Sailing Today

A FEW YEARS BACK, after a particularly hallucinatory singlehanded trip across the English Channel, I decided I wouldn't be making another crossing: the shipping lane, the wild weather, suddenly it all seemed a bit much. However, this month I was temp

The IRC National Championship was won by 0.005 of a point by Niklas Zennström’s FAST40+ Rán, a nail-biting finish to a weekend of perfect sailing conditions in the Solent, the event organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club. Rán’s mixed crew nearly le

Summer cruising is all about pulling up at some beautiful port and nipping ashore for a sundowner. They don’t get much better than Menton at the easterly tip of the Cote d’Azur. This charming little port is the last stop before Italy and has a more d

World Sailing is in the midst of submitting its bid to have sailing reinstated to the Paralympics, a process which CEO David Graham is happy to say, in our article on page 11, is involving almost everybody in the organisation. World Sailing is well a

Speaking of obscure French boatbuilders, anyone out there remember Punch? No, I’m not talking about the long running British satirical magazine but the rather rugged multihull boatbuilder based on the Caribbean island of Martinique. They built fast A

Ah, the Ionian! Beloved of Brits since the time of Lord Byron. From the bustle of Fiscardo to the tranquility of Kastos, the Inland Sea is as familiar as the Solent to many sailors. And there lies the bane of the local charter skipper’s life! Returni

Laurence Mead, Regatta Director at Cowes Week likes to call the event “196 years young” and the “world’s most technically advanced regatta”. So, is there truth to that bold claim or not? He likes to say that the goal is “world class regatta racing” a

I suppose that somewhere in the world there is the perfect boat entirely free from niggles, by which I don’t mean major design faults that might imperil your life, but rather little things that make you curse on a daily basis, drive you to distractio

Ossie Stewart started hounding Russell Peters at least 30 minutes before the starting sequence had got underway. It was the final race of the RS Elite National Championships, taking place in the mid Solent and hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron. Russ

Sl ovenian company Elan has a split personality; on the one hand is it’s Clark Kent – producing sober and extremely sensible cruising yachts that make up their Impression range of cruisers and on the other… well I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say

LOA: 15.30m / 50ft 2in. Hull: length 14.10m / 46ft 3in. LWL: 13.68m / 44ft 11in. Beam: 4.49m / 14ft 9in. Draught: 2.80m / 9ft 2in. Displacement: 11,250kg / 24,802lb Engine: Yanmar 57hp Sail area: 1,171.77 ft2 / 108.86 m2 Price: €379,900 ex VA

This Judel/Vrolijk design was launched back in 2015 and is a stylish, pacy boat that shares much with the Elan in terms of its target market. The boat has just been relaunched as the SQ with a brighter, more practical interior. Inspirationmarine.co.u

This is a fine example of a cruiser/ racer. The boat had excellent pace in varied conditions and is a good compromise between internal volume and comfort with spicy performance. The Pininfarina styling definitely gives the boat a bit of an ‘X’ factor

Navily rating: 5/5 Characteristics: Mooring buoys available, Sand bed. Beach reachable by dinghy, max length 11.5m. Tucked in to the south of Ushant, this peaceful anchorage earned rave reviews thanks to good access to a nice beach, plus shops at th

For the second year in a row, fans heading to the Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Plymouth will be able to witness incredible on-water racing scenes and get up close to an impressive line-up of world-class athletes. Plymouth is proud to be known as

Race village open: 12pm to 6pm Racing takes place: 2pm-3.30pm Download the SailGP App via App Store and Google Play Store Tickets and more info are available via SailGP.com/GreatBritain Can't make it to the event? This (and all SailGP events)

How does racing work? At each SailGP event, there are five fleet races. The event leaderboard totals all the points the teams have scored throughout the event (10 points for first, nine points for second, and so on), with the three highest ranking te

Tom Slingsby’s Australia is the team to beat, having won both the inaugural season and Season 2. He faces competition from Sir Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain Team, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke’s New Zealand team as well as Jimmy Spithill’s USA team. The

Ipswich based Spirit Yachts has been around for almost three decades now, with the unwavering ethos of building fast, elegant spirit-of-tradition yachts in modern epoxy-saturation timber construction – ‘dry boats’ as they are sometimes known in the i

This is a really beautiful little boat that demonstrated how modern and traditional design and building techniques can be blended seamlessly to create a magnificent yacht. Part of the joy of owning a yacht is looking back at it as you leave the moori

Satellite communications are no longer simply the last resort in an offshore emergency. In our hyper-connected existence, they are increasingly a comfort that we can’t do without when sailing far from land. From the thoroughly modern-day luxuries of

The Actisense-I is a W2K-1 NMEA 2000 wifi gateway offering a suite of diagnostics tools, helping boaters easily see any issues with electronics devices attached to their network onboard, as well as any voltage issues along the network. From checking

Chartering understandably focuses on the Mediterranean, and it is often easy to overlook the plethora of incredible cruising grounds on our doorstep and also to the north east in the Baltic. True, the weather is not so reliable and the sailing is oft

Andrew Simpson Centres: andrewsimpsoncentres.org Dinghy and watersports specialists with UK bases in Reading, Portsmouth, Birmingham and Portland Dream Yacht Charter: dreamyachtcharter.co.uk Huge charter provider worldwide with a base on the south c

50.270256N 4.787094W The approach is uncomplicated and there are no offshore dangers apart from Gwineas Rock to the SSE. Mevagissey offers good shelter in SSW through to NW winds. In easterly conditions there is considerable surge. Avoid the entranc

“Does it feel like home yet?” I ask, referring to the new Medallia, a 2016 Verdier/VPLP designed foiling IMOCA60 that Pip Hare has recently bought to race solo in the next Vendée Globe. We’re ripping across Poole Bay and Pip has trusted me with the h

Readers of the June edition of this magazine will have enjoyed Tim Good’s article on his summer in the Scilly Isles. In the course of the narrative, Tim related a chance encounter with the author David Eastburn after his dinghy got stranded by the ti

When sailing an upwind leg in light, shifty winds any helm will be wondering if they could point higher, particularly when racing. Chances are, the tell-tales will be unhelpfully limp in the light winds, and if the boat is underpowered the feel on th

Here’s the scenario. The left hand side paid on the first beat: there was much more pressure on the starboard layline. Having rounded the windward mark, the leaders have all straight-set for the downwind and are looking for similar gains on the run.

I was recently hanging out on a secluded beach with my sailor friend in Indonesia, ahead of our upcoming Indian Ocean crossing to Africa on our 51ft Beneteau Idyll. We discussed how popular sailing has become post-covid. It seems like everyone wants

The Royal Southern YC Champagne Charlie Platinum Jubilee Regatta, supported by Charles Heidsieck Champagne, saw more than 250 sailors race on the Solent in a variety of weather; from strong winds and a significant sea state to light and shifty condit

The Beneteau Oceanis 361 is a proven, capable and comfortable family cruising yacht. With her spacious and practical interior she can sleep five across two cabins. Perfect for coastal cruising or longer offshore passages she had a new set of Tri-radi

The boatbuilding business is a funny sort of world with more than a modicum of charm and intrigue. For every big manufacturer churning out hundreds of hulls each year, there is a smaller company, often dominated by the dreams and vision of a single i

Sailing is an incredible sport. It can tone your body in so many ways. The strength gained from working with the force and power of the wind all the while balancing your own weight, agility and momentum is a fantastic all-round workout. And then, of

Gales in mid-latitudes generally seem to arrive in two packages. The first is the honest frontal depression cruising past our boats on the side nearest the pole. The wind pipes up as the warm front approaches and pressure falls. It blows hard and we