Innehållsförteckning för November 2024 från Practical Boat Owner

WITH THE EDITOR Keeping up to date Years ago, when sailing for extended periods we would visit the nearest internet cafe for a final check of the weather, and to email family and friends to let them know where we were heading and our estimated time of arrival… and that was it. Onboard we would always carry our EPIRB and VHF radio, but this was at a time when sat phones were breathtakingly expensive and you had no option but to sail within your means (having taken every sensible precaution possible), otherwise, an adventure at sea would have been out of our reach. The last few years have seen huge advances in satellite communications, enabling us to stay in touch like never before. Ali Wood has spoken to offshore sailors…

Softwood bung After more than 20 years of boat ownership, at the start of this season I finally got round to tying a softwood bung to every through-hull fitting on my 42ft yacht. I decided that since I would be unlikely to do this job again for a while I would take the hoses off each one to make sure that I had the correct sized bung. I was very surprised by the number of different shapes that I needed. Both the length and the width required varied significantly. Some of them had to be astonishingly small. My standard pack of bungs was of very limited use and I had to buy more that would fit. I now have left-over a set of bungs that reflects more the variety of…

There are few brands in the boating world with the success or confidence to keep the same model names across different design generations, in the manner that’s customary for BMW, Volkswagen, Ford and other large car manufacturers. But that’s exactly what Jeanneau has done with the second generation of its extremely successful Cap Camarat 9.0 WA and Merry Fisher 895, the original versions of which sold a huge 1,500 and 2,000 units respectively. Merry Fishers have been selling increasingly well in the UK, thanks in part to having combined living and helm areas that are fully protected from the elements, yet offer a full view of the outside. The Cap Camarat, by contrast, has much larger open deck areas, with more limited interior accommodation, though there is still space to…

Satellite phones, which connect with mobiles and landlines via Earth stations, have changed little since I first wrote about them in 2006. At the time I attended a publicity stunt at the Southampton Boat Show where Dee Caffari’s boyfriend called her in the Southern Ocean to discuss (rather disappointingly) the weather. The previous year I’d been at a press conference in which Bob Geldof called Ellen MacArthur on B&Q, addressing her with a far more entertaining, “Hi sexy.” Though Geldof’s plan to send sailors across the Channel to end poverty wasn’t entirely clear, the phone signal was. It was hard to believe his voice had travelled 22,000 miles to a satellite, pinged back down to a land station and back to the phone, sounding as crisp as if it had…

Today, sales of electric outboards for tenders are strong, while demand for small petrol outboards is declining. Electric motors for this purpose are far smaller and lighter than a conventional outboard, which makes them far easier to handle. And a single battery charge can last for several typical trips back and forth to a mooring, without the hassle of finding, carrying and storing petrol.…

The assembly of a shaft seal comprises a sleeve that wraps the propeller shaft as it comes out of the stern tube which points in from the hull. The seal (the black ring in the photo opposite) essentially works like a stuffing box or stern gland. It aims to be as frictionless as possible. The outer surface is stationary and the other surfaces rotate around inside. When the engine is running, raw water comes through a valve inlet at the top of the seal ring. This water lubricates the seal and keeps it cool. According to one manufacturer, Tides Marine, with the engine on idle, 4.5lt of raw water is fed to its SureSeal each minute. This volume rises with the throttle. Advertised pressure is a minimum of two pounds…

The accumulative effects of shocks and impacts on boaters using small vessels have been highlighted in an updated Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) report. Amendment 4 of Marine Guidance Note (MGN) 436, “Whole body vibration: guidance on mitigating against the effects of shocks and impacts on small vessels”, reflects on evolving knowledge and best practice including the use of shock-mitigating data and technology. PBO contributor, Dr Gilbert Park, a long-time powerboater, experienced “vertical shock impact” aboard a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) 15 years ago. He said: “Early on in my motorboat career, I decided to travel from Penzance to the Isles of Scilly in a small RIB. It wasn’t a pleasant trip and I kept telling my wife, at the helm, to go faster. So she did, twice flying the…

Former Canal & River Trust chief executive Robin Evans passed away in August at the age of 70. Robin joined British Waterways in 1999 and alongside chairman Tony Hales, he led the work to develop the concept of a new charity for the waterways, navigating the political hurdles to create and launch the Canal & River Trust in July 2012. A year later, he stepped down from the role, having seen the long-term future of the canal network secured. A trust spokesperson said: “We all owe him a debt of gratitude.”…

■ Women of the RNLI exhibition, Royal Museums Greenwich, London, until 1 December, www.rmg.co.uk ■ Lymington Afloat Festival Weekend, 28-29 September, a celebration of the river with opportunities to get afloat, lymington.com/event/lymington-afloat-festival-weekend ■ Knox-Johnston Cup, 28-29 September, Clipper 68 and Clipper 70 racing around the Isle of Wight, clipperevents.com/races/knox-johnston-cup ■ Kent Boat Jumble, 29 September, Hop Farm Showground, www.rotaevents.co.uk ■ Roll out the Boat, talk by Tom Cunliffe, 7.15pm, 9 October, Bowlers Arms, Wash Common, Newbury, newburyyachtclub.com ■ Royal Institute of Navigation Weather and Sailing seminar, 9 November, Royal Yacht Squadron, Cowes, featuring Golden Globe Race sailors, Kirsten Neuschafer, Tapio Lehtinen and meteorologist Chris Tibbs, rin.org.uk ■ boot Düsseldorf, 18-26 January 2025, world’s largest yacht and watersports show, Germany, www.boot.com ■ BoatLife, 6-9 February, NEC Birmingham, www.boatlifeevents.com ■ Ireland on…

Fresh sailing content If, like me, you’ve been hankering after some fresh and interesting sailing content on YouTube, I think I’ve found something. Voyage Virage is an established adventure travel channel in the process of becoming a sailing channel. Australian Angie Richard, an accomplished writer, producer and director of documentaries, has been working as a producer on the long anticipated Woman & the Wind documentary (PBO, October 2022). Seven years ago, Angie was a divorced, single mum of two boys, surfing and camping with them on the east coast of Australia when she met and fell in love with Rémy, a young French engineer on a gap year, who she invited to join her and her sons on an overland adventure they were planning from India to Japan. This journey…

+ Sigma 33 | Sadler 32 | X-95 | Westerly GK29 | Wauquiez Centurion 32 | Westerly Fulmar Since its launch more than 50 years ago, the Contessa 32 has retained a reputation as one of the most seaworthy yachts of its size, yet it also still races competitively as a one-design class. This was the second design from David Sadler to be built by Lymington boatbuilder Jeremy Rogers, following the long-keel Contessa 26 of 1966. Both are now classics in their own right. When the prototype was launched in 1970, the Contessa 32 represented the state of the art in offshore racing yacht design, with a separate skeg-hung rudder, high-aspect mainsail and large overlapping genoas. The prototype, Red Herring, was joined by the designer’s boat, Contessa Catherine, in the…

Dometic GO hard & soft storage The Dometic Go storage system consists of a lightweight aluminium and plastic box 59 x 45 x 33cm (about 50lt volume), writes Gilbert Park. Inside it’s possible to fit two 20lt or one 20lt and two 10lt zippered soft storage containers. Insulated inner bags can be fitted into the containers. Preparing to go away in my 28ft boat for seven weeks, the idea of cosseting fragile kit was appealing. However, it didn’t really work. It’s bulky to stow. I tried under the table and it made sitting less comfortable and limited access to the engine hatch. It ended up under the forward bunk, although it did protect some fragile items. I also have a 23ft motorboat for short overnight trips in the Solent, which…

Toni Salame’s Oyster 575 Ahlam took third place in last year’s ARC+ rally. Toni, proud to be the rally’s first Lebanese entrant, attributed much of his success to careful analysis of weather data, received using Starlink. “We sailed south, rather than taking the direct line,” said Toni, who was joined by wife Ana and sons Carlos and Nicholas. “The wind was very fair with us, always downwind, and we paid a lot of attention to our sails.” When I met them in Grenada, graduate Carlos was planning to join them for the entire 16-month rally, while Nicholas, a tech company CEO, would do various legs. “For Carlos, it’s an opportunity to generate free time and think about his next steps in life, whereas Nicholas will have the opportunity to carry…

Having read lots of articles and watched dozens of YouTube videos on electric yacht conversions, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. Over a year or two, I kept going back to previously watched videos to check the finer details of each system and found the most well-known YouTube channel on this subject was Sailing Uma. I started to look into a small electric pod drive unit to convert my 21ft Corribee fin keeler, but the cost was way more than the boat was worth. I only paid £1,600 for it including an outboard and road trailer, so spending several thousand on an electric conversion didn’t make sense. A move to cleaner motoring Then in 2022, I purchased Charlotte, a 1980 Contessa 32. The plan was to convert…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH Preparing your boat for winter is often an overlooked job as sometimes the winter blues have set in and the enthusiasm isn’t quite what it was at the start of the season. The importance of preparing for winter should not be forgotten, however, as the consequences of not getting this right far outweigh the work involved if done methodically. By breaking the work down into sections, what appears to be a daunting task initially, can become part of your routine annual maintenance. As with all maintenance, the more regular it becomes, the easier it is to keep on top of. Packing down for winter We will start with “packing down” as it is a commonly missed part of preparing for winter. In essence, this involves taking as…

The melee inside my head mirrors the melee on deck. In the feverish hours of half-sleep before the 0300 watch, my senses get chaotic. Dreams and wild imaginings meld with reality. The big red swathe of nappy rash across my bum is morphing into a North Atlantic Admiralty chart. In the loud mosaic of noises as we push through the storm, different sounds assume identities of their own. What’s that sound like a yapping terrier in one of the cockpit lockers? How can there be groans of pain in the foot of the mast beside my bunk? My damp sleeping bag–is that seawater, sweat or something worse? We are three weeks now into our crossing from Nassau to Bristol, 1,000 or so miles south of Iceland, and I know the…

Golden Globe Race yachtsman and former Clipper Round the World Race skipper Guy Waites responds: “My congratulations to Ben Good, you have immersed yourself in an adventure and been rewarded with a tale to tell. “In this world of certainty, few things are as unpredictable as an ocean crossing, in spite of weather predictions, routing software and a well-found boat designed for the job. The ocean is a great leveller and will find out the slightest weakness of planning, person or vessel–what matters most is how we bend to the pressure and is as much the measure of our success. “Ben says in his tale: ‘We were very ably led by our skipper and first mate.’ All credit to them for guiding you through your adventure, no doubt your faith…

Moored to a single buoy on a swinging mooring you lie bows-to a combination of wind and tide. Your first action is to replace the mooring line with a slip, and it helps if you can lead this back to the cockpit via the bow roller. If you intend to sail off then raise your sails and, as a precaution, start your engine. By backing or filling the jib and/or the main you can swing the bows round so you’ll sail off on your desired tack. When you’re happy, slip the mooring line and sail off. If you’ve been lying to the tide it’s likely that, initially, your leeway will be huge and if there are other boats nearby you may sweep down onto them. Using the engine may save…

For more than a decade we had lived in London on a Humber keel barge in Greenland Dock, opposite Canary Wharf, but left late in 2020 to move to Holland, my wife Helene’s home country. It was the end of a wonderful time living in one of the sparkiest and most welcoming communities I’ve ever known. But even as we loaded the last bits into the car and headed for the Stena Line to Hoek van Holland, we knew we had to come back–by boat. Our new home in the Hague was very close to the harbour at Scheveningen, perfectly placed for trips to England. However, in the end, we spent most of our time sailing north of Amsterdam–because the boat we bought came with a berth attached. Caran is…

Recommended reading Imray publications Crossing the Thames Estuary, East Coast Pilot and North Sea Passage Pilot were all invaluable. We spent many hours using them for planning and kept them close to hand when on passage. We used Imray charts, plus Navionics. Imray’s Inland Waterways of the Netherlands was also extremely useful. There is also a specific booklet about the Standing Mast Route, published by ANWB, which is widely available in the Netherlands. Standing Mast Route ▪ The Standing Mast Route is well worth considering for a very different but rewarding experience. There are a number of bridges (mostly motorway and railway crossings) which have limited opening times–but the process is very joined up, so if you get through the A9 bridge to the north of Haarlem at lunchtime, as…

Fair winds to John Guzzwell, who in 1959 completed an unprecedented solo circumnavigation aboard a self-built 21ft wooden yawl. At the time, Trekka was the smallest boat to have sailed around the world, and John’s book, Trekka Round the World, sparked the bluewater dreams of countless other sailors. The Channel Islands-born adventurer and pioneering wooden boatbuilder passed away in late August at his home near Seattle, Washington, USA, aged 94, with his beloved wife Dorothy by his side. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, another Briton to make history as the first man to sail solo and non-stop around the globe, said: “John’s early Trekka voyages showed what could be achieved in a well-designed and built small boat and inspired many of us including myself at 16 years of age. I am proud…

Trailblazing teen Harry Besley has become the first person to travel around Britain in an electric rigid inflatable boat. With stops at 43 locations across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, the 1,708-mile Round Britain eRIB Challenge took 31 days 20 hours and 46 minutes. Meanwhile, Harry’s shore-side support crew travelled 2,981 miles in their 100% electric Maxus T90EV pickup truck. Skipper Harry, 18, who received his A-Level results a day after arriving back at Lyme Regis, Dorset, told of “trickier legs where limitations on time, tides and charging proved difficult and often kept us up for much of the night”. He praised his supporters and “all the staff at the ports, harbours and marinas who helped make this happen”. Project manager Jaqui Besley added: “We tested the capabilities of…

Sharon Geary Harwood, the managing director of Drascombe Boats Ltd, has died suddenly following a recent diagnosis of leukemia. Mum-of-two Sharon, who was also a wife and grandmother, had recently celebrated her daughter Hannah’s wedding. She had shared details of her leukemia diagnosis with her contacts but was positive about starting treatment once she recovered from a bout of pneumonia. Sharon passed away on 2 September, in North Basingstoke Hospital, surrounded by her family. PBO columnist Clive Marsh said: “It’s sad and surprising news about Sharon. Sharon has always been one of the most helpful and nicest people. I once lost a bronze drain plug for an old Dabber and Sharon spent ages turning her yard upside down to find one. That’s the sort of thing she would regularly do.”…

SOUTH COAST & CHANNEL ISLANDS Seagrass markers A new generation of “smart” buoys are marking sensitive habitats of seagrass and maerl around Falmouth Harbour. The new Port Notice Advanced Mooring System (PNAMS) markers keep their own mooring chains off the seabed without the need for floats under the surface–as trialled in some older Advanced Mooring System (AMS) pioneer projects. The seagrass bed off Trefusis Point is now marked by two PNAMS buoys, as already used for the St Mawes Harbour 8-knot speed markers and in the Helford River to protect seagrass beds. The “Blue Meadows” marker buoys bring the number of markers in Falmouth Harbour and bay to 26, protecting around 30 hectares, and represent a partnership between Falmouth Harbour, Ocean Conservation Trust, Mylor Mooring Services Ltd and Cornwall Council.…

Zhik Women’s Hikers and Youth Smocks Zhik has launched the industry’s first range of hiking garments in a women’s fit for those who sail dinghies and small keelboats. They are the third iteration of a concept developed for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as part of a gold medal winning campaign. Two versions are available, made from Zhik’s Superwarm and Microfleece fabrics respectively. Both versions have an ergonomic 3D fit that gives excellent flexibility and freedom of movement. There are also extended reinforcement areas to prevent wear and integrated knee pads for protection. The Youth Smock combines the expected features such as a PU membrane, fully taped seams, and adjustable collar, wrist and waist seals with a fleece lining that improves thermal insulation. Other key features include a high collar…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH Increasing numbers of new vessels of all descriptions are all-electric, with systems including propulsion, induction hobs and electric ovens, hot water and dinghy outboards. But can all this really work in practice? And how realistic is this type of technology for the average cruising boat owner? There’s certainly no shortage of cynics online and on social media who will tell you all-electric will never work. Yet demand for boats with these systems is continuing to grow and an increasing number are successfully sailing across oceans or proving to be comfortable nomadic floating homes. However, it is the other end of the spectrum–day-sailers and weekenders–that were first to adapt to electric propulsion in a big way. It’s already close to a decade since the market arguably reached maturity,…

There are places blessed with such beautiful coastal waters that not owning a boat to enjoy them should be considered madness! And having an electric engine means you can cruise in almost silence. My journey into electric boat ownership began in 2016 when I inherited money from my late nan. I wanted to invest in something that would build lasting memories for my family, so I purchased an early Picton Cobra 6m RIB and embarked on a project to repair and restore it. I planned to fit it with a Deep Blue 80hp electric propulsion system from Torqeedo. Despite the RIB’s pedigree, I found no insurer willing to cover it. Energised by our experiences with the RIB, I knew if I wanted to go further, I needed to make a…

V-belts, also known as alternator belts or fan belts, (a throwback to our car days when the belt drove the cooling fan for the radiator), are used on boat engines to transmit power to water pumps and alternators. The V name we use for its shape is not strictly correct, but is in common use. The correct name for the belt’s shape is trapezoidal, a quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides. V-belts are usually made from rubber or synthetic material with built-in reinforcing fibres. They’re simple but efficient. STEP BY STEP How V-belts work Their V shape allows them to fit into a matching groove on a pulley. Not many people realise that V-belts ‘drive’ through their sides which offers greater contact surface area between the belt and pulley.…

Rule of six 1 Do everything you can to pre-empt gear failure before your departure–but expect things to break anyway. So have back-up plans, incorporate redundancy and carry a comprehensive toolkit and set of spares–and make sure they are well organised and easy to access in a hurry. 2 On a long trip with a large-ish crew mainly unknown to each other, take care of the social dynamics. Not everyone will be happy or want company all of the time. So treat your crewmates with respect, and give them space when they need it. Making tea for everyone regularly helps a lot if you want to be popular! 3 Weather forecasting/route planning software–we used PredictWind–won’t get it right all of the time! Be prepared to have to make decisions in…

ENGINES Drive system snakes and ladders Q I own a 26ftWesterly Centaur and want to install a Python drive CV joint. I have a Volvo Penta 2003 28hp engine with an MS2B R version gearbox with the 7° down angle. I contacted a salesperson for the Python drive and he recommended the P30R version. The optimal lengths of the intermittent drive shaft are 145mm, 165mm and 195mm. If I had to make the drive shaft fit, could I cut it to make it shorter? If not, is it possible to get shorter shafts for the unit and, if so, what would be the minimum length? My engine has a max propeller shaft output of 28hp at 3,200rpm. Python says the maximum output on my propeller shaft would be much less…

1 Tiny side decks can make carrying the anchor forward quite hazardous in choppy conditions. 2 To avoid using the side decks, some designs have a small forehatch–so anchoring can be done more safely through that. 3 Shiny decks with small pulpits can be made more secure with stanchions, wire and some non-slip paint. 4 If it’s too awkward to fit a pulpit, why not copy some work boats and rig a central grab rail down the foredeck. 5 Or anchor from the cockpit. Rig a short line from the bow and attach it to near the end of the anchor cable. Keep the tail end of the cable in the cockpit and ease it out from there, until the bow line takes the load. 6 A small cathead keeps…