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CHANNEL CROSSING
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Short-handed lessons learned
BOAT TEST
Eco cat that sold 150 off-plan! Dee and Shirley
Round Britain & Ireland together
HOW TO
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FRENCH RIVER DREAM
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ROUND THE ISLAND RACE
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Navigate like a pro Avoid drying-out mishaps Win from the committee boat end
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B A R E B O AT
| POWER | SKIPPERED | CREWED
REGULARS
10 News 32 Paul Heiney 34 Andy Rice 43 Tom Cunliffe There’s nothing worse than a flat battery except perhaps an overcharged one
98 Jess Lloyd-Mostyn
UNDER SAIL 26 Vive La Rance
Brian Ferguson takes the inland route through the Breton peninsula
18
46 Round the Island A look back on an action packed race
54 Caught on camera
26
Behind the scenes in a new documentary that lifts the lid on the British Sailing Team
56 English Channel crossing A rollercoaster ride to France in a 22’ boat
71 Charter ownership An overview of the different options
74 Gulls Eye Discover Braye Harbour in Alderney
78 Interview: Dee Caffari and Shirley Robertson We catch up with two great names as they prep for the Round Britain and Ireland race
BOATS
16 New boats special An overview of a year’s worth of new boats ahead of boat show season
36 63
69
36 Tested: Fountaine Pajot’s Aura catamaran A blue water multihull blending comfort and performance
92 Three of the Best Three of the finest brokerage boats
56
EXPERT’S FORUM
85 Expert’s Forum
From race tactics to cruising conundrums
GEAR
63 Buyer’s Guide Safety kit
69 Launched Our picks and reviews
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting NOVEMBER 2020
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Welcome
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Sam Jefferson 020 3943 9261 sam.jefferson@chelseamagazines.com Georgie Corlett-Pitt georgie.corlett-pitt@chelseamagazines.com GROUP EDITOR Rob Peake ART & PRODUCTION EDITOR Gareth Lloyd Jones PUBLISHING CONSULTANT Martin Nott PUBLISHER Simon Temlett simon.temlett@chelseamagazines.com ADVERTISING ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER Mark Harrington 020 7349 3734 mark.harrington@chelseamagazines.com SENIOR SALES EXECUTIVE Charlene Homewood 020 7349 3779 charlene.homewood@chelseamagazines.com GROUP SALES DIRECTOR Catherine Chapman HEAD OF SALES OPERATIONS Jodie Green ADVERTISEMENT PRODUCTION Allpoints Media Ltd allpointsmedia.co.uk CHAIRMAN Paul Dobson CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Vicki Gavin MANAGING DIRECTOR James Dobson Published by: The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London, SW3 3TQ Tel: 020 7349 3700 © The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd 2020. All Rights Reserved. ISSN 1367-5869 (print) ISSN 2059-9285 (digital)
Subscriptions and back issues Tel: +44 (0) 1858 438769 Annual subscription rates: UK £70 ROW £90 Email: sailingtoday@subscription.co.uk Online: Did you know you can manage your subscription online? Oversee your print and digital subscriptions online today simply by signing up at https://www. subscription.co.uk/chelsea/Solo/. Stay up to date with the latest issues, update your personal details, and even renew your subscription with just a click of a button. Post: Sailing Today, Subscriptions Department, Chelsea Magazines, Tower House, Sovereign Park, Lathkill Street Market Harborough LE16 9EF
Skipper’s View THERE HAS BEEN A SPATE OF CUSTOMERS BUYING £1M PLUS BOATS WITHOUT EVEN TEST SAILING THEM. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? THIS ISSUE IS the one that whets your appetite for boat show season by giving you an overview of the boats available to buy. As ever, there is an extraordinary wealth of options out there if you have the means to buy new. And the fact is that more people than ever seem to have the means. I have tested five different new boats in the last month or so and every company has said that they simply cannot keep up with demand. For some small companies working in very small volumes of yachts produced per year, this is pretty much understandable, yet when you hear that companies like Beneteau - masters of mass production - are struggling to keep up with demand, this gives you pause for thought. I spoke to the brokers too who said that the number of people who were placing orders for million pound plus boats without even test sailing them was off the scale. Of course, much of this is the aftershock of Covid, with more people realising that life is short and determining to seize the day and take the plunge. - no matter what the cost. It can only be a good thing for the industry but I'm hoping that the magazine's own work in publishing boat tests might help guide a few of the more impulsive potential buyers to make a more informed decision. Elsewhere in the magazine we take a look at the latest safety kit. Articles on safety have always made me nervous because there used to be an awful lot of earnest focus on the safety side of sailing which led to the impression that sailing was extremely dangerous. I guess the equivalent would be picking up your latest issue of Top Gear and finding it full of articles about what to do in the event of a high speed collision. Yet sailing does have an uncanny knack of catching us out. On p56 I relate a trip I took across the English Channel. At the start of the trip I noted the anchor wasn't shackled on and absently thought we'd better sort that. Turned out it was buried in a locker and we decided we'd be ok. 26 hours later we sailed into a Fench port. The engine wouldn't start and, as the wind cut between high harbour walls and a current started pushing us back out, my first instinct was to chuck the anchor overboard....
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CONTRIBUTORS
No part of this magazine may be reproduced without permission in writing. Every care is taken to ensure the accuracy of information in Sailing Today, but no responsibility can be accepted for the consequences of actions based on the advice portrayed herein. The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd makes every effort to ensure that the advertising contained in this magazine is delivered from responsible sources. We cannot, however, accept any responsibility for transactions between readers and advertisers. For the Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd full set of terms and conditions please go to chelseamagazines.com/terms-and-conditions
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JESS LLOYD MOSTYN is a writer and blue water cruiser who is currently moored in Singapore
TOM CUNLIFFE is an author, journalist and TV presenter, and one of Britain's best-known cruising sailors
ANDY RICE is a journalist and veteran dinghy racer who has won championships at both ends of a skiff
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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With over 45 years experience Sunsail is committed to delivering a wide choice of exceptional sailing holidays full of fun and adventure in over 20 of the world’s best cruising grounds. Meet our team of expert Holiday Planners at the Southampton Boat Show from 16-25 September, who will be on hand to help build you the ultimate sailing holiday tailored to your experience and budget. Whether you are new to learning the ropes or you’re happiest at the helm we can help you enjoy a different kind of beach holiday.
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The Wight Stuff The annual Round the Island Race always dishes up its share of stunning shots and this year was no different. In near ideal weather conditions, competitors enjoyed a beam reach down the back of the Isle of Wight, with our photographer capturing a few as they roared past St Catherine’s Point. Turn to p46 for a full race round up. Photo: Joe McCarthy
News
Ebb and flow EVENTS | NEWS | TALES FROM THE SAILING COMMUNITY
Visitors to this year’s Southampton International Boat Show can take advantage of a new Quayside Club, offering three VIP packages. The Quayside Club will have three tranches. The White Sea VIP package includes “an official meet and greet on arrival at the show, entry into the show itself, a tour of the Waterfront Lounge, plus complimentary drinks and snacks for the duration of your visit”. Upgrade to the Coral Sea package and you will enjoy all the White Sea elements plus “you can sit back and relax with a delicious premium served gourmet buffet lunch overlooking the marina, in some of the best seats in the show”. The show organisers, British Marine, continue: “For those visitors looking for the ultimate opulent boat show experience, the Black Sea VIP package covers all your needs. Inclusive of all White and Coral Sea options, with the Black Sea package guests will also enjoy VIP parking, right at the heart of the show and access to the ‘On the Water’ stage private enclosure where you can watch amazing demonstrations including the Fliteboard show, flyboarding or remote-control racing. “Black Sea ticket holders can also sign up to an exclusive on the water boat experience and enjoy an amazing trip on one of four unique craft, including the F8 Landing Craft, Motor Gun Boat 81, a high speed thrill ride or even a twilight cruise with ‘bubbles’ on board the majestic tall ship Morgenster.” All VIP guests will also have the opportunity to take a tour of the show and will have access to a dedicated coat and bag drop off area.
SOUTHAMPTON BOAT SHOW
Visit Southampton Boat Show in style
British Marine CEO, Lesley Robinson, said: “This new addition to the show will provide visitors with an exclusive luxury experience never seen at the show before. Horse racing, music festivals, motor racing and many other events offer fantastic VIP packages, and we are confident our new Southampton International Boat Show VIP tickets will add an amazing new dynamic, alongside all that the show, the exhibitors and the industry has to offer.” To purchase VIP tickets visit southamptonboatshow.com/vip
Pip thrives as going gets tough off Iceland Pip Hare made the most of a shortened course in what turned out to be another tough Vendée Arctique race. The Poole sailor was 13th out of 25 elite sailors in the race, which started from Les Sables d’Olonne and was meant to go around Iceland and back. A serious storm coming in as the IMOCA fleet reached the seas south east of Iceland caused the organisers first to pause racing and then impose an early finish line. Hare, who was doing her second race in the new, foiling Medallia, said after crossing the finish line south east of Iceland on Saturday 18 June: “The sea state was brutal and I got a kicking, but I seem to have profited from the tough conditions. One minute there was 35 knots of wind, the next there was 8 knots. It came from all directions. Every time I thought I
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
could have a breather and a little nap, conditions would change again and I’d have to do something, so it was full on for the last 24 to 48 hours, but it’s been the same for everyone.” She said: “Of course I’d like to continue – I’m definitely an endurance athlete and I was just hitting my stride – but I know it’s a tough decision for the Race Committee and safety has to come first. I’m delighted to finish mid-fleet amongst similar boats to me at this point in my campaign and in these conditions. It’s a good benchmark to set and we have time to get even better. “The team has done a fantastic job for this race and I know we’re all happy to finish with the boat in one piece and a good chunk of Vendée Globe 2024 qualifying miles under our belt.”
PAUL WYETH/COWES WEEK
Cowes Week final entries Late entries can still be made for Cowes Week races, the day before each race. The regatta runs from 30 July to 5 August. The full fee applies for your class (as opposed to an early bird fee), but entries will be accepted until 5pm on the day prior to a race. Entries after 5pm on Wednesday 27 July must be made in person at the Regatta Office. Among the highlights this year is the official competitors’ ball on Wednesday 3 August, in conjunction with the Royal Ocean Racing Club. There are 300 tickets made available for the black-tie evening. The overall prize-giving will take place on the final Friday evening in the Event Centre at Cowes Yacht Haven, followed by the prize-giving party with
DJ Mark Covell back on the decks to reprise his popular 2021 appearance. Earlier this summer the regatta announced Visit Abu Dhabi as Presenting Sponsor, with a new annual winter regatta in Abu Dhabi organised with Global Mission in Abu Dhabi in late January. Meanwhile Cowes Week has announced Mount Gay Rum as the Official Rum for the event. The Mount Gay Rum Red Cap Party will be back in 2022, with the drinks brand sponsoring the Cowes Week Competitors Opening Party on Saturday 30 July. Taking place in the Event Centre at Cowes Yacht Haven, the party is free and exclusive to competitors, with a coveted Red Cap for the first 500 ticket holders to arrive. cowesweek.co.uk
SAILGP
SailGP Plymouth tickets still for sale As this magazine hits the newsstands in the UK, it’s just a week to go until SailGP Plymouth, with tickets still on sale for the event, over the weekend of 30-31 July. There are options to watch from the Hoe (a grassy area overlooking Plymouth Sound), from official spectactor boats or from your own boat around the race course. The Plymouth event will be the third in the global championship’s calendar, following opening events in Bermuda and Chicago. It follows a successful event last year, also run in partnership with Plymouth City Council, which drew an estimated 27,500 spectators. The F50s will race on the Sound, with three fleet races on Saturday and a further two followed by the final on Sunday. Weather and wind permitting, the finish line will be directly opposite the ‘Fan Village’, located at Hoe Park. Once again, the ‘Fan Village’ is expected to be be buzzing, and admission tickets are available to buy online (adults from £4.75; children free). Ticket holders can expect live commentary and large screens, athlete appearances and the winner’s presentation live on stage, sponsor activations, live music, plus food and beverages. Waterfront Premium tickets (adults from £45; children £23) allow access to an area within the official Fan Village giving “the best vantage point, commentary and big screens, plus complimentary drinks, extra dining options, comfy seating, and luxury toilets”.
SailGP has partnered with Plymouth Boat Trips to offer official spectator boats, giving “the closest vantage point to the racing. Premium tickets are available (from £130), which include exclusive access, refreshments during the three hour trip, and carbon offsetting”. If you are planning to watch the action from your own boat, you can watch for free from an area approximately 100 metres outside the exclusion zone. Register online in advance to receive all the essential race course details, and tune in to live commentary via VHF. For more information and for further options, visit sailgp.com
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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News
Primetime viewing for Women’s America’s Cup The America’s Cup organisers have revealed more about the new events for female and youth sailors, which will take place on the America’s Cup racecourse off the Barcelona waterfront during the final stages of the knockout rounds and the opening of America’s Cup match itself, in the summer of 2024. America’s Cup Event CEO Grant Dalton said: “As we have always intended, the Women’s and Youth America’s Cup events are going to be major draw cards of the 37th America’s Cup, and we want to give them the exposure these athletes and teams deserve. It won’t just be the fans and audience who are watching these events – the teams themselves will be keeping a laser-focus on the emerging talent with an eye towards the make-up of their teams for the 38th America’s Cup.” The initial scheduling shows the Women’s America’s Cup final match race being held on a race day of the America’s Cup match itself, ensuring prime-time exposure in front of the expected large crowds along the Barcelona waterfront and broadcast viewers (including free viewing online, which Dalton has also confirmed). There will be up to 12 teams split into two pools of six for an initial fleet race series. The first pool will be comprised of the teams entered in the America’s Cup; the second pool will be formed by the independent yacht
club entries that qualify to enter under the nationality clause of the 37th America’s Cup Protocol. The top three teams from each pool progress to a final series of fleet races, to decide the top two teams to compete in a single match-race final. It throws up an interesting variation between fleet and match racing, in a fleet of six one-design AC40s, which are yet to be built, supplied by the America’s Cup teams. Off the water, a shared shore and technical support team will be provided by the organisers to facilitate cost savings and to ensure consistency across the fleet. For the Youth America’s Cup, the crews can be made up of male, female or mixed crews, all of whom must be 25 or under. All of the crew sailing each yacht in each race must be nationals of the country of the yacht club that the team represents. The encourage entries, a team may be considered to be from an ‘emerging nation’ or be eligible to receive a dispensation from the crew nationality requirements, to allow a specific number of approved nonnationals on the AC40. Entry criteria and expressions of interest will open to prospective teams on 1 October, with “significant global interest already registered”. Dalton said that “teams are beginning to form over the northern hemisphere summer with foiling and high-performance talent being courted”.
IMAGE CREDIT: PEDRO MARTINEZ/SAILING ENERGY
49er torch passes as race to Paris 2024 hots up
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After the glory of 49er gold in Tokyo, won by Stuart Bithell and Dylan Fletcher, the torch in the British squad has passed to their old rivals, James Peters and Fynn Sterritt. Peters and Sterritt narrowly lost out in the selection battle, back in 2019, after having won some major regattas in 2018. Now the duo are back to their winning ways and with Bithell retired from Olympic competition and Fletcher also having announced his retirement in July, it seems they are the team to beat. In the recent 49er European Championships, which included US, Canadian, Australian, NZ and south American crews, Peters and Sterritt were a solid third. It’s a huge boost for the pair after taking time away from competition over the Tokyo Games and their return to sailing being hampered by injury. SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
At Kiel Week earlier this year they beat a 91-boat fleet that included Tokyo fourth-place finisher Diego Botin Le Chever and 2018 world champions Sime and Mihovil Fantela. Peters said: “Kiel Week certainly exceeded our expectations. We had started to see some things click after slower progress to our return, but we didn’t expect to win. A top ten was what we were aiming for, so we were super-stoked to come away on top. “We knew we had a strong package going into the Europeans, capable of being fast across all conditions. The intensity we’re reaching as a team is closer to what it’s going to need to be to make it to Paris. It felt like we were a bit behind schedule but now we’ve jumped up to where we’d hoped we’d be at this stage, which is a really nice feeling.” The Paris 2024 Olympic sailing regatta will be held in the bay of Marseille, just two years from now.
Big cheers for first Green Innovator Award The first Green Innovator Award was presented at MDL’s Green Tech Boat Show on 17 June to ePropulsion UK. Technology and motorsports presenter Nikki Dean presented the trophy with MDL’s Tim Mayer, who organised the show to help promote established and emerging green products in the marine market. “We’re delighted to win the first Green Innovator Award, especially with the quality of product and innovation being shown by the other companies here at this year’s Green Tech Boat Show,” said Steve Bruce from ePropulsion UK, the distributor of ePropulsion’s electric marine products across the UK. “We’ve been pushing sustainable boating and electric propulsion since 2014 and we’re pleased to be recognised for our endeavours in this arena.” Coming in a close second was Pixii Electric Boats, showcasing its pioneering electric boats, which are built using recyclable materials. Ecomotus, with its catalytic hydrogen system designed to reduce emissions and work in harmony with existing internal combustion engines, came in third place. Thirty per cent bigger than last year, MDL’s Green Tech Boat Show took place at MDL’s
Queen Anne’s Battery marina in Plymouth, highlighting eco-friendly products and services. With 30 exhibitors and over 600 people attending the two-day show, MDL deemed the show a huge success in bringing together green businesses and potential buyers, as well as boating enthusiasts keen to understand the sustainable options available to them. “We’re delighted with how the show is growing and becoming such an important platform for the marine industry to show how it’s innovating to help combat climate change,” said Tim Mayer, sales and marketing director at MDL. “It’s wonderful to see the number of
exhibitors increasing, and whether they’re start-ups or established businesses expanding their portfolios, they all have one thing in common – a passion to make boating more sustainable so that it can be enjoyed for years to come.” Darren Kirby of RanMarine Technology, showcasing its waterborne waste collecting WasteShark, said: “It really is encouraging to see the level of innovation and talk to like-minded industry professionals about the benefits we can have collectively on our environments.” Richard Lythgoe of systems specialist Vetus said: “We feel the marine industry is following the automotive industry in terms of green technology and feel the demand for more environmentally friendly products will only increase in the future.” New to this year’s show was the Innovation Hub, sponsored by University of Plymouth, with a series of free talks on research projects underway to safeguard the marine environment. The virtual version of the show, which returns to Plymouth next year, is available on the MDL Marinas’ website via mdlmarinas.co.uk/ green-tech-virtual-boat-show
MP backs safety at sea
Orca-spotting for sailors
Local Conservative MP for Fareham, Suella Braverman, visited Warsash Sailing Club in July to discuss safety initiatives within sailing with the RYA. The visit came ahead of Maritime Safety Week, an annual event held by the Department for Transport to encourage the sharing of safety knowledge within the sector. RYA representatives took the opportunity to show Suella the RYA SafeTrx app, a vessel tracking app which alerts emergency contacts should the user not arrive at their destination on time. The representatives showed how the app can also work as a practical tool, providing the knowledge to be safer at sea with weather information, port and marina contacts and VHF details based on the vessel’s location. Suella said: “I have had a wonderful afternoon meeting with the RYA and Warsash Sailing Club members. Vibrant sports clubs such as this are vital hubs in our communities. It is important that people get trained and follow safety best practices whilst enjoying being on the water, joining a club or undertaking a training course is a great way to get started. Having the chance to get afloat myself today was a fantastic experience.” During the visit, Suella was delighted to take up the offer to join Ian Walker, RYA Director of Racing and Warsash Sailing Club member, and Rachel Andrews, RYA Chief Instructor Power, out on the water in an RS dinghy. Ian said: “Going afloat is a great way to learn new skills, grow in confidence and to meet new friends. However, as more people head to the coast and the inland waterways, it is vital that we continue to highlight the benefits of following good safety practice.”
The Cruising Association is inviting sailors to report sightings or interactions with orcas and tuna off the Iberian coast, following a spate of incidents last year. A number of yachts reported being ‘attacked’ by orcas along the south and west coasts of Spain and Portugal, a phenomenon that is understood to be linked with the migration of tuna exiting the Mediterranean from the Strait of Gibraltar and heading west and north around the Iberian Peninsula, primarily between the months of June and October. The Cruising Association partnered with a Spanish group, Groupo Trabajo Orca Atlantica (GTOA), to gather data and consequently launched a new online orca reporting form in early June 2022. The reports received so far are available online at theca.org.uk/orcas/reports The CA and GTOA investigations aim to establish if environmental, weather and vessel factors have any measurable impact on the likelihood of an orca interaction or “uneventful passage”. “To maximise the effectiveness of the online reporting project, the Cruising Association encourages skippers of sail and motor boats to submit reports right through until the tuna migration season ends around October,” said Derek Lumb, CA president. “Once we have sufficient reports, the aim is to compare a statistical summary of data received against the same data set reported by boats on passage through the affected area without an interaction.” Submit and view reports via theca.org.uk/orcas Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Ocean Shipyard sea-trials first Southerly 48 handle any passage. Our focus now turns onto the next Southerly 48, due to launch and the end of the year, and a busy 2023 planned with the first of a new generation of Southerly 42 launching. We at Ocean Shipyard Limited are really excited for the future of the Southerly range.” The Southerly 48 was voted The Bluewater Cruiser of the Year at the 2019 British Yachting Awards. Ocean Shipyard Ltd has secured the exclusive rights to build Southerly yachts and Bluewater catamarans. The yard also offers shipyard services to other marine and non-marine businesses and clients, including joinery and refit facilities.
The first Southerly 48 to be built and launched by Ocean Shipyard Limited has hit the water and undergone successful sea trials off Southampton. The boat is the first launched by the company, which took over the site of Discovery Shipyard in Southampton last year. Managing Director Steve Edwards said: “We are delighted to have successfully completed and launched a brand new Southerly 48, with a number of sea trials having taken place in the Solent to put her through her paces. “A lot of hours and dedication has gone into producing a sailing yacht that is not only easy to sail, but stable and solid enough to
Position: The e-sailer Virtually brilliant at setting a spinnaker... The e-sailer is a quiet type. Not one for histrionics, the e-sailer prefers to keep their head down, their emotions in check, their focus intent. The game. It’s all about the game. Never mind what semtexwahoola34 is doing over there with his spinnaker up, the consumate e-sailer keeps their mind on pressing the right buttons, motionless as they cross a virtual sea on a virtual boat. Masefield might scratch his head, but the e-sailer is governed more by logic than emotion. And make no mistake, the e-sailer might hitherto have barely left their bedroom in their quest to rule the waves, but he or she has a solid grasp of the nuances of Rule 14. As their digits swiftly brush the touch screen this way and that, deftly controlling the configuration of pixels that make up a virtual 49er, or IMOCA 60, or AC75, and as their mind methodically processes the virtual implications of the looming virtual front over the virtual horizon, the e-sailer has no doubt they have this sailing thing nailed.
Masefield might scratch his head…
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
PA S SION . PERFORMANCE. PRECISION. THE NEW DEHLER 46SQ
MEET THE NEW DEHLER 46SQ AT
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
BEST NEW BOATS FOR
2023
It has been another bumper year for the boatbuilding industry. Sam Jefferson casts his eye over the latest launches in the last calendar year
DE CESARI 33 When plans were unveiled for the De Cesari 33 some years ago, this Ceccarelli design looked a bit like a wishful thinking scribble from the Italian designer. Well, clearly not, as the boat is now on the water and turning heads thanks to her distinctive looks and fine performance. This sits somewhere between modern classic and a sportsboat which is a confusing yet alluring spot. The boat is made of laminated mahogany with a teak deck. This gives the boat a modest displacement of 3,300kg while also providing a beautiful ambience down below. The interior is kept simple but elegant and the boat ids designed to be easily handled. This is not a racer more a fast weekender that will deliver you to your destination in style.
ceccarelliyachtdesign.com
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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New boats ~ Cruising yachts
GT 325 British boatbuilder GT Yachts hit the headlines some years ago by unveiling an exciting range of pure blooded cruisers that offered what they phrased as a sort of modern take on the classic Sadler range of cruisers. The company is now back with a big financial backer and a second boat, the Stephen Jones designed 325. A yacht that looks to fill the gap in the market for a small’ cruiser. The boat comes as standard with bilge keels (a single fin is an option), making her ideal for coastal cruising in The UK and across the channel. The boat can accommodate six and offers generous volume. gtyachts.com
BENETEAU OCEANIS 60 The Beneteau Oceanis Yacht 60 follows on from the launch in 2020 of the 54 as part of their top end range of large, luxurious yachts. To this end, the design team of Roberto Biscontini and Lorenzo Argento have created a yacht that has plenty of style mixed with cruising comfort. The hull is actually rather sleek with a low, wedge shaped coachroof and aggressive lines giving the boat an air of real purpose. beneteau.com
HANSE 460 Hanse’s all new 460 replaces the 458 and the big news is that the Germans have broken with their go to designer Judel/Vrolijk and instead have gone with the French design house of Berret/Racoupeau who are best known in the cruising world for their work with Jeaneau and Beneteau. The result is a boat that is much beamier - 4.79m compared to 4.38m for the 458, heavier - 12,560kg compared to 11.700kg, and incorporating the recent trend towards fuller forward sections. The result is a boat that boasts even more interior volume than its predecessor. Inspirationmarine.co.uk
DUFOUR 32 French manufacturer Dufour has unveiled an interesting take on an entry level yacht with its all new 32 which features a range of thoughtful and sometimes innovative solutions to age old design conundrums. Perhaps the most notable is the inflatable bathing platform which encloses the cockpit but can be dropped down to provide either a standard bathing platform or detached to serve as a sort of mini stand up paddleboard. It is, if nothing else, intriguing. Aside from that, this Felci design features wide hindquarters and champagne glass shaped forward sections which all add up to masses of volume for a relatively small boat. universalyachting.com
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
New boats ~ Performance cruisers
ELAN E6 Slovenian manufacturer Elan’s new 47 footer that is part of their ‘E’ range of cruiser/racers. The new boat is designed by Rob Humphreys but the company has branched out by asking Pininfarina design house, probably best known for their work on Ferrari cars, to work on the deck details and general styling. You may recall that the GT6 enjoyed styling by Studio F A Porsche with pleasing and innovative results and that success looks like it will be repeated as the boat is a definite head turner. Bear in mind that Pninifarina has pedigree working in the yachting world with companies such as Wally and you have a winning formula. A very stylish fast cruiser with decent accommodation and a good turn of speed. elan-yachts.com
GRAND SOLEIL 40 PERFORMANCE Grand Soleil is hoping to build on it’s success garnered in the ORC by the Grand Soleil 44 with the new 40 Performance. The boat is designed by Mateo Polli, who has enjoyed success with Italia Yachts and also designed the ORC World Championship winning 44. The 40 is an evolution of the 44 and light air performance is made a priority. To this end, the entrance is long and fine with maximum beam – a substantial 4.07m - kept well aft although the run is relatively fine providing relatively low wetted surface area on an even keel. grandsoleil.net
ARCONA 50 Swedish manufacturer Arcona Yachts has made an art form out of turning out fast cruising yachts that are great fun to sail. The new 50 is their largest offering to date. The new 50 represents a departure in many ways as this is the first Arcona to be designed by Niels Jeppeson – who many will recognise as the former CEO of X Yachts. Jeppeson is now on the board at Arcona and teamed up with Ariadna Pons to draw up a fine looking 50 foot yacht. arconayachts.se
DEHLER 46 SQ The Dehler 46 first hit the market back in 2016 and this Judel/Vrolijk design proved itself to be a polished performer, striking a pleasing balance between performance and comfort which is, after all, the key to producing a successful cruiser racer. The manufacturers have decided that it is time for a bit of a refresh and, rather than go for a full on redesign, have stuck with the same hull but with significant modifications. Perhaps the most striking one is the interior which is lighter thanks to bigger portlights and brighter materials, Inspirationmarine.co.uk
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New boats ~ Racing yachts
BENETEAU FIRST 36 Beneteau made an incredibly shrewd move when it took control of operations at Slovenian boatbuilder Seascape and set about bending these superb and very innovative sportsboats to their vision. The design for the new First 36 brief is ambitious; a boat that needs to plane in medium winds whether with a full crew or shorthanded while also being a boat that you can live with/on in the tradition of the First 40.7, for example. Not easy but the boat, designed by Seascape stalwart Sam Manouard, has proved itself a strong performer. beneteau.com
PERSICO FLY 40 The recent innovations pioneered in the AC 75 America’s Cup class are showcased in miniature in the Persico Fly 40. This 40’ one design racing yacht is set to hit the water in 2023 and uses many of the principles seen in the Luna Rossa America’s Cup campaign, which Persico Marine was intimately involved with. This foiling monohull is designed to take flights in 7kn of true wind speed and can accommodate a crew of 4-5. Maximum speed is projected to be a somewhat hair raising 40kn. persicomarine.com
SCUDERIA 65 Austrian yacht designer Harry Miesbauer is based on the shores of Lake Como and he has designed this rather impressive Scuderia 65. Not only that but he has had the boat built, launched and sailed – so he definitely means business. This all carbon monster was designed to cut a dash on the race course while also being comfortable and easy to sail. The results have been compelling and the boat has picked up results in events such as the Aegan 600, around the Greek islands, or the Cinquanta or the Barcelona Race. masteryachting.com
NACIRA 69 The Nacira 69 has been built by Italian boatbuilder Vismara who specialise in custom yachts with plenty of speed combined with luxury. The boat has been designed by Guillaume Verdier who has produced an all carbon speed machine that can also be cruised. The boat is big at 69’ with lots of beam (5.8m) carried right aft. There is a hard chine and twin rudders while the keel is unusual in that it has a hydraulic mechanism which allows it to both cant and also lift. Carbon construction keeps the weight down to 18,800kg hinting at ferocious offwind capabilities. vismara.it
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New boats ~ Multihulls
WINDELO 54 Elder sister of the Windelo 50, the Windelo 54 is an ocean-cruising catamaran designed by architect duo Christophe Barreau and Fréderic Neuman. The emphasis is on performance cruising and the boat picks up where the Windelo 50 left off in terms of immovation, with a forward cockpit, electric motors and a plethora of other innovative touches such as environmentally friendly basalt fibres used in construction. A serious blue water cruiser with green credentials. Windelo-catamaran.com
EXCESS 14 Excess catamarans is an offshoot of Lagoon Catamarans and the aim of Excess was to provide a little pizazz and draw in a younger audience. The first few models used existing Lagoon hulls but the project has now evolved and an entirely separate range is being developed. This is a process that started with the Excess 11 and now continues with the 14, designed by VPLP. The new boat is 44’ on the waterline and features the now trademark twin helms aft for better feel compared to the bridge deck arrangement. excess-catamarans.com
CATANA OCEAN CLASS French brand Catana has gained an admirable reputation for high quality fast cruising cats that will look after you on a blue water voyage and their new Ocean Class picks up where they’ve left off in the past. This all new 50 footer has been carefully thought out and features a unique saloon-cockpit concept which offers increased volume and comfort. The construction is carbon infusion which provides stiffness and a light displacement. Marry that with daggerboards, a decent sail area plus a well appointed interior space and you have a very desirable boat. catana.com
ORC 57 Marsaudon Composites have been hitting the headlines regularly in recent years due to eye opening results in regattas and races across the world. Yet these catamarans also offer decent levels of both comfort and space while also dishing up superlative performance. The Marc Lombard designed 57 is the biggest boat in the range yet and all that means more power and more speed. The boat certainly looks the part too. marsaudon-composites.com Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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New boats ~ Bluewater cruisers
CONTEST 49CS Contest Yachts has been providing top end blue water cruisers for decades now and has built a fine reputation. Their latest model sits in that key sub 50’ bracket and looks a strong rival to the Oyster 495. The boat is a bit of a break for Contest as it is their first sub 50’ yacht with an aft cockpit. Despite this, things are kept relatively snug for the cruiser as the helms are kept well forward and just abaft a nicely enclosed cockpit that would keep you feeling secure in a gale of wind. The interior is typically classy and standard accommodation features generous berths aft by the standards of most aft cockpit yachts. contestyachts.com
JEANNEAU 65 French boatbuilder Jeanneau broke the mould back in 2014 when it announced its all new ’mini superyacht’ the Jeanneau 64. Many argued that the demand for such a mammoth yacht would be limited. Well, they were wrong. The boat has been one of the biggest success stories of recent years and has been imitated by all of Jeanneau’s rivals. Anyway, skip forward some years and the company have finally put the 64 to pasture but are back with an all new 65 footer from the same design team of Andrew Winch and Philippe Briand. In fairness, this looks very much a mk2 version of the 64 that has been enlarged and refined. Nothing wrong with that of course. Anyway, the boat features top end
OVNI 370 Ovni’s new 370 is a real return to the company’s roots and will be the smallest boat in their existing range. The new design features relatively full forward sections which both boost volume and reduce pitching. Displacement is relatively modest at 9,400kg and there is the possibility to further improve performance by option for the performance rig which boosts sail area with a fat headed mainsail. alubat.com
ALLURES 51.9 French manufacturer Allures has built its name on producing rugged, aluminium ‘go anywhere’ yachts with a swing keel also providing shoal draft. The 51.9 is the latest addition to the range and takes over from the existing Allures 51. The new boat is markedly different in that it features broader stern sections and greater internal volume. There has also been a focus on providing increased amounts of light, with larger portlights and skylights creating a really pleasant ambience. Aside from that, the big change is a huge master cabin aft which takes up the full width of the aft end of the hull. allures.com
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
Vive La Rance!
PHOTOS: PAUL WYETH; VERTIGOFILMSTIM TIM BUTT; RORC
For some, La Rance is no more than a useful shortcut through the Breton peninsula. To those in the know such as Brian Ferguson, it’s so much more
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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La Rance
ver the years I suppose have read three or four magazine articles written by people who have used the Brittany canal system to get from St Malo on the north Brittany coast to Arzal in the south. The route provides a safe and much shorter passage which is not dependant on wind and weather. As a means of cutting short the journey to arrive at a chosen cruising area, all the articles naturally concentrated more on the speed of passage than appreciation of the journey. I wonder if more visitors from the UK should consider the canals as a holiday destination in their own right. Since moving to live permanently in Normandy, I have had several holidays on Cormoran, my Cornish Crabber, in and around the Rance estuary from St Malo through the lock in the Rance barrage, and then into the tidal Rance, then from the picturesque marina at Lyvet following the river to Dinan, the limit of navigation for vessels with masts.
Maritime Rance
The Maritime Rance itself is a delightful cruising area for small boats with its many ports and anchorages, well sheltered from bad weather and with plentiful access to restaurants and shops. I had always had an idea that it would be interesting to explore the canals upriver from Dinan after removing the mast and then to travel sedately through the canals under Cormoran’s single pot motor. Then in 2019, after forty five years of sail, I succumbed to the desire for more comfort and swapped sail for
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an Aquastar 27 motor cruiser, a twin engined, motor cruiser with a low enough air draught to negotiate all of the bridges, and drawing only eighty centimetres below the waterline, even the shallowest stretches of the system should pose no problems. What began as a two or three week holiday gradually extended to an eventual ten weeks as progress slowed in direct proportion to our enjoyment of the river passage and the towns villages and fascinating natural and historical features of this unique route through central Brittany. While there are several excellent guide books available for the canals which describe in detail the locks, bridges, facilities available for boats, distances, and all the relevant information for users of the canals, their scope is limited to a few hundred metres each side of the banks. It is therefore an idea to supplement the guide with a French IGN map of the adjacent area. There are many towns and villages within easy walking, or better yet cycling distance, which are not shown in the guide books. It would be wrong to think of a typical British canal when considering the Breton system, they are more accurately described as canalised rivers. Existing rivers were gradually straightened, with locks installed to maintain the depths necessary for commercial navigation
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
PRECEDING PAGE
The charming port of Dinan marks the upper end of the eastern side of the tidal Rance
ABOVE
The River Rance
BELOW LEFT
Quayside at Pont-Réan, water electricity, shops
BELOW RIGHT
A well known year round resident at Mordreuc
and in many places embankments were constructed to raise the bank sides, but for the most part the rivers meander along their original routes. The Rance climbs slowly until its highest point at Villemoran before beginning the decent towards Arzal. After this lock it becomes wider and deeper until at Rennes it becomes the Vilain river. Remember that when waiting for a lock to open in the uphill direction, keep a distance of around 50 metres as when the sluices open they will release about 250 tonnes of water in your direction. The Vilain has fewer locks and is a much wider waterway than the Rance with stretches around Redon and below being up to 150 yards wide. At Redon you have the choice of continuing to Arzal via the popular port of La Roche Bernard, or turning right onto the Canal Nantes a Brest towards Pontivy with the possibility of putting to sea at Lorient via the river Blavet. Unfortunately it is no longer possible to follow the canal to Brest due to a large hydro-electric dam at Guerledan. Alternatively you can turn left toward the City of Nantes.
Getting There
Evidently owners of seagoing cruisers sail and with previous experience of making their way to the Brittany coast need no advice or guidance on Channel crossing. But anyone with a trailer sailor can take advantage of the ferry service to St Malo. Here you can either launch at the port or drive the short distance to any of the numerous launching ramps at locations inside the Rance barrage. If the intention was to travel solely in the canal, an owner could opt to leave mast and sails at home in the UK and use a trailed yacht
as a temporary motor cruiser. It is worth pointing out that anyone arriving by Ferry with their boat on a trailer will avoid all of the port of entry and customs registration necessary for boats arriving by sea as this will all be completed as you disembark at the ferry port.
Navigating in the canals The canals are open to almost all boats, I have seen open rowing boats and canoes whose occupants were happy to camp at the many places provided along the banks. Very small boats are generally not allowed in the locks alone and have to go alongside a larger boat with adequate mooring lines. Boats should have two fifteen metre lines, one for each of the fore and aft bollards in the lock. There are vertical ropes or chains on both walls in the locks but it is not permitted to tie up to these as they are for the safety and recovery of people falling into the water. Fenders are best positioned both high and low on the hull as when the lock is full there may only be 20 centimetres between the water surface and the top of the wall. All the locks are operated for you by lock keepers, some manning two or three locks each and travelling between each by bicycle. Generally, they will ask you how far you are going in order to plan for other boats travelling at the same time.
It is generally easier to moor in each lock on the side with the lock keepers control console, they are on the same side of the canal as the lock keepers cottages which are generally visible from a distance as you approach. The guide books give a maximum depth of water for navigation of 1.6 metres, this however does not refer to the depth in the canals which varies with rainfall, weed growth and dredging. It is the minimum depth available between the water level and the solid granite sill at the base of the entrance to the locks. (Remember in fresh water your boat will sit deeper on its marks). Bridge heights are quoted as 2.5 metres but this is the minimum height at each side of the arch, the middle is considerably higher. My boat Safina is 2.9 metres at the middle of her folded antennae assembly, and we have had no problems passing under any of the bridges. Many of the people who work on the canals are students with summer positions, but all are friendly and helpful and most have a good understanding of English. The locks operate from 09.00 to 12.30 then 13.30 until 19.15 A printed sheet of all their telephone numbers is available each year from any of the locks.
Stopping Places
Every lock has waiting pontoons at
ABOVE LEFT
A bird's eye view of maritime Rance with the coast in the background
BELOW LEFT
Canalside sculpture at Redon
BELOW CENTRE
Plenty of fenders in the lock
BELOW RIGHT
one of hundreds of free mooring pontoons situated along the river
each end and many have water and a few are supplied with electricity. They are an ideal place to stop either for lunch or overnight as generally they are in the vicinity of a town or village. Strictly speaking the lock pontoons are for overnight stops or when the locks are closed but in practice this is not enforced, though it is polite to inform the staff that you are not planning to continue any further that day. All towns and villages provide pontoons or quaysides, almost always with water and electricity (take a long shore power cable) and in larger towns, toilets and showers. Many waterside bars and restaurants also offer moorings to attract passing trade. Mooring to the bank is permitted but getting alongside may be hazardous due to shallows. With the exception of the marinas at Dinan, Messac, Redon and La Roche Bernard, all moorings are free of charge. Boat fuel is available on the canal only at Messac, but there are plenty of supermarket garages at towns alongside, so take a jerry can and a luggage trolley.
En Route
There are more than five hundred kilometres of navigable waterways within the “Voies navigables de Bretagne” and how much of the system you might wish to explore is limited by time,
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La Rance
speed and how easily you are distracted by your surroundings. Among some of the towns worth visiting along the way are Betton, a new town built sympathetically around an existing canal side settlement. Everything about the town seems to have been designed for the facility of its inhabitants. All existing trees and natural features have been built around and an extensive green space of with lakes, islands, and a canoeing river, furnished with dozens of picnic tables and cycle paths, surrounds one side of the town. Betton’s Sunday market is one of the best in Brittany. The city of Rennes with its impressive medieval centre is 14 km downstream. Stopping in Rennes itself is problematical, extensive development alongside the river mean that there are presently no comfortable berths or any secure facilities to receive visitors in the city centre. Public transport in Brittany is excellent and very inexpensive and there is a regular fifteen minute bus service from Betton to Rennes city centre. From Rennes the Vilaine gradually widens and the speed limit increases from 6 to 10 kilometres per hour. For course fishing enthusiasts the canals are ideal the clean water teams with fish and temporary fishing licences by the week can be obtained from most newsagents or tobacconists. The canals also support a healthy population of large American signal
crayfish, the trapping of which is encouraged by the water authorities. The towpaths are maintained and kept in good repair on both banks and are considered part of the national footpath system. The only real hazard to navigation in the canals can be the large rented cruisers or “penichettes” which operate in the vicinity of Messac. In France if you wish to drive a motor boat with an engine bigger than 6hp you need to take lessons followed by a written and practical test to obtain a licence. However, in typically French fashion, this does not apply to rented boats, even very big ones.
ABOVE LEFT
the anchorage at Plouer sur Rance
ABOVE CENTRE
Yacht to motor cruiser conversion
ABOVE RIGHT
the port of Redon on the Vilaine. There is a new fuel berth here, available 24/7 and operates with credit cards. It is also priced at the same rate as supermarket fuel pumps
BELOW
The quayside at Taden above Lyvet lock
Paperwork
You will need a passport for each crew member and your boats papers. SSR, third party insurance, an international certificate of competence, unless your motor is 6hp or less, or if your boat is
primarily a sailing vessel and the engine is therefore considered an auxiliary engine. You do not however require a CEVNI qualification. The Brittany canal system is a uniquely leisure facility with no commercial traffic, and because its locks do not function after the early evening there is no night time navigation and no light signals. If you have a VHF radio, one member of the crew should possess an operator’s licence. Finally, for British visitors, once you have entered France your visit will be limited to 90 days in any 180 day period. This applies equally to visitors arriving by ferry or sailing to France.
Useful information Guide books Guide Fluvial No 01 éditions du Breil Guide Chagnon Carto Guide Fluvial No 10 Fluviacarte No 12 All the books are printed in both English and French, the Guide fluvial No 1 is available by post from “Le Boat” boat rentals at the marina at Messac telephone 0033 299346011 French tourist map. IGN D35 Ille et Vilain Dinan to Arzal, 222km with 60 locks Dinan –Rennes 85km with 47 locks, Rennes-Arzal137km 13 with locks. Maximum speed 6kmh in the Rance 10kmh in the Villain. www.brittanytourism.com has a wealth of information and contact details all in English
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Paul Heiney gear failure aboard a normal boat is simply a fact of life but the feeling of being stranded in a desolate marina far from home can be a grim one - and often the fault is easier to cure than you imagine
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met a sad looking couple this summer. They’d spent weeks planning their cruise, dreaming of getting away from the treadmill, feeling the breeze, relishing the slow rise of the swell. And why the gloom? Because they were stuck in an indifferent marina, in a gloomy little town set amidst a dreary landscape. Let’s be honest - not all marinas are a joy to be in. I felt very sorry for them. We all suffer breakdowns and learn to cope with the slog of getting them fixed in places far from home; waiting three days for a spare part, then remember it’s a bank holiday so make that four. Or we pace the pontoon ready to greet the engineer who swore he’d be there by ten, it’s half past and no sign. This couple had been through all this, but their problem was more unusual than most. They weren’t suffering from a broken part that could be fixed with a hammer or a spanner - they were suffering from a software error. They suspected that a malfunctioning wind sensor was causing the plotter to crash. They could cope with that because they had paper charts and a compass and knew how to use them. But at the very end of their lengthy and state-of-the-art chain of electronics was the autopilot, which they couldn’t do without as a lengthy passage was planned. You can guess what’s coming next. After several visitors from many ‘experts’ each came to a different conclusion. One wanted to strip out the entire system, another thought it might be just a fuse. None of them sorted it, or offered any hope of a speedy conclusion. I wonder if they’re still there, waiting, hoping, longing for the digital interfaces to get off their backsides so they could get on with their cruise? I’ve always been suspicious of integrated systems. Stand-alone means that, at least, if one item fails the rest will work. But I have an advantage over some people when it comes to these things because I was once given a thorough grounding in the processes of fault-finding in electronic systems. It was back in the analogue days so it may seem outdated, but the principles still apply. I trained, in my early days, as a BBC technician. Things were always
breaking down, going intermittent, requiring to be fixed in an instant to prevent blank screens across the nation, or silent radios. The process was simple enough; you started at the beginning, worked logically through every stage in the chain, until a fault was eventually found. No skipping any steps, no guesswork. And very satisfying it was, and very rarely did the process result in failure. In fact, the joy of finding the fault, often under pressure, and fixing it, was one I fondly remember. I once put this to good use in mid Atlantic while trying to extract myself from the calms of the doldrums and into the liveliness of the trade winds. I was motoring under autopilot and suddenly felt the boat lurch. The autopilot was dead, as much use as a rubber band. The old instincts resurfaced. Start at the beginning and work forwards, urged my old tutor from beyond his grave. First stop was the switchboard, multimeter in hand. Was the power leaving there? It was. Good, now check the other end and see if it was arriving. No, it wasn’t. The fault is now narrowed down to the cabling between the two. Had it been a simple, straightforward run of wires, it would have been easy but the cable went in, out and roundabout and would have required a major dismantling of the cockpit. So I disconnected both ends, ran a hastily improvised cable between the two, connected them and to my great delight went happily on my way, autopilot buzzing as nicely as a hive of contented bees. Well, that was hardly enough to qualify me for a degree in electrical engineering, but without the instinct to apply logic and work through a process, even a simple one like this, I could have imagined blown output transistors, burnt out motors, melted circuit boards. It was only when I was eventually in harbour that I removed the suspect cable and found it had simply chafed against a piece of metal work in the twenty years since the boat had been built, only to finally part when I was five degrees north of the equator. And there is another piece of advice I was given for dealing with failures at sea - don’t think about what the broken item looks like, think what it did and plan from there. Hold onto that notion, then add a healthy dose of logic, and you won’t go far wrong.
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
HAVE YOUR SAY When it comes to the environment, where is the balance to be found? facebook.com/ sailingtoday @sailingtodaymag sailingtoday.co.uk
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‘The joy of finding the fault, often under pressure, and fixing it, was one I fondly remember’
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Andy Rice Professionalism in offshore racing can be a wonderful thing but it can also take some of the spirit of adventure. The Globe 40 brings a welcome dash ofCorinthian spirit back into the sport
T
here’s a universal truth about any fledgling sporting event: the more successful it becomes, the more professional it gets, until it teeters on the edge of pricing itself out of existence. OK, there are some exceptions to this rule, and you might think that the hugely successful Premiership in English football is one of the most obvious examples but even there many clubs struggle. The top end of sailing is paid for in the main by privately wealthy individuals. The America’s Cup has never really pretended to be anything other than a plaything for the megawealthy, although Russell Coutts spent the best of 10 years and many hundreds of millions of dollars of Larry Ellison’s money to try to turn the Cup into a commercially viable event. Where Coutts failed with the Cup and all the baggage that goes with its 172 years of history and tradition, he has now spent the past three seasons trying to prove the commercial model can work with a clean slate, SailGP. There are signs that SailGP might be starting to buck the trend. If anyone can turn our weird, niche sport into a global, commercial entity, it’s the relentlessly tenacious drive of Russell Coutts. What about the offshore world? The Whitbread Round the World Race started out fifty years ago primarily as a vehicle for keen amateur yachtsmen to live out their dreams of an adventure circumnavigating the globe. With every edition of the race, however, it became increasingly professional until the late 90s when it morphed into the Volvo Ocean Race. It has since been the sole preserve of professional sailors, whilst all the while struggling to attract sufficient sponsorship and commercial support to make the books balance. The professionalisation of round the world racing with the Volvo Ocean Race (now the Ocean Race) and the Vendée Globe has created a vacuum for new offshore adventures to spring up for those displaced amateurs. One of the latest examples is the Globe40, a round the world race which set out from Tangier, Morocco, in June. I visited Tangier to witness the seven Class 40 keelboats that set out from the start on a bright and breezy Sunday afternoon. The brainchild of well-known French event organiser Manfred Ramspacher, the Globe40 has many ingredients for long-term success. The first and most obvious is the Class 40, an extremely robust design that has stood the test of time. As one of the competitors, US sailor Joe Davis told me, “If we get caught up in really bad weather, I’m more worried about myself falling apart long before the boat will. They’re unbelievably strong and so well built.” Secondhand Class 40s are also fairly easy to buy and you can get a full race-ready package
for somewhere around €200,000. Another ingredient that could see this event through to its second edition and many more beyond is the choice of stopovers. It reads like a bucket list of places you must go before you die: Tangier - Cap Verde - Mauritius - Auckland - Tahiti - Ushuaia - Recife Grenada - Lorient. “These are wonderful stopovers,” says Davis. “Incredible places for us to sail to but also for friends and family to come and visit us while we’re there.” Indeed Davis’s wife, teenage daughter and his sister had flown from Maine across the Atlantic to Tangier to bid the American adventurer fair winds for his round-the-world voyage. They intend to visit him on a few more exotic stopovers in the coming months. Of the seven boats that made it to the start line, the teams were made up of either two amateurs or in some cases an amateur owner with a professional partner. There’s nothing to stop two professionals entering the race but if Ramspacher can do anything to prevent that, in my view he should. It would turn the race from an adventure into yet another professional grand prix yacht race, and the ones that we have are only just sustainable. Despite a very French organisation, surprisingly only one of the seven boats on the Tangier start line was French. And even that one did last very long. With experienced professional Nicolas Boidevezi called in at the eleventh hour to help the owner and skipper Eric Glosclaude race the first leg to Cap Verde after his son changed his mind about joining his dad on an offshore race, there was no time for this duo to work out how they were going to sail together effectively. Little more than five minutes after the start in a sunny 16 knots of breeze, as the fleet traded early tacks the French on port failed to notice the Canadian boat crossing on starboard. The resulting collision snapped the carbon bowsprit and any desire for the team to continue the race. Six boats going around the world is a small start for the Globe40, and it could have been so much more. The Covid pandemic had already put the start back by a year and a number of teams fell by the wayside. But with the next Globe40 due to start in three years’ time, Ramspacher has already received shows of interest from sailors in New Zealand, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. With boats in the current race representing Japan, Morocco, the Netherlands, Canada and two from the USA, it is perhaps to Ramspacher’s benefit that the French have little presence in the Globe40. Provided he can maintain a good balance of nations, and he can keep the incredible list of idyllic stopovers, and most of all limit the influence of professional sailors on the race, the Globe40 could well develop into one of the great classics for the amateur adventurer.
PHOTO: GLOBE 40
“The Globe40 could well develop into one of the great classics for the amateur adventurer”
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE The Globe 40 fleet hits the start line off Tangier
ANDY RICE As a sailing journalist and TV commentator Andy has unparalleled knowledge of the performance racing scene, from grassroots to elite level
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Boat Test - Aura 51
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A certain Aura Sam Fortescue meets Fountaine-Pajot’s latest cruising cat, blending comfort and sustainability
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Boat Test - Aura 51
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f you can sell over 150 catamarans off-plan before the resin has even hit the glassfibre, you know you must be doing something right. Despite costing more than a million Euros once fitted out and on the water, Fountaine-Pajot’s new 51 has done just that. It is perhaps one of the most extraordinary marketing feats in modern boatbuilding. So when the chance came to sneak an exclusive test-sail on the first hull to be launched, I didn’t need convincing. With the promise of a balmy 12-14 knots and double-digit temperatures, I climbed aboard a train bound for La Rochelle. Now, there are some 5,000 boats berthed in the city’s vast Port des Minimes, but it didn’t take long to find the Aura 51. A towering mast allied to her principal dimensions of 51ft LOA and 26ft 6in on the beam make her one of the larger sailing boats here. Sleek, harmonious lines with some reverse sheer to the deck and the athletic aft sweep of the slim coach roof give her the unmistakeable Fountaine-Pajot look. There’s the long-term design input of Berret-Racoupeau to thank for that. In fact, as we manoeuvred out of the marina later, the family resemblance was driven home by a full pontoon of Fountaine-Pajot catamarans awaiting their final commissioning.
An easy acquaintance
Although an imposing boat with towering topsides, the new Aura 51 is also surprisingly approachable. Two-up for our test sail, we stepped easily aboard at the skirt and had the boat ready to depart in a few short minutes. There was a tricky moment manoeuvring out of the marina, where a dredger had strewn a straggle of piping across the entrance. But from the bulkhead helm station, offset to starboard, visibility is excellent and it is easy to jockey the twin throttles and wheel. There is also an option for an aft-facing camera feeding into the 12in Garmin display on the console. After clearing the buoyed channel, it took no time to wrap the main halyard round one of the three Lewmar Evo winches at the helm and hoist the sail. The 120 per
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cent genoa is on a manual furler whose line comes off a block near the quarter and doubles back up to the helm station on the bulkhead to starboard, crossing the side deck as it does so. But the sheeting angle is nice and tight, with a short lead from clew to winch. We were soon skimming southwest on a beat towards the glittering Ile d’Oléron. To make the most of the 95 square-metre square top main, we opened up the foot a little using the mainsheet traveller. We also toyed with the trim of the 59sqm genoa. Once the tell-tales were flying cleanly, I glanced down at the Garmin instruments and found to my surprise that we were frothing along at nearly 6 knots beating into 12 knots of wind. From my perch up on the navigator’s seat, on the level, the boat’s motion betrayed no speed at all.
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE The 51 features a powerful sail plan BELOW Everything to hand and a good view forward from the helm station
Even pinching to around 32 degrees apparent, we lost less than a knot of pace. The trick is to pick up speed after the tack by staying slightly lower, then edge onto a really close-hauled course by degrees. Like all Fountaine-Pajots, the Aura 51 has two stub keels designed to resist leeway. Although less efficient than daggerboards, these keels require no handling at all and serve a very useful second purpose. “The keels are made of polyester and are glued into a recess in the hull,” explained operational marketing manager Erwan de Vuillefroy as he showed me round the yard afterwards “They are strong enough to support the weight of the yacht, but if they strike something they are sacrificial. Being glued on, there’s no risk of breaching the hull and it is a quick, easy job to fit new ones.”
Suited to shorthanding
Sail control is made extremely simple by the way that all the active lines come back in two swathes to the winches at the helm. It means you have a winch for the mainsheet, another for the genoa sheet and a third for controlling the traveller. With the mainsheet feeding in athwartships, it is straightforward to get some elbow grease on the line, while the deep fall of the rope tidy bags make for easy stowage. Only the genoa halyard is at the
mast. To save clutter and cordage, the bitter end is finished with a loop that hooks onto a track on the mast – effectively a captive system. It’s tidy, but means that dropping or adjusting the genoa requires a block and tackle, plus a mousing line to avoid losing the halyard up the mast. In no time at all we had covered 7 nautical miles, first tacking upwind, then bearing away on to a balmy reach where we touched 9 knots of boat speed. I kept checking the Garmin for reassurance, but make no mistake: this boat is a mile-eater. Unfortunately, we didn’t have permission to use the gennaker, which stayed stowed in the vast locker under the forward cockpit seating. Had we broken this sail out, we would have tacked it to the stubby bowsprit which tilts upwards just ahead of the genoa. The sheets would have run back to the quarter, then doubled back up to extra winches on the edge of the cockpit. It would have been an asset as we gybed back downwind towards La Rochelle. I asked Erwan about reefing and he said that new owners are told to put in a first reef at 18 knots of true wind. “In time, you learn the feeling of the boat,” he told me. “When she feels like she’s sitting back, you put a reef in the main. After that
it’s a few turns in the genoa to keep the rig balanced.” The three single-line reefs are nicely colourcoded for quick reference.
An ocean of living space
If liveability is the key to the catamaran’s incredible rise in popularity, then it is not hard to understand the success of the Aura 51. It has a huge 16 square metre flybridge, flush decks and a hydraulic platform aft that carries the tender under way and launches swimmers or divers at anchor. Careful thought has ensured that the platform closes up nicely to the transom skirt for easy access. Working with the team at BerretRacoupeau, the yard has also done a tremendous job of uniting the inside and outside spaces. The layout pivots on the galley, which serves both areas, and avoids the duplication of lounging and eating spaces that plague some designs. “We really wanted to bring the galley into the cockpit. It’s a very smart space,” said de Vuillefroy. Flexibility is the name of the game here. Deep upholstered sofas fill the forward and starboard side of the saloon, where they can do service for watchkeeping,
ABOVE
Acres of outdoor lounging and seating space both fore and aft
BELOW
A well lit roomy saloon
movie nights or a cup of coffee with friends. If it’s too cold outside, you can slot in a removable table and eat indoors. Fountaine-Pajot calls the chaise-longue on the centreline the ‘meridian’, and it occupies a primary importance. “Sitting here on a nightwatch, you can keep an eye on the instruments and scan the horizon in comfort,” said de Vuillefroy. “You can also check the mainsail through the new skylight and there is a tablet charging point in the armrest for remote control.” The TV on the aft bulkhead can be set to repeat the chartplotter display In the cockpit, a beautiful teak table seats eight in comfort, and there’s a plancha grill on the transom. The table can easily be extended to 12 places with a fold-out leaf and fill-in seat. There’s also a raised sunbed here and a sofa on the transom, giving copious lounging space. With the aft doors fully slid back, there is a 10ft opening with the galley island in the middle. It naturally splits traffic between the galley and the saloon, and puts the work surfaces and the waste bin within easy reach from outside. These are the small points of detail that come from years of experience and real-world boat use. Just like the proximity of the big interior navigation display to the helm station, making it easy to nip down and check on something.
A Maestro with flair
One of the big selling points of the Aura 51 is the flexible configuration of the cabins in either hull. The options run from the four-cabin maestro version with an entire hull devoted to the owner up to six carefully matched double cabins. The design team has pulled off a real feat
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Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Boat Test - Aura 51
here, finding a way to make those six cabins fully ensuite – the first time it has been done on a 51-footer. The trick is that the two aftmost cabins have their own companionways that emerge through an L-shaped plexiglass hatch onto the aft deck. Separated from the rest of the interior, these cabins are ideal for kids and are proving popular with charter models. But most owners will opt for either a full or double maestro layout. In the full version, the double bed is positioned aft with a view out through the hull windows. There follows a succession of lockers, deep clothes storage, a desk and finally a separate heads and shower room with twin basins, giving the sort of space that monohull sailors can only dream of aboard. The double maestro makes two VIP cabins of the space aft and two good doubles forward. The styling is by Isabelle Racoupeau, and reflects neutral colours and natural textures. Grey and off-white upholstery contrasts with pale oak cabinetry and dark oak flooring, reinforcing the sense of chic living. There are plenty of standard options, plus the possibility of going off-piste with a custom finish through Fountaine-Pajot Service. Every cabin has been carefully designed to offer at least two sources of natural light – flush deck hatches overhead and hull windows. Opening hatches and portlights ensure there is always natural ventilation available, although there is of course a heating and aircon package too.
with building and using the boat. Fresh air and natural light reduce reliance on power-hungry artificial solutions, and mean that the boat can run longer off its own power. “If we want to continue to enjoy all that the oceans can offer, we must act now,” explains FountainePajot CEO Romain Motteau. “For us, this means changing our way of conceiving our yachts and completely re-seeing the experience of boating by combining comfort, pleasure but also performance with a minimised impact on the environment.” The Aura 51 also has a 2000W array of Solbian solar panels built flush into the lightweight coachroof, as I discover when I get aboard. In the fickle March sunshine, they were generating an easy 20A according to the Scheiber digital boat management system, which replaces the traditional switch panel. A fully electric Aura has just been launched, with just a small genset as backup. Motteau’s vision extends further,
More than just greenwash
Such features are small but significant factors in reducing the carbon emissions associated
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE LEFT
A sumptuous stateroom
ABOVE RIGHT
Lounging space in the cockpit with the helm station set just forward
BELOW
The boat proved to be a capable mile muncher
though. Visit the huge FountainePajot site in Aigrefeuille, just outside La Rochelle, and it’s the smell rather than the spectacle which you’ll notice first. Where most production halls are redolent with the styrene released as a by-product of lamination, the air here is rigorously scrubbed. Meanwhile, the use of injection moulding for smaller parts (including the coachroof/ bimini) and precisely dosed infusion throughout, means less raw material is used for a stronger end result. Under a programme dubbed Odyssea 24, Fountaine-Pajot has launched a plan to build yachts that are net carbon neutral by 2030. And it plans to help its owners use the boats in a more efficient way through hand-over training. It is also bringing its suppliers into the circle asking them to manufacture and design more eco-efficient products. Perhaps this is another reason that the model has been named ‘Aura’. “The name evokes a halo of light, a vital force, and positive energies,” explained head of marketing Hélène de Fontainieu who has proposed the name of every single one of the yard’s new models for 15 years. “This new catamaran signed by Fountaine-Pajot becomes the symbol of the commitment of the shipyard in its environmental transition.” Appropriately enough, Aura was also a minor Greek deity whose name means ‘breeze’. The powerful rig of this new boat allows you to make the most of such lighter winds, while the spacious flybridge lounge and forward cockpit let you enjoy the breeze in a different way. With the Aura 51’s enormous stowage capacity and bluewater vocation, expect to see this emissary of the gods in an anchorage near you soon.
ALTERNATIVE BOATS
BALI 4.8
SAM’S VERDICT At 51ft, this is a big boat, and Fountaine-Pajot has made excellent use of the space. With a flybridge and a forward cockpit, plus the option of a hydraulic bathing platform, most of the feature boxes are ticked for a cruising cat. Interior comfort is fantastic, and the configuration of cabins makes the boat appeal to a wide variety of different users. Equally at home chartering in the sun
or as a bluewater cruiser, you can bring everything, including the kitchen sink on the Aura 51. Performance is middling for a catamaran – fast compared to a monohull, and easy to handle. A deeply thought-through boat offering a really flexible platform. PERFORMANCE: BLUE WATER ABILITY: LOOKS:
This Olivier Poncin design is perhaps the ultimate spaceship, featuring absolutely acres of the stuff. The fit out is a little less flashy and the boat is a bit smaller but the concept is not radically different from the Lagoon. bali-catamarans.com
LEOPARD 50 Leopard catamarans are built in South Africa and have become a staple of charter fleets the world over. The 50 is one of their latest launches and the boat features masses of volume with up to six separate showers. leopardcatamarans.com
THE SPEC LOA: 51ft 0in (15.54m) Beam: 26ft 6in (8.08m) Draught: 4ft 4in (1.30m) Displacement: 18.1t (light) Sail area: 95sqm (main); 59sqm (genoa) Engines: 2 x Volvo D2 60 (60hP) Naval architect: BerretRacoupeau Yacht Design Contact: catamarans-fountainepajot.com Price: (base) € 865.311 (sailaway) € 1.173m. (This includes the following options: upgraded engines, Comfort version, Owner's suite, A/C throughout, watermaker, all canvasses, icemaker)
LAGOON 51 The latest off the production line for arguably the most successful cruising multihull builder of recent years. The team behind the new 51 has focused on making the boat as comfortable as possible and th boat boasts volume, comfort and surprisingly sprightly performance. cata-lagoon.com
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Tom Cunliffe
Tom Cunliffe
L
ast week I was in a hurry and through no fault of my own - for once - found myself at the wrong end of a stiff breeze. I’d been motorsailing hard to windward for an hour or so when I popped below for a log entry. As the boat leapt along making her reasonably comfortable way upwind I hung on to the hand-holds and had jammed myself into the navigator’s seat when I realised that all was not
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as it should have been. Usually, your boat slips you the wink she’s got a problem by sound and/or sight. I mean, you can’t miss the ‘bang’ as a lower shroud lets go or the spectacle of a mast bending like a banana, but this was a different source of sensory input. All had been well on deck as the clean, sweet wind whipped the coffee out of my mug, but down below I was met with a very nasty smell indeed. Rotten eggs was my first thought,
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PODCAST Catch up with Tom’s columns now and in the future at sailingtoday.co.uk
but I knew we didn’t have any of those because I’d just been served a fine curry omelette for breakfast and the cook had hoovered up the last of the free range with no complaints registered. The next source of that variety of pong is usually the bilge if, like me, you have a deep one that often features a pint or two of indeterminate liquid the pumps just can’t reach. The modern flat-floored yacht doesn’t have this problem, although the trade-off is not
ILLUSTRATION: CLAIRE WOOD, PHOTOS TOM CUNLIFFE/JOHN LOVELL
Technology moves on but there are times when tried and tested mechanisms offer a certain reassurance based on long acquaintance
“Wait a minute. H2S - that’s what batteries spew out when they are about to burst, and I have a 200 amp-hour whopper in the next compartment” desirable if she ever cops a bilge-full, for the simple reason that the water has nowhere to go. To be honest, I’d rather have a bit of honest bilge water kicking around beyond the reach of human hand than have to sponge out under the cabin sole after the crew have all tumbled below in streaming oilskins, but it is important to keep resident bilgewater as clean as you know how to ward off that miserable whiff. I’d scrubbed mine out not so long since, so this seemed an unlikely culprit. What next? The holding tank? God forbid, but I thought I’d better take a look, so forward I scrambled while the boat pitched onwards. As I opened up the fore bunk beneath which it lurks, the smell got worse and I feared an awful outcome, but close inspection showed it to be bottle tight. No joints leaking, but the hydrogen sulphide was
all-pervasive up there. Wait a minute. H2S - that’s what batteries spew out when they are about to burst, and I have a 200 amp-hour whopper in the next compartment to the tank. It lives up there to be close to the bow thruster and the windlass, both of which look to its mighty punch unaffected by long cable runs. I opened its locker lid and the stench hit me in the face. The hand I laid on the top of this battery recoiled from the shocking heat of a power unit in melt-down. It was crisis time. I shut off the charge with the windlass emergency switch, then for good measure I dived aft for tools and came back to remove all the cables. I cracked the forehatch, opened the side scuttles to encourage airflow and, after deciding I could do no more, retreated to the cockpit to take stock. The battery was a traditional
ABOVE A spanking new leadacid battery to replace the windlass unit
lead-acid unit I’d installed about eight years previously. Like all my batteries, it had been well looked after and had been performing up to sample until that morning. However, things were not that simple. Last summer I had replaced my domestic battery bank with four 95-amp-hour AGMs. I’d heard contrasting reports about AGM units but the battery men convinced me I’d be better off with them so, despite the extra money, I stumped up and in they went. However, the guys didn’t insist on replacing all the older lead-acids doing other jobs, so I was left with a hybrid system which I now understand can be pretty bad news. The AGMs never charged properly from ‘Day One’. Finally, shortly before expiry, they’d dropped from 13 volts to 11 overnight and I cursed the day I’d bought them. I’ll never know the
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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“Our examiner came aboard in fine style with a bottle of brown ale and a pork pie for his lunch, none the wiser about our unusual night out”
truth but it seems likely that they might have been fine except that ‘Big Bertha’ in the focsle was so sick she was sucking all their power while getting overcharged herself. The bottom line, when I reached harbour and plugged in to the shore, was that the domestic bank had shot their bolt and were refusing duty even with the real culprit sitting on the pontoon. So I dumped them on the pontoon too and a pal showed up with a spare lead-acid leisure battery which we hooked up in their place. Charge voltage shot straight up to fourteen as it should and I bought myself four new lead-acids. They are now in and running, rubbing along fine with the new whopper up forward. My lead-acid engine start battery seems to like them too. It’s now ‘happy families’ and the old-fashioned units are a good bit cheaper than higher-tech alternatives. I know they work because I’ve used them all my life, so I look to a bright future. All this technical decision-making comes as a far cry from some of my earlier encounters with on-board electricity. I’ll never forget the sail round from Conwy in North Wales to Holyhead in 1978 to take my Yachtmaster examination. The boat had no working engine but my wife and I had sailed her home from Rio via the Caribbean, the US and Canada. We might not have been great at power handling, but we were OK with the stick-and-string stuff. We’d spent the winter refitting the boat and I’d missed a couple of likely jobs through not having
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ABOVE Saari in Conwy 1978, just fitted out for the Yachtmaster exam (photo, John Lovell)
TOM CUNLIFFE Tom has been mate on a merchant ship, run yachts for gentlemen, operated charter boats, delivered, raced and taught. He writes the pilot for the English Channel, a complete set of cruising text books and runs his own internet club for sailors worldwide at tomcunliffe.com
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
qualifications, so I’d booked up with the RYA for a ‘direct entry’. It was only a tide from Conwy to Holyhead, so we left the afternoon before the examiner was due to come aboard, as ready as we could be. That was until sunset when the wind fell away to nothing, leaving us becalmed off Point Lynas. This placed us on one of the main marine highways to Liverpool, so traffic was passing close by. It was no cause for concern in daylight, but when night fell I realised that I had made a bad mistake. I’d left my navigation lights in my father’s garage on the Wirral peninsula. They were no use to him there and they weren’t a lot of good to me either as the ships seemed to be multiplying with the descending night. I had a torch of sorts but my sails were of tanned flax canvas, so shining it onto them didn’t make much of a show. In any case, the battery soon ran out. We had to make ourselves visible, but how? I did have a single 12-volt battery of about 80 amp hours that lived under the cockpit to service our modest electrical needs. In my spares locker there was a 25-watt bulb for the electric light over my chart table. I
found some two-core electric wire and soldered it to the terminals on the bulb with a gas-fired soldering kit I always kept ‘just in case’. The other end of the wire was split and stripped so that, as soon as a ship looked like coming close, my wife lay down under the cockpit to hold the ends onto the battery terminals while I stood as high as I could on the coaming to shine the light. Once the night was thoroughly dark, it was surprising how bright this was and at least one freighter’s lights turned from red-and-green to solid red as she swung to starboard to avoid us. A gentle breeze sprang up shortly before dawn. Our gaff topsail filled first, followed by everything else we could spread. The tide turned fair and we swept into Holyhead in time for breakfast. Our examiner came aboard in fine style with a bottle of brown ale and a pork pie for his lunch, none the wiser about our unusual night out. He examined me thoroughly despite his casual appearance, never asking why I seemed to have no navigation lights. Perhaps he didn’t notice, but one thing was sure. Back in the 1970s neither he nor I knew or cared about AGM batteries.
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Round the Island Race - Review
The 91st Round the Island Race threw up conditions to test all-comers. How did class winners and others tackle the famous course around the Isle of Wight?
Round the Island Race t was an exciting day out for thousands of sailors and more than 1,100 boats as the 91st edition of the Island Sailing Club’s Round the Island Race saw great conditions and big windover-tide seas off the Needles. The Royal Yacht Squadron cannons were fired at 8am on 25 June by Mitchell Wein, president of race sponsor The Marathon Watch Company, which donated prizes to many class winners. Line honours went to Julian Linton’s Grand Prix multihull N.R.B, while the overall win went to the first monohull to cross the line, Ian Atkins’ GP42 Dark’n’Stormy. Both finished in under five hours. Race Director Dave Atkinson said: “The race started under perfect race conditions with a south westerly 15 knot breeze. It was a fantastic sight to watch the huge fleet of all types
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of boat, families and professionals, following at ten minute intervals.” The race village at Cowes Yacht Haven was buzzing all weekend with stands by race partners offering advice and giveaways to visitors. There was live music in the evening. Newcomers to the event were well-supported with a series of webinars put on by partner B&G. Simon Conder, Head of Global
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE
Waves from the crew of the Beneteau Oceanis Slipstream at the Needles
BELOW L-R
Prize-giving at the Island Sailling Club; race village at Cowes Yacht Haven
BELOW L-R
B&G hand-outs for finishers
Brand at B&G, said: “Although B&G tech is used a lot by professionals, we also have a full range of products designed for all levels and abilities from ocean racers to keen amateur crews, families and first-time racers who want something reliable, easy to use, and are out on the water having a go. The Round the Island Race is great for that, and is a full mix of all sailing abilities, which is one of
Dark’n’Stormy does the hattrick
PHOTOS PAUL WYETH
the reasons we decided to become a sponsor for this great event. ”With technology, understanding the capabilities of what you have onboard is often half the battle and too often people get caught up in all the things that a system can do, when all they want is the basics. With our systems we have the full range, and you can use as little or as much as you want to help you go faster or more safely depending on what you want to do. As this race is such a great mix of sailors we have also developed content and blogs to help demystify the science and help competitors get the most out of this race.” There were also blogs on the practical nature of the event and Q&A sessions in the run-up to the race, by the Island Sailing Club. Meanwhile a new feature on Race Viewer meant spectators could follow the action live and competitors could check their progress against rivals, giving rise to numerous ‘races within the race’ between fellow marina berth-holders, friends, class associations and others.
It was a rare hattrick for Ian Atkins’ GP42 Dark’n’Stormy in the 2022 Round the Island Race, taking monohull line honours, winning IRC Zero and the race overall under IRC, lifting the coveted Gold Roman Bowl. The triple was last performed by Simon Le Bon’s Drum in 1988. After five hours of intense racing, including a full-on foam up around the back of the island, runner-up to Dark’n’Stormy, by just 63 seconds, was the Reichel Pugh GP42 Khumbu, sailed by Christian Hamilton and Guy Gillon. The race was a great day out for the new GP Zero Class, launched by the Royal Ocean Racing Club in May to create a series at existing events for high-performance boats with an IRC Rating between 1.192 and 1.394, and a DLR max of 105. As with the IRC nationals earlier this summer, GP Zero Class yachts were dominant, both on elapsed and IRC corrected time. Third overall in the Round the Island Race was the De Graaf family, racing the Ker 43 Baraka. Meanwhile the Ker 46 Van Uden, skippered by Johnny Poortman, and Bertie Bicket’s IC37 Fargo, also made the top 10 after IRC time correction. But it was overall victory for the high-level crew on Dark’n’Stormy, although owner Ian Atkins, who is GP Zero Class president, wasn’t on board himself. Afterwards tactician Ian Walker said: “Thank you to the Island Sailing Club for keeping us all safe out there in a lot of breeze. This is such a wonderful race, I have done this race many times in the smallest and the biggest boats, it was a real privilege to sail with this team. Unfortunately, Ian Atkins the owner of Dark’n’Stormy, was not able to race, so a big thank you to Ian for trusting us to race the boat – we made sure we didn’t hit the wreck a The Needles! A big shout out to Khumbu who pushed us all the way and that is
probably one of the reasons we did so well.” Dark’n’Stormy’s navigator Mark Chisnell said: “We had an all-day, full-on battle with Khumbu. We got the early advantage off the line and up to The Needles, but we were in close company with Van Uden and Baraka right up there. After rounding to the southside of the island, Khumbu came into us and we managed to struggle them off. At St Cats we were very close together and engaged in many manoeuvres and sail changes – a real match race. We made a little error into the forts and Khumbu came back at us inshore. We had to work hard to hold them off. It was a tremendous honour to take monohull line honours and to win overall is just fantastic.” Ian Walker commented on the race in general, which he likened to the “London Marathon of sailing”. “Everyone can take part,” he said, “and it doesn’t matter what boat you’re in, front of the fleet, back of the fleet, I’ve done all of them! I’ve never come close to winning this. All you can do is try to win your class and hope that the weather and tide Gods suit your class. They have done this year. If I’m honest, you look back at moments where small bits of crew work made the difference between winning and losing and that’s really rewarding. It was a great day for the GP Zero class. We were fast enough to have the tide from the Forts to the finish. But we did have foul tide early on and that can give advantges for the smaller boats. This year it was won by the faster boats. It’s nice being among them because we push each other. “I love to see the hundreds of boats out on the water. It’s a hell of a sight and I’m looking forward to seeing the images because this year we led the fleet and hardly saw anyone!”
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Round Round the the Island Island Race Race - Review - Review
The death of New Zealand-born designer Ian Farrier in 2017 was a loss for the multihull world, but his trimarans live on as a tremendous legacy and multihull fans will have cheered the line honours victory in the 2022 Round the Island Race of N.R.B., a Farrier 32 SRC. Owned by Julian Linton, the boat started the race at 8.10am and finished at 12.29pm, in four hours and 19 minutes. First over the line, they ended up fifth overall in the race. It was great victory for Julian and brother Adrian Linton with long-time friends Andy Prince and Lloyd Turner, all the more so for the conditions in which it was achieved, far from ideal for a relatively small, light boat. The well-drilled crew of four, all experienced multihull and dinghy sailors, intended to do the race a few years ago, but equipment failure at the last minute forced them to withdraw. Julian admits: “It was an interesting day… windy! We always try to set up for the lulls with a big jib and full sail. It was a case of hanging on for the beat up to the Needles.” He reserves praise for the crew of the Diam 24 Roadrunner Racing, entered by Luke Butler, with whom they had a great battle. “We overtook the monohulls up the Solent but there was this Diam who had gone out to the far shore. Round the Needles he was in front of us and was absolutely motoring, while we were struggling with too much sail up. Down to St Cats the Diam just kept it up, they did an incredible job. “This was our first race. You read of people talking about the conditions off the Needles and yes it was really wavey. We thought about cutting in at the Needles but it was too windy and may have only saved us a minute. It didn’t make sense. “The seas were steep and you needed more waterline than we had. We were getting hosed every 15 seconds and the pole was burying in the water. The bowspit is 8ft long, so as you come off the wave, you’re going faster than the wave and it just digs in. If you don’t have Code sail up then it’s not supported from the top, so there’s a risk of breaking it. “So you’re trying not to capsize, can’t see properly and you’re worried about the pole digging in! From the Needles to St Cats we went straight. That was the only thing we could have done, just clinging on and keeping the boat upright.” A nasty twist in the kite added to their enjoyment. Julian said: “We struggled round to Bembridge with our bigger kite and we just couldn’t get the twist out of it. If we’d got the kite working properly, we could have had an extra 10 knots and
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
PHOTOS PAUL WYETH
Line honours for a trailer boat!
knocked 15 minutes off our time. “Around Bembridge we could put the smaller kite up and we were neck and neck with the Diam for a mile or so. That was the best part of the day by far. We had flat water and were doing about 26 knots from Ryde to the finish. “For a while it looked like the Diam was going to take line honours. They had incredible speed and were locked in. Eventually our kite worked and we could overhaul them. We began to think we could do it.”
The four friends then enjoyed the rare experience of crossing the line ahead of a fleet of more than 1,100 boats. The Diam 24 came in five minutes later. Julian said: “It was awesome. We’ve thought about doing the race for a few years and we were super-happy. It was also a great experience sailing past all the monos. They’re incredible boats and it was a good spectacle. We had about 100 boats to sail past.” “I’m just glad none of the MOD 70s were doing it!” he laughed. The boat was built in Brightlingsea while Julian was living in Geneva. “My dad had
the cruising version and did the Fastnet and the RORC races, with Lloyd’s dad. I wanted a faster version of that.” There are a handful of Farriers in the UK and more in the US, where Ian Farrier was based for part of his career. The ‘Farrier Folding System’ means the floats can be folded up to take up less mooring space in a marina and also gives the boat trailerability. Even so, with berths at a premium on the island during the race weekend, there was no room for the Farrier in Cowes, so the crew sadly missed the prizegiving in order to sail the boat back. Julian had intended the boat to be a family cruising boat as well, but said: “It’s not very practical for the family and isn’t really a cruising boat. It takes four of us non-stop and we love, it but it’s not for the wife and kids. There’s a couple of us on the floats, someone on the traveller, someone on the jib as that will capsize you as well. With a Code sail you need somoene on the furler the whole time. We made sandwiches before the race but we didn’t have time to eat them in the end. We had a great time but it was good to finish on a close reach in flat water and sunshine – that made the race. Before that, we were hanging on!” The boat is berthed between Burnham YC and Canvey Island YC. Will they come back to defend the line honours title? “Probably! The marina situation is frustrating for the multihulls and our sail round to the Solent we had 40 knots and three reefs in! It’s definitely easier to trailer it. And what does N.R.B. stand for? Julian laughs. “Different things to different people!”
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PHOTOS PAUL WYETH
Round the Island Race - Review
Masterclass by schoolkids The essence of the pro-am nature of the Round the Island was perfectly summed up in the performance of Embley, a Stewart 37 skippered and crewed by pupils from Embley in Romsey, Hampshire. The pupils are the product of a successful programme by the school to make sailing part of the curriculum, a mainstream sport that children might play alongside rugby, hockey or cricket. The programme has been run by experienced sailor and Embley teacher Jonathan Churchill for nine years, who started with two dinghies and courses at UKSA. The school soon bought its first Etchells, since bolstered by a second. Three years ago Solent yachtsman Chris Rustom lent his 37-footer. The yacht proved an ideal platform for taking teenagers from small to big boats. With training from dedicated sailing staff, Embley has taken the Round the Island Race’s Young Mariners’ trophy three years on the trot. Could they do it again, or go even better, in 2022? The school’s race coach Julian Smith takes up the tale: “We had a bowman, mastman, two in the cockpit, one floating crewmember, a tactician and helm. I was on the boat for safety and insurance purposes but had very little input.” Skipper for the day was sixth former Jack, with first mate Ed and crew Olivia, Emily, Dessie, Max and Teo, aged between 14 and 17. Julian said: “What we were looking for was a very conservative race plan. Having done the Round the Island Race maybe 15 times myself, I know it can be a complex and strategic race. “We had a storming start, on load, at speed, hitting the line with one second to the gun. We stayed central to catch as much tide as possible and put some large legs in. We led the fleet up the Solent. It was very challenging going round the Needles - there was quite strong wind over tide with big waves and the skipper and crew performed very well. It
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
was a matter of grinning and bearing it. There were lots of boats around us struggling. “We carry quite a large draft on this vessel so were conservative around the Needles. Then it was very much crack the sheets and it was a joyride for us around the back of the island. “Keeping with our overall plan, we kept a conservative route and went almost straight from the Needles to St Cats. That paid off. Even with the tide against us, we seemed to overtake a vast number of boats that had gone inshore. If the tides are not that strong, it pays to keep it simple and some of the larger racing yachts did the same. “The pupils' mindset all the way round was:
‘Right, that boat ahead is our next target, that’s who we’re going to overtake now”. So it was complete focus all the time. “We achieved nearly 14 knots at one point and we were surfing around St Cats. We are rated for white sails only, but we were overtaking boats, catching up with the classes ahead. It was impressive to watch. “Heading up to Bembridge, we were flying. We had some equipment failure as the boat was under a lot of load, but the skipper and crew adapted to each situation well. It showed their confidence. For the final leg down the Solent, the wind had dropped right off and it was a matter of going in as shallow as we could, without any risk of touching.
“Once again, our relatively conservative strategy paid off – we overtook many boats by staying at the 2m contour. The finish was interesting – we had a boat trying to squeeze in and we weren’t having any of that. Then right at the finish we saw there were about six boats that had fallen into a wind hole. We sailed around them and so we were overtaking yachts right at the line.” Julian knew that Jack and the crew had produced a top class performance, but what was their overall position? When the news came through, the yacht exploded in a riot of jubilation – first overall in ISC, the Island Sailing Club’s rating system for the event, a class with more than 500 entries including professional crews. Retaining the B&G Young Mariner’s trophy came as an added bonus. Julian said: “For me, as a person who has done the Round the Island Race, I know how difficult it is. I don’t think the students fully appreciate the significance of this. There are people who have been sailing 50 years who will never achieve this. They had no advantage over anyone else. They just sailed the boat to the optimum. I was very proud of the young people I had been coaching. It was a masterclass in how to take an amateur boat and race it to professional levels.” Jonathan said: “They were absolutely blown away. It was a fantastic trip back to Lymington. They were wiped out but completely euphoric. They were up against paid crews. This is a bunch of youngsters who train together on a school afternoon. They proved it can be done.” The school’s sailing programme now caters for 120 children, aged 8-18, every month from April to October, with skippers Jonathan, Julian, Kevin Podger and Julie Willis. The school also takes out children from affiliated state academies. If you are interested in bringing expertise to the Embley programme, contact jonathan.churchill@embley.org.uk
PHOTOS DISABLED SAILORS ASSOCIATION
Disabled Sailors Association go Round the Island The Disabled Sailors’ Association, Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting's Charity of the Year, had their fastest Round the Island Race ever, coming home shortly after 4.30pm in 8hrs 24mins, second in class for Bridgedeck Catamarans. With skipper John Douglas were seven crew with different disabilities including multiple sclerosis, visual impairments and complications from cancer. Also on board was Dale Muffet, in a wheelchair after being hit by a car while jogging on New Year’s Day 2021. Dale sailed dinghies before his accident and took the helm for the trickiest part of the race, around the Needles in big seas. He said: “Sailing with the Disabled Sailors Association in the Round the Island Race was an incredible experience. “I had to contend with many boats tacking around us, while in some of the choppiest waters of the day by Hurst Castle and while
bringing a new definition to 'threading the needle' while sailing between the lighthouse and the rocks at the Needles. “It was the most exhilarating sailing experience I have ever had and to be able to do it all from my wheelchair is just something else.” Dometic sponsored the charity’s entry in the race, covering the cost of the race entry fee as well as fuel, berthing, food, and t-shirts for the crew. The Disabled Sailors Association is fundraising for a new boat that would double their capacity and enable them to keep abreast of modern care needs. Their current boat, Spirit of Scott Bader, was built 20 years ago and is out on the water, from Port Solent, almost every day from May to late season. The charity’s Zoe Colthart, on board for her first Round the Island Race, said: “It’s such an amazing event. The organisation of
it is incredible – I didn’t appreciate how many boats take part. Off the Needles the swell was big and there were boats all over the show, it was exciting and quite hard work. “We had one very near miss! Another boat decided it would come at us, but it was their bad, you could hear the skipper screaming at his crew! Other than that, it was a great day and all was as it should have been.” The charity berthed at East Cowes so the crew could have two nights on board, enjoying the experience of sleeping on a boat as well as the atmosphere in Cowes and the race village in Cowes Yacht Haven. The Disabled Sailors Association held a hugely successful try-boating day in the spring in Portsmouth and in July took part in an open day with the Royal Victoria YC on the Isle of Wight, taking about 50 disabled people out on the water. disabledsailing.org
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Round the Island Race - Review Round the Island Race - Review
Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust out in force a soft tissue cancerous tumour. After this year’s race, he said: “It was amazing to race alongside more than 1,100 boats. It feels so good to be back at the trust after Covid and everything it feels like coming back to your family. It was amazing to sail with Ellen MacArthur seeing her in action on the boat was just incredible.
PHOTOS PAUL WYETH
The impact of doing the Round the Island Race with Dame Ellen MacArthur was clear on the young crew who joined her. The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust is the race’s official charity and this year it fielded five boats with around 30 young people, all of whom had sailed with the trust before following cancer treatment. John Jonathan, from Wembley, was 19 when he first sailed with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, during his recovery from Burkitt lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. After not being able to join the trust for the last few years due to the pandemic, now aged 23, he said: “It’s awesome to be back. This is my first ever race. It was challenging as the sea was choppy, so it was amazing to have Ellen MacArthur onboard. Watching her fly around the boat was incredible and witnessing her doing it right in front of your very eyes is just mind-blowing. “It’s been a blast, just cruising and meeting new people. We all help each other. Teamwork makes the dream work, and we all have a feeling of accomplishment. We took on the challenge and did the race together so we’re all winners at the end of the day. My confidence has sky-rocketed.” Josh Rands, 24, from Watton-at-Stone, was 20 when he first sailed with the trust during his recovery from synovial Sarcoma,
“It was my first ever sailing race, it was a proper day sailing and amazing to be on the water with 1,100 other boats. The camaraderie was amazing, it’s so lovely to meet different people and exchange stories you really get to know them very on a boat and become a family really quick. “The psychological side after treatment
was the most challenging part for me it was really hard, but the trust gave me that hand to try something new and just show you a different world.” Dame Ellen MacArthur, the trust’s founder and patron, said: “Every time I sail with the young people I am inspired by their positivity, desire to push themselves and their infectious sense of fun and adventure. “The Round the Island Race is such an amazing event to be involved in, and for the young people to be at the centre of the action, enjoying the sights, the spectacle, and the racing, is an experience to remember.” The Trust has been the official charity of the Round the Island Race since 2005, raising over £308,270 to date to help inspire young people to believe in a brighter future living through and beyond cancer. Ellen said: “Next year the trust celebrates its 20th birthday, and it is truly wonderful to see the same positive impact on the young people today as we did back in 2003. The magic ingredients of the freedom of sailing, being with others who get what they’ve been through, and doing something new and exciting haven’t changed.” To support the trust text RACEFORALL to 70085 to donate £5 (texts cost £5 plus one standard rate message).
Short-tacking on an IMOCA 60 Doing the Round the Island Race on a big boat might look nice when you’re on a smaller one, but James Harayda admits it comes with some challenges. James was skippering Gentoo, the IMOCA 60 in which he aims to do the 2024 Vendée Globe – not the quickest boat to tack. To make things more interesting, crew and guests included three children under 12. However, James reports the kids did their fair share of work on the helm and also on the coffee grinder winch, work that clearly paid off as Gentoo came home shortly before 2pm, less than six hours for the circuit. James said: “It was our first race on the IMOCA and an excellent test for sailing such a boat in a relatively confined and busy environment. I’ve done the race three times before and it really is one of my favourite events of the year, with a nice mix of competitive racing and a great social element too. “One benefit for me of doing the race on this boat is it gives good practice with all the manoevres, because they have to be done so frequently. It’s a chance to put
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in 10 tacks in a short space of time, which you might not do normally. On an IMOCA, where it can take a couple of minutes to tack, that first leg up the Solent was pretty exciting. Well, that’s one way to put it! Some boats were really nice and gave us room but some were ‘no, absolutely not!’.
“There were a few moments when we had a last-minute duck. On the IMOCA you run out of water so quickly. Smaller boats are able to cut in close to the island shore for the tide, we struggled a bit there and because of our crew we were trying to have a nice
time rather than focus on the performance. So our first leg out was quite slow, but once we bore away we had an amazing time.” Gentoo is the former Hugo Boss 2, most recently campaigned by Stéphane Le Diraison as Time for Oceans in the Vendée Globe 2020/21. Currently based in Gosport, James has a small campaign team around him and while trying to prepare the boat for racing this summer, is also busy seeking sponsorship to confirm his participation in the Vendée Globe. He said: “We’ve managed to raise the money to get the boat and to get us out training, but now we’re really searching for sponsors and those come in several different levels, including relativey introductory levels.” As for the sailing, it’s a busy summer ahead. “We’re ramping up towards the Round Britain & Ireland Race [organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club, starting 7 August]. Then straight away we go into solo mode – that’s my chance to figure out how to do it by myself, ending up with the the Défi Azimut in September. “Then we’re aiming for the Route du Rhum in November. There’s a lot to do!”
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British Sailing Team
Caught on camera
PHOTOS: WILL CARSON
A new documentary is about to lift the lid on the British Sailing Team in an unprecedented way. Georgie Corlett-Pitt talks to Olympic medallists Eilidh McIntyre, Stu Bithell and Luke Patience about their involvement
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he British Sailing Team has long been something of an enigma, a dominant force, relentlessly winning Olympic medals every four years. Since the advent of National Lottery funding, it has become the most successful sailing team ever. As avid followers, we have marvelled, we have celebrated and supported every step, but even the most passionate fans have never been able to fully understand what it takes - until now. On 28 July a 90-minute documentary will be released on The Olympic Channel that is set to throw open the door on the British Sailing Team. It’s candid and raw, chronicling key sailors through highs and lows of the run up to, and during, the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Set against the backdrop of the pandemic, the film gave an extraordinary opportunity to follow the sailors and support team. What began as a short term project to gather background footage for use around the Games evolved into a long term chronicle - one where the narrative could take on any direction as certainty of the Games, let alone
medal hopes, was unknown. British Sailing Team Communications Manager, Will Carson, was responsible for bringing the project to life. He says: “We started making it fully aware there was every chance that the Olympics could be cancelled and we might end up with a documentary about a Games that didn’t exist. But we always thought it was a risk worth taking to then have something that reflects back on this mad time.”
Highs and lows
For 470 crew Eilidh McIntyre – who went on to win gold at Tokyo alongside Hannah Mills – making the film brought fun and relief from the tedium and uncertainty of lockdown.
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
She recalls: “It was quite a lonely time as I think it was for everyone, so to get the opportunity to talk to the film crew and take a break from the monotonous gym was great.” Eilidh reveals that she “wore her heart on her sleeve and didn’t hold back” while making the film, which tells of her unique experience, growing up in the shadow of her father Mike McIntyre who had won Star gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. His medal hung on the wall opposite her bedroom, and, for as long as she could remember, her ambition had been to win a medal of her own. Now having fulfilled that dream, she feels “truly content” and is hoping to go again for Paris 2024. Of this aspect of the film she says: “I hope that it shows both the benefits and sometimes the challenges of having your hero as your Dad. To be able to share some of these moments with him to be able to sit and interview together was very special.” The honest approach to telling the athletes’ stories was a conscious decision, as Will explains: “Our goal was to be totally frank about the process of getting to the Games, which is as much about hardship as it is about the positives.” The project was given full backing
PHOTOS CLIVE LOUGHLIN/ISTOCK
by RYA Director of Racing Ian Walker and Olympic Performance Manager Mark Robinson, who share their thoughts and insights openly as part of the documentary. Another athlete in the spotlight is RS:X windsurfer Tom Squires, who finished the Tokyo Games in a frustrating fifth despite a podium start to the regatta. The Olympic first-timer had shown incredible self-determination in getting to that point, and although there was ultimately disappointment around not medalling, his story shows there are many different aspects of any athlete’s journey. Will says: “Tom’s story shows that you don’t have to be a certain type of person to be part of the team, so long as you love what you do, and that success doesn’t necessarily mean winning medals – it can be measured in different ways.” The team’s multi-faceted build-up to the Games makes for compelling viewing, not just in terms of stories, but also scope. Stu Bithell – who, in Tokyo, added 49er gold to his 470 silver from London 2012 - says: “I think a lot of people will be surprised with the professionalism on how we approach our Olympic campaigns with. We don’t just sail every day; we spend heaps of time in the gym, with psychologists, preparing our boats to make sure everything is perfect. It’s thanks to the British Sailing Team and lottery funding that really allows this to happen.” With the first half focusing on the pre-event build-up, the second half switches to a behind the scenes look at the Games in Japan, exposing all aspects from the boat park to the team’s accommodation. This element was a bold step for the team, which
historically has taken a strict closeddoor approach around Games time. Stu says that, a had a similar film been made 10 years ago, it would have shown the audience an altogether different setup. “I think now there is more collaboration across the team, and the sailors, coaches, support staff are all pulling in the same direction. There is also more depth and talent in each squad.” Stu has since moved on compete on the SailGP and GC32 circuits with Swiss teams, but nonetheless, he looks back on his time with the British Sailing Team with pride.
Inspiration
There’s a similar degree of pride too for Luke Patience, who won 470 silver at 2012 with Stu Bithell and went on to finish fifth at both Rio and Tokyo with Chris Grube. Now a pro coach and with ambitions of also setting up a whisky business in his native Scotland, Luke says the documentary gave him an opportunity to examine the emotions involved in his 17-year stint with the team; much of the filming takes places at his home on Tiree, which
is where he feels most himself. “What’s really cool about the film is it captures how we look at the sport and how it felt to build up to the Olympics,” Luke says. “We were asked a lot of questions about how we felt. I find, as a sports fan myself, I like to hear about those elements; it’s interesting to understand the type of people that are doing sports that you love. At the end of the day sportspeople are just human beings, and this film captures that. No spoilers, but I can tell you there are some moments where it pulls some real emotions out and it’s very heartfelt, just because filming it meant we had the time to sit, stop and think.” While the pandemic added unforeseen drama, Luke says that, as a sportsperson, he accepts being part of the entertainment industry, and he took making the documentary in his stride. Above all, he welcomes the exposure it offers to sailing, and hopes it might inspire others. “I hope that it will show that we’re just human beings, trying to get the best out of ourselves every day. We’re not superheroes, we’re not unique in terms of this ‘unattainable thing’. We are just human beings and we have ups and downs, moments when we laugh and moments when we cry. I hope it shows that because we really do! “I also hope it shows that we enjoy what we do, and that having the ability to pursue what we all pursue is a really privileged position to be in, one that is to be grasped with both hands. I hope what people see is us as a cool group of people doing a cool thing, and that they think ‘I can do that’ – especially young sailors.” Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Cruising - English Channel
We Did Mean to go to sea The English Channel is not a terribly broad stretch of water but it seems plenty big enough if you cross it in a 22’ boat, as Sam Jefferson found out
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PHOTOS CLIVE LOUGHLIN/ISTOCK
he English Channel has many moods but a number of them are vindictive. I have often found this to be the case and, in 2017, after a lengthy solo passage across where I found myself hallucinating towards the end, I quietly made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t be doing that again in a while. Fortunately at that time my boat was at the entrance to the French canal system – and the Mediterranean beyond - so the pact was easily upheld – until now. What beckoned me back? Well, empathy as much as anything else. A good friend of mine, Tom, had bought a 22’ Hillyard 2½ tonner and was planning to make the same trip I had done five years previous – Chichester to St Valery sur Somme. Although he is an experienced sailor, the thought of him battling across the channel alone did not fill me with joy so I volunteered to help him. I have branded this as an act of selflessness but it wasn’t just that; I’ve always liked a daft adventure and sailing across in a little boat like this with a relaxed skipper seemed to fit the bill. In addition I knew from sailing with Tom the summer before that the boat, Puffin, sailed beautifully. Not only that but Puffin was beautiful; built back in the 1930s and professionally restored. It was easy to see why Tom had been seduced by her elegant lines. A further draw for both of us was that Puffin was a scaled down version of Nancy Blackett, Arthur Ransome’s own Hillyard 4 ½ tonner immortalised as Goblin in his excellent We Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Cruising - English Channel
Five classic routes across the channel Ramsgate to Ostend (65nm) this is very much on the cusp of being a North Sea crossing but never mind. Ramsgate is an obvious and popular starting point but this traverse is just as achievable from east coast ports such as Harwich or Burnham. Ostend is a charming stopover and not far from attractions such as the town of Bruges. Brighton to Honfleur (86nm) This is a passage that could be made overnight, leaving Brighton on the flood, and arriving halfway up the tide in Honfleur. Honfleur is a very picturesque stopover and is also a good alternative to Cherbourg.
Didn’t Mean to go to Sea. We had both been brought up on Ransome’s books, so this was just one further bonus. Nevertheless, looking at the boat as she lay in Emsworth Marina, Chichester, on the eve of the voyage, I couldn’t help noting the extreme smallness of the boat. 22’ with a 7’ beam sounds respectable but marry that to a very low freeboard and the boat looked rather dinghy like from certain angles. My own boat is 28’ with a very low freeboard but she has more beam and appreciable sheer so that she just felt somehow bigger in every way. Puffin also had a really rather large rig with a huge mainsail. Just to further reassure me, Tom said that he had been ‘experimenting with the ballasting’. Vaguely worrying. He also noted with pride that he had ‘decided to fit proper nav lights’. Hmmm. On reflection though I remembered that in We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea the plucky children had been compelled to use a torch and a red Woolworth plate to show a light to a passing steamer for want of paraffin.
Tinned ham and Woolworth plate
It must be noted that I had similarly terrorised Tom in the past when he crewed for me on my boat. My main trick in addition to getting magnetically drawn to overfalls was generally starving him through poor provisioning. No danger of that this time around, as Tom had
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stocked the boat extensively – most excitingly with a huge range of biscuits and even more excitingly, tinned ham. We tucked into a smorgasbord of this ham on the eve of the trip accompanied by Mike, an acquaintance of Tom’s who had also wintered in Emsworth and was now taking his boat around to summer moorings in Marchwood. It was clear he thought we were a little bit mental heading off across channel in such a small boat – but then again, we thought HE was a bit mental as he planned to spend his summer in Marchwood staring at an oil refinery. I have a theory that all sailing trips start at 5am whether you like it or not but this did not seem likely to be the case this time around as we would not have sufficient tide to get out of Emsworth Marina until 9am at the earliest. Cunningly though I awoke at 5am anyway and spent the morning Jealously Eyeing Richard Stilgoe’s lugger Ruby Too which was on the hard at Emsworth. I’ve always been deeply suspicious of Richard Stilgoe having endured several episodes of Stilgoe’s On! As a child. Anyway, he has good taste in boats and I’m sure he is a lovely man. I just wish I could erase the theme tune from my mind. Anyhow, we bade farewell to Emsworth on a lovely May day. As you will see from the passage plan box out, Northerlies were forecast and initially these pushed us down to the harbour
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE
The Normandy port of Honfleur
BELOW
Tinned ham, an acceptable alternative to pemmican
Lymington to St-Vaastla-Hougue (72nm) A classic route from the Solent tackling the Needles channel and ending up in the stunnig locked port of St Vaast. The all tide port of Cherbourg just to the south is an alternative destination. Poole to Alderney (68nm) Cross-Channel cruises don’t get much shorter than this in the western Channel – it makes an ideal day-sail. Don’t be fooled by the gentle start through Poole Harbour, though: there are plenty of navigational challenges involved in this route. See Gulls Eye on p74 for a full guide to the lovely port of Braye on Alderney.
entrance. We were waved on our way by a seal – the first I’ve ever seen in Chichester Harbour.
Out to sea
The day passed uneventfully watching the Isle of Wight disappear very, very slowly. The northerly wind that had pushed us out of Chichester died to nothing and we motored for a couple of hours into a flat calm. All that changed a couple of hours later when somewhere near the Outer Owers we encountered a fleet of small fishing boats. Our eye was drawn to a rather obese man fishing topless with his trousers lowered just beneath his buttocks. Thankfully we passed to the rear of this unusual spectacle which we both agreed must be a good portent. So it proved to be, because a sea breeze arrived almost immediately and we were soon scurrying away from this ample buttocked man. The sea breeze died as as evening started to draw in and we hit the shipping lane. We motored once more and before long the long promised Northerly sprang up. Tom had cunningly drawn up a course through the lanes that missed the TSS but things were still suitably tricky. However, we squeezed through the first half of the shipping lane with minimal drama and awaited the second half with considerably more trepidation. It was now 10pm and Tom kindly said that he should do 10-midnight
and 2am-4am watches. This was kind and also meant that I would be fresher for arrival which might well be important as I knew the French coast better than Tom and was, theoretically at least, a little more experienced. This also meant that Tom had a solid two hour watch dealing with the worst of the shipping lane – not ideal. The breeze was filling in but was still modest but Tom – very wisely – suggested we reef before it got dark. This proved to be an excellent plan. I then settled down in my bunk and listened to the water gurgling past the planks as the boat hurried along. Suddenly I felt very vulnerable. The boat seemed very small and the sea very large. Any sailor who isn’t a touch inquiet by being offshore in a small boat is a fool - so I comforted myself with this as I started to drift off. I was awoken mid way through a surprisingly glorious sleep by Tom muttering on deck – I poked my head up, still mostly asleep, to check all was well. All I remember was a sea of lights, so we must have been in the midst of the shipping lane. Tom assured me all was well and I slept on, rocked like a child in its cradle by the motion of the boat and now soothed by the chuckle of water rushing by. The boat was really going now and there was a certain nervous energy and urgency to her movements and she bounced across the chop – not unnerving but impressive, purposeful. The boat was alive.
Keeping awake
By the time I was back on watch, we were through the shipping lanes and Tom seemed suitably knackered and traumatised by the whole experience. I, on the other hand, was well rested and raring to go. The wind was now much fresher and the boat was flying. With a bit of tide under the keel we were reeling off some really impressive speeds 8, even 8.5 knots! The boat sailed like a rocket and was great fun. Unfortunately the low freeboard did mean that she sailed sort of through waves as opposed to over them, meaning there was a good deal of spray, well, everywhere. Anyway, I sent Tom below and settled in to a good wrestle with the tiller. There were no lights, only stars and I listened to a podcast and got on with coaxing every ounce of speed out of the boat. We were over halfway across but I was aware we were going to be knackered by
ABOVE
Alderney is a stunning destination at the end of a channel crossing
BELOW
Close encounters of the worst kind in the shipping lane
the time we got there. I was also vaguely worried about the wind. It was blowing NE and promised to build to F4. That’s not a lot but the boat was small and it also meant we were sailing headlong toward a lee shore – not ideal. Anyway, that was just a distant cloud on the horizon. Mostly I just enjoyed the sail. By 4am I was getting jolly cold – that nor’ easter had a real edge despite it being late May – and I was glad when Tom emerged to take over on watch. He seemed groggy and confused but I sort of bellowed the course and other various observations at him repeatedly and headed down below. Seconds later, I was asleep. I awoke to find the boat racing along with a sort of wild urgency, More breeze, more speed, more spray; the boat was definitely a touch overpressed. At the helm, Tom was clearly played out from a night of battling with ship’s lights and the tiller. By some miracle, given the uncomfortable motion, he had managed to make a cup of coffee without disturbing me. He explained that he had achieved this by bringing the small Camping Gaz stove on deck. I was pretty baffled but he explained; ‘I knew I had to have it the second time the Jetskier circled around the boat’. I agreed this was a sign and urged him to get some more sleep. He suggested we needed to take more sail off the boat and he was, of course, right but I hated the idea of either of us going forward
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Cruising - English Channel
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About the boat: onto that horribly exposed foredeck. Plus we were going very well and still aiming for Dieppe which was reasonably upwind. I reasoned that a bit more sail was good to drive her on through the horrible channel chop that was building. Besides, I was fresh at the tiller and coping so we pressed on. The sailing was exhilarating but the watch off was far from that, as there was sufficient water in the shallow bilge that, as Tom slept, it washed up and through the gap between bunk and rib and liberally soaked him. He emerged shortly after looking haggard.
Land Ho! What land?
Ok it was France and frankly it looked none too appealing in the early morning light. There was now a strong North Easterly blowing out of a clear blue sky. White cliffs could be seen with that spume haze that surfers love and sailors fear. It looked far from welcoming. The immediate concern was the sea. We were in classic wind over tide conditions and it was dishing up a horrible short, steepling waves that were really quite alarming on a small boat. Occasionally we would take a good solid lump of icy water aboard which was no fun. We were now sufficiently destroyed that a beam reach to Fecamp seemed by far the best option so we eased the sheets and raced on. At this point,
I rashly decided I too needed a coffee and painstakingly prepared everything only to lose the cafetiere full of coffee grounds just at the crucial moment. I was both baffled and devastated. The mystery was solved shortly after as bilge water filled with coffee grounds started lapping up the sides of the cabin. The last section of the trip was the most painful and dangerous. The sea was seriously rough now and running towards the lee shore of Fecamp felt like driving full speed at a brick wall. Everything was soaking wet down below including my phone and the charger. This was
ABOVE
Puffin moored up in Dieppe after an exciting trip across the channel
BELOW
Charging through horrible channel chop at 8kn with the tide under the keel, my phone camera chose this moment to go mad and has been producing strange wavy images ever since
Overall Length: 22ft 3ins Waterline: 19ft 6ins Beam: 7ft Draught: 3ft 6ins Displacement: 4.5 Tons T M Sail: Bermudian Sloop Rig Designer: David Hillyard Year Built: Circa 1935
a problem as we were calculating the final approach using the phones and these promptly died. As a consequence we were swept down tide which involved a painful dead run in horrible steepling seas on the final approach. It was also clear we would have to sail in as it was far too rough to be fiddling about with dropping the outboard over the back. I was just worried about what the tide would do at the entrance. I was also aware the wind would cut out completely as soon as we passed between the pierheads so I steered and Tom was poised to drop and fire up the outboard as soon as we were in flat water. We turned back onto a beam reach as we made our final run in and the sped on like an arrow. The entrance was a horrible cauldron of boiling water that didn’t bear close scrutiny so I concentrated on the nice calm water I knew lay within. The moment we passed the two big pierheads the wind, as predicted, cut like a knife and we wallowed helplessly in what Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Cruising - English Channel
plan went but, given we had no clear idea how fast we would be going the first day, this seemed sensible.
Clearing into France post Brexit:
was left of the swell. Naturally, at this moment, the outboard refused to start and things definitely looked somewhat alarming. At this precise point, the shackle attaching the mainsheet to the horse also decided to give way – far from ideal – but I was able to keep way on the boat for the agonising minute or so until the engine finally puttered into life. Shortly afterwards we tied up. We had been 26 hours at sea, the boat looked like it had been ransacked and nothing was dry. Tom, haggard, muttered ‘why do we do this?’ after we tied up but I must admit I was strangely exhilarated. With the boat shipshape and coffee grounds (mostly) gone, I hurried to the pierheads to take another look. All was calm; the sea flat and azure blue, the breeze a modest F2-3 crisping the sea in the most docile manner. Boats were racing down the coast under spinnakers. I shrugged and turned away in disgust. We had made it and the following day headed to Dieppe where. It was time to dine out on Dieppe’s celebrated line caught moules washed down with Calvados. I left Tom here and he made an uneventful solo trip to the Somme and the tranquility of a summer on the rivers and canals.
northerly winds on the day of our trip with things breezing up the following day with the wind still from the north but stronger, peaking at F4. The boat had a 5hp outboard on a bracket – so this would be no match for punching any serious tide. Wind was therefore required and it looked like we would have some. Tom wisely kept things pretty vague as to an initial destination. St Valery would have been an epic and you have to be there a couple of hours before high water to get in. He therefore selected Dieppe as the ideal destination with Fecamp as a backup depending on how much we were pushed about by west/east tidal flows. We set off as soon as the flood tide gave us depth over the sill at Emsworth, punched a bit of tide out of Chichester and then benefitted from getting pushed east at first. That was about as far as the passage
The passage plan:
Tom kept the passage plan pretty simple. We needed to get to St Valery sur Somme from Emsworth. This is a distance of some 100nm on a bearing of 290 degrees – a lot of east which would mean a lot of punching tide. The forecast was for moderate
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE
the entrance to Fecamp looking incredibly benign
BELOW
Arrival in Fecamp; exhausted, soaking and in need of a tidy up and a lot of sleep
Immediately post Brexit, sailors coming from the UK had to head to a number of ports of entry on the French coast in order to clear in to France. Limitations on travel due to Covid meant that this problem was largely obviated, although it was clear that the needs of yachtsmen had been rather overlooked in Lord Frost and Mr Johnson’s Oven Ready Deal. With cruising across the channel picking up in 2022 the French decided to create a more workable system by allowing sailors to e mail a Preavis Immigration to the port they intended to visit. These can be downloaded by going to ports-manche.com – but only for some ports. Of course, should you change destination due to weather, you have to e mail the relevant port new documents and e mail your intended port telling them that you can no longer make it. Despite the French love of paperwork, this new mound of red tape is understandably irritating and they are not currently staffed/ trained for new protocols. We found in reality that we arrived in Fecamp on a Sunday, everything was closed, we left early Monday and arrived in Dieppe where we presented our ships papers and that was the end of it. Nobody wanted to know. This is fine but the point is that it is OUR responsibility to sort this out. If we got caught without having the correct paperwork, that is ultimately OUR problem and the repercussions could be severe. The best thing we can all do is continually lobby our respective MPs to try to gain greater clarity. The UK government seems happy to keep things vague as far as leisure boats crossing the channel are concerned, but it is not a satisfactory solution.
Useful contacts: theca.org.uk rya.org.uk ports-manche.com
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Buyer's Guide - Safety Gear
Make sure you’re equipped to face the worst at sea. Sam Fortescue finds out how taying safe on board is a key priority for most sailors. And the further from land you sail, the more there is to think about as the prospect of immediate rescue by the Coastguard recedes. Ocean racers and bluewater sailors in particular have to carry enough kit to survive for days, when help can arrive. But knowing what to buy is complicated, and there is a whole ecosystem of competing kit vying for the attention of you and your wallet. From drogues and MOB recovery kits to lifejackets and liferafts, you need to make the right decisions for your crew, your boat and your cruising plans. Use our handy guide to help you. First things first.
Lifejackets.
These are just as relevant whether you’re a mile up the creek or 500 miles offshore. The standard is 150N of buoyancy, but some
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Safety first
manufacturers build a bit more into their jackets. A beefed up 275N standard also exists, which is more suited to sailors wearing lots of bulky clothes, drysuits or frequently weighed down with tools. For offshore work, make sure it has a sprayhood, harness, crotch-strap, light and pouch for a PLB or AIS beacon. “When choosing an offshore lifejacket the key points are comfort, fit and adjustment,” says Spinlock’s James Hall. “As an offshore sailor, you are likely to be wearing your lifejacket for long periods. Getting a fit that you enjoy and that you find simple to put on will make all the difference. Both 150N and 275N sizes of buoyancy come in many shapes and sizes, but all perform to the same standard, so there is a lot to be said for the lighter less bulky models 150-170N.” Spinlock Deckvest 6D, from £261.90 Fitted with Lume-On, which
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
BELOW
Spinlock's Deckvest
turns the whole bladder into a light. spinlock.co.uk Kru Sport ADV, £109.99 Featuring Wave Barrier technology to turn you quickly on your back. oceansafety.com Crewsaver Ergofit+ 190N auto, £199 New Exolok system prevents the gas cylinder for inflation from working loose. jimmygreen.com Seago 3Dynamic, £145 With a cylinder locking device and a flashing LED light built in. promarinestore.co.uk Baltic Legend 165 Harness, £157.78 Also available in a femalespecific design called Athena. baltic.se Lalizas Kappa 190N, £179 With a more comfortable twin crotch-strap and fleecy neck marinesafetydirect.co.uk
Liferaft
Not all boats will carry a liferaft, but it’s a requirement for offshore racing or rallies and highly recommended for all but inshore work. You’ll want to find one that’s certified to ISO-9650 part 1, and equipped with either a sub-24hr ration pack 24hr-plus one – depending on how far off the beaten track you’re going. “It goes without saying that it is essential to have a liferaft on board with sufficient capacity for all crew members,” says Alistair Hackett of Ocean Safety. “Offshore liferafts must be of high quality with the correct survival equipment pack inside for the voyage being undertaken.” Crewsaver’s 6-man valise is a bestseller: £1,298 marinestore.co.uk Ocean Safety’s top quality 6-man valise costs from £1,950 www.marinesafetydirect.com Plastimo Transocean 6-man valise is c£1,930.36 cactusnav.com Lalizas liferafts are Polish-made and carry a 12-year guarantee. Six man valise: £1,825 suffolkmarinesafety.com Seamaster ISO 9650-1 Good value six-man valise from Seago. From £959 Seagoyachting.co.uk
Flares
The RYA is not a big fan of carrying
intensity LEDs to alert onlookers. There’s the ODEO Flare (£89.95 from Force 4) and the rescueME EDF1 from Ocean Signal (£120). The latter has a six-hour battery life, with user-replaceable batteries.
Raising the alarm
flares for smaller leisure boats, but its updated guidelines do accept that red hand flares are important for ‘final mile’ location by day and night. Orange smoke is the clear-visibility alternative by day. Red parachute flares are recommended “only if no other means of distress alerting is carried”, by which the RYA means VHF radio, epirbs and the like. But the Colregs have yet to catch up with this view, and offshore sailing events therefore stipulate that participants should carry red parachute flares, red handheld flares and orange smoke. RORC recently dropped the requirement for parachute flares, but they remain for the ARC. “I don’t believe that pyrotechnics will disappear from leisure until the IMO removes it in the commercial sphere,” says Hackett at Ocean Safety. Seago flares cost £192 for the offshore pack, while Pains Wessex cost £255. An inshore pack ranges from £62-£75 – all at Jimmy Green. You can also buy so-called ‘electronic flares’ which use high
ABOVE
Plastimo's Transocean six man liferaft
BELOW
Ocean Signal's EPIRB
Ubiquitous on safety lists for any offshore sailor is an epirb. This is a satellite distress beacon which raises the alarm with your registered Marine Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) – Falmouth in the UK. They also broadcast on 121.5MHz – a frequency that SAR teams can use to home in very precisely once they are in your vicinity. A personal locator beacon does the same job for a person in distress, whether they’ve fallen overboard or need urgent medical help off-grid. Both PLBs and epirbs can now use return link technology, whereby the person that triggers the beacon receives welcome confirmation that their distress alert has been received. Naturally there is a premium to pay for the technology. Most boats will choose a manual category 2 epirb rather than an automatic float-free category 1 unit, which costs much more.
Epirbs
RescueME Epirb 1, £445.54, oceansignal.com ACR GlobalFix V4, £535, acrartex.com McMurdo Smartfind G8 AIS, £861, seasofsolutions.com Kannad SafePro AIS, £861 seasofsolutions.com
Drysuit For high latitude or remote cold-water sailing, a breathable dry suit could be a sound investment, especially if you’re alone. The simple principle is to prevent water from reaching your skin through latex seals at the neck and wrists, giving you much better survival chances if you fall overboard. Remember, though, that a drysuit has little warmth in its own right, so you’ll also need good layering beneath. This is a common misconception that Crewsaver tackles head on, by supplying its Atacama Sport+ drysuit (£475) with a fleece onesie and built in socks. Products by Canada’s Mustang Survival are now available in the UK, and include an extremely capable Hudson drysuit (for men) and the Helix (for women). Choose from a drier latex neck or a more comfortable, adjustable neoprene fitting. Pricing matches the lightweight capability of these suits, from £880 to £960
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Buyer's Guide - Safety Gear
PLBs
Ocean Signal PLB1, £317, oceansignal.com McMurdo FastFind 220, £361, mcmurdogroup.com Kannad Safelink Solo, £361, kannadmarine.com ACR ResQLink, from £365, acrartex.com
MOB alert
Waiting for the SAR team may sometimes be the only option, but the quickest rescues will always be by the crew of your own boat. AIS beacons are the last word here. Once triggered, they broadcast your position using dedicated VHF frequencies, which can travel up to four miles to be picked up and plotted directly as an MOB on your chart plotter. This is the technology that saved Andrew Taylor’s life mid-Pacific during the 2014 Clipper race.
ACR Artex AISLink, £249.95 Bright strobe light, test modes and manual/automatic activation. Force4.co.uk acrartex.com Ocean Signal MOB 1, £219.99 The world’s smallest AIS beacon with DSC capability, for easy fitting to a lifejacket. Oceanchandlery.com Sea Angel SA15 AIS Flare, €165,83 An even smaller device, but without DSC capability. seaangel.at Another approach is to use Bluetooth fobs worn by each crew member, that trigger an alarm on board when they go out of range. A central transponder (which can be a mobile phone app) keeps in touch with all the devices on board via lowpower Bluetooth. As soon as contact is lost with a fob, the transponder assumes you’ve fallen overboard and
ABOVE LEFT
Ocean Signal's PLB
ABOVE RIGHT
Exposure's OLAS wrist tag
sends an MOB alert to your plotter. It is a great, cost-effective solution for daysailing in accessible waters. But because the transponder only knows the position where you fell overboard, it cannot account for wind and ocean currents. Factor in the time needed for off-watch crew to get kit on, go on deck and get sails down, and it introduces quite a margin for error. Pair with a light or strobe for the best effect – Exposure offers these from £125 Exposure OLAS tag, £59 Tags are worn like a watch. The Core transponder costs from £129. App free. exposureolas.com Nasa Marine MOBi (tags x 3 plus display, £307) Hardwired transponder. Additional tags cost £53. nasamarine.com
Safety aboard Oyster 625 Uhuru James Ashwell is five years into a world cruise with friends aboard his allows you to have a very tiny handkerchief amount of mainsail out Oyster 625 Uhuru. He took the time to put together a that felt at the time to be safer than putting up a stormsail. By detailed operations and safety manual for the boat the time you want to put a storm sail out, it’s probably already (see online for more details). too late.” “We’ve never had any serious injuries or accidents Boat rules are that crew always wear a tether at night. “I’m in 30,000 miles – touch wood,” he said. “The idea that mega strict with MOB. Once an oil tanker passed in the I’m doing something for fun that could cause damage distance and the wake went through an open hatch and or hurt someone I love – I take that pretty seriously.” knocked someone out of their berth – they thought they Safety & Operations Manual The nearest to an emergency they’ve got was a were drowning.” galley fire, which they managed to control without After that, Uhuru has a danbuoy and Jonbuoy, with throw using the extinguisher. lines on both sides of the boat and two of the inevitable “We’ve been in some fairly horrendous hurricanes horsehoe buoys. “I also really believe in having the AIS and – 6 hours of 65 knots. I found the in-mast furler handheld PLB on our lifejackets."
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Buyer's Guide - Safety Gear
Rescued after eight hours British born Nigel Fox survived being tossed overboard by a rogue wave off Australia’s Northern Territory, before being rescued by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. He was sailing solo through the Arafura Sea, when crossing swell put the boat over on her beam ends and left him dangling over the guardwire with his head underwater. He had the presence of mind to cut his tether, before floating free and activating the Ocean Signal rescueME PLB1 attached to his lifejacket. “When I needed to use my equipment, it became pure instinct,” said Fox afterwards. “This saved my life, from using the hook knife to cut free, to then adjusting my life jacket for optimum fit while floating, to locating my PLB in its pouch. I could not see properly, but I knew which steps to perform before pushing the activation button. With the boat quickly moving away and
MOB recovery
Getting your casualty back on board is a different challenge. Offshore lifejackets with built-in harnesses can simply be clipped to a halyard and winched out, but it is far from comfortable. A much better bet for a fit MOB is to use a sling, which has
the current taking me southeast at about 2.5knots, staying positive was then my primary priority.” The alert was received by AMSA, who pinpointed the distress signal 50 nautical miles northeast of a remote coastal town. A SAR aircraft located Fox using the 121.5MHz homing frequency in his PLB, then dropped a liferaft which he climbed into. By this time, he was 12 miles from his boat, and it took a lifeboat another five hours to reach him. “The water temperature was around 310C, but after a couple of hours I occupied myself with rolling down shirt sleeves and doing up the cuffs in response to potential hypothermia,” said Fox afterwards. “It’s pretty thick with tiger sharks up here, so all movements were carried out under the water to minimise splashing or making a noise. Then there are saltwater crocodiles and the Irukandji - a type of jelly fish which are very nasty.”
a padded loop you pass under your arms for lifting. The next step up is an inflatable sling, like the £179.95 retroreflective offering from Jonbuoy. But the Rolls Royce of MOB recovery is Jonbuoy’s recovery module. It is a sort of seat which activates when it hits the water, providing a light and a flag for easy identification, just like a normal danbuoy. However, the casualty can climb onto it and get winched out more comfortably in a sitting position. SeaGo recovery sling, £69 Oscar padded recovery sling, £90 Seastrop. A smart system that allows recovery of an unconscious MOB in the prone position. £300 Jonbuoy Recovery Module. £945 jimmygreen.com force4.co.uk
BELOW LEFT
The Jonbuoy Glo-lite
BELOW
A typical parachute drogue
Drogue
When the conditions get really tough offshore, and even your last scrap of canvas is too much, it’s time to think
about slowing the boat down to retain control and keep bow or stern to the wind. We covered drogues in the July issue of sailing today, under bluewater kit. Your basic choice it between a suitably sized parachute drogue and a so-called series drogue featuring dozens of small cones sewn onto a stout warp. Experienced sailors have their own views on what works best, but make sure you have something!
Hull breach
Softwood plugs are the tried-andtested technique for stopping a seacock or through-hull failure. Pick them up in packs of 10 from £7.50. A more technical solution capable of sealing bigger hull breaches has been invented by one-man band Nautinov. Brace the Airbob against the hull breach and inflate it to stem water ingress. Airbob, €220 nautinov.com
Disaster for a revolutionary yacht Delivery crew were sailing the first Infiniti 52 race yacht Tulikettu from Cascais back to Gosport, when disaster struck. Some 300 nautical miles offshore “in the North Atlantic”, the ultralight, foil-assisted yacht struck an unidentified floating object, according to Xtra Staerk Ocean Racing which runs the yacht. The DSS foil was reported to be fully retracted at the time. There was no report of damage associated with the collision, but two days later, crew discovered an uncontrolled leak. They triggered Tulikettu’s epirb and set about trying to stem the inflow of water. After 10
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
hours, a temporary repair appeared to hold, but the boat was full of water and no-one knew how long she would float. With the weather worsening, they made the difficult decision to evacuate to a tanker which had steamed up to assist. A week-long salvage effort turned up no trace of the boat, which was presumed lost, but a passing yacht reported a sighting of her far to the south at the end of May. The search was relaunched and on 5 June, Tulikettu was safely towed back into Portimao for inspection and repairs. “We managed to sail almost 5,000 nautical
miles aboard our magnificent yacht, which was long enough time to conclude that the new Infiniti 52 exceeded all our expectations for the performance of the boat,” said Arto Linnervuo, Tulikettu Racing Team owner. “I will never forget the feeling when Tulikettu leaned on its foil and lifted herself above the waves for the first time, reaching effortlessly boat speeds of 28 knots without help from surf waves, and the wind speed didn’t come even close to our boat speed back then. “It was an incredible feeling when we found the boat six and a half weeks after it disappeared.”
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
01/07/2022 16:23:36
Charter Ownership
Share bliss A problem shared is a problem halved they say. Does that apply to boat ownership? Sam Jefferson investigates
Charter ownership
A number of companies operate on this business model which in its most basic form means buying a boat then immediately leasing it
back to a company such as Sunsail who deal with maintenance and berthing of the boat and manage charter trips on the boat. You, as the owner, then have access to the boat for a limited number of weeks per year until the contract is up, whereupon you take full ownership of the boat, having enjoyed a period of charter income combined with free mooring and upkeep or perhaps choose to trade it in for an upgrade with the same company. This is the concept in its most basic form; there are many nuances. You can also choose to pay just part of the price upfront, then resell the boat at the end of the contract or makea final cash payment to take ownership. In this case, there will not usually be any charter income. Bigger
operators also offer the opportunity to ‘time share’ and use a boat in a different location free of charge. dreamyachtcharter.com sailgrenadines.com sailionian.com sunsail.co.uk
PHOTOS: PAUL WYETH; VERTIGOFILMSTIM TIM BUTT; RORC
wning a boat has both upsides and downsides. The most notable downsides being cost and maintenance. One way to get around this problem is to be come part of the sharing economy. Like many other aspects of life, this concept of a shared economy has developed massively in the last few years and there are a number of ways of getting afloat while sharing costs. Here are a few of the most common ones.
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Charter Ownership
Boat Share
This is a different concept from charter ownership whereby a syndicate of people get together to run a single boat. This is obviously something you could do with a group of friend without getting any outside help but the complexities of ownership mean that it is often useful to get a third party involved to ensure the smooth running of the boat share. boatsharefinder.co.uk yacht-fractions.co.uk
Subscriptions
this is another variation whereby a parent company owns a fleet of yachts and you subscribe to access the fleet for a certain number of days per year. Ian Bartlett of Pure Latitude explains: “The basis of the scheme is subscription rather than ownership. This makes things very flexible and gives you access to a broad range of yachts – both power and sail - in locations across the UK while In addition, we have an X-46 that currently tours Europe, giving our subscribers an extra option abroad.” Hamble based Flexisail uses a similar model as their Development Manager, Rupert Kenyon, explains: "FlexiSail is an affordable fixed cost way to enjoy having ‘your own’ new, or nearly new high specification yacht or catamaran, available to use throughout the year, whilst fully serviced and maintained at all times. "A single yacht or catamaran is exclusively shared by a small number of members.
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We have three membership levels on each boat that will give you a certain number of days use each year. Your time is guaranteed; we limit member numbers so you will always be able to reserve your days. flexisail.com purelatitude.com
Peer-to-peer
This is what the sharing economy is all about. It allows individual boatowners to earn a bit of cash from their yachts, which spend 95 per cent of their time moored and motionless. It won’t cover the cost of ownership, but it could provide some welcome income
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
to defray your boating expenses. borrowaboat.com clickandboat.com boatflex.com
Beds on Board
This allows owners to rent out their floating assets for overnight stays. Renters don’t take the boat out or start up the engine, so it is a much simpler transaction with a much broader potential client base. Anyone who wants to stay near the water could make use of the service. For boatowners, this eliminates the question of insurance and reduces the trust you need to place in a customer. bedsonboard.com
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GULL’S EYE
BRAYE HARBOUR The Channel Island port of Braye on the Isle of Alderney makes a great alternative stopover for yachts en route to Brittany from the UK. It’s also a beautiful place to sail to in its own right 49° 43’ 32” N 2° 11’ 43” W
CHATEAU A L’ETOC POINT
BIBETTE HEAD
VISITOR MOORINGS
APPROACH Be aware that the far end of Braye breakwater was destroyed shortly after it was built but remains submerged and protruding some three cables beyond the existing tip of the breakwater with depths as shallow as 1.2m
BRAYE ROCK
VISITOR MOORINGS
LANDING PONTOON LITTLE CRABBY HARBOUR
HARBOURMASTER’S OFFICE
Gull’s Eye - Braye Harbour
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ABOVE Braye Harbour is dominated by the massive breakwater BELOW Looking towards Braye from the anchorage
49° 43’ 32” N 2° 11’ 43” W
is also great for hiking and cycling, with bike hire available in town. The port of Braye itself was built between 1847 and 1864 as part of a scheme to provide a secure naval base on France’s doorstep. Initially, two breakwaters were planned but a thawing of relations between the two countries meant that the work was shelved and the monstrous Admiralty Breakwater remains an anomalous monolith defying the sometimes savage vagaries of the English Channel. The bonus is that it provides an excellent hideaway for yachtsmen and a selection of mooring buoys for visitors up to 16m in length plus superb shelter in anything other than a North easterly.
Passage planning
The big consideration when approaching Alderney is the aforementioned Alderney Race and this is particularly vicious if you approaching from the South and
West where things get particularly hectic in The Swinge – a narrow channel running between Alderney and the islet of Burhou. Big, dangerous overfalls develop here when the tide is running hard so it should only be tackled in good weather at slack tide. The easier approach is from the N and E which is handy for yachts coming from the UK – or indeed Cherbourg. Approaching at night your final lookout before arrival will be dominated by the lights of Casquets to the east, Cap de la Hague (FL.5s48m23M) on the French mainland and Alderney light (FL(4)15s37m28M on the eastern tip of the island. By day this light is identified by a black band around a white tower. To the west is Chateau a l’Eroc sectored light (iso.WR.4s). The white sector keeps you clear of danger as you make your approach to Braye. Be aware that the far end of Braye breakwater was destroyed
PHOTOS: ISTOCK
B
raye Harbour is the only shelter of any note on the island of Alderney and this is very important to know if you are a sailor coming from the UK, as the island makes a very convenient stopover on the way to France, lying a mere 50nm from Portland. The island is not without its disadvantages however as the Alderney tidal race is notorious among sailors. Currents can run at well over 5kn (up to 11kn if you’re actually sailing in it) on a spring tide in the channel between Alderney and Cap de la Hague in mainland France. Throw in a bit of wind over tide and you have an area that needs to be treated with extreme caution. Yet the rewards for the intrepid are high and Alderney itself is well worth a visit. The island is three square miles in size and has a population of around 2,000 permanent residents. As you can imagine, its recent history is dominated by the bickerings of France and Britain, but the island has largely been in British hands since 1204 when Normandy was incorporated into mainland France. The Island chose to stay loyal to the Duke of Normandy which, given that William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, conquered England in 1066, meant they stuck with the English. Aside from the small matter of German occupation during the Second World War, the island has remained under British control ever since. The main town is St Anne which is just a short walk up from Braye Harbour and has a fine selection of restaurants and pubs. The island
shortly after it was built but remains submerged and protruding some three cables beyond the existing tip of the breakwater with depths as shallow as 1.2m. By day you can make a transit to guide you past this by lining up the steeple of St Anne’s tower with a white pyramid on the end of the harbour breakwater. This final approach is easier by night as there are leading lights on the harbour breakwater (Q.9M with Q.12M behind) Once in, there are numerous yellow visitors moorings the length of the breakwater so pick one up at your leisure and then await further instruction from the harbourmaster. It’s worth noting that for Customs clearance, Braye is the only port of entry and all vessels entering from outside the Bailiwick of Guernsey must complete a customs form - UK forms are not valid. If you don’t want to use a mooring buoy, the anchorage in the middle
ABOVE The Breton town of St Malo is a stunning destination not far from Alderney BELOW The town of St Anne’s is a short walk from Braye and can be seen in the distance
of the bay has good holding ground in sand, but there are areas of rock and weed. Towards the entrance of the Harbour, the bottom is generally rockier. Because of the tidal range at Springs (up to 6.9m), a good scope of anchor line should be used, especially if anchoring in shoal areas.
Cruising grounds
In all likelihood you will arrive in Alderney from the UK having completed a channel crossing. If that’s the case, this is a great
place to start your adventure. From here, the rest of the Channel Islands open up to you with Jersey, Guernsey and Sark all an easy day sail provided you play the tides right – as is Cherbourg on the French mainland. Beyond that, the coast of Brittany is thoroughly inviting, with ports such as St Malo and Paimpol well worth a visit. Meanwhile, the wild but beautiful coast from St Malo round to the Vendee is not to be missed, with many stunning anchorages.
FACTFILE
top of the dinghy slipway and at Braye Jetty by arrangement with the Harbour Office.
Harbourmaster’s office: Open: Easter to September: 0800– 1800 At all other times: Monday to Thursday 0800–1700 / Friday 0800–1400 Contact: +44 (0) 1481 820070 or harbour@alderney.gov.gg
Prices: £20.00 per day for a mooring buoy £5.00 per day for anchorage
BRAYE HARBOUR
The Harbour Office is at the south west end of the harbour, near the entrance to Little Crabby Harbour. The Dinghy pontoon, dinghy slipway, showers, laundrette, telephones, chandlers and a skip for rubbish are all nearby. The laundrette is in the same building as the showers and uses £1 coins - both are open 24 hours a day in the summer months but the showers are closed in the winter. Fresh water is available from alongside Mainbrayce Chandlers and also from a tap at the
Water Taxi: A Water Taxi runs from 0800 till 2200 every day, and on occasion it runs until midnight. Contact on +44 (0) 7781 121046 or on Radio Ch. 73. Mainbrayce Chandlers Located in Little Crabby Harbour Mainbrayce is accessible to yachts approximately +/-2 hours of high water. A tide gauge at the entrance indicates depth of water alongside. Mainbrayce provides fresh water, diesel, bottled gas and spares. Contact: Mainbrayce Ltd, Inner Harbour, Braye Alderney, GY9 3DL Phone: 01481-822772 Mainbrayce.co.uk
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Interview - Caffari/Robertson
Dream team
PHOTOS: PAUL WYETH; VERTIGOFILMSTIM TIM BUTT; RORC
What happens when two of the world’s best sailors team-up to take on one of offshore sailing’s most gruelling races? Georgie Corlett-Pitt chatted to Shirley Robertson and Dee Caffari to find out…
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fter a brief time as rivals when the discipline of offshore double-handed racing fleetingly held Olympic status, Shirley Robertson OBE and Dee Caffari MBE teamed up at the start of this year to campaign a new Sun Fast 3300 provided by Nigel De Quervain Colleys’ Sea Ventures UK, the Swanwick based Jeanneau dealer. Their sights are set on one of sailing’s toughest races: the 1800nm Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland, run quadrennially by RORC. Now the clock is ticking down as the start of the race fast approaches. On paper, the co-skippers make a formidable team: one a double
gold Olympic medallist and the other has sailed around the world six times and was the first woman to sail single-handed and non-stop around the world in both directions. Both believe their skill sets are complementary, but the realities of coming from the complete opposite sides of the sport have meant a steep learning curve, intensified by an extremely short time frame.
A complex challenge
For Shirley, this is her third season of double-handed campaigning, having partnered with Henry Bomby in 2020 and 2021. Despite her experience, she is still adjusting to a discipline that she describes as “very complex” ahead of what will
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE
A wealth of experience; Caffari has sailed around the world six times while Robertson has won two Olympic gold medals
be, for her, by far the longest race yet. “There are a lot of variables; you’re trying to keep the boat going at 100% in the right direction, thinking ‘are you on the right sail?’, ‘are you on the right angle?’ - all the time. That takes a lot of energy, a lot of decision making, and on top of that you’ve got to go the right way! It’s a really layered sport. Whereas in fully crewed sailing, it is someone’s job to make sure you go the right way, we have to do that and all these other jobs. I find that that quite hard - not dropping the ball, not relaxing. And if you do find yourself relaxing, you know should be sleeping. “For me the hardest thing is at night. You have a picture in daylight of where everyone is, you look at the
fatigue caused her to hallucinate on the final night. At three times that length, the Round Britain and Ireland will take the Sun Fast 3300s between 10-14 days – and once past the Fastnet Rock, she will be in unfamiliar waters, notorious for their hazards, not least the rocky, storm-battered Muckle Flugga at 61° north. Managing to sleep and eat well over this extended period Shirley says, will be “absolutely crucial” to be able to maintain performance - but it’s no easy task. “It’s so noisy down below and you’re so full of adrenaline, it’s very hard to sleep for the first few days. But it will be important not to waste opportunities to rest. We don’t run a normal kind of watch system - three hours is way too long, anything could happen - so we run shorter periods. We talk everything through well in advance so we know what’s next, what the variables could be. As with any sailing you shouldn’t be making
ABOVE
Shirley and Dee tuning up in Rock It their Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300
BELOW LEFT
The VO65 Team SCA set the women's record in the 2014 race with Dee aboard
BELOW RIGHT
Running well aboard Team SCA in the 2014 race
Learning curve
Representing the other half of that relationship, offshore legend Dee Caffari is equally relishing the challenge. No stranger to the Round Britain and Ireland Race, in 2014 she broke her own record for the fastest time by an all-female crew sailing with Sam Davies on board VO65 Team SCA, finishing in an incredible 4d 21h 39s. “The opportunity to sail with Shirley is a really big one,” says Dee, who split from her previous co-skipper James Harayda when
PHOTOS CLIVE LOUGHLIN/ISTOCK
clouds and the water and you know what’s happening. Then it gets dark and it gets really hard; harder to sail the boat, harder to know where everyone is – you can’t rely on your senses. “Racing double-handed is exhausting, and I’m nervous about looking after myself, pacing myself. With solo sailing there’s an acceptance that some things that you can’t do, but with double-handed racing I think you push push push - like racing round the cans, and that’s unsustainable over two weeks.” Previously, Shirley’s longest double-handed race had been last year’s Rolex Fastnet Race, which at 695nm took her and Henry 4d 15h 22m, only narrowly missing first place on corrected time. “It was relatively short - even though it didn’t feel it at the time!” she recalls, as she admits the extreme
snap decisions, they should evolve. We will be keeping communications up, sailing the boat at its optimum, and really prioritising rest.” With rest so imperative, it means that – bar major tasks like sail changes - most of the time, one or the other of them will effectively be sailing solo; a fact Shirley hadn’t fully appreciated when she started in double-handed racing. Nonetheless, she has found the challenge “compelling” as she relates: “I had lost my mojo for sailing. I didn’t just want to sail round the cans on a fully crewed boat or go club racing on a Tuesday night, I just had no interest for any of that. But this is so far from the norm for me. You learn a lot, you’re testing yourself all the time, and also the dynamics with two people is an interesting experiment - you’re just so exhausted and often in quite difficult situations. There are a lot of tough moments, you share it with one person and you’re properly relying on them, so that’s how you grow that relationship is fascinating.”
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Interview - Caffari/Robertson
he launched his solo Vendée Globe campaign earlier this year. Although Dee admits to “initially being quite intimidated” by the new partnership, the idea – when Nigel proposed it - was just too enticing to turn down. “At the time I was questioning whether I just wanted to sail around the Solent and the English Channel and do the same races over again. I quite like a big project - as you probably notice when you do six laps of the planet! Round Britain and Ireland only happens every four years. I’ve done it fully crewed on IMOCA60s, Volvo 65s, Challenge boats… but to do it double-handed in what, to me, will be a relatively small boat for that length of race, I thought would be really exciting. “I was amazed it only took one cup of coffee to convince Shirley! I think she said yes before she’d really thought about it - so I told her not to have too many conversations with other people because they would tell us that she was mad,” she jests. As well as drawing on her experience to help Shirley work out her sleep and food intake regimes, Dee feels that much of the learning she has imparted to her teammate has been around campaign management, as the degree of sailor input differs hugely from a fully supported Olympic campaign. “It’s everything from food and communication to power management and safety,” says Dee. “It’s been quite interesting getting our heads across all that; I have a sense that she feels reassured from my
experience that she’s in good hands. “Equally she’s not letting me rest on my laurels - if there’s an opportunity to make a gain then we’re going to do it. Asked what knowledge Shirley has imparted to her in return, she replies: “Attention to detail! An Olympic mindset is on a different level; they literally leave no stone unturned, measuring things like spreader angles to exact millimetres. “Her feel on the helm is more instinctive than mine. She can verbally describe how it feels where as I struggle with that sometimes; it doesn’t feel right but I can’t tell you what it is whereas she will reassess all the variables - that’s been really interesting.” May saw the duo race together for the first time in RORC’s De Guingand Bowl, a 115nm extended loop from Cowes to Poole and back around the Isle of Wight. It was
ABOVE
RockIt taking part in the 2022 Myth of Malham race
BELOW
The pair working in tandem aboard RockIt
one of a series of warm-up races that’s enabled them to test not just kit, but also their teamwork. Hitting race mode put even more of a spotlight on their differences. “Dee is from a different world,” Shirley says with admiration. “She is far better at taking a long term view, considers things before she does it, and doesn’t just launch into stuff like I might. She has sailed round the planet six times, she has a huge wealth of experience. She’s methodical and careful, which is crucial because as the race progresses it’s easy to feel fatigue and make silly mistakes, and actually when situations get hard, she just gets better. “We operate at a different pace. My expertise is in short course racing, so I’m constantly looking for time improvements, adjusting everything all the time and trying to sail 100%. I think I’ve been able to bring that on board – that constant trimming loop, I’m always making changes.” To help fast-track their teamwork and communications, the duo has sought input from coach Nigel King; the result is a “very open and honest boat” where, Shirley says, both feel free to ask “daft or sometimes difficult” questions.
A wild ride
Trust will be an essential ingredient for the tackling the gruelling Round Britain and Ireland Race. Dee explains: “You rely on each other; anything can happen and it’s complex. You don’t really get
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Interview - Caffari/Robertson
much downtime and just as you’re getting really fatigued you come into the North Sea, which is full of oil rigs, wind farms, sandbanks, shipping lanes, tidal gates, and it just gets harder and harder. The race is not for the faint hearted. It’s more stressful than crossing the Atlantic. “Our coastline involves some of the hardest navigation, we know how quickly the weather can change, and so we know we’re going to get little bit of everything. It tests your navigation, weather, tactics and strategy, and we’re also trying to get performance out the boat so it it’s going to be full on. But I know what the feeling is going to be like at the end, it’s going to be a huge achievement. And if we do get close enough to the shoreline I know it will be stunning to see along the way.” Since RORC introduced the IRC two-handed class to the race in 2010, 25 have taken part; only nine have completed the course. This year there are 15 entrants, and frontrunners include Rob Craigie and Deb Fish on a Sun Fast 3600 Bellino, Richard Palmer on his JPK 10.10 Jangada, and Nigel on his own Sun Fast 3300 Fastrak XII. With its scow bow, wide flat hull and twin rudders, both Dee and Shirley describe the Sun Fast 3300 as a fun, fast and simple boat to sail; the difficulty comes in sailing it well. For Dee, more used to 60+ footers, going two-up on a boat half that size is part of the challenge. “In spicy conditions they’re wet, you’re very exposed, it’s quite basic down below; you feel every lump and bump. When there are two of you, you don’t really take your wet kit off because you want to be ready to jump up on deck. It’s not exactly comfortable.” Dee says that the set-up on their new boat, RockIt, differs from her previous Sun Fast 3300, with sails this time from North, instruments from B&G, a ballast system and adjustable rudders to get to grips with, plus a new fuel cell and water maker for the race. “Each change brings complexity; we need to spend time on the water to try those things so we’re confident in the set-up and that we can get to the same set-up each time. As you get more tired, it’s more difficult to make decisions
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so the more things that we can have done before the race, the easier that decision making process becomes, and that then has a knock-on effect on your fatigue levels.” The rest of the fleet will be chasing hard. Both Dee and Shirley cite having the strength in depth of the domestic double-handed fleet as a huge bonus, and a big part of the appeal. While Dee says it feels as if “we have big targets on our backs” for the pinnacle event, she’s fully embracing that. “The fleet is so competitive that if you make a mistake, you have to work really hard to make that time back up again - nobody is letting you have an easy ride! I think it is going to be an exciting race.” And what of their race goal? Is it enough for them to get round, or will they only be content with the win? Dee laughs as she points out, “You’re talking to two pretty competitive women!” before adding
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE
Dee and Shirley rank among the favourites of the 15 strong entry list in the double handed category
BELOW
The pair are adjusting to the thrills, psills and privations of sailing a Sun Fast 3300
resolutely: “Of course getting round is an achievement for everybody, but ultimately we want to put in our best performance and we want to finish the race knowing that we put everything out there, laid everything on the table, did everything possible within our control to sail the best race possible. Fingers crossed, if we get it right, that should put us in the right position.” With just weeks left to the race, there is still a lengthy job list to tick off, more kit to test, warm up races still to sail and other commitments to juggle. They share a nervousness around how they will perform in heavier weather, having had a largely light wind season so far. But while the pressure is undoubtedly building, ultimately both women are elite professionals and know how to handle it. There’s gratitude too, for their supporters, particularly Nigel, without who the campaign may never have materialised. Asked if this partnership could evolve into something longer term, neither sailor is shutting the door on the possibility. They agree it’s been a lot of fun so far. For Shirley, the idea of competing double-handed in other iconic offshores –the Rolex Sydney Hobart perhaps, or a transatlantic – certainly holds appeal, while Dee is also open-minded. “There are lots of options,” she hints, “never say never”. One thing is for sure, when the fleet heads west from the Solent on 7 August at the start of the Round Britain and Ireland Race, this will be a fascinating pairing to follow.
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EXPERTS' FORUM This month
Advice this month includes... - Techniques for singlehanded sailors - Get the perfect boat end start - How to leave the dock stress free - Winning ways in the Solent
Keelboat masterclass Keelboat masterclass
This month, Clive Loughlin discusses the rise of the robots as a means of not only helping us navigate but even to the point of mooring the boat (see p90). As he points out, such innovations are all very well but they do have the drawback of making us switch off somewhat and this can catch us out. I have personal experience of that which is narrated in the cross channel adventure I relate on p56. On this occasion me and the skipper relied on navigation apps on our phones to get across the channel. Given we had three phones, this seemed like a fairly safe bet. We also, of course, had paper charts. Yet, as fatigue set in, we relied exclusively on the phones and, with France in sight, we felt there was no problem. Unfortunately the sea had other ideas and, after a fast passage through steep, short waves in a boat with low freeboard, we soon found that everything, including our phones and charger, was dead. I thought this wasn't such a big deal but it had a profound effect on the last stages of our trip, as we misjudged whether we were up tide or down tide of our eventual destination. It was a lesson learnt that added 30 painful minutes to our trip and had us fumbling around for an admittedly soggy Admiralty chart with tidal streams. Wisdom to share? Email sam. jefferson@chelseamagazines.com
Brains not brawn Solo sailing - marina challenges Might is not always right, even when it comes to handling an IMOCA 60, as Pip Hare explains
PHOTO C/O RORC/PAUL WYETH PHOTO PAUL WYETH/RORC
Solo offshore sailor Pip Hare is preparing for her second Vendée Globe attempt and knows a thing or two about using technique, rather than brute strength, to maximise boat handling efficiency… “I’m often asked what I love about singlehanded sailing, and I do love being on my own. But for me, it’s about the magnitude of what’s required. There’s no easy option when it’s just you; you have to step up to every single challenge, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable. You may think you can’t do it, but you’ll end up surprising yourself because there is no other option. It’s ridiculously tough and you’re ridiculously proud when you do it. “A lot of it comes in making sure you are prepared. We spend a lot of a time as a team thinking how we can adapt the boat to make the things that are very physically demanding easier to carry out. “I love this about the IMOCA60 fleet, because we can race on equal terms. I don’t want a pat on the head for being a woman, I don’t want a women’s trophy, I just want to compete on equal terms and then let’s see where I get to. It’s up to me what I do with that opportunity, but if there
is no opportunity then I never get a chance to show if I can or can’t. I’m in it for the joy of competing against everyone, but it does mean I need to think differently. “Yes, I am strong and fit, but naturally I don’t have the same physical strength that younger, male skippers do. “My advice to others - particularly female sailors - is to know that, with good technique, anything can be done. You don’t have to muscle it! Quite often, when you are taught to do something, if the person teaching isn’t aware of how it can be done if you are less physically strong, then naturally they won’t necessarily teach you the best technique for you. “Try different techniques and find ones that learn for you. And ask other women as well! “For pretty much anything I do, I turn the boat downwind. In doing this, all the apparent wind goes, everything becomes a lot easier, it’s a stable platform. Realistically you don’t lose a huge amount of time doing that. Realistically, whatever you can do to reduce the power of the wind is always going help you to do manoeuvres.” Follow Pip’s campaign via piphare.com
Good to know What's sarong with that? This month blue water cruising veteran Susan Koning is opining the virtues of the sarong. I seem to recall a few years ago, the newspapers were abuzz because that notable sage David Beckham had been seen out in public wearing one. Well, he may not be overly blessed in the upstairs department, but it seems like he may have been on to something here as the sarong is a very useful accessory afloat in a hot climate. More on p90.
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EXPERTS' FORUM
HOW TO WIN
Coach boat view
Rule the committee Resident racing expert Mark Rushall explains how to get the perfect boat end start
PHOTO TIM OLIN
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t’s a beat against the tide, but with a slight left to right tidal component at Creek-Crawlers SC. The start line is starboard biased, and there is less tide on the right hand shore line. A clean start near the committee boat will be a perfect launch pad to an early tack to lead the pack to the slacker tide on the right of the course. “Towels down early” (Red) is making a great job of holding station in the prime spot. “Slip n slide” (Orange) is waiting to see if a gap will open up next to the committee boat: if it doesn’t, Orange can follow Red across the line, and at worst be the second boat onto port. “Bend it like Beckham” (Yellow) is going to come in with speed, aiming to sail through Towel’s lee on the gun and be clear to tack very soon off the start. “Predator” (Green) has chosen the port tack approach: their aim is to tack close to leeward of the most advanced starboard tack boat, control the boats to windward, and accelerate into the space to leeward while the others flounder.
With good coordination of sail trim, scooping above close hauled, using an occasional rudder scull to turn the boat back down to close hauled, Red maintains in control of their space. If the gap above gets too big, Red closes it down with a quick double tack. Orange avoids any temptation to put the bow down. With the foils semistalled, orange slides sideways towards the boat. Orange can increase sideways speed by luffing and raising the centreboard, decrease by sheeting on slightly to reduce the stall. Orange has a land transit through the stern of the committee boat, to be sure that the left to right tidal component is not going to see them “shut out” at the committee boat. Yellow approaches from behind with speed, demonstrating their lack of rule knowledge by shouting “up, up, up” while they are still clear astern. They time their approach almost to perfection, but are at the line too soon and too fast. Now that Green has tacked
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
in to leeward there is no chance to reach off to stay behind the line. Now overlapped to leeward of Red; Yellow luffs to slow their approach. Red responds immediately but is unable to keep clear without fouling the committee boat. Orange is now overlapped to windward of Red, with no prospect of the gap getting any bigger. Orange has no option but to tack around to avoid joining the commotion. With Yellow and Red entangled and pressed onto the side of the committee boat by the tide, the polite discussion that ensues seems to revolve around “water” and “barging”. Meanwhile, Green tacks to leeward of the mess, starts clear and is free to tack at will into a comfortable lead. This is a very familiar situation. We all know that Section C (marks and obstructions) rules do not apply at a starting mark in navigable water when the boats are in a starting situation. So, what are the rules obligations and limitations on each boat, and the tactical
Fig 1
options? We’ll look at the situation from each boat’s point of view…
The break down
Green, making their final approach on port tack, is keep clear boat to all of the others, who are on starboard tack (rule 10: port/starboard). However, if any of the right of way boats change course, they must give Green room to keep clear (rule 16). “Room” is the space needed in the existing conditions while manoeuvring promptly and in a seamanlike way. For example, if Yellow bears off to reach down the line at the last minute, there must be a seamanlike opportunity for Green to keep clear. That might involve Green bearing off to pass “port to port”, tacking early, or sailing high and across the line early. Lining up to tack into final starting approach, Green remains keep clear boat when they pass head to wind. Though now on starboard tack according to the definition, rule 13 (tacking) applies. Once through the tack and on a close hauled course on starboard tack, Green is overlapped to leeward of Yellow, who must from now keep clear (rule 11, windward/leeward). When Green becomes right of way boat, Green must give initially give Yellow room to keep clear (rule 15) and, as before, give room any time they change course (rule 16). In order to get close enough to control
the boats already on starboard tack, Green should complete the tack clear to leeward, then luff to close the gap, rather than closing the gap while still above close hauled and therefore keep clear boat. Yellow, while clear astern of Red and Orange, is keep clear boat to each (rule 12, clear astern/clear ahead). Neither has to take any action in anticipation of what’s going to happen next. Yellow’s warning hails add nothing to the situation. Once Yellow is overlapped with Red, Red becomes keep clear boat (rule 11). Because Orange is also overlapped with Red, Orange is overlapped with both according to the definition, so must keep clear of both Yellow and Red. Again, as the new right of way boat, Yellow must initially give them room to keep clear (rule 15), and then again any time that Yellow subsequently changes course (Rule 16). When Yellow luffs to slow down, there is no seamanlike way for Red to keep clear: ramming the committee boat is not a seamanlike option for Red! (If there had been room to sheet in and sail forward across the line early, that would be a seamanlike option!). Therefore, Yellow has broken rule 16. Red is exonerated from breaking
rule 11 (windward /leeward) because it was a consequence of Yellow failing to give Red the room they were entitled to. For Orange, however, there is a seamanlike option: to pass the committee boat on the wrong side. Orange avoids breaking rule 11 by doing just that. There is no rule that gives Orange any right to push in and claim room between Red and the committee boat. What were the tactical options for Yellow? Firstly, Yellow needed to be sure to be safe under rule 15. Better time on distance awareness, a slower approach, and calling the overlap clearly as soon as it occurs so everyone is aware of the situation should take care of that. As the boats drifted closer together, Yellow needed to be sure that for any change of course, there was an escape route for Red. So long as Yellow does not change course, there is no rule 16 issue: eventually Red will realise if they are unable to keep clear and will be forced to sail forward over the line and try again. Orange has been overlapped to windward of Red for some time: any protection from rule 15 has long gone. That gap between Red and the committee boat may look inviting, but Orange is asking for trouble if Red can close the gap without changing course. If Red has to bear off to avoid a collision, Orange has broken rule 11. Orange’s tactical options are to circle round early and join in further down the line, to stay high and slow waitvery for the gap to //box outand at the end/ /Keeping out of open up, orateven wait for Redboat to start and trouble the committee followAllclose fourbehind. starting strategies are potential race winners. Minimise last minute hiccups by practising the approach and getting a good feel for the eff ect of tide and windage at slow KEEPING OUT OF TROUBLE speed. approaching on starboard AT THEIfCOMMITTEE BOAT tack, try dry runs, and pickare uppotential a land transit Allseveral four starting strategies through theMinimise stern of the race winners. lastcommittee minute boat to nail that And always keep hiccups byapproach practisinglayline. the approach rule 15 (acquiring rightfor ofthe way) and getting a good feel effand ect rule 16 of way boat at changing course) of(right tide and windage slow speed. If in mind when manoeuvring closely against approaching on starboard tack, try the other boats.dry runs, and pick up a land several transit through the stern of the committee boat to nail that approach layline. And always keep rule 15 (acquiring right of way) and rule 16 (right of way boat changing course) in mind when manoeuvring closely against the other boats.
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EXPERTS' FORUM Cruising clinic
Technology free days Learn how to leave the stress behind, as resident cruising expert Clive Loughlin talks through some simple steps for departing the dock with confidence...
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quickly as knowing that the safety of the boat and her crew is entirely in your own hands. Instantly, great attention is given to depth and the identification of buoys en-route, and hazards like shipping lanes and ‘Precautionary Areas’. Course-tosteer and tidal offsets suddenly become of great importance – no longer can you just look at the screen and say ‘head up a bit as the tide is taking us off course’. This attention to detail results in a much better appreciation of the surroundings and this can only lead to a significant increase in safety, and also in the pride that the navigator can take in getting the boat safely and efficiently from A to B. Without exception I have found that everyone really enjoys the experience. For sure it has its challenges, but these add to the satisfaction and fun that the day provides. I would encourage everyone to have ‘Technology free days’. Confession – even though the chart plotter screen is covered up I always have it switched on. If things start to go pear shaped it is good to have a bit of extra help instantly available.
SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
A sarong has decorative merit in addition to being a light, practical garment
Life in the slow lane Susan Koning has over two decades of experience living on board and exploring exotic destinations. As such, she knows that the most valuable thing a bluewater sailor can have is experience. Here she offers some vital tips to increase your confidence and enjoyment of living aboard… When I began blue water cruising, I had an unhealthy attachment to bedding and linens. I soon learned that all I needed is a change of sheets and towels. No need to overdo it as these items take up precious real-estate onboard. The same can be said for clothes. You really don’t need seven pairs of shoes or 20 t-shirts. Light cotton sarongs are great towels and in the tropics can be worn by women and men as comfortable onboard garments. I also have a few men’s cotton dress shirts that I picked up at the thrift store; they are great sun protection. More boats have compact washing machines onboard but, it is by no means a necessity. A bucket of water with a little laundry detergent and a splash of vinegar (eliminates odors) will do the trick. You can stomp, agitate and wring the clothes in a bucket. The key is to not use too much detergent so you can rinse the soap out as well as a good wringing to get rid of as much water as possible so when you hang the clothes out on a breezy day they will dry in an hour or two. To prevent clothes from fading I turn them inside-out when I hang them or dry them under the awning. On a side note: you should keep plenty of vinegar onboard for cleaning mold; bleach doesn’t kill mold however vinegar does. Never put bleach down your heads; it will cause the hoses to become porous and trap odors…vinegar is a great odor elevator for smelly heads. Follow Susan’s adventures via Sailingshenemere.com
PHOTOS ISTOCK; SUSAN KONING
Harbour-to-harbour autorouting software is now readily available. It knows where you are, and if you tell it where you want to go, it will then sort out a route for you based on draft and mast height etc. and warn you of any dangers. Some systems even allow you to engage autopilot – so you can press a few buttons and then let the system do its thing while you go below to rustle up a Martini! This software is hugely impressive, and who can argue against a system that highlights potential hazards? My concern with such systems is that they make us lazy and less aware of where we are and what is around us. I could argue that it is dangerous to rely on such systems and ‘what happens if it goes wrong?, but actually my biggest concern is that it makes it less fun. Of course I use technology, and I think it would be ridiculous not to; but when I am teaching I like us to have a ‘Technology free day’. A cover is put over the chart plotter screen and the skipper/navigator only has access to a compass, depth sounder, paper charts and the Almanac. Nothing concentrates the mind so
Top Tips
Open Days
PHOTOS ISTOCK
Holding an open day is a great way to raise awareness, boost participation and build community. Kat Banks, Centre Manager at Andrew Simpson Centre Reading, explains how to make your day a success… An open day can not only encourage people to take up a new sport and discover the wonderful world of sailing, it can also bring back people who have learnt in the past and are looking to reconnect with the water. For us at ASC Reading, it has been a great chance to work together with Burghfield Sailing Club. Club members volunteered to help out with jobs such as meeting and greeting people, taking people for a sail, and issuing kit. We were all sharing our love for sailing and watersports, whether that is serious racing or just spending time on the water with friends & family. The open day brought us together and helped to build the sense of community. Covid has meant that we haven’t hosted an open day since 2019. The Andrew Simpson Centre continued to operate successfully during the pandemic, with the capacity to be socially distanced and operate almost exclusively outside. The challenge we face now is how to retain those people who took part in activities last year, now that the world has opened up a bit more. Hopefully the open day will remind people of what is on their doorstep. In the run up to the event we made sure to spread the word! We contacted local schools and youth groups and asked them to tell their members. We also posted the event on social media, which is a really cheap way to advertise. We spoke to visitors to the centre and club members – even if they know the venue already, they can always try a new activity or tell their neighbours, friends, and family. Once people know the event is happening, they need to be clearly signposted to more information. We put details of how to register on the website. We then gave out information about timings for the day, the activities on offer, and what to bring. To run a successful open day my advice is to keep it simple and communicate well. We made sure that all the staff and volunteers attended a briefing at the beginning of the day so that they knew the process and everything that was on offer. Everyone was allocated a station to begin with, but we swapped round during the day to ensure variety. We had people who were meeting and greeting guests. They told them where each activity was based and how to find the important things like toilets, changing rooms, and refreshments. We had activities to suit all weather conditions and plenty of space for people to shelter – either from the sun or rain! andrewsimpsoncentres.org
Pro Insight
Race navigation What does it take to be a pro navigator? A big secret to success lies in pre-race preparation, as Simon ‘SiFi’ Fisher explains… “The run-up to a race is always a busy one for a navigator. Inevitably, there will be plenty of things that fall into your lap. You need to know the boat and its systems well and be on top of the electronics, instrumentation, and navigation software as they are important tools for doing the job. As well as having a good routeing polar it is important to understand the boat’s performance and sail crossovers. “I always take time to read and fully understand the sailing instructions, the course, and waypoints as well as any exclusion zones we will encounter on the racecourse. It usually takes a while to go over these diligently and get them entered into the navigation software along with all the race tracking data and handicap information. Doing a good job before the start makes things much easier though once I’m on the water and sleep-deprived! “The fun part of the race preparation however is figuring out the weather and strategy for the race. I will typically start a few days ahead of the race, working with a meteorologist to understand the big picture: what is driving the forecast, and how this will shape the strategy for the race. I will always try to identify the key points on the racecourse and what may influence the decision-making when the time comes. Even if I can’t know the right answers when we leave the dock, having a good idea of what the options might be will help me to make the right decisions in the heat of the moment. “I will always take time to look at any points where land effects influence the wind and how our timing and strategy might be affected by currents and tidal gates. “As the start date gets closer, I will continue to build more detail into the race plan. With the forecast evolving, the various weather models will start to line up and the optimum strategy becomes a little clearer. However, this isn’t always the case! The higher resolution weather models will only become available in the last 24 hours before the start and can help with the strategy off the start line. The first few hours of the race can often be the busiest on the racecourse. “With all of this figured out and the crew well briefed on what to expect, it is important to try and get a good night of rest before heading out to the start line!” SiFi is a skipper and navigator for 11th Hour Racing; find out more at 11thhourracingteam.org
Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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EXPERTS' FORUM Pro insight
How to... Apply the forecast Whether dinghy racing or cruising, different things in the forecast will become important depending on distance covered. Preparation is key – says met expert Simon Rowell Once you’ve understood your forecast and what is driving any changes (see last issue), take time to think through the detail. If you’re doing something on a small scale - for example, dayboat sailing or dinghy racing within one specific bay - then then you need to think how the wind might affect you at different points. The lie of the land really comes in to play. If there’s a headland where the wind is likely to accelerate, for example, ask yourself, ‘should I keep away from there because the breeze is going to be really howling around it’, or perhaps you might think, ‘if it’s light winds, I do want to go there because that will give me a little bit more breeze as the wind accelerates around the land’. With coastal sailing, I’m a firm believer in also looking at your tidal stream atlas so that you know when the tides are going to be changing around headlands, when you might have a wind over tide situation, and whether you will be better off being either offshore or inshore for that. If you’re going further afield - say, cross
Winning ways
channel for example or maybe across the Bay of Biscay - then the scale changes again. That’s because, generally, you’re less concerned with small changes caused by bays and headlands, and the further away from land you are, generally the steadier the wind tends to be. That said, there are exceptions: approaching Cape Finisterre, Spain, for example, you can often have a nice
northeasterly Force 2 and then when you get within 30 miles of it the wind will increase to Force 4 to 6 as it squeezes around the headland. Effects like this are normally well forecast, but always look at the detail and consider whether it applies to the situation that you’re in. And remember to think on a scale that matches your sailing area. That way, you’ll always be well prepared.
Winning by a whisker
The 2022 Wetsuit Outlet UK Moth Class Nationals at WPNSA was destined to go down to the wire, with the top three sailors - Simon Hiscocks, Dylan Fletcher and Brad Funk – all in with a chance by final day. A full schedule of 16 races was run in a new sprint-style format that tested a 50 boat fleet over four days. By the final race, Hiscocks and Funk fought tooth and nail, continually swapping the lead, and in the end, Brad Funk took the race win by a sprit length. It wasn’t quite enough to steal the win off Hiscocks, one point ahead. Commenting on how the event played out, Hiscocks said: “It’s quite cool to win the Nationals, especially with Dylan and Brad in the fleet. There’s been a point in it for a couple of days
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now and it has ebbed and flowed. We’ve seen a pattern where they take points off me in the early races each day, then I take them back in the later races!” On just getting pipped in the final race, and not keeping up his sequence of winning the last race of each day, Simon said: “It was a bit disappointing as I was in a quite comfortable lead with Brad, and I let him split away on the final run; I should have stuck with him. It was still close, and we had to ask the committee boat whose bowsprit had crossed first. There must have been only half a second in it.” The event was a great taster of what’s to come in June 2023, as the Moth Worlds will be hosted at WPNSA. See internationalmoth.co.uk
GRAPHIC C/O SIMON ROWELL; PHOTO C/O RSRNYC/PAUL WYETH
Close racing in the UK Moth Nationals saw Brad Funk squeak home by the narrowest of margins ahead of Dylan Fletcher and Simon Hiscocks. How did he do it? Hiscocks has his own theory on where he lost the initiative
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Windlass remote control Coastline Technology has expanded its extensive range of marine remote controls to include a Windlass Remote with Chain Count. These rugged waterproof remotes are comfortable to hold, with big buttons that are easy to operate, even with gloved hands, and have a wrist lanyard for added security. They feature exceptional range (>50m), and very long battery life. The system includes a receiver that is quick and easy to install. £390 coastlinetechnology.com
LAUNCHED New kit for you and your boat
Helly Hansen with American Magic Helly Hansen has partnered with American Magic, the US team challenging for the America’s Cup, since the start of the last campaign in 2017. The new HP Foil Shell Jacket has been produced following feedback from the Auckland Cup. It comes “built with an improved aerodynamic performance at higher speeds, plus one of the jacket’s key features is the hi-vis hood – an addition for increased safety and visibility”. Helly Hansen offers a range of sailling shoes, one of them the HP Foil V2, a lightweight all-rounder performance sailing shoe. Meanwhile the Rider Comp Vest was also designed with the team’s insights “for high-speed, physical racing needs – featuring a fit and cut developed for maximum freedom of movement and ventilation”.
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HP Foil Shell Jacket £350 HP Foil V2 £100 Rider Comp £90 hellyhansen.com/en_gb
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C-Monsta wetsuit hanger “I have been using this product over the last few weeks of dinghy sailing and it’s a really handy addition to my sailing kit, assuming it’s dry outside!” writes Mark Harrington. “It is particularly useful for boots and gloves, which dry quickly in a bit of sun and breeze. For the first time ever I have dry kit every day. Recommended.” £35 c-monsta.com
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
Deck step This foldable teak dock step is made by East Passage Boatwrights in Bristol, RI, recent winners in the Classic Boat Awards. When collapsed it can be stowed in the tightest quarters on board. Watch a video of it in action on the East Passage Boatwrights website. epbws.com
Considering an Electric Outboard? “Using a well-engineered electric outboard has been a revelation.’’ TOM CUNLIFFE Classic Boat
Quiet, Convenient, Reliable and Easy-to-Use In the popular 2-4hp category, the latest electric outboards – with their integral and rechargeable lithium batteries – have transformed the market, rendering petrol motors all-but obsolete. Advantages include:
Epropulsion Spirit PLUS 1276Wh battery Faster to charge Battery floats if dropped Foldable tiller means only one cable to connect › Three shaft length options › Direct drive (no gearbox) › › › ›
› Ease of Use Switch on, twist the tiller handles, go. Almost anybody can do it; no experience, strength or mechanical knowledge is needed. › Ease of Handling The batteries are removable, and the “pass up and down” weight (the shaft/motor assembly) is then 10kg or less. › Ease of Storage These electric motors divide into components, don’t leak oil or petrol, and don’t mind which way up they’re stored. › Quietness & Smoothness Electric motors are a delight to use.
Torqeedo 1103 › 916Wh battery › GPS data on tiller gives speed & range indication › Removable tiller (more compact for storage) › Near‐silent direct drive › Much more robust than the previous model (Torqeedo 1003)
› Power Forget slow speed “trolling motors”, these 1kW electrics have huge torque (more like a 3hp petrol). › Range There are many variables, but most users achieve at least 9 to 10 nautical miles per charge, at 4 to 5 knots (2.5m inflatable dinghy). Much more if you slow down a little. › Reliability Many outboard motors don’t get used very often, and small petrol motors hate this. Electric outboards have fewer parts in general, and in particular there’s no carburettor to “gum up”.
Of course, it’s not all perfect. The range may still not be enough for some users. And they’re undeniably More Expensive than petrol outboards, mostly because lithium batteries are expensive. But that extra upfront cost is largely offset by their Lower Lifetime Running Costs, including (almost) No Servicing.
NESTAWAY BOATS is the UK’s number one retailer for both Torqeedo AND Epropulsion. You can find out more on our website, and we are always happy to discuss further – and offer advice – by email or phone. If you’d like to see them before making a purchase, we are based in Christchurch, Dorset (UK).
www.nestawayboats.com mail@nestawayboats.com Tel 0800 999 2535
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CLOTHING ZHIK PAIR OF POWER PAD HIKING OUT PADS. New and unused. Selling at half price. £49 Tel 01642 655982 / 07879 627224 (MIDDLESBROUGH)
J24 CHAOTIC HEDGEHOG GBR 4177. Rogers 1987, fully restored several times. 4x Euro championship winner, multiple UK titles. Trailer with Heritage full length storage units. One of the fastest J24s in the world. £15000 Tel +4479 67685330 / (POOLE)
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ALBACORE 8212. Excellent lightly-sailed FRP Ovington with ‘Oxford’ blue hull, Superspars boom, M2 mast and flyaway pole, fully adjustable rig, P&B sails with less than 20 hours use, Milanes foils, padded rudder bag, top cover, cocoon trailing cover, trolley, minimum weight with correctors, measurement certificate - ready to win. £8300 Tel 01993 772966 / (OXFORD)
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RS400 1427. New mainsail & jib in 2021, new mast in 2022. Harken fit out, carbon pole. Combi trailer & top cover. TRADE. £7750 Tel 07738 984826 / (TYNEMOUTH)
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
DUFOUR ARPEGE 1973. 29 ft blue hull includes vhf radio, GPS depth sounder, headsail replaced 2021, mainsail replaced 2019, auto helm, lifeboat, spinnaker and pole, fenders, mooring ropes, £7500 Tel 07753 455659 / (RAMSGATE) DRASCOMBE LONGBOAT. Built by Honnor Marine, Totnes. Sails rigging and spars in good condition. Spray hood, anchor and fenders. Yamaha 2 stroke 8.5hp outboard with tank last serviced autumn 2021. Bramber trailer and cockpit cover. Ownership history available. A traditional sailing boat for the family. Original gelcoat. £7500 Tel 07771 577211 / 01983 812187 (ISLE OF WIGHT) LARK SUIT OF MCNAMARA SAILS. Main 1512(vg), jib(g), Spinnaker(vg) all last used in 2002. Sails were probably first used at Heriot Watt sailing club circa mid 1980s. I acquired them late 1990s and owing to a sever skiing accident in 2002 they were not used again but were carefully stored. No evident damage or repairs. £200 Tel 07889 640468 / (COVENTRY)
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J24 RACE READY. One Design Legal Alien Hull number: JRSP-2-87 4215, Sail number GBR 4064 1987 Rogers boat in excellent condition and race ready. Up to date Marine surveyor report. Current ECHO & ICR certs. £12000 Tel 00353 862340359 / (IRELAND)
SEAFARER 18FT WITH 6HP JOHNSON OUTBOARD AND 8FT DINGHY. 23ft mast. Sails and bag. Roller & foresail reefing. Boarding ladder. New mahogany rubbing strakes. New marine ply washboards. Enclosed cabin with cushions & storage shelves. Mahogany combings & seat slats. Road trailer with new tyres. New bilge pump. £1675 Tel 01432 277281 / (HEREFORD) VINTAGE NATIONAL 12 WANTED. An early boat from the 1950s. Prepared to travel and repair for the right boat. Ideally complete with spars and sails. Tel 07786 866099 / (POOLE) J24 - GBR4254Y - HULL 5072 J BOATS ITALY 1994. Juju. White hull Built 12/1/1994. Minimum weight, measured for 2018 10 Worlds, WCAss trophy wins 20/21, Proven fast, North Sails cushions etc 2 spins, Double axle braked trailer with storage chest. Near Irish ferry. Photo below plus many more. OFFERS considered £7500 Tel 07917 832254 / 015394 33156 (WINDERMERE)
24 FT CRUISER QUARTER TONNER. Fully Restored and going fast. 4 berth, fin-keel, open-plan cruiser. Good family boat, self draining cockpit. Re-masted, rerigged, re-keeled, new rudder. Laminate sails little used. 3.5hp outboard. Full recent survey - yard trolley available. Must be seen. £7950 Tel 07765 900259 / (CARDIFF)
TORNADO CATAMARAN. Marstrom Tornado. White hulls. Carbon mast and chute. Professionally resprayed and new trampoline 2019. Carbon stocks, composite rudder. Big wheel trolley. Rain and Sun full cover. £6900 Tel 07894 280190 / 01243 769000 (GOSPORT) COMET DINGHY C416. Lake sailed comet peacock blue hull with sail centreboard rudder mast, boom halyards wind indicator and launching trolley kept under cover, log book included. £600 Tel 01726 832525 / (ST AUSTELL ) PHANTOM 1466. CST Mast and Boom, 1 North full cut sail, Fixed rudder, Full Ovington fit-out, Combi trailer, Over/under covers, Lighty used due to lockdowns, Video at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=cKoSqZs-0Xs. £9500 Tel 01590 718200 / 07971 670374 (LYMINGTON) SB20 3089. Extensively upgraded SB20, competitive and ready to race. Newest set of sails used for around 20 days sailing. New trailer and standing rigging in last two years. Keel faired and in excellent condition. Top and bottom covers and outboard, ready to race. £11000 Tel 07966 596376 / (WHITEHAVEN OR LONDON)
CONTESSA26 GENOA AND SPINNAKER - WESTAWAY. Little used sails, westaway spinnaker AP design 400 sq ft approx. Westaway kevlar furling genoa, Sail Register dacron furling genoa. almost new heavy duty back transom cover very little use only. full zip covers.anchor and chain offers invited. £240 Tel 01405 812307 / (DONCASTER) USED YAMAHA 2019 200HP 2 STROKE OUTBOARD ENGINE. Includes: Controls, Throttle Control, Cables, Gauges, Wiring Harness And Stainless Props. Hours: 180 Hours. Lead Time: 4 - 9 Days. Port : CIF / Miami International Airport. Terms : Zeller Transfer, Bitcoin, Bank Transfer, Western union, Moneygram. Shipment: Worldwide via FedEx, DHL, UPS. £3800 Tel 19703 358861 / (UNITED STATES) POOLE AB 36. Varnished mahogany finish in good condition. Dry stored for last 20 years. Reluctant sale as lady owner ageing. Fast boat with many club wins. Elvstrom self-bailer, oars, 2 suits sails. Original Measurement Cert signed By Harry Poole. Launching trolley. Inspection welcome. £250 Tel 07752 623550 / 01292 610919 (AYR) OPEN BIC (O’PEN SKIFF) SAILING DINGHY. Good used condition. Cover and launching trolley also. £800 Tel 07582 782210 / (SOUTHEND-ON-SEA ) DEHLER 41DS RIGID WINDSCREEN - NEW. Brand new acrylic windscreen for Dehler 41DS. £950 Tel 07714 259616 / (OBAN) J 92S. Meticulously maintained 2006 J92S. Standing and running rigging renewed 2019, full set North 3Di sails used for only one season, good Tacktick instruments and vhf. Race ready. Call for photos and full details. £35950 Tel 07740 428292 / (EDINBURGH) SCORPION DINGHY, WHOLE OR FOR PARTS, INCLUDES LAUNCHING TROLLEY, Everything for sale. Glass fibre hull has small hole that could be repaired - 2 suits of sails, canvas cover only 3 years old, would wash well. Launching trolley with removable jockey wheel. Would prefer to sell the whole as a lot. Everything in fair condition. £100 Tel 01969 368371 / 07815 643408 (LEYBURN)
OTHER EQUIPMENT NEW QUICK WINDLASS ULTRA GENIUS 1000 D 800W. Quick Ultra Genius D on deck Model 1000 Windlass 12v 6mm 800w, with rope drum. Brand new in box. Includes solenoids unit and handle. Purchased a few years ago, but never used, and has been stored since then in it’s box in a centrally heated workshop. £690 Tel 07714 259616 / (OBAN)
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www.sailingtoday.co.uk | www.yachtsandyachting.co.uk Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting SEPTEMBER 2022
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Jess Lloyd-Mostyn The tradition of a ship’s cat aboard goes back as far as anyone can remember and remains popular among blue water cruisers. Plus there are more exotic options these days...
M
y three kids adore pets. In fact they’re pretty much nuts about all animals, big or small, scaly or fluffy. But the repeated tune of “please can we have a pet, please can we have a pet, pleeeeease?” has recently been playing almost non-stop. And I can understand it. The fact of the matter is that although it doesn’t seem practical for us to have a pet on board right now we do know plenty of folks that have had furry friends on board so I’m starting to run out of good excuses. When James, my husband, was first sailing in the Caribbean, he lived on a 42 foot yacht where there was a cat on board called “Half hitch”. The rule was that the cat always got the first share of any fish caught by the captain or crew and so this lucky feline lived off the fresh catch each day. He was a rather large black and white cat who looked incredibly healthy. Then there was “Kemah”. Kemah was a solidly built tenyear-old pitbull, who’s Texan owners had bought a small catamaran and couldn’t bear the thought of going cruising without him. He took to the change in lifestyle amazingly well and liked nothing better than to swim off the boat at anchor. They even crafted a special net at their swim steps so that he could climb back up more easily when he got tired. We buddy-boated with them for several months and this gentle dog was so clearly ecstatic when we all swam in the sea together. He would even take trips on the stand-up paddleboard. Friends we made in Panama had one of each on board; a long-haired collie dog called “Koa” and a tortoiseshell cat named “Patches”. The animals were best friends and each demanded hours of daily grooming from their doting human parents, who were sailing both coasts of central America with them. And neither pet liked thunderstorms one bit and each had a specific hiding spot that they would hunker down in when the weather got rough. Sailing pets are not only limited to cats and dogs either, we learned when we made friends with a couple who sailed with their African pygmy hedgehog who was called Sid Vicious. Despite his punk rock name, the little
critter lived happily aboard their sailboat but was a constant cause of confusion for officials whenever they arrived in a new country. “Eeez like a pig, but a small one, bit like a rat but covered in spikey. I don’t think you can eat him…” was what they overheard one Customs officer in Costa Rica saying, trying but failing to explain the strange creature to his superior. Ultimately, the poor puzzled chaps in uniform decided to stamp them in and listed him as “cat” on their papers. Other friends of ours in South East Asia don’t live aboard fulltime but regularly bring their pet rabbit, Charcoal onto their yacht for long weekends and holidays, sailing the southern islands in Singapore. Apparently, the bunny doesn’t behave any differently from when he’s in their house in town. We even have friends who cross oceans with pets. Boots is a large, handsome ginger tomcat, with an ostentatiously fluffy tail who claimed some friends of ours as his own when they were swapping their old monohull for a far newer catamaran in Brisbane, Australia. He stomped on board and never left so they soon found themselves plying across the Indian Ocean with him nonchalantly balanced on the boom, licking a stripy orange paw. But when covid hit, and they were en route from Sri Lanka to the Maldives, they found that his presence was an unexpected comfort, especially for their two children, as the pandemic resulted in them being restricted and boatbound for nearly 200 days. Once free movement slowly became allowed again they set off towards South Africa where he patrolled the docks of the Cape Town marina. Some folks even have a pet on board for a bit of additional security. A boat guard dog needn’t be a very large or aggressive breed, as sometimes just plain noisy will do. We spent some time at a marina in Mexico where one particular yacht was kept safe as houses by a very loud and rather paranoid pet chihuahua. This tiny little dog would howl and yodel like a screeching, shrieking banshee every time you walked anywhere near it, stationed with it’s big bat-like ears pricked, perched at the stern of the boat, fiercely guarding it’s home. So, do we give in and finally end up with a real salty sea-dog or ship’s cat? Watch this space.
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SEPTEMBER 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
JESS LLOYDMOSTYN Jess and James left the UK in 2011 in their Crossbow 42 and have sailed halfway round the world, growing their crew en route. Follow their journey at water-log.com
ILLUSTRATION HOLLY ASTLE
‘We made friends with a couple who sailed with their African pygmy hedgehog who was called Sid Vicious’
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