Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting October 2023 - Sample Issue

SOLO SAILING

● UK to Iceland alone

● Skye single-handed

SHOGUN 43

Cruiser/racer is a cut above the rest

JEANNEAU 55

Daring to be di erent

LADIES FIRST?

Alexa Barrier talks

Jules Verne Trophy

New boats

CF 580 Ran 8

Jeanneau Sun Fast 30

French manufacturer Jeanneau Yachts scored a big hit with the 33’ Sun Fast 3300, with big fleets springing up across Europe. It is therefore unsurprising that it has followed up with the smaller Sun Fast 30. Unlike the 3300 which was designed by Daniel Andrieu and Guillaume Verdier, the 30 is a VPLP project who has teamed up with Multiplast to produce a strict one design yacht at a competitive price. The new boat features full forward sections married to light (2,700kg) displacement, twin rudders and flat aft sections to provide a boat that planes easily and early. The boat is available in two versions: One Design and Club.

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Bestavaer 36

Bestavaer Yachts is a Dutch boatbuilder specialising in steel construction. It is reputed for building handsome steel ‘go anywhere’ yachts, generally in the 50-70’ bracket. The announcement of an all-new 36 footer is therefore something of a surprise and not an unwelcome one. The new boat marries a big rig with a decent displacement to provide a boat that is both seaworthy but none too slow. As with her bigger sisters, the 36 is designed to be a very practical cruiser and is therefore equipped with a swing keel which will allow her to take the ground when required, and the draft is a mere 0.7m with the board up and a substantial 2.4m with the board down.

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Ran 8 is one of the latest launches from the drawing board of Shaun Carkeek and is a boat that has already cut a dash by taking overall and line honours in the RORC Channel Race. This is a boat that comes from the same mould as Oystercatcher XXXV, launched to much fanfare in 2021. The new boat boasts an uprated water ballast system which is designed to reduce the number of crew required from eight to seven. In addition to this, electric propulsion has been introduced. The boat is not designed to one particular set of rules and the main aim is simply to design a boat that will go as fast as possible in a range of conditions. The result is a boat optimised for offshore conditions, in which she will be somewhat quicker than a TP52.

l carkeekdesignpartners.com

A look at the latest launches from around the globe

Bavaria C46

Bavaria Yachts appears to be Teutonic to its very core but the fact is that for many years it has been flirting with an Italian designer. Mauricio Cossutti to be precise. This will be the Italian designer’s sixth dalliance with Bavaria and the result is the new C46, an upgrade on the old C45 launched back in 2018. The boat boasts more volume and – at least theoretically at this stage – better performance. The increased volume comes from following the current trend for full bow sections above the waterline and fine below. This is hardly a new concept but Bavaria trumpet it as its ‘V’ bow. And why not I suppose. The boat offers a wide choice of accommodation layouts, including a four cabin/four heads charter model, and three-cabin/three head option with a big owner’s suite forward.

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Grand Soleil 65

Italian boatbuilder Grand Soleil’s new 65 is a very big yacht that looks every inch the flashy Italian Med performance cruiser. She is designed by Matteo Polli, who made a real name for himself with the Italia 9.98, a yacht that cleaned up in the ORC class a few years back. The 65 is obviously a different kettle of fish but, like the 9.98, it is optimised for light weather sailing and has very fine waterlines that swell out aft to give the boat more power in stronger conditions. The boat is offered in LC (cruising) and Performance configurations.

l grandsoleil.net

A loch and a hard place

Solo sailor Martin Montgomery recalls a visit to the anchorage of Loch na Cuilce at the head of the spectacular and forbidding Loch Scavaig

It was getting late in the season and I was working my Vancouver 28 Tethys in stages along the south coast of the Isle of Skye heading east, but ultimately towards the other Inner Hebrides and then homewards to the Clyde. I’d been holed up comfortably on a mooring in Loch Harport for two or three days near the famous Talisker Distillery as a patch of inclement weather clattered through. But now, mid-afternoon on passage, I was looking for an overnight anchorage. And Loch Scavaig – one of those wild craggy indentations along the southern coastline of the Isle of Skye – might just do.

Skye, of course, is steeped in myth and legend. It was split over the Jacobite uprising in 1745 with some clans siding with the Hanoverian monarchy while others sided with Prince Charles, the Stuart claimant to the English throne. After the failure of the rebellion Charles managed to evade capture, hiding in the Outer Isles, assisted by the remaining clandestine supporters, one of whom – Flora Macdonald – helped him escape by boat from Benbecula to Skye – hence the well-known song: “Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, onward the

sailors cry. Carry the lad that’s born to be king, Over the sea to Skye”. The myths and legends are rooted in an awesome natural setting on Skye. The South of the island is dominated by a ring of mountains which rise to a circular ridge of peaks known as Cuillins: “The mountains rise up dramatically from the sea”, says a guide, “creating formidable, enclosed sea lochs, with the absence of foothills enhancing their vast scale”. Loch Scavaig is the most dramatic and formidable of these lochs and is described in the Sailing Directions as “one of the

most dramatic and awe-inspiring anchorages in Europe…It is wild and totally remote from civilization”. The Directions then add a sentence which ends forbiddingly with a memorable phrase: “The anchorage even in settled weather is subject to violent downdraughts which are capable of ‘blowing an anchor out’”.

A treacherous anchorage

As it happens, I don’t think I’d actually decided in advance to overnight at Loch Scavaig – I was rather aiming for Soay – a small island to its south almost carved

PHOTO: DEREK MCDOUGALL/ISTOCK

PHOTO: MARK DEAN/ISTOCK

in two by a perfectly sheltered anchorage before you reach Loch Scavaig. But the anchorage at Soay has a narrow entrance with shallows that you can only cross after half tide; and I’d arrived too early, missed the opening in any case, and since there was a favourable breeze, found myself ghosting onwards towards Loch Scavaig itself. It was a very grey day, there had been rain showers and the surrounding mountains were shrouded in mist. I had the Sailing Directions open in the cockpit as we were drawn inexorably into this vast grey amphitheatre – a towering

horseshoe. Soon I was reaching a point of no return. Should I turn and tack my way out, or drop sails and feel my way by engine into the anchorage at the head of loch? With a degree of trepidation – because the Loch becomes progressively more complicated with rocks and islets the further in you go – I carried on, glancing as we went at the sailing directions. There was no sign of any other vessel – there had been none all day – not so unusual at the end of the season. So Tethys felt very small and very solitary as we felt our way past hazards deeper into

The chart illustrates the tricky nature of the approach BELOW

Camasunary Beach, just to the east of Loch Scavaig and equally lonely

the Loch. Finally, we fetched up in the most innermost pool, Loch na Cuilce, and anchored enclosed on one side by the semi-circular shore and on the seaward side by an island stretching out from near the shoreline. The shoreline itself rises for the most part as steep cliffs; and waters from the recent rains were tumbling vertically down its sides.

Threatening weather

Anchoring is both an art and a science. You need to take account of the current depth, the likely rise and fall of the tide, the nature of the

PHOTO: LUCENTIUS/ISTOCK

sea-bed (sand, mud or rock), the distance off potential hazards, and any forecast changes in conditions. It can take me two or three attempts to get it right. I think on this occasion it seemed OK on the second attempt. There were seals on the island, a small white cottage or bothy for climbers and a tiny jetty for landing or picking up walkers exploring the Cuillins. My main concern now was with how the weather – especially the wind – might change overnight. I’d come in on a southerly breeze and the boat had settled at anchor pointing southwards out towards to a brightening sky. But I knew from the forecasts that the breeze could veer to the north by the morning. Once the breeze (or worse still, a strong wind) settled in from the north, the anchorage would be subject to violent downdraughts from the encircling mountains. But, for the time being, things looked settled enough; I fixed supper, tried to take in the immensities of that natural scene; but at the back of my mind I was thinking that I needed to be out smartly in the morning, especially if Tethys had swung on her anchor in the night. Indeed, I slept on one of the side bunks fully clothed just in case things changed suddenly in the dark. In the early morning things still seemed fairly peaceful, even though a light breeze had shifted to the north; so I slowly started to gather myself in preparation for leaving. Then I did a strange thing. The sink was full of dirty dishes from supper

and, despite feeling that the breeze was picking up a little, I started unaccountably to wash them. By the time I’d finished stowing them Tethys was beginning to stir restlessly and shift about and yaw at her anchor.

Raising the anchor

Setting the anchor may be an art or a science but raising it can sometimes require a degree of sheer, brute force. By the time I had the engine ticking over and had made my way forwards to the bow to raise anchor, the anchor chain was no longer hanging downwards in a graceful catenary like the night before, but was stretched forwards – near horizontal – and bar tight from the bow; certainly it was time for Tethys to be clearing out of the anchorage. But the force of the wind was already so strong that I could hardly turn the anchor winch. Relying simply on my own strength I knew I would not be able to raise anchor. I needed somehow to take pressure off the chain. The favoured solution in these circumstances is to motor forward slowly in the direction of the anchor. This would take pressure off the chain and would allow me to winch in a stretch before the wind blew Tethys backwards and the chain go bar tight again. This manoeuvre, however, required me to return from bow to stern to engage the engine and steer forwards, before rapidly retracing my steps the length of the boat to the bow in order to winch in the length of slackened chain. Using

one of the tumbling waterfalls on the shore as a directional mark to steer towards, and then using the bothy on the shore as a lateral mark to gauge movement fore and aft over the ground, I set to work: first motoring gently forwards, hopefully towards the anchor; and then stepping swiftly forward the full length of the boat from the stern to the bow to winch in any slackened chain; then back to the stern to motor forwards again. The first two or three attempts paid off. I was gradually able to shorten chain. Then came the tricky moment of actually breaking out the anchor. Once this happened the boat would be no longer be secured to the sea-bed and would float in whatever direction the wind took her – and this in the confined space of the anchorage surrounded by rocky shore on all sides with the seals looking on sarcastically at the scene from the islet close by.

I would have to be quick and nimble once the anchor was broken out, winding in the last metres of chain before regaining the cockpit to steer Tethys free of any rocks out towards open water. Working hard, I got most of the chain up; and with the anchor now swinging below the bow, steered out past the island with the motor barely ticking over, just enough to ensure steerage towards open water. We managed to avoid the charted but covered rock as we rounded the island and now the boat began to rapidly pick up momentum as the ever-rising

ABOVE The anchorage on a calm day

PHOTO: COLE DELANCEY/ISTOCK