Yachting Monthly

Comfortable marinas lay a few miles down river, but some of the best days of last summer for us were spent anchored in the upper reaches of the River Dart. Kingfishers flitted from the oak trees shading the shallows and nothing but the occasional fis

The 2019 Jester Baltimore Challenge started on 16 June, with solo sailors from seven different countries, including Australia, France and Sweden, signed up to sail 250 miles from either Plymouth or Pwllheli in north-west Wales to Baltimore, Ireland.

Your article on AIS and radar, ‘AIS vs radar: Do you really need both?’ (YM, April 2019) and Tim Colquhoun’s letter, ‘AIS checks with NCI’ (YM, April 2019), has prompted me to write to you about AIS use. My chartplotter/AIS only tracks the nearest 99

One glance at the Kraken 50 tells you she’s unlike most modern production cruisers: you see no plumb stem, broad stern or twin rudders. There’s not even a bolt-on fin keel. To those accustomed to modern design, she will raise a lot of questions. The

We are on the Intracoastal Waterway as Tracey and I make passage from Annapolis to the Bahamas. It’s an amazing piece of engineering stretching 2,590 miles (4,800km) from Boston to Texas. It provides a protected maritime artery and has many guises as

Q I have an X43 built in 2004 and as I was at a boat show last month I thought I better ask the X Yacht guys when they recommend replacing the bronze skin fittings. The answer was every 10 years. As the boat is out of the water for six months every y

Like most modern boats, mine manages to keep the water where it belongs — on the outside. So I was puzzled over the course of the winter that there was a damp feeling, especially in the forecabin despite running a passive heater during the colder mon

James Stevens, author of the Yachtmaster Handbook, spent 10 of his 23 years at the RYA as chief examiner Q Annie is skipper of Ghoster, a Sigma 33 which she races regularly from her home port on the south coast. Annie is a competent sailor and the cr

Christopher Smith has had a series of shared ownerships in Greece. He has now retired from an academic bioscience career Anchoring is a key part of the cruising sailor’s arsenal – at least for those who don’t intend to take refuge in a marina every t

GORDON DAVIES and his partner have sailed their Sirius 31 DS for the last eight summers from Essex to the Baltic In many marinas in northern Europe, boats are moored by securing their bows to the pontoon and their sterns to two posts. These ‘box moor

My husband Eddie and I had had the dream of becoming sailors for years, so we decided to buy a yacht. We had never sailed, but lucky for us the boat broker was also a sailing instructor who included some training in the price of our new purchase, a D

VYV COX has sailed for more than 50 years and in cruising yachts for the past 25. He is a Chartered Engineer, qualified in metallurgy and mechanical engineering Though the phrase ‘wild cruising’ conjures up images of sailing in places undiscovered, i

Dag Pike has spent over 65 years at sea on ships, yachts and motor boats, including a number of transatlantic record attempts These days there are many ways to go cruising. The actual sea passage part of a cruise will remain much the same whatever yo

The Golden Globe Race is like no other yacht race. It has been held only twice – in 1968-69 and in 2018-19. In the first edition, nine skippers crossed the start line, with only Sir Robin Knox-Johnston finishing the race. Fifty years later, just 18 s

The examples shown on the previous pages are marked as anchorages on some charts but many unmarked ones are to be found around the world. One of my favourites is in the Gulf of Volos, between the Sporades and mainland Greece. We were there recently w

The favoured approach to Barra for boats coming from the south is to cross the Sea of the Hebrides, with many stopping over at Canna Harbour to wait for suitable weather. The uneven bottom of this stretch of water exacerbates the risk of rough seas;

MATTHEW DIGGLE started sailing after signing up for the 2011-12 Clipper Race. Since then he’s cruised in UK waters and off the Italian and Croatian coasts The west coast of Scotland is one of the top-10 places to see a whale anywhere in the world. It

There is always something thrilling about watching the far-off peaks of Barra and neighbouring South Uist gradually solidifying into recognisable landscapes as the distant land is approached. Aboard the charter Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 42i, Ab Fab, we pl

How do you measure sailing experience? For most of us it will be harbours visited and miles logged. But there’s more to it than just numbers; certain stretches of water pose unique challenges and their reputations hold a strange power in the minds of

‘We started seeing icebergs a day before entering Scoresby Sund. That was exciting as most of us on board were seeing them for the first time. Early in the morning, a few hours before entering Scoresby Sund, we were surrounded by thick fog and the vi

£1,138 A yacht is never far from her owner’s mind: will she still be there, are the batteries flat, have the bilges filled with water, has anything been stolen? The list is endless. So, Yacht Sentinel’s YS6 remote monitoring system sounds like the pe

The Gemini 105 was conceived by Englishman, Tony Smith, who first produced the successful Telstar trimaran in the 1970s. In 1980 he moved to the USA and launched the Gemini range of catamarans. Over a thousand 105s have since been sold, including the

Quorning Yachts has been producing highperformance, folding trimarans for many years and the D32 is popular for its balance between sportiness and cruising comfort. As with all the Dragonfly range, the 32 has a unique ‘swing-wing’ system for folding

The Dazcat range of sports cats are designed and built in Millbrook, Plymouth. Designer, Darren Newton is an expert at what makes a cat perform, as evidenced in his popular 10m (33ft) yachts that have evolved into the latest model, the 1095. The buil

David Hilton My Honda 2.3hp outboard motor had been difficult to start so I took it home for ‘fettling’. Having fiddled around under the cowling and generally given things a bit of love I decided to see whether I’d achieved anything. In preparation I