A young French sailor has been locked in the ice in Greenland with his only companion, a red hen. Virginie Nolen-Laissy describes their adventures across the Atlantic and beyond

Guirec Soudée met Monique during a stopover in the Canary Islands when she joined him on what had been up to then a solo transatlantic voyage.

The 24-year-old Breton was sailing his steel yacht, Yvinec, on the first stage of what he hoped would become a circumnavigation. But not a tour via the tradewind routes – he was looking for adventure and planned to spend a winter in the Arctic in total isolation.

The pair soon became inseparable, although the skipper had originally planned to eat her if she became a nuisance. For Monique is a red hen, given to Guirec as a present. Now he says he couldn’t bear to part with her and she has become somewhat of a celebrity with 29,000 followers on Facebook after Guirec started to write a blog about his adventures.

And there have been plenty of those: right now the pair are locked in the ice in Disko Bay, Greenland, without communication or assistance, until June when the next stage of their world tour will recommence.

Island childhood

Guirec Soudée had an unconventional childhood. He grew up on a small island near Plougrescant in the Côtes-d’Armor, France, of which he and his family of one brother and six sisters were the only inhabitants.

From an early age, the sea was his world. At the age when boys play with toy cars Guirec had his first fishing boat. His thirst for adventure certainly comes from his bohemian upbringing.

He wasn’t cut out for school. When his parents hired tutors, he’d take them fishing. After changing schools 13 times he eventually gave up all thought of education on his 18th birthday. That day, he sold his motorbike and bought a one-way ticket to Australia in search of adventure. He had €200 in his pocket and didn’t speak a word of English.

He travelled Australia from east to west, doing odd jobs and collecting unforgettable memories. He eventually became mate of a shrimp boat, on which he embarked for weeks, working sometimes up to 20 hours a day. This experience taught him a lot and confirmed his desire to discover the world.

When he returned to France, at the age of 20, he had enough money put aside to buy a sailing boat, his lifelong dream. Quickly he found a boat at a knockdown price and sailed home to Brittany aboard Yvinec, renamed in honour of the island on which he grew up.

However, he soon discovered that the steel hull was as thin as paper in places and he almost sank when the boat sprang a leak. But it would take more than a setback such as that to discourage this determined young man. Wanting to be independent, Guirec moved to Paris and became a window salesman to earn enough money to be able to fix his boat.

Against the advice of his family, with the yacht barely patched up, he left Brittany in November 2013, his head full of dreams of sailing round the world solo. First he would tackle the Atlantic.

But no sooner had he set off than his autopilot broke down and he had to turn back to Concarneau. Fortuitously, as it turned out, for he met experienced sailor Roland Jourdain and the crew of the submarine polar expedition Under The Pole who were setting off to sail around Greenland for two years.

The Arctic held a particular fascination for Guirec so while waiting for his new autopilot, he gave a hand with preparing Why, the ship for this polar expedition. He even had the chance to sail aboard and the experience confirmed his dreams of the far north.

A month later he left again, making it to the Canaries, where Monique joined the crew – from now on it would be a double-handed voyage.

Chicken across the Atlantic

Monique quickly found her place on board and seemed to enjoy the experience. In the 28 days it took to cross the Atlantic, Monique laid 25 eggs, giving a lie to those who said that a hen cannot lay at sea. During the crossing Monique constantly surprised her skipper. She adapted very quickly to her new environment, despite there being no earthworms on Yvinec.

It didn’t matter, she didn’t hesitate to leave her shelter to peck up the flying fish that landed on deck, in any weather. She almost fell overboard more than once, but each time managed to regain control with a beat of her wings.

When they reached St Barths, Guirec was once again broke. But as a watersports fanatic, he quickly found work in a windsurfing club.

In St Barths he was well-placed to meet well-known sailors to whom he hastened to ask questions about navigation techniques. Paul Cayard, Philippe Poupon, Loïc Peyron, Eric Dumont all helped him. Indeed, as incredible as it may seem, Guirec had no knowledge of navigation when he bought his boat, and picked up what he could from sailors he met at each stop.

St Barths was also a great opportunity for Monique to learn about paddling, surfing, windsurfing, swimming – and to star in a number of photoshoots.

DCIM102GOPRO

In the end Guirec and Monique stayed for a year in St Barths, taking Yvinec south to escape the hurricane season and to carry out further modifications.

Preparing for the ice

Guirec still had his heart set on exploring the cold lands of Greenland, so he had to prepare his boat for extreme polar conditions. Thanks to his work as a windsurfing instructor and to a crowdfunding website he set up, Guirec earned enough money to reinforce the steel hull, fit insulation, a heating system, new sails, a new engine and other vital supplies.

Guirec also equipped himself, buying skis, hiking and climbing equipment, etc. For her part, it was expected that Monique would remain close to the heater during the colder months.

After this long, but necessary preparation Guirec and Monique finally got going again in June 2015. They left the warm tropical waters and set sail for the Arctic. After a new autopilot problem, solved in Virgin Gorda, they continued their journey with stopovers in Bermuda, Halifax and St Pierre and Miquelon. They reached southern Greenland on 25 August.

Facebook following

At each stage of their voyage Monique became more and more popular. Guirec posted comments, photos and videos on his Facebook page, ‘Voyage d’Yvinec – Guirec Soudée’, and his website www.voyagedyvinec.com. Interest snowballed and they now have a huge following. How does he get all this up online while he’s out at sea, you might wonder? Mainly, he calls me on his satphone and I post up the stories from Switzerland, where I live.

Obviously Guirec is aware that it is mainly Monique who creates the buzz on the internet. But he wants to take advantage of this minor fame to express his view that life is too short not to live our dreams and we should make every effort to achieve them. He wants to stress that even with few resources if you have a strong will you can achieve anything in life!

His message seems to be working because Guirec receives many replies from people who say his experience has helped them find their own dreams. His greatest pride is to be followed by a group of young French people with disabilities who say that his adventure with Monique helps them to dream and travel along with them. Many French schools also follow the pair – a strange experience for one whose own schooling left a lot to be desired.

Given the interest in this unusual and comic adventure, Guirec and I decided to write a series of illustrated novels for children about the world voyage of Monique. The first volume, entitled The Transatlantic Voyage of Monique, is in production and should be released in June in France. An English version is also planned and a TV documentary will be broadcast on their return to recount their experiences.

The Inuit meet a hen

Guirec and Monique spent the late summer and early autumn exploring the west coast of Greenland. They stopped often to meet local Greenlanders. This kind population always gave them a fabulous welcome. Monique also visited children in local schools, who were very amused and puzzled by her.

They had obviously never seen a chicken except on their plates because there are no hens in Greenland!

Guirec loved the exchanges he had with the inhabitants of the Inuit villages, especially in Saqqaq, where they adopted him as a member of their family. He was given the opportunity to learn their fishing techniques during fishing trips and to share their meals. He tasted the local specialities of seal and whale.

Winter in the ice

But soon it was time for Guirec and Monique to pursue their next goal: to spend the winter aboard their boat trapped in the ice, without means of communication and without assistance. His challenge is to survive on his own, away from modern conveniences. Guirec, who fears nothing, thinks that if he had a phone in his pocket, he would be tempted to call for help in case of problems. He wants to be able to rely only on himself to solve the difficulties he will encounter.

This might sound crazy, but no one could make him change his mind. So he took on board 40kg of rice for himself, 60kg of seeds for Monique, 2,000lt of fuel for heating and electricity, as his solar panels won’t operate during the polar night. For the rest, he wanted to hunt and fish in order to survive.

They reached their wintering area in late November, hundreds of miles from everywhere in huge Disko Bay.

An incredible twist of fate occurred on that day. Sadly, his father died just as he had reached his wintering site and had switched off his satphone for the next six months.

But thanks to Uno, an Inuit fisherman, who was contacted via Facebook, we learned that the ice had not yet set in. Uno immediately agreed to take his boat to find Guirec to pass on the terrible news.

When he found out, Guirec turned on his satellite phone briefly to talk to his family, but confirmed that he couldn’t return to France for the funeral. He assured them that he would be strong until his return to the village in June 2016. Since then there has been no news of Guirec and Monique, leaving his family, his friends and his Facebook followers to wait for his next sign of life.

On through the North West Passage

When the ice melts and releases their boat Guirec and Monique plan to continue their journey through the North West Passage and reach the Pacific before carrying on round the world. This amazing duo are not yet done with inspiring their followers. Guirec has plenty more ideas in mind, so his journey could last a lifetime.

And as a hen can live for more than ten years, Monique has plenty more beautiful years ahead to experience new adventures!

Virginie Nolen-Laissy is Guirec’s and Monique’s friend who helps them publicise their adventures. To avoid thinking about what might happen to them during this winter, she is currently looking for sponsors who could provide the necessary funding for the new project to the North West Passage and would be pleased to hear from any interested parties.

Rendezvous is in June for the debriefing of this risky, but exciting winter. Meanwhile, you can get more information on or the Facebook page Voyage d’Yvinec – Guirec Soudée.

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What’s happening in the image of Red Bull ‘going down the mine’ during the Extreme Sailing Series in Cardiff 2015? Larsen offers tips and advice on the best way to avoid a pitchpole.

I can see the boat has a reef in and the daggerboards slightly raised, so it is obviously windy. Judging by the lazy sheet, the gennaker is still furled so I assume they are on a close or beam reach. They probably/typically have the apparent wind well forward and would ideally be sailing with the windward hull just skimming.

Although the rudders are no longer in the water, the helmsman is trying to head up, which means he sees his get-out as being into the wind rather than bearing away. This would also suggest a beam reach rather than a deep downwind angle where bearing away from the wind might be the safest get-out.

The crew is either right at the back of the boat and/or very well braced for this scenario. Those on the critical controls are locked in so they can still operate even with the sudden accelerations that come with such a dynamic motion.

The helmsman is braced and, although he has no rudder control, he needs to be prepared for if/when it all comes back down. The crewmember in front of the helmsman will be responsible for easing the traveller. He looks to be in good control as is the guy next to him.

Larsen’s advice on how to recover

The process of depowering the boat in a situation like this is dependent on many factors because changes happen quickly. Everyone should be aware of what the get-outs are beforehand to ensure they know what their responsibility is.

When any boat with vertical rudders starts to roll, the rudders become inclined as the force they generate also becomes inclined. There are times when a quick, short jab of the helm to turn into the wind can help pop the nose back up. Conversely, heeling hard and trying to bear away around a mark is a recipe for a classic nosedive.

Assuming they have nosedived while fairly level, they will have gone in fast and, at this angle the boat will decelerate quickly. Blowing whatever headsails are up is a priority. Also, as the boat slows, the apparent wind angle moves rapidly aft. This can be handy in stalling the main and, without any jib set, this will happen quicker and with greater effect.

If the trimmers sense she is about to go ‘down the mine’, easing the traveller will soften the power of the main. If a gust hits to initiate it, then the helmsman should – room permitting – either head up or bear away a little depending on the true wind angle and best get-out.

If the bows go down, blow the headsails and ease the traveller, especially if your get-out is to head up. If your get-out is to bear away, then there is a strong case for leaving the mainsail in the middle and just blowing the headsails. The reasoning is that when the apparent wind swings aft, by easing the mainsail you are just trimming the sails in a way that will power the boat all the way over – it opens up the top of the sail where the most leverage is.

So, let’s say all the weight is aft, you’ve blown the headsails, kept the main in and slowed the nosedive so the boat is now teetering on its bows. The nosedive has stopped and the second stage of the potential capsize is imminent and the apparent wind has moved abaft the beam.

What usually happens now is the boat begins to roll over to leeward. Now is the time to attempt to depower the mainsail as much as possible and shift all crew weight to the high side.

These guys look to me to be doing fine. The three guys further aft are braced, still on the controls and watching events unfold. The helm is to windward, the jibs blown and the traveller is going down the track. The other two are at the back and hanging on. I believe they saved it.

Interview by Sue Pelling

Key points

• Blow the headsail. This is a priority. It will help to stall the main as the apparent wind goes aft.

• Keep the main in initially, but ease the traveller if you sense she is going down the mine.

• Shift crew weight aft to help avoid a potential pitchpole.

• Assess the situation and dump the main if she starts to roll to leeward.

PAUL LARSEN is officially the world’s fastest sailor. In 2012 he broke the world speed sailing record on Vestas Sailrocket 2 (65.45kts), and is currently designing Sailrocket 3 for offshore records. Larsen (46) has clocked up over 120,000 miles including two circumnavigations and eight transatlantics. He races MOD70 Team Concise and A-class cat Exploder.

The post Paul Larsen, world speed record holder, advises on how to avoid a pitchpole appeared first on Yachting World.

David Glenn looks back at the life of entrepreneur and technologist Tom Perkins, a passionate sailor and innovator and the mastermind of the sensational square-rigged superyacht Maltese Falcon

Tomas J. Perkins 1932-2016

Tom Perkins, who has died aged 84, was one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capitalists and a prolific superyacht owner whose innovative thinking led to the launch of The Maltese Falcon, an 88m, fully-automated, modern day square-rigger. The yacht remains in a class of her own.

The Herreshoff classic Mariette of 1915, two Perinis, a restored classic motor yacht called Atlantide and mini-submarines were among many vessels he owned.

Tom Perkins aboard Maltese Falcon

As an electrical engineering and computer science graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Perkins joined Hewlett Packard in the 1960s launching and running its mini-computer division. In his spare time he started a laser technology company to fund other projects before co-founding his venture capital business Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) which ignited the tech boom in California.

The firm’s science-based instincts and close involvement in fledgling companies helped develop the likes of bio-tech pioneer Genentech, whose cancer and insulin drugs helped turn the company into a giant. Netscape, AOL, Sun Microsystems and later Amazon, Google and a host of other household names were all KPBC investments.

Perkins was a passionate and highly knowledgeable sailor whose earliest experiences were in Lightning dinghies on Long Island Sound. His large yachts included the 43m Andromeda la Dea and then a 47m ketch of the same name aboard which he completed an eventful circumnavigation including a grounding on a shale bank in Alaska. Both yachts were built by Fabio Perini, whose inventive brilliance attracted the like-minded Perkins. They became good friends.

Tom Perkins’s Perini Andromeda La Dea 2

His thirst for competition was demonstrated when he campaigned with considerable vigour the magnificent Nat Herreshoff-designed schooner Mariette of 1915. His meticulous restoration of the famous yacht in the 1990s, using original drawings from the MIT library, was an achievement in itself and helped him cope with the death of his first wife, Gerd Thune-Ellefsen, a Norwegian he’d met more than 30 years earlier while skiing near Lake Tahoe. He was later married for four years to the author Danielle Steel.

He raced Mariette hard, but in 1995 tragedy struck when a collision between the 42m schooner and the 6-Metre Taos Brett IV during a regatta in St Tropez, then known as La Nioulargue, resulted in the drowning of one of Taos Brett’s crew. Perkins was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and the controversial incident led to a complete overhaul of the regatta’s structure. It re-emerged as Les Voiles de St Tropez.

Six years later in 2001, Mariette won the Yachting World Concours d’Elegance Trophy at the America’s Cup Jubilee Regatta in Cowes competing against some of the world’s finest yachts.  Despite Perkins’s devotion to Mariette, the seed of an idea for a new and technically advanced yacht had already been sewn.

The Maltese Falcon was launched by Perini in 2005, a ground-breaking 88m, square-rigged sailing yacht equipped with three free-standing carbon fibre masts from which 15 squaresails could be set at the press of a button. The yacht also contained some of the most remarkable modern art ever seen aboard a sailing superyacht.

The extraordinary square-rigged superyacht Maltese Falcon

Along with Netscape’s Jim Clark, who launched the 90m schooner Athena and Avis owner Joe Vittoria, whose Mirabella V (now M5), at 75m, was and still is the biggest sloop in the world, it was a time of excess even by modern superyachting standards.

An avid Yachting World reader, Tom Perkins invited me aboard his restored art deco-styled motor yacht Atlantide (re-built by Camper & Nicholsons in Gosport) during a Perini Navi regatta in Porto Rotondo Sardinia to explain how the rig, sails and the scores of electric motors controlling them would work aboard Maltese Falcon. He sketched the idea in my reporter’s notebook and I admit I found it difficult to see how the project could succeed.

But succeed it did and the ground-breaking yacht was launched to immense fanfare. Except Yachting World was not invited to the party. The reason was a review I had written for the magazine of Perkins’s book Sex and The Single Zillionaire, a work I really couldn’t recommend to anyone.

Perkins took umbrage and banished me from the project until he eventually relented a year later when he gave me a personal tour of Maltese Falcon in Monaco and took me sailing for a couple of days off St Tropez. That was one of my career highlights and the sea trials proved without doubt what an extraordinary sailing yacht Perkins had produced.

Later in life Perkins became interested in small submarines and with a mothership called Dr. No went in search of the humpback whale in its Pacific mating grounds, photographing them to great effect.

Perkins died at his home in Marin County, California and is survived by a son and a daughter from his first marriage.

The post The life of Tom Perkins 1932-2016 – entrepreneur, innovator and mastermind of Maltese Falcon appeared first on Yachting World.

It's a tough race, involving sailing from Barmouth to Fort William in three legs and scaling the peaks of Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis. Pip Hare leads her team to the end of Leg 2 and waits for the runners to return from Scafell

I wake up with a start, dehydrated, hot and confused. ‘Where are the runners? What time is it? Have I over slept?’ Reaching for the phone tucked under my makeshift pillow, I log onto the tracker – it’s fine, the girls have summited Scafell Pike and are in a strong 3rd position in the Three Peaks Yacht Race – no panic, they should be back to the boat in around four hours.

This has been the first sleep over one hour that any of the sailing crew have had since we left Caernarfon yesterday morning – every one of our five crew is being pushed to the absolute limits of endurance.

Team sailing

Since leaving the start line in Barmouth on Saturday we have been plagued by light winds over the whole course. The leg to Caernarfon took nine hours and ended up with an exciting hour as we crossed the bar into the river at midnight, racing down the tiny channel, piloting from buoy to buoy at ten knots over the ground and around 100m behind the boat in 2nd. My stomach was in knots.

We dropped the runners, just as it was getting dark and they ran off to summit Snowdon while we dropped anchor and readied the boat for Leg 2.

Runners ready to depart

The running has been tight, competition on the mountain is hot, but our athletes, Jo and Lowri, have been holding an incredible pace and right now are on their way down from Scafell Pike. They completed Snowdon in 4h 54m, and to put that in perspective it was in the dark, running from the pier to the summit and a distance of over marathon length.

Leg 2 – Caernarfon to Whitehaven

We started Leg 2 in 7th position, but with only 40 minutes separating us and the1st placed boat. The course for this leg is to sail from Caernarfon to Whitehaven via any route chosen. The whole fleet, bar one, chose the shorter distance, to sail through the Menai Straits and we were treated to a light wind tussle against a strong tide all the way to the Britannia bridge.

We approached the Swellies with no wind at all and had to navigate this notorious section of water under oars and yet again my heart was in my mouth as we rowed across an ever-building tide, dodging rocks.

Entering the Swellies under the power of oars

At the beginning of the Three Peaks Race, the team agreed that for the first two legs the runners would do nothing but rest and run – our sailing team, made up of myself, Nikki and Elin, would take all the strain of sailing, rowing and organising the boat to ensure we gave the best possible chance to our runners to perform.

Stretching, rowing with our onboard camera crew

The sailing team managed 1.5 hours sleep at Caernarfon and since then we have been on it for 30 hours with only one or two hours sleep each. The lighter winds have persisted the whole leg and our J/120 Nunatak has required constant attention to keep us moving through the water.

Rowing for six miles

Yesterday we rowed an epic six miles from the Swellies to the end of the Menai Straits, taking it in 20 minute shifts on the oars and desperately trying to get out of the channel before the tide turned again. We managed to pull up to 3rd place on leaving the Straits and sailed out into Liverpool Bay and a big flat expanse of no wind.

For the remaining 80 miles we have been coaxing every ounce of speed out of the boat, changing sails frequently to accommodate the slightest change in wind angle, constantly adjusting settings as the breeze built and dropped off again. As soon as we got on a roll, things would change, never allowing us any time to turn off and just sail.

Through yesterday we managed to climb up to a decent 1st place and then fell back to 3rd as the breeze died inshore in the early hours of the morning. With seven miles to the finish we were once again becalmed with the rest of the fleet in sight on the horizon and it was time to row.

The whole team at Whitehaven

After 30 hours of sailing and no sleep, we dug in to row the final three hours of the race, determined to keep our 3rd position and make it in through the lock gates before the tide made access impossible.

Waiting for the runners – and willing them on

I just woke up from a three-hour sleep. Nikki and Elin woke up at exactly the same time, we have had an update from the runners – they will be back on board in around three hours. We can’t sleep any more, the tension is enormous. They are holding a great pace, but have been overtaken by a couple of the other teams who have incredibly strong athletes.

Our amazing runners

The leg ahead will be tough: more light winds with challenging geography and tides. We estimate the first boat will have a three-hour lead on us, but we are still very much in the game. The sailing team need to catch the lead boat and then double that lead to keep our girls ahead on the Ben.

We have tidied and checked every inch of the boat, discussed our planning and are now pacing around with lots of nervous energy, willing the running team on. By the time they return they will have cycled from Whitehaven into the heart of the Lake District, run up Scafell Pike and then cycled back to us.

I am suffering from the strangest of feelings, watching our team on a tracker, willing them on, desperately wanting to do something to improve their performance and totally unable to help. Although we had never met before the start of this race we could not have gelled better as a team – I have total respect for every member of Team Aparito, there are no passengers, there are no egos. We are a team of athletes working together, pushing each other to the limits of endurance and it is a great feeling.

This race is far from over; there will be only hours separating us from the following teams as we head for Fort William and I know the conditions ahead will be changeable, providing multiple opportunities for others to get ahead if we make a wrong decision.

Sunrise Menai Straits

Single-handed ocean sailor Pip Hare has clocked up thousands of miles racing and cruising. Among her achievements are five solo transatlantics, including the OSTAR and two Mini Transat races. She also works full-time for the RNLI on sea safety and is Consulting Editor on Yachting World. See her gear test on weather routeing packages

See also Pip’s fascinating series on advanced sailing techniques: SAIL FASTER SAIL SAFER

The post Blog: Pip Hare and her sailing/running team lie a nail-biting 3rd in the Three Peaks Yacht Race appeared first on Yachting World.

Double tragedy on board 65-footer Platino as a well-known boatbuilder is killed and another crew member swept overboard

One crewmember has died and another was swept overboard when the Auckland-registered yacht Platino suffered serious rigging damage around 550km north of New Zealand on June 14.

Platino, a 20m Ron Holland design, had been entered in the cruising division of the ANZ Sail Fiji, a 1,110nm offshore race from Auckland to Fiji, but withdrew before the start.

The crewmember killed on board was Nick Saull, who ran prominent Auckland boatbuilding company Brin Wilson Boat Builders, which had refitted Platino following previous fire damage. It was reported by the Rescue Coordination Centre of New Zealand that Saull was fatally injured when the boom broke loose and was swinging out of control in a severe sea state. Wind conditions at the time were around 40 knots.

Another 63-year-old man was swept overboard, and has not been named. He is not thought to have been wearing a survival suit at the time of the incident. The Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) have been searching the area.

The three surviving crew, yacht owners Brent and Tory McKeogh and Ross McKee, were rescued around 14 hours after the incident by the container ship Southern Lily.  Initial attempts by a fishing vessel in the area to reach the the survivors proved unsuccessful and the three remained onboard. However, Platino’s condition deteriorated further overnight with the loss of steering, and the yacht began to take water onboard.

©New Zealand Defence Force

Following a difficult transfer that required the crew of Southern Lily to use pyrotechnics to fire lines to Platino before bringing her alongside, the McKeoghs and McKee were able to climb aboard the container ship, although conditions made it unsafe to recover Mr Saull’s body from Platino. An EPIRB had been activated on the abandoned yacht to track its location.

The Rescue Coordination Centre NZ (RCCNZ) mission coordinator John Dickson praised the master and crew of the Southern Lily for the rescue yesterday, saying: “It was not easy to get the three crew members from the yacht to the much larger ship in those sea conditions – they’ve done a tremendous job.”

“We are obviously disappointed that it was not safe to transfer the body of the deceased crew member, but safety must come first. We will keep track of the position of the yacht.

“The search for the missing person has now resumed and will continue until around nightfall when the aircraft must return to New Zealand.”

Tributes to Nick Saull were posted by many in the Auckland sporting community, where he was a keen sailor, lifeguard and rugby player.

The post New Zealand death and MOB double tragedy on 65-footer Platino appeared first on Yachting World.

For each wind direction we can determine where the source region is and therefore its likely characteristics, says meteorologist Tibbs

I have a lovely old instrument at home which belonged to my grandfather; using dials on concentric circles you can set the direction of the wind, barometer reading and trend, along with the season. This then gives a basic weather forecast by identifying the air mass and what is likely to happen next, similar to the forecasts found on home weather stations.

So what is an air mass? If you go vertically up through the atmosphere you will get some big changes in temperature, humidity and wind over a short distance. However, if you move horizontally through the air you will find that the air’s characteristics will stay very similar often for hundreds of miles. The changes will usually be at a frontal boundary. The lower levels of the air will take on some of the characteristics of the surface that it is passing over.

As the air is heated, or cooled from below, the temperature of the air becomes close to that of the surface it is crossing. If I take an example of the air in a south-westerly airstream heading for the British Isles, this air originated somewhere near the Azores; it is warm and there will be plenty of moisture held in it.

Tropical maritime

As the air moves north-east it is travelling over an increasingly cool sea, therefore the air cools and, as it does so, water condenses to form low cloud and possibly fog, particularly in springtime when the water is cold. This airflow is called ‘tropical maritime’ from its source region and will vary little in strength or direction.

For each wind direction we can determine where the source region is and therefore its likely characteristics; the relative temperatures of air and sea will tell us if we can expect low cloud and fog, or towering cumulus and showers.

The tropical maritime air (Tm) from the south-west is quite different from the air coming from the north-west which is polar maritime (Pm). This air was originally cold and dry, but picks up some moisture over an increasingly warm sea as it tracks south-east, producing large cumulus clouds, sunshine and squally showers. This will be most aggressive on the west coast and less so after the air has crossed the UK. This polar maritime air will give great visibility, except during the squalls, as it has little in the way of pollution in it.

Our main air masses are either tropical and warm and wet, or polar and cold and dry; however when the air is from a land mass it is much drier with a greater temperature difference between summer and winter.

So the direction of the wind gives a good indication of the weather we get and this holds true wherever in the world we are. Once we venture offshore our sources of weather information is limited and for most of us is restricted to GRIB files and synoptic charts on slow satellite downloads.

Both are very useful and I would not like to be without either. GRIB files have revolutionised routeing, but you can gain a competitive advantage, or more comfortable passage, by using the additional information found on weather charts.

Identifying the type of wind

We are familiar with fronts, but by identifying the air mass we can identify the type of wind to expect. Transatlantic records are usually set by staying in the more stable Tm air mass where a steady wind speed and direction allow boats to be pushed harder, rather than in the stronger, squallier conditions found post cold.

Sometimes, however, our options are limited as the whole passage is within one air mass. During one Round Britain Race I did the wind was east-north-easterly and there was little change expected in the air mass, giving a complete circuit of the UK in poor visibility. Approaching the Lizard at dusk were three Open 60s; with this stable air mass (warm air, cold sea) we knew that there would be a shut down near the coast, but to maintain our speed we kept heating up and got too close to the land at five miles. A competitor ten miles offshore was 30 miles ahead at the next sched, while the inshore boat was 30 miles behind.

Chris Tibbs is a meteorologist and weather router, as well as a professional sailor and navigator, forecasting for Olympic teams and the ARC rally. He is currently on his own circumnavigation with his wife, Helen. His series of Weather Briefings can be seen here

See also:

Chris Tibbs prepares his own boat for an Atlantic crossing

The best route for an Atlantic crossing

Taking the northerly route across the Atlantic

Offshore weather planning: options for receiving weather data at sea

as well as Chris Tibbs’s series of Weather Briefings

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As a long-term cruiser Jill Dickin Schinas knows what she’s talking about when it comes to bugs on board. She offers her advice on how to keep bug-free

A movement caught out of the corner of my eye: something furtive, small and fast. I must have imagined it, but I’ll have to take a closer look. Reluctantly, I peer into the ill-lit corner of my galley worktop; and there it is: shellac-coloured, half an inch long, blattella germanica is watching me.

“Roach!” I scream. Red alert, panic stations.

What is it about cockroaches that we absolutely cannot stand? Flies, mozzies, weevils… they all come aboard from time to time, and although none of them is remotely welcome it’s only the sight of a roach that sends cruisers into a tailspin. And they are, unfortunately, one of the hazards of long-term cruising.

The worst infestation I’ve ever heard of was suffered by a Canadian couple on their home-built gaffer. They had picked up their hitchhikers while moored alongside a quay in Brazil – and these were not the little bean-sized things that commonly infest yachts; they were the monsters that go scuttling across the pavement at night in the insalubrious quarters of any tropical town. These big roaches can fly, but happily rarely set up camp aboard a boat.

Cockroach fact: The female German cockroach carries her egg capsule inside her body until they are ready to hatch. If she dies prematurely her last act will be to eject that capsule with her latest batch of 40, which is why you won’t get rid of cockies in an afternoon. The unhatched eggs will continue to develop.

The commonest shipboard pest is the German cockroach – known in Germany as the Russian cockroach. It also has wings, but you won’t find it flying around your cabin because it has forgotten how to use them. And it breeds rapidly: a German cockroach and her young can produce 300,000 more roaches in a single year.

Ban the box?

According to accepted wisdom, roaches come aboard in the corrugations of cardboard boxes. But we have had cardboard boxes without cockroaches, and cockroaches without taking on board any cardboard. Personally, I think they arrive among the groceries.

Sometimes I scrutinise every packet of flour and peel the paper off every onion, but I’ve yet to uncover any of the enemy and the truth is that this a fool’s game. A cockroach’s egg case is tiny, and the baby bugs are absolutely minute.

According to the experts, roaches are also capable of hitching a ride from one territory to another by way of your bags and even your person. I’ve noticed that we almost invariably pick up roaches after a visit from someone who is already suffering an infestation. “Look out! Here come Eric and Susan. Stand by to fumigate them as they come aboard.”

Bombs away

In the bad old days the only cure for roaches was to ‘bomb’ the boat. When a charter yacht was suffering an acute infestation the crew would arrange for a two-day break between outings, remove all food and utensils from the galley, and then the pros would go aboard and set off foggers. These consist of aerosol canisters which fill the vessel with a poisonous mist.

Breathing in the mist can cause nose and throat irritation, dizziness, and vomiting; thus, after a bombing session no one is supposed to enter the premises again for several hours. But as we all know, roaches are more durable than mankind and the treatment often had to be repeated several times.

Nowadays we are even less eager to use chemical warfare. One approach to the roach family is to make friends with it. The most important thing when you sight one is to take action immediately, before things get out of control. A common recourse is to put down roach motels. These won’t cope with a full-scale invasion, but they might mop up the scouts.

The skipper traps a roach

When the motels don’t work, some people resort to purchasing squares of yellow paper. So far as I can see, these are sold for the specific purpose of parting the desperate from their money. The idea is that the roach is supposed to go skipping across the paper and stick to it. This doesn’t cure the problem, but when you’re fighting an infestation you’ll try anything.

Sell, sink or bomb?

After two years of sharing their home with an ever-increasing number of cockroaches, our friends Frank and Elise reckoned that they had three choices: sell the boat, sink her, or resort to the bombs. A safer method of administering the pesticide is to buy a Black Flag syringe filled with goo. You squirt the goo wherever you reckon the roaches are likely to go, they eat it and the colony dies out.

This stuff works. It may take a month, but if you keep at it, renewing the goo every week, you’ll eventually succeed. If you want to you can make your own goo, using boric acid and condensed milk. Boric acid is less toxic, but it can be hard to find.

Cockroach fact: Cockroaches are not a new problem; Columbus and Magellan suffered them too. According to legend, roaches became so abundant on long voyages, and food so scarce, that the insects began to prey upon the sailors. Some of the men even took to wearing gloves at night.

The safest and surest way to get rid of cockroaches is to go somewhere very cold. Insects don’t like sub-zero temperatures. Unfortunately, I don’t like them either and so we have used the second-best method, which is to starve them out and – just as important – to deny them access to water. Dry the sink and put in the plug; keep the galley scrupulously clean; put all food in boxes.

Even the fruit net is not out of their reach, so you’ll have to empty that, too.

Silverfish and weevils

Roaches aren’t the only critters that like sailing. Silverfish abound in our boat. They eat books and charts, but they do it very slowly and so we leave them in peace.

Silverfish insect, sometimes known as carpet sharks.

Weevils and flour moths are more of a nuisance. In fact, they’re much more destructive than cockroaches. Weevils eat rice and beans, and the moths spoil wheat-flour and biscuits. The best way to avoid the weevils is to buy your goods in tough plastic packets, and not loose.

As for the flour, a note I read on a brand of flour in Brazil read: ‘It is impossible to keep moth larvae, weevil eggs and lizard droppings out of this type of product.’ After a moment’s reflection I bought it anyway. Evidently this company doesn’t use pesticides.

The cure for an infestation of weevils and moths is to ditch any infected produce, clean the locker and keep your new stock in plastic containers – I use old fizzy drinks bottles. If this doesn’t do the trick, introduce a species of small spider to the locker. This is nature’s way of doing business, and it works.

Clover leaf weevil

Boats make cosy abodes. We even had a possum come aboard while we were anchored in the middle of a bay, and I recall reading about a man who opened his cockpit locker and found a fox curled up inside. A more frequent (but still very infrequent) visitor is a snake. The aquatic kind won’t come aboard, but if you spend time anchored on a river you might meet marsh snakes.

Less happy was the tale I heard of a chap who was alongside the bank taking on water. His first and last glimpse of a stowaway snake came as it slithered into the open hole into his tanks. What are a few hundred cockroaches compared to that?

How to cure the problem

The most radical treatment, of ‘bombing’ the boat, is not necessarily the most effective. This is because the poisonous fog doesn’t actually penetrate the places where the roaches hang out, behind your headlining and in the recesses of the deepest lockers.

Roach motels offer a less dramatic way to attack your unwanted guests. The original Roach Motel was designed to attract roaches, with either sweet-smelling food or pheromones, and to keep them there by the use of something ultra sticky. “They go in, but they don’t come out!” claimed the manufacturer, Black Flag.

Cockroach fact: Besides being capable of carrying such things as salmonella and dysentery, which arrive on their feet, cockroaches also leave faeces whose breakdown can trigger an asthmatic attack.

More common nowadays are motels that contain a poisonous food. The idea is that the roaches eat the food and then go home and die; and their kin subsequently eat them, and die; and so on, down the line. To be effective this kind of trap must be placed on the roaches’ habitual pathway – which will be along the sheltered, inner edge of the worktop, or at the edge of the floor. Moreover, there must be no competing food source; your galley must be spotlessly clean.

Wherever cockroaches abound you’ll have no trouble buying poisons with which to despatch them. These are usually to be found in the supermarket. Sprays are virtually useless. Wafting the stuff around will have little effect; to make a kill you will need to score a direct hit.

The useful shop-bought weapon is the poison-filled syringe. Also sold by Black Flag, they contain the same toxin (indoxacarb), but you can be more precise in your application. Again, for the stuff to be effective you need to know what route the insects are taking and ensure that no other food is available.

You can make your own DIY poisoned bait using boric acid and condensed milk. Apply this in the same way as the professional mix, via a syringe. For obvious reasons, you should not use this method if you have small children or sugar-loving pets. Boric acid can be difficult to find. In Spain and South America it is available in the bigger pharmacies.

Jill Dickin Schinas has been sailing all her life. She made her first ocean passage at 19 and has been living aboard boats ever since. In 1989 she and her husband-to-be set off round the world. She paints and writes features and books.
www.yachtmollymawk.com

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Another frustrating, exhausting, but exhilarating sail to Fort William brings Pip Hare's sailing team in 1st – now it's all down to the runners heading up Ben Nevis

At 1049 on Wednesday morning Jo and Lowri ran over the finish line and straight into the arms of our sailing team and the history books of the Three Peaks Yacht Race.

We have won, line honours, overall sailing on handicap, leg 3 sailing and running combined and would end up 2nd overall on sailing and running combined. We are only the fourth ever female team to finish the race and the first to win. The final leg from Whitehaven had allowed us to shine, but was not without its drama and soul-destroying moments.

During Monday afternoon our runners, Jo and Lowri, battled their way around the biking and running course from Whitehaven, to the top of Scafell Pike and back while we the sailors slept – read our nail-biting story of Leg 2 here – organised and fretted back on Nunatak in Whitehaven marina. We had positioned the boat in a prime berth, right opposite the marina entrance where the lock gates were on free flow, and waited for their return with nervous anticipation.

The girls appeared at the top of the ramp, covered in bruises and blood from multiple tumbles while running on the slippery paths of the Lake District’s highest peak, our shore crew waited on the corner of the pontoon to direct them, the film crews set up to capture their return, and Elin shouted to a group of sailors to clear the way. All eyes were on the runners for a dramatic entrance.

Slipping and sliding

Lowri led the way, the cameras were rolling, she came down the ramp onto the main pontoon and tried to turn the corner up to the boat, but her cycling shoes with cleats on the bottom and no grip gave way and she promptly slid over in a heap on the floor.

Jo, not far behind, saw what happened and tried to avoid the same spot, but left it too late and wiped out on the same corner, leaving both of them in a pile – a very helpful gentleman watching proceedings from his cockpit, sniffed and loudly conjectured: “And that’s why we don’t run on the pontoons!” Such helpful comments.

With the runners safely on board, egos intact, we headed straight out through the open lock gates. We were in 4th position, with a distance of six miles between us and the lead boat, Wight Rose, to catch up the front of the fleet.

The evening was murky and started with light winds. We were chasing the other boats, but with little opportunity to make gains. After a couple of hours the wind started to change direction and soon we were reaching for our spinnaker and Nunatak started racing towards the Mull of Galloway.

Down below the runners were tucked into their bunks, kick starting their recovery from the previous 9.5 hours of effort, and as the speed built they were woken up by the sound of water rushing down Nunatak’s hull, and the occasional squawk of delight from the helm as we started clocking speeds of over 13 knots over the ground.

We approached the Mull of Galloway under spinnaker and with the three of us trimming the boat as hard as we could, Nikki on the helm, Elin managing the pole and me trimming and navigating. By now we could see the outline of Pure Attitude and knew they did not have their spinnaker up. We were gaining on them fast and decided to pass between them and the shore, right under the cliffs of the Mull.

Overhauling the lead boat

The cockpit was alive with tension as we scraped our way along the shore to keep out of the tide. The wind was blowing down through the gaps in the cliffs, heeling the boat over suddenly and rounding us up, requiring great team work from the three of us to keep moving and to keep safe.

We worked intensely for three or four hours, constantly talking to each other about course, trim, speed – focused, determined and loving the opportunity to sail hard together.

The strategy paid off and by the time the sun came up on Tuesday morning we were leading the fleet. Wight Rose and Moby J were over six miles behind us and Pure Attitude could be seen on the horizon. But as is the way with sailing among the hills in the Scottish Highlands, not long after the sun came up we sailed into a massive windless hole and sat there helplessly while Pure Attitude sailed up behind us.

Pure Attitude

Our rowing seats and outriggers had been taken apart and stowed for the spinnaker leg and getting them out of the locker and in position seemed to take for ever – it was stressful as all the while our competitors were effortlessly sailing up to us. I fumbled with the screws and bolts, put the struts on in the wrong order and couldn’t get them off again.

I wanted to swear, but the onboard camera woman was filming my frustration – these things seem so cruel, after putting in such a lot of effort to get ahead.

The next couple of hours were spent rowing between wind holes. We adopted the mantra ‘just keep the boat moving’ in recognition of the fact that we could row Nunatak at a reasonable 1.5 knots once she had momentum, but trying to get any speed from a standing start was very hard.

Rowing, rowing, rowing …

The three sailors rotated round, taking it in turns to row on each side and to steer. The sails stayed set and we rowed to where we could see wind on the water. When we started to sail we shipped the oars, but stayed in position and as soon as the speed dropped below 2 knots we would start rowing again.

I was starting to develop blisters on my palms from the rough wooden oar handles, Nikki and Elin’s backs were hurting, but we rowed on determined to keep our lead. The runners woke up with the commotion on deck and came up to offer help – we were still pretty adamant we did not want them to jeopardise their recovery by rowing a lot, but Jo helmed and Lowri did a couple of stints rowing so we could eat and drink or strip off a few layers.

Eventually our diligence paid off. We rowed to a solid breeze and ghosted away, watching our rivals lolling behind. The experience had been unnerving so we left the rowing seats on deck, but the wind built enough for a quick ride past the Mull of Kintyre and into the Sound of Jura.

Following another few hours of playing cat and mouse with the wind, always terrified we would park up in a hole while our rivals slid past in wind not far away – we had at one stage hoisted Nikki up the mast to survey the route ahead looking for calm patches on the water – we finally found a solid breeze and started moving again up the sound.

By this time the tide was against us and so we needed to hug the edges of the loch to get out of the tide and make better progress. By now it was a sunny day and the runners – who had been nicknamed ‘The meercats’ as they stuck their heads out of the hatch to look around before going back to their bunks to continue recovery – came out on deck and we worked Nunatak up the Jura shore.

Again we sailed like a fully crewed boat, tacking in and out of a 100m band from the shore, sometimes coming within a few metres of the rocks before tacking out, then heading back in as soon as we saw a drop in our speed over the ground.

We tacked around 100 times over that afternoon and evening. Our course on the tracker looks like a smooth line heading exactly north and gives no indication to the amount of effort expended to achieve it.

Tack by tack

It is hard not to give a blow by blow account of the following 12 hours. I can remember pretty much every tack – we worked our way between rocks and islands, the wind increased to create fairly rough conditions at the beginning of the night and for the first time in the race we had waves crashing over the deck.

We had managed to work our way ahead of Pure Attitude, but did not stop trying to gain every knot of speed we could to increase our lead and give our runners a great head start. They lay down below in their bunks, listening to us working, starting to feel the tension as we drew closer and closer to Fort William – soon it would be their turn.

We came through the Corin narrows with a two-hour lead; the cloud cleared from the top of Ben Nevis and we could see the steep ascent speckled with patches of snow. It looked formidable – neither of the runners could eat as they prepared for their last summit. Meanwhile on deck we fought for every second of advantage we could gain.

With only a couple of miles to go and in flatter water we had one further drama to navigate, which could still cost us significant time between the finish and dropping the runners. During the night while charging the engine had stopped. We had very little fuel and were heeled over and managed to suck air into the fuel system.

Teams rowing

Halfway up the channel we decided to try to bleed the engine and do a test start in neutral to see if we could get it going again. If that did not work we would need to pump up the tender and row the runners ashore, which would take a lot of preparation.

While Elin and Nikki tacked their way up the shallows off Fort William I had my head inside the engine bay, trying to brace myself against the heel of the boat and frantically working the fuel lift pump. It took a couple of goes, but we managed to bleed all the air out of the engine. We hit the finish line then raced towards the dock at the entrance to the Caledonian Canal.

Chris, our shore crew ,was waiting on the dock to catch our lines. We came in with speed and our runners jumped off, all of us feeling sick with nerves. We had smashed it – the sailing leg was won and the coveted line honours trophy, which has been the goal of many a great sailor and adventurer since 1977, was within our grasp.

Up the mountain

Jo and Lowri set off up the mountain in worsening conditions. It was cold and raining, the wind was building, we could no longer see the summit and the cloud was hanging low everywhere. We were elated to have finished the sailing in 1st, but feeling agitated and powerless to do anything further as it was all down to our runners. So once we had secured Nunatak inside the lock we all jumped in a couple of cars to go and wait on the Ben Nevis foothills.

It was raining and cold on the mountain – there were camera crews dotted up the track waiting for the girls to come past. We split up, some of us climbing up the path, some waiting further down and as soon as the yellow bibs of our runners came into sight we started to cheer. They looked great, smiling and confident; they had seen the crew of Pure Attitude coming up as they were coming down and were happy they had a good lead. We ran with them down the final section, chatting and laughing and telling them how amazing we thought they were.

Our second shore support, Mike, who was the previous owner of Nunatak and has competed in the Three Peaks Race multiple times was with us and said the last few miles from the foothills back to the lock are tough and soul-destroying. They are on roads, through industrial and housing estates, a lonely section of run – so Nikki and I drove with Mike to meet the girls on every corner so we could to cheer them on. It was great for us to see them smiling, and to feel like we were in some way taking some of the pain. Elin and Chris went ahead to set up at the finish so we had all bases covered.

Jo and Lowri crossed the line, smiling and victorious. We had a group hug which ruined the cameraman’s finishing photos and cracked open the champagne. We had achieved what we’d turned up to do: won line honours, but not only that we had won the sailing part of the race overall on handicap and won leg 3 conclusively on sailing and running combined.

The runners from Pure Attitude put in a phenomenal run and managed to put their team 39 mins ahead of us on corrected sailing and running time combined to win the IRC trophy, for which we dropped into 2nd place.

The making of a team

When Elin suggested the Three Peaks Yacht Race to me earlier this year I jumped at the chance to sail with her and to race this epic course again. When she showed me her suggested line-up for the crew my stomach did flips. I knew we would be competitive.

The race has been an exceptional one and one of the best experiences of my sailing life. I have shared five days of hard physical and mental pressure with four of the most talented, strong and wonderful women I have ever met in my life.

As a team we were hand-picked by Elin, who knew us all individually, but we did not know each other. We all met for the first time less than two days before the start of the race – we had never practised sailing Nunatak together before the start gun went, Jo and Lowri first ran together the day before the race.

The sailing team

However, from the moment we met we were a team, we understood what was required of us as individuals and how best to work together. We supported and encouraged each other, were honest, took criticism, endured pain, sleep deprivation and physical discomfort because it was for the good of the team and all the while we laughed.

We were diligently and wonderfully supported by our shore team, Chris Frost and Mike and Pam Jacques, whose attention to detail did not waver and made transitions easy to handle, allowing the sailing team to eat and sleep knowing our runners were well supported on the mountains.

The fact that we are all women really should not and did not make a difference to our result. Every one of the crew of Team Aparito Digital Health is a serious athlete and when we line up on the start of any event we chose to take part in, it is on equal and respectful terms to everyone else there regardless of gender.

Endurance sport

When we came to the start of the Three Peaks Race we brought with us a wealth of experience from years of competing in multiple and diverse endurance events. Endurance sports require mental toughness as much as physical strength, and this is never more highlighted than in the field of ultra-marathon running and short-handed offshore racing.

We have taken on one of Britain’s toughest adventure races and proved that gender is not a factor in winning – you need to train hard, be well prepared, work as a team and never ever stop trying to do better.

Of course I would like to say a massive thank you to all our supporters – Aparito Digital Health for their headline sponsorship, Sub Zero, Keela and Spindrift not only for providing fantastic kit for the race, but also for cheering us on all the way round. Primal Pantry and Mountain House also provided us with food.

However the biggest thanks of all needs to go to Chris Frost who quite simply we would not have been able to do the race without. Chris allowed us to use his boat, prepared it for us, delivered it to the start and then followed us up the coast, never losing an opportunity to cheer us on from the shore or provide some sort of support. He and Mike even came out in a boat to shadow us up the shores of Jura.

The documentary following this year’s Three Peaks race, and featuring our team including on board footage will be available on SC4 in Welsh language as a three-part series in July and then a one-hour English language version will appear on Channel 4 later in the year

Single-handed ocean sailor Pip Hare has clocked up thousands of miles racing and cruising. Among her achievements are five solo transatlantics, including the OSTAR and two Mini Transat races. She also works full-time for the RNLI on sea safety and is Consulting Editor on Yachting World. See her gear test on weather routeing packages

See also Pip’s fascinating series on advanced sailing techniques: SAIL FASTER SAIL SAFER

The post Blog: Pip Hare and her all-woman team win Leg 3 of the Three Peaks Yacht Race appeared first on Yachting World.

Solo sailor Pip Hare advises how to get the best out of short-handed sailing by planning times to sleep and times to work together

Before you decide on the best way to run watches double-handed, answer this question: are you sailing double-handed or single-handed in shifts? Successful double-handed teams pushing hard together have often beaten fully crewed entries. To make the most of sailing two-up you both need to be sailing.

Consider at what times over the course of the race will having two people on deck actively sailing make the biggest impact on your speed and when will it make less difference? What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? How will predicted weather conditions affect your performance over the upcoming days?

Watch patterns

How you manage watches and sleep will depend on adapting to conditions, who you are sailing with, any damage to the boat, where your competition is and just how competitive you are feeling. Everyone is different and we cope with physical and mental exertion at different levels and in different ways.

If one of you needs less sleep than the other, then play to that strength, spend more time with both on deck together.

Don’t be afraid to change your watch patterns over the course of a race, and on longer races ensure you are considering your sleeping strategy as an integral part of navigational planning.

Match sleep to the weather

Matching sleep patterns to the weather ensures you don’t miss out on golden opportunities to make miles. Look for the times when having both of you alert and awake, driving the boat, will make a difference. Push yourselves hard to make it through those times: think pumping the main or trimming the kite while one of you is helming, both being on deck for a sail change at the exact moment a front goes over or having the confidence to push on with the spinnaker in those extra three knots of wind because you are both on deck to take it down if things go wrong.

Sailing upwind is often the time to bank some sleep. Autopilots are good at steering upwind and reefing the mainsail is a job easily handled by one. This is a time I would switch to longer watches (sleeping on the high side, of course) to get rested, eat well and save your energy for harder times.

Temperature may also affect the length of a watch: in low latitudes the heat and lack of shade can be difficult, you may choose to run strict short watches during the day, but both push overnight when it is cooler. You might also choose shorter watches in extreme bad weather with the off watch co-skipper sleeping fully kitted up ready to run on deck.

Running a strict watch system allows both of you to have the same – decent – amount of sleep, while other duties such as routine maintenance and navigation can be split between co-skippers to do off-watch.

I choose to fall back on this system if both crew need to recharge their batteries or if having two people on deck would make very little impact on the overall boat speed. Consider the length of your watches, taking into account that it takes around 90-120 minutes to complete a full sleep cycle, and the average time anyone can sustain a high level of concentration is four hours.

Set up your watch system around the maximum time you are happy for your co-skipper to stay on deck, agree to include changing, ablutions and making the tea in off-watch time to ensure no one person is left on deck alone for too long.

Be honest with each other

Extreme tiredness and lack of energy can creep up on even the most accomplished ocean sailor and being honest with yourself and also your co-skipper about injuries, tiredness and performance is crucial to success. Always check your performance against the boat’s polars, if you are alone on deck and struggling to get the boat going, then call up your co-skipper and work on it together.

Be honest with each other about your levels of motivation and how hard you are prepared to push before the race; pushing someone else outside their own acceptable levels of discomfort can be counterproductive. Understanding what these levels are before the start will help to manage conflict on the water.

Learn to nap

Napping is not just for single-handers; learning how to do this will really help your performance. A 20-minute nap will significantly increase your alertness and short-term energy levels. However, sleeping for more than 30 minutes may lead to sleep inertia, making it very hard to wake up.

If you are both struggling with tiredness consider taking alternate short naps until one of you feels alert enough to stay up for a full sleep cycle of 90-120mins while the other crashes.

Quick tips

• If sleeping in foulweather gear, invest in a fleece and Gore-tex blanket to wrap yourself in; your body temperature drops around 1° when you sleep.

• Tuck a mobile phone with a vibrating alarm inside your mid-layer against your collarbone, this can rouse you from deep sleep when a sound alarm may not.

• For most people 0200-0400 is the time in our circadian rhythms we most struggle to stay awake, so consider managing this time with alternate short naps.

• Dehydration will make you sleepy. If you are starting to feel tired, drink water or an electrolyte drink. This should help boost your alertness in the short term.

Single-handed ocean sailor Pip Hare has clocked up thousands of miles racing and cruising. Among her achievements are five solo transatlantics, including the OSTAR and two Mini Transat races. She also works full-time for the RNLI on sea safety and is Consulting Editor on Yachting World. See her gear test on weather routeing packages

See also Pip’s fascinating series on advanced sailing techniques: SAIL FASTER SAIL SAFER

The post How to plan watches and sleep when sailing short-handed appeared first on Yachting World.

One of the largest ever gatherings of big schooners made a superlative spectacle at the opening of the 20th Superyacht Cup in Palma

Palma Bay witnessed the superlative sight today of seven classic and replica schooners gathering, together with one Fife gaff cutter, for an exhibition sail, that resembled a friendly match. Glorious sunny weather and a sea breeze of 12-15 knots set this extraordinary fleet off to perfection.

Even at classic regattas, such a fine selection of large schooners is seldom seem, not least because some of these yachts have never raced before. Germania Nova, a replica of th 1908 classic Germania, was one such. They assembled for a special spectacle to preface the 20th anniversary of the Superyacht Cup.

The first finisher of the match, if you can call it this, was the extremely well-sailed Mariette, an original Herreshoff design which celebrated her centenary last year. This is the yacht that the late Tom Perkins restored back in the 1990s using original drawings from the MIT library, and which has been looked after handsomely for many years by her current owner and captain Charlie Wroe.

Mariette’s smaller ‘sistership’, the recently restored Francis Sweisguth designed Kelpie of Falmouth, which was originally built in 1929, was also taking part.

So, too, was Naema, a 129ft replica Alfred Mylne design, Shenandoah, the 108ft three-masted schooner, the huge 180ft Elena, a replica Herreshoff design, and Eleonora, the 162ft replica of 1910 Herreshoff’s design Westward, built in 2002.

The odd one out, if you could really call her that, was Moonbeam. Although clearly an eligible member of the ‘big class’, this 115ft William Fife design from 1914 is a gaff cutter and has been a well-known sight at classic yacht regattas.

Here is a short video that captures a little of the magic of this fantastic fleet under sail.

The post Video: the superb sight of seven big schooners and a Fife gaff cutter at the Superyacht Cup appeared first on Yachting World.

A sea of spinnakers, maxis crossing tacks with Folkboats, a grand day out for all and you have the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. Bob Fisher captures a snapshot of British yachting since 1931

When Major Cyril Windeler suggested to the Island Sailing Club that it should run a race round the Isle of Wight, it was to him an obvious opportunity for the owners of smaller yachts to enjoy a bigger than usual competition.

Major Cyril Windeler, founder of the RTI

This was the age of Big Boat racing and the beginning of the J Class, but the new race was restricted to vessels of between 5 and 25 tons. The course was challenging, but not too challenging and could be successfully completed in a day from the centre of British yachting – Cowes.

What began as a race for 25 starters in 1931 has grown and grown to a peak of over 1,800 competitors. For many sailors, the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race is a once-a year, not-to-be-missed jolly on a summer’s day. For others it is a battle of wits over a complex course, involving changing currents, unpredictable breezes and idiosyncratic tides.

There have been many changes over the years. It is taken for granted now that the race is sailed in a westabout direction, but the second race, in 1932, had the fleet of 32 starting to the east.

Threading the Needles

Until 1955, Bridge buoy had to be left to port and then there were years in which it was possible to ‘thread The Needles’, passing between two of the chalk pillars. Jack Knights did so with great success in a Yachting World Diamond to win the race in 1961, but the practice was frowned upon and from 1963 until 1980 Palm buoy was dropped offshore of the infamous hazards, Goose Rock and the wreck of the Varvassi.

When the entry was extended to boats of more than 25 tons in 1948, the bigger boats raced for the Crankshaw Bowl and had to round the Nab Tower. That practice was dropped after one year. The start line was also the finish line until 1980 when a separate finish was set between Prince Consort buoy and a committee boat to the north – three years later the double finishing line, as used today, was established.

Round the Island facts

First raced 1931

Biggest fleet 1,875 in 2008

Distance 50 nautical miles

Startline Royal Yacht Squadron line, Cowes

Finish Off Prince Consort, Cowes

Last winner of Gold Roman Bowl Laurent Giles 38 Whooper, Giovanni Belgrano

Course record 2h 52m 15s Ben Ainslie, 2013, JP Morgan BAR AC45

Fastest monohull 3h 43m 50s Mike Slade, 2013, ICAP Leopard

Most wins Sir Edward Heath, 4, in a succession of Morning Clouds

Yachts are in view the whole way round from vantage points on the Isle of Wight and from Hurst Point and Gilkicker on the mainland

For many years there was no time limit for the race – that changed in 1975 – and nowadays there is no shortened course facility. The reasoning behind this is that there is such a wide range in the boats’ speeds that a call for a shortened course would have to be made within three hours of the start, by which time some of the slower boats might still be in the west Solent and the fastest in the east Solent.

Ghosting along to windward in 1932. The 8-metre Felise leads from Guenora, Cutty Sark and Farewell

And it is at the eastern entrance to the Solent that there have been recent changes. The clearance of the obstruction between No Man’s Land Fort and the Island shore allowed boats inside the Fort, which was, until 2005, a mark of the course, but the practice was actively discouraged.

For many years No Man’s Land Fort was a mark of the course

The critics complain that it gives an added advantage to the smaller boats, but ever since the first race when Peter Brett’s 22ft Cornish fishing boat won on handicap, half the races have been won by boats of less than 30ft LOA.

The pattern changed in the Sixties after a couple of victories by modified Folkboats, with the introduction of one-tonners. There were two wins in succession for Sir Max Aitken’s Roundabout and then in the Seventies came the Admiral’s Cuppers, led for three years in a row by Sir Edward Heath’s Morning Clouds – in 1971 and 72 the 40ft Lallow-built S&S version and in 1973 the 45ft Morning Cloud III.

Former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath sailing Morning Cloud IV to victory in 1980. Photo: Beken

The former Prime Minister claimed a fourth win – a record no one has bettered – in 1980 with the Ron Holland-designed 44ft Morning Cloud IV.

Dominating Folkboats

However, Folkboats do appear to have claimed the limelight, even if some are lightly disguised as Contessa 26s. Builder Jeremy Rogers and his family have scored three victories (only the second skipper to do so) with Rosina of Beaulieu, but it must be recorded that since Edward Donald’s win with Celia Mary in 1999, there have been seven victories for Folkboats or their derivatives, making a total of 11, the earliest being H.B. Shaw’s Katrina in 1948.

Which does tend to point a finger towards the handicap systems used. When the race began, and until 1971, the RORC Rating and time scales, in seconds per mile, were used to determine the winner of the Gold Roman Bowl, the overall handicap prize.

Sir Max Aitkin’s S&S-designed Roundabout in 1971. She won the Gold Roman Bowl twice in the Sixties. Photo: Beken

After that it was the International Offshore Rule (IOR). An unrated class was introduced in 1977 and this quickly became popular, accounting for 761 of the then record entry of 1,813.

In 1984 the Channel Handicap System (CHS) was introduced and in 1999 the IRC which continues to be used to this day.

Notorious hazards

There are a number of notorious hazards to the race that have a nasty habit of fighting back. The list of those who have hit one or other of the obstructions off The Needles is almost endless, but happily there have been no life-threatening accidents. The ‘hairpin’ bend at this stage is tempting in the extreme, and there are Goose Rock and the wreck of SS Varvassi to avoid.

A press of spinnakers as the fleet rounds The Needles in 2006. ©Th.Martinez

In 1990, Bruno Troublé hit the Varvassi wreck in the French Admiral’s Cupper Xeryus and so damaged the boat that it had to be abandoned and sank. Part of the stern was recovered and can still be seen in the Haven Bar in Lymington.

Three years later my Barracuda of Tarrant, with the current Editor of this magazine in her crew, was forced too far west at this point and the starboard rudder hit the Varvassi’s boiler, bent the stock and forced the aft edge to pierce the hull. Donning lifejackets, we abandoned the boat as it was taken in tow.

Goose Rock has trapped a few too. In 1995, Mike Slade’s Longobarda hit the western end of it and came to a grinding halt. Chris Law, who was steering, went through the port steering wheel. Having warned the crew: “Brace yourselves,” I joined him and the owner through the starboard one.

Surprisingly, Spirit of the North, with vastly experienced Owen Parker in charge, must have seen our dilemma yet still piled onto the eastern end of the rock. Doubtless others will hit these hazards in the future.

Spirit of the North receiving assistance after hitting Goose Rock off The Needles in 1995. Photo: Jamie Lawson-Johnston/PPL

For the majority, the passage will be safe, and for some fast. In 1933, two boats took more than 24 hours to complete the course (there was no time limit until 1976), but when multihulls were allowed to enter in 1961, a new world opened. The race record had stood to the 12-metre Little Astra at 7h 45m since 1948, but Don Robertson’s 36ft catamaran Snow Goose reduced it to 6h 34m. Tony Bullimore in Apricot and Mike Whipp with Rodney Pattisson in Paragon reduced the time further and, in 2001, Francis Joyon, sailing with Pattisson in the 60ft trimaran Dexia Eure et Loire cut it to 3h 08m.

The monohulls got quicker too. In 2001 Mike Slade in Skandia Life Leopard claimed his third monohull record only to shatter it again in 2008 and 2013. Records come only when conditions are ideal – when the wind is due north, for example, and the tide turns in favour at The Needles and the flood is not too strong after Bembridge Ledge buoy.

Any boat entering the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race follows in the footsteps of many famous boats. Chris Ratsey’s Evenlode, a Fife-designed 34-footer was twice best on corrected time. Franklin Woodroofe’s 36ft Nicholson design Lothian was a double winner, as was Sir Max Aitken’s S&S one-tonner Roundabout.

©Th.Martinez/Sea&Co

There have been many other level-raters at the front, including Robin Aisher, with his Yeoman XXV. And in 1988, Harold Cudmore steered the Whitbread maxi Drum for Arnold Clark to win the Gold Roman Bowl. There have been J Class yachts such as Velsheda and hordes of dayboats, Dragons, Etchells, Ultra 30s and South Coast One-Designs such as Marbella, which won the Silver-Gilt bowl in 2007. And there will be many more.

The mystery of the Gold Roman bowls

When Cyril Windeler’s idea for a race was still gestating within the Island Sailing Club, he set about finding a trophy. He spotted a recently recovered Roman drinking vessel in a London goldsmith’s window. This Thames-dredged cup suited Windeler’s style and he commissioned a copy to be made by Mappin & Webb.

The replica, as was the custom of the day, was fashioned in silver and gilded. It wasn’t quite what Windeler had wanted, but it was sufficient for the first race in 1931.

But a second Roman Bowl was commissioned (and hallmarked) in 1937 from S. Blanckensee & Son of Birmingham to be fashioned in gold. It is 112mm in diameter with a single handle of 46mm and stands 72mm above the wooden plinth (fashioned of oak from HMS Victory). It weighs 244g. Windeler also ordered three silver replicas, which bear the hallmark of Blanckensee, but in Chester.

A sporting gesture by Chris Ratsey, who had been declared the winner in 1938 with the Fife-designed Evenlode, but suggested that he might have fouled another competitor and withdrew, led to Windeler presenting him with a silver bowl he had commissioned.

That cup, which is now presented to the boat finishing 2nd on overall handicap, was presented on Ratsey’s death to the ISC and is joined today by another silver-gilt trophy, which goes to the overall winner on ISC handicap rating.

The mystery as to which trophy is which comes from 1984 when what is thought to be the original silver-gilt trophy, bearing a 1931/2 hallmark, was presented to the Royal Lymington YC by the estate of Lionel St Clair Byrne. Byrne had won this bowl in 1953 when Windeler decided it should be awarded as a keepsake to the winner in Coronation year.

Local folklore records that Byrne used the two bowls for cocktail snacks, but decided that the gold one was too valuable to sit on his mantelpiece and took it for safe deposit to the bank. When the time came to return it to the ISC, he discovered he had deposited the silver-gilt one and inadvertently kept the gold one on show in his home.

The silver-gilt one is now the Lionel Byrne Cup and is presented each year to the Royal Lymington YC member with the best performance.

But where is the original Roman bowl dredged from the Thames? Could it be in the Mansion House (the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London) or at the Goldsmiths’ Guild or in some dusty cabinet?

See also Top Tracks in the Round the Island Race – how to find the best route

The post The Round the Island Race – the history of Britain’s favourite race appeared first on Yachting World.

Toby Hodges introduces the Kraken 66, first in a range of three models for bluewater cruising built in China

Kraken is a new brand designed in New Zealand and built in China, founded by two experienced British businessmen and sailors in Hong Kong. They are marketing a particularly competitively priced range of bluewater cruisers.

The first three models, drawn by Dibley Marine, are a 50, 58 and 66, which will be built at Hansheng in Xiamen, a yard that builds for many other brands, including Passport Yachts.

The first Kraken is the flagship, a 66 called White Dragon for chairman Dick Beaumont, and is nearing completion.

Beaumont decided to concentrate his 100,000 sea miles of experience, earned cruising the world aboard his previous 58-footer, Moonshadow, over eight years, into a new range of specialist cruisers.

“When the wind is over 35 knots these yachts will look after you; not the other way round,” says Beaumont. “The Kraken has a rig and deck layout designed to make short-handed sailing easy and enjoyable.”

No corners cut

Kraken has taken a belt and braces approach to the build, not least with the keel, which is fully encapsulated and its lead ballast moulded into the hull. It also has glassfibre and Kevlar laminate reinforcements.

The company has gone to the marketing lengths of branding this a ‘Zero Keel’ system – “because it has zero bolts and zero risk of falling off the hull,” says Beaumont.

“No bluewater yacht should be built without safety being its very first consideration. The Kraken hull and keel are one piece. It is impossible for them to be separated.” Beaumont told me that a long keel and a protective skeg for the rudder were the first criteria he searched for in a bluewater cruiser, and one he believes eliminates most yards today.

The Kraken keel is shallow with a long chord and generous bulb. “Kevin Dibley’s involvement with America’s Cup designer Laurie Davidson enabled him to transfer some of that knowledge and detail into this modern cruising keel design,” says Kraken Yachts’ managing director, Roger Goldsmith.

Kraken Yachts use hydraulics extensively both to power equipment for sail handling and to reduce the potential for electrical failure. The sail control systems are all hydraulic, including winches, furlers (both in-boom and dual headsail), captive winch, vang and backstay adjusters. The windlass and bow thruster are also hydraulic on the 66, as are the dinghy davit winches, the dive compressor and even the watermaker.

“The move to hydraulics has been driven by my belief that what fails most is electric motors on large yachts,” Beaumont explains.

Other robust elements to the design include the traditional raked stem and moderate displacement for a comfortable motion through waves.

White Dragon is being royally fitted out with options including a Southern Spars carbon rig, Reckmann dual headsail furlers and a carbon sprit for a furling code sail.

She has a particularly generous 2,200lt of fuel tanks, which help give her a range under power of around 1,400 miles at cruising speed – or seven days under power alone.

Price is the key

The price of a Kraken yacht is the key sales point. It positions them only slightly higher than serial produced yachts and distinctly lower than the typical high-end semi-custom luxury cruisers built in Europe. This allows extensive extra equipment to be included while keeping the end price down. “We can build a boat at a much higher spec and lower cost than if we built it elsewhere,” Beaumont explains.

All Kraken models have an interior pilot station or control centre. They use a time-honoured centre cockpit layout, with a passageway galley leading to a spacious owner’s cabin aft. Kraken offers a good amount of customisation on the interior layout, “as long as it makes sense from a seaworthy point of view,” adds Beaumont.

He is also keen to stress the quality of the joiner work and the amount of solid wood and hand craftsmanship used on a Kraken.

White Dragon will launch this summer.

Price ex VAT: Kraken 50 US$695,000 (£480,680). Kraken 58 $995,000 (£688,167). Kraken 66 $1,595,000 (£1,103,140). www.krakenyachts.com

Dimensions

LOA 20.12m/66ft 0in

LWL 17.29/56ft 9in

Beam 5.50m/18ft 0in

Draught 2.01m/6ft 7in

Disp 37,750kg/83,224lb

Sail area 177m²/1,910ft²

The post Kraken Yachts, a new brand of competitively priced bluewater cruisers appeared first on Yachting World.

We asked a range of bluewater cruisers who are actively sailing the oceans to recommend their most useful item of galley equipment

Pressure cookers were the most popular galley appliance for their convenience and time- and energy-efficient means of preparing food. An airtight lid allows the ingredients inside to cook speedily as the pressure rises.

Bones and Anna Black

Bowman 57, Emily Morgan

Bones and Anna have both sailed from childhood and live aboard a 1982 Bowman 57, mixing their time doing ocean passages and private charter. Winter is spent in the Caribbean or further afield and summers in the UK.

Tefal pressure cooker

“Galley equipment would not be complete without our pressure cooker. We have a Tefal with all the safety features. It saves on gas by drastically cutting cooking time, and minimises heat and steam in the boat, which is important in the tropics.”

Tefal pressure cookers are sold in 5.7lt to 6lt models for feeding up to six people. The safety features to which Black refers include the opening and closing mechanism, a pressure-controlled valve and a safety gasket for pressure release.

Price £50 for the 5.7lt secure aluminium model. www.tefal.co.uk

John and Christine Lytle

Bowman 40, Oriole

The Lytles sail a 20-year-old Bowman, which has been based in the Eastern Caribbean for the past 14 years, having crossed the Atlantic via the Canaries and Cape Verdes in 2002. Since 1976 the majority of their spare time has been spent cruising with two sons who now both earn their living on the sea.

Prestige pressure cooker

“For cold climates, a pressure cooker gives great savings on cooking fuel and produces a meal in a fraction of the time taken for conventional cooking. Our pressure cooker is a Prestige, bought 20 years ago. It is fairly compact which makes storage easier and I can still get replacement seals, etc.”

Prestige has a range of aluminium pressure cookers from 4lt to 6lt.

Price £40-£70. www.prestige.co.uk

EasiYo yogurt maker

“For hot climates our best galley aid is the EasiYo yoghurt maker. All you need to make a litre of excellent-quality yoghurt is a packet of Easi Yo powder and water, and the Easi Yo container and vacuum flask.

“We bought ours 14 years ago when we left the UK as yoghurt was not readily available in the Caribbean Islands, but now is. Each year I bring out enough sachets to last the season.”

An EasiYo makes 1kg of Greek-style or fruit-flavoured yoghurt. A starter pack comes with maker, jar and two 1kg yoghurt mixes.

Price £22.99. www.easiyo.com

Geoff and Linda Erdman

Bowman 36, Curare

“It’s a toss-up between the dog bowls and the pressure cooker,” say the Erdmans who were cruising in Cuba at the time of contact. “Both get used together so maybe that’s one galley item?” 

Lagostina pressure cooker

“A stainless steel Lagostina 4 quart version is great for preparing meals underway and the occasional canning.”

The Domina Vitamin model is so-called because the Italian maker says that the 6psi pressure setting is ideal for vegetables and preserves up to 35 per cent more nutrients. The mirrored stainless steel pot is a smart design for stove-to-table serving. The new Lagostina has a capacity of 7.4oz.

Price US$249.99 (£174.30) www.lagostinausa.com

Dog bowl

“The dog bowls (never actually used by our dog) are wide-based, steep-sided dishes that hold food in nearly all conditions.”

David and Sally Batten

Stimson 56, Alcedo of Ryme

The Battens have owned a number of yachts including the Steve Dalzell-designed 45ft wood epoxy cutter Avocet of Ryme.

Alcedo was designed by Chris Stimson and built by Martyn Brake in Dorset using a strip plank system for the canoe body and an unusual flat-pack kit of composite panels for the topsides.

At the time of writing they had 1,630 miles still to sail across the Pacific.

Seagull water filter

“The Seagull water filter is brilliant. It makes lugging large water bottles unnecessary and we drink from it all the time. Just remember to ship a few spare filters because they get blocked up quite quickly if using iffy shore supplies.”

The Seagull filter purifies water instantly, removing any viruses or bacteria from dock or tank water by means of an ultra-fine filter, with no electricity or chemicals needed.

Price from £336. www.purewateronline.co.uk

Stuart and Anne Letton

Island Packet 45, Time Bandit

This couple bought their first boat together in their teens. Now armed with an Island Packet 45 they have crossed the Atlantic four times, cruised to the Lofotens and are currently on the first part of a circumnavigation.

Mr D thermal cook pot

“Stuff a chicken in it along with some veg, fill with water, bring to the boil in 15 minutes then leave tied up somewhere in the boat. Come dinnertime, a quick reheat and you have a full dinner for two. Minimal fuss. Minimal gas and water.”

Mr D’s eco-friendly thermal cooker can save up to 80 per cent on fuel costs. It is a slow cooker rather than a pressure cooker, so meals are boiled up and left to cook slowly in the retained heat. Food inside the pot retains a temperature of over 60°C even after six hours, says Mr D.

A two-pot option has a second top pot that allows you to cook two different items at the same time.

Price from £84.95 for the smallest 3lt model. www.mrdscookware.com

Paul and Caroline Frew

Oyster 575, Juno

The Frews have sailed for more than 30 years, initially in the Solent and then chartering abroad on holiday. In 2011 they bought Juno, since when they have sailed over 40,000 miles, including two Mediterranean circuits, two Atlantic crossings and most recently with the World ARC across the Pacific to Australia.

Nespresso machine

“The galley aid that we value most depends on who you talk to! For Caroline it is the EasiYo natural yoghurt maker (see left), but for me it is our Nespresso coffee machine, fixed to the bulkhead in the galley and able to make a cappuccino in any sea conditions.”

Price £89 for the compact Inissia model. www.nespresso.com

John and Stella Dyer

First 47.7, Exocet Strike

The Dyers ran their boat for skippered charter out of Plymouth before equipping her for long-term cruising. They are currently in New Zealand, having sailed there with the World ARC, a voyage they have been planning for the last decade.

Cockpit barbecue

“A gas barbecue is so useful for cooking without getting the below decks area too hot.”

Consider the coal-fired Cobb or Lotus Grill types. They are insulated so can be picked up even during cooking and moved.

The stainless steel dome-shaped Cobb has a clever design that allows fat to drip through, making it easy to clean. Price £99.95. www.cobb-bbq.co.uk

The German Lotus (above) is smokeless and, thanks to a built-in battery-operated fan, uses 90 per cent less charcoal than a standard barbecue. Price £129. www.cuckooland.com

We asked the same cruisers for their recommendations for Essential Kit Under £500. See HERE

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New CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race announces a return to the roots of the race with a new route including a Southern Ocean leg that will be the longest in the race's history

The Volvo Ocean Race today announced the route for the next edition in 2017 and with that a return to the emphasis on long Southern Ocean legs.

The route will now go from Alicante to Lisbon before a 7,000-mile stretch to Cape Town and then the biggest leg in the event’s long history, 12,000 miles from South Africa to Hong Kong south of Australia and through the Southern Pacific Ocean. This will see crews at sea for an estimated 27 to 37 days.

From here the race has a non-scoring leg to Guangzhou in China, then on to Auckland before turning for another Southern Ocean leg and rounding of Cape Horn to Itajaí in Brazil. Then it stops at Newport, Rhode Island before crossing the Atlantic to Cardiff, returning to the UK for the first time in 12 years. The last two legs go via the north of Scotland and The Minch to Gothenburg before a grand finale in The Hague.

Announced by the new CEO, Mark Turner, who has been in place for only three weeks, the route decision largely pre-dates his arrival. The most significance change, the first big Southern Ocean leg, came about because sponsors Abu Dhabi are not going to participate again and so the race no longer needs to stop there.

However, Turner’s stamp can be felt in some of the ways he is seeking to implement the changes, and his enthusiasm for the return to the historic principles of the original Whitbread Race. Turner himself raced in the event in 1989/90 on British Defender.

Of the new Southern Ocean leg he says:

“This route is taking us back to our roots. This is the big one for us. We’re tripling the miles in the Southern Ocean. It takes the race close to the Antarctic and is the leg that has forged the reputation of this race, made the skippers as characters and leaders and is what every sailor dreams of. This is the place to test you and your team.

“We will sail in the Southern Ocean three times more miles than in previous races. It is the second longest leg in the history of the race, taking between 27 and 37 days. It’s a monster of a leg and we will apply some bonus points to it.”

He adds: “The race will be over 40,000 miles, longer than any previous race and [sailed] in eight months and not nine. We will be about capturing some of the original spirit. We will visit 11 cities, so we have the chance to inspire more people than ever.”

The race will stop in Hong Kong, a global commercial hub which Turner says both he and the race organisers have long had an ambition to include, and to which Turner has links through the Extreme Sailing Series he founded.

The new route also features a stop in Guangzhou, a city ranked as ‘tier 1’ status in China, and a short hop from Hong Kong. This will be a non-scoring leg, but there will be an in port race that does count overall.

The stop in Cardiff also has some Mark Turner hallmarks, as this is a city with which he also forged a partnership for the Extreme Series. And it will see the race to return to the UK, increasing the exposure to that market and providing another neat link with history, as the Whitbread once started and finished in the UK.

April 04, 2015. Leg 5 to Itajai onboard Team SCA. Day 17. Birds and showers. Nature.

Organisers hope the next Volvo Ocean Race will involve all seven of the current VO65 one-designs. They also have the time if necessary to build an eighth boat, should sufficient teams be found. At present, four teams are believed to be interested, if not formally signed up.

Team SCA and Abu Dhabi will not be returning as they are said to have achieved what they hoped for last time. Abu Dhabi won on their second attempt and the Team SCA women’s team garnered record public engagement.

Mark Turner has some interesting things to say about shaping the Southern Ocean route, attempting to re-engage sailing enthusiasts and the inclusion of more women in the race and its following.

First, for the Southern Ocean legs, he suggests it might be possible to set fewer waypoints and leave more tactical decisions to skippers. A criticism of previous round the world races in general has been that waypoints constrained routes and sometimes forced yachts into worse weather.

“Waypoints are super dangerous things. The information on ice has never been so good, so we can spend some money on this and give a very high level of information and hand responsibly into skippers’ hands,” he comments.

“We can also be proactive. If we see a typhoon heading towards the fleet we can take action.

“But,” he adds, “we have to find ways to make the boats do something different. We will consider how to use AIS, maybe deprive them of weather info or have blackouts. A host of things are on the table to encourage people to take tactical risks, reward that and open it up a bit more.”

When I ask if there will be a return to more of a sailing narrative for knowledgeable enthusiasts of the race — my impression of the last is that the overall plot had become atomised into social media moments — he replies:

“I don’t think the sporting side has got less important. You can’t ignore it. Sports sponsorship is bigger business, but perhaps the decisions of where [teams] went and when got lost. There will be a rebalancing for sure. People grow up dreaming of wanting to win this.

“Where the race disappointed last time was that there was a lot of emphasis on the human adventure, but what happens to bring emotion out is in the sporting moments. The emphasis on lifestyle stories is fine, but once people are interested, how do you take it to the next level? That comes from the relentless intensity of competition.”

One key area of the race’s following that conspicuously lags behind when you look either at either the race analytics or our own is female engagement. I ask Turner if he is planning to change that, and he answers:

“The race will not be all male next time. I can’t tell you the solution to get there right now this second because this is a bit of a journey now for us, but I will do whatever I need to do to make sure that this is not an all-male race next time.”

The route of the Volvo Ocean Race 2017/8

40,000 miles round the world
Leg 1
Alicante-Lisbon, 700 miles, 3 days approx

Leg 2
Lisbon-Cape Town, 7,000 miles, 22 days approx

Leg 3
Cape Town-Hong Kong, 12,000 miles, 32 days approx

Leg 4
Hong Kong-Guangzhou, non scoring transition leg and in port race

Leg 5
Hong Komg-Auckland, 6,000 miles, 29 days approx

Leg 6
Auckland-Itajaí,

Leg 7
Itajaí-Newport, Rhode Island, 5,500 miles, 8 days approx

Leg 8
Newport-Cardiff , 3,300 miles, 8 days approx

Leg 9
Cardiff-Gothenburg, 1,230 miles, 5 days approx

Leg 10
Gothenburg-The Hague, 520 days, 3 days approx

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The 2016 recipient of the Tilman Medal, Skip Novak, argues that sailing should always have an objective – and his is to climb unconquered peaks

I have always thought that voyaging under sail is more gratifying when it has an underlying purpose. Floating about somewhat ad hoc across oceans from one paradise to the next has never been my cup of tea, although this is classic cruising as we know it.

I realise that cruising as a means to kick back and relax has its place in the world, especially if you need a clean break from a full-on hectic working life. The desire to ‘cast off’ is even more understandable for people who have been lifelong weekend sailors wishing one day to ‘live it’.

I must admit to having overdosed on a life at sea. Although I love being on the ocean, my preoccupations now are always for making that landfall; at first to smell it, then on principle to march up to the highest piece of ground. This is de rigueur for any day trip ashore on the Pelagics – one charter guest accused me of running a boot camp – and of course it applies equally to a multi-day expedition.

It has all become somewhat of an obsession. Possibly this could have something to do with a 25-year-old mind trapped inside a 64-year-old body all the while never forgetting the TR (time remaining) factor.

Sailing to climb is one of our main focuses on the Pelagics. The concept satisfies on a personal level. Luckily there are many likeminded souls who have joined us in high latitudes over the years – more than enough to make a business out of it. The niche that we have helped to create has been facilitating access to mountaineering objectives that can only be reached by small vessels.

For climbers, exploratory mountaineering implies quality that is underpinned by a high level of uncertainty, and where rescue is inherently problematic. Sea voyages certainly add value to this dynamic, but can also add more obstacles to overcome. And that’s the way we like it.

First exploration

I made my first voyage to high latitudes in 1983 when I was asked to prepare and skipper the 61ft Sparkman & Stephens ex-ocean racer War Baby for Warren Brown from Bermuda. It was the chance of a lifetime and I took it, breaking the cycle of seasonal ocean racing in Europe.

Starting and ending in Lymington, during four months away we touched down in the Scilly Isles, tippled our way around the whisky coast of Scotland, visited the Orkneys, Shetlands and Fair Isle before running up the west coast of Norway from Bergen to Hammerfest. Then it was on to what was billed as the icing on the cake: Bear Island and Spitsbergen, before returning to the UK via the Faroe Isles.

Although one of Warren’s goals was to “get people ashore”, early on it was apparent with this whistlestop tour there was little time to roam around in the hills. No sooner had we tied up or dropped the hook than Warren looked around and often announced: “We’re leaving now!” This became the repeated catchphrase by the crew, which we still use to this day with fond remembrance.

Photo op on an outlier of the Trident range, South Georgia 2013

Although frustrating from a climber’s perspective – completely equipped and the equipment never seeing the light of day – it was a voyage of discovery that whetted my appetite. More so, after I read Bill Tilman’s Triumph and Tribulation about his 1974 cruise to Spitsbergen, which we had on board in the ‘Arctic library’.

Pioneer

Tilman is iconic in the sailing to climb genre, inarguably its pioneer. His was an extraordinary life impossible to repeat in this day and age. After surviving two world wars in active service – the first in the trenches and the second with Italian and Albanian partisans – he did a ten-year stint of farming in Kenya where he met Eric Shipton, another farmer, but already a seasoned mountaineer.

Recognising Tilman’s toughness and stoic nature, Shipton invited him on forays to climb new routes on Mt Kenya for recreation. Soon after that, the pair upped stakes – Tilman finishing his African experience by bicycling from Kenya to Cameroon and living on bananas – and spent the next 20 years in the greater ranges of the Himalayas, including leading the British Mount Everest reconnaissance expeditions in the Thirties and Fifties.

Their forte was ‘exploratory mountaineering’ and in addition to many first ascents, they covered an enormous amount of territory heretofore unseen by western eyes.

In 1954 Tilman, now in his 56th year, decided to take up sailing and, as one did at the time and still happens today, he bought himself a yacht with no prior sailing experience. She was aptly called Mischief, a well-used Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter of 45ft LOA. Shortly thereafter he and a pick-up crew set out for Patagonia . . . as one does.

Mischief in Patagonia is the first of his eight highly literate, immensely amusing yet provocative sailing books that covered his maritime adventures over 22 years.

Following Tilman

Both the climbing and sailing compendiums are carried on the Pelagics, providing a continuous source of inspiration and entertainment. Some boats carry the Bible, we carry Tilman. Sadly Tilman, when 79, was lost at sea serving as a crew on En Avant, a converted sailing barge, somewhere between Rio and the Falkland Islands in 1977 while on their way to climb Smith Island in the Antarctica. A fitting end for him, not so for the young skipper and the rest of his crew.

Having caught the bug from that first voyage north, and with someone to emulate I set out on my own boat, the 54ft Pelagic in 1987 for our first southern sailing to climb season. Like Tilman, much was left to chance.

After a few mishaps on the delivery south, we had six weeks on the Antarctic Peninsula climbing and ski mountaineering, filming it all for Italian television to pay the bills. This was immediately followed by another expedition to South Georgia as part of the delivery to Cape Town. One expedition led to another and almost three decades later I have not lost my enthusiasm for the next one. And there is always the next one.

Exploratory mountaineering

Discounting ‘tourist peaks’ – and Everest along with the Seven Summits are included in that category – what we do by sea to access the mountains is not materially different from exploratory mountaineering in the Greater Ranges. Arriving by air to Kathmandu in Nepal is similar to arriving by air into Stanley in the Falklands or into Ushuaia on the Beagle Channel as staging points for South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula respectively.

By sea the obstacles are similar in number, but different in character – no porters, mule men or yak men to negotiate with or the terrain to deal with on the trek into base camp, or landslides, bridges down or unseasonal deep snow. The boat itself is a potential for problems though, owing to possible mechanical or rigging failures either before departure or en route.

Seasickness seems to be unavoidable for most people at one time or another. In place of the terrain, the sea – in our case the Drake Passage – can strike anxiety, if not fear, into most sailors and sometimes terror into the landlubbers along for the ride. And a bad ice year in the Antarctic can prevent our landing at all.

The difference and obvious advantage in the approach by sea, however, is like the tortoise who carries his home on his back, the vessel is in fact the team’s mobile base camp, which can roam more or less at will targeting multiple objectives.

And therein lies one of our biggest dangers in mountaineering by sea: the risk of not even getting started owing to the relative comfort of the yacht. It is one thing to leave a big tent at a base camp at 4,000m and strike out for higher ground to sleep in a small tent, yet another to leave the comfort of a yacht with a warm, dry berth, meals and drink endlessly laid on.

Excuses are easy to come by: bad weather getting worse, good weather soon to be getting bad, too many crevasses to get started and simply the immensity and remoteness of maritime polar regions, once that concept starts to sink in to your psyche. We have observed that the chances of success in the mountains are inversely proportional to the comfort of the mobile base camp – and that’s us!

One of the few

Going back almost three decades, we were one of the very few yachts chartering in places such as Antarctica, Patagonia and South Georgia and still fewer offered the platform and logistical expertise for not only mountaineers, but also kayakers, cold water divers and other adventurers with clear-cut goals in mind.

Hoist by our own petard in publicising this business, we have recently experienced a minor explosion in the genre and in any given season there could be half a dozen sailing to climb expeditions at any one time in any of these venues. Still, when compared with relatively accessible mountain ranges around the world, the high latitudes both north and south are able to maintain their remoteness because of the logistical challenges of getting that mobile base camp to the coast.

It is what we call the ‘real adventure’. Wild country that in one man’s lifetime is an inexhaustible selection of unclimbed routes on the big classic peaks and many virgin summits still, both named and unnamed.

The Tilman Medal

In 2016 Skip Novak was awarded the Royal Cruising Club’s (RCC) Tilman Medal. This is one of sailing’s foremost awards, given to the most adventurous cruising endeavours, and is named after Major H. W. (Bill) Tilman, born in 1898.

Tillman fought with distinction in World Wars I and II, earning a Military Medal with bar and a Distinguished Service Order. He carried out expeditions on Everest, and climbed Kilimanjaro alone and many other mountains in days when specialist equipment and experience were scarce.

Tillman took up sailing at 55 and, in search of new mountains to climb, made voyages to Greenland, Africa, Chile and Antarctica in pilot cutters Mischief, Sea Breeze and Baroque.

A memorable expedition

One among many expeditions that stands out as a classic was the British American South Georgia Ski Traverse in January 2005. On board Pelagic the climbing contingent of Crag Jones, Rich Haworth, Julian Attwood and I were supported by three sailing crew for a five-week junket.

Setting out from Stanley in the Falkland Islands, we ran downwind for five days through the Southern Ocean, dodging tabular icebergs en route, making directly for Larsen Harbour, a deep, dramatic fjord at the southern extremity of the island.

The objective was to cherry-pick unclimbed summits in the Salvesen Range (they still are to this day) along the traverse before descending the Ross Glacier for the pick up in Royal Bay.

We were on skis and skins pulling sleds loaded with food, fuel, tentage and climbing gear. One Iridium phone and one VHF radio was our communication package and would be useful for the pick up – but a placebo for a rescue up high. It was clear that if we had an accident we would have to self-rescue back to the shore. This fact engenders a conservative approach, with no heroics.

We spent two days ferrying gut-wrenching loads from the head of the fjord up steep snow and ice to the level of the Philippi Glacier, which offered easier pulling terrain. On day three we waved goodbye to skipper Dion Poncet and crew Jeromine and Laurent Pasteur, skiing up with the last load.

Dion, one of the most experienced South Georgia hands, gave us confidence that we would be picked up, barring any major mechanical failure of Pelagic. If for some reason they didn’t show, it meant a long trek to Cumberland Bay where the island’s logistic base is located.

Using out-of-date maps from the original South Georgia surveys in the 1950s with compass – and a GPS to tell us where we had been not where we were going – was challenging in the often misty conditions. We only briefly caught sight of distant features while skirting the odd crevasse. Four camps later and we had arrived at the nexus of six unclimbed mountains and a few unnamed. We set immediately to work.

During the following week we were more than busy, including a failed attempt on Mt Baume (our principal target), a consolation prize in climbing an unnamed peak nearby (subsequently named Mt Pelagic), and surviving a four-day storm in a snow cave.

On day 12 we dug and chipped ourselves out in very cold conditions and made a dash down the Spenceley Glacier, up over the Ross Pass and to the coast in one long day, having to recover ditched gear the day after, as the snow had run out high on the lateral moraine.

It had been an elegant traverse of a section of the island that had been barely travelled and we enjoyed many a challenge. Of course, our primary climbing objectives were not realised, which always leaves things undone.

In the winter season of 2014 Stephen Venables and I returned with a commercial group to repeat this route. Well, we never got started owing to extremely bad weather and were forced to retreat to the north central section of the island to attempt and successfully climb the lesser three peaks of the Trident Range. After some toing and froing in correspondence with the Antarctic Place names Committee, they are now Poseidon, Thalassa and Tethys. See Skip’s feature on sailing to South Georgia in winter.

How had things changed in ten years? Glacial recession surely, but not much else on the ground, other than a new map issued based on satellite surveys, which was very welcome. But when Rodrigo Jordan (below with Skip) pulled out his iPad and dropped a pin on a GPS-synched Google Earth image to show the way to our next waypoint Venables, a traditionalist, scoffed quite rightly: “Exploration is really dead!”

Well, I will still be carrying my magnetic compass in my jacket pocket when Venables, Jones and I return to South Georgia this September, to try to climb Mt Baume – yet again.

Skip Novak is a columnist and regular contributor to Yachting World, and author of our acclaimed Storm Sailing Series, which you can also find on our website. He was born in Chicago in 1952 and started sailing at an early age.

He has raced in four Whitbread Round the World races and in 2001 co-skippered the 108ft catamaran Innovation in The Race round the world in 65 days, an event in which his future wife, Elena, also raced.

In 1987 he built the steel cutter Pelagic and has since spent 26 seasons in Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia and Antarctica, sailing and mountaineering.

The post Skip Novak goes sailing to climb mountains – in the wake of Tilman appeared first on Yachting World.

Don't miss any of the action from the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race 2016 with this spectator's guide. We outline the various ways you can keep up to date with the race from shoreside or from home

Race start time: 0830 (UTC)

On the Isle of Wight? Watch from ashore…

As the excitement builds you will want a fantastic vantage point to watch the action. The table below outlines the best viewing points at each stage of the race along with directions of how to get to them. Prepare yourself to race around the island yourself by road or find a spot and stick to it, it up to you!

Alternatively you can stay in the Race Village in Cowes or the Royal Southern Race Hub in Hamble where J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race TV live will be shown on the big screen.

The post How to follow the Round the Island Race 2016 – a spectator’s guide appeared first on Yachting World.

The Broughton islands on Canada’s Pacific coast are hard to reach, but a delight once you’re there, says Liza Copeland. And there may be bears …

We left Dead Point at 0800 in a flat calm and entered Beware Passage – inauspicious names for cruising in dense fog, but we had used this rock-ridden channel before and wanted to make the most of our eldest son Duncan and his wife Larissa’s short visit.

Suddenly my husband, Andy, called out “Bears!” Turning the boat took an agonising amount of time in the narrow channel and swift current, but then we followed in hot pursuit. Duncan peered through binoculars on the foredeck. Finally he pointed jubilantly at two bears ahead, camouflaged by the sand-rock foreshore haze. It was a mum and cub, and they were grizzlies.

What luck! We did not expect to find grizzlies in this region and my camera hand shook in anticipation. It was a surreal situation to be so close, but safe on the boat, yet hear their sounds so clearly. Mesmerised, we watched their ears bob up and down through the brush, and were entertained by the inquisitive cub. Finally they showed themselves as the fog cleared.

As we ghosted over to the abandoned native site of Karlukwees on Turnour Island, I looked back. The fog lifted, unveiling a stunning backcloth of mountains, inlets and islands under
a cloudless blue sky.

Flanked by the typical white sand ‘midden’ beach, formed from generations of discarded clam shells, Karlukwees village, the central settlement for the Tlowitsis tribe, was deserted in 1960s and there are now just a few ruined houses and pier stumps left of the active community that once lived there. The beach is bordered by blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes, typically planted by missionaries, along with the orchards that were now laden with apples and plums perfect for picking.

Protective bear spray

We went ashore and started gathering, with protective bear spray in hand! Returning in the dinghy to Bagheera  I noticed the bears were now swimming towards us and seemed very relaxed, much more so than Riss and I were! We realised then they had used the islet as a stepping-stone from one good food source to another.

We were in the Broughtons, a relatively new name for an island group that provides captivating Canadian cruising. With its stunning scenery, abundant wildlife, excellent fishing, a 12,000-year-old human history, cultural sites and coastal characters, deserted anchorages and the odd rustic resort, the region is a hidden jewel. It was only in the 1990s, particularly owing to the incorporation of many of the islands into the Broughton Archipelago Park, British Columbia’s largest marine park, that the region gained an identity.

The problem is the time required to sail there. The Broughtons are at 51°00N 126°45W and Vancouver and Seattle, the main Pacific North West population bases, lie 200 and 300 miles to the south respectively.

The first stretch up Georgia Strait to Desolation Sound is easily achieved, but the barrier of the next 60-80 miles of narrow passes, flanked by 1,500m mountains, suffers strong winds, whirlpools and fierce rapids and is a physical and psychological barrier to heading farther north.

Although summer winds can be light we had been lucky on this trip. Leaving Vancouver we enjoyed the last of a 20-knot south-easterly that whisked us north on a favourable current. Our Beneteau, Bagheera, flew along, completing the 76-mile trip to Comox in nine hours. This pretty, well-stocked town on Vancouver Island is one of our favourites. Friends were waving at the Comox Bay Marina and we pulled in. “We are heading to Desolation tomorrow too,” they informed us. “Beat you there.”

We were all former racers and the challenge was on. We consulted the tide charts for slack water at the Comox Bar and found we could leave at a civilised 1000. It was 35 miles to Desolation Sound and the north-westerlies filled in late morning giving a comfortable reach north-east, back to the mainland side, but as we approached the Copeland Islands just short of the Sound the winds failed.

Sundowners in Laura Cove

We both held on, our speed dropping to three knots, then the advantage of their extra 2ft of waterline and a lightly laden boat showed and they pulled ahead, reaching lovely Laura Cove, our chosen anchorage in Prideau Haven, with enough time to have sundowners ready for us all.

We now had to decide whether to take the most direct passage to the Broughtons, the commercially used route up 55-mile Johnstone Strait that follows the Vancouver Island shore, or take the longer, but generally more benign northern passage.

With calm winds and a favourable current Johnstone Strait is ideal, but typically the north-west summer winds gain momentum during the day, reaching over 30 knots and in its lower stretch lies Seymour Narrows where the maximum flood can run to 16 knots. Arriving early at passes and transiting at slack water is a skill that will be put to the test many times and it is essential to have a current copy of The Canadian Tide and Current Tables, Vol 6 or Ports and Passes.

After listening to the forecast we chose the more northerly route. We were lucky, a light pre-frontal south-easterly gave us a following wind for cruising past Stuart Island, through Yaculta Rapids, Gillard Passage and Dent Rapids at slack water, then gliding north of Sonora, the Thurlows and Harkwicke Island with less than 20 miles required along Johnstone Strait.

This route has several more passes to negotiate and with everyone arriving early our fellow cruisers were becoming familiar. There are some anchorages and a few facilities along this route, with Shoal Bay and Blind Channel being favourite stops.

Many pull into Port Harvey, East Cracroft Island, at the north end of Johnstone Strait, as a welcome break either to anchor or visit the rustic Port Harvey Marine Resort with its small store, and Red Shoe Pub and Restaurant (wear red shoes for a free dessert!). Others may weave north, either to anchor or catch the tide in Chatham Channel then relax at Lagoon Cove Resort, a delightful facility that offers prawns at happy hour, walks, fuel and workshop.

Those needing repairs or provisions will continue to Port McNeill on the Vancouver Island coast, maybe lingering to look for whales and dolphins by Robson Bight Ecological Reserve, and making a stop at picture-postcard Telegraph Cove, the former end of the Telegraph line.

The mall town of Port McNeill has grown in facilities and friendliness, with two supermarkets, a marine store, and repair facilities. There is a good anchorage across the bay and two marinas.

Five miles north-east lies Malcolm Island and the community of Sointula, or ‘Place of Harmony’, in the Finnish language. It is a wonderfully friendly, peaceful place with a unique history. A group of Finnish settlers founded the village in 1901, having become disillusioned by their hard mining life in Nanaimo and established a utopian society thriving on fishing and logging.

A version of utopia

The current community of 500 still operates a relaxed version of utopia, without politics, but with little industry it is challenged to keep its youngsters. On our visit many were visiting for the annual baseball match and there was a lively group in front of the oldest co-operative store in BC, a 20-minute walk from the marina.

A short distance south-east lies Comorant Island and historic Alert Bay. A significant centre for fishing and lumber in the past it now has the region’s largest native community. You can anchor or pull into the public dock. On the south side the colourful village is filled with old buildings dating back to the 1800s.

The U’Mista Cultural Centre opened in 1980 and is poignantly placed next to one of the abandoned residential schools where many of the native children were sent. U’mista means ‘return’ and the museum represents ‘the return of treasures from distant museums’. It houses a magnificent display of masks and other regalia of the Kwakwaka’wakw people that were confiscated in 1921. Up the hill the world’s tallest totem pole stands beside a traditional long-house.

To the west and north lie the multitude of islands of the marine park. These provide picturesque gunkholing and excellent kayaking. The abundant sea life and vegetation provided rich resources for the Kwakuitl people who settled the area, before the European pioneers came here in the late 1800s.

To the east lies Village Island where interpretive tours are offered. All fees go towards the continued clean-up and the building of traditional-style long houses.

Close by is ten-year-old New Vancouver. We were welcomed ashore at this original village site, which one extended family, with government support, has rebuilt. After mooring to the sturdy dock, we were shown two totem poles that took the carver a year to complete.

There are a limited number of overnight anchorages within these outer island groups. These are affected by the winds in Queen Charlotte Strait, which is open to the Pacific Ocean. After a daytime stop many cruisers will head to large Gilford Island, most calling in at Pierre’s Echo Bay Lodge and Marina to stock up with stores, fuel and water, to enjoy happy hour and indulge in one of the regular summer feasts.

The post Bear necessities: cruising the Broughton islands on Canada’s Pacific coast appeared first on Yachting World.

Lloyd Thornburg's record-setting MOD70 trimaran Phaedo^3 sets a new record of the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Record

Phaedo^3 flying two hulls as they bear away toward The Needles lighthouse, the most westerly point of the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race course

Power on Phaedo^3 on the beat up the western Solent

Not too much wetted surface here on Phaedo^3!

The crew celebrate their record winning new time in the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race

Phaedo^3 owner Lloyd Thornburg (left) celebrates with skipper Brian Thompson

In hot pursuit: Phaedo^3 chasing the blue liveried MOD70 Concise 2, their habitual rival this season

The post How a new record of 2h 23m was set on Round the Island Race by MOD 70 trimaran Phaedo^3 appeared first on Yachting World.

Winner of the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race 2016 is Bernard Langley's TP52 Gladiator

Worthy Gold Roman Bowl winners Gladiator were on the pace all the way round the Island today. Photo: onEdition

Hanging out on Gladiator not long after the start of today’s Race. Image: Patrick Eden

Multihull record smashed

Lloyd Thornburg’s MOD70 trimaran Phaedo 3 shattered the multihull race record in a time of 2 hours 23 minutes, 23 seconds, an impressive 28 minutes ahead of the record Sir Ben Ainslie set in 2013.

Phaedo^3 flying two hulls as they bear away toward The Needles lighthouse, the most westerly point of the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race course

Not too much wetted surface here on Phaedo^3!

Phaedo^3 owner Lloyd Thornburg (left) celebrates with skipper Brian Thompson

Phaedo^3 at pace after rounding The Needles

Phaedo^3 at pace after rounding The Needles

Power on Phaedo^3 on the beat up the western Solent

The crew celebrate their record winning new time in the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race

Phaedo^3 on the way to breaking the record for the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race

In hot pursuit: Phaedo^3 chasing the blue liveried MOD70 Concise 2, their habitual rival this season

Spread out fleet in the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race course

Phaedo^3 on the way to breaking the record for the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race

Leopard on the way to winning monohull line honours in the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race course

On board the 100ft supermaxi Leopard

Windward leg of the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race course

The Windward leg of the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race course fleet beats out of the western Solent

Supermaxi Leopard passing The Needles

Bowman on Leopard

French Ultime trimaran Actual

Rough water at The Needles

The fastest speeds were logged to the south of the island

Rough water as wind and tide clashed

One of the gaffer divisions soldiers on

The crew of Phaedo celebrate their new record

Phaedo going for lift off

Sir Keith Mills’s Fast 40+ Invictus, which had Prince Harry on board

A gaff-rigged working boat making steady progress

Thalia making good headway to windward

MOD 70 Concise

All weight on the rail needed

Gaffer Thalia on the beat west

The post TP52 Gladiator wins Round the Island Race 2016 – see our race fleet gallery appeared first on Yachting World.

An incredible 771 miles has been covered in 24 hours by French sailor François Gabart in his 100ft trimaran MACIF

French solo sailor François Gabart has set a new record for the outright 24hr speed record in his 100ft trimaran MACIF.

His shore team announced today that, subject to official ratification, the new record stands at an incredible 771 miles. It was set by Gabart, the 33-year-old who won the 2012/3 Vendée Globe solo round the world race, during his second night on passage from New York to Brittany.

This beats by a sizeable margin the previous record of 718.5 miles in 24 hours set by fellow French solo sailor Thomas Coville in June in the 105ft  trimaran Sobebo.

And his shore team says that the trimaran might even better today’s run as she is still powering along.

His VPLP-designed trimaran has been designed specifically for solo record-setting and MACIF recently won the single-handed Tranat bakerly race, once known as the OSTAR.

Read about and take a look at this video tour of this amazing and super-powerful sailing machine here.

The post New solo 24hr record of 771 miles set by François Gabart in trimaran MACIF appeared first on Yachting World.