Innehållsförteckning för December 2025 från Practical Boat Owner

Sooner or later you need to cast off your lines and just leave. Many a sailor talks about sailing around the world, crossing the Atlantic or circumnavigating Britain; fewer actually do it. Self-styled ‘old seadog’, Barry Perrins (page 55) is the latter. Wisely, he kept his plans to himself, leaving his home port of Plymouth aboard his 36ft Van de Stadt without fanfare. Nine years later, he returned with a wealth of sailing yarns, having cruised 30,000 miles and achieved what many of us dream about. Reading his story, I’m reminded of my husband John’s recounting of leaving Rio for his first major offshore solo sail. Having checked the weather forecast and the boat’s rigging for the umpteenth time, one of the seasoned sailors, cigarette dangling from his mouth, advised:…

Sailors around the British coast are being encouraged to report lobster pot and fishing gear entanglement as part of new efforts to tackle the hazard, which is a threat to safety and navigation. The Cruising Association (CA) and the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) are working together to gather data about the scale of the problem in UK waters. They’re asking all sailors and boaters to report entanglements – including witnessed incidents, and sightings of poorly marked static gear which could risk a fouled propeller or entanglement– via the RYA’s Fishing Gear Reporting Form. Information should include location, date, time, weather conditions, type of fishing gear, and if possible, photo uploads. This data will be used to identify high-risk areas. RYA director of external affairs, Mel Hide, said: “Although the RYA…

The Princess Royal, the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) President, joined the inaugural ‘Protect our Playground’ reception at the Southampton International Boat Show 2025. Co-hosted by the RYA and British Marine, the event on 24 September marked the 20th anniversary of the RYA Green Blue, the environmental programme which provides boaters, clubs, marinas and organisations with guidance from reducing pollution and tackling invasive species, to a business directory for products and services. Patron and round-the-world sailor, Mike Golding, said: “Beneath the surface we sail lies a vast, fragile web of biodiversity, under increasing threat, not just from ignorance but also from commercial pressures and human impact. Since those early days, it’s been a pleasure to watch the Green Blue evolve under a succession of talented leaders. With limited resources, they’ve achieved…

A non-stop around the world, single-handed, without electronics, inspired by the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, will return next September for its third edition. The original race saw a 29-year-old Robin Knox-Johnston make history in April 1969, as the first sailor to complete a single-handed circumnavigation of the globe. Another skipper became legendary during this first edition: Bernard Moitessier. After rounding Cape Horn, while leading the race, he decided not to cross the finish line and continued on towards the Indian Ocean ‘to save his soul’. He sailed one and a half times around the world without stopping to reach the islands and wrote The Long Way. For 2018, marking 50 years after the first edition, Don McIntyre revived the Golden Globe Race (GGR) under the same conditions as…

SOUTH COAST & CHANNEL ISLANDS Race marking ‘bot’ Flushing Sailing Club (FSC) is pioneering a new anchor-less racing mark known as a ‘Mark-Set-Bot’ when hosting its racing fleets, such as Falmouth Working Boats, gaffers and Falmouth Sunbeams, in the environmentally sensitive waters of Falmouth Harbour. Dubbed ‘Bot-icelli’ by club members, the Mark-Set-Bot has an in-built battery-powered electric motor, controlled remotely using an iPad and located using GPS– removing the need for an anchor to keep it in place and preventing any impact on the seabed. It was previously used in the Barcelona America’s Cup before the Isle of Wight sports management company FourthCape sold it to FSC for a ‘good price’. The investment by the club, a charity run by volunteers, was sponsored by the Fal & Helford Protected Area…

British ingenuity has blessed and blighted the world with some of the greatest inventions on Earth, from railways to time itself and television. The railways came first, followed by standardised time, which led to the invention of queuing, moaning and humour – at which we are unchallenged world champions on account of the lateness of trains – and that in turn led to the invention of television so we could watch programmes about trains. But it’s in the field of sporting endeavour that we have perhaps made our greatest and most selfless contribution, by inventing most of the sports in the world so that lesser nations can beat us at them and feel better about themselves. These include soccer, tennis, golf and rugby, but also more eccentric pursuits including, the…

Westerly yachts can be seen at most UK ports and harbours: they’re roomy family boats and some are designed for racing. The smaller 20ft to 26ft yachts, can often be bought for £4,000 to £7,000 which is about the same price as a good quality used sailing dinghy. Westerlys are very well made although, like many yachts, they may have no adequate built-in buoyancy. In my experience this means that when holed, they can–like my old Westerly Cirrus was – be pulled down to Davy Jones’s Locker quickly by its ballast (PBO, March 2022). Modifications such as making doors and lockers semi-watertight will give you more time in the unlikely event of a holing. Prices vary depending on whether the boat has been re-engined, had the headlining replaced, had the…

The late Martyn Heighton, creator and director of National Historic Ships, once said, “The Garlandstone is immensely important. It is one of the last wooden trading vessels built in the South West and was made from timber from the Cotehele Estate and built locally at Calstock. There are very few trading vessels like her now remaining anywhere. The Garlandstone is surely one of the best examples of the wooden working boats which traded around the UK coast.” The Garlandstone is the old boat whose rounded counter stern can be seen by anybody moving along the River Tamar and passing Morwellham Quay. I went to see her and was able to board and walk on the still stout deck planks. What was obvious was the neglect that was looking toward extinction.…

ARC sailor David Diaz, skipper of Outremer 5X Nuvem Magica, describes heavy weather handling in a light displacement boat: Let’s say you’re lucky and the squall is appearing far from you (and not on top of you, because then it’s game over), the radar will show a big spot, a tower of rain that typically comes with a 50% to 100% increase in wind speed. So if it’s 20 knots, you can expect it to jump to 30, 35, 40, and you have to monitor it. Squalls move way faster than boats. If you’re heading west and the squall is going west and is in front of you, you’re probably fine, but if it’s behind you, it will catch you up. There were a few times during the ARC when…

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Before entering an anchorage, check the state of the tide and calculate the amount of line or chain required. In calm waters, away from other boats, flake the required amount of line or chain out on deck. Make sure it will run easily. Trusting the line or chain to run out of the hawse pipe carries the risk of it kinking and jamming in the hawse pipe but, if you are certain that this will not happen, and your line or chain is clearly marked so that you know how much is out, then you can omit the step of flaking the chain out beforehand. When you enter an anchorage, first look for a spot to anchor. In busy anchorages, areas free of anchored boats can often indicate concealed hazards…

The RYA issued clarification about its Man Overboard Guidance when a debate was sparked in September following news reports into the RYA Guidance: Modern Day Manners – A guide to Inclusive Language’, and a suggestion that ‘Person in water’ was a more inclusive term. The guide had been online for two years. RYA director of training and qualifications, Richard Falk, issued a clarification on the national governing body’s use of the term. He said: “To confirm, our guidance states that we recommend the use of the phrase “Man Overboard” as it is a universally recognised term and one that is tightly woven into emergency procedures, electronic equipment, training and official documents. This has not changed. We do however, recognise that the language we all use is continually evolving. The guidance was…

End-of-life boats I read your end-of-life boats article (PBO, August 2025). As part of the Elizabethan Owners Association, I’m one of those who want to promote the continued use of our older boats, which would reduce the prevalence of abandoned vessels. Clearing up abandoned boats is a priority, of course, but it means little if something to prevent boats being abandoned in the first place is not in place. Most boatyards have ‘project boats’ at the back of the yard, wherever greener hulls lurk. The root of the problem is, of course, too many boats. This stems from yachts going from being a luxury to a commodity. This led to companies that make money from selling more and more yachts, with factories that can churn out far more hulls than…

Once, a sailing knife had a blade on one side and a marlinespike on the other. This was handy in a world where boats were held together with nails, string and blind faith, but less so in a marine environment that became increasingly mechanical. My current state-of-the-stainless-art Leatherman is a work of genius, and can do just about any job you like. Its disadvantage, however, is that it weighs a ton. Put it in your pocket and your trousers fall down, causing comment, some of it unfavourable. Hang it round your neck on a knotted lanyard and one false step will have you into the drink and plummeting bottomwards. And put it in a holster thing on your belt and you will rightly become an object of scorn and mockery,…

Testing yachts in the middle of winter is a fiddly business. You need a boat in the water, some breeze, ideally neither rain nor snow, and a glimmer of sunshine through the leaden skies. Amazingly, our test of the Hanse 360 gave some of the best sailing conditions, with a lively Force 4 to 5 from the north-west (we’d have to forgive it for being a little gusty), a few broken clouds to make the sky look extra blue, and beautiful sunshine. The boat I had come to see was the latest offering from German yard Hanse. It’s a sign of the times that the Hanse 360 is now the second smallest boat in the Hanse range (the 315 from 2016 is still going strong), yet she still has a…

Sailing around the world solo isn’t just a seamanship test; “you have to do everything by yourself, be your own doctor, psychiatrist, accountant, and so on. I’ve done minor surgery on myself.” Showing the bad as well as the good of one man’s quest to live his dream has been Barry Perrins’ appeal on social media, gathering 130,000 subscribers on his Adventures of an old Seadog YouTube channel, 31,000-plus followers on Facebook and 8,600 more on Instagram. In the case of the minor surgery, Perrins, a former lifeboat crew from Plymouth who travelled with an extensive medical kit, removed a toenail after the anchor hatch slammed on his foot while at anchor at Rodrigues Island, in the Indian Ocean. Perrins said: “I nearly lost a toe. They got me to hospital…

Part 1 of our diesel engine fluids review (PBO, November 2025) looked at the engine seawater cooling and freshwater cooling systems. The next critical fluid-based system is the lubricating oil. “A diesel loves his oil, like a sailor loves his rum” was a line out of the movie Captain Ron, and it rings very true. It’s also a commonly neglected engine fluid until something goes awry. The lubrication oil system is critical to engine operation, performance and longevity. The lubrication system When a friend indicated that he had excessive oil consumption on his Yanmar engine, we began to review the whole question of what is normal. Our first and most immediate check was to run the engine, followed by a quick check over the stern to assess the exhaust smoke…

The thing I remember most about the initial collision was the noise. The seconds before impact, the whole crew had gone silent. No more yelling of ‘starboard’ or expletives, just acceptance that we were about to sustain a hit. Not a glancing blow, but a full-on crash. What followed was a cacophony of tearing glassfibre and stainless steel as the anchor flukes of the Bavaria 40 locked onto the pulpit of our UFO 34 Unicorn and proceeded to, almost hungrily, tear down the starboard side of the boat, ripping and gouging at the glassfibre and devouring the uprooted safety rail stanchions from the deck. Upon reaching midships of our vessel, the Bavaria rose high over the toe rail, almost as if she was attempting to get into the cockpit and…

Getting our trailer-sailer to the Scottish Borders involved a seven-and-a-half-hour, 350-mile drive from Herefordshire. My wife, Sue, and I launched my Etap 22i at the lifeboat slip at Seahouses. Sue was planning to enjoy the harbour visits and to join me as crew for the short voyage legs, but to follow by car while I sailed the longer legs solo. The well-constructed Seahouses slipway is 150m from the lifeboat station, down a narrow public road, along which the lifeboat has to be hauled on a trailer by a tractor. You therefore need to park carefully when assembling the boat for launch, to avoid obstruction. The slipway slope is quite shallow, so the trailer had to be submerged to launch it. After launching, we flush the hubs with fresh water. Our…

Astronavigation is emphasised as ‘vital backup to electronic methods’ in the Royal Institute for Navigation (RIN) Small Craft Group’s (SCG) latest guide. For long ocean passages or in situations where electronic systems fail – due to technical breakdown, hacking, or signal jamming– ‘traditional methods remain an essential, reliable fallback’, states the updated Electronic Navigation Systems – Guidance for safe use on leisure vessels. The free-to-download booklet (available to buy in print at Imray/Bookharbour) includes an expanded section on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) which covers spoofing and jamming. “With recent increases in interference and spoofing, the vulnerabilities of satellite-derived positioning have been highlighted,” SCG chairman Paul Bryans told PBO. “With the industry moving rapidly toward electronic navigation, the need for clear, trusted guidance has never been greater. We continue to…

Two brothers on the Isle of Wight are working to create a solution for the problem of sails piling up in landfill. Racing sailor Sam Penhaul established Sustainable Extricko with his scientist brother, Dr Joe Penhaul-Smith, four years ago after seeing ‘how many sails were binned during the 36th America’s Cup’. “As we started to look into solutions, we realised that no one was addressing the problem despite 2,000 tonnes of sails being produced globally a year. Sail makers had tried with Dacron but concluded that there wasn’t a viable solution so didn’t follow it further,” Sam told PBO. “Joe found a company doing the Pressolysis reclamation method near Manchester and realised it could be modified to be used on sails and other similar composites. “Since then, we have been…

The family of a British solo sailor who went missing in Gran Canaria have flown out to assist police with the search. James ‘Jemsie’ Nunan was last seen on 18 August. He phoned his mother, went to Paddy’s Anchor pub and to a kebab shop in Las Palmas. The next day, he reported his passport stolen at a police station. Days later, his yacht Kehaar was found adrift 50 miles off the coast with only his Jack Russell, Thumbelina on board. Despite searches, there has been no trace of Nunan. The builder from Reading bought the boat from Slovenia and set sail in March, intending to do a circumnavigation. Family spokeperson, Joan Davis, said: “Before Jemsie set sail, he made a few trips to Slovenia to bring out extra gear…

The OGA, the Association for Gaff Rig Sailing, held a rally at Ullswater Yacht Club, Cumbria which marked the first time all six of the Gaffling 4.1 dinghies had been together. The August event was blessed with sunny weather. The OGA promote the Gaffling 4.1 dinghy as an entry-level to sailing gaff rigged boats. They are designed by Andrew Wolstenholme and similar in size to a GP or Wanderer. Gafflings are available in kit form from Fyne Boats, based near Kendal– priced at £3,395 – and one boat, Jabberwocky, was made by three teenagers from Arnside Sailing Club, who went on a course with Fyne Boats. Another, Tunstall Tide, was built by a school in Hartlepool with help from a shipwright at the Blyth Tall Ships Project. The event featured…

This year’s most exciting sail was definitely going round the top of Britain in Swan, Shetland’s own tall ship. She’s a 125 - year old, restored 67ft Fifie fishing boat, and this trip was a long weekend exploring the North Isles. We set out on a Thursday morning, going northwards in a brisk Force 3, which let us set four of Swan’s five sails: jib, foresail, main and mizzen, leaving only the triangular topsail rolled up on deck. There was mist on the hills, but the sea and sky were blue, as we ate lunch on deck. That night was in Yell, the second most northerly of the Shetland islands, and on Friday we set out early for the big day: around Muckle Flugga and Out Stack, the rock that…

The Netherlands offers thousands of miles of sheltered inland cruising among beautiful towns and countryside. Yachts can travel, mast up, from the cosmopolitan city of Groningen near the German border, to history-steeped Middelburg, taking in cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam along the way. There’s a huge area of canals, lakes and inland seas to explore, with something for everyone, from nature and history, to modern art and Michelin star dining. The unique Staande Mast Route makes this possible for sailing yachts of moderate draught, stretching over 600 miles from north to south. But which boat is best? Suitability Vessels longer than 15m are subject to additional regulations, and boats longer than 12.8m are restricted in where they can stop. Accordingly, all the models I’ve picked are comfortably under 40ft long.…

When I returned to marine journalism after a spell working on other magazines, I was surprised to hear it suggested that heavy displacement yachts were a thing of the past. “But what if you hit heavy weather?” I asked. “You don’t, if you’ve got the right routeing apps.” And so began my sobering education on all things that had, or were soon to become, redundant, from SSB radio to paper charts and radar. I’m glad to say that a decade later, all of these things are still very much in use, and I did feel at least a little vindicated when ARC skipper David Diaz told me unequivocally, that no boat can outrun a squall, not even his lightweight performance catamaran (see panel, page 54). However, talking to David after…

Gear ■ Hydrovane wind vane steering system is the piece of kit. I don’t have electric steering, so it made a huge difference. ■ Navionics – I got the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to sit on the Navionics so you could see ships and things going at the same time. That worked very well, all the way around. I had it on my phone as well so I could lie in my bunk, nap but still monitor myself. ■ AIS alarm – on my phone so it was right by my head so I would wake up. ■ Starlink satellite communications – for the last few months, when I was mostly at sea but wanted to put videos out and stay in touch. It’s a game changer – the beginning…

Prevailing winds in the UK blow from the west, so why is it then, that whenever you want to travel east, the winds will relentlessly blow from that direction for weeks on end? And so it was, as the May half-term holiday approached. Our planned cruise to take Mirage, our 40ft Bavaria, and our four children across the Thames from our base in Chatham Marina on the Medway to Woolverstone in leafy Suffolk, looked increasingly unlikely as, day by day, the forecast for fresh easterlies gradually worsened. As the planned departure weekend approached, we noticed a small weather window of very little wind from the east between 0300 and around 1000 on Sunday morning, with a breeze picking up until around midday, followed by a fresh easterly breeze from lunchtime.…

BOATBUILDING Should I use composite wood? Q l’m in the process of replacing the complete floor and sub-structure of our 18ft glassfibre cabin cruiser, and have to replace the rotten softwood floor bearers that are glassed into the glassfibre hull. The floor is about 5ft wide by 6ft long, the bearers are about 8ft long in total as they go through the stern locker back to the transom. I am thinking of using composite wood– the sort of thing used for park benches and garden furniture etc– as this is practically rot-proof, being made from wood fibres and recycled plastic. Do you see any problems with me using this, such as a differential in the expansion and contraction when the boat is in the water or parked up on its…

Boat For comfortable coastal cruising, look for at least a 20ft length overall (LOA), with the outboard in a cockpit well, protected by a high transom. The maximum width that can be towed in the UK is 2.55m. A lift-keel boat is necessary to get on and off a trailer. Yacht legs give a bit of protection when drying out; our Etap 22i has factory-fitted attachment points for the legs. Trailer Gross weight for a single-axle trailer must not exceed 1.8t (which includes the trailer, outboard, inflatable dinghy, yacht legs etc). On the road, move heavy items in the boat forward to stop the trailer from snaking. For launching and retrieving, they need to be moved to the stern. The trailer needs regular attention: greasing the break-back pin, replacing the…