Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2017 i Yachting Monthly

Southampton Boat Show attractions Southampton Boat Show will open on 15 September for ten days. Attractions include the historic tall ship Kaskelot, as well as new ways to get afloat and all the usual exhibits New sailing apps on their way New sailing apps with Navionics cartography could soon be available. Navionics released a software development kit so app developers can embed its marine charts in third party apps for the first time. Swanwick Used Boats The Swanwick Marina Used Boat Show will run alongside Southampton Boat Show from 15-24 September. The show offers free parking and entry, and used boats at affordable prices. World's best marina? Porto Montenegro has become the first marina in the world to receive Platinum status in The Yacht Harbour Association's Gold Anchor scheme, for…

Electronic distress beacons as a primary method of signaling distress at sea have been boosted by a new law in Florida. The law offers any boat carrying a 406 MHz locator beacon a 25 per cent discount from their boat registration fees. Whilst the law does not affect British sailors, Ocean Signal, which manufactures the beacons, including EPIRBs and PLBs, is calling on other states and countries to introduce similar legislation. The law reflects a move away from flares, according to sailing author Alastair Buchan: ‘Flares are now a last resort when it comes to calling for help, but if they might assist in a rescue, then light them up.’ The law won't be copied in the UK, though, according to RYA cruising manager Stuart Carruthers: ‘Registration in the UK…

As we know from Rudyard Kipling, disaster and triumph are both imposters, but had he been on the bridge committee of this year’s annual Thames Sailing Barge Match he may well have added a codicil to his famous poem, If. More especially, he might have done, had he been at the bend in the river between the North Sea’s last grasp at Sea Reach and the promise of deliverance in the Lower Hope. Here the River Thames narrows between the wind-eddying gargantuan cranes of London Gateway wharves and the tide-confusing shoals of the Blyth Sand. For here it was in a rising south-westerly that two barges were engaged in a battle royale. Both ‘tinpots’, the affectionate name given to steel-hulled barges, Reminder and Niagara were on very tight sheets, luffing…

Arthur’s crew for this summer’s cruise of Brittany and its Atlantic coast is Ben, a friend who sails with him regularly. After a very light wind cross-Channel passage the night before, Arthur and Ben have reached the Île d’Ouessant off Brittany. They’re anchored off Lampaul, a small harbour at the top of a long bay facing WSW, which their pilot guide says is fine in settled weather. The intention is to continue to South Brittany with a 45-mile passage to Audierne, whose entrance faces south, though other possible destinations are Camaret (27 miles away) and Douarnenez, (42 miles). The tides are coming up for springs, and between Lampaul and Audierne is the Raz de Sein tidal gate with a maximum spring tidal stream rate of 6.5 knots. It runs south…

EMAIL yachtingmonthly@timeinc.com POST Yachting Monthly, Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF Please send us your questions in less than 200 words WIN CHILGROVE GIN The question of the month wins a bottle of Chilgrove Gin (UK residents only). This super-premium gin, handcrafted by keen sailors in the Sussex Downs, blends the finest botanicals with a neutral grape spirit. www.chilgrovespirits.com QUESTION OF THE MONTH Why did I get stuck in VAT limbo? Q I bought a previously Swissowned boat in 2006. Her owner had sailed across the Atlantic from La Rochelle to avoid paying VAT. On her return she called into the Azores and then Ireland before being left at Nieuwpoort, Belgium, to be sold. I knew that VAT would be due at…

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 Laurel Cooper looks back to a first Atlantic crossing before the days of mass rallies and easy navigation. The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) started in 1986, but we did the first of our Atlantic crossings in 1981. After five years exploring the Mediterranean end to end we had learnt to trust our stoutly built 58ft steel ketch Fare Well; and to trust each other to get out of trouble. That summer, we cruised Greek waters, the…

THE UK’S MOST COMPREHENSIVE YACHT TESTS A second-hand 30ft yacht is a good staring point on the road of boat ownership. A step up from a dinghy or dayboat, small enough to manhandle into and out of berths, cheap to keep on a mooring and not crippling in marina fees either. There are many on the market, but few offer standing headroom, a fully appointed galley, a proper chart table and double berths in two separate, decent-sized cabins like the Moody 31. With the feeling of a big dinghy, those stepping up will be familiar with her feel, but also those downsizing won’t feel she is too much of a compromise either. Performance With between 8 to 15 knots of chilly northerly breeze we threw off Aquaholic’s fore and aft…

What’s she like to sail? She’s a real sailor's boat and a joy to helm. Even with twin rudders she was ever so responsive and light on the wheels She feels like a bigger boat, partly due to the helm position being perched on the transom and the large, well thoughtout cockpit ahead of you. There are plenty of control lines for those who love to tweak, but it’s not necessary to constantly play them. Her hull is light and easily driven, and getting over 5 knots to windward in 10 knots of apparent showed her speed potential (although she was without a typical payload of cruising kit). Her deck layout, with the genoa winches flanking the companionway, works really well for a short-handed crew. One person can handle both…

If you have a news story to share, contact News Editor Theo Stocker EMAIL theo.stocker@timeinc.com TEL 01252 555164 Visits by Border Force officers, stricter customs rules, and patrols by RIBs could all become more common around British harbours and marinas if the recommendations of a new report are enacted. The advice was given after David Bolt, the independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, found that small harbours and marinas on the UK’s east coast are wide open to illegal activity due to ‘poor’ Border Force coverage. The report found that the Force is ‘spread thinly’ and struggling with a lack of manpower and resources. Almost half the 62 small ports, harbours and marinas on the east coast have not been visited by a Border Force officer in over a year.…

Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/yachtingmonthly Like us on Facebook facebook.com/yachtingmonthlymag Belgian authorities have once again performed a U-turn on the policy to fine visiting yachts using red diesel. The news follows a spate of fines imposed on British yachts in Belgium over the summer. In a joint statement from the Belgian Minister for Customs and Minister for the North Sea, it was announced that the fines would not be imposed until there has been an EU meeting on the topic, scheduled for 18 September 2017. The government was concerned that the fines were discouraging yachts from visiting the country, placing its marinas at a competitive disadvantage to those in other EU countries where the fines are not being imposed. The announcement comes after the Cruising Association lobbied the Belgian government…

EMAIL yachtingmonthly@timeinc.com POST The Editor, Yachting Monthly, Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF Please send us your letters in less than 200 words 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 Windward or leeward? I am with Kieran in his Summer 2017 editorial. One is blown onto a windward berth and conversely blown off a leeward berth. It has been thus for my 50 plus years at sea - have I been wrong all that time? I can see the problem when seeking a marina berth - perhaps one needs…

Retired anatomy professor Noel Dilly has been cruising for over 70 years. He now sails Whisper, a Rustler 36, with his wife Sandie Would your man overboard (MOB) recovery plan actually work if you had to enact it in difficult conditions? How have you tested and practiced it? I believe that many experienced sailors are deluding themselves about MOB, so my friend Mike Millis and I took the Yachting Monthly team sailing on a windy day to demonstrate, and to challenge some commonly held assumptions. We tend to forget that MOB training is only intended to give us a starting point for developing strategies and solutions that work for us on our boats. Rote answers to complex problems usually lead to disaster and, as in all sailing, when someone falls…

It is impossible to release most tether clips when they are under load. Many people think this is how it should be, but I would challenge that asumption. MYTH 18: Clips on tethers should be difficult to release If you are being towed, knives and other cutting devices may take too long to deploy before disorientation, anoxia and drowning supervene. I believe it must be possible to release the tether’s attachment to the harness when the tether is under load. My solution is a simple spinnaker clip attached to the lifejacket or harness end of the tether, with a substantial tab on the release pin. Modifying a harness tether contravenes World Sailing's Offshore Special Regulations and violates vessel coding requirements, but I believe that a quick-release clip is essential for…

John Marley John started sailing at a British families' school in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. He raced an Albin Vega from the Tay while at Dundee Medical School and taught cruising in holidays. He met his wife Anne in Poole, and they now live in Australia, with John working flexibly to enable cruising the Pacific. I read in YM that it takes 18 months to prepare for an ocean passage. This is true. For a shakedown cruise, in 2014 my wife Anne and I sailed Essex Girl (Anne is from Essex), our 2012 Bénéteau Oceanis 37, from our home port of Port Stephens in New South Wales to the Whitsunday Islands, around 1,000 miles non-stop within Australian coastal waters. Belying their name, most Oceanis yachts are used for coast-hopping or charter. The…

Bill and Laurel Cooper are best known for writing the seminal blue water cruising book Sell Up and Sail in 1986, which is now in its fifth edition. The couple, who married in 1952 while Bill was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, sold their house in 1976 and built Fare Well, a 58ft ketch, in which they began their cruising life. They then owned a number of boats, including Hosanna, an 87ft spritsail Dutch barge, and finally Faraway, a 40ft motor barge, which they sold in 2014 due to ill health. Bill died in 2016 and Laurel, 88, continues to write on her own.…

I did not know before that race what a good sailor I was, in what father would have called the worst sense. My greatest temptation and danger was to sail the boat too gently, so that in my efforts to keep her as upright as possible I should lose way, leaving her at the mercy of an extra hard puff. I performed cowardly marvels of compromise, judging nicely the varying weight of the squalls, and the breaking point of each successive wave. Gradually every faculty became numb, save this one. The other five boats left me behind almost at once. I had little attention to spare for them, but I saw the sudden disappearance, in a flurry of wind and water, of the bobbing splodge of red which had been…

What’s she like to sail? The Moody 31 is fast, easy, responsive, and thrilling to helm and with her hinged tiller and cockpit layout, she is well set up for singlehanded or short-handed cruising. She is a sailing machine that can be thrown around in a tight corner and yet will make speedy offshore passages, but in strong winds she is not for the faint-hearted. Sailing this boat, you need to think on your feet and be ready for her immediate response to your helming commands. She’s not a boat noted for looking after herself at sea: heaving to will take great balancing skills to stop her fore-reaching at a speed not suitable for dealing with a problem. A shrewd skipper would be more likely to drop sail and motor…

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, Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF EMAIL yachtingmonthly@timeinc.com Please send us your confessions in less than 200 words A well-balanced wife CONFESSION OF THE MONTH By Tim Howard I sold my 28-footer to a very nice chap and his equally nice wife. The boat was being transported by road to her new home, so I offered to help getting the mast down. The new owner put a sling from the club crane round the mast, and winched it up to the crosstrees. I gently pointed out that these were less than half way up the mast,…

Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/yachtingmonthly Like us on Facebook facebook.com/yachtingmonthlymag The owner of the yacht Cheeki Rafiki, which was lost at sea in 2014, has been found guilty of failing to ensure the safety of the yacht. The jury at Winchester Crown Court convicted Douglas Innes, 42, of the charge by a majority of ten-toone and also found his company, Stormforce Coaching Limited, guilty of the same charge. Mr Innes displayed no emotions when the verdict was read out. The jury was unable, however, to reach a verdict on four charges of manslaughter by gross negligence, and the case will be retried. The 40ft Beneteau First 40.7 yacht capsized in the North Atlantic, 700 miles from Nova Scotia in May 2014 after losing its keel, resulting in the death of…

Lisa Blair has become first woman to sail solo around Antarctica below 45 degrees south. The 32-year-old Australian completed the 20,000 mile circumnavigation from Albany, Western Australia, in a total of 187 days, five hours and 52 minutes. She was at sea for a total of just 107 days, eight hours and 23 minutes but was forced to spend several weeks in South Africa, however, after her yacht was dismasted. Lisa narrowly missed out on beating the overall record of 102 days, set by Russian sailor Fedor Konyukhov in 2008. She returned to Albany on 26 July, having re-crossed her track south of 45 degrees on 21 July. ‘I have had knockdowns, giant waves, winds strong enough to rip the roof of your house, snowstorms, hail, I have been dismasted,…

During our summer cruise, in company with three other yachts from our Medway-based yacht club, we put into Nieuwpoort, Belgium and were immediately boarded by customs who inspected our papers and took fuel samples from the tanks. My boat has not used red diesel for two years but the sample was tinged pale pink due to residual traces of dye in the tank. Despite my protest my fuel was declared ‘red’ and fined €500. Two of our boats had red diesel, as we had been led to believe that a derogation was in place to cover the UK fuel situation. They were also fined 500 euros each. The fourth boat had never used red diesel so did not receive a fine. The customs official as good as admitted that we…

RYA Yachtmaster Chris Beeson has raced and cruised over 40,000 ocean miles in his 37 years as a sailor Recently Barry Gray, a YM reader from Oman, wrote in to relate an alarming experience that happened while sailing the beautiful, mountainous Musandam peninsula in his Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 36i. After supper they were lying peacefully at anchor when they noticed the wind begin to build. They were clearing away the dishes when all hell broke loose. The boat was blown 180 degrees round her anchor and heeled to such an angle that Barry had to climb up the side of the companionway steps. He described the winds as ‘katabatic’ and it seemed to tally with the notion we all have of katabatic winds: sudden, violent and linked to mountains. Then…

■ Learning from the shakedown, we made changes to the boat. We added a wind generator to supplement solar panels, a deep third reef in the mainsail so as not to have to rig the trysail, increased anchor chain to 50m, made storm boards for the companionway and made numerous minor changes. We found a solution for rigging a storm jib on a temporary 'inner stay' (May 17) and learned how long water and diesel could last. ■ Although easier to use than highfrequency SSB radio, getting the satphone set up was tricky and we were glad to have this sorted before our departure. ■ We would advise anyone sailing to a disaster area to check in advance what is most needed. Some donations weren't needed, while some needs went…

Yachtsmen sailing round the shores of these Blessed Isles encounter diverse pilotage and climatic challenges. Whilst doffing our caps to the navigational hazards faced overseas, there is no need to seek them out to stretch our nautical skills – we have enough coastal perils of our own. My own chosen home sailing ground is Wales. Carol and I have sailed almost all its coastline aboard Aurial, a Southerly 105 ketch with a lifting keel. Craft with variable draught and those able to take the ground do enjoy an advantage over deep fin yachts along the Welsh coastline, as many havens and estuaries are shallow or dry out, though there are ample options for those needing to remain afloat at all times. It must be remembered, however, that to access such…