Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Yachting World

British sailor Richard Tolkien’s plans to take part in the Vendée Globe ended shockingly in May when his IMOCA 60, 44, was scuttled in the North Atlantic. Tolkien abandoned his yacht during The Transat bakerly race from Plymouth to New York when he suffered a head injury and was aided by the crew of a cargo ship that had diverted to assist him. A tracker was left active on board and Tolkien and his supporters had hoped to salvage the yacht. Friends, including round the world sailor Nick Leggatt, later sailed from Bermuda to the yacht’s position, but when they got there they found the boat dismasted, low on her marks and visibly damaged. Leggatt swam across and boarded the yacht, which was full of water. “We thought the yacht…

One crewmember died and another was swept overboard when the 65ft yacht Platino suffered serious rigging damage around 300 miles north of New Zealand on 14 June. Platino, a 66ft Ron Holland design, had been entered in the cruising division of the ANZ Sail Fiji, a 1,110-mile offshore race from Auckland, New Zealand to Fiji, but withdrew before the start. The crewmember killed on board was Nick Saull, who ran prominent Auckland boatbuilding company Brin Wilson Boat Builders, which had refitted Platino following previous fire damage. It was reported by the Rescue Co-ordination Centre of New Zealand that Saull was fatally injured when the boom broke loose and was swinging out of control in a severe sea state. Wind strength at the time was around 40 knots. Another 63-year-old man,…

Dutch tile boat To make their latest boat Het Toppunt, an Antila 26cc, stand out from the crowd, Dutch sailors Willem Stroo and Helma Weevers decided to run a competition on social media so people could vote for the best design. The design they chose certainly does stand out. Weevers is a fashon designer and came up with a tile design based on old Dutch and Frisian tiles. The image was transferred onto the hull to give this unique look. We wonder how much grouting they needed? A milestone anniversary for many is a time to relax and celebrate past achievements. Nautor’s Swan, on the other hand, seems to be in overdrive for its 50th year, launching a record number of new large models. The second and third hulls of…

A small fishing float ahead as we make a tack back inshore is the only clue that we are fast approaching the entrance to the Grotta Azzura. The navigator points it out, the tiny opening to the famous Blue Grotto cavern that was once decorated with statues of Roman sea gods, where the Emperor Tiberius used to swim and may (or may not) have scandalously besported himself with young accolytes. It is race one of the Rolex Capri International Regatta. Aboard Southern Wind 78 Whisper, we have been tacking to clear the north-eastern point of the island by threading through ephemeral bands of north-easterly breeze. The conditions for racing are so-so, at best. The wind vanishes in void patches only to reappear and head us by 30° or more. A…

Southern Wind 96/105 One of the conspicuous growth areas of yachting, albeit a specialised niche, is performance cruisers of around 100ft. This is being fanned by the intensifying seriousness and maturity of superyacht regattas, and an improved ratings rule. An indication of the demand is two new designs announced in June, the SW96 and SW105 from Southern Wind, the Italianbased company that builds semi-custom production series in Cape Town. The yard has already had much success at this size with its SW100 – 13 built to date – and the SW102, of which hull no 5 is under way. These were designed primarily for bluewater cruising, however, whereas the new designs have racing squarely in view. The diversification came about through the design of a custom carbon Reichel/Pugh 90-footer for…

With a 5.8M BEAM and 3m long foils, Hugo Boss‘s ‘wing span’ is almost 12M One of the latest generation of IMOCA 60s with foils, British sailor Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss is looking to be a potent contender for line honours in the next Vendée Globe solo round the world race Could 2017 be the year that finally a non-French skipper wins the Vendée Globe? We don’t want to jinx this – because to complete, let alone win, a two-and-a-half month long, 28,000-mile non-stop solo round the world race does require some luck. But if there is a boat and skipper that could achieve this historic feat, then it will be Alex Thomson and his latest Hugo Boss. This year’s race, which starts from Les Sables d’Olonne on 6 November,…

Depth sounding The Wally 80 Ryokan 2 skirts the shore of Sardinia at the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta in June. Twelve Wally yachts took part in this year’s superyacht Mediterranean season opener off the famous Emerald Coast. Racing out of Porto Cervo, the 107-footer Open Season took the division overall following a head-to-head battle with Magic Carpet 3 after the two were split by less than a second in the penultimate race. Time to the line Owned by Peter Harrison of watchmakers Richard Mille, the TP52 Sorcha goes for a test sail in her eye-catching new livery before the second TP52 Super Series event at Porto Cervo. This year marks the sixth Super Series season, which continues to go from strength to strength – Sorcha is the 12th TP to…

The Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series produced spectacular racing in Chicago for the third event of the year. The ‘Windy City’ tested competitors on practice day when Emirates Team New Zealand and Oracle Team USA both capsized, before the wind failed to fill in on Saturday. On Sunday three good races were completed, with honours shared between Land Rover BAR, Artemis and SoftBank Team Japan. Artemis Racing claimed the event ahead of Land Rover BAR. This has shaken up the series standings – Emirates Team New Zealand still lead, but their points margin has reduced to 10 from Land Rover BAR and Oracle Team USA, who are tied. After a controversial New York event, which proved unraceable at times, Chicago provided true spectator-friendly racing, with four AC45s hurtling towards…

The Royal Racing Yacht Bloodhound, owned by the Royal Family in the 1960s, is celebrating her 80th year at sea and is available to charter. Prince Charles and Princess Anne both learned to sail on her during summer holidays. The fully restored 63ft Royal racing yacht is now available for day charter this summer around the Western Isles of Scotland, crewed by former HMY Britannia sailors. Bloodhound was originally one of three yachts constructed to the 12-metre handicap rule by Camper & Nicholsons in Gosport. Built in 1936, she was a distinguished ocean racing yacht with a list of accolades that includes two Fastnet Race wins. Prince Philip enjoyed success competing with her at Cowes Week regattas. www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk/events/day-sailing-on-bloodhound On yachtingworld.com this month Three Peaks nail-biter Blog from Pip Hare and…

Scarcely ruffled by a lazy late afternoon breeze, the sea was an oily pink and orange lake. Two miles to the north, an endless chain of tall, strangely curvaceous grey mountains hovered over a thin band of mist. The sound of surf breaking on the unseen beach at the foot of these mountains was like the distant roar of motorway traffic and this rumble had accompanied us ceaselessly throughout the day as we drifted south. Our destination now lay less than ten miles ahead. Rio de Janeiro came 1st in the New York Times list of places to visit in 2013. I cannot pretend that this accolade would have stirred us to cross the ocean – after all, Marseille scored 2nd place and Amsterdam was only just outside the top…

French sailor Jérémie Beyou won what is the last big test of the new IMOCA 60s before the start of the Vendée Globe in November when he took 1st place in the Ocean Masters New York-Vendée race. A transatlantic sprint by the standards of the class, the course was sailed by Beyou on Maitre Coq in 9d 16h. He finished ahead of Seb Josse in Edmond de Rothschild and Alex Thomson on Hugo Boss. The race was a good test for the mixture of new and older designs, with big winds and seas pushing the skippers hard in the middle of the course before dwindling away and presenting them with some interesting tactical and routeing options. The ultimate victory of Beyou, a tenacious and hard-driving former Figaro champion, was to…

Weymouth and Portland hosted the Sailing World Cup in June, the last major international competition for Olympic classes before the 2016 Games begin in August in Rio. There was a predictably strong turn-out from the host nation, with current world champions Giles Scott (Finn) and Nick Thompson (Laser) contributing to a 13-medal haul for the British team. Scott commented that the regatta was a good opportunity to return to the smaller fleet competition style of the Games. “We’ve just come out of the world championships where we were racing around in a fleet of 90 boats, and obviously the Olympics is what really matters, so it’s nice to refresh those small fleet skills a bit. It takes a different approach; it’s nip and tuck racing.” The Women’s 470 was an…

Tom Perkins was one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capitalists and a prolific superyacht owner whose innovative thinking led to the launch of The Maltese Falcon, a 289ft fully automated, modern-day square-rigger. The yacht remains in a class of her own. The Herreshoff classic Mariette of 1915, two Perinis, a restored classic motor yacht called Atlantide and mini-submarines were among many vessels he owned. As an electrical engineering and computer science graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Perkins joined Hewlett Packard in the 1960s, launching and running its mini-computer division. In his spare time he started a laser technology company to fund other projects before co-founding his venture capital business Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which ignited the tech boom in California. Netscape, AOL, Sun Microsystems and later…

Mention to a cruiser that you are doing a transatlantic and they will probably picture the traditional tradewind route, Canaries to Caribbean, with the wind on your back and the weather improving with each watch. It’s true that this is the most popular route – 260 yachts made the westward crossing on last year’s ARC – but it is not the only one. An eastward crossing offers a very different experience, which can be either highly enjoyable or almost overwhelmingly challenging. For this year’s ARC Europe the fleet first headed north, from the BVI to Bermuda (or south, from Portsmouth, Virginia), then east to the Azores, before choosing the final stage of their crossing – an island hop through the Azores and a 850-mile trip to Portugal with the rest…

Sandy, straight and with few deep water ports, the Atlantic coast of Morocco stretches for almost 1,000 miles down the coast of Africa from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Sahara. It’s not the most hospitable of cruising grounds: there are long distances between ports of refuge and inside the 100m contour swathes of fishing nets await the unwary sailor. And if that isn’t enough, a constant Atlantic swell creates breaking surf along much of its length. But as a destination for adventure sailing, it held huge appeal. We set aside two weeks to make the 350-mile trip from Tangiers to Agadir, which is more or less the southernmost navigable port in Morocco. Melissa, the first mate, and I launched the boat after a Christmas haul-out in Algeciras and motored…

Three generations of Conijns have built this company up over half a century. Contest Yachts started life under Ed Conijn in 1959 when he began building the popular Flying Dutchman two-man trapeze dinghy. His son Fritz took the reigns in 1970 and Fritz’s son Arjen has led the company since 2003. Ed Conijn’s other son sadly died in a boating accident on a lake, hence his and the yard’s deep-rooted desire to make safe boats. Conijn was a keen sailor who ran a timber yard. Having seen a glassfibre boat in the US in 1958, he was convinced this was the way to build quality yachts. With the launch of the four-berth Contest 25 in 1959, he led the way in early glassfibre production. The yard exported over 600 boats…