Innehållsförteckning för Summer 2025 från Yachting Monthly

Back in youth’s happy days at the Oxford Poly, one thing never came up in Yachtmaster evening classes. We did triangular fixes and Estimated Position, the rule of twelfths, basic Morse and tidal diamonds; we even progressed to astro-nav, bravely faced the Marc St Hilaire method and vowed never to have to use it. And on one magical night we went up on the roof with a sextant and proved, by star-sights, that we were obviously somewhere just outside Dundee. But nothing in RYA training covered the nightmare of crew changes. It’s all very well for round-the-world racers and OSTAR singlehanders as their cruise planning is gorgeously basic: set off, cross relevant ocean, usually finish where they were meant to, slaves to nothing but wind and sea. At no point…

WORTH OVER £1,000 WITH SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE AWARD Zhik, the pioneering sailing brand, is proud to sponsor the Spirit of Adventure Award. The Award celebrates the most inspiring cruising adventures undertaken in and around British and overseas waters. Whether crossing the English Channel, cruising the Scottish Isles or tackling microadventures further afield, we’ll publish the stories we feel encapsulate a true Spirit of Adventure. Share your tale in words and images and we will pick the best one each month. Then, an expert panel from Zhik and Yachting Monthly will pick the best article of the year at the Southampton Boat Show in September 2025. The winning author will receive a suite of sailing kit worth more than £1,000, including the all new OFS700™ Jacket, Salopette and Seaboot 700 packed…

The herring boom during the 18th and early 19th century had a big impact on the development of working sail vessels across Northern European ports and interest in this is leading to a resurgence in lug-rigged sailing vessels in Scotland. But there is even more positive news – after half a century of dramatic decline, there are signs that the herring shoals are returning to the west coast. Scotland once had the largest herring fishery globally employing over 35,000 people—14,000 of them women. The shoals were also the dominant catch around Ireland, Shetland as well as in Swedish, Norwegian, and Dutch waters. The chase along the migratory route for these ‘Silver Darlings’, would begin mid-summer in the Irish sea, with fleets working their way northwards round the top of Scotland,…

Since the company was created in 1972, Hallberg-Rassy have developed a formidable reputation as builders of well-built, comfortable cruising yachts. They are probably best-known for their range of sensible all-rounders with centre-cockpits, erring towards the safe rather than the exciting. Or that’s what I thought until I headed down to Plymouth to try out a six-year-old Hallberg-Rassy 372. As soon as I stepped on board Saltpetre, I realised this was a different kind of boat to the one I had imagined. She had the trademark blue hull stripe and the distinctive windscreen but, with her aft cockpit and powerful-looking hull shape, she had an altogether more sporty feel. I realised right away I would have to moor my preconceptions on the quayside and look at the boat with an open…

Sacrificial anodes protect metal immersed in salt or fresh water from electrolytic corrosion. A sacrificial anode’s job is to corrode instead of important metal parts such as the propeller, rudder and drive legs. Normally corrosion occurs because of the slightly different ‘electrical potential’ of adjacent, differing, metals. However, in the presence of a poorly-earthed electrical system, either the boat’s own DC supply or the mains AC supply, accelerated corrosion can occur. The poorly-earthed mains system does not have to be on your own boat – it may be on another adjacent boat or even the marina system! WHEN IT SHOULD BE DONE Inspect anodes annually. If you move a boat to a new mooring, especially in a marina where boats are connected to a shore supply of mains electricity, it…

Hanse Yachts, the German builder of Hanse, Moody and Dehler sailing yachts, looks set to be bought by German family entrepreneur Andreas Müller from private equity firm Aurelius, amid global market uncertainties and customer caution. Despite a strong first quarter of 2025, a statement by Hanse, the world’s second largest manufacturer of sailing yachts, identified global economic uncertainty, weak economic conditions in core markets (the US and Germany), and ongoing geopolitical and military conflicts for the downturn in business. The company said these factors have jointly led to ‘a noticeable reluctance to invest in yachts.’ Like many other yacht builders, Hanse is adjusting its production capacity to reflect declining demand. Hanse said production would continue at the current capacity to meet existing orders, but would reduce thereafter to mirror ‘significantly…

I enjoyed Alan Denham’s excellent article (‘Is your boat in the right gear?’ YM, May 2025). I agree with every word. Might I add a few observations from this ancient mariner, who started sailing at the age of three, has raced dinghies and big boats (in which we collected a disproportionate amount of silver), has crossed the Atlantic and now owns a Hallberg Rassy 34 in which we sailed round Britain in 2023. My first comment is that the sailing schools don’t teach people how to sail. We’ve had people aboard with no idea of sail trim, they can’t tie even basic knots and have no concept of how to moor up a boat and where to put springs. Splicing and/or whipping ends of ropes or sheets is an alien…

This boat doesn’t care. It isn’t bothered about waves, and it doesn’t give a damn whether it’s blowing old boots or wheezing asthmatically. And she doesn’t give a hoot about fashion. She just wants to sail, and she’ll keep going, pretty much no matter what. Our test sail took place on Denmark’s Lille Baelt where, like many places in the UK, the tidal stream runs at up 2 knots, as it did for us against a solid Force 6. The fetch might have been short, but the chop was vicious as gusts barrelled out of the wooded hills like marauding Vikings, swirling anarchically over the woods, wharfs and ships of Fredericia. Little wonder those ancient warriors were such good seafarers. And yet from the helm of the Faurby 370, things…

Look at all those masts and rigging in the marina! Hold on – is that one with no rigging? What’s holding the mast up? And why would anyone want a boat that seems so different? How odd! Well for some of us, there is another preferable rig and for very pragmatic reasons. THE GENOA – THE PROBLEM In a recent article, Rachael Sprot dealing with various techniques for managing a Bermudian sloop downwind. So why is that such a helpful article for cruisers? Simply because most cruising yachts have this form of stayed Bermudian rig, where you hang the foresail on a stay, and where downwind sailing is not its easiest or best characteristic. The reason is clear. The genoa, often at least 50% of the sail area, is only…

www.yachtingmonthly.com/books The fourth instalment of Paul Weston’s Napoleonic series of novels finds Lieutenant Snowden and the Oleander off the coast of Brittany. He has been tasked with ‘duties not normally required of a sea-officer’ and is thus even more free than usual to use his initiative and seize his chances. In the gathering dusk, with a nearly full moon rising, Oleander slipped past the Roches Douvres, that fearsome plateau of tide-beset rocks. The westerly wind was light, and the coast of Brittany could be discerned ahead. Pascoe, aided by Luciani, was busy with his instruments, marking their position on the chart every few minutes and from time to time looking at the tidal curve he had drawn on a large sheet of paper. Their destination, the Trieux estuary, was rocky…

Highland Club launches season Royal Highland Yacht Club (RHYC) members gathered in Tobermory in April for the annual Mull Music Festival, a rather damp first meeting in this year’s season of gatherings. A few weeks later the RHYC Opening Muster saw members sail a little further east to Loch Spelve, Isle of Mull. With blustery winds but a good deal of sunshine, members’ yachts started arriving on FrIday 2 May. By Saturday afternoon, there were over 35 boats anchored in this sheltered loch. The RHYC is invited every year by Douglas and Helen Wilson of Inverlussa Mussel Farm and members gather ashore in the evening to sample the wonderful rope-grown mussels from the Grade A waters of Loch Spelve. Five yachts departed the next day on a five-day cruise under…

SWEDEN YACHTS 370 This is where is all started for Anne Davis (see main article), when she bought her first new boat at the Southampton Boat Show in 1994 – and she hinted to me that if she were ever to sell her Hallberg-Rassy 372, she might go back to a Sweden 370. Designed in 1993, the boat has the characteristic IOR shape of that era, with greater beam and longer overhangs than the HR372. The cut out in the transom for the boarding platform and swimming ladder looks almost incongruously modern on such a period hull shape. Yet, despite the boat’s age, she’s no slouch. When I sailed a Sweden Yachts 390 of the same era recently, I found her strikingly fast in a light wind but also a…

The leading sailors in the McIntyre Mini Globe Race 2025 fleet, racing 5.8m home-built plywood yachts around the world, have departed Tahiti bound for Tonga (1,500 miles), meaning they have sailed some 10,000 miles but still have 18,000 miles to go to the finish. The fleet is now scattered across the South Pacific, with leaders like Renaud Stitelmann aboard Capucinette now in Tonga for an eight-day pitstop. The next stop is Fiji (500 miles) and the finish of Leg 2 (Panama to Fiji), which takes place at the Vuda Marina. Way behind are John and Mike Blenkinsop aboard Delja 99 & 100 who are continuing their steady progress westward toward the Marquesas, the Tuamotus and Tahiti. The fleet has braved sharks and 60-knot squalls but has been welcomed by the locals…

GBR para-athlete, Jazz Turner, departed from Brighton Marina in early June in an attempt to break three records as the first disabled person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around Britain. Her Albin Vega 27ft yacht is aptly named FEAR, which could, she says, mean ‘Forget Everything and Run’ but to Jazz this name inspires her to ‘Face Everything and Rise’. The yacht, with its colourful mermaid-design, is where Jazz finds freedom thanks to the adaptations she has made because on land she has to use a wheelchair – a result of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Jazz was an Andrew Simpson foundation ambassador and won an RYA family volunteer award in 2022. She has a plethora of trophies to her name from the Laser 4.7 nationals to coming second overall in…

Many years ago, I was one of several yachtsmen called to help move an engineless Thames sailing barge, the home of a family of five, to a new home in an Estuary creek. May Flower was vacating Whitewall Creek – a graveyard of hulked barges – on Kent’s River Medway, because it was soon to be excavated as part of a new road tunnel to be bored under the river. We warped out of the creek very early one summer’s morning: even the Chatham Dockyard workers had yet to up tools in the giant ship sheds across the river where nuclear-powered submarines twinkled under electric light. With all sail set the barge nosed down river. But very quickly she lost the fickle dawn breeze under the wooded hills and the…

How would you respond to a suspected engine fire? Q John is skipper of Whimbrel, a classic wooden yacht, overall length 17.5m. Whimbrel was built in 1935 and has been lovingly restored, maintained and varnished by John. When built, Whimbrel had no engine but one was installed by a previous owner, greatly increasing the cruising range. Whimbrel is fitted out with all the usual equipment for offshore cruising. John has been sailing most of his life and holds a Yachtmaster Ocean certificate. The crew have not attended any courses but they sail with John regularly and know the ropes. John is motoring back to his home port after a week’s cruising with six friends. The wind is Force 2 to 3 and they have about 10 miles to go. It…

SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE AWARD Sea spray rose over the pushpit and the bow plunged into the restless black sea topped by frothing white streaks. The gusts came thick and fast while the wind moaned forlornly in the rigging. We were aboard Musketeer, valiantly battling rough seas off the northeast coast of Norfolk on the final stages of our circumnavigation. Our adventure had started a couple of months earlier when we had set off from Kerrera marina, on the Scottish west coast, for the final stretch of our clockwise circumnavigation of Britain. Our destination, with many crew changes, was our home base Portland on the South Coast. We had started our circumnavigation from Portland a year earlier and had wintered in Conwy, north Wales, before arriving in Kerrera. The final leg…

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I was diagnosed with a brain tumour at three years old. I had brain surgery, which left me with a mild form of a physical condition called ataxia. I have less control over the left side of my body; sometimes it shakes. When, aged five, my tumour started getting bigger, I underwent chemotherapy for 18 months. My tumour shrunk and hasn’t grown again. Post-treatment, primary school gossip made me feel as though my diagnosis was something I should be ashamed of. Moving to secondary school, I decided to keep my history a secret. Growing up, you’re meant to discover who you are, but as time passed, I felt less and less like myself. I experienced guilt for not being able to move on from the past, held my body to…

Most yachtsmen cheerfully adjust their sails and tune their rigs without giving much thought to the vital counterbalance attached to the bottom of their hull. The keel not only usefully maintains yachts the right way up but also minimises leeway and gives lift to windward. Most commonly made of iron or lead, they are cleverly designed and securely attached to our hulls. So, spare a thought for the specialist foundry craftsmen who create these unseen works of art and thank your lucky stars that their work is not as haphazard as that of the gold smugglers in Desmond Bagley’s book The Golden Keel, whose ill-cast golden fabrication broke away and was lost on the seabed. Irons Brothers, one of Europe’s largest keel foundries, is to be found incongruously tucked away…