Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2023 i Yachting World

Clipper’s Portsmouth start The 2023/24 edition of the Clipper Round the World Race will start and finish from Portsmouth. The event village for the 40,000-mile ocean race for amateur sailors will be based in Gunwharf Quays, and the race is scheduled to start on 3 September. Two VO65 yachts racing in The Ocean Race have become the latest boats to face ‘attacks’ by orcas off the Iberian Peninsula after a spate of incidents. Team JAJO and Mirpuri Trifork Racing were racing in the VO65 Sprint leg from The Hague to Genoa when they were approached by orcas on 22 June, while sailing 1-5 miles off the Spanish coast on the approach to Tarifa. Despite the orcas shoving into the boats, and nudging or biting at the rudders, both VO65s escaped…

Adventure-ready cats With more multihulls being launched than ever before, what do you need to make your brand new catamaran bluewater-ready? Round the world cruisers share real-life advice on how to spec and prepare a multihull for ocean sailing Ocean Race winners’ story Helen Fretter heads to the finish of The Ocean Race in Genoa to get the inside story on how the overall winner was decided after a 27,000-mile around the world epic for the IMOCA teams How to find a weather window The hardest part of many passages is knowing when to go: expert tips on how to use the latest weather information to plan your departure date Berthing masterclass Handling a modern cruising yacht – complete with bow thrusters, twin rudders and high freeboard – under power…

Beneteau has already built a First 44e such as this using recyclable resin, sustainable decks and electric propulsion Imagine a future where you could buy a standard production yacht which is built not from virgin fibres, toxic resin, and fitted with teak or plastic decks, nor propelled by a noisy engine fuelled by noxious heavy oil, but instead one crafted from natural products, which runs silently, emission-free and with very little carbon footprint. And where, at the end of the yacht’s life, you could trade it back in with the builders so they could separate the fibres from the resin and recycle it into a new boat. That future is here and now in 2023. Thanks to years of research and development from some of the largest yards, your yacht…

American professional sailor Terry Hutchinson has been called many things in his 40-year career racing sailboats. Brash. Outspoken. A horse’s you-know-what. And they’re among the less incendiary labels – comments typically lodged from competitors who are turned off by Hutchinson’s histrionics on the racecourse or envious of his success as a tactician. Those who know him best, the owners and sailors he races with, the beneficiaries of his talents, use more complimentary words. Intense. Driven. A softie. Emotional. An amazing talent. A close friend. Words don’t phase Hutchinson. Say something negative to his face, he’ll likely shrug his shoulders and reply with a more biting comment back about your own character. He’s developed thick skin over the years. If it’s on the more complimentary side, he may return the favour,…

TOBY HODGES Where: Scarlino, Tuscany Wind: 5-20 knots, flat to 1.5m waves Model: Hull No1. High standard of spec, including 3.5kW Whisper Power genset, bowthruster, electric winches, 340Ah batteries at 24V.  Extras include carbon rig, inner staysail, self-tacking jib When it comes to choosing a modern performance cruising yacht, it could be argued that many of the current crop of designs share very similar trends, particularly those from Med-based brands or those aimed at warmer weather sailing. And for good reason: there are multiple attributes gained from long waterlines, voluminous hull shapes with beam carried aft, twin wheels and rudders, and spacious decks and cockpits. All of which may lead you to assume the new Swan 55 is simply following suit, another one of many. But that would be forgetting…

10 teams competing in SailGP The fourth season of SailGP has got underway with its largest fleet yet, including a new team from Germany backed by four-time F1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel and leading businessman Thomas Riedel. The season opener in Chicago went to New Zealand. The rest of the 10-boat fleet includes Australia, Canada, Denmark, Spain, France, GBR, Switzerland and the USA. An all-female team has been formed to challenge for the Jules Verne Trophy, the non-stop crewed around the world record, in 2025. French former Vendée Globe skipper Alexia Barrier announced her plans for the ‘Famous Project’ last year. Since then the project has gathered huge momentum, and Barrier and her team now have the use of two giant trimarans, including a MOD70 and the 103ft record-breaking trimaran…

Team Malizia has set a new record for the world’s fastest monohull, having covered 641.08 nautical miles in 24 hours during the transatlantic leg of The Ocean Race. With exceptional conditions mid-Atlantic that allowed the IMOCA 60s to reach downwind in 25-30 knots of wind with a relatively flat sea state, it was Holcim-PRB that started the records tumbling. First they broke the existing race record of 602 miles, set in the 2018 edition by the VO65 Team AkzoNobel. 11th Hour Racing bettered that, covering 611.9 miles in 24 hours, before Holcim-PRB clocked up an impressive 622.58 miles, overtaking the monohull sailing record set by the 100ft speed hunter Comanche way back in 2015. Holcim-PRB further annihilated the 24-hour monohull record by covering 640.9 miles – a remarkable achievement given the team…

Big C, a 1.1m microyacht originally built by legendary record-breaking sailor Tom McNally, has been damaged beyond repair shortly after Andrew Bedwell set off on his first attempt at crossing the Atlantic. Bedwell, who was a friend of the late McNally, has been planning an Atlantic crossing in the extraordinary vessel for over two years. He set off from St Johns, Newfoundland in late May, with hopes of making the 1,900-mile crossing to Lizard Point, Cornwall, and in so doing challenging to set a new record for crossing the Atlantic in the smallest boat ever. But his attempt ended abruptly when Big C began taking on water shortly after the start. After returning to harbour Big C was raised out of the water for inspection, but broke up while being…

What The Ocean Race lacked in fleet numbers it seems to have made up for in the impact it has made at the sharp end of the sport. In the build-up to the start back in January there were plenty of questions around the future of the event. Could 60-footers designed for solo sailing really be the way ahead? Would they be quicker with a full crew aboard? Would they hold together when pushed hard 24/7? And even if all this was positive, would a fleet of five boats be enough to save the most famous round the world race from withering into obscurity? Well, now we have some answers and in many ways they’re more definitive than we could have imagined. The enthusiasm among some of the world’s hot…

There’s an old sailing joke that goes something like this: “In search of single man with boat. Please send photo of boat.” Today couples find each other on dating apps rather than via the personal adverts in the back of a newspaper, but when a girl with a profile photo taken at the helm caught Max’s eye, the first thing he messaged was: “Do you want to sail around the world?” Charlotte did not hesitate in her answer: yes. Six years later we left Sweden, and our jobs, and set off for an adventure that had been a dream of both of ours long before we’d met. Max, a 32-year-old engineer, has sailed since he was young, and had bought small keelboats with money earned from part-time jobs while still…

Y Breeze 75ft daysailer LOA 22.86m 75ft 0in • Beam 5.60m 18ft 4in • Draught 4.20m 13ft 9in or 2.5-4.0m 8ft 2in-13ft 1in • Displacement 26,500kg 58,422lb Yyachts.de YYachts has unveiled a fascinating new 75ft luxury daysailer concept, the Y Breeze. It’s founder Michael Schmidt, the veteran racing sailor, industry pioneer and former Hanse Yachts owner, is known for his innovation, particularly with a focus on making yachts simple, fun and approachable. The Y Breeze YB75 strips things right back to these very fundamental elements. It is designed to be ultra clean and easy to sail. The sale of each boat will even include a crewmember to ensure it’s always ready for that quick sunset sail. “For the last 30 years the number of powerboats have been increasing. Now it’s…

Tracy Edwards Royal & Sun Alliance (1998) With an all-female crew including Sam Davies, Emma Richards, Sharon Ferris, Helena Darvelid, Adrienne Cahalan, Emma Westmacott, and Miranda Merron, the attempt ended when the 90ft catamaran dismasted 2,000 miles from Cape Horn. Ellen MacArthur Kingfisher 2 (2003) MacArthur was skipper and sole female member of the crew. The 110ft maxi catamaran Kingfisher 2 also dismasted in the southern Indian Ocean. Dona Bertarelli Spindrift 2 (2015) Bertarelli, who funds her own Spindrift campaign, is currently the fastest woman to sail non-stop around the world, having been one of the crew of 12 aboard the 140ft trimaran during a 2015 Jules Verne record bid. At 47d 10h 59m 2s it was the third fastest lap of the planet ever.…

The historic Admiral’s Cup – for many the unofficial ‘world cup’ for offshore racing – is set to return in 2025, having last been sailed in 2003. Few events make big boat sailors as misty-eyed as the Admiral’s Cup, a prestigious offshore/inshore regatta organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC). First held in 1957, it took place biennially until 1999, and in its heyday saw as many as 19 countries competing in three-boat teams. After numbers dwindled it was cancelled in 2001, then flickered back into life in 2003 before the 2005 Admiral’s Cup was cancelled and has not run since. However, the RORC is planning to run the event biennially once again, with the next provisionally due to start on 19 July, 2025. The Admiral’s Cup traditionally saw…

Lifelong offshore racer Piet Vroon has passed away at the age of 93. Vroon was an active offshore racer, owner, and huge supporter of many generations of competitive sailors. Vroon built the family-owned Vroon shipping company into one of the largest maritime companies in the Netherlands, and owned a string of racing yachts, usually named Tonnerre de Breskens. Over six decades he won many of the most competitive regattas and offshore races, including the Rolex Fastnet Race, Round Ireland, Cork Week, Cowes Week, Caribbean 600, IRC National Championships and more. He competed in nearly 30 Fastnet Races, winning on his 20th attempt in 2001, and continued to race until 2015, when he was 85 years old. Vroon was also fondly known as one of sailing’s biggest – and kindest –…

I caught up with my good friend August Sandberg earlier this month. The first day August and I met, he employed his Norwegian military training to give me a lesson on how to safely handle both a shotgun and a rifle, and we shot practice rounds at a mound of dirt on the island he lives on, just north of Bergen. This was all in preparation of August lending his guns to us on the 59° North’s Swan 48 Isbjorn, due to sail north to Svalbard later that year, as the preferred defence mechanism against polar bears. We sail to remote places, to desolate high latitudes and the middle of tropical oceans, to experience raw and unfiltered nature. We go to see towering icebergs, glaciers, and mountainous waves, and hope…

A GREENER FUTURE FOR… WET WEATHER GEAR Back in the days when togging up for a sail meant donning a stout Guernsey and some tightly woven gaberdines, sustainability was barely on the agenda. Wool and cotton were the main fabrics of choice, with perhaps a latex or wax coating to offer a modicum of waterproofing. Today there is an astonishing array of technical fabrics and clothing to keep us dry inside and out without cramping our range of movement. Garments keep working in the Southern Ocean, in the Arctic Circle and under intense activity. But alas, there is a cost to progress, because we rely almost exclusively on man-made synthetic fibres and coatings whose chief precursor is crude oil. The problem with wet weather gear is in fact several fold,…

{ There are 150 sensors around the boat, including 100 fibre optics in the hull measuring strain, fibre optics in the mast measuring deformation, plus load pins, wind gear and more. } { Team Malizia represents Yacht Club de Monaco and the name Malizia originates from 1297, when Francesco Grimaldi cunningly stormed the Rock of Monaco and seized control, gaining him the name Malizia (the ‘cunning one’). } The team reckon 35,000 design hours went into Malizia, plus around 45,000 hours in build Followers of the IMOCA fleet will know that two names have dominated the class over the past two generations when it comes to design: VPLP and Verdier. So, it’s no surprise that all five of the IMOCAs competing in The Ocean Race come from those same drawing…

‘The class makes these boats incredible to race’ TERRY HUTCHINSON NOMINATES QUANTUM RACING Terry Hutchinson is tactician for the Quantum Racing TP52 and nominates the team’s Botin-designed USA 52018. “The most recent Quantum Racing and this entire generation of TP52s have been a good step beyond the 2015 fleet,” he says. The TP52 is a box rule class, with rules tweaked in agreement with the owners to maintain close racing. In 2017 the class voted that the latest updates, which included increased stiffness and rig refinements, would remain in place for three years. That guarantee contributed to an impressive nine new boats being launched in 2018 (post-Covid the class has since agreed no further changes until 2025). Quantum Racing won the 2022 Super Series overall title, their fifth series win.…