Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i Yachting World

The first new Gunboat 55, Rainmaker, was dismasted on 30 January 2015 approximately 200 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras on the US east coast. The US$2.5m catamaran lost her manoeuvrability and was abandoned when her crew were airlifted by a US Coast Guard helicopter. The yacht has yet to be found and recovered. Rainmaker was 36 hours into a passage from the Gunboat yard in North Carolina to St Maarten in the Caribbean when a vicious squall hit. Gunboat founder Peter Johnstone broke the story on the company’s Facebook page, reporting that squalls had been in the 40-knot range for most of the day, but it was when ‘a full whiteout squall hit with winds at up to 70 knots’ that the rig came down. On board the Gunboat was…

A Canadian skipper who won the 2013/14 Clipper Round the World Race has announced plans to compete in the next Vendée Globe. Eric Holden, 35, from Vancouver, a trained meteorologist, is using the momentum of his Clipper race win to launch a new business called Canadian Ocean Racing. Holden wants to inspire fellow Canadian sailors too take up offshore racing, so his initiative comprises an IMOCA 60 race team and a mentorship programme for aspiring Canadian offshore racing sailors. He has established it together with Morgen Watson, a 25-year-old up-and-coming sailor who was one of Holden’s watch leaders on board Henri Lloyd during the last Clipper Race. Holden has purchased fellow Canadian Derek Hatfield’s Spirit of Canada, now rebranded O Canada. The 2006 Owen Clarke design was campaigned by Hatfeld…

“The quickest any of the seven Volvo boats were built was 281 days – our team has just 113 days available to rebuild her” Recovering the wreck of Team Vestas Wind from a remote reef in the Indian Ocean and shipping her 5,000 miles to a yard in the foothills of the Italian Alps was an huge undertaking. But rebuilding this highly refined, weight-conscious, 12.5 tonne all-carbon Volvo Ocean Race boat to within a few kilograms of her original displacement in one-third of the time taken to build her originally, is a truly daunting task. Having stated their aim to return to the race for the penultimate leg starting from Lisbon in June, Team Vestas Wind have their work cut out to deliver on their promise. “The quickest that any…

TEST FACTS Test Editor: Toby Hodges Where we tested: Laboe, Kiel, Germany Wind: 10-27 knots SW Model: four cabins, with galley on decksaloon level. Optional powered in-mast and twin-headsail furlers I have never seen anything quite like it. Day after day crowds flocked to the Moody stand at Düsseldorf as if this were some sort of religious icon. At the world’s largest boat show last year, one yacht stood out above all others, marked by this constant stream of people, queuing for a turn aboard. And it could accommodate the masses, too – incredibly, up to 30 could enjoy the tour simultaneously. If there is a yacht you would want to host a party on, it’s the Moody 54DS. Step aboard and you’ll see why. The hull is high enough…

“More speed!” is the call from the weather rail. The helmsman is telling you he’s got too much helm and all eyes are on the mainsheet trimmer to sort the issue. With other boats close by swift action is needed to get the boat back on her feet and driving forward before she slips backwards into the fleet. Doing a decent job of trimming the mainsail is crucial to your team’s performance and, while it can be a pleasurable workout on a small boat, juggling tactical duties with playing backstay, traveller and mainsail twist, move up to a 50-footer and the task gets a whole lot tougher, even though the job list might look a bit shorter. Either way it’s a multi-task role and acquiring a good feel for the…

Adela Schooner 55.5m/181ft Design: Dykstra. Build: Pendennis – 1903/1996/2010 A remarkable reworking by Pendennis and Dykstra of an original 1903 W. C. Storey schooner, Adela, with her graceful lines and square-topped 3Di sail plan, is a regular sight at the superyacht regattas, and almost as often on the podium. She flies six sails and races with close to 40 crew. Foremast runners alone take six. On her last visit to the Bucket in 2013 she scooped 1st in Mademoiselles and Overall Winner, so she’ll be looking for a repeat. Altair Sloop 29.3m/96ft Design: Sparkman & Stephens. Build: Derektor Shipyards – 1996 Not to be confused with the classic schooner of the same name, a successful Bucket regular, this younger Altair (formerly Valkyre), a Sparkman & Stephens deck saloon, cruised the…

“The crewboss has to keep both the back of the boat and the front of the boat happy. It’s intense, a really skilled job” Diplomat, dictator and director of dance could be the job description for some despotic nation’s head of culture. But actually it describes rather well the life of a crewboss in superyacht racing. The bowman, helmsman and trimmers may get all the glory in photographers’ shots of action on board, but behind the scenes the crewboss is the essential choreographer, co-ordinating skills and moves to ensure the safe implementation of every manoeuvre. “It’s a massive job,” says Kate Branagh, co-chair of the SuperYacht Racing Association. “At a mark rounding, when you have 14 different people doing 14 different things that all have to be timed perfectly, the…

In among the glistening topsides at this winter’s boat shows were some particularly hot models. Two in particular caught my eye at the Düsseldorf Boat Show in January. The first was easily missed, given the crowd-pulling power of Pogo’s third generation Mini Transat boat. Yet here was a model of the Pogo 36, which looks likely to be another showstopper when she is eventually launched in early 2016. Following on from the rapid success of the short-handed, high performance Pogo 30 cruiser, the 36 is again aimed at the performance cruising market. She will replace the 1050, of which 76 were built. This is a more powerful boat, beamier and with greater righting moment, but according to the company’s effervescent salesman Charly Fernbach, will be no more difficult to handle.…

South-easterly, Force 8,’ read the forecast. That wind was going to transform the adjacent coast and the entrance to the River Plate into a lee shore. But we decided that, rather than ducking into La Paloma, we would try to make Punta del Este, 50 miles away and more secure. Thus it was that, eight hours later we found ourselves fighting tooth and nail to keep from washing ashore on the Atlantic coast of Uruguay. Having spent six months swanning around in Brazil, we had cringed at the thought of what might await us as we headed south – and we were right so to do. We’d gone from birthday suits, via T-shirts and shorts to jumpers and jeans, through to the full Arctic wardrobe. The cold isn’t the only…

SOLARIS 50 Hands down, unarguably the coolest production yacht of the year is . . . the Solaris 50. What a weapon! It’s as slick as a George Clooney Nespresso ad. At the Düsseldorf boat show, it was that slight reverse angle to the stem that tickled everyone’s fancy. Even rig-less – as exhibited at the show – even from looking at the transom, the ruthlessly clean, grey-caulked decks and powerful, flared aft quarters made us grin with appreciation. The good news is that the fourth 50 in build is coming to the UK, so we may see this example of Italian panache at Southampton Boat Show. Features are by-the-by on a pin-up like this, but highlights include the German sheeting led to the helm and a self-tacking jib for…

UK OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK Join us on Twitter and Facebook for our latest news @BerthonGroup Lymington United Kingdom Phone 0044 01590 679 222 Email brokers@berthon.co.uk Golfe-Juan France Phone 0033 493 636 680 Email brokers@berthonfrance.fr Rhode Island USA Phone 001 401 846 8404 Email sales@berthonusa.com www.berthon.co.uk DISCOVERY 67’ £1,495,000 Caribbean Hatched 2010, lines by the maestro – Ron Holland and put together in Blighty by the Discovery crew – beautifully. In epic good shape, she has a flab team onboard as well as the advantage of the customary lorry loads of cash to ensure that she gleams from zatch to guggle. Beloved of the charter fraternity, she’s the Belle of the Ball on the East Coast USA circuit….. gleaming. SHIPMAN 63’ €1,300,000 + VAT Palma de Mallorca With carbon…

Win Win Here for her first ever regatta, the Javier Jaudenes-designed 33m/108ft Baltic WinWin has savoured just one taste of racing so far, the St Barths New Year’s Eve race round the island. She rounded 1st, ahead of Ghost, a 37m/121ft Brenta/Vitters yacht. Raced one, won one – not a bad start if you’re named WinWin. But she is not over here with a fully loaded pro race crew, opting to use this first Bucket for enjoyment and learning before returning to the Med for a highly charged regatta season. In true Baltic vein WinWin is a lightweight carbon-construct with a lot of new thinking to create a fast yet quiet boat, with seriously attenuated noise and vibration. She has been built for an owner used to a very different…

Finding an equitable handicap rule for racing superyachts has not proved easy. When the racing was secondary to the partying, Jim Teeters came up with his Bucket Rule, an idiosyncratic and rather opaque handicapping system that often had ratings changing not just before and after a regatta, but during as well. As owners and their race crews have become ever more competitive this Corinthian attitude only stretches so far. They want a fair rating and one they can understand. So the Bucket Rule is out and is replaced by the newly formulated Offshore Racing Congress Superyacht rule, or ORCsy. Its use of measured boat and design data will, it is hoped, iron out the handicaps for a more consistently level playing field. It is a shifting field, though, as Michael…

The heat is on, the desire to win irrepressible among many owners of superyachts. Their first thought when commissioning might have been to cruise, with the occasional race, but with such a busy, engaging regatta scene, it’s fast becoming race first, cruise second. It’s a matter of instinct for those familiar with success as a principle of life. Speed through the water is, of course, vital, but speed in manoeuvres is now the critical factor. On the nimbler of these yachts, just as with dinghies, a second saved here and there in sail handling is invaluable. So the chase is on for ever more efficient power systems, especially in hydraulics and deckgear, on yachts becoming progressively lighter. Henry Hawkins of Baltic Yachts says: “One of the first questions we ask…

It is said that owners of classic yachts are merely custodians. Well, a few of the Js happen to be looking for custodians – in fact, half of the J Class fleet is said to be carrying tentative For Sale signs and the latest to come on the market is one of the most iconic yachts ever built: Endeavour. Endeavour is often described as the most beautiful J and Britain’s worthiest America’s Cup challenger. We have only seen her race competitively once in the last decade. It was after her 18-month refit at Yachting Developments in New Zealand, when she stole the show at the St Barths Bucket in 2012. Since then however, little has been seen of the yacht as her owner favours private cruising. Endeavour is the yacht…

A Polish crew has set a new record for sailing to the far south. Selma, a 67ft steel ketch skippered by Piotr Kuniar and a crew of ten, reached the edge of the ice in the Ross Sea, at 78° 43’S in the Bay of Whales, just over 100 nautical miles farther south than the previous record. That record was set in 2012 by Sergei Nizovtsev, with a crew of Russians and Ukrainians, sailing the 98ft yacht, Scorpius, which reached 77°S. There was a debate at the time about whether the record should include navigation in a dinghy as well as a yacht because, in 1965, Lt Commander Steve Cockley, based in McMurdo Sound, sailed a Moth, Tiny Too, through a 30m gap in the sea ice to a latitude…

www.yachtingworld.com email yachtingworldletters@timeinc.com Write to The Editor, Yachting World, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU Letters may be edited as appropriate Ocean-girdling women I am prompted to write to you on the back of our recent successful transit through the North West Passage last summer. I sailed as crew on board Arctic Tern, one of just three boats (two of them British) to make it through the Passage from east to west that summer. More importantly, our crew complement included two women: Nikki Woodroffe and co-skipper Ali Parsons. Nikki also sailed five years ago from New Zealand to Uruguay via Cape Horn and has recently headed off from the Canaries for a transatlantic passage, to be followed by a trans-Pacific voyage, though this time passing into…

Flags flutter from the ramparts, race officers look down from the imposing starting platform, and at ten-minute intervals mighty brass cannon fire with such power that spectactors lining the shore wince and plunge their fingers into their ears. The Royal Yacht Squadron’s Castle clubhouse is best known to most sailors as the centre of the action at Cowes Week. Puffs of smoke in the aftermath of the bangs waft across the water towards the fleets of yachts, their crews’ faces pinched with concentration as they plan their beat up the rocky Island shore. No first-timer to Cowes Week can fail to be awestruck by the Castle. Competitors mill around before their starts, staring at the fags and course-boards, getting a sight down the start-line straight into the windows. Looking is…

Today, success in the racing keelboat market relies on far more than delivering an exciting-looking boat that goes like a runaway train off the breeze. To win the wallets of owners a new boat has to satisfy three key conditions: frst, it must rate well under a popular rating system such as IRC; second, it should have the potential to be a one-design class, ideally with an international following; and third, it should be capable of being raced competitively by both a full crew and short-handed. Tick all three boxes and as a builder you will have provided three good reasons for potential owners to put your boat at the top of their list. Blathering on about how a boat is as much at home family cruising as it is…

I can recall many an interesting day on the water, but by far the most memorable was during a period on the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008/09 when I was watch leader aboard Puma. On this leg we finished 2nd to Ericsson. The leg started on 11 October, and the day I shall never forget was five days before the finish (29 October 2008). The reason I have chosen that day was because, in terms of sailing, it was the wildest conditions I have ever experienced and the most memorable day of my career. I also learned an important lesson. We were heading south through the Atlantic, tracking along the Brazilian coast before turning to port towards Cape Town. A westerly gale, which had just passed through,…

“We want to try to keep the magic formula, not change it; the partying is huge, the fleet breathtaking” St Barths is unique. It is the Caribbean, but walk down the main street and it’s like shopping in Paris. To habitués it has everything: French charm, great restaurants, beautiful beaches, lovely crystal waters – and fantastic regattas. And the annual St Barths Bucket is the icing on the cake. With a fleet of around 35 boats, this year’s Bucket will once again have fresh blood mixing with the many regulars for three days of pursuit racing round this spectacular island and its outlying rocky islets. A haven to the A List, the island shares its secrets at Bucket time. It’s open season with everyone racing and partying together, the only…

Think you might have mistakenly bought the island when faced with the bill for a round of beers? St Barths can be a shocker, but that’s part of its charm, and absolutely the result of its A-list celebrity status. Hermes, Cartier and Dior stores beckon just as they do in Saint Tropez, only of course a tad more excentrique et rustique. But not everything has to cost an arm and a leg. So, while the bejewelled and bedecked visitors frequent the five-star residences and restaurants, just follow the noise and you’ll find the favoured joints among the crews, some verging on sensibly priced. Shed that last reserve and dive in – remember everything has to be shipped in. Massed crew suppers can easily be spotted as the hands in their…