Innehållsförteckning för November 2015 från Sailing Today

Hammamas towels Multi-use and lightweight, so perfect for yachting Woven from local cotton using traditional methods in rural Turkey, Hammamas towels pack down much smaller than a normal towel, but dry you just as quickly – and are themselves quick-drying, making them really useful on a boat. Weighing just 250g, they can also be used as a scarf, picnic rug, sarong or table cloth and come with a wetbag. • From £25 • hammamas.com Beauty – and six bedrooms It’s Baywatch, Anglesey-style from this house with stunning views Keep a lookout from this waterside six-bedroom house overlooking Cemaes Bay and harbour in Anglesey. The village lies within an area of outstanding natural beauty and the house, Cynfor, has many windows – three in one bedroom alone – to…

See visitislesofscilly.com for details and to download or order a free guide to Scilly St Mary’s (above) Isles of Scilly Museum iosmuseum.org The Atlantic Inn, Hugh Street, staustellbrewery.co.uk The Mermaid +44 (0)1720 422701; mermaidscilly.co.uk Bronze age tombs at Innisidgen; Iron Age settlements at Bant’s Carn and Halangy Down St Agnes The Turks Head pub +44 (0)1720 422434 Search for ceramic beads from a 17th century shipwreck at Beady Pool Troytown Farm and Dairy +44 (0)1720 422360, troytown.co.uk, enquiries@troytown.co.uk Coastguards Café +44 (0)1720 423747, facebook.com/pages/Coastguards-Cafe/325131911320 Tresco Abbey Gardens, Tresco +44 (0)1720 424108, entry £12 Ruin Beach Café, Tresco +44 (0)1720 424849 The New Inn +44 (0)1720 423006, tresco.co.uk/eating-ontresco/new-inn Tresco Stores and Deli, New Grimsby +44 (0)1720 422806, tresco.co.uk/eating-on-tresco/tresco-storesand-deli , shop@tresco.co.uk Gallery Tresco +44 (0)1720 424925, tresco.co.uk/enjoying/gallerytresco, gallery@tresco.co.uk Bryher Fraggle…

HALLBERG-RASSY 48 MKII £475,000 Now in its second incarnation, with more natural light and more comfort below, this is a centre-cockpit bluewater classic, with very heavy build. transworldyachts.co.uk FEELING 48 C£340,000 (€465,000) OK, she has a centre cockpit, but this is a different beast, with bulkhead wheel right forward. She has a very ‘design’ interior. The centreboard is Feeling’s defining feature. feeling-lines.com CONTEST 50CS C£570,000 (€798,000) Coming in at 49ft LOA, this is another high quality, luxuriously finished centre cockpit boat, from the Dutch Contest yard. Also semi-custom. charles-watson.com…

Horta, despite being 900nM from Lisbon, is the main marina in Portugal for international recreational boating. There are other Azores marinas, in Sao Miguel, Terceira and San Jorge, but the majority of sailors stay at Horta, and often do not even explore the other islands. A number of international regattas start or end at the marina and it is a stopping point for ARC Europe, the west-to-east transatlantic rally, which calls there each May. Horta marina opened in June 1986 and visitor numbers grew steadily, so it was extended in 2002 to accommodate 300 boats (this figure includes yachts rafted up). It is divided into two basins – north and south – with the marina office and customs authorities all located in the south basin. Marina manager Armando Castro said:…

Twenty years ago, electronic charts had much in common with paper charts of the 17th century: they were small, monochrome, expensive and inaccurate. But a rule of thumb called Moore's law says that the performance of electronic equipment doubles every two years. At that rate, electronic charts now should be at least a thousand times better than those of the early Nineties. And guess what? They are! Back in the Eighties, the pioneers of electronic charting were faced with a crucial strategic decision: vector or raster? A raster chart is essentially a digital photograph of a paper chart, made up of coloured dots. It uses familiar colours and symbols, and is as detailed and as accurate as the original. The snag is that storing information about the 16m dots required…

Honda BF2.3 The world’s largest engine manufacturer has given its bestselling 2.3hp outboard an update. The fuel tank is 10 per cent larger, the fuel cap bigger and the cover restyled. A host of small tweaks have also been made under the cowling. • honda.co.uk/marine • from £660 Zhik hydrophobic fleece With today’s wet weather gear designed for layering with technical clothing, these tops make great base layers that can be worn on their own in milder conditions. Made from a plush spandex micro-fleece, with built-in water repellency, they also wick away moisture effectively. • zhik.com • £75.50 Miki watch cap New in at legendary London chandlery Arthur Beale are these French watch caps made by St James. A blend of 70 per cent wool, 30…

and good performance of any LED light. CHOOSE ‘BINNED’ LEDS Single LEDs are cut from a giant sheet of thermocouple, and the quality varies slightly from one side to the other. Some suppliers will grade their LEDs – a bit like diamonds – and place them in matched batches called ‘bins’. The makers of high quality underwater lights will specify ‘binned’ LEDs, so all the output is exactly matched. Cheaper units are less fussy. ACTUAL OUTPUT A certain percentage of LED light is inevitably lost within the fixture itself, so check that the rating you are given is actual light output reaching the water which is rated as ‘fixture Lumens’. Some manufacturers will rate the light output of a unit based solely on the power of the LEDs it contains…

ARC AND ARC+ 8 AND 22 NOVEMBER, GRAN CANARIA The third edition of the ARC+, which stops in the Cape Verdes, departs Las Palmas on 8 November with about 70 boats, followed by the 200 boats doing the direct 2,700-mile route to St Lucia a fortnight later. This year is the 30th ARC. worldcruisingclub.com ATLANTIC ODYSSEY 18 NOVEMBER, LANZAROTE The classic Cornell Sailing rally to Martinique, with a limit of 50 boats. The second tranche will depart from Gran Canaria in January. Also the option to do the Islands Odyssey first, exploring the Canaries and Cape Verdes. cornellsailing.com HANSEBOOT BOAT SHOW 31 OCTOBER – 8 NOVEMBER, HAMBURG, GERMANY See Hanse, Impression, Bestevaer, X-Yachts, Dragon Trimarans, J/Boats and more. On day one the World Cruising Club will hold an Ocean Cruising…

Hard to believe, but this is actually a summertime shot. Ice fields and the highest latitudes were once considered the final frontier for sailors but with advances in technology and information, the braver souls among us are increasingly willing to risk the harsh conditions. And when the reward is a view as stunning as this, it’s easy to understand why. Annka1, a custom aluminium 75ft sailboat built by Garcia Yachting , was cruising Glacier Bay, Alaska, at 58°N last month. Until 300 years ago, the now UNESCO-protected glacier was a single block of solid ice 4,000ft thick and 20 miles wide. Over the centuries it has retreated 65 miles, leaving 20 smaller glaciers in its wake that are constantly calving. Annka1 is currently sailing down the US west coast, ready…

Marine artist Stephen Lees was ‘in residence’ at the Southampton Boat Show this year. The painter produced live artwork throughout the show, which was up for grabs in a competition. Stephen’s Gallery on the Cobbles in Lymington displays his work, which includes British seascapes, landscapes and abstract paintings. He has even painted for Sir Ben Ainslie. He said: “When I was young there were only two things that I wanted to do: sport and art. I was a PT instructor in the Army, until I damaged my knee; now I paint. I live in Lymington, so it’s hard not to be inspired by the boats I see every day.”…

MARINA DE VILAMOURA, in Portugal’s Algarve region, is to benefit from a €1billion development project. Vilamoura is one of the Algarve’s largest leisure developments and one of Portugal’s most important travel destinations. The plan includes a mix of residential, retail and leisure developments. Marina de Vilamoura, which was shortlisted as best Overseas Marina in the Sailing Today Awards, will get a new international yacht club, branded spa and gym, three restaurants and boutique shops. Portugal’s Minister for the Economy, António Pires de Lima, said: “Portugal is currently thriving on the momentum of hope and economic recovery.”…

Until 2009, the RNLI’s all-weather lifeboats were produced in a number of commercial boatyards and inshore lifeboats were built at the Inshore Lifeboat Centre on the Isle of Wight. But the charity started to struggle to find boatbuilders who could cope with its requirements as the ALBs became more technical. Since 2009, ALB hulls have been built exclusively by SAR Composites in Lymington, which has become a dedicated RNLI boatbuilding facility. With the need to build six 25kt lifeboats a year to meet demand, the charity took the decision to bring all manufacture, refit and maintenance of its all-weather lifeboats (a fleet of more than 160) in-house. The new 5,000m2 All-Weather Lifeboat Centre in Poole cost £24million to build – of which two thirds came from making efficiencies within the…

Having spent the past 59 years cruising, racing, chartering, exploring, charting and writing about the eastern Caribbean, I know it well. So well, that in one of my guides in the early Eighties I stated that if anyone could come up with a new anchorage in the area safe for a boat drawing 7ft, I would buy the drinks. In the past 35 years I have only had to buy drinks for two sailors. Many people say the windward coasts of the islands are dangerous because of their barrier reefs and big Atlantic swells. But in my view, the east coast of islands such as Martinique and Mayreau offer some of the best cruising in the eastern Caribbean. You’ll need good paper charts, reasonable pilotage and eyeball navigation skills, but…

As an archipelago of five inhabited islands and 140 scattered islets at the southwestern-most point of the UK – and lying 28nM pretty much directly into the Atlantic swell and prevailing winds - the Isles of Scilly are rumoured to be tricky place to reach. That being so, I wasn’t holding out much hope for my planned trip in the wake of an Atlantic depression. Variously, I was told that only one in seven or even one in 10 yachts that attempted the 50nM crossing from the Falmouth area made it. Classic Sailing, a company based in Porthscatho, Cornwall, which operates holidays on Tall Ships and wooden boats in the area and which invited me to sail with it to Scilly from St Mawes, takes bookings under the proviso that…

MONTE DU GUIA There is a conspicuous white conical building with a circular dish on the hill MAKE WAY FOR FERRIES Leave enough space to port as you pass the breakwater, marked by a red lantern on a white tower (Fl R 3s 20m 11M) HORTA MARINA Yachts arriving must first go to the reception dock to clear in before being assigned a marina berth SIMPLE APPROACH The approaches to Faial island are clear of dangers, although you might be becalmed on passage from the Caribbean APPROACH TRANSIT Line up the black column of Boa Viagem light with Carmo Church behind (285° T) The nine green Azores islands, stretching more than 300 nM from Santa Maria at 25°W to Flores at 31°W, are all volcanic in origin, with dramatic craters…

Mainly clear navigation from the north and northeast If approaching from the southwest, you should be able to see the prominent headlands of Ponta dos Capelinhos and Ponta do Castelo Branco. Keep clear of rocks around Ponta do Castelo Branco and Ponta do Forte – keeping half a mile offshore should give you clear water. If coming from the southeast, avoid Chapman’s Rocks (Baixa do Sul) in rough conditions. From the north or northeast, the approach is mainly clear. Tidal streams can run strongly in the channel between Faial and Pico islands. The flood sets north (up to 1.5kt) and the ebb sets south, with a strong eddy into Horta Bay. To enter the harbour, use the directional sector light on the mainland (Boa Viagem Iso.G.1·5s12m9M) at 285°T. In daylight,…

DIDIER PRESLES DESIGN ALUMINIUM KETCH CARIAD OF CALSTOCK A custom 53ft aluminium cutter ketch, Cariad of Calstock was designed with long-distance cruising and Arctic exploration in mind. She is strong for coping with ice, shallow for exploring and cool in the tropics. The hull was built in France in 1986 but she was fitted out by South River Marine in Norfolk and launched in 2002. She has traditional Herreshoff-type styling above the waterline but a modern underwater profile with centreboard, reducing her draught to 4ft 5in (1.4m). Built for all latitudes, her first owner took her to the Arctic and then to the tropics. In current ownership she has just completed an Atlantic circuit. Her rig means that a wide variety of sails can be set, balancing the boat in…

Neo 550 Price: £tbc Italian company Neo Yachts claimed that its all-carbon 400 model was the fastest 40-footer on the market, allegedly capable of a blistering 24 knots upwind – which is pretty damn quick. The next logical step was to move up a size and the result is the Neo 550 – 55ft of pure speed. Did I say pure speed? Not quite: she’s actually described as a racer/ cruiser and features a perfectly respectable interior which promises to be a little less Spartan than that of the 400. Nevertheless, the aggressive lines of the 550 fairly scream out that this is a yacht designed for speed. As with the 400, the hull will again be carbon to keep weight down to an absolute minimum. Throw in an extra…

On a cold and misty day Aventura passed through the Bering Strait separating America and Asia, Alaska and Siberia. That dreaded name of frozen wastes and labour camps floods me with distant memories of growing up under a communist regime, the son of a political prisoner, with no prospect of ever escaping that iron cage except by dreaming. And here I am, sailing on my own boat through what I once considered the very end of the world. This is what I love about sailing: the absolute freedom that it gives me to go to places I would have never dreamt of going. Soon we passed another milestone, the Arctic Circle, almost exactly a year to the day since Aventura had crossed it in the Davis Strait. Once again we…

I had meant to review the new Oyster 545 in this piece. That was why I’d gone to Ipswich on a windy day in June, with just a hint of rain in the offing. The idea had been a thrash down the beautiful River Orwell and out into the choppier waters off Harwich. She’s a lovely boat, after all. I spent some of the day at her helm, vying with the wind and the river chop to soak Oyster MD David Tydeman up to the knees where he perched on the cockpit coaming, trimming the jibsheets. Also on the river that day was Oyster’s new 475 – now the yard’s entry-level model. She’s a good-sized cruiser by anyone’s yardstick, but by comparison, she felt light on the helm and very…

The nine Azores islands are split into three geographical groups: eastern (Santa Maria and Sao Miguel), central (Terceira, Graciosa, Sao Jorge, Pico and Faial) and western (Corvo and Flores). Corvo is the smallest, with 300 inhabitants, and San Miguel the largest, with 150,000 - separated by 325nM. You will probably find yourself mostly anchoring in secluded bays or staying in small ports. Because of the distances between some islands, you will have to factor in some night sailing. Do an island-hopping cruise and take your time to enjoy the dramatic volcanic scenery. Visit the Unesco-recognised town of Angra do Heroismo on Terceira, the blue and green lagoons in a volcano crater on San Miguel or the hotspots there that are warm enough to be used to cook food. Visit in…

Picking up mooring buoys can be unnecessarily challenging, especially if the manoeuvre comes at the end of a hard day’s sailing or a long passage, when skipper and crew are tired. The time-honoured technique is to have crew on the foredeck with a boathook in hand while the skipper tries to stop the boat with the bow positioned close to the pick-up buoy. The crew then hooks up the pick-up buoy, pulls the mooring pennant on board and pops it over a cleat. In reality the skipper often loses sight of the buoy and cannot hear the crew because they are 40ft away and facing forward. If the crew do manage to lift up the pick-up buoy it is often wrenched from their grasp as the boat moves further away.…

AQUAGLIDE CHELAN are top-of-the-range in›latable kayaks featuring tough, single-skin (quick-dry & light weight) construction and stable hulls, designed for recreational touring. - High pressure drop-stitch floors for unmatched stiffness & paddling performance. They are leagues different from cheaper kayaks with lower pressure “I-beam floors”. The Chelan kayaks keep their intended shape, and don’t “sag in the middle” even when fully loaded. - Long waterline and fine bow for great tracking ability and “glide”, enabling you to paddle long distances with ease (further or faster for the same effort). - Performance Fin (Skeg) System with foiled blade for excellent tracking. Unique quick release system for easy set-up. SPECIAL OFFER on Chelan Kayaks: - ONE. Single person, 10’6” long, RRP £839 £755 - TWO. Two person, 13’5” long, RRP £899 £809 -…

Underwater lighting is often seen as the preserve of the bling brigade and motorboaters, but it has some very practical uses as well. Although it remains primarily for enhancing the good looks of your yacht, often complimented by similar arrays on deck, in the rigging, and even on the tender, serious cruisers are beginning to consider the technology. Forward-facing underwater lights, for example, can light up the seabed when nosing into a shallow anchorage, and some designs have lenses especially created to focus on specific areas of the keel. LEDs under the bathing platform can illuminate the stern gear for inspection or repair, while also allowing for safer bathing, especially for children who can be watched in the cone of light. As the lights tend to attract marine animals, the…

Observing whales in their natural habitat is definitely the stuff of a television documentary – or so we thought in 2008 when we set sail from The Hamble on Pipistrelle . Little did we dream we would be up close and personal with some of these magnificent creatures four years later on the other side of the world on our own yacht. What a great privilege and unique experience it was for us, not only to watch pods of humpbacks at play in this important breeding ground – their antics are truly fascinating – but to snorkel with them too and listen to their wonderful song. As a geographical pointer, the remote Ha’apai group is part of the Kingdom of Tonga to the northeast of New Zealand…