Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2020 i Yachting World

At last, we are getting back out on our boats again and making new plans for the season. During lockdown, many with yachts lying idle were quizzed by about the idyllic notion of sitting it all out while living board. But the reality was disturbingly different from the fantasy. For cruisers sailing between islands or on a circumnavigation, the sudden lockdown caught them unawares, scrabbling for entry, or with diminished options for onward passage. An Australian skipper in the Maldives who writes on page 48, found his paradise visit turned into an imprisonment, and had a nightmare dilemma about the next thousands of miles. There are no neat lessons learned to be deduced from these exceptional experiences; they are straight from the category ‘stuff happens’. In this issue we also…

All events due to take place this year in Russell Coutts’s grand prix circuit SailGP have been rescheduled for 2021. The ‘Season 2’ series planned for San Francisco in April, New York in June, and in UK and Denmark in August and September are all being moved to the same venues running from April next year. The cancellations are a huge blow for a series attempting to establish itself as the commercial parallel to the America’s Cup, based loosely on the concept of Formula One and with a focus on the value of TV rights. These had been secured for the 2020 season, and earlier this year a minority stake in the company was bought by global entertainment company Endeavor. SailGP has been underwritten by Larry Ellison. Teams have several…

‘Out of the blue a god-like silhouette emerges – a 15m sperm whale glides past us effortlessly, within touching range’ It’s below freezing, the wind is blowing 25 knots and we’re in a 2m swell. Barba is dancing over the waves, the pot of soup we made first thing in the morning is clinging bravely to the gas stove. I tumble around down below as I get into the business attire of the day: a 7mm wetsuit, the only thing I’ve ever had tailor-made. Then I strap an AIS emergency beacon around my arm, for the worst-case scenario of getting lost in the icy waters. Going on deck I survey our arena. Steep, snow-covered mountains flank the dark blue sea. It is February and the sun has just returned following…

U-BOAT WORX NEMO Personal subs are getting smaller and cheaper, as this latest model from Holland’s U-Boat Worx shows. It tips the scales at 2,500kg and has a price tag just under r1 million, but the Nemo marks a new era of production subs. U-Boat Worx hopes this will broaden the appeal of the sub significantly. It is a sleek bit of kit, with an acrylic pressure hull for uninterrupted views, and a stern that resembles the back end of a Ferrari. It can take two people down to 100m depth without having to step out of their shore-going togs. Its 3-knot top speed may sound slow, but with eight hours of autonomy, that is plenty when you’re racketing around at depth in a plastic bubble. Its four 5.5kW thrusters…

SHOGUN 50 AND 42.6 LOA 15.24m 50ft 6in • LWL 14.20m 46ft 7in • BEAM 3.88m 12ft 9in • DRAUGHT 2.00-3.50m 6ft 7in-11ft 6in • DISPLACEMENT 7,900kg 17,400lb • BASE PRICE SEK15.4 million (approx £1,230,000) • www.shogunyachts.com This new brand is the result of a Swedish owner seeking a very light displacement boat with performance (and some design aspects) akin to that of the ClubSwan 50, but with easy handling for day sailing and occasional overnighting with family and friends in the Stockholm archipelago. Mats Bergryd approached father and son team of Håken and Oscar Södergren for the design. “The commission from Mats was to make a competitive 50ft racer suitable for our archipelago with its rather shallow and narrow waters,” says Håken. “A boat that can be easily handled…

• A new free eSailing game, Pancake Sailor, was launched by Australian programmers Marine Verse as a direct response to the lockdown. Pancake Sailor is a relaxed single or multiplayer game that allows you to sail a Laser-style dinghy around idyllic locations and encounter magical sealife creatures. It is designed to be accessible to all levels of sailor, and gamer, and can be connected to a VR headset if you have one. “You really don’t need any gaming experience to play,” explained developer Greg Dziemidowicz, “You can’t capsize, it’s meant to be quite relaxing with simple controls but beautiful graphics and sounds.” “We created Pancake Sailor to cheer people up, share the joy of sailing and bring friends together in multiplayer.” • If your idea of escapism is a passage…

Two beautiful and classic yachts are to be sold at auction on 25 June. The 1926 Herreshoff NY40 Marilee and the famous S&S-designed 12 Metre Enterprise are to be sold individually, without reserve, to the highest bidder. A dozen NY40s were built following a commission in 1920 by the New York Yacht Club. The class raced for only two seasons before World War I put a halt to sailing, but when competition resumed afterwards two new yachts were built, including Marilee in 1926. In the subsequent decades she was cruised, raced and updated, and her original gaffrig was changed to Bermudan. In early 2014 a full restoration got under way to return Marilee to her original shape and lines. A portion of the keel was renewed and approximately 80% of…

Aside from in solo or double-handed sailing, you might think it impossible to socially distance in our sport. It’s certainly difficult to imagine how a crew bigger than two people could keep sufficiently spaced. Yet, thanks to some creative thinking, two of the four America’s Cup teams have managed to get back on the water and continue their training. Given that the one thing you’re always short of in a Cup campaign is time, the ability to get back on the water may prove to be the biggest tilting of an already famously skewed pitch that we’ve seen for some time. Ironically, the first to get back to business was Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, the Italian team that over recent months had suffered several major setbacks after losing their mast…

A voyage around the southern tip of the Americas, will always be a mix of heaven and hell. If you’re prepared to take on the abrupt and unforgiving weather systems, then the pure remoteness of Patagonia, with its marine life and unspoilt deserted coastlines, all await. In the southern hemisphere winter of 2020, Pumula was docked in the small marina of Punta del Este in Uruguay. It had been decided to curtail cruising plans for South America and bring this 37m/123ft Royal Huisman sloop from Uruguay to the warmer climes of the South Pacific. Once that call was made, we then had the choice of sailing all the way around Brazil into the American armpit of Panama, going through the cumbersome formalities of the canal and onto the regular fair…

The engineering of in-boom reefing systems has been considerably refined over the years and today’s systems are much better than early iterations. Even though this remains an expensive option, it’s one a growing number of boat owners are adopting. Key advantages include one person being able to handle the mainsail entirely from the cockpit, especially if powered coachroof winches are available. There are no lazyjacks to snag battens and no messing with the miles of reefing pennants that are needed for slab reefing. Yet these systems don’t need a sail with the hollow leech and very flat cut that’s necessary for in-mast furling. They therefore have the potential to offer similar sailing performance to boats with conventional slab-reefed mainsails. Given how neatly the sail is furled, and the absence of…

Stødig is a former Caledonian MacBrayne ferry lifeboat that has undergone a stunning conversion to become a unique cruising vessel Clearly Stødig is not a sailing yacht, nor anything close to one. Indeed she is far from a conventional motoryacht. But sometimes there are vessels which may not have a mast and sails, but which appeal to an adventurous spirit just as much as any teak-decked, canvassed yacht. Stødig is such a boat. Stødig is the brainchild of friends Guylee Simmonds and David Schnabel, both 28. Looking at the beautiful spaces they have created in this unassuming 35ft tub, it comes as no surprise that the pair met when studying architecture. While seafaring is a new pastime for Schnabel, Simmonds comes from a sailing heritage and spent a childhood sailing…

‘It delivers huge amounts of fun per pound spent’ JEREMY WYATT NOMINATES THE FIRST 25.7 Although he is something of an expert on ocean cruising subjects, ARC organiser Jeremy Wyatt says his ideal is smaller, and more local. “A boat I sail often and have raced locally for the last seven years is Starborn 4, a Beneteau First 25.7 from 2004. Each time I am on board, I am struck by the excellence of the design package. In under 26ft, Beneteau has delivered a real pocket cruiser that provides a lot in very little. “Five of us to have great fun racing around the Solent, picking up the occasional trophy along the way. Peter, the owner, can weekend cruise with his wife, Carol, and not feel that they are camping…

A new race to the Arctic in July is to be run for the IMOCA 60 class as a qualifier for the Vendée Globe round the world race in November. It takes the place of the Transat Race from France to the US and the New York to Vendée return event, both cancelled due to COVID-19. The Vendée-Arctic-Les Sables d’Olonne race is a radical format that takes solo skippers on a 3,600-mile route heading from the Atlantic coast of France on a course that reaches the limits of the Arctic Circle. Antoine Mermod, president of the IMOCA class, explained: “We’ve got 11 skippers who need to finish their qualifying process [for the Vendée Globe], but to be honest the main goal of this race is to challenge all the skippers.…

All the early transatlantic races were extraordinary quests, as the history of Yachting World relates, writes Nigel Sharp. The inaugural transatlantic race predates our first issue (in 1894), taking place in the winter of 1866. It was arranged, so it is said, after an enormously drunken dinner at the New York Yacht Club. Three schooners competed for a stake of $90,000 and the winner, James Gordon Bennett’s Henrietta, finished at the Needles on Christmas Day having sailed all the way from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, without tacking. The second boat, Fleetwing, lost six men overboard on the eighth day out – there was no hope of retrieving them. Four years later Dauntless, another of Gordon Bennett’s schooners, raced from Ireland to America. Her only opponent was Cambria, sailing across to challenge…

I just made it down from the UK back to Cape Town in March before all flights in and out of South Africa were cancelled. I thought my two-week quarantine would be well spent in Langebaan, a west coast town on a pristine estuary at the end of Saldanha Bay, north of the city, where I keep my Laser and share a Hobie 16. What more would I need other than an internet connection in the cottage and a covert trip or two to the supermarket during my incarceration? I had two marvellous days sailing. Mine was the only boat on the estuary and I was happy as could be. Then the government announced a lockdown with a three-day notice. I took the advantage of another day’s sail and then…

‘Having a date to leave will instantly make your adventure more real’ Getting ready to live the dream can be daunting. For anyone embarking on a bluewater adventure, especially if it is the first time they have set off for an extended period of offshore cruising, the months and weeks preceding departure can be stressful. There is a never-ending list of jobs, while you balance work and family life, and the clock seems to speed up as departure day approaches. Having been involved with the ARC rally as an organiser for over 20 years, I know that getting boat preparation right is essential to enjoying your time away and being able to relax. To help with the blizzard of tasks and to bring some order and focus into the crucial…

After two and a half years and over 17,000 miles of cruising from the UK to the Caribbean and the US east coast, we are often asked what we have learned. The truth is that, thanks to lots of reading, videos and generous advice, we have affirmed as much as we’ve learned. If the call of the sea beats in your heart, embrace it and spread your wings while you can. In our case, changing family circumstances means that the Pacific is now one step too far. We need to be closer to home and have decided to sell our lovely Garcia 45 Exploration, Pearl, downsize and explore Europe on a seasonal basis. We could never stop cruising; our plans just need to adapt. And that’s the nub of it:…

It is amazing what can happen to the world in four days. That’s how long it took us to sail from Antigua to the ABC Islands. We were our way towards the Panama Canal and in the four days we were at sea without internet, everything had changed. We arrived late on a Saturday evening, Customs was closed, so we moored up quietly and collapsed into bed. Next morning, we were stamped in, but informed that the borders were shutting that day. We had only just made it. Fast-forward to March, and we have been in Bonaire for two months. We are unable to arrive in any other country or even leave this one: we are trapped in paradise. We are in a foreign country without television, with a language…

A quiet revolution in sport has been taking place for years. Competitive online gaming, or eSports, has been growing exponentially since the mid-1990s. “It is probably the biggest sport you’ve never heard of,” Wouter Sleijffers, CEO of Excel, one of the biggest British eSports brands, remarked at a gaming industry event in January 2020. That was, until the COVID-19 pandemic and global lockdown. With the banning of recreational and competitive sport, eSports shifted from being an alternative to the only sport available. Unless you are, or live with, a teenage boy, eSport is unlikely to have been much on your radar before this year. But competitive online gaming is massive, both in terms of participation numbers and spectators. Last year 100 million people watched the World Championships of League of…