Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Sailing Today

Most people take a leisurely sail through the Caribbean islands, stopping off for days or weeks at any island that takes their fancy. We, however, were on a mission. My partner Ben and I were taking Papagayo, our 40ft Choate IOR one-tonner from Texas to a new life down in Saint Lucia where we were setting up a sailing school. Having finally reached the British Virgin Islands after some fun, if not challenging, sailing from Texas, we were ready for a little relaxation before heading onwards. We were about to lose our crew member ( ST’s deputy editor Emma) as she had to get back to a job in London, but we had time to kill before she caught her flight and what better way to kill time than…

‘OUR DINGHY HAD ACQUIRED MORE HOLES THAN A CHEESEGRATER. IT WAS NOT A DESIRABLE FEATURE’ We once left a taxi driver in St Kitts dumbfounded when we explained that after getting out of his cab wed be hopping into our dinghy to get to our yacht, lying at anchor. “You got TWO boats?” was his astonished response. “You even got a boat to get to your boat?!?” Far from the presumed luxury that he took a dinghy to be, all liveaboard cruisers rely heavily on their tenders. We prefer to anchor rather than sit in a marina so the dinghy is our lifeline to the shore. It’s essential for provisioning trips, it takes us out for snorkelling expeditions and we’ve even used it for collecting rainwater in tropical downpours. We…

At a base price of £145,000, it has to be said that the new Oceanis 41.1 is an awful lot of boat for the money. With more than 75 sold off-plan, and 400 of its predecessor sold, it’s clear that the boat-owning public thinks so too. I went to Palma on a blustery spring day to test her and the first thing I noticed was that the new hull is identical to the old Oceanis 41. Beneteau makes no secret of this – the improvements over the 41 are all at deck level and down below, and in the 13 per cent lower price. The hull by Finot-Conq sticks to a now familiar style, with hard chines, a lot of beam aft and a horizon-straight shearline. The only small change…

START OF ARC AND ARC+ 16 AND 20 NOVEMBER, GRAN CANARIA The World Cruising Club rallies set off from the Canary Islands this month: the ARC+ first, via the Cape Verdes, and, two weeks later, the ARC. In total 300 boats will take part, bound for Saint Lucia. Booking is now open for the 2017 rallies. worldcruising.com ATLANTIC ODYSSEY 19 NOVEMBER, SANTA CRUZ, TENERIFE Nineteen boats will set off from Marina Santa Cruz towards Barbados on this Cornell Sailing rally, ready for a Caribbean Christmas. Places for the 2017/18 season are available now. From €690, with discounts for families. cornellsailing.com HANSEBOOT 29 OCTOBER-6 NOVEMBER, HAMBURG The 57th edition of the Hamburg International Boat Show is held at Hamburg Messe fairground and Sandtorhafen/HafenCity. Featuring boats on the water and exhibitors under…

HANSE 505 | WINDFALL This two-year-old Hanse has recently returned from a full Mediterranean circuit cruise with two small children on board. The 505 was designed by judel/ vrolijk with comfortable cruising in mind, with a roomy cockpit, bimini, and easy-to-access bathing platform. Even though she is a 50-footer, she is set up to be sailed singlehanded if needed, with all sail control lines and winches in reach of the helm. Windfall’s sail plan comprises an Elvstrom fully battened main with stack pack, a furling headsail, and a Crusader Sails asymmetric. Electronics are B&G, there’s AIS and an EPIRB, a networked entertainment system and, below, dedicated space in the centre of the saloon for a TV lifter. The owner’s forward cabin has an island berth, en-suite heads and…

Just before the Southampton Boat Show, Cannes holds its own show in the Riviera town’s picturesque old harbour. For six days, the quays and pontoons are swathed in miles of coloured carpet and thronged with people. Blue carpet is for motorboats, cyan for sailing, magenta for multihulls and the inevitable red carpet at the entrance by the famous Palais des Festivals, where the superyacht toys are on show. Under clear blue skies, the temperature rapidly climbs into the mid-30s - visitors in the know are wearing smart shorts. Cruising boats number close to 100, many in the 50-65ft range, yet boats of this size account for a global market of only around 50 sales per year. From the lavish floating display at Cannes, you would have though it was 10…

Waterproof smartphone Samsung Galaxy S7 can withstand a half-hour dunking You know how it goes: you are out for a day on the water, the spray is coming up over the deck – and your phone stays below because you’re worried about it getting trashed in the wet conditions, and so you never seem to have any photos of you and your crew actually sailing. Samsung’s latest Galaxy smartphones, the S7 and the larger S7 Edge, which feature 12 megapixel cameras, are waterproof and rated to IP68 – meaning they will still work after up to 30 minutes immersed in water, which is higher than the rating of the new iPhone 7. Now all they need to do is invent one that floats... £569 shop.samsung.com/uk Worshipping the rays See the…

‘WE ARE NOT GOING TO BECOME HERMITS BY CUTTING OUSELVES OFF. BUT IF IT WORKS WELL, AND WE ARE ENJOYING IT, WE COULD JUST KEEP GOING’ Lymington Town Quay was a colourful blur of summer activity, as tourists snapped pictures and sailors rushed to catch the tide. But amid the mayhem, Team GB rowing coach Robin Williams, 57, and wife Anna, sat on the car park wall. They were contemplating an adventure that would start at 4am the following morning: a year cruising the Mediterranean in their first big yacht, Mariposa, a 2001 Jeanneau 43. I was greeted by the excited but perhaps slightly nervous pair and joined them on the hot wall in the sweltering 80-degree heatwave. We were going for a last practice sail in the Solent, but…

THE NEXT HOP, TO BALTIMORE, WAS ANOTHER BIG ONE AT 65NM… Every year over the Easter break, the Outdoor Education students and staff of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) organise a sailing trip, usually to the sunny climates of Croatia or Spain. This year, for the first time, they decided to sail closer to home, exploring the nooks and crannies of Ireland’s wild west coastline in the more testing Atlantic waters. The Irish tourist board has developed a driving route along the whole length of this coast of Ireland, called the Wild Atlantic Way and the aim was to experience it from the sea. Sailing the west coast of Ireland at this time of the year can be very challenging due to stormy weather and the large swell created by…

SUN ODYSSEY 41DS PRICE: FROM c£159,600 Like her sister ship the 41.1, this boat comes in two-or three-cabin versions and one or two heads. She is more customisable in terms of finish. The hull has hard chines, but she is a slightly curvier boat and perhaps a little more focused on serious cruising. jeanneau.com craftinsure quote: from £635.80 DUFOUR 412 PRICE: FROM c£128,500 That other French chine-and-powerful-lines merchant Dufour majors on cockpit living with this boat, featuring an outdoor fridge and barbecue. She’s roomy below and well set up for easy cruising. universalyachting.com craftinsure quote: £525.93 BAVARIA CRUISER 41 PRICE: FROM c£129,436 Choose between two cabins with a traditional galley or three cabins with a stylish linear galley forward. As with all Bavaria’s boats, she’s well designed and a reasonable…

Garmin gWind 2 A timely update to Garmin’s award-winning wireless wind transducer. Now there’s no need for a separate black-box wireless receiver and dedicated network bridge – with just a small ANT+ dongle, the wireless wind data transmitted from the masthead can be picked up directly by your Garmin chartplotter or wind instrument. • garmin.com • £580 Andersen self-tailers Freshly launched in the UK, these flush Andersen winches have the same high performance mechanism as before, but with the drive socket on the top now flush and the retaining screws countersunk for a more streamlined look. • improducts.co.uk • from £436 (12ST) Lightweight Flexofold prop The famous Danish folding propeller has been given a lightweight redesign. While it offers the same nickel-aluminium-bronze blades and folding mechanism, the body…

STARS AT THE SHOW Grey skies couldn’t keep visitors away from the Southampton Boat Show. Despite a very blustery start to the first morning, visitors flocked to the 48th edition of the show and as ST went to press numbers were up seven per cent on last year. Members of the British Sailing Team, including Rio gold medallists Giles Scott, Hannah Mills and Saskia Clarke and silver medallist Nick Dempsey, were there to receive champagne, and the show was officially opened by actress Michelle Keegan, who posed for photos balanced on very high-heels in the cockpit of the new 47ft cruiser from Spirit Yachts. Famous sailing faces Dame Ellen MacArthur and Dee Caffari were at the show for various events and Eddie Jordan also made an appearance. Murray Ellis, managing…

Hanse 588 £334,000 The latest offering from Hanse Yachts is again at the top end of its spectrum in terms of size, with only the monster 675 above this in the range. She has the same hull as the 575: stark, modern and with the trademark plumb bow and stern combined with a soft turn of the bilges and high freeboard with lots of internal volume. In common with the rest of the Hanse range, she features a powerful sail area with the standard self-tacking jib and the option of a second forestay for a reaching sail. She’s available with either a T or L shaped keel and comes with three different basic layout options. One of the standout features is what Hanse terms the ‘silent master cabin concept’ with…

For many years, the most popular route sailed by boats on a world voyage was the one via the North Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Suez Canal, with fewer sailors being tempted by the more challenging route across the South Indian Ocean and Cape of Good Hope. By the beginning of this century, the increase in the number of attacks on cruising boats by Somali pirates had reversed that trend. While the threat has been virtually eliminated by the naval forces patrolling the North Indian Ocean, the widespread conflict in the Middle East is now causing even more serious safety concerns for anyone planning to reach the Mediterranean via the Red Sea. A number of sailors are having their boats shipped from SE Asia to the Mediterranean, but the route…

IGY Rodney Bay is the biggest marina in Saint Lucia, with 253 walk-ashore berths, all with electricity and water. Originally built in 1985, Rodney Bay Marina was bought by IGY (Island Global Yachting) Marinas in 2007 and has since branched out into becoming a superyacht marina, and cruisers can take advantage of all the associated service facilities that come with that. It is a well-protected, hurricane-safe marina and, as a result, most European insurers are happy to provide annual coverage for berthing. There are eight dedicated pontoons for cruising yachts; I-dock for superyachts takes boats up to 80m in length. Minimum depth is about 4m. The 4.5 acre boatyard can take 120 boats on the hard and has on-site workshops specialising in wood, GRP, aluminium, stainless steel and bronze. There…

Garmin’s brand-new waterproof action camera can shoot stunning Ultra HD footage at 4K/30fps, super slow-mo 720p images at 240fps or 12MP still photos. High-precision sensors and GPS mean that the VIRB Ultra 30 gathers data to show how far, how high, and how fast users live their adventures. It also boasts voice control, an intuitive LCD colour touchscreen, live streaming, 3-axis image stabilisation and more. For your chance to win, enter at sailingtoday.co.uk/competition Competition closes 11 November. Terms and conditions apply.…

Come rain or shine, at some point most sailors will think it’s time to go under cover. It might be a cockpit enclosure extending the season and liveable space in northern waters, or a sun awning in the Med for shade. As always aboard, everyone has a view of need and solution. This article started with the discovery of some fascinating software used by Dolphin Sails to create ‘tensile’ awnings. Software is increasingly a part of the sailmaker’s armoury, but this is completely different. Lofts naturally aim to optimise lift in sails – that’s how they work – yet, as anyone who’s struggled to refix a madly-flapping awning knows, lift is the last thing you want in your cover. The form-finding software used in tensile awnings is more about what…