Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2024 i Sailing Today

Fareast 42C Until recently Fareast yachts was best known for producing sporty one design yachts. The company also recently hit the headlines having won production rights for the Laser class. Anyway, the 42C signals a change of tack as the boat conspicuously has two hulls. The 42C is built in China and designed by Simonis Voogdt. While the design and layout look modern but relatively conventional, the boat boasts pioneering electric or hybrid propulsion options with the full electric propulsion option promising a range of 100 miles at full power.• • Fareastboats.com Enksail Orion 49 Hardcore YouTube fans may still be enjoying Distant Shores. This was the pioneering series presented by Paul and Sheryl Shard that blazed the trail for young upstarts such as Sailing La Vagabonde to take up…

Wonderful things aren’t they? Weather apps. The ones you carry on your phone inviting a stab of your finger for all the world’s weather to flash up on the screen. A minor miracle, isn’t it? But for how much longer? Today’s miracle soon becomes tomorrow’s antiquity and it can happen very quickly in ways we can’t imagine. If we could forsee them, of course, we’d be living a Bill Gates lifestyle but as that seems unlikely you and I will just have to hang around and wait for the next big thing to come along. And it will surely come. Lots of minor miracles have appeared in my sailing life, most of them now dead and buried. The most advanced bit of kit on my first little boat was a…

Ultims It’s not often you get a first in sailing these days, but the Arkea Ultim Challenge – Brest 2023 is set to deliver just that. On 7 January 2024, the Ultim class – the largest, fastest ocean-racing multihulls – will race solo and unassisted around the globe. Dubbed the ‘giants of the seas’, these super sleek trimarans measure 32m x 23m and are fitted with huge foils, enabling them to fully fly over the waves. As well as foils on the two outer floats, there is also a central adjustable foil known as the ‘skate wing’ (the angle of attack can be adjusted to create a pull-down effect rather than generating lift, for increased stability), plus foil-rudders on all three hulls. Towering 32m masts support sail areas that can…

Interview Louise Morton is one of the Solent’s superstars – known on and off the water. Many will know her as a skilled international regatta manager, as well as the organising force behind several class associations. On the water, she’s a talented sailor with a long list of titles to prove it, including four wins of the Quarter Ton Cup, and Gold Roman Bowl winner (racing with her husband, a three times winner) in the Round the Island Race. Noted for sailing with an all-female crew, just this summer Louise was invited to enter the first all-female crew in the RC44 World Championships. She has won the Women’s Open Keelboat Championship four times, along with numerous other first female prizes, and received the Ladies Day Trophy at Cowes Week in…

ARC The ARC is back in town and that annual pilgrimage of yachts heading across the Atlantic has made landfall. I was out in Grenada to chat with some of the early arrivals in the ARC+ fleet which had made its way across the Atlantic with a stopover in the Cape Verdes. As you might expect, the first few boats in were mainly multihulls, with Mongoose, an ORC 50 picking up second place followed by a clutch of Outremers. There were, however, some real surprised, not least that Nessun Dorma, an Italia 15.98 monohull managed to grab line honours. On a relatively light weather passage, skipper Constantino Neri got his crew to hand steer all the way across in order to keep ahead of the chasing pack. The Italia is…

I am not someone who is drawn to conflict; be that in relationships, friendships or simple encounters in the street, I will do all I can to back away from trouble. The same is true when it comes to sailing: in general, I pick my weather and location to ensure that by and large I have a tranquil time. A voyage from Kilada in Greece’s Saronic Gulf around to Ithaca in the Ionian in August therefore seemed to fit with this general principle. I could not have been more wrong. During this five day trip I consistently felt like I was in a big fight and that frequently I was on the receiving end of a pretty severe beating handed out by the elements. Before getting started, it’s probably best…

Goodchild first Brit to win IMOCA series In what must be seen as a good portent for the upcoming Vendée Globe Race, Sam Goodchild capped a superb year by scooping the IMOCA series. He is the first British skipper to pick up this prize. Goodchild, 34, skipper of For The Planet, maintained his remarkably consistent form when he completed his first ever solo IMOCA race, the 3,500nm inaugural Retour a La Base from Martinique to Lorient in third place. This was his first solo IMOCA event and caps a dream 2023 season for the British racer who left his native Falmouth more than a dozen years ago to pursue his solo ocean racing career in France. In taking his fourth consecutive third position, his fifth of the year, Goodchild won…

My year of travel finished with a four-week trip to China and Brazil. Having been to China seven or eight times before, I was never greatly enamoured by the place and was a bit reluctant to return. After some persuading by my work colleague,s I’m glad I decided to go. It was for two back-to-back kiteboarding events, one in Shenzhen and the other in Zhuhai four hours down the road. The place was much cleaner, more organised and more friendly than I remembered from previous trips. Such is the breathtaking rate of progress in this ambitious country, a year is a long time in China, and I hadn’t been there since 2019. For all that we read in the press about the rising threat of China to the west, at…

Beach holiday The surface of Nikiana bay offered barely a ripple. Only the wakes of distant yachts disturbed the glassiness as I paddled an SUP out from the beach. The morning calm felt like a different world to Gatwick 24 hours earlier, where we’d got the red eye out on the first day of the summer holidays with kids in tow. A week at Seafarer Sailing’s beach club on the Greek island of Lefkas lay ahead, an item that had long been on the bucket list. Office thoughts subsided as I made lazy progress into the bay, occasionally waving at the few others doing the same. Alone off a buoy a few hundred metres out, I stopped and let the board glide, taking in the unspoilt, mountainous surrounds of the…

Lorient La Base is a port like no other. It was built as a German submarine base during World War II, with massively reinforced submarine pens that have bombproof concrete roofs of up to 7.5m thickness. The south Breton harbour is now home to some of the world’s top race teams. The day I sailed the ORC57, two giant 30+ metre Ultim trimarans – Gitana 17 and Sodebo – were in port. As were half a dozen IMOCA 60s, including Kevin Escoffier’s new PRB and Isabelle Joschke’s MACSF, while the newly launched Charal 2 was out on sea trials with skipper Jérémie Beyou. This is also the home of Marsaudon Composites, which has two sides to its business. The core is the construction of very hi-tech composite structures, many of…

Charter The North Atlantic groups of islands off the coast of Africa and Portugal including the Azores, the Canary Islands and the Cape Verde islands just a relatively short hop from the UK, means sun seekers looking for year-round charter options, may find this is a good alternative to travelling thousands of miles to the southern hemisphere. Their very nature of location, however, means these Atlantic group of islands are generally considered challenging in terms of charter holiday destinations – particularly areas of the Canary Islands – so it’s important to select your location according to sailing experience. If you are looking to expand your sailing experience or perhaps want an introduction to trade wind sailing, bareboat charter in this area is possible through yacht charter agents like Plain Sailing,…

Buyers Guide – Annual maintenance Winter and spring are the time for getting to grips with all those niggling boat tasks that you’ve been putting off from the previous cruising season. There’s all the usual maintenance, of course – from greasing winches to cleaning the bilges. But I’m talking about the big stuff – those wish-list items that can make all the difference to your sailing. We went in search of owners who were doing just that, and met a mixed bag of big- and small-boat sailors. From a Westerly Corsair to a Jeanneau Yacht 53, their craft span generations, but they all have ambitious refit programmes. They might be leaving the work to the professionals, but their stories are instructive. Renewing head-linings, installing bow-thrusters and replacing the rudder bearing…

Last month’s comment column claims our (recreational sailing) efforts to become more environmentally friendly are probably counterintuitive if we want to go electric because we don’t use our yachts enough. Marina power plants How about we collaborate to build a sustainable propulsion eco-system? Do the researchers not understand that we ‘yachties’ are a resourceful bunch? Sit at any yacht club bar and listen to the stories of survival, innovation, inventiveness, and alternate uses for tools (this is just around the marina let alone on our travels) and you will realise that we can overcome almost any problem. In the perfect world I would suggest we start demanding/creating standards for all this new electric technology in our sailing industry and possibly across the whole industry. Standards for battery module sizes, voltage…

‘Do you come from a land down under? Where women glow and men plunder…?’ Remember that? It was the unofficial theme song for the crew of Australia II when they lifted the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club in 1983 off Newport Rhode Island. As it happened, my crew and I sailed into Newport harbour in the thick of the action. We had just completed an east-west North Atlantic voyage via Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland. We were bound for Mystic Connecticut where we planned to lay up for a month or two to bang the old boat back together. Our 1911 pilot cutter had taken a hammering in the Greenland Sea and we were running short of jibs. We were now in day-sailing mode and Newport looked…

Integrity set sail from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on 1 June, bound for Alaska via Greenland and Arctic Canada. Having mis-diagnosed one of several narrow channel entrances passing between two low lying islands and out onto the sea, we almost encountered the sea bed within a mile of departure port. Running aground on mud is not too bad, rocks tend to have a more serious impact. Having overseen various sailing mishaps and therefore accustomed as I am to general embarrassment and small scale humiliation, a call for help so close to the start would have been a little difficult to wear with grace. The navigational misadventure was soon forgotten and given what came afterwards, perhaps had I not mentioned it here, the incident may never have been remembered. By dark we…

From Dalmellington the River Nith flows southeast across East Ayrshire and Dumfries & Galloway to the Solway Firth. To the Romans it was the Novius Fluvius. It has haaf and stake netting for salmon and sea trout but also has rainbow trout, bream, eels, flounders and minnows. Some of its most important water is not seen, as Dumfries lies above one of the best and most important aquifers in Scotland. Dumfries takes its name from the Gaelic dun-phries, fort at the copse. It is also the Queen of the South and, to Burns, was Maggie by the Banks of Nith. In 1186 it was created a royal burgh by William the Lion. Burns Square was the site of the Greyfriars’ monastery where Robert the Bruce stabbed Sir John the Red…

Those familiar with the Red Jet facility at Southampton will have doubtless noticed the conveniently located Town Quay Marina, which is tucked away and well-protected yet offers easy, direct access to the world-renowned cruising and racing waters of the Solent. If you are wishing to explore the south coast or further afield to places like the Channel Islands and France, Town Quay Marina is a particularly good option as a base/starting point. For short stay or long-term berthing, this Southampton-based marina offers a warm welcome and all the facilities you’d expect from a prime city-centre location. Town Quay is known as a transport hub, so as well as the Red Jet/Red Funnel services to the Isle of Wight, there is also the Hythe Ferry, and a host of other travel…

Transat Jacques Vabre Pam Lee is not ashamed to admit that she has been on a short holiday since she arrived in Martinique. She deserves it – as do all the skippers who took part in the Transat Jacques Vabre 2023. It has been an epic race from Le Havre down to the Caribbean, which included a one week weather enforced layover in Lorient. As the dust settles on the race, I wanted to be taken aboard a Class 40 racer as it poundx out across Biscay and into the Atlantic into the teeth of the equinoctial gales. Lee is the perfect person to help with this as she is warm, relaxed and friendly as she unwinds post race. This was her first Transat Jacques Vabre and the whole thing…

NAUTOR SWAN 46 | MASQUERADE An early Frers Nautor Swan 46 MKII, she is a great example of her class – Nautor built more Swan 46s than any other model. She has been cherished in this ownership, with far too many updates to list here but includes recent teak decks. A safe and sea kindly cruising yacht capable both around the cans and offshore, Masquerade is offered in sparkling condition and is ready for more sea miles. Year: 1992 LOA: 14.36m (47’1”) Beam: 4.27m (14’) Draft: 2.7m (8’10”) Displacement: 14,700kg Hull Construction: Glass fibre Keel: Bulb Engine: Yanmar 1 x Yanmar 4JH54 diesel Designer: German Frers Accommodation: 9 berths in 3 cabins & saloon Location: Cowes, UK Contact: berthoninternational.com craftinsure quote: £861 HANSE 455 | FOLLY FOUR This 2016 Hanse…