Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2017 i Yachting World

Sailing and professional sailors in particular have woken up to the issue of debris and plastic waste in our oceans. More and more significant campaigns draw attention to the problems or, like the Schmidt Family Foundation’s 11th Hour Racing, give grants to support marine and yachting projects aimed at reducing pollution. From big races such as the Volvo Ocean Race to almost every superyacht regatta nowadays, a clear effort is being made to reduce waste. And while it’s easy to think of this as little more than greenwash in an industry of gratuitous extravagance, every little helps. Just as importantly, the next generations of sailors and industry professionals, Millennials and Generation Y, think very differently about our seas and many see themselves as ambassadors in their own way. Cruising sailors…

Cruising catamarans are among fastest growing group in the annual ARC and ARC+ transatlantic rallies. When this year’s fleet leaves from Las Palmas in November with 273 entries, 48 of these – or one in six – will be multihulls. The event was boosted in 2013 by the start of the parallel ARC+ rally, which goes via the Cape Verde Islands. Originally a small fleet, this now numbers 72 entries. It offers a chance to see a culturally interesting archipelago, and puts cruisers in line with the ‘south ’til the butter melts’ tradewinds route across the Atlantic. Generally more popular with family crews, the ARC+ also has a smaller average yacht size and higher ratio of female crews: some 27 per cent according to organisers World Cruising Club. The rally…

As professional sailors, it is our job to fuel our bodies to perform at their best. Eating, therefore, is one of our jobs and something I have had to think about carefully as we prepare for the Volvo Ocean Race. We only take enough fresh food for the first day and usually it is no more than an apple and an orange for each crewmember on departure day. On most offshore races of any length, the daily menu will consist of three freeze-dried meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) of around 800 calories each plus the same number of snacks such as energy bar, protein bar or chocolate bar interspersed throughout the day. Nuts and dried fruit are good for grazing on and beef jerky, cheese and wraps are all easy…

Plastic Oceans A not-for-profit organisation that launched ‘A Plastic Ocean’ this year – a documentary film, eight years in the making, made to show the real facts. www.plasticoceans.uk The Ocean Cleanup This proactive scheme uses huge floating booms to trap ocean plastic. It estimates it can remove 50 per cent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just five years. www.theoceancleanup.com 11th Hour Racing This Schmidt Family Foundation programme aims to find innovative solutions to the health of our marine environment and partners high end race events and teams. www.11thhourracing.org Sailors for the Sea A programme that supports clean regattas like the Extreme Sailing Series, educates children, and has an ocean watch campaign and green boating guides. www.sailorsforthesea.org Seabin These floating bins work like vacuum cleaners for marinas. The Palma…

Jean-Pierre Kelbert, who founded JPK, is a former professional windsurfer and European champion in 1988 and 1989. He founded his own board manufacturing company in 1992, but by the late 1990s windsurfer production had moved to Thailand so he started moulding parts for other shipyards. Kelbert is also a successful short-handed sailor and it was while racing his JOD35 one-design in 2003 that he saw (and lost to) his first Jacques Valer design. He asked Valer to design a 960, which quickly found success (a JPK 960 won its class in the 2007 Rolex Fastnet Race). But it was the launch of the 1010 in 2010 that really put JPK on the racing yacht map. Together with the subsequent 1080 (2014), the 1010 ‘has won everything,’ says Kelbert – referring…

Doyle cable-free Code 0 £POA What is it? A furling headsail that is part reacher, part asymmetric spinnaker Who is it for? Racers and cruisers seeking versatile performance sails The advent of Code 0 reaching sails has revolutionised sail handling for many cruising boats, even though the technology originated in the racing sphere. However, a key drawback is the straight luff that’s a requirement of the design and construction of the sail, which relies on a highly tensioned anti-torsion rope to achieve a reliable furl. In turn, this limits how far you can bear off downwind before the Code 0 is blanketed by the mainsail. Doyle Sails has solved this by replacing the anti-torsion rope in the luff with an array of additional fibres in the front of the sail.…

Not every spinnaker drop will go according to plan – no matter how meticulous your preparations sometimes the gremlins take over and things just go wrong. Here are some tips for drops that aren’t pretty, but will get the sail down. Emergency drop, small crew For hurried drops of asymmetric spinnakers, particularly with a small crew, I consider the gybe drop – otherwise known as a ‘Kiwi’ drop – to be a good option. If you haven’t got time to set up for a letterbox or leeward drop, the major benefit of this manoeuvre is the spinnaker will be blown into the jib and not over the side of the boat, leaving more time for recovery and requiring less halyard control. Unfurl the jib and sheet on with the windward…

CHRIS TIBBS is a meteorologist and weather router, as well as a professional sailor and navigator, forecasting for Olympic teams and the ARC rally A transatlantic tradewind crossing from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean is on many a sailor’s bucket list. Endless sunny days of running before the wind followed by nights under a sky full of stars with dolphins playing alongside... The tradewinds are the driving force to get us across the Atlantic and with the clockwise circulation of air around the Azores High, it appears quite obvious which way we should go – skirt the high without getting too close and losing the wind. With today’s good forecasts and communications this should be easy enough, however reality shows that the day-to-day weather can be quite different from…

While racing, ensure there is a crewmember taking readings from the chart plotter with continual checks against the readings on the echo sounder. A seasoned navigator will also be able to relay constant information about the expected depth, when ‘touch’ is likely to occur, and whether there is deep water to port or starboard. Naturally on an ebbing tide it is worth working on a slightly safer margin. If you do touch, a swift tack or gybe away from the shallow water often provides the momentum for the boat to free itself. But it is a good idea to keep the jib backed even after completing the tack, before you reach deeper water. This will increase heel, and in turn reduce the draught of the yacht. The urgency of your…

A family adventure – new series Caspar Craven and his wife, Nichola, went long-distance cruising with their three young children. In this new series they share how to plan and prepare for family adventures Gitana 17 takes off Elaine Bunting buckled her seatbelt for take off aboard the newly launched 100ft trimaran Gitana 17, designed to fully foil at up to 50 knots across oceans On test: Grand Soleil 52LC This cleverly thought out Italian yacht is designed for easy handling but fast cruising. Pip Hare finds out how well it fits the bill Fight and flight Jimmy Spithill, youngest ever America’s Cup winner, limped away from Bermuda, but he’s got fighting plans. We talked to him A catamaran for cruising Catamarans are becoming a really popular choice for cruising…

Whether you are excited or perplexed at the decision to abandon high speed foiling multihulls in favour of 75ft monohulls in the next America’s Cup, the change of tack ensures that sailing’s most prestigious trophy remains true to its roots in at least one key way. When you win the Cup you get to make the rules, albeit in conjunction with the challenger. As the defender you can do pretty much what you like, especially if you get on with the challenger. It is this that makes the Cup unique and so appealing to some of the world’s wealthiest and successful individuals. It is also why the pitch is skewed with each edition and why politics and posturing play such a big part. The winners of the America’s Cup get…

A drian Flanagan’s remarkable book Over the Top tells the story of an outrageously adventurous solo circumnavigation, not from east to west, or even from west to east, but from north to south and back again. His budget is modest, his boat is a 38ft stainless steel sloop and his shore backup is headed by his ex-wife, Louise. The voyage takes him south from the UK, around Cape Horn, up the Pacific, through the Bering Straits and home again via the Northeast Passage over the top of Russia. As you’d expect, his challenges are many, but the sheer obduracy of the Russian authorities piles on the pressure as early as his approach to the Horn when his team are pulling out all the stops trying to smooth his passage for…

This beautifully composed photo of contrasts was shot by Kurt Arrigo, the Malta-based photographer. It was taken during the Rolex Big Boat Series in 2015 and shows Kialoa III sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The 78ft yacht was designed by Sparkman & Stephens as a ketch and built for Jim Kilroy at Palmer Johnson in Florida in 1974. She was converted into a sloop two years later. Kialoa III had a very successful offshore racing record, famously winning line honours in the 1975 Sydney-Hobart race and setting a record time. She has taken part in many races, including the Southern Cross Cup and the St Petersburg to Fort Lauderdale Race, in which she also set a course record. She was refitted in 1997 and continues her…

And they’re off! Another Volvo Ocean Race is underway – the toughest fully crewed race around the world. And how it has evolved over the years with all sorts of permutations of boats (some weird and wonderful during the Whitbread days) at last culminating in the current one-design. The idea of a circumnavigation race also has seen major changes through the event’s history. Most were marketing-led course detours away from that original simple string pulled tight around Cape Agulhas, Cape Leeuwin and Cape Horn – with the necessary hockle in the block of a stop in Auckland. You can’t have a Volvo Ocean Race without that. The race has had to evolve in various ways to survive, no doubt about it. Yacht racing’s impresario Mark Turner, the briefly crowned CEO…

Over 5 trillion pieces of plastic are estimated to be floating worldwide tonnes of plastic currently enters our seas every year 8-12 million 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals die each year from getting tangled up in, and/or eating plastic 80% of marine litter is plastic It is predicted that by 2025, 155 million tonnes of plastic will enter our ocean each year 480 billion plastic bottles were sold in 2016 – of which only 1 in 5 was recycled 1 in 3 species of marine mammal has been found entangled in marine litter (A Plastic Ocean) Plastic: a history Once claimed to be a wonder material, plastic is cheap, versatile and, above all, durable. The world’s first fully synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was invented in 1907 by Belgian Leo…

Recluta III 48ft IOR racer. 1983 GF: I did everything I wanted to do after leaving S&S. We won a lot of races in her. Boomerang 81ft IOR Maxi. 1984 MF: I was in my mid-twenties and the plug was already built at Eric Goetz when I came up with a faster shape and lower rating. My father said: “No problem, let me ring the owner.” George said yes. Eric said no problem. It could have been a massive waste of time but they didn’t blink. Stealth 93ft ultra-fast daysailer. 1998 GF: The brief was: “I want a boat that will give me pleasure. It’s going to be called Stealth. It’s going to be black with black sails.” It was high-performance, good looking and pointed the way towards a new…

With RACHAEL SPROT Jonbuoy Recovery Module The Jonbuoy is a well respected piece of equipment. Many boat owners would have one on board, were it not for the upfront cost and annual servicing requirements. Nevertheless if it can solve the age-old problem of getting a casualty out of the water, many people might consider it worth the expense. We wanted to test one out before potentially equipping both Rubicon 3 expedition yachts with selfinflating Jonbuoys. The unit is simple to mount on the pushpit, and its compact case makes it much less cumbersome than stowing a danbuoy or horseshoe lifebuoy. We tested it with a real person in the water, in benign conditions and sheltered waters in the Azores. It was a lot easier to deploy than a standard danbuoy…

A Capella is an iconic 37-year-old trimaran that has been abandoned and rebuilt three times, but will line up for the start of next year’s Route du Rhum solo transatlantic race A Capella has been rescued and rebuilt four times, after being variously beached, abandoned mid-ocean, capsized, and deserted as a wreck on shore for children to play on The navstation is minimalist by modern ocean racing standards. Capelle will have a router for the Route du Rhum: the router’s job is not to give him the fastest route but rather the safest, keeping him away from larger swells and stronger winds. For Capelle the Rhum is an adventure and not a race, his aim is to prove to younger generations that it is still possible to sail competitively, enjoying…

I am a knot girl through and through as I believe it’s common for a trailing lazy guy or sheet to be dragged over the side unnoticed and end up out of reach for a quick take down: a knot will prevent this and can be cut in an emergency, if needs be. I knot my spinnaker halyard so a mistake will not be punished with it coming out of the mast. Tack lines I leave unknotted, preferring to know they will run freely to ensure the kite can completely collapse on the drop. I would happily re-lead the tack line after every drop if it ensured a smooth drop. A snuffer on a winch can recover almost any difficult spinnaker scenario, including with all sheets let go and the…

Australian pro sailor Nathan Outteridge, multiple world champion, double Olympic medallist and Artemis Racing America’s Cup skipper, offers advice on recovery from a grounding situation Nathan Outteridge (31) is an Australian sailor with 49er Olympic Gold and Silver medals to his name. He is also a six-time world champion in both the 49er and International Moth and was skipper of Artemis Racing in the 35th America’s Cup in Bermuda. It appears that this boat in the photo is what you [in the UK] call ‘stuck in the mud’. I’m sure it has happened to all of us sailors at some stage, where you think you are smarter than your opponents, and believe that if you just go in a little bit closer to the shore you can make a small…