More, even, than a good source of local expertise. The chandlery acts as the community centre, the confessional box and the complaints department for anything relating to pottering about in boats. The hours in the chandler’s spent discussing local tides and forecasts outstrip the hours spent plotting landing on the moon. Even when they have no intention of getting afloat, most customers are acutely aware of when the next high water is. From an opening gambit about weather, the subject veers towards boat maintenance, thence to dealing with leaks and swiftly on to the gritty topic of marine sealants. The partisanship displayed towards sealants easily rivals that of the most avid football fan or political activist. Nothing garners more heated argument…

What differences are there between Imray’s chart atlas and the Netherlands Hydrographic Office chart pack of the Waddenzee? Jonty Pearce finds out Imray’s 2150 Atlas provides detail of the Waddenzee and its channels, the North Sea coast, and the coastal islands. It’s nicely presented in A2 (590 x 420mm) wirebound format with a plastic wallet. Nineteen pages of charts are included, five of which include smaller chartlet insertions. Easy reference to the areas covered is found on the cover. The pack includes explanatory notes, symbols and abbreviations, tidal stream diagrams, tidal constants and streams, and 2016 tide tables for Den Helder, Helgoland, Hoek Van Holland, Eemshaven, and Emden – all the data required for navigating the area. The binding keeps the charts ordered so it is easy to turn from…

1 Determine the ports of entry for the country you’ll be visiting. You can find this online at www.noonsite.com, or in Jimmy Cornell’s books World Cruising Routes and World Cruising Destinations. 2 Determine if a visa or cruising permit is required prior to your arrival by checking Noonsite.com or the consulate or embassy of the country. Another source of up-to-date information is the Seven Seas Cruising Association bulletins, www.ssca.org (membership is required). 3 Hiring an agent for clearance in these countries is either recommended or mandatory: Panama, Galapagos, Colombia, Venezuela, Indonesia, Russia and Egypt. 4 Some small countries fine yacht crews who arrive without their national flag flying, so make or buy courtesy flags for each country you plan to visit. This should be flown from your starboard flag halyard…

I don’t think I could go back to sailing in the UK,’ I said, looking out over the yachts anchored off Terceira in the Azores. It was 26°C and I’d just sailed from the Caribbean where it had been even hotter. Three weeks later I’m walking down a pontoon in, as far as I’m concerned, one of the most remote parts of the UK. It’s a pleasant 15°C and the sun has been shining since I woke up this morning and began my winding journey from Inverness to Shieldaig, a tiny village on the shores of Loch Torridon. On the latitude of northern Skye and only 75 miles south of Cape Wrath, Scotland’s northwesternmost tip, Loch Torridon is well and truly in the Highlands. Luckily, I came prepared with a…

Writing a blog was a morale boost for Nick Mines and his crew, and gave some differing views on their Atlantic crossing A shark took an unhealthy interest in our hydrogenerator, but aside from that the boat suffered little damage during the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) crossing. Hejira, our Southerly 135, coped exceptionally well with unusually strong trade winds on the 2,000-mile passage. We sailed conservatively, but were pleasantly surprised to find that we still finished fourth in class. We had sailed south from Portsmouth in June, spent the summer on the Algarve and autumn in the Canaries, where we prepared for the ARC+ via the Cape Verde islands. For this leg, we shipped a crew of four friends and arranged to meet our wives in the Caribbean. We…

Nigel Irens, who designs huge racing multihulls, once said: ‘Shallow draught is where the fun is, really. It seems ironic that the more money and the bigger boat you own, the fewer nice places you can go.’ He also designed the beautiful 30ft (9.2m) Roxane, an offshore cruising yawl, displacement 3,500 kg, based on a Shetland fishing boat he once owned. She looks traditional but he refined the lines and, using modern materials like carbon fibre spars and a high aspect-ratio centreplate, he made sure she was fast. My current boat is Roxane’s smaller sister, a 22ft Romilly. I cruise her on the shallow Knysna lagoon in South Africa. The Americans have always built centreplate cruisers for their shallow east coast, but it is surprising just how few offshore centreplate…

Hallberg-Rassy regularly tops the poll of the boats that YM readers aspire to own, with good reason. I’ve seen that tell-tale blue stripe on yachts from Torquay to Tahiti and from Sydney to Saint Lucia. There aren’t many boats I’ll interrupt my Christmas holiday for, but the new HR44 isn’t any boat, she’s the replacement for the 43 that spanned 16 years in three guises. She’s also the first boat from the Ellös yard with a moulded bowsprit and twin rudders. Who wouldn’t want to sail this Hallberg-Rassy as a late Christmas present to themselves? Performance The night before I arrived, winds had exceeded 60 knots, but you’d never have guessed from the millpond-like Ellös Fjord. Initially heading NE up the fjord we had light winds which lacked enthusiasm and…

the UK’s most comprehensive yacht tests why did this American design remain in production for a quarter of a century? By avoiding the cost of retooling, Catalina could sell her for a lower price than newer designs from other builders, which made her very popular. But for that business model to work, you have to start off with a good boat – like this one. while she’s no racer, the Catalina 36 is a traditional cruising yacht design with a dependable, sea-kindly performance and an easy motion. Performance The 36 was never a particularly light boat and she was designed primarily for getting her crew from A to B safely and as comfortably as possible. As standard she has a quite modest sail area and this, together with nearly three…