Innehållsförteckning för July/August 2022 från SAIL

Having set ourselves the task of transforming our recently purchased Open 66 ex-Vendée Globe racer, NV, into a performance family cruiser, my partner, Timo, and I found ourselves (extremely) high and dry as cyclone season approached. The favorite cyclone strategy in Fiji is to sit your boat in a cyclone pit in Vuda Marina. This is a hole dug in the ground in which the keel and rudder fits, with the hull sitting on tires at ground level. Unfortunately for us, digging a pit deep enough for our 14ft keel was impossible, as the bottom of the pit would end up below sea level, which in turn would cause it to collapse. Our draft also prevents us from being able to tie up among the mangroves in one of the…

Every boat show now includes a selection of multihulls, as this once niche part of the market is now not only firmly mainstream but continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. Nonetheless, there remains an exhibition that stands out from the rest—the International Multihull Show at La Grande Motte, near Montpellier in the South of France. Although, a somewhat compact show, it is still by far the best place in the world to make direct side-by-side comparisons between the many different models out there. Many of the smaller yards are also thereby providing a pretty complete picture of the state of today’s multihulls. Neat ideas I saw at the show this past April included the clever little 6lb washer-drier from Daewoo, which was fitted to the Nautitech 44 Open and…

For years now, maxi-trimarans, both solo-sailed and fully crewed, have been racing the clock on their own around the world in an eff ort to set ever faster records for the world’s fastest circumnavigation under sail. Back in 2000-01 there was also a no-holds-barred round-the-word event dubbed simply “The Race,” in which the maxi-catamaran Club Med beat out five other fully-crewed catamarans to the finish. Never before, though, has there been a head-to-head round-the-word race between the 105ft boats making up the spectacular maxi-trimaran Ultim 32/23 class—until now. This past spring, Arkéa, a major player in sports sponsorship that has been active in ocean racing for several years, announced it would be sponsoring the first two editions of brand-new solo-sailing event, à la the quadrennial Vendée, featuring up to seven…

SMART-HATCH More and more, "smart" systems are becoming the norm on boats. Case in point, the Smart-Hatch, which swaps out the hinge and handles of a conventional boat hatch with an automated hinge and handles. Integral to the Smart-Hatch’s functionality is a set of sensors that detect rain or sea spray and then automatically close the hatch before things can get wet belowdecks. Buttons located on the hinges themselves or a mounted keypad allow you to open and close the hatch “manually.” You can also control the hatches remotely via an app on your phone or computer, allowing you to, say, air out your boat or prep for showers while you're on your way to the marina. The hinges are wireless and include a manual override for safety. The system…

Following a change of control and reorganization in 2018, Bavaria Yachts, one of Europe’s biggest builders, tapped a new design team and started updating its entire range of boats. The first new “C-Line” Bavaria, the C42, designed by Maurizio Cossutti and Alessandro Ganz, was a surprise success in Europe in 2020 and pulled down some major awards there. The new Bavaria C38 is the second of the new breed, a slightly downsized version of its predecessor, which shares many design and construction features. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION Bavaria was a newcomer to the hard-chined cruising hull party, but has embraced the trend with enthusiasm. The C38, like the C42 before it, boasts a pronounced chine running its full length. It also carries a great deal of beam aft, as is common…

During the three months my little ship lay in Belfast, Maine, I had three friends. The first was a schooner bum I’d met sailing in Florida who now worked for the shipyard next door to where I had just bought my boat, Teal, a 1963 Tripp 29, sight unseen. He would hook me up with showers after days of dirty boat work. The second was a captain with a 200-ton license who had singlehanded her 32ft Allied Seawind across the Atlantic and back and drove big ships for fun. She served as inspiration whenever I began seriously wondering if I would ever succeed in getting my own old boat seaworthy again. The third was someone I can only describe as a quintessential Maine boatbuilder, a lifelong sailor who had constructed…

Send your photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com And don’t forget to sign up for our free eNewsletter, Under Sail, via our website sailmagazine.com…

Growing up, sailing was always part of my life. This did not happen by chance, but rather was the result of generations before me having made sailing and sailboat racing part of normal activities. I was never told I had to go sailing; it was just part of my family’s routine, an important part of my foundation. My dad came from a family of eight kids growing up in Edgewood, Rhode Island. My grandfather was addicted to sailing like someone might be about golf. He would pack some supplies, gather all the children and to head for the Edgewood Yacht Club. It was there where his boat was moored, a large catboat that was ideal for holding lots of people. All my dad’s siblings, as well as friends of my…

I gazed aft over Hazel James’ port quarter and patted her well-travelled 31ft hull. “It’s time to sail, girl. We’ve got a long way to go,” I said. As the Virgin Islands sank below the horizon, my thoughts were filled with Caribbean memories, a curious and sundry collage of trade-wind sailing, cruising friends and shimmering turquoise water the color of Hazel’s hull. After a poignant moment or two, though, I turned my attention forward again, from the past to the future—not some dreamy and distant future, but the imminent challenge of the 1,200-nautical-mile single-handed passage that lay ahead. By happenstance, the voyage I was on straddled not one but two epochs. I had embarked from South Florida in the “before time,” prior to the pandemic, with the goal of reaching…

These days, when boats are selling like hotcakes, it may be tempting to sit back and ease up on the innovation process. After all, why spend R&D money developing something new when it’s easy to sell what already exists? Thankfully, Beneteau has chosen a very different path as it continues to improve and strengthen its line, an eff ort that is clearly in the Beneteau Oceanis 34.1, which takes the place of the Oceanis 35.1. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION The new model is the sixth in the Oceanis “.1” line and features an all-new hull drawn by Marc Lombard, Beneteau’s latest go-to designer. Like her smaller sibling, the Oceanis 30.1, the new model is built in Poland, a country with a long, proud history of shipbuilding. Eric Levine, Beneteau sales manager,…

Brian Thompson could have become just another financial type on Wall Street, which would have been surprising enough in itself for a Brit who grew up in the London suburbs, reading Science Fiction books on smoke-filled commuter trains. From an early age, though, Thomson wanted something rarer still. He also displayed a sense of purpose that years later resulted in his becoming one of the world’s great offshore sailors, with four circumnavigations and over 40 world sailing records to his credit. “For our summer holiday we took our caravan to West Mersea on the North Sea,” says the deceptively soft-spoken Thompson, hardly the type you’d expect to be one of the toughest sailors around. “It was a real Mecca of sailing at the time, full of well-known sailors, I pottered…

Given the fact it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for a new boat (not to mention docking, winter storage, maintenance) it’s should come as no surprise that lots of owners want a boat that can do it all. Monohull sailors, in particular, tend to love the idea of a performance-cruiser that will be as at home on a racecourse as it is anchored off some remote island. Along these same lines, if there’s one thing the boatbuilding industry is great at, it’s identifying what the market wants. It only makes sense then that performance-cruisers are not only at the top of their game these days, but they seem to get more impressive every season. Here are a few of the latest generation of boats built for sailors who want…

Annapolis may be the sailing capital of America, but if you looked around the United States Sailboat Show last fall, you would have no choice but to conclude most sailboats are now built in Europe. The Dufour 470 is a good example of a modern French performance cruiser. DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION The Dufour 470 carries the long waterline, hard chines, nearly flush deck and broad stern that have become commonplace of late aboard European boats. Particularly arresting is the chine that runs the entire length of the hull immediately below the sheerline and the slight tumblehome it provides up at the bow, presumably to help lower the center of gravity by reducing weight well above the waterline. Elongated hull windows and a second chine a short distance above the waterline…

We didn’t get off on the right foot sailing into Hawaii. It was our own fault, of course. We should have known better. It’s never a good idea to assume that just because procedures were a certain way one year, they will be the same the next. It was an especially bad idea given the world was still in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, “Go away!” shouted through a megaphone, didn’t seem like the most constructive way of handling the situation. Not to say my husband, Seth, and I were entirely surprised. Having lived in the islands for a number of years now, we knew sailors often don’t get much of an aloha from the authorities in this part of the world. We also knew the reasons for…

Whether they’re at the end of their collegiate career or after aging out of a summer sailing program, a lot of young sailors have a hard time finding a way to continue sailing as adults. Some of the barriers to sailing, including location, finances and time, can be hard to navigate when you’re living on your own for the first time. Even with a community as friendly as sailors, it can be hard to know where to start or how to continue. What follows are the stories for young sailors who succeeded in figuring out the kind of sailing that was right for them. Living Aboard “I was working for a tech start up, and I wasn’t making a ton of money, so I needed a cheap place to live.…