Innehållsförteckning för January 2026 från Practical Boat Owner

Ever feel overwhelmed by choice when it comes to upgrading boat kit? Technological advancements have had a huge impact on the lives of sailors, arguably making it easier and more comfortable to get afloat. But state-of-the-art gear is often expensive, and you want to know the choice you make will not become a costly regret. Part of Practical Boat Owner’s ethos is to try to provide sailors with independent expert advice to help them make the best decisions. In this issue, Ali Wood examines the options for solar panels (page 54), talking to industry experts as well as cruisers about what works and what doesn’t. Installation of new technology is also something to consider. Engineer Marcus Jones, who sits on the Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology working group,…

A ‘fresh consultation’ has been launched to enable more people to have their say on proposals to make search and rescue responses to Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs) more efficient and effective. Proposals by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) include bringing PLBs under regulations that apply to Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs), which would require people to register current and new PLBs with the MCA – online and free of charge – if they are carried on a UK-flagged vessel, hovercraft or mechanically propelled watercraft, such as jet skis, wherever they may be. The draft recommendations do not apply to PLBs on unpowered craft such as paddleboards, kayaks and canoes. However, the MCA encourages the registration of PLBs used in these instances. Registration means that when a PLB is…

The importance of designating a shore contact before setting off on a boat trip has been highlighted following a fatal man overboard incident near Inishbofin, Co. Galway, Ireland. A Marine Casualty Investigation Branch report said the lone fisher in a small recreational vessel had been attempting to retrieve a fouled lobster pot prior to going in the water. His upturned aluminium boat was found on 3 July 2024. The casualty had set off the previous day, bound for the north side of the island. The ‘most likely scenario’ is that ‘the casualty encountered a fouled lobster pot and attempted to free it by tethering the vessel to the pot riser, and used the swell to lift the vessel to aid in dislodging the fouled lobster pot from the seabed. The…

The future of paper charts has entered a positive ‘new chapter’ as the leading publisher of nautical information for leisure sailors commences operations in Vienna, Austria, under its new guise as FB Imray Laurie Norie & Wilson GmbH (FB Imray). In November 2024, Imray, a leading publisher of nautical information for leisure sailors, announced that it would cease paper chart publishing operations by 2025, then shifted this to 2030. However, last April, sailors’ fears were allayed when Imray entered a joint venture with cartographic experts freytag & berndt (FB). Now FB Imray has taken over Imray’s product portfolio, and in addition to producing nautical charts and books, the company will invest in new digital products to shape the future of navigation and information for leisure sailors. FB Imray chief executive…

The oldest Morecambe Bay Prawner still in existence took to the water for the first time in four years for a successful engine trial. Spray has been undergoing maintenance work by Morecambe Bay Prawner Trust volunteers, under the supervision of shipwright Matt Foot, since February 2024. The 1896-built vessel, used to harvest shrimps on the Cumbrian, then Scottish coasts before she was raced and sailed, was restored by her last owner, Tom Middlebrook, before he died in 2021. Now, trust volunteers have got her seaworthy again, Spray was lifted into the water at her Glasson Dock moorings, Lancashire, ahead of the engine trials in mid-October. Skipper and trustee Robin Ashcrof said prawners are “fabulous to sail” but their long keels can make manoeuvring under engine power in the close confines…

The worst journey of 2025 was taking baggage from ‘our’ Highland cottage, a mile and a half by boat to the head of the loch, where the road began. It was showery all day. My sister, Joan, cousin Lita, and I watched as squalls swept up the loch in a flurry of white horses and stair-rod rain. Between showers the loch calmed to reasonable, and the sun even broke through at one point, though the minute we went out to enjoy it, the rain began again. It was one of those ‘have to go’ situations that boat owners try to avoid. We had only a small boat, a Pionier 12, three of us, and two journeys’ worth of luggage, so we wanted to get load one up and into Lita’s…

Keeping warm on the water is essential. As soon as a crewmember, and especially a child, is cold it’s game over for your meticulously planned sailing trip, and it’ll be far harder to persuade them to come again. As a parent and a junior safety boat helper, I’ve had many an argument with children who insist they’re fine in their boardshorts or shorty wetsuit… until they’re not, and there’s still two hours to go until we’re back ashore. These days, I take extra clothing in a dry bag, and have learned to be firm when it comes to keeping warm. A warm crew is a happy crew, and it means we can all spend longer on the water. But selecting the right clothes for the boat and conditions isn’t straightforward.…

Motorboaters may not need as much freedom of movement as sailors, but waterproofing, sun protection and especially wind protection – given their faster speed – are important, and the same rules apply when it comes to layering. Base layer Ross Partridge, corporate sales manager at Henri-Lloyd, says, “Good base layers are the key to being comfortable on and off the water, and Henri-Lloyd’s Merino wool base layer works even in temperatures down to-25°C.” The brand’s ambassador, Vendée Globe sailor Sam Goodchild, says getting the basics right is key: “When you’re offshore, you live in the same gear for days. My Henri-Lloyd Merino baselayers keep me warm when it’s windy and cold, breathe when the sun’s out, and somehow don’t smell no matter how long I wear them.” On a hot…

Sailors tend to understand the basics of the Beaufort Scale, but how many of us know it verbatim? And that is the problem. How many of us actually know the scale or could quote it from memory? The Beaufort Scale is a wonder of meteorological description, but it is not easy to recall and, more importantly, it is difficult to teach making it just another obscure sailing eccentricity for novice sailors to learn. Have you ever been sailing and thought that 11 knots does not really feel like the same sailing condition as 16 knots, or that while you like the Beaufort Scale, you cannot remember the limits of each force, so you just use the knots reading from the wind gauge in the log book? If so, you are…

PBO contributor, the late David Berry, was an early adopter of solar panels: “The sun is 93 million miles away, give or take. Packets of energy called photons leave it and travel at 186,000 miles per second just to fall on us and keep us supplied with energy. If you held up a boat solar panel outside our atmosphere, it would be irradiated by broad-spectrum sunlight at 1,370W/m2 : this is called insolation. Because the Earth is tilted on its axis, we see more of the sun in the summer than the winter: in the winter, it just about creeps above the horizon, and the stream of photons has to travel through a far longer atmospheric path than when it is overhead in the summer. At sunrise and sunset, the atmospheric…

TIPS FROM THE TRADE Most sailors will probably have seen or experienced a stranded wire, or a failed swage, or the catastrophic results that a failure of a single rigging part can lead to. There are many reasons for these failures, and this article will outline the most common. It’s unfortunately not correct to assume that stainless steel rigging will go on forever. Your rigging should be seen as a consumable item on a boat, much like antifouling or sails. Its lifespan will be dependent on the type, distance, and frequency of use. This is not limited to just sailing miles, either. The standing rigging is still working when the boat is sat on a mooring, or even when ashore in a cradle. In fact, the only time the lifespan…

Round UK and Ireland solo circumnavigator Jazz Turner was in the running for the Rolex World Sailor of the Year female award, at the time of going to press, alongside Vendée Globe sailor Justine Mettraux; Sail GP sailor Martine Grael; and Transpacific Yacht Race skipper Allison Bell. Male contenders were America’s Cup star Peter Burling; Vendée Globe sailor Charlie Dalin; offshore racer Alexis Loison; and 470 class champion Jordi Xammar Hernandez. ■ pbo.co.uk/awards…

Two new media channels will enable online viewers to follow the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) sailors’ adventures as the transatlantic cruise in company celebrates its 40th year. Organiser World Cruising Club (WCC) is launching the professionally-run ARC Radio digital station on 10 November, while ARC Live broadcasts on Facebook will begin on 18 November, with a watch again YouTube option, to cover the build-up to the departure on 23 November from Gran Canaria. The 24/7 ARC Radio will offer music, key information for crews and interviews with participants, while ARC Live videos will cover social events, seminars and safety activities. Over 800 participants from 30-plus different countries are due to set sail from Las Palmas, heading for Saint Lucia. WCC managing director, Paul Tetlow, said the ARC “has grown…

SOUTH COAST & CHANNEL ISLANDS Harbour reopening When a new lock gate arrived at Charlestown Harbour in St Austell, Cornwall, in October, it marked the harbour’s first significant upgrade in decades. The £2million-plus Lock Gate Regeneration Project, funded through private investment by Charlestown Harbour Ltd and £656,047 in funding from Cornwall Council, delivered via the Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund, is vital for ensuring vessel access and water levels in the Georgian harbour. When the previous gate was damaged by storms in September 2024, the harbour became tidal and resident boats were evacuated. The new lock gate will prevent the inner basin from emptying. Owner Rolf Munding said: “I’m proud that we’re now able to restore it to a fully functioning port and secure its future.” A full reopening of the…

Who are your all-time nautical heroes? Well, I never thought I’d say it, but I’m going to have to put a word in for William Bligh, and not just because he had a bit of crew trouble, which is something I can relate to, as everyone who steps aboard my boat instantly turns mutinous and reveals a catalogue of character flaws, such as eating all the custard creams. There’s also Joshua Slocum, of course, who, between 1895 and 1898, became the first person to sail round the world single-handed in his 36ft 9in Spray, a derelict hulk he rebuilt with his own hands. I’m just reading his book, Sailing Alone Around The World, for the third time, and what amazes me is his modern outlook that has none of the…

Estimates put the number of islands, islets and skerries in the Stockholm Archipelago at around 30,000. The fact that this isn’t totally agreed upon shows just how rich this cruising area is. It’s said Stockholm sailors rarely venture outside home waters – and with this on their doorstep, who can blame them? The inner and central archipelagos extend outward from the city and are surrounded by the Furusund Fairway and the outer and southern Archipelagos. These 650 square miles offer something for everyone, from buzzing nightspots and bourgeois villages to beautiful inlets and natural harbours. Sandhamn is home to the Royal Swedish Yacht Club and the finishing point for the Gotland Runt race. There are cultured hotspots like Furusund in the north and Utö in the south, and a magnificent…

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With pressure on the marine industry to become more sustainable, a key area of advancement has been in artificial woods, especially teak. There are now some polyvinyl chloride (PVC) alternatives that look and feel as good as natural timber but are much more affordable. They are colourfast, need virtually no maintenance, and are easy to work with. On the downside, they’re a little hotter underfoot and heavier than hardwood. Typical weights for forest teak, for example, are 655 kg/m3 (41lb/ft3), while PVC is around 1,380 kg/m3 (128lb/ft3). On seeing an example from UK-based Wilks Fendering (now acquired by Flexiteek International, also head-quartered in the UK) in 2019, I decided to replace the badly weathered gunwale strip on my 21ft Corribee Pod with a PVC alternative. The PVC is available in…

Rule 35 of the Colregs requires that a vessel in restricted visibility (fog, smoke etc) should sound its horn in specific patterns every two minutes depending on its current status. And although the rule is only strictly applied to vessels over 12m, it also says that smaller vessels should make some kind of noise every two minutes as well. My friend and I were discussing this in a local hostelry one cold winter’s night, and we both wondered about the practicality of this. He has a 28-footer that he regularly sails single-handed, and my wife and I are new to this sailing lark, and weren’t quite sure what to do with one of those aerosol horns beloved of football fans when we found it in the locker of our first…

Charts For the west of Scotland: ■ Imray Charts C66 and 67 covered the whole of our area, from Ullapool, across the Minch, and up to Stornoway; but not St Kilda. ■ Admiralty Chart 17941794 covered most of the east side of North Harris, Stornoway and across to the mainland coast. More detailed charts: ■ Admiralty Chart 2500 Ullapool and Approaches ■ Admiralty Chart 2642 Sound of Harris ■ Admiralty Chart 2524 St Kilda ■ Admiralty Chart 2841 Sound of Harris to Ard More Mangersta ■ Admiralty Chart 2529 Approaches to Stornoway ■ Admiralty Chart 2504 Approaches to Loch Inver (for Achmelvich) ■ Admiralty Chart 2501 Summer Isles Pilot books We used two Yachtsman’s Pilots, both by Matthew Lawrence: ■ The Yachtsman’s Pilot: Skye and Northwest Scotland (Imray, 2010) for…

The location and status of Gibraltar have made it a popular destination for cruising sailors in the past, to both reset the EU Temporary Admission VAT clock and to pause the Schengen 90/180 days clock. The UK, EU, Spain and Gibraltar announced on 11 June 2025 that they’d agreed the core aspects of a future formal treaty between the EU and the UK in respect of Gibraltar. It involves removing the need for border checks between Spain and Gibraltar while enabling EU/Spanish checks at other entry points into Gibraltar. It also introduces a Gibraltarian VAT system, modelled on the EU VAT system, for goods entering Gibraltar. The Cruising Association’s (CA) Regulatory & Technical Services group (RATS) experts told PBO: “The new rules should be implemented in 2026, depending on full…

External safety lines, rigged from the bow to the stern on both sides of the Mini Globe Race boat, Sunbear, have been credited with saving the life of entrant Eric Marsh. The 72-year-old skipper was 70 miles from Port Louis in Mauritius during the race’s second leg when he went overboard, at night, from his 19ft Class Globe 5.80. At the time, he was clipping the boat’s spinnaker pole to the lifelines on the foredeck before the boat was hit by a big wave. Race commentator, Graham Cox, who interviewed Marsh after the incident, said: “He had two tethers, long and short, but only the long one was clipped on at the time of the accident, something he admits was an oversight – he usually does clip it on. Once…

The Met Office has released new data showing a decade of steady improvement in the UK Shipping Forecast, with wind speed and sea state accuracy up by 10% or more. The world-leading weather service has also unveiled a prototype AI-assisted system which automatically generates a first draft of the Shipping Forecast, which trials have shown to be as accurate as text produced by Met Office operational meteorologists. “This innovation represents the best of both worlds,” explains Michael Sharpe, operational verification scientist at the Met Office. “We’re combining the latest probabilistic data from the Met Office’s post-processed model with automated text generation, while preserving the human expertise that mariners depend on for critical decision-making.”…

December has come early this year. A heavy wind is buffeting the slates, and big seas are crunching up the kyle and bursting on the beach below this shed. I do not care, because the stove door is open, and the driftwood is spitting green, and I have got plenty to read. I always have plenty to read, because as well as writing things for Practical Boat Owner and other leading periodicals, I am the editor of The Marine Quarterly, which is a sea journal full of stories and with hardly any pictures. People send you books if you are an editor, and the only downside of this fine state of affairs is that sometimes the books are so interesting that you forget to do any editing. This is true…

From the day we met outside the headmaster’s office, holding similarly unimpressive exercise books, John and I became the best of friends. John crossed the bar some years ago, but we had some very good times sailing. I was always keen on boats, but John showed no interest until he met his lovely wife, Moira, who had sailed GP14s. She introduced him to our sport, and together they bought a Mirror dinghy. I sailed with John on the Medway estuary and off the beach at Shoreham. He liked racing and had a room full of cups. Progressing to a Maxi 84 yacht, which they kept at Brighton, they finally purchased a Flying Fifteen. This two-person racing keelboat has the characteristics of a dinghy and looks admirable in or out of…

Solar technology has improved vastly over the past decade, so much so that yachts today can handle much of their power requirements through renewable energy. It’s rare to see a cruising boat without some kind of solar arrangement, whether that’s a single panel fixed to the guardrails, or a dedicated arch and flexible panels on the foredeck and coachroof. By converting sunlight into battery power, solar panels reduce the amount of money you need to spend on fuel, as well as giving you the freedom to moor outside of marinas. And, of course, in addition to reducing your expenditure, you’re lowering your carbon footprint. You might just want a solar panel to trickle-charge your battery when your boat’s unattended, but on the other hand, a generous arrangement (provided you have…

When I bought my 1973 Albin Ballad Moments of Clarity many years ago, the first job I did was to replace all of the standing and running rigging. A few years back, I thought the time had come to replace them once again, as well as to remove and inspect all deck fittings associated with the rigging. So, with the mast down, and secured on five oil drums, I removed all of the chainplates and backing plates, the galvanised beams and the deck eye bolts. It’s a testament to the original quality of the metal components that they required no attention, other than removing the old caulking material and cleaning. There were just a couple of spots of surface rust on the galvanised beams, which I tackled by sanding and…

I sail a Degero DS331 which, having a deck saloon, allows me to stay out of inclement weather when sailing. However, it does require working windscreen wipers when it is raining or when taking sea spray over the bow, to keep a good lookout from the saloon. Unfortunately, after 20 years of use, one wiper had begun to run slowly and finally stopped working altogether. A quick inspection showed nothing obviously wrong, and on removing the connecting arm, the electric motor spun freely, but it was impossible to move the shaft, which was seized solid. Assuming that salt had penetrated the outer shaft seal, I tried soaking the shaft in vinegar, but this had no effect – so the assembly would need to be dismantled to free the shaft. With…

Before I set off on my solo sailing challenge, my wife suggested I take yeast. I remember saying, ‘Am I really gonna make bread when I’m out at the sea and it’s 40ft waves?’ She said, ‘I think you will’. I thought ‘I’m probably not’. Oh man, she was so correct, bread is great out at sea. I turned 34 during this passage, on 25 April. I don’t eat cake, but I did make bread that day. I don’t know if it was because it was my birthday, but I was definitely craving a burger. I was thinking, ‘but I’ve got no bread’, and was at the point of having the burgers on their own when I found flour and then I was like, ‘Ooh, let’s see if I’ve got…

Messing about in the voe with my own Karima S is a lot of fun, but I try to have a bigger adventure each summer, and this was to be a cracking good one: to St Kilda and the western isles aboard Shetland’s own tall ship, Swan. This 67ft former fishing boat, the largest ever built in Shetland in 1900, was rescued as a wreck in 1989 and is now a sail training vessel taking people of all ages both around the archipelago and further afield. We Shetlanders are immensely proud of her, and school pupils whose great-grandfathers crewed in fishing boats like her always enjoy their days aboard. She has eight berths for trainees in the former fish hold, now a comfortable wood-lined cabin, plus another five berths aft…