Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i Yachting Monthly

Tributes have flowed in for renowned boatbuilder and designer Iain Oughtred who died on the Isle of Skye in February, aged 84. Born in Melbourne in 1939, Iain grew up in Sydney sailing, building and designing fast dinghies from an early age, becoming one of the greatest designers of traditional sailing dinghies in a career that spanned more than 50 years. Iain drew, always by hand, more than 100 designs for traditionally styled boats, starting with an 18ft cruiser Happy Jack in 1967. In the 1980s, Iain moved to Scotland, originally to race 10m² canoes, but never left, living in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Findhorn. The vessels he designed were of Scottish and Norwegian working boat descent and well-known for being beautifully proportioned. He continued to build more prototypes of his…

The RNLI has teamed up with award-winning grower Peter Beales Roses to create a new rose to celebrate 200 years of saving lives at sea. The orange rose has been named ‘With Courage’ by the charity’s supporters in homage to one of the RNLI’s key values and the words of founder Sir William Hillary who said: ‘With courage, nothing is impossible.’ The floribunda rose will form part of Peter Beales’s display at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – which opens to the public on Tuesday 21 May – and will be flanked by a D class inshore lifeboat, the workhorse of the RNLI fleet. Peter Beales nursery manager, Ian Limmer, whose grandfather volunteered at Sheringham Lifeboat Station, Norfolk, for 30 years, has overseen the breeding of the rose for the…

Practise heaving-to, whatever the weather You should run through and be familiar with your boat’s characteristics for heaving-to in different conditions. Just because you know how to do this in principle your boat will behave differently to others and differently in varied sea states and wind speeds, and will depend on what reefs you may have in at the time. Often the main sheet is not long enough to allow the main to be fully free so a simple lengthening strop is required if you have a clip fastening for your mainsheet block to the track. An alternative is to undo the figure of eight and unreeve the sheet from the block/jammer part of the set up and attach an extra length of cordage. I like to keep this designated…

When you first start to navigate it can seem complex and pretty nuanced, but in reality what you are doing falls into two overarching styles. The first style of navigation is to know exactly where you are all the time, so you can manoeuvre to get to where you want to go and stay safe whilst you do it. This is the way commercial shipping, Naval warships, satnavs and, increasingly, your chartplotter, navigate. It’s therefore natural to want to do likewise. The second, very old, style is rather than know exactly where you are, you instead know precisely where all the dangers are in relation to you. That is, you definitely know where you are not. You can then safely manoeuvre to your chosen location. CHARTPLOTTER DRAWBACKS ‘Knowing’ where you…

There aren’t many places where you can anchor so close to a mountain it breathes on you. In heavy weather the draughts of exhaled tempest that rush down the sheer face of Sgùrr Dubh Mòr will sail your boat, under bare poles, around her ground tackle. Many sailors down the years have experienced violent katabatic-like winds in the Isle of Skye’s Loch Scavaig and yet it continues to lure yachtsmen into its deceptively pond-like embrace. When Republican gun-runner Conor O’Brien’s 26-ton cutter, Kelpie, anchored next to the 3,000ft Big Black Peak in 1921, seven years after delivering a shipment of rifles to the Irish Volunteers, he was astonished to witness sea spray ‘streaming up a perpendicular cliff’ as a gale created a giant vacuum through the Cuillins. In 1938 Eric…

Orford Sailing Club celebrates 100 years Situated in arguably one of Suffolk’s prettiest villages and under the watchful eye of its medieval castle and church, Orford Sailing Club celebrates its centenary in 2024. The club is situated on the foreshore of the River Ore close to Orford Quay, five miles up from the notorious Orford bar, and offers 15 miles of sheltered sailing in the river Alde-Ore tidal estuary. The members are very active with cruising members sailing long distances and dinghy sailors mastering both how to sail and how to cope with the river – strong currents rip past the town quay. The club still has a fleet of Orford Dabchick Ten Footers alongside the Wayfarers, Toppers and Fevas. The friendly club offers plenty of social activities. There are…

www.yachtingmonthly.com/books In 1957, Penny Hughes and Sally Hinchcliffe were sailing their converted ship’s boat Crab from Preveza to Levkas with friends Robin and Mags when they were caught in a gale. The wind was impressive now. It tugged at the small sail, visibly lifting the boat as the gusts came. The helm was hard to control. This was unlike any conditions I had met. In the estuary one could anchor and ride out the gale until the tide dropped and one could wade home. In a wind like this I had never actually been at the helm. Here there was no alternative but to push on. These waves started somewhere in the northern end of the Adriatic and had rolled their way southwards, gaining momentum. They were as big as…

The Belgian EU Presidency, in collaboration with the European Commission and European Boating Industry (EBI), convened a landmark conference in March in Brussels to address the pressing issue of end-of-life recreational boats. Representatives from the Belgian EU Presidency, European Commission and the EBI underscored the urgency and necessity of cooperation in tackling this critical issue. Robert Marx, President of EBI said: ‘As we move forward, it is imperative that the momentum generated by this conference translates into concrete action. The implementation of the EU Roadmap must be the key next step after the approaching EU elections. Industry is ready, the technology is ready and we now need to set up the regulatory framework to make it happen. We are delighted to have the support of the European Commission and Belgian…

A yacht ended up smashed on the rocks in southern Ireland in June last year after snagging a large trawling net, a Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB) report showed in March, highlighting the hazards of discarded fishing gear. The 12.85m Sun Odyssey 42i, named Inish Ceinn, snagged a large trawl net off the west Cork coast and was then swept onto the rocks. The skipper, an experienced yachtmaster and diver, along with three crew and one guest, were all rescued. The yacht left Baltimore harbour in moderate conditions and then headed west on the planned course towards Cape Clear Island. The course was around 0.5 miles from the southern shore of Sherkin Island and at around 1430 the skipper felt the yacht slow down rapidly and turn into the wind.…

Today’s new designs are invariably variations on a common theme. Happily they tend to sail better than earlier designs, while also offering more accommodation volume. But are other approaches to yacht design viable today? The Rosättra Boatyard, 90 minutes north of Stockholm, definitely believes there are better options. The firm, which has only had one change of family ownership since it was founded in 1886, introduced the Linjett range of cruiser racers in 1973. Today it quietly produces 10-15 performance cruisers a year across a three-model range from 34-43ft. The yard also enjoys outstanding customer loyalty, looking after 220 Linjetts every winter – a quarter of all boats built since the range’s inception. The small production numbers of new yachts means design and tooling costs must be amortised over a…

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I have always wanted to sail on a tall ship; to experience night watches on the high seas, to make sail changes, to helm. Although I’ve done all these things in my yacht, Ensemble, I wanted to know how it would be done on a much larger vessel. I was also influenced by Patrick O’Brian and his stories of Aubrey and Maturin. The glorious tales of the fight at sea against Napoleon, the details of the rigging and ship to ship combat inspired my inner romantic. So, when I saw the possibility of sailing aboard Oosterschelde, a topmast schooner, in what was advertised as a hands-on adventure with training, no experience necessary, I thought why not? The ship, named after the Oosterschelde river in the south of the Netherlands, is…

A well-known truism of boat ownership is that sailing with a fixed propeller is akin to towing a bucket astern. We all know that a feathering or folding propeller has huge advantages under sail, but what are the costs of motoring with a sub-optimal propeller? Even purists will use the engine to manoeuvre in and out of busy harbours, and most of us are willing to fill in with horsepower when the wind drops. You won’t be surprised to hear that propeller manufacturers believe that sailors often have the wrong screw fitted. And if that delicate balance between the propeller size, engine power and the boat’s speed potential don’t align, you’ll be losing money to inefficient performance under power. ‘It’s pretty common that props aren’t the right size,’ explains David…

People have asked why I decided to change a perfectly good ketch into a staysail schooner? It’s a reasonable question. The simple answer is that I always wanted a brigantine. Traditionally, a brigantine is a schooner with the foremast square-rigged and all other sails fore and aft. The name comes from the brigands who pirated their trade along the Mediterranean Barbary Coast – which is what I might have to resort to after spending all my money on my 51ft yacht, Britannia. A brigantine is the ideal small boat cruising rig. It offers the best of all worlds: capable of hauling tolerably close to the wind with its fore and aft sails; having fast reaching capabilities and unbelievable downwind stability using the squaresails. Also, like a ketch, the sails are…

Falmouth Harbour has become the first harbour in the world to partner with the Cleaner Seas Group, installing the group’s ground-breaking green tech filters in the marina amenity centre to prevent plastic microfibres washing from clothes into the sea. Each of the industrial INDIKON microfibre filters attached to the harbour’s washing machines will prevent around 91 million microfibres a year from polluting the sea. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has found that microfibres from synthetic fabrics are the largest source of primary microplastics in our oceans. A smaller Indi home microfibre filter has also been developed by the Cleaner Seas Group. The filter unit takes 10 minutes to install and plugs into any washing machine to remove the millions of microfibres washing out of clothes each year.…

Translated 9, one of the leading yachts in the Ocean Globe Race (OGR), has been forced to retire from the round-the-world race with hull damage and has diverted to Madeira. The Italian yacht, the current International Rating Certificate (IRC) leader of the fourth leg, pulled out of the race after a heavy broach when 50-knot gusts slammed her down, reopening previously repaired cracks in her hull around the rudder skeg and causing her to take on water. On 5 April, OGR race control received a text message from co-skipper Nico Malingri stating that the yacht’s previous rudder skeg repairs were failing with obvious signs of hull flexing and delamination with the original hull. All pumps were ready and while not expected, all preparations to abandon ship were made and all…

The flexing of spring’s muscles calls for a dusting down of my jobs list. I never intend winter boat maintenance to become last minute but a busy life creates a bow wave of tasks that end up clamouring for last-minute attention. As ever, booking the launch date has triggered a succession of dominoes that should see us off on our first and long-awaited weekend on board. The list of jobs is pretty easy this year – engine service, tidying behind the switch panel, anodes and antifouling. The only priority is that we need to sort out the prop anode which is too active on the fizzing front. We shall put a meter across the coupling and my hope is that a copper strip will suffice. If that doesn’t work we…

Could you sort the fallout of a violent gybe? Q It is the roughest sea Simon has ever experienced. He and his four crew are sailing eastwards on his classic 1960s 12m wooden sloop, Sea Thrift, towards the Azores with about 500 miles to go. Fortunately it is daylight for the next few hours. Simon is an experienced sailor and his crew are all reasonably competent. Sea Thrift is well kitted out for ocean cruising with the recommended safety equipment and satellite communications. The wind is Force 8 and freshening. The boat and crew are broad reaching with a triple-reefed main and storm jib. Simon reckons it is time to drop the main. As he briefs the crew in the cockpit, shouting in the wind, the helmsman loses concentration. The…

The North Sea at night: I love it. It can turn wild, like any mountain or desert, but that’s not all the time. When it’s calm, fishing lights appear, dodge about, and disappear. Wind farm constructions march through the waves, towering above small boats, flashing red and white in the moonlight. The black waves and unseen sand banks demand respect, as does the shipping. Collision avoidance work is easier these days. One navigation aid, the Automatic Identification System (AIS), transmits small packets of (live) navigational and (pre-programmed) vessel information alongside regular VHF radio audio broadcasts, and receives similar information from others in return. Overlay this on a chart plotter and you have a map of the surrounding traffic, or at least, of those ships with AIS functioning correctly and switched…

Arriving in late March at my partner’s home in Greece, I was expecting a few days at the house before sailing. But with a period of southerly winds forecast – unusual enough to be worth making the most of – the skipper was itching to get going. Having been east and south to the Dodecanese and Cyclades in recent years, we had decided to head north for a change. Aleko had been preparing Beduin, his Nicholson 32, before I arrived. From our base in Milina in the Pagasetic Gulf, we were soon out through the Sporades, passing between Skiathos and Skopelos. An early start on the third day saw us passing Gioura by sunrise. It was a long day (62 miles) to Limnos but we enjoyed a good sail once…

SAILFORCE SMART E-WINCH www.ewincher.com SailForce’s latest range of electric winches feature two variable speeds and a highly sensitive tension limiter to help reduce the risk of injury or damage should a line or sail become snagged or tangled. The tension limit is determined by the user so that the winch can be set to appropriate power settings for different trimming applications. A 29V lithium ion battery powers the brushless motor to help reduce energy consumption to half that used by earlier E-Winch systems. Available in six sizes from 40 to 70. FROM ca. £3,146 BRIGHTWIND WIND SENSOR/NAV LIGHT www.weems-plath.com A clever consolidation of navigation lights and electronic wind sensor into a single unit to save valuable footprint space at the top of the mast. The wind sensor makes use of four ultrasonic…

Most cruising yacht sailors would agree that any field of knowledge that might sharpen their own skills is worthwhile learning about. But does Patrick O’Brian rattling on about thimbles and cross-catharpings help you claw home across the Solent? Square-rig men-o’-war and old windjammers are ghosts from the past. But a wave of excitement is washing over the cargo shipping industry. Squarerig – and the power it offers – is catching on. FastWings or WindWings are some of the options. DynaRig, set up by Southern Spars for the superyachts Black Pearl and Maltese Falcon, is another. Canada-based Veer Group is planning to use this for its Design No.1. With electricity from hydrogen as its secondary power source, it’ll be the first clean oceangoing container ship. According to Danielle Southcott, Veer’s CEO…