Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2019 i Yachting World

Dinghy designer Julian Bethwaite is working on a development to modernise the evergreen but now conservative Laser class. Bethwaite proposes a‘C5’ rig for the 50-year-old one-design, a carbon spar with laminate sail that can be checked in as airline hold luggage. Strange but true: a German sailor used his jeans to stay afloat after being knocked overboard, New Zealand media reports. Arne Murka was sailing off North Island when he was hit by the boom. He tied off the ends of the legs to trap air and stayed afloat for over three hours until being rescued by helicopter. “Without the jeans, I wouldn’t be here today,” he said. Congratulations to contributor Bruce Halabisky and his partner, Tiffany Loney, on winning the Cruising Club of America’s prestigious Blue Water Medal for…

The young Thomas Coville got his break into professional racing via the traditional proving grounds of the Tour de France à la Voile and Mini Transat, before winning the Route du Rhum and Transat Jaques Vabre in 1998-99. He completed the 2000 Vendée Globe in 6th place and won the Volvo Ocean Race with Franck Cammas’s Groupama 4 in 2012. But he is most famous for his round the world record attempts, his first made a decade ago, when a collision with ice forced him to stop for repairs. On the second attempt he finished in a demoralising 59 days (Francis Joyon’s time was 57 days), and the thirdattempt was slower again. His sponsor, food producer Sodebo, is a family company run by three sisters who stuck by him on…

Vaan is a new Dutch brand of yachts that uses recycled aluminium and other sustainable materials to build recyclable catamarans. This 42ft R4 is the first model, due for launch this autumn. Its hulls are built from more than 50% recycled aluminium parts, such as old window panes, traffic signs and number plates. The entire yacht is 100% recyclable. Vaan is the brainchild of Igor Kluin, who founded a sustainable energy company and has been a competitive sailor. Sickened by the statistic that nearly 80,000 boats are burned in incinerators each year in Europe alone, resulting in huge CO2 emissions, he wanted to offer an alternative to sailors. “I think GRP and carbon are wonderful materials to work with, allowing for less expensive high-volume production,” says Kluin. “It’s just not…

The former Whitbread Maxi yacht Lion New Zealand looks as good as new, relaunched in Auckland in March after a two-year, NZ$1m refit at Yachting Developments. The 80ft Ron Holland design was built 34 years ago for Sir Peter Blake’s fourth attempt at the Whitbread Round The World Race in 1985/86. Owned by the New Zealand Sailing Trust for the last decade, it hosts thousands of young New Zealanders each year. “After so many years and nautical miles, Lion New Zealand was in need of a refit,” explains Ian Cook, managing director of Yachting Developments. “The refit work has allowed Lion to be upgraded and repurposed for her new role.” The refit included a new rig, rigging and keel, new winches, a completely upgraded accommodation and galley, new electronics, lighting,…

Leaving Cape Town on the last stage of the British Steel Challenge in 1993, we knew our routing would pass close to the bulge of Africa as we made our way to the finish in Southampton. Having dealt with the Doldrums by pushing as far west as we could justify, we came out of the ITCZ into a gentle breeze which, for now, was lifting us northwards on port tack. We sailed on in the hope that the lift would allow us to clear Dakar. Still well offshore, we began to see signs of land, birdlife and the odd bit of shipping. The sea was flat and the breeze warm and gentle, a complete contrast to the brutal Southern Ocean conditions our 14-strong team had recently endured. Over the horizon,…

1 A STRONG HULL Essential for high latitude sailing is a metal hull that can deal with collisions with ice. Aventura IV’s aluminium hull was provided with watertight collision bulkheads both fore and aft. The substantial aluminium tang welded at the base of the forefoot was also a great help and was originally meant as a point of attachment to drag the boat ashore with a tractor if we were to spend the winter in the Arctic. In our case it acted just like the rostrum fitted to Roman galleys for ramming enemy ships, sweeping the ice out of our way, and allowing us to proceed unimpeded. 2 CENTREBOARD The main reasons for having a centreboard is to increase your cruising options, and having a boat with draught that can…

E-ink displays What is it? Ultra clear, low power instrument displays Who is it for? Owners of any racing or cruising yacht LCD displays have been the norm on board for so long – and high-end units have become so refined over time – that it’s hard to conceive of anything else. However, when companies like Sailmon, which produces top-level instrument systems for superyachts and Grand Prix racers, launches a new display based on entirely different technology it’s impossible to ignore. SailRacer also launched an E-ink display at the end of last year, which was nominated for the prestigious DAME Awards at the METS marine equipment trade show. Why did these companies investigate different technology for displays? “Bright sunlight and polarising sunglasses limit the visibility of standard LCD or LED-based…

There are a wealth of furling options for headsails, and each come with their own pros and cons. Reefing headsail furlers The most common jib furling system uses a foil, fitted around the forestay with a top swivel and a bottom furling drum. The headsail is hoisted up the foil on a halyard, then the furling drum rotates the foil around the forestay, rolling up the sail evenly along its luff. The drum is operated by a single line which can be locked in any position allowing the sail to be roller reefed. These are the cheapest systems to install, can normally be fitted over your existing forestay and provide a low effort alternative to changing headsails. Pros: simple to use and install, most systems can be fitted over the…

Despite political uncertainties, British marine companies grew their revenues by 1.7% in 2018 to £3.17bn, IBI magazine reports. It is the seventh consecutive year of growth. The marine industry supports over 33,000 direct employees, and half of all exports are to within the EU. “These latest figures illustrate that the British boating sector has continued to prosper, despite challenging conditions and the ongoing uncertainty about Brexit,” says British Marine CEO Lesley Robinson. “A weakened pound has provided much-needed support to industry exports and with British holidaymakers staying in the UK, nearly a third of tourism businesses are remaining positive about the future. “However, with the proposed EU exit deadline looming, the future health of the industry is not guaranteed,” Robinson continues. “Business confidence within the industry relies on consumer confidence…

Paul Heys, co-founder and managing director of Hamble-based yacht sales company Key Yachting Ltd, died in March suffering a cardiac arrest while swimming in an anchorage at Les Anses d’Arlet in Martinique. He had been enjoying a long-anticipated holiday with his wife, Marie-Claude. Heys was born in Plymouth and trained as a boatbuilder with Marine Projects before moving to the Hamble area in his early twenties. Over the years Paul sold many brands of yachts, but he is most renowned for establishing the J Boats family in the Solent, helping many owners and sailors, and being involved in the development of class associations. A talented sailor himself, Heys had a genuine lifelong passion for sailing, and was renowned for his ready laugh and quick wit.…

“The last edition of the Clipper Race celebrated the fact that a female skipper won a round the world race for the very first time. In fact, it would be fair to say that women dominated the podium. Wendy Tuck from Australia, who was skippering for the second time on this race, claimed the top spot. Nikki Henderson from the UK took 2nd place. In the same year female sailors were in the winning team of the Volvo Ocean Race. Marie Riou from France, Carolijn Brouwer from the Netherlands and Justine Mettreaux from Switzerland were all part of the winning Donfeng team, skippered by Charles Caudrelier. At the end of 2018 the Olympics announced the inclusion of a mixed offshore class, continuing the gender equality achieved in Olympic sailing across…

The dilemma of what to do with glassfibre boats when they reach the end of their lives has been a topic that has been troubling the industry for many years. A growing awareness of the need for greater sustainability and better care of our planet is making those discussions all the more pressing. But the very properties that make glassfibre such an appealing material also makes it tough to dispense with or recycle. From crushing and remixing it with resins to make garden furniture to using it in the construction of roads, various schemes are trying to tackle the problem. But how about getting a creature to eat it? A jellyfish perhaps? There are certainly plenty of them. In fact, as many of us have witnessed, there has been an…

As the mist rose off the water’s surface in the picturesque harbour of Morges on the north bank of Lake Geneva, only the gentle buzz of a small air compressor broke the tranquillity of the picture-perfect setting. Few of those passing by on their morning stroll along the Swiss dockside would have thought anything odd, doubtless putting the noise down to someone inflating a car tyre or jetwashing a dinghy. And, unless they’d stopped, even fewer would have noticed what was really happening as the head of a black sail started to rise above the quay. Getting ready to go sailing on Edouard Kessi’s converted 5.5m yacht with its towering una-rigged wing sail is very simple. Climb aboard, flick the switch and wait two minutes as the compressor pumps air…

■ Keep everything simple, sturdy and strong. Oversizing is a good idea so make the anchor and chain triple the normal size, for example. ■ No paint, no maintenance. A shot-blasted, corrosion proof deck means you can shovel ice and not damage anything, while a work boat like finish on the hull is easy to repair. A preferred substitute to paint is anti-skid foil. ■ A carbon mast and good sails for good sailing and stability. It’s important to still sail well. A carbon mast doesn’t get cold, so doesn’t ice up as quickly. ■ Good stowage – a big forepeak with room for hiking gear, warps, spares. ■ Good heating. A furnace or something you can fix yourself as a backup and a central heating system as a primary…

■ MULTI-LEVEL LIVING A couple of things surprised us about our big cat experience. One in particular was how the split levels change the dynamics – Lady Fiona offers both large sociable spaces and private quiet areas, which can be hard to achieve on even a substantial monohull sailing yacht. It was also remarkable how quiet the Lagoon 620 was – no engine noise or generator hum and zero slapping at anchor. We all slept like babies. Realistically, on most modern cruising monohulls, only one or two charter crew would be actively involved in sailing at any one time. On a catamaran the big transformation was how the experience changed for anyone who was not helming. Life underway instantly became much more relaxed. ■ FIVE STAR SERVICE Clearly a skippered…

The proficient handling of current or tide is one of those things that separates really good navigators from the rest. It must be considered in every aspect of passage-making or race strategy, from depth of water to the influence on laylines and ETAs. One area that is often neglected is the impact of tide or current on wind speed and direction – or more specifically on the sailing wind. To start with some definitions – because the same terms are often used to mean different things – I call the wind blowing across the land the ground wind, it’s the wind marked on the weather maps and predicted in the forecasts. The wind produced by the motion of the water relative to the land is the tidal wind: it is…

Women skippers share Yachtsman of the Year Two women sailors have shared the Yachtsman of the Year Award. Nikki Henderson, runner-up skipper in the 2017/18 Clipper Round the World Race, and Tracy Edwards were awarded the trophy jointly. At 24, Henderson was the youngest skipper ever to compete in the race. Edwards, famous for skippering the all-female crew Maiden in the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World Race, is behind the yacht’s restoration and now three-year mission to promote girls’ education through The Maiden Factor project. Island clean up An Australian organisation has removed some two tonnes of waste and debris during a clean-up of a remote, uninhabited island off the coast of Brisbane. Ocean Crusaders removed 92 bags of rubbish that had washed ashore on St Helena island, including 1,350…

Record-breaking solo yachtsman Thomas Coville has launched his Sodebo Ultim 3, the newest 100ft Ultime trimaran and a conceptually very different design to the rest of the class to date. The most striking feature is that the cockpit and living ‘pod’ are forward of the mast, with an empty trampoline abaft. According to Coville, the central pod weight amounted to 25% of the weight of the hull, and shifting it forward of the mast moves it closer to the centre of gravity. One effect of this is that it lowers the centre of effort by some 2m and reduces pitching moment. “You can’t imagine how much money we are ready to spend to move the gravity centre of a new boat like this down just 1cm. It’s more than €10,000…

Three late entries for the 2021 America’s Cup in New Zealand have been accepted by the America’s Cup Arbitration Panel, despite fees of $1 million not yet being paid. Challenger of record Luna Rossa and defender Emirates New Zealand accepted an amendment allowing the fees to be deferred and paid by instalments, to allow in the Maltese Malta Altus Challenge, the DutchSail challenge and new US challenger Stars & Stripes. The fee deferment had been contested by the New York Yacht Club, but the arbitrating panel labelled the club’s bid to exclude the teams an ‘anti-competitive action’ and said it had caused ‘further delays and uncertainty for the teams and frustrated the Challenger of Record and the Defender who have been working together in the best interests of the event’.…

Every now and then you come across a gem of a story. Recently a friend pinged me over a file called Following Seas. It sat on my desktop for some time. When I did run it I was spellbound for the hour and 25 minutes. The story is about a couple of whom I had vaguely heard, Bob and Nancy Griffith, and their 20 years of world voyaging (cruising might not be an appropriate description) throughout the 1960s and ‘70s on their two yachts called Awahnee. For some, the film will be a revelation of what sailing round the world was like, back in the day. But for me, it was more of a reminder. Back in those days I was still a teenage freshwater pirate on Lake Michigan, and…

Sails, advanced technology and inflatable structures have been a large part of Edouard Kessi’s professional life. He remains a keen and successful sailor and still holds the record for the fastest time for the annual race on Lake Geneva the Bol d’Or. In the 1970s, he worked for the innovative designer Lars Bergstrom at Windex. He then went on to team up with Gérard Gautier and co-founded the sailmaking company Voiles Gautier in Switzerland. The pair worked closely with DuPont, leading to Kessi and Gautier producing some of the very first Kevlar sails in the 1980s. But sailing wasn’t his only interest and in the early 1980s he developed the first paragliders and worked with inflated textiles for over 15 years with his company, Ailes de K. From there, Kessi…

1 DECK LAYOUT A well-appointed pilothouse should be the heart of any high latitude design. You will be spending the majority of your time there. The cockpit should be well protected with a hood that is an extension of the pilothouse roof, and extends far enough aft to fully protect the companionway door and allow crew to sit in the outside section without foul weather gear, to ‘take the air.’ Treadmaster or similar rubberised material covering a metal deck cuts down on noise and is the best non-slip surface in icy conditions. 2 RIG AND SAILS The rig has to be robust. Minimise the sail control systems as much as possible and stick to manual furlers if below about 70ft LOA. Radically swept-back spreaders are also problematic as they make…

SPECIFICATION LOA 17.40m 57ft Beam 5.05m 16ft 7in Draught 3.60m (keel down) 11ft 10in 2.00m (keel up) 6ft 7in Mast height 26.00m 85ft 4in Displacement 13 tonnes 28,660lb Mainsail 110m2 1,184ft2 Upwind sail area 200m2 2,152ft2 Downwind sail area 330m2 3,552ft2 Shearwater is a unique custom Frers cruiser-racer with twin rudders, lifting keel and hybrid power Wheeling effortlessly from crest to trough, wingtips kissing the wavetops, the shearwater is Australia’s most prolific seabird and a constant companion of offshore sailors on the country’s eastern and southern coastlines. Its mesmerising flight is a model of elegant efficiency. Having set out to achieve similar characteristics for his next yacht it was apt that Guido Belgiorno-Nettis – businessman, engineer, arts patron and yachtsman – chose the name Shearwater for his latest creation. Belgiorno-Nettis,…