Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 + SuperSail World i Yachting World

Cowes Week has announced a new home for some of its most prestigious silverware, with a ‘Triple Crown’ mini series to run over three days midweek for yachts from 65.5-118ft (20-36m). The series will be held under three classes: maxi-racer, cruiser-racer and ocean-racer and should provide welcome competition for maxi yachts such as CQS competing in the Rolex Fastnet Race the following week, which has this year relaxed its 100ft upper LOA limit. The Volvo 65s preparing for the Volvo Ocean Race start in October will be able to compete in the ocean-racer fleet. The series will round off with a Round the Island course on Thursday, 3 August. Cowes Week, no longer carrying the name of its former title sponsor, runs from 29 July to 5 August 2017. Of…

The historic 107-year-old cutter Tally Ho is in need of a new home. The Albert Strange Association, which promotes the work of the British yacht designer and artist, is seeking a new owner for the 47ft cutter, designed by Strange in 1909. Originally launched as Betty, the yacht has had an eventful life, including winning a stormy Fastnet Race in 1927, cruising to New Zealand, a spell as a fishing boat in Hawaii and being near-wrecked on a Pacific reef near Rarotonga while delivering coconuts. Her owner of the time, Lord Stalbridge, described her seagoing qualities in his account of the 1927 Fastnet Race: “No sooner we were clear of the Fastnet, than it began to blow hard from the north-east, and from 2 to 4am that morning I think…

Following the death of worldrenowned British designer Ed Dubois last year, we are saddened to report that Dubois Naval Architects Ltd has closed and gone into liquidation. Its assets including the iconic company name, its drawings and designs are being sold through auctioneers Marriott & Co, with the auction ending as we went to press on the 28 February. The two largest assets are the goodwill of the company, its name and intellectual property, and its works in progress – which principally involves the 58m sloop dubbed ‘The Beast’, currently in build at Royal Huisman and due to launch later this year. The purchaser of this particular lot would need to be a proficient naval architect capable of finalising the design, which includes overseeing the launch, seatrials and stability tests…

WINNER Pogo: a boat that brings fast fun to normal sailing. These are not racing yachts, but light and stiff (composite sandwich) cruising yachts that can plane away the miles. Having announced the 36 painfully early – we had to wait two years to see it in the flesh – the hype grew and over 30 orders were taken before the first boat launched. But it was worth the wait, although the design of the 36 may cause mixed reactions. The aggressive, angular coachroof, the liberal beam, hard chine, bluff bow and rocker line (longitudinal curve) look more suited to an open class racing yacht, while the super-high aspect square top mainsail makes the rig look as if it’s been borrowed from a catamaran. Yet this Finot Conq design is…

A SNUG FIT This drone shot of the world’s largest privately owned schooner, the 62/203ft Hoek-designed Athos, was taken in the Raja Ampat archipelago – where Pacific and Indian oceans meet close to the equator (between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea). “In March 2015 SY Athos left the regular Med-Caribbean circuit,” writes Gary Veenman, who helped document the design and construction of Athos. “She passed through the Panama Canal and disappeared from the radar.” Athos has since cruised the South Pacific, venturing into increasingly remote archipelagos in French Polynesia, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. JUST LAUNCHED TC90 ACADIA Claasen delivered Acadia to her owner this winter, the third Truly Classic 90 by Hoek Yacht Design. Both the TC90 and TC127 designs have proven particularly popular recently and the launch of…

The largest Bermudan rigged yacht ever launched, the 86m ketch Aquijo was designed by Bill Tripp and launched last year. The build came about through a new collaboration between the two Dutch yards of Vitters and OceanCo, combining the former’s superyacht expertise with the latter’s custom motoryacht knowledge to create one of the largest sailing yachts in the world. The scale of Aquijo is remarkable: at 85m her LOA is considerably greater than the 60m superyacht designs Vitters is more accustomed to working on, hence she was built at OceanCo’s larger seafront site in Alblasserdam, the Netherlands. A steel hull and aluminium superstructure give a gross tonnage of 1,500. Her twin carbon fibre masts reach 91m above the waterline, with matched main and mizzen. North 3Di sails of over 1,100m2…

"The owner has always had an interest in history, especially the North West Passage – one of his big heroes was Shackleton, and this had been discussed and planned for probably over ten years. Really it’s the fulfilment of a long held desire to go up there,” reports David ‘Hutch’ Hutchison, captain of Rosehearty. Rosehearty left Newport, Rhode Island on 1 July last summer, heading north to Nuuk, on south-west Greenland, exploring the fjords and Kangia Glacier. They then crossed Baffin Bay to the Canadian archipelago, sailing through Pond Inlet and north to Beechey Island and Resolute Bay, then through the Bellot Straits as far west as Fort Ross, before retracing their steps to Greenland and south. Besides the owner, eight guests and crew, Rosehearty was joined aboard by additional…

For the British Navy, English Harbour, Antigua was exceptional both strategically and navigationally. Not only is it almost unrecognisable as a harbour from seaward, which meant that from the early 1700s the fleet was hidden from the French Navy and from bands of pirates, but it is also extremely sheltered from all directions – a hurricane in 1723 wrecked 35 ships in various ports in Antigua, whilst the two ships moored in English Harbour suffered no damage. These days, it is still difficult to make out the entrance to this natural harbour, but as you get closer you might see some clues that the French Navy would certainly not have missed – dozens of enormous masts visible above the hill, stacks of lit spreaders, and red lights on mastheads. Ten…

Close quarters Antigua Superyacht Challenge in January brought together a great collection of big yachts including the 32m Bill Dixon-designed sloop Danneskjold, which was sporting distinctive pirate-themed sails. This photo was taken from on board by Cory Silken and pictures the crew of Danneskjold enjoying a closely fought upwind leg against the 250-tonne steel schooner Adela. See the feature in our SuperSail magazine with this issue. Brand new classic The Truly Classic 90 Acadia blasting round a race course for the first time off Antigua in January. This is the 26th yacht in the line of Truly Classics from the board of Hoek Design. She was launched late last year from Claasen Shipyards in the Netherlands. According to Hoek, she is: “probably as large as a yacht can be while…

Spanish sponsor MAPFRE is the latest to confirm its entry in the 2017/8 Volvo Ocean Race (VOR), returning to the race for a second time. The entry will be skippered by Olympic Gold medallist Xabi Fernández. Besides his Olympic credentials of Gold and Silver medals with fellow Spaniard Iker Martínez, Fernández has now taken part in the VOR four times. He and Martínez shared responsibility for the leadership role in the last round the world race, but this time Fernandez will take sole charge. To date, three teams have announced their entries in the race: MAPFRE; Team AkzoNobel, skippered by Simeon Tienpont; and Dongfeng Race Team, skippered by Charles Caudrelier. The organisers are hoping for eight entries; the existing seven yachts are being refitted in Lisbon and an eighth (new)…

The Mini Transat is the latest class to get airborne. This is SEAir, formerly Magnum 747, the scow design by David Raison in which he won the 2011 Mini Transat. Now with foils, it is being sailed by SEAir’s Bertrand Castlenerac. Class rules limit the maximum beam of a Mini to 3m. But once the startline is crossed appendages can exceed this, a rule that opens up the potential to add foils – if they remain within the boat’s profile when stowed. So far foils have been added to Arkema and SEAir. After initial trials the SeaAir team has reported 16 knots in 8 knots of breeze. The long curved foils were built under a Dynamic Stability Systems license. The benefit of this foil shape is that it can be…

Vendée Globe competitor Conrad Colman was dismasted in February just 700 miles away from the finish line of the solo round the world race in Les Sables d’Olonne. Five days later he had erected a jury rig and was back underway to France, but faced a race against the clock as he ran low on both power and food. After initially waiting for 35-knot winds and 7-9m swells to calm, Colman then spent three days working to erect a jury rig from his boom and a cut down mainsail and storm jib, trimming and splicing cables and rigging to secure the boom, which he supported on sail bags as he lifted it into position singlehandedly. Colman, a Kiwi-American skipper who lives in France, had a tough start to his Vendée…

A major cruising club award has been won by the editorial team of the website noonsite.com. The 2016 Ocean Cruising Club Geoff Pack Memorial Trophy, which recognises ‘writers who have done the most to foster and encourage ocean cruising in small craft’, was given to Sue Richards and contributors to the site for providing sailors with information regarding the necessary formalities, paperwork and costs for clearing into 197 countries, plus marine facilities for over 2,200 ports. The website was started in 2000 by ARC founder Jimmy Cornell and is now run by World Cruising Club. Richards works with a researcher and editorial assistant across two continents and the site is continually updated with first-hand information from cruisers all over the world.…

The first oceanographer to define a wave as ‘freak’ was Laurence Draper, a man who preferred to do his science on dry land rather than at sea. While his colleagues were enjoying their 1963 Christmas Eve party at the National Institute of Oceanography in Southampton, Laurie Draper, scenting a scientific discovery, was busy analysing recordings made aboard a British weather ship in the North Atlantic. Since 1950 these ships, consigned to pre-determined fixed positions, were equipped with recorders using paper drums that measured ocean waves according to the vertical rise and fall of the ship and the pressure on its hull. Set at first to a maximum recording of 15 metres (50ft), the recorders were soon modified to accommodate waves up to 18 metres (60ft). For nine years the resultant…

WINNER It’s a mix of everything you need for cruising and what you want to feel for performance,” Loïck Peyron said of the 4X during our initial trials. Outremer employs the multihull record-setter as a consultant to advise on the ergonomics of the boat and the line handling set-up. Like Outremers past, the 4X is first a distance cruiser – one that’s designed to be lived aboard – but the X part denotes how she’s been optimised for performance. She has the same hulls as the 45 but with 3ft extensions aft, an optimised appendages and deck layout, a carbon rotating mast and carbon reinforcement. You can perhaps understand the frustration of being aboard a cat like this with arguably the world’s foremost helmsman and only being dealt 3 to…

With a full moon and following wind, night sailing can be one of the great pleasures to be had when passagemaking; but on a dark night in a gale it can be very stressful and leave you longing for dawn. Whether you are crossing the Channel or crossing an ocean, sailing in the dark is something that everyone experiences at some stage in their sailing career and with some simple preparations you can make it easier and safer. Have you ever been asked by a non-sailor: “What do you do out on the ocean at night?” It often comes as a surprise to find that sailing has always been a 24-hour pastime. Traditionally, passages were made at night and planned so that landfall was at dawn to assist with identifying…

The new launches from the production yards are all still seriously big (55-70ft). The likes of Bavaria, Beneteau, Dufour and Hanse do a fine job at stealing the show with their big glamour launches and these new flagship designs tend to have a certain contemporary look in common: very beamy with flat decks to maximise sunbathing areas; a garage for a jet tender and a cockpit with maximum space and split tables. Also, executive looking interiors with carpets are definitely in fashion! Bavaria C57 Bavaria has been promising something big and, sure enough, the C57 is Bavaria’s largest yacht yet. The length, 57ft, is comparatively modest by production yard standards today, but this is a particularly large yacht for its size – 88m2 living space is the largest in class…

St Barths Bucket is the biggest and best of the Caribbean superyacht regattas, a spectacle set off to perfection in the waters off the glamorous French island. This year will see a near record entry of 38 yachts, all true superyachts over 30m, and including the largest ever fleet of J Class yachts to race together. Providing competitive and fun racing for such a diverse fleet of yachts, from comfortable but relatively heavy cruisers to carbon composite performance cruisers designed from the outset for regatta racing is quite a task. The mixture of courses and styles demands careful handicapping and organising, but it provides some of the most satisfying racing and best sights in sailing, with spectacular and close finishes in the various pursuit races. This year’s St Barths Bucket…

As the America’s Cup teams unveiled their race boats in early February at the 100 days to go mark, one team surprised everyone with a radical new idea. Emirates Team New Zealand’s AC50 was spotted sailing in Auckland ahead of its official launch with four crew using seated pedal grinders rather than the conventional handoperated pedestal pump handles. Design and sailing team members across all six challengers have repeatedly emphasised how central hydraulic power generation and management will be to this America’s Cup. No stored power is allowed. Instead the vast amounts of energy required to control the complex foil and hydraulic rig pressure systems must be manually generated. By utilising leg rather than arm power, the New Zealand squad will be hoping to capitalise on the power of some…

Australian solo sailor Shane Freeman’s solo round the world race plans were brought to a sad end in February when he was rescued in the southern Pacific Ocean. He abandoned his yacht Mushka on 18 February after he was knocked down and dismasted 300 miles west of Chile. Freeman was on passage from Australia to the UK in Mushka, his Tradewinds 35. He left Melbourne in December and his first planned stop was to have been the Falkland Islands. He was picked up by the ship Frontier Ambition, a Chinese-flagged grain ship. This was part of Freeman’s preparations for the Golden Globe Race 2018, a non-stop solo round the world race beginning from the UK next year. This is a modern day recreation of the famous round the world race…

Acrew of 14 was rescued by the Royal Navy from the 60ft yacht Clyde Challenger after a rogue wave knocked down and dismasted the yacht mid-Atlantic. Originally a Clipper Round the World Race yacht, Clyde Challenger was on its way back to Scotland from the Azores when it encountered rough seas in the Bay of Biscay. Skipper Roy Graham explained: “We were in a Force 9, running with the waves and the wind, fully reefed down with three reefs in the mainsail and we really didn’t have any genoa out, and we were doing between 7 and 9 knots boatspeed, running down the waves. “Mate Ben Turner was on deck, and a rogue wave came in. He described it as coming out of nowhere on a different angle. This hit…

A new rally route is planned to set out from the Canary Islands this November to Guadeloupe. The Iles de Soleil rally will this year leave Lanzarote on 18 November for Marie-Galante in Guadeloupe, rather than following the previous years’ route to Brazil. The 2,800-mile crossing is open to yachts and multihulls from 35-65ft, with registration open to 80 boats. The destination, Marie-Galante, is a small French-speaking island south of Guadeloupe, which lays claim to producing the best rum in the Caribbean. Organised by the Grand Pavois Organisation, the rally will be based out of Marina Lanzarote, with a series of technical seminars and weather briefings offered beforehand. During the rally there will be fleet tracking and daily updates via a dedicated event website. The rally is designed as a…

Eileen Ramsay, the ground-breaking yachting photographer, has died at the age of 101. Ramsay was born in 1915. She was working as a photographer’s receptionist on the eve of World War Two when, with her employer about to be called up, she picked up a camera and began taking photographs of servicemen and women, seascapes, and dinghies sailing on the Thames. When she and her partner, fellow photographer George Spiers, moved to Hamble in the mid-1950s, they arrived just as the British dinghy sailing scene was exploding with talent and development. It suited Ramsay’s close-to-the-water style and she became the official photographer of Francis Chichester and Gipsy Moth, and photographed sailors and designers including Uffa Fox and Olympic medallists Keith Musto, and Rodney Pattisson. She survived Spiers by some 45…

Rogue waves have long divided sailors and scientists. Some question their existence, other schools of thought suggest that ‘freak’ waves are actually more common than first thought. We look into some of the latest scientific thinking on rogue waves on page 36. But for those who have experienced a ‘rogue’ wave, towering over their yacht before wreaking havoc, there is little question over their potency. There have been several incidences where ocean racing yachts have encountered unusually severe waves. Alex Thomson and Guillermo Altadill were rolled and dismasted in Hugo Boss, by what they reported to be a rogue wave some 82 miles off the coast of Spain in the 2015 Transat Jacques Vabre. In 2010 Sebastien Josse and Jean-François Cuzon were airlifted from BT after it was struck by…

FAMILY CRUISER WINNER RM 970 ‘MODERN LINES HELP CREATE A SPACIOUS AND HIGHLY VERSATILE YACHT THAT’S FUN TO SAIL’ When I visited the RM yard in La Rochelle in 2012, I was really impressed by the quality of the company’s plywood epoxy construction process. Not only is plywood more sustainable than composite or metal, it is also a stiff, light and naturally insulating material. RM’s yachts were still a little quirky, however, and needed to dazzle a little more on the water. Since then RM has moved into a larger yard and put an energetic young team in place, which has given the new line added spark. RM won this family cruiser award in 2013, was nominated in 2015 with its 890 and won again this year. This 970 perfectly…

As the last of the channel marks into Road Town, Tortola, passes astern, a sweep of islands opens up ahead, ranged out in front from west to east. Hilly, green conical islands devoid, at a distance, of habitation, they lay out in front like miniature undiscovered lands on which, in your wildest imagination, there could be ferocious tribes, or Spanish gold – or both. The British Virgin Islands are a curious dichotomy. This is one of the most popular Caribbean sailing areas and the most trafficked yacht charter destination in the world. Between them The Moorings and Sunsail have around 450 yachts based in Tortola, besides which there are numerous smaller bareboat and skippered charter yachts. So when you leave Tortola and make sail in the Sir Francis Drake Channel,…

THIS MONTH 1938 S&S reborn • Wind chill• Starting at the Starboard end • tidying roPeS The Canary Islands have long been known to sailors as the starting point for an Atlantic crossing; even Columbus stopped at La Gomera to restock before heading off to discover the Americas. With such a rich maritime history, why is it that many cruisers don’t spend time discovering and exploring the islands before they move on? The main issue seems to be time; most skippers plan a late summer trip down from the Mediterranean or northern Europe with the intention of setting sail for the Caribbean in late November or December. But these volcanic islands are more than a waypoint, and transatlantic cruisers may do well to consider spending some time exploring before they…

Note: correct at time of going to press. See www.bucketregattas.com/stbarths for final entry list Action 37m sloop* Design: Dykstra Naval Architects. Build: Royal Huisman 2015. This classic looking pilothouse cutter will be racing at St Barth for the first time. A sistership to the well-travelled Pumula (*pictured), she is a gentleman’s yacht with sweeping sheer line and long overhangs that will be rather reminiscent of the competing J Class. Although designed primarily for world-girdling cruising, Action will be living up to her name on the race course. Aquarius 46m ketch Design: Perini Navi. Build: Perini Navi 1990. Aquarius was the largest Perini at the time of her launch – 27 years ago – and was originally called Xasteria. Built in steel and aluminium she has since had several owners and…