Innehållsförteckning för March 2024 från Yachting Monthly

Danish renewable energy giant Ørsted has agreed to go ahead with plans for the world’s largest wind farm, Hornsea 3, off the coast of Norfolk. The £8bn project will see 231 offshore turbines that will generate power for three million homes. Hornsea 3, which will have a capacity of 2.9GW, is expected to be completed around the end of 2027. It will be Ørsted’s third gigawatt-scale project in the area, following Hornsea 1 (1.2 GW) and Hornsea 2 (1.3 GW), which are already operated out of Ørsted’s operations and maintenance hub in Grimsby. The UK is a core market for Ørsted and one of the world’s largest markets for offshore wind, with strong political support and ambitious build-out targets. Ørsted currently operates 12 offshore wind farms in the UK. The…

Campaigning by the RYA, the Inland Waterways Association (IWA) and the Cruising Association (CA), together forming the HVO Joint Working Group, has resulted in the Department of Transport allowing inland waterways vessels to be supplied with HVO. The group promoted the use of sustainably produced Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) to the government as an interim decarbonisation solution for recreational boats with diesel engines, the RYA said. HVO forms a crucial part of the RYA’s Carbon Pathway to Zero and the IWA’s Sustainable Propulsion Vision, as it supports a gradual transition to electric propulsion for boats that typically last many decades. In November, representatives from each organisation met with Crown Oil, which distributes HVO in the UK, and the Department for Transport (DfT). The complexities of the support mechanisms for sustainable…

The National Coastwatch Institution (NCI) has become an official ‘Coast Path Passport’ stamping point partner, working with the charity which cares for the UK’s longest national trail, the South West Coast Path. The new partnership means that visitors to the trail can now stop off at 24 NCI stations along the 630-mile route, taking the total stamping points to 135, to collect different ‘stamps’ in their Camino-style passport scheme. National Coastwatch has 24 of its 60 stations along the South West Coast Path and its volunteers help to keep people safe on the coast and save lives at sea by maintaining a daily visual and radio watch. The South West Coast Path Association created the passports 18 months ago to help the 9 million visitors who use the path each…

The long-wave shipping forecast reaches its centenary in 2024, though it’s not much of a celebration given that LW itself, ‘at the end of its life as a technology’, will be turned off sometime in the middle of the year. The forecasts will continue, though only twice a day on weekdays on Radio 4 FM, DAB, BBC Sounds etc, growing to three times a day at weekends. The long-wave bits of the mighty Droitwich transmitter will be closed down for the last time. So the last of the metre-high water-cooled glass valves are beaming their final few months of 198kHz messages. A few years ago we were told there were only 10 of these valves in the world, and the BBC had to buy up the lot. Apparently trying to…

To ‘victual’, taken from Old French, is to lay in provisions and food. Not only laying in stores but planning your meals will help save time and energy once aboard. Get crew involved by asking them to bring their favourite snacks and letting you know about any allergies and dietary requirements so that you can be prepared. If there’s a lot of shopping to do. get one or two of the crew to help, otherwise we all use supermarket home delivery these days, and many will be happy to deliver to the marina, which is a great time-saving option. In some places there may also be marine-specific victualling services around as well. Those who have a freezer onboard can pre-make meals, which is one less thing to worry about, especially…

When it comes to seasickness, prevention can be better than cure. Most skippers have their own remedies, and mine is definitely ginger, be that ginger tea, biscuits, sweets, or ginger beer. Acupressure wristbands can also be effective. If crew want to take their own medication – either prescription or natural remedy – they should self-medicate, at least one to two hours before sailing. Then remember to log it, as it’s easy to forget when the dose was taken. Some travel sickness medications can cause drowsiness, so check for side-effects. There are symptoms to keep a look out for such as yawning, cold sweats and pale skin, and by this point a skipper should be asking what the crewmember is feeling, such as fatigue, dizziness or nausea. In order to alleviate…

The forecast is unsettled. Should you stay? Q Bill is in Plymouth in September planning a passage to the Med. He has decided that the first leg is to sail to Camaret near Brest in Brittany. His yacht, Aries, is a 12m cruiser racer. He has three crew. The forecast gives a low off south-west Ireland with SE 5-6 winds becoming 6-7 and veering south later for sea area Plymouth. The long-term forecast is for unsettled weather, so Bill is anxious to set off and sail south as soon as he can. The course to the northwest corner of Brittany is 195º true, and the distance is about 115 miles. From there he is planning to sail south down the Chenal du Four, a tidal passage inside the offlying Islands,…

REAL LIFE Just about every middle-aged man dreams of buying a boat and going on a sailing adventure. The sense of freedom, the wind blowing across your balding pate without a care in the world. At least, that’s what any conversation at a 50th birthday party will lead you to believe. When I was £10,000 and two broken engines deep, I realised the reality was very different. On the way back from another unsuccessful trip to fix my boat, my unsuspecting daughter called. After enduring at least 30 minutes of me ranting about my boating woes, she interrupted, joking that she wanted to record the call and give it to her friend whose husband wanted to buy a boat. Listening to my misery was surely enough to make anyone think…

THE BARS There is helpful information on crossing both the Deben and Ore Bars in the form of up-to-date chartlets, videos, and advice. The following websites are useful: www.debenestuarypilot.co.uk/index.htm www.eastcoastpilot.com includes downloadable chartlets of both entrances. www.camsecure.co.uk/felixstowe%20deben%20webcam.html provides a live video feed of the Deben entrance. PILOTS AND CHARTS 1 East Coast Pilot, Garth Cooper & Dick Holness, (Imray, £27.50). 2 East Coast Rivers, Jan Harber (Fernhurst, £34.99) 3 2000 Suffolk and Essex Chart Pack, (Imray, £54.95) MARINAS, MOORINGS AND ANCHORAGES: 1 Marinas The Tidemill Yacht Harbour, Woodbridge. https://www.tidemillyachtharbour.co.uk 2 Moorings Deben: Woodbridge (tidal), Waldringfield, Ramsholt and Felixstowe Ferry. Alde: Orford and Slaughden. You will always need to check on availability with the harbourmaster. Details in the Pilots. 3 Best anchorages Deben: The Rocks – between Ramsholt and Waldringfield. Alde: Butley River and…

Flitting is a traditional Scottish expression for moving house so our decision to move from Gosport to the island of Arran meant we needed a plan to 312, Local Hero, north with us Although we have both been sailing since a young age, the initial passage planning research was a bit scary. Strong tidal streams, offshore hazards, high speed ferries and multiple logistic requirements were just some of the things to consider. We prepared the boat by thoroughly checking absolutely every moving part; we had a professional engine service, and stocked up on food, fuel, water, tools, tape, torches, spare parts, paper charts, e-charts, sailing directions and a lot of chocolate. Safety was key; as well as a life raft, lifejackets and personal locator beacons, we were always transmitting on…

Ever wanted to feel like you’re on a special night-time stealth mission for the Special Boat Service (SBS)? Or, maybe, you’ve just wanted to be able to find the entrance to a marina or creek after the sun has set? Chances are then that you’d benefit from having a good set of night vision scopes designed with the needs of mariners in mind. Over the past two decades night vision technology has come on in leaps and bounds, from being the exclusive and very expensive preserve of elite military units to becoming a handy and affordable consumer option available for a wide range of budgets. Fox Morgan reviews the best and latest monocular and binocular night scopes currently on the market, to help you achieve sharp sightings on navigational markers…

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has published several recommendations for the protection of passengers after an investigation into the tragic death of 15-year-old Emily Lewis, who died in August 2020 when a high-speed Seadogz RIB crashed into a 4.5m-high channel maker in Southampton Water at a speed of 38.4 knots. Two of the passengers were catapulted into the water, where their lifejackets inflated. All 11 passengers and the skipper were treated in hospital, most for substantial impact injuries. Emily was thrown against the handhold directly in front of the bench seat and died in hospital that afternoon. Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents, Andrew Moll OBE, called on the maritime regulator, manufacturers and operators to take action, noting passengers in small high-speed craft are very vulnerable to impact and vibration…

Falmouth Harbour has appointed environmental scientist and businessperson Natasha Collings-Costello as a new commissioner, joining its board to help shape the harbour’s strategy and prosperity. Natasha will bring 20 years’ experience in the environment and ecology fields to the broad mix of skills and expertise required on the board which oversees the economic prosperity and safe and sustainable management of the harbour’s wide-ranging activities. As managing director at Cornwall Environmental Consultants Ltd – the commercial arm of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust – Natasha has spent her time there growing the business to be consistently profitable, whilst continuing to offer high quality environmental advice. ‘As a proud Cornish person who is passionate about the environment and natural assets of Cornwall I am very excited to join Falmouth Harbour and feel I…

HANSE 410 There appears to be no slowing down of the competition between the major boatyards when it comes to building new mid-size cruising yachts. While 32ft might have been a big boat a few decades ago, 40-42ft is the new normal, driven in part by consumers wanting more space and comfort from their coastal getaway, and in part by the economics of boat building making smaller boats harder and harder to build with any kind of profit. The Hanse 410 then will be going up against the Dufour 41, Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 410, Beneteau Oceanis 40.1 and the Bavaria C42, amongst others. So it is that German yard Hanse have pitched their latest new model bang in the middle of a range that spans from the 315 up to…

We all know that decision-making gets harder the more tired we are, but many people find it hard to relax when skippering. On any long trip there will be tricky segments where we are definitely required and ‘safer’ segments when we may not be needed at all. The trick is to use the ‘safer’ segments to take a break, with the goal always to be rested by the time things get tricky again. To start with, calculate how long it will take to hit a danger in any direction, and try and take that amount of time to get some meaningful rest (lie down below where you can hear what’s going on and ideally see the instruments) and explain to the crew that they are not to hesitate calling you.…

Arkyla is somewhat challenged in terms of cockpit locker space, and it can be quite the game of Tetris to store, and then access, cruising necessities amongst the kedge anchor, paddleboards and fuel cans. Retrieving a desired piece of equipment inevitably requires emptying a locker of half its contents which can be time-consuming, frustrating and, when on passage, potentially hazardous. To make life easier, rather than keep kit loose within lockers, I organise items in a set of canvas rope bags, each clearly marked for its purpose. I have bags for mooring lines, the boom preventer set-up, dinghy accessories, cleaning materials, drogue and snubber bridles, and downwind guys with associated snatch blocks. Now, even if a required piece of kit is stored in the hidden depths of a locker, it…

Next, based on GHA and declination, together with our rough dead reckoning position and the observed sextant height, we will work out not our exact position, but a position line along which we are. In order to fix our position, we’ll take another sight later during the day in order to get another position line, which, together with details about the direction and distance we have moved between the two sights will then allow us to fix our position. SIGHT REDUCTION TABLES In order to get the information required for the position line, we enter the Sight Reduction Tables. On big ships, the Admiralty Tables, which have a separate volume for each 10 degrees of latitude, are being used. On smaller vessels, it is more convenient to use Sight Reduction…

REAL LIFE 1 JOIN A SAILING CLUB I brought the boat from a sailing club with moorings. This was much cheaper than private moorings and full of knowledgeable people happy to help. The club had free boat-lifting services and was about £75 per month to moor. If you are looking for low-cost sailing, try and join a club. 2 BE REALISTIC Solo sailing should be left to the experts. Let’s face it, I spent too much time watching the Vendée Globe and not enough time self-reflecting. I hated solo sailing. It is boring at best and terrifying at worst. I have met and sailed with some really interesting people and I missed this when I owned a boat. 3 STICK TO YOUR PLAN You need to know what type of…

Nick and Julie Grainger, aged 23 and 19, had set out from Scourie, northwest Scotland, in July 1973 aboard their 21ft 6in Shetland-designed boat. Now it is September 1974, and they are crossing the Pacific. They have left Tahiti and are heading for Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Julie is on watch, Nick is asleep below. I was woken by a sudden roaring. The next moment I was turning head over heels. My eyes were clenched shut. I tried to open them, but it made no difference to the blackness. Where was I? I’d been asleep in the oil-lit cabin. Where was I now? I was lying in water but breathing air. What the hell was going on? Where was I? Where was Julie? ‘Julie! Julie!’ I shouted but there…

£549 I’ve loved testing the Garmin Fenix 7 solar edition. I wasn’t a big smartwatch fan before I got one, but I now find myself wearing it most of the time. Primarily a multisport watch, I use it for running and cycling, but it’s also useful for sailing, as well as almost any other activity out there. As with most of the best Garmin watches, you can connect the Fenix 7 Solar to your phone for call alerts, message notifications, contactless payments, navigation, and to control your music, along with a host of other functions. Oh, and it tells the time too. It will also track your daily physical activity and monitor your body functions, giving you early warning of when you’re not at your best, not sleeping well, or…

No matter how hard you try, a completely dry boat is a rarity. The older a boat gets the more likely seals will start shrinking, sealant around deck gear will start to dry out and recede, and stress cracks will open up in bad weather. Then, before you know it there’s water in the bilge. Even without leaks there’s always condensation to consider. But the most common thing that owners and buyers concern themselves with when considering the purchase of an elderly GRP yacht is osmosis. Although osmosis can be progressively damaging if left untreated for too long, it is usually fixed quite easily when dealt with in good time. A few ugly blisters are not going to sink your boat overnight, but it makes sense to sort them out…

Blue skies and steady winds heralded the start of the 6,000-mile third leg of the Ocean Globe Race from Auckland around Cape Horn to Punta del Este, with spectators cheering on the retro yachts from the deck of legendary Whitbread yacht Steinlager 2. Only 12 of the 13 competing yachts crossed the start line at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Waitematā Harbour, with the Australian team Explorer held back by engine issues and starting a day later. The Swan 57 crew were one of the last teams to arrive in Auckland on leg two and so had limited time to prepare for the third leg. Sarah-Jane Blake, daughter of the legendary New Zealander, the late Sir Peter Blake, who won the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race onboard…

The world’s biggest iceberg, more than twice the size of Greater London at almost 4,000 sq km (1,500 sq miles) in area and 400m thick, is no longer stuck to the ocean floor and is on the move, satellite images show. The iceberg, known as A23a, split from the Filchner Ice Shelf on the Antarctic coastline in 1986 and had been grounded in the Weddell Sea recently. It has been seen drifting at speed, heading beyond Antarctic waters into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which will steer it towards the South Atlantic on a path known as ‘iceberg alley’.…

Nancy, my mother, drummed into me a set of lower middle-class rules, the origins and the validity of which remain, a lifetime later, lost to comprehension. Yet still I stick by them: I never stack plates when eating out; I never refer to a napkin as a serviette; I never utter the phrase ‘Pleased to meet you,’ instead of ‘How do you do?’ upon fresh introductions. And having been introduced I never – with professionals – bring my own concerns to their attention. Until now. Ma told me lawyers should not be plagued with leylandii debates; architects with failed planning issues and – grossest of all – dentists with a gaping maw and a forefinger pointing at a rogue molar. Later in life I got to know how they feel.…

Yachts of 30 foot or under are exciting – something about their (relatively) diminutive size makes them reminiscent of childhood adventures. They’re also intriguing from a design point of view. The challenges of fitting in cockpit, cabin and berths into a confined space mean that there is often more variation among the ‘pocket cruisers’ of this world than among boats that are not dimensionally challenged. Go big, and they all start to look the same to the small-boat enthusiast. Conversely, the small boats launched or planned in the last year or two, such as the Bente 28, Swallow Yachts 32, the GT 325, or the Sunbeam 29.1 and 32.1, are all so different as to be hard to compare. The truth is that this size of boat sits somewhere between…

CALCULATING LOCAL NOON TIME This is based on the longitude of your rough dead reckoning position. The sun revolves around the earth, which means 360° of longitude in every 24 hours. That means the sun moves 15° of longitude per hour or four minutes of time for each degree of longitude. That’s one minute of time per 15 minutes of longitude. Figure these out with paper and pencil and remember them by heart – it will make the calculations easier. The sun crosses the Greenwich Meridian (000º) roughly at 1200 each day. The exact time for each day is called Meridian Passage (MP), and the value is found at the lower righthand corner of each page of the Nautical Almanac (NP314, £44, UKHO), which covers three days per page. For…

Now we are ready to proceed to the plotting sheet. On my boat, I use a navigation log book with squared pages, and make life easy for myself by making my plotting sheets on the book, this way everything is nicely documented and can be checked by the organisers of the races in which I participate. My approximation for a plotting sheet is that every square is five minutes of latitude, so 12 squares up or down equal 1° of latitude. Between latitudes 0º–20°, the longitudes are on the same scale. Between latitudes 20º–35º I use one square for six minutes, which means 10 squares for one degree of longitude. For latitudes higher than 35° I use the scale of 7.5 minutes per square, which means eight squares per one…

PREPARATIONS ▪ Start the planning as early as possible. Try to build relationships with the people who will be doing the crossing with you. ▪ Get to know your boat well. Know how to repair everything and how all the systems work. Carry out a significant shakedown cruise to test the boat and its equipment. ▪ Know your power systems and always carry a spare, fully charged battery that is disconnected from the motor. If relying on solar power, remember the day is only 10 hours with 14 hours of darkness while using batteries. If relying on wind generators, remember the wind is from the stern. ▪ Know your sails. A parasail or a tradewind sail is immensely powerful and may put some strain on rigging, bowsprit and other parts…

The East Coast is an acquired taste for sailing and, after fossicking about the creeks and swatchways of the estuaries over the past 65 years, I have acquired it. My personal favourites are the northern rivers in Suffolk – the Deben, Alde and Ore. They are quieter and evoke the history and mystery of the area more profoundly than their southern neighbours. They are protected, too, by the shifting shingle bars at their entrances. These have always held a certain notoriety amongst sailing folk. The Pilots’ Guide to the Thames Estuary, 1934, was not encouraging, suggesting that ‘a passage over the bar (into the Ore) is very dangerous, while with any sea the result might easily be disastrous.’ Modern pilotage books are more inviting, advising that ‘The bar and knolls…

GARMIN MARQ CAPTAIN £1,699 Premium sailing watch packed with marine-relevant features, including weather and tidal data for your home port, regatta timer to pinpoint starting times, tack assist, MOB button and GPS. The capabilities are governed by your onboard technology, but include the streaming of boat data direct to your wrist and control of Garmin’s Fusion range of marine audio systems. www.garmin.com SUUNTO BARO 9 £179 Mid-range smartwatch from Finnish firm renowned for excellent navigation and scuba diving equipment. Features include an array of health/activity monitors, along with a digital compass, sea-level air pressure data, facility for GPS waypoints, and even a storm alarm. www.suunto.com CASIO LITHIUM QUARTZ £37.99 Affordable sailing watch that’s straightforward yet highly functional. In addition to the usual time-keeping functions, it offers an accurate tidal graph…

CENTURION 32 Boats of broadly similar ilk and age to the Pionier include the Contessa 32 – so well known that it needs no introduction here – the UFO 34, the S&S 34 and the Ohlson 35. The Centurion 32 is another, designed by Kim Holman of Holman & Pye as a cruiser/racer for the Wauquiez yard in France. Her racing pedigree shows in the form of an optional tall rig, together with pilot berths in the saloon, though the vast majority were used as fast cruisers and most have had the pilot berths converted to shelves or lockers. In performance terms she’s a powerful performer to windward, thanks in part to the lead keel and a ballast ratio of over 40%. Fast and capable though the Centurion is, Chris…