Innehållsförteckning för September 2021 från Sailing Today

The 90th anniversary Round the Island Race was celebrated by a fleet of over 1,200 participants and won by local Cowes boat Eeyore, an Alacrity 18 bilge-keeler, which retains the Gold Roman Bowl after her 2019 victory. The Island Sailing Club event, which was founded in 1931, enjoyed conditions ranging from flat calm to 25-knot gusts, fog and sun. Eeyore owner and skipper Jo Richards (pictured right with crew, the trophy presented by Pip Hare) said: “We had a shocking first leg down to the Needles and luckily there was a bit of a lull under the cliffs, when we got back into our class and from then on it was really tight. “When we got to Bembridge Ledge, having got the rating list out, we knew we had to…

Maritime Minister goes sailing The UK’s Maritime Minister, Robert Courts MP, visited the Docklands Sailing and Watersports Centre in London on 7 July to be briefed on issues regarding the sector by the RYA, as part of Maritime Safety Week. The minister found time to go sailing in an RS Quest. Ellen’s Trust back afloat The Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust successfully kicked off its 2021 season in Round the Island Race, marking the first time the charity has sailed since October 2019. The race was an important test for the Trust’s extra COVID safety measures, which it will employ as it welcomes young people living through and beyond cancer back on the water this summer. Marina purchase Premier Marinas has bought Universal Marina on the River Hamble for an undisclosed…

‘It was amazing that some of those boats were still afloat given the burden of bird droppings and leaf mould’ Another season ebbing away, and another year stuck pretty much to the now established tramlines which run along the southern Devon and Cornwall coastline. Nothing wrong with that; it is a feast of a coast. But a sailing diet needs to be varied now and again, and after two years of similar fodder the craving for new places was beginning to overwhelm the appetite. That is why I seem to have spent more time anchored at the tops of hitherto unexplored rivers. It was somewhere different, and new, and surprisingly rewarding both for the natural peace and beauty, which was in sharp contrast to the ‘elbowing’ for a place on…

OUTREMER 51 Outremer’s pedigree for producing fast, stylish blue water cruisers makes it the leader of the pack. Their 51 is a polished performer and, although it lacks the green credentials of the Windelo the company offers custom models and has experience of all electric models with its Outremer 4E. catamaran-outremer.com CATANA 53 Slightly bigger than the Windelo, the Catana 53 is a strong performer with a firm focus on marrying class leading performance with high levels of comfort. The 53 is all new for 2021 and represents the culmination of many years of experience in the field. catana.com NEEL 51 Another multihull that dares to be different. This time utilising three hulls to provide a blend of fine performance and masses of space. Neel trimarans are similarly quirky and…

Sailing watch maker Optimum Time has developed a wrist-worn alarm signal that makes a very loud noise to attract attention and get help. Founder Tim Hawkins produced the SOS Siren for dinghy sailors in response to a request from Keith Musto. On the way back to the clubhouse, a Laser sailor had got her ponytail caught in the mainsheets when she capsized, and almost drowned. “Fortunately she managed to find and blow her whistle and by some miracle it was heard just enough by the guy parking the safety boat,” says Tim. The girl was rescued, but it got Musto thinking about how you summon help if you can’t reach your whistle or draw breath easily. The SOS Siren can be worn on the wrist, around the arm or even…

Approaches to Lowestoft are fraught with sandbanks, wrecks and now one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms, with a capacity of 714MW. But it is well marked and lit at night, so it should not present much of a problem. From the south, stick close to the port can markers, which will keep you clear of Newcome Sand to the west. It is key to pick up the southerly cardinal that marks the southern extremity of Holm Sand to the east. Depths remain above 6m all the way in. Holm Sand stretches 4nm north, so if you’re approaching from that direction, stick to the starboard markers in depths of 10-15m. A west cardinal marks the northmost extremity of Holm Sand, where there is a cut running out to sea…

The tune of Ravel’s Bolero unfolds over Paraíba river while the sun is falling bellow the horizon. A man playing a saxophone is standing in a canoe that meanders around the moored yachts. The musician entertains the crowd. Among them is Rafe Eddington. He has experienced the spectacle every day for a month. He’s had about enough of it. There is not that much to do in Jacaré. Mingling with people that muster at sunset gives him a break from hanging out at the marina. To retreat back to his boat is not an option. Everything is upside down and peace cannot be found. An electrician scanning the aluminium yacht for electrolysis and doing maintenance on the engine has turned the interior upside down. The boat, an Ovni 435 named…

It seemed like a nice idea. “My girlfriend will drive you to Troon where you can help crew the boat back to Maryport after we have finished the Three Peaks Match Race.” It was my friend Colin’s plan and it sounded fine - in theory. Colin’s girlfriend was very anxious to see her man and so we set off for Troon a good twenty four hours earlier than necessary with the result that on the first beautiful day of the year which I should have been spending with my family I spent those twenty four hours making small talk with a woman I’d never met and sleeping overnight in her car. But sail we did and had a very pleasant, gentle sail along the Ayrshire coast but there was no…

America’s Cup winner Jimmy Spithill admitted he packed his drysuit for the Plymouth round of SailGP, but the skies were blue and the temperatures were high as he and his seven rival skippers in the global championship took to the Sound for what turned out to be an epic weekend of racing. There was a race win for the Great Britain SailGP team and plenty for the thousands of fans ashore and afloat to enjoy. We report in brief overleaf and we’ll have a full round-up of the Plymouth event in our next issue.…

Cowes Week races will be live-streamed from cameras on board, with the footage viewable on shoreside screens and via a new Cowes Week app and website. The initiative is being run through the regatta’s technology partner aql and the 1851 Trust charity, with co-funding from the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, to create a connected 5G network at Cowes. There will be 360° high-definition cameras, beaming pictures back to shore from around 50 boats, an idea that the organisers say “could become almost ubiquitous across the fleet in the future”. The 5G network allows on-board data such as wind conditions and boat speed to be sent back to shore, further enhancing the spectator experience. Laurence Mead, regatta director, said: “We’ve also changed the format of the…

Will this monster yacht win the Rolex Fastnet Race on 8 August? The just-launched Skorpios is the talk of the yacht-racing world, the first example of a ClubSwan 125. The 42.6m-long boat, owned by Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev, overtakes Nilaya as the biggest monohull to enter the Fastnet since the 100ft maximum length limit was eased by the Royal Ocean Racing Club in 2017. Skorpios has a beam of 8.75m, a draft of 7.6m, downwind sail area of 1,961sqm, a canting keel and two foils, mainly to prevent leeway, not to make her fly. She is skippered by Fernando Echavarri, Spanish Olympic Tornado gold medallist and former Volvo Ocean Race skipper, who says she should regularly exceed 30 knots downwind and upwind is as fast as the wind up to…

Leading sailors paid tribute to Sir Peter Harrison, who died on 18 June. Sir Peter personally backed the GBR Challenge, which campaigned for the 2002/03 America’s Cup in Auckland, and was behind numerous other sailing projects big and small. He was a keen racer and owned many yachts, notably the Farr 115 superyacht Sojana. As a businessman and technology pioneer Sir Peter developed the company Chernikeeff into the largest privately held computer networking company in the UK, before selling out for £300 million in 1999. He used the money to set up the Peter Harrison Foundation, which focuses on the development of disabled and disadvantaged young people. He was knighted in 2013 in recognition of his philanthropic work. The GBR Challenge saw Sir Peter put together a young and almost…

‘HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT ONE-DESIGN” Apparently more OKs have been built in 2020 than in any other year since 1980. Along with the Europe dinghy, which saw 50 entries at its National Championships at the ever-accommodating Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, the OK seems to be going through a big uplift in numbers. It’s not exclusive to these two either, it seems like participation is rocketing across a number of singlehander classes. I asked Ovington Boats’ Chris Turner why he thought the OK was skyrocketing at the moment? “Well, the pandemic, obviously, has driven people towards singlehanders,” he said. “But the OK has had a lot of demand over recent years, there just hasn’t been anyone who could fulfil it.” There have been a few keen one-man bands whose…

Captains of racing tea clippers were generally larger-than-life individuals. No doubt they loved their wives and children and missed the village fête back home, but the thing that consumed their minds all day, every day, was speed. Making the fastest passage of the year spelt prestige and commercial gain, lots of it, and immoderate behaviour went with the job. The only modern comparisons are the skippers of flat-out Volvo racers, driving round Cape Horn at galactic velocities in their lightweight flyers, but even these dedicated ‘walkers on the wild side’ have radar, GPS, composite construction and a team of well-paid professionals. Not so the clipper men back in the 1850s. Their timber-built ships displaced the best part of a thousand tons and their clouds of cotton canvas were set from…

There is nothing wrong with a bit of conformity. Even as humans we all have a certain desire to blend in and melt into the background. Yet, as the saying goes, variety is the spice of life. This certainly rings true on boat tests where, from time to time, you find yourself confronted with a yacht so bland that you are left struggling to find anything to say. This is not an accusation that could be levelled at the Windelo 50. This is a blue water cruising catamaran from a relatively new company based in Canet en Roussillon in the south of France. The company is ambitious and solidly backed with a large boatyard up and running. The company is young, energetic and tries at every turn to be different…

Safety tops most sailors’ list of priorities afloat, and there are plenty of products designed to keep you safe. It all depends on the sort of sailing you do. If you’re racing round the bay in a 49er, you’ll probably be alright with a personal flotation device and a good knife. Sports boats, coastal cruisers and bluewater sailors will all have different needs that balance weight, cost and capability. Offshore sailing – whether racing or cruising - is clearly the most demanding in terms of safety gear. Far from shore and from ready help, you need to be able to fix more problems yourself and be prepared to be your own search-and-rescue team. What follows is a look at the key gear for each stage of the process – from…

Lowestoft makes a handy port of call for boats heading south into the Essex rivers or to Great Yarmouth and points further north. It lies close to the Suffolk-Norfolk border with excellent access to the Broads and the East Anglian countryside. The town itself is pleasant and relaxed, with the historic Scores area at its heart. These narrow lanes were formed by people cutting down the cliff from the high street to the beach. Its undoubted highlight is the Blue Flag beach with its traditional pier, dating from 1903. The golden sands of South Beach are said to have been an inspiration for composer Benjamin Britten, who grew up in a house on the seafront. His home has since become a guesthouse. Lowestoft’s rich marine history can still be viewed…

It is 3.30am and the music is thumping, so loud I can barely hear myself speak. A single light bathes everything in a red glow and I’m unsteady as I walk across to get a drink. Am I in a nightclub? No, I’m on a catamaran owned by the Disabled Sailors Association and we’re motoring through a night-time Portsmouth Harbour, on our way to the start of the 90th anniversary Round the Island Race. The gun fires in around three hours’ time and it’ll be at least 20 hours before I get any sleep. Better make it a strong coffee. This is going to be quite a birthday party. Keep an eye out Nine hours later and we’re off St Catherine’s Point under low cloud and dark skies. The Needles…

Don’t look it in the eye” says my seven year old daughter, her voice calm, reassuring and experienced. She’s dealt with monkeys in the wild before and this one, suddenly appearing somewhat aggressively in the middle of a marina playground in Singapore, doesn’t faze her in the slightest. ‘I look at their smiling faces and silently wish that they always be barefoot, with wild, salty hair’ So this is what it means to raise your children on a boat. I have a five year old son who told me this morning he’d choose to be a cuttlefish out of any ocean animal so he could camouflage by changing his patterns and colours; my two year old asked me if we’re next seeing her newest playmate on our mooring or out…

SailGP Plymouth was a spectacular success as the world’s best sailors put on a show to remember for thousands of fans watching from the Hoe and more than 1,200 boats along the course. The Great Britain SailGP team struggled on day 1 but came back on on the Sunday to give the cheering home fans a win, stand-in helm Paul Goodison leaving the team second overall on the leaderboard after his two events replacing Ben Ainslie, who has taken time away after his wife Georgie gave birth to a son, Fox. The event, over 17 and 18 July, was run under strict Covid safety restrictions, with the spectator boats and other viewing areas sold only to half capacity to allow social distancing. Nonetheless the atmosphere around the Sound was electric…

The first ever single-handed race around the world in the giant Ultim multihulls will take place in 2023 and a number of big names have already signed up including Vendée Globe winner Actual skipper Yves Le Blevec (Actual pictured during this year’s Round the Island Race), Banque Populaire skipper Armel Le Cléac’h, Maxi Edmond de Rothschild skipper Charles Caudrelier and Sodebo skipper Thomas Coville. The boats are capable of sustained speeds of more than 30 knots. Organiser OC Sport Pen Duick said “the coming together of these 32-metre giants promises an extraordinary sporting feat that will be shared around the globe”.…

The RNLI issued a statement after a newspaper article highlighting its saving of Channel migrants provoked criticism. An online article in the Daily Mail about “migration madness” said that “the Mail’s investigations this week confirmed the other twist to this disturbing tale — that Britain’s lifeboats are also now racing into French waters to bring migrants to Britain”. The RNLI said it had been inundated with social media comments. The charity said: “We want to be absolutely clear that we are incredibly proud of the humanitarian work our volunteer lifeboat crews do to rescue vulnerable people in distress. HM Coastguard and the Irish Coast Guard can request any of our lifeboats to launch to an incident. “Our lifeboats operate under international maritime law, which states we are permitted and indeed…

Offshore Team Germany and Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team were the IMOCA and VO65 winners in the inaugural edition of The Ocean Race Europe, after an exciting few weeks of racing from Atlantic France to Genoa in Italy. It was the first time we’d seen a race between crewed IMOCAs, the boats associated with the single-handed Vendée Globe. Meanwhile the V065 class was seen as a marker for The Ocean Race itself, around the world next year. Approaching the finish on the final leg, the German boat was under threat from the rapidly advancing LinkedOut – a team they would have to beat to avoid being relegated to third overall. The two were overlapped at the finish line, but with Offshore Team Germany taking the win by the smallest of margins.…

‘BEYOU WAS THE FIRST TO ANNOUNCE A NEW CHARAL, HEADING TO SAM MANUARD FOR A LESS EXTREME BUT SCOW BOWED IMOCA, AN UPDATE FROM L’OCCITAINE EN PROVENCE’ The Vendée Globe quadrennial usually experiences something of a hiatus, a quiet spell as skippers and teams recover and regroup. Aspiring newcomers to the solo round the world race launch their programmes progressively. But this time it seems there has been a pretty much seamless transition from the ninth edition, just finished, right on into the tenth which will go early November 2024. There is already an unprecedented number of new boats being designed and built. Jérémie Beyou was the first to announce a new Charal, leaving the VPLP stable and heading to Sam Manuard for a less extreme but scow bowed IMOCA,…

RS:X, WOMEN Emma Wilson, age 21 As one of the youngest sailors, the postponement year has been good for Emma’s preparation. She has been in great form, always mixing with her main rivals from Holland, France and Israel. The big unknown is Lu from China, absent from international competition for two years. Emma is the daughter of windsurfer Penny Wilson, who competed in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. What advice would you give your younger self? “It doesn’t matter what age you are, you can still make it. Don’t listen to people saying you are too young. I was young to move onto the RS:X at 14. You normally go when you’re about 18. But in fact it helped me because I got so much experience. If I hadn’t done…

Windelo’s project is an ambitious one and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Yet I have to say I was really impressed with what this relatively young company has achieved in a short time. This is no novelty item or a one off. Windelo has produced a boat that competes on an entirely level playing field with rivals while also providing impeccable green credentials. They have been unafraid to innovate and think outside the box and the result is a high quality boat that dares to be a little bit different and surprises you with little details at every turn. The boat sails well and is undoubtedly a great blue water cruiser. Meanwhile, the fundamental concept of using basalt and PET in the hull construction could point…

British Marine, the organiser of the Southampton International Boat Show, has confirmed that the 52nd edition of the UK’s largest watersports festival will take place from 10-19 September 2021. This year more than ever the show really does celebrate, in British Marine’s words, “everything that is great about being out on the water”, with the full gamut of boating included from SUPs to dinghies to raceboats and yachts to all manner of kit. There will be more than 450 marine brands on show and more than 600 boats. Lesley Robinson, CEO of British Marine, says: “It is a great pleasure to announce that Southampton International Boat Show is back in 2021; the show is such a key event in the boating calendar and a real celebration to the end of…

Brass galley pump Spectacular in the right location. The lever handle can be rotated for more convenient operation. •● £235 •● classic-marine.co.uk Zhik Hikers The Zhik Microfleece Hikers came out for this summer and we’ve received a commendation for them from Matt Wearn, racing the Laser for Australia at the Olympics, who says: “They are versatile enough to sail in any conditions, which makes them a great all rounder. The adjustable shoulder straps make them extremely comfortable. It’s been great working with the Zhik team who are so invested in making the best on water clothing.” • £229.95 • zhik.com Spinnaker watch We are always a sucker for a nautically themed watch – so feast your eyes on the new Spinnaker Fleuss, available in two colourways, branded as an “elegantly…

DEHLER 42 | LOLA The Dehler 42 has made a name for itself as a truly excellent cruiser/racer which has struck the balance nicely between comfort and performance, making for a very versatile yacht that gets admiring glances wherever it goes. The easily driven hull, twinned with a beautifully adjustable sail plan means fast passage times and club racing triumphs are easily achieved. Down below you will find a high quality modern interior styling, offering three double cabins, plenty of storage and a spacious saloon. Lola is a 2020 model with delivery miles only. A great spec with full teak decks, cruising laminate sails, full Navigation suite and many other luxuries. Lying in Hamble and ready to sail, this is a very tempting proposition. Length: 12.84m (42’1”) Beam:…