Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2019 i Yachting Monthly

Sailors can now transit the full length of Scotland’s Union Canal following the reopening of Leamington Lift Bridge in Edinburgh. The structure, which crosses the canal from Leamington Road to Gilmore Park, was shut to all boat traffic in September 2018 after engineers found significant corrosion within the lifting gear inside the towers. The closure cut off access to Lochrin Basin and Edinburgh Quay. A £350,000 grant from Sustrans Scotland paid for the work to upgrade and repair the 113- year-old bridge.…

Sextants are necessary With reference to Dick Durham’s comments on the virtues of keeping a sextant onboard (‘Why the sextant isn’t just an objet d’art’, YM, June 2019), whether or not you cruise out of sight of land, a sextant still has a use in the ever more crowded waters we now use. If you are at anchor with another boat close ahead of you, all you need to do is to measure the angle between that boat’s mast top and its waterline. If after half-an-hour or so, the angle is greater, he’s dragging down on you. If it’s getting smaller, it’s you who’s on the drag. Simple! MD Constantine, Cdr RNR (Rtd.) Apparent vs True I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the Summer 2019 issue of Yachting Monthly, but wondered…

ANDY DU PORT Andy is a Yachtmaster Offshore, and formerly an RN specialist navigating officer and RYA Cruising Instructor. He edited Reeds Nautical Almanac for five years. He now sails a Hallberg-Rassy 34 with his wife Kate. IAN LOCKYER Ian Lockyer is marketing manager of Icom UK with over 20 years of experience in the marine industry. He is knowledgeable about all things radio and regularly helps customers understand their kits’ functions. HARRY DEKKERS Harry is an RYA Yachtmaster Offshore and has sailed solo around the UK. He was the Commanding Officer of the Royal Netherlands Navy’s sail training vessel. He has a wealth of knowledge at his fingertips, much of it hard won from many years on the water.…

Here’s a puzzle for you. In the photo above, what is that straight line on the water, ahead of the anchored yacht? The picture was taken at the upper end of Loch Linnhe, just outside the narrows that leads into the wild, mountain-girt Loch Eil. We had left the Caledonian Canal at the Corpach sea lock and moved across to the southern shore for the night, anchoring over a gravelly shoal. The tide was flooding quite strongly and London Apprentice lay with her bows pointing towards the sea. LOCAL TRICKS Only twice in my life have I seen that straight line on the surface displayed so clearly. On the earlier occasion I was in a dinghy and could float over the line to examine it closely. At that time, I…

Liz Rushall has won national dinghy and keelboat titles, but currently cruises a 28ft classic called Ragdoll ‘Why on earth are you guys doing your YachtMaster?’ was the question our friends repeatedly asked. ‘Surely, you know all that stuff?’ We’ve both sailed since childhood, competitively racing dinghies, then keelboats. Sailing is our work and life. Mark is a British Sailing Team coach, we’ve both won championships together and with others, and raced keelboats offshore. In between times, since 2000, we’ve cruised Ragdoll our 28ft classic Honeybee, from Emsworth, having slow adventures around Brittany, Normandy, and the West Country. Generally, we’ve arrived on the day we had planned, if not quite always at our estimated time. Although I did my Yachtmaster theory some 20 years ago, it’s just like I have…

How do you unique challenges measure sailing experience? For most of us it will be harbours visited and miles logged. But there’s more to it than just numbers; certain stretches of water pose unique challenges and their reputations hold a strange power in the minds of all who set sail. Completing one of these passages is an initiation, a rite of passage, that engenders the respect of others and a new selfconfidence. With a nod to the 1980s YM book, Classic Passages, the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation and Imray have collated some of the milestone passages through and around British waters that should be on every cruising sailor’s to-do list. So how many have you done? This article is from the series Rites of Passage, commissioned by Yachting Monthly,…

Pushing and shoving to get on a minibus was not the spiritual introduction to the Holy Mountain I was expecting, but there is only one way onto the Mount Athos peninsula, and that is by ferry from the town of Ouranoúpoli. Reluctantly we had joined the crowds. Limited transportation helps the authorities control entry, which is restricted to visa or permit holders. This is to keep out us undesirables and, even today, women. Even priests need to show a visa. Our sailing trip in my Bavaria 42, Perla, took us from the Sporadic island of Skiathos and through the Halkidiki region to the northeast port town of Kavála. It was October and in northern Greece the winds are unpredictable at this time so nightly stops were planned: the longest day…

GILL OS INSULATED RANGE MID-LAYER SUIT £180 British clothing manufacturer Gill has released a new range of their OS insulated products for use on cold days under your oilskins. They feature super-light ‘down-feel’ synthetic insulation with an excellent warmth-to-weight ratio. The range includes base and mid-layers with the mid-layers consisting of a top and salopettes and the baselayers in a top and trouser combination. www.gill.com ACR RESQLINK NEXT-GEN PLB £280 ACR Electronics is launching its nextgeneration of ResQLink Personal Locator Beacons (PLB). This latest offering was designed with first-hand feedback from survivors who have activated the beacons in real-life emergencies, so functionality should be good if you ever need to use it in an emergency situation. www.acratex.com KLEAN KANTEEN REUSABLE BOTTLE £25.95 Using reusable bottles is one way that sailors…

If your boat is of a certain age, you might be tempted to upgrade to an electric winch – generally people choose the one they use for hoisting a mainsail. Selecting a replacement winch is often made easy for you, as many manufacturers produce 12/24v electrically-powered winches with one, two or three speeds and often a recent model of manual winch can be upgraded to a powered one using a suitable conversion kit. If you’re upgrading modern winches, this should be a fairly simple switch. Harken’s Radial line of winches first came on to the market more than a decade ago and even then, the engineers were briefed to ensure that converting a manual Radial to an electric would be very easy. Inside the winch only the central shaft is…

Danny and his wife Sophie have spent the past three years learning to sail in their aging bilge-keeled Sadler 25 and are now looking to cross the Channel to expand their cruising horizons for extended holidays. They feel they’d be happier in a slightly larger yacht, although ideally not above 10m (32ft 10in) LOA for berthing purposes, and would like more space below for their six-year-old daughter, Tilly, and cocker spaniel Rufus to play. Danny would prefer it to have a deepish fin keel for better pointing ability and to offer a comfortable motion to windward so they can sleep underway. Sophie wants a decent galley and heads with a hot shower, plus for it to be as easy to handle as the Sadler. They would both also prefer a…

OWN UP TO YOUR SAILINGSINS Email yachtingmonthly@ti-media.com Post Confessions, Yachting Monthly, TI Media, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF Send us your stories in less than 200 words WIN A FLOATING HANDHELD VHF UK residents only The confession of the month wins a Standard Horizon HX210E waterproof VHF radio worth £134.95. It boasts a wateractivated strobe, 6W transmission, largest-in-class screen, an FM radio and more. www.standardhorizon.co.uk Blinded by the light Peter Rolt Some years ago a friend and I were sailing back up to Bristol from Falmouth. I usually liked to do the trip in one go, so we may not have been at our most alert by the time we were somewhere between Ilfracombe and Foreland Point at night and spotted bright red lights…

1M The charity UKSA has raised £1 million towards its £3 million Building Better Futures campaign. So far, it has delivered a new maritime training centre at Cowes and four new Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 449s. 6 EasyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has donated six RS21 keelboats to the Sea Cadets charity. The boats will be rotated around the country training some 15,000 Sea Cadets. 24 A new 24-hour self-service fuel pump and payment system has been installed at Hafan Pwllheli marina in North Wales. The payment system accepts any credit or debit card. Fewer visitor berths The 1,600 berth Port Chantereyne in Cherbourg has reduced its number of visitor berths to 200 after dedicating more space to annual berth holders.…

I’ve known sailors who have been desperate to leave a permanent wake for posterity over their passage-making and for most of them it is to find and complete a new maritime record. The knights Chichester, Knox-Johnston, and Blyth, however, left few bones to pick over. They included encircling the globe longitudinally; making the fastest circumnavigation; or making the longest circumnavigation, all of which have since been claimed. So it gives me great pleasure to announce my own modest chalk-up; a record which, while not worthy of Drake’s sword upon my shoulder, is an achievement nevertheless. It is in fact a record attained when my boat was completely abandoned by the tide, lying over on her port side on the greatest expanse of mud in Europe, of which the low water…

TOBY HEPPELL got his first boat aged four and grew up sailing on the East Coast. He has been a sailing journalist for over 15 years ‘Last summer I took a few weeks out and went cruising with my family in Brittany and met a customer who had a lot of expensive gear on board but was not using much of the available functionality because he “had got manuals coming out of his ears and hadn’t had the time to study them all”.’ So says Matt Eeles of B&G and I’m sure it is a familiar story for many sailors. For all the improvements sailing tech and software has made over the years, there have been times when it feels like a lot of hassle for limited reward. It is…

1 QUICK PLOTTING TECHNIQUES Karen’s quick plotting technique really helps if, like us, you have a very small chart table. Simply plot your latitude using your Portland plotter or ruler. Then measure off your longitude along the top line of the chart from the nearest major longitude line eg 002°. Move the dividers down to in-line with your latitude plot and draw an arc on your first line 2 DEVIATION AND VARIATION In the end, I solved this by learning to literally translate ‘error east/compass least’ and ‘error west/compass best’ into plain English! In other words: Compass error West – compass will be bigger than True; Compass error East – compass will be less than True. Learning how to use a pencil mark on the error scale on the Portland…

Lerwick to Bergen is the shortest route between the UK and Norway, 210 miles including 20 miles up the fjords inside the protection of Sotra island. Monitor the wind and swell patterns before departure and try to find a moderate window of winds and seas. The main hazards on route are the oil platforms in the North Sea. DEPARTURE Lerwick North channel is well marked but narrow and busy with commercial vessels including the ferry which runs between Lerwick and Bressay. Tidal streams run North from +0130 HW Lerwick (2kn at Springs). ARRIVAL The Norway coast is steep-to and the main channels are well marked and deep. The lead to Bergen is up Korsfjorden and Raunefjorden, passing either side of Bjørøyna. The stream runs strongly through Vatlestraum, N on the…

THE OCEAN VOYAGER AND ME Di Beach Published by Amazon, 2014, £13.74 (paperback) and £5.63 (Kindle) Di Beach, 20, was living in Kampala in the 1960s with her architect husband, Rod Pickering, and their baby daughter, Jojo. One Saturday they were foraging in a second-hand shop when Rod had a momentous, life-changing find. As always, he had headed straight for the books… ‘Di, look at this! It’s bloody amazing!’ I trundled the pram over to where he was wrestling with bundles of books, five or six volumes tied together with string. He scanned the titles, yelled with delight. He stacked them on top of each other, a look of intense joy on his face and surveyed his booty. ‘Look at this! Slocum, Dana, Hiscock, Pye, Tilman. I don’t believe it.…

£229.95 Having a wetsuit on board is always useful, whether you’re going for a swim, a paddleboard, or need to get in to check the prop. This new wetsuit from Zhik is made from plant-based neoprene-style material and from recycled plastic bottles. The insulating rubber foam, 80% of the garment, is entirely plant-based while the outer surface is made from recycled plastic. This is good news for the eco-conscious but does it work as a wetsuit? In terms of the material, I found no discernible difference to other, similar thickness, neoprene wetsuits I have recently worn. This wetsuit is geared towards the racing sailor so flexibility and comfort once on are prioritised over ease of donning. As such there is no zip in the suit, which is made of thin…

PRICE £20,000-£35,000 YEAR 1980-1992 The Fulmar was available with fin or bilge keels and replaced Westerly’s Laurent Giles-designed range of 31-footers, adding more performance and comfort. Laid up generously by hand, they were solidly built but somewhat prone to osmosis. Most had Lewmar deck gear throughout with substantial backing plates. She was the first Westerly to sport a fractional rig with an optional backstay tensioner. A full shroud set supported the single, aft-swept spreader mast, attaching to a single, mid-deck chain plate bolted to a beefy, bonded-in hull fillet. Wide side decks and a gently sloping coachroof facilitate movement on deck, although the non-slip was painted, not in the mould. The cockpit is spacious yet secure, thanks to high, flat-topped coamings, and her high bridge deck keeps the sea out.…

If you have a news story to share, contact News Editor Katy Stickland Email Katy.Stickland@timeinc.com Tel 01252 555 166 The UK’s privatised Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopter service could face a shortage of qualified aircrew, according to a new report. The British defence company QinetiQ has carried out a review into the privatisation of the SAR helicopter service, seen as controversial by some, which since 2015 has been run by Bristow Helicopters in a 10-year deal worth £1.6 billion. It found that although the transition, which saw the number of SAR UK airbases cut from 12 to 10, and the removal of ageing RAF Sea King helicopters from the service, has been ‘successful’, there were ‘a small number of issues which, if not addressed, may cause risks to SAR capability’.…

I was asked, during a recent interview in Paris, the secret to getting your partner interested in cruising. To answer this, we need to go back 40 years to a pursuit race up the Tamar River. My crew had dropped out and so, by chance, I was to meet my future wife. She wasn’t particularly interested, was scared of the water and couldn’t sail. We agreed that all she had to do was make up the numbers and pass the sandwiches. We won. Did the resultant wave of euphoria sweep Tracey into sailing? No. This was partly due to a take it or leave it relationship with sailing but mainly due to holding the fort while I was a competitive sailor. We also left sailing outside the front door as…

James Stevens, author of the Yachtmaster Handbook, spent 10 of his 23 years at the RYA as chief examiner Do you trust the buoys or the chart? Q Jake is on a cross-Channel cruise with his wife Annie and teenage daughter Jill. They are on board the family yacht Wind Rode, a Beneteau First 29, 9m long with a fin keel and draught of 1.2m. Annie has worked out that they should be able to visit Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, an interesting and historic port between Dieppe and Boulogne. It is going to be pretty shallow and there is a huge area of sand with a winding buoyed channel on the way in, so Annie has checked and rechecked her tidal heights. On the day the wind is light and there is a…

Send your sailing gossip, diary dates, cruising news and club or owners’ association updates to Katy Stickland katy.stickland@ti-media.com Sailing around Britain for Seafarers UK Mark Ashley-Miller has started his four-year challenge to visit every harbourmaster’s office in the UK. He left from Dartmouth on board his 34ft Nauticat 331, Good Dog and hopes to make it to Scotland by the end of the year. ‘I’ve always wanted to circumnavigate Britain and wondered if anyone had visited every harbourmaster in the UK,’ explained the 56-year-old skipper. ‘I also wanted to raise money for a men’s mental health charity and eventually contacted Seafarers UK, who were so enthusiastic about the Harbour Master Sailing Challenge.’ So far, Ashley-Miller has sailed the south west and Wales, meeting 55 harbourmasters. He plans to finish his…

HARD DOWN! HARD DOWN! £18.99 Captain Jack Isbester, Whittles Publishing Captain John Isbester (1852-1913) was the illegitimate son of a Shetland shawl-knitter and a sailor who left for Australia and never returned. Aged 19, he went to Liverpool and signed on the square-rigged Sealkote for Calcutta. Captain Isbester’s grandson, himself a merchant navy officer, appreciates the single-mindedness which enabled John to achieve command of the barque Centaur by age 33. His wife Susie bore eight children, managed their affairs and circumnavigated the globe with him, before he was lost with the clipper ship Dalgonar. This family project and love story offers insight into Shetland society and the world of trading under sail. YACHTING: START TO FINISH £16.99 Barry Pickthall, Fernhurst This compact instructional manual is intended for the beginner sailor and…

HARKEN 40 SELFTAILING RADIAL WINCH — 2 SPEED £1,041.15 Harken's Radial winches feature a ribbed gripping surface, which is shaped for the winch size and drum material — thus the chrome version comes with many more ridges than this aluminium version. The ribs are diagonal to prevent the line riding up and only the upper portion is textured to maximize gripping power and greatly reduce line wear. The winch can be up-specced to three-speed should you wish and is available as electric but can also be easily retrofitted to electric at a later date. SPECIFICATIONS Speed: 2 Drum: 80mm weight: 3.8kg We take a look at the options across the brands for self-tailing winches with a power ratio of 40, as these would typically serve as primary sheet winches on…