Innholdsfortegnelse for Apr-2018 i Yachting World

Discovery Yachts Group, builders of the Discovery and Southerly ranges, raised about £2.3m in under two weeks after launching a crowdfunding initiative in January. The original aim was £750,00 but the offering was so popular that, by its close, investors were still clamouring to buy a part of Southampton-based company. Just under 500 investors put in money to buy 20 per cent equity, some contributing as little as £10 but others putting in six-figure sums – the largest was £750,000. Depending on the level of contribution, investors also got a range of short-term incentives, such as tickets to a boat show, a shipyard tour, a sailing day or even a charter. To raise the funding, Discovery used UK-based Crowdcube, an equity crowdfunding platform. This is the first time that crowdfunding…

Aman overboard. A fatal collision. A near grounding. The Melbourne to Hong Kong leg of the Volvo Ocean Race saw every offshore sailor’s worst nightmares made real. But why did so many incidents occur, and can any lessons be learned from them? The Volvo Ocean Race has its detractors: the route, choice of yachts, crew rules, every facet of the race has been subject to criticism. Yet one thing that is not in question is the standard of the sailors, or the level of the competition. Volvo crews are among the most talented and capable in the sport. To win catapults a skipper into the sphere of the greats – Van Rietschoten, Blake, Dalton, Cayard, Cammas. It is an event where legends are made. But even the ‘gods’ of this…

Bavaria C-Line range Bavaria stepped up the pace of the rollout of its new line of large yachts, with the C45, C50 and C65 all launching at boot Düsseldorf in January and joining the C57. The two smaller boats replace the old Cruiser 46 and Cruiser 51 models respectively, while the C65 marks a new level of both size and luxury specification for the company. The biggest boat in the range keeps Bavaria in line with the other volume boatbuilders that have been launching progressively larger models. A stumbling block for Bavaria in this respect has long been its production line in southern Germany, which can’t accommodate the larger yachts. The C65 is therefore built in a new facility in Croatia. This size of yacht is a big step up…

SPECIAL REPORT CHRIS TIBBS ON POWER MANAGEMENT A cold drink at the end of the day while watching the sun go down is one of the joys of cruising. But the more luxuries we have, the greater the demand for power. My first transatlantic in 1980 was typical of the time with paraffin lights below, which give a great soft light that doesn’t destroy night vision. We removed the bulb in the heads so it didn’t get left on and it was a challenge to keep the nav lights burning through the night without turning the engine on to charge. Tinned food was the norm and we didn’t miss the luxuries that have since become standard. However, once we arrived in the Caribbean, chasing around for ice and water became…

At the first ever SuperFoiler Grand Prix regatta in Adelaide in February, Luke Parkinson’s Tech2 went airborne before wiping out. “We had the boat fully lit up coming to the finish doing 31, 32 knots,” said Parkinson. The leap began with an apparent structural failure of the aft section of the port hull, causing the bows to spear into the air before the yacht capsized. (The video is on YouTube, bluntly entitled ‘SuperFoiler Adelaide Race 1 Tech2 Destruction’.) The 7.9m SuperFoilers by Morelli & Melvin Design were designed as ‘the fastest course racing boat ever’, with a huge power to weight ratio, capable of hitting downwind speeds of more than 40 knots. The Grand Prix series features six teams of three people racing around stadium-style courses at different venues around…

Flight of Apollo An amazing shot of Plymouth sailor Nigel Passmore’s Dazcat 1495, Apollo, leaping out of some big seas during the RORC Caribbean 600 race, as captured by daredevil photographer Tim Wright. Passmore’s cruiser-racer catamaran was one of an unprecedented fleet of ten multihulls in the 84-strong fleet racing round this 600-mile course. Taken near St Barth, the photo captures a moment when Apollo was racing in winds gusting to over 30 knots and seas of around 4m. Passmore, a seasoned offshore racer doing the Caribbean 600 for the first time, retired due to an electrical problem, but says the race was ‘awesome’. See our full report on page 46. Round the Ninepin Tawera, the 28m Ron Holland design, rounds the Ninepin. A famous landmark in New Zealand’s Bay…

Dee Caffari and the crew of Volvo Race entry Turn the Tide on Plastic came close to running into the largest piece of plastic debris they have yet seen at sea in February when they narrowly avoided an abandoned yacht. While racing on leg 6 from Hong Kong to Auckland, they saw another yacht close to their track but could not spot it on AIS, or raise it on the VHF radio, and there were no signs of life. Onboard reporter James Blake sent up a drone and was able to see that it was the yacht Sea Nymph, from which two American women were rescued by the US Navy last year. Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava were rescued from the yacht about 900 miles south-east of Japan in October,…

email yachting.world@timeinc.com Letters may be edited as appropriate A hard blow On our feature online on the risks of hitting a container at sea: We hit a container at night and the sound was unmistakably metal against glassfibre. It pinholed the bow just above the waterline and hit us twice more down the starboard side. Our helmsman immediately put the helm over to kick the stern away from it, to avoid impacting the rudder, and then let go of the wheel so there was no resistance if it came into contact. Upon hauling later, we could see gouges where the container had made contact and a slight scrape along the side of the rudder. Had we hit it square on at speed while on a reach, we all believe the…

Immotor GO electric scooter £1,499 What is it? Electric power personal shoreside transport Who is it for? Cruising sailors who like to travel in style This waterproof three wheel electric scooter folds up into a neat, easily stowed package, yet has a range of up to 16 miles and can reach a top speed of 16mph. It makes an interesting alternative to carrying conventional folding bikes. In addition to the primary use of personal transport, the stable three-wheel platform also means the unit can be used as a caddy to transport heavy objects, which could be a real boon when cruising. Each scooter has a 350W brushless front hub motor and ships with two 48V lithium-ion batteries that fully recharge in 21?2 to 3 hours. There’s sufficient power to climb…

Founder and former owner of Oyster Yachts, Richard Matthews, is bidding to buy back the luxury yacht builder, which he sold to Balmoral Capital in 2008 for around £70m. Oyster went under in January this year when the company’s management made a shock announcement that it no longer had financial support to trade. Matthews, who went on to set up Gunfleet yachts, confirmed that he and a group of other investors would bid to buy company assets. His is one of 45 expressions of interest received by administrators KPMG Restructuring. Matthews says his interest is in “reinvigorating the brand” and recreating “an all-British run and British-based business”. Oyster went under suddenly and unexpectedly, not least to those with yachts in build and some 380 employees. On the afternoon on 5…

A couple from Devon has completed an exceptional voyage. Ed and Sue Kelly have become the first yacht crew to sail round Europe and North America using the ‘great circle’ loop of waterways. Their voyage in their 30-year-old Catalac 41 catamaran Angel Louise took 329 days. The American Great Loop is a system of waterways encompassing the eastern portion of the US and a section of Canada and consists of both natural and man-made waterways such as the Intracoastal Waterway, the Mississippi River, the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and the Great Lakes. The complete loop is 6,000 miles. To complete a similar loop round Europe, the Kellys navigated from the North Sea to the Black Sea via the Rhine, Main and Danube and then exited through the Bosphorus to go on through…

Out of the blackness a breaking crest makes itself known with an alien glow of tumbled phosphorescence and roars past. This is not what we expected when we set off on the glamour leg of our circumnavigation from Lanzarote to Antigua. Friends of ours set sail a month earlier and all their pictures are of the bimini up, sundowners being enjoyed, and fishing. Be clear about this, I’m not complaining. As an army sergeant once said to me: “If you’re looking for sympathy you’ll find it somewhere in the dictionary between shit and syphilis – get on with it, son.” I’m very conscious, as I write, that we’re on a dream trip, sailing an amazing yacht called Pearl in celebration of our 30th wedding anniversary. The kids have left home…

Let’s go down to the Caribbean, win a race, and drink a barrel of rum.” A good plan for the cold, short days of February, and Peter Aschenbrenner’s crew tore through their three-point checklist. In strong tradewinds and rough seas, this was the fastest Caribbean 600 races in its ten-year history, and Aschenbrenner’s Irens 63 trimaran Paradox blasted round to set a new course record of 1d 13h. “Brutal, fast, wet, intense,” is how he described it. The fastest sailor in the world, Paul Larsen, his eyeballs sandpapered by a continual barrage of spray, says this race is “a beauty”. “The foilers, the cruisers, the compromises...,” he says. “This race was a leveller.” On the heels of Paradox, was George David’s famous Rambler 88, roaring back across the finish line…

FACTS Test editor PIP HARE Twodaytestinmid December from La Rochelle in the Charente Maritime area 5-25knotswesterly TheAmel50comeswith a full spec and only one three-cabin layout. The test boat had a staysail too, an option which we recommend. Amel has a long established following for yachts designed and built to match the needs of liveaboard and bluewater cruisers. It is reputed for its singular way of doing things and is famed for its ketches, designed for ease of sailing by a couple. So when the La Rochelle yard unveiled this Amel 50, its first sloop since 1997, one with a broad, modern hull shape and twin rudders, it was met with surprise. Had Amel abandoned its heritage in favour for what’s in vogue? Fortunately not. Step aboard and…

ANDY RICE talks to Olympic gold medallist and America’s Cup sailor GILES SCOTT The start is the most critical period of the race, where a couple of seconds and a metre of advantage can add up to an enormous time and distance advantage further up the track. So you want to bring organisation to the chaos of a busy start line. You need a system. Which end of the start line is favoured is an obvious question, but, more importantly and less obviously, which end of the start line will put you in the best position further up the first beat? For example, if the righthand side of the course is heavily favoured then nailing a pin-end start is only going to be useful provided you can tack and cross…