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B c c oss the Atlantic Crews’ own stories of return voyage to Europe RACING
Short-handed spinnaker hoists The unstoppable rise of the 100ft racer Giles Scott on big fleet tactics
ON TEST
Contest 42CS – a pedigree bluewater cruiser
CRUISING
Tropical storms and the El Niño effect Rio bound – cruising Olympic waters An adventure in Morocco
Aboard Alex Thomson’s radical new Hugo Boss
AUGUST 2016
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The Atlantic return West to east across the Atlantic can be tough, as ARC Europe crews found out. We meet them in the Azores
AT A GLANCE ON THE WIND
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Boats and foils take a beating on the solo New York-Vendée race
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Clues to Olympic form at Weymouth Two-year cycle for the America’s Cup?
NEW GEAR AND YACHTS
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New yachts Stunning SW96 and
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New gear MOB beacon on your
SW105; lift-keel Feeling; Contest 84
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smartphone; battery monitors, plus a review of an ultra survival suit
CRUISING
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Rocking in Rio A swift visit to the Brazilian port for carnival offers the chance to test the water – literally
PRACTICAL
The 100ft sweet spot
Moroccan adventure
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100-footers are the new go-to size for regatta sailing, believes Southern Wind, as it held a 25th anniversary regatta off Capri
A bit off the beaten track, but a great place for some winter cruising, Morocco offers Rachael Sprot a very different experience
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Special report Can you rely on GPS? Wise cruisers, be prepared
Short-handed sailing Pip Hare on hoisting the kite without crew
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Weather briefing Chris Tibbs explains El Niño/El Niña weather
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On test: Contest 42CS
Extraordinary Boats: Hugo Boss
A tour of the family-run Contest yard gives us the chance to test the marvellously complete 42CS during a mini cruise
One of the latest generation of IMOCA 60s with foils, Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss is a contender to win the Vendée Globe solo race
Published monthly on the second Thursday of the month by Time Inc (UK) Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU ©Time Inc (UK) Ltd, 2016 ISSN 0043-9991
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Get out of that Giles Scott on how to escape a traffic jam
REGULARS 3 18 20 22 55 91 100 104
From the Editor Letters Matthew Sheahan Skip Novak Great Seamanship Yachts for sale Classified advertisements Backfire COVER PICTURE An XP50 belonging to Port Adriano Sailing, just arrived in Mallorca for the season and ready for charter. Photograph by Jésus Renedo
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The spirit of adventure and innovation
The way back
Tor Johnson
Downwind and upwind sailing are two different worlds, but no matter how much you know this is the case, the sensation of turning around from sailing downwind on a brisk breeze, perhaps surfing on a following sea, and then starting to beat back into the same conditions always comes as a rude shock. The weather suddenly changes: the wind goes up a grade, the temperature seems to drop, there’s spray on deck and in the air and the boat’s motion is very different. A minute ago you might have contemplated lunch in the cockpit; now it’s a sandwich and a reef. It’s not uncommon for crews sailing home across the Atlantic to Europe to wish for a slightly different yacht or set-up than they had on the downhill crossing to the Caribbean. The popular route home via the Azores can be demanding and rough (see page 24). Storm sails, plentiful handholds, sturdy leecloths, sinks that drain and heads that work on both tacks can all appear old-fashioned. On some new yachts, these important details are sometimes overlooked in the pursuit of comfort and style. But sooner or later the wind will back, the return route must be taken. The way back can be a challenge, but it is one that earns ocean sailors their stripes. Preparing for uphill routes and big winds is ideal groundwork for even the most tropical plans.
Elaine Bunting Editor Twitter @elainebunting
AND ANOTHER THING . . .
The Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron is the first club we know of to ban bottled water at events. As the sport is beginning to wake up to the dire state of our oceans, Rule 55 of the RRS has banned wool or rubber stoppers on spinnakers, and entities such as 11th Hour Racing and OceanWatch are doing their bit. Pro yacht crew in Mallorca regularly conduct beach clean-ups. We have started; the culture is changing . .
At last, next month, we will know what it is like racing in the polluted waters off Rio. Good luck to all the Olympic sailors. May you do well. And may you stay healthy
The Clipper Round the World Race is coming to an end this summer. It has had two fatalities and seen much hard sailing. As I look at plugs by the Volvo about being the toughest ocean race, funnily enough it’s of the Clipper Race I think. This must be a lifechanging race, one of the biggest achievements
Become a Yachting World reader with benefits: visit yachtingworld.com/16S to subscribe today
ON THE WIND
PICTURE THIS Depth sounding he Wally 80 Ryokan 2 skirts the shore of Sardinia at the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta in June. Twelve Wally yachts took part in this year’s superyacht Mediterranean season opener off the famous Emerald Coast. Racing out of Porto Cervo, the 107-footer Open Season took the division overall following a head-to-head battle with Magic Carpet 3 after the two were split by less than a second in the penultimate race. Photo by Carlo Borlenghi
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ON THE WIND
PICTURE THIS Time to the line wned by Peter Harrison of watchmakers Richard Mille, the TP52 Sorcha goes for a test sail in her eye-catching new livery before the second TP52 Super Series event at Porto Cervo. This year marks the sixth Super Series season, which continues to go from strength to strength – Sorcha is the 12th TP to join the eet. Next year the teams will also return to the US, competing at Key West and Miami. Photo by Tomas Moya
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Lloyd Images
ON THE WIND
Yachts and foils take a beating on New York-Vendée race A HIGH PERCENTAGE OF EARLY ABANDONMENTS MARKED THE LAST BIG TEST FOR THE IMOCA 60S BEFORE THE SOLO VENDÉE GLOBE, WRITES ELAINE BUNTING rench sailor Jérémie Beyou won what is the last big test of the new IMOCA 60s before the start of the Vendée Globe in November when he took 1st place in the Ocean Masters New York-Vendée race. A transatlantic sprint by the standards of the class, the course was sailed by Beyou on Maitre Coq in 9d 16h. He finished ahead of Seb Josse in Edmond de Rothschild and Alex Thomson on Hugo Boss. The race was a good test for the mixture of new and older designs, with big winds and seas pushing the skippers hard in the middle of the course before dwindling away and presenting them with some interesting tactical and routeing options. The ultimate victory of Beyou, a tenacious and hard-driving former Figaro champion, was to the end a very slender one, but it shows that older generation boats such as his, the only 60 to be retrofitted with new V-foils, are competitive and very much on the pace. The race had a high percentage of early abandonments. Pieter Heerema on No Way Back, Yann Eliès racing Quéguiner-Leucémie Espoir, Jean-Pierre Dick on St Michel-Virbac, Morgan Lagravière on Safran and Armel Le
Above: IMOCA 60s start the Ocean Masters New York-Vendée race. Right: Jérémie Beyou took 1st in an older generation boat. Below: Alex Thomson was thrilled with the performance of his Hugo Boss
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Photos: Thierry Martinez
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Cléac’h sailing Banque Populaire all suffered damage. Lagraviere, Elies and Dick all damaged foils – the latter two have new generation yachts – but all three managed to finish with them missing. Jean-Pierre Dick put a positive spin on the experience and answered some lingering doubts about the vulnerability of the huge new appendages. “Even without foils, our boats showed how high-performance they are; they have great hulls. Everyone’s focused on the foils so far, but this unfortunate experience has shown that this new generation of boats is not just about the foils,” he commented. It was the first serious racing test of Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss since his capsize, rescue and abandonment of the boat during the Transat Jacques Vabre last year. Upbeat after finishing 3rd, Thomson remarked: “This is a fantastic achievement for the entire team. Just weeks ago the boat was in the shed, undergoing major repairs. This result has put us in a fantastic position ahead of the Vendée Globe. We are incredibly confident that we have built a racing yacht that is capable of winning the race.” Thomson, perhaps typically, had some of the fastest runs during the strong winds midway through the race, and his 24-hour run of 487 miles, average speed of 20.3 knots, was the highest of the race. But the vision of the noise and spray shown in videos of this stormy period demonstrated how relentless these boats are to sail. If nine days took its toll, how will non-stop round the globe for 75 or 80 days be?
Above: when friends arrived at the yacht’s position they found 44 dismasted and low on her marks. They decided to open the seacocks. Nick Leggatt stayed on board to the last
Tolkien’s Vendée Globe hopes sunk at sea ritish sailor Richard Tolkien’s plans to take part in the Vendée Globe ended shockingly in May when his IMOCA 60, 44, was scuttled in the North Atlantic. Tolkien abandoned his yacht during The Transat bakerly race from Plymouth to New York when he suffered a head injury and was aided by the crew of a cargo ship that had diverted to assist him. A tracker was left active on board and Tolkien and his supporters had hoped to salvage the yacht. Friends, including round the world sailor Nick Leggatt, later sailed from Bermuda to the yacht’s position, but when they got there they found the boat dismasted, low on her marks and visibly damaged. Leggatt swam across and boarded the yacht, which was full of water. “We thought the yacht was sailing on the prevailing winds, but when they got there the mast was gone and I think the mast probably came down within hours of me leaving the boat,” says Tolkien. “The block and tackle holding the J2 under the furler had failed and the heavy Facnor furler was thrashing about, which is what hit me on the head.”
being forced to retire in the South Atlantic with rig problems. Tolkien says the loss is “significant”. The campaign was self-funded and the yacht insured only with third party cover. “After we completed the refit the original insurers withdrew because of all the accidents in the Transat Jacques Vabre,” he explains.
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Yacht is scuttled “Although we had hoped to have a boat that could be sailed to the Azores I think now it was a forlorn mission from the beginning. But what’s important is that we took steps to sink the yacht so it is no risk to shipping.” Leggatt opened the seacocks and watched the boat slowly sink, staying on board until
Lloyd Images
Lucky not to be badly hurt
almost the final moments, as shown in the video taken aboard the support yacht. The loss of 44 brings to an end Tolkien’s hopes of taking part in the Vendée for the second time. A banker who has been involved in short-handed multihull and Open 60 racing since the early Nineties, Richard Tolkien is an experienced sailor and one of the few amateur entries in the IMOCA class. He competed in the 2000 OSTAR and raced in the 2000/2001 Vendée when he was 13th out of the 24 boat fleet at the Equator before
Above: British sailor Richard Tolkien pictured at the start of the Transat bakerly
But he takes the view that he was lucky not to have been more seriously hurt in the accident or during the evacuation to the ship Anton Topic. “It was pretty difficult. These are big boats and when something goes wrong it goes wrong significantly. I got hit above the left ear, I saw blood on the deck and I managed to get into the cockpit and then realised that this is a very, very different situation and you have to remain clear-headed and calm. “Everything that could have gone right went as well as it could have done. It is not an easy thing to do to climb up the side of a ship’s steel wall in a big swell and I managed to do that and probably lost conscious as I was pulled over onto the deck of the ship.” The ship’s crew sutured the head injury and took Tolkien to Philadelphia. He has since returned to the UK. “A lot of things could be said about this,” he admits. “The boat was late, a month behind where we should have been and you never quite know if you’d had more time you could have eliminated the problems. “It’s easy to be wise after the event. But life is short, you have to go out and do these things. It didn’t work out for me, which is deeply disappointing.”
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Compeition entries from: Aiko Viljoen, Marie-Claire Scragg, JP Myburgh
ON THE WIND
Life’s a breeze These great photos are from a photo competition run after last year’s ARC rally and beautifuly sum up life at sea. The rally is as popular as ever – already the 2016 event is close to capacity, with a total of 300 boats either sailng direct from Las Palmas to St Lucia or on the ARC+ via the Cape Verde Islands.
Left: Maserati sponsored MOD70 for Giovanni Soldini
Soldini returns to multihull racing Italian racer Giovanni Soldini, one of the country’s great ocean racing heroes, has gone over again to multihull racing with a new project in a MOD70. After several years of record-setting on the VO70 Maserati, the same company is backing Soldini’s plans for more of the same in a much faster yacht. As Team Gitana the MOD70 was pimped
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by designer Guillaume Verdier with third generation foils – they tested C foils and L foils – and adjustable T foil rudders. Soldini is most famous for his races in Open 50s and 60s, but he also has plenty of experience on three hulls. His last big campaign was in Fila, a VPLP design launched in 2000. He came 7th in the 2001 Transat
Jacques Vabre with Olivier Lozachnmeur. Two other MOD70s in private hands that have set new records and occasionally sparred with each other are Concise 2 and Lloyd Thornburg’s Phaedo3. There is now the prospect of the three racing together in a future event, though Soldini is saying nothing for the time being and instead concentrating on mastering the new boat. “The Maserati Multi70 is a genuinely innovative and experimental craft. It’s a very delicate stage that will help us get a handle on the difficulties involved in flying on foils in a moderate sea, which will be a very interesting challenge for us,” he says.
10 Lords a-sailing
Jésus Renedo
The House of Commons competition against the House of Lords was sailed on the River Thames in a charity race in front of the Houses of Parliament in ten Enterprise dinghies on 8 June. This year marks the 60th anniversary for the popular class, which was conceived by the News Chronicle newspaper as a cheap and easy to use dinghy, and designed and built on the Thames by Jack Holt. On the day “important business in the house” prevented those Lords who sail from competing – or they checked the windless weather forecast. The Lord’s team was instead represented by MPs.
eymouth and Portland hosted the Sailing World Cup in June, the last major international competition for Olympic classes before the 2016 Games begin in August in Rio. There was a predictably strong turn-out from the host nation, with current world champions Giles Scott (Finn) and Nick Thompson (Laser) contributing to a 13-medal haul for the British team. Scott commented that the regatta was a good opportunity to return to the smaller fleet competition style of the Games. “We’ve just come out of the world championships where we were racing around in a fleet of 90 boats, and obviously the Olympics is what really matters, so it’s nice to refresh those small fleet skills a bit. It takes a different approach; it’s nip and tuck racing.” The Women’s 470 was an all-GBR podium, with Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark taking Gold. The 470 men’s fleet, however, saw current world champions Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic of Croatia revisit their rivalry with 2012 Gold medallist and six-times world champion Matthew Belcher. The Croats were 1st, while Belcher and Ryan counted two results in the teens to finish 4th and the British team of Luke Patience and Chris Grube took 3rd, including two race wins. Patience and Grube have been campaigning together for just eight months. Patience commented before racing: “It’s a bit of a practice week. All our best gear is in Rio, so this is about ingraining good habits on the racecourse, communicating well. The very fact that we don’t have our race kit here is
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perfect, so we can work on some interesting bits that you’re forever distracted from otherwise by going fast.” In the 49er class, with the dominant force of Pete Burling and Blair Tuke competing at the America’s Cup World Series in Chicago, fellow Kiwis Logan Dunning Beck and Jack Simpson took the win. GBR’s Fletcher-Scott and Sign took Silver. In the 49er FX the British duo of Charlotte Dobson and Sophie Ainsworth overhauled current world champions Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech (NZL), and in the Nacra 17 class there was another British Gold, with Ben Saxton and Nicola Groves heading off the German Kohlhoff/Werner and the no 1 ranked Billy Besson and Marie Riou. Meanwhile, in the women’s Laser Radial class, the recently crowned world champion Alison Young (GBR) finished 14th, with the 2012 Olympic Gold and Silver medallists Lijia Xu (CHI) and Marit Bouwmeester (NED) reversing the order in Weymouth.
Above: Giles Scott took Gold in the Finn, showing strong promise for Rio
Oban Marina sale Oban Marina, located on the picturesque island of Kerrera on Scotland’s west coast, is for sale. Offers in excess of £975,000 are invited. It includes 95 serviced floating pontoon berths, 30 moorings, hard standing, two boatsheds, a workshop, a restaurant and three-quarters of a mile of sea frontage. The marina is an ideal base for cruising the western isles.
Below: Ben Saxton and Nicola Groves won Nacra 17 Gold
Flare recall
Pedro Martinez
Clues to Olympic form at Weymouth World Cup
US Coast Guard has withdrawn its certificate of approval for a certain type of orange smoke hand distress signal. The smoke signals may be labelled and marketed as ‘Polar MK 4’ by NAMMO LIAB AB or as ‘IKAROS’ by Hansson Pyrotech. The Coast Guard warns that the flare is at risk of spontaneous combustion when dropped.
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Paul Wyeth
Rick Tomlnson
ON THE WIND
Above: Ker-designed Fast 40+ boats Invictus (top) and Antix will race in September
New Zealand death and MOB double tragedy ne crewmember died and another was swept overboard when the 65ft yacht Platino suffered serious rigging damage around 300 miles north of New Zealand on 14 June. Platino, a 66ft Ron Holland design, had been entered in the cruising division of the ANZ Sail Fiji, a 1,110-mile offshore race from Auckland, New Zealand 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 Co-ordination 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 strength at the time was around 40 knots. Another 63-year-old man, who has not been named, was swept overboard. He is not thought to have been wearing a survival suit at the time of the incident. 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 survivors proved unsuccessful and the three remained on board. However, Platino’s condition deteriorated further overnight with the loss of steering, and the yacht began to take on water. Following a difficult transfer that required
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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 Saull’s body from Platino. An EPIRB was activated on the abandoned yacht to track its location. Tributes to Nick Saull were posted by many in the Auckland sporting community, where he was known as a keen sailor, lifeguard and rugby player.
Above: three surviving crew are rescued by the container ship Southern Lily
Below: the Ron Holland-designed Platino had been entered in the cruising division of a race to Fiji
The One Ton Cup trophy is once again up for grabs. The Fast 40+ class of light displacement racers will be holding its national championship at the Royal Southern YC in Hamble from 16-18 September and the winner will be awarded the One Ton Cup. The One Ton Cup was created in 1899 by the French club Cercle de la Voile de Paris (CVP), which retains ownership of the trophy. During the early 1900s it was raced for by 6-metres, but was revived as the trophy for the modern one ton class in the 1960s. The event’s classic format of a combination of offshore, inshore and coastal races was also established, although in its newest reincarnation it will be an inshore event. Skippers who have taken the trophy include Syd Fischer, Harold Cudmore, Paul Cayard and Russell Coutts, and the One Ton Cup has always been a significant feather in the cap of any design office. The Fast 40+ class is run by Volvo Ocean Race winner and Moth world champion Rob Greenhalgh, who says: “I think we’re a good fit for the trophy, the right size of boat, modern and of a high technical level, with a good mix of pro and amateur sailors. Essentially the Fast 40+s are the modern day one tonner.” Two new Ker designs, Johnny Vincent’s Pace and Andrew Pearce’s Magnum, are set to join the fleet over the summer, with 15 boats anticipated at the nationals.
Beken of Cowes
Photos:NZ Defence Force
Fast 40s take on the One Ton Cup
Above: the Rob Humphreys-designed Jade won the One Ton Cup in 1985
Japan to host ACWS
Ricardo Pinto
Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series racing will be coming to the Far East for the first time ever when it is held in the Japanese port of Fukuoka on 18-21 November this year. The country has its own team in the form of SoftBank Team Japan, under New Zealand skipper Dean Barker. Japan has challenged for the America’s Cup three times previously. Kazuhiko ‘Fuku’ Sofuku was a bowman with the 1999 team and is now general manager of SoftBank Team Japan. “As a Japanese sailor, it is extremely meaningful to me to be able to have the race in Japan. I know we’ll be putting all of our efforts into producing a great result,” he declared. The 2016 World Series has five other venues: Muscat, Oman, New York, Chicago, Portsmouth and Toulon.
Chicago a success as America’s Cup considers two-year cycle The Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series produced spectacular racing in Chicago for the third event of the year. The ‘Windy City’ tested competitors on practice day when Emirates Team New Zealand and Oracle Team USA both capsized, before the wind failed to fill in on Saturday. On Sunday three good races were completed, with honours shared between Land Rover BAR, Artemis and SoftBank Team Japan. Artemis Racing claimed the event ahead of Land Rover BAR. This has shaken
up the series standings – Emirates Team New Zealand still lead, but their points margin has reduced to 10 from Land Rover BAR and Oracle Team USA, who are tied. After a controversial New York event, which proved unraceable at times, Chicago provided true spectator-friendly racing, with four AC45s hurtling towards the first mark of Race 4 neck and neck. Land Rover BAR’s principal, Sir Ben Ainslie, and chief executive Martin Whitmarsh were among those discussing a
Above: the Chicago World Series event drew crowds of 200,000 and provided genuinely spectacular racing on the city-side lake course
possible change to a two-year America’s Cup cycle in Chicago. The move could see teams committing to the event before the previous cycle has been completed, rather than waiting for the defender to announce a new Protocol, and a single class of boat used for both the World Series and final match races. Commenting in the Daily Telegraph Whitmarsh said: “We have incredible history and heritage and for about a week in 2013 we had the greatest sporting show in the world, then you immediately lose 18 months to two years of negotiating time.” Next in the series is the UK event in Portsmouth from 21-24 July, which is likely to have home team Land Rover BAR gunning hard for a repeat of last year’s win.
Sunken yacht found under sail Look again, these are not night vision shots. These incredible sonar images posted online by Vuda Marina in Fiji are of the yacht Serenity, which sank on 23 May 2016. The yacht was under sail when she went down and landed perfectly upright in almost 30m of water. Sailors Paul Brown and Scott Hruska went out to the site in May to determine a way to raise her. These are the images they saw on their depth sounder when they were searching at the last known co-ordinates. They found her still with her sails up sitting on the sandy bottom. The cause of the sinking is yet to be determined, says Vuda Marina, but Bob Haglan, owner of Serenity is reported to be safe and well, ‘determined to raise the yacht and he has plenty of people ready to help’.
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ON THE WIND
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 138ft 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. But the seed of an idea for a new and technically advanced yacht had been sown.
Maltese Falcon
Tom Perkins
1932-2016
SUPERYACHT OWNER OF THE INNOVATIVE MALTESE FALCON DIES AGED 84 om Perkins 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, a 289ft 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. 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, which ignited the tech boom in California. Netscape, AOL, Sun Microsystems and later Amazon, Google and a host of other household names were all KPCB investments.
Passionate sailor Perkins was a passionate and knowledgeable sailor whose earliest experiences were in Lightning dinghies on Long Island Sound. His large yachts included the 141ft Andromeda la Dea and then a 154ft 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. His thirst for competition was
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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
Above: among many vessels he owned was Mariette of 1915. Below: the 289ft, three-masted Maltese Falcon remains in a class of her own
The Maltese Falcon was launched by Perini in 2005, a ground-breaking square-rigged sailing yacht equipped with three freestanding carbon fibre masts from which 15 square sails 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. Along with Netscape’s Jim Clark, who launched the 295ft schooner Athena and Avis owner Joe Vittoria, whose Mirabella V (now M5), at 246ft, was and still is the biggest sloop in the world, it was a time of excess even by superyachting standards. Tom Perkins invited me aboard his art deco-styled motor yacht Atlantide 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. 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. 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. Perkins died at his home in Marin County, California and is survived by a son and a daughter from his first marriage. David Glenn, ex-editor of Yachting World
Dutch tile boat To make their latest boat Het Toppunt, an Antila 26cc, stand out from the crowd, Dutch sailors Willem Stroo and Helma Weevers decided to run a competition on social media so people could vote for the best design. The design they chose certainly does stand out. Weevers is a fashon designer and came up with a tile design based on old Dutch and Frisian tiles. The image was transferred onto the hull to give this unique look. We wonder how much grouting they needed?
Swan on song milestone anniversary for many is a time to relax and celebrate past achievements. Nautor’s Swan, on the other hand, seems to be in overdrive for its 50th year, launching a record number of new large models. The second and third hulls of Swan’s new flagship 115 range were christened at its Finnish yard in May. The first 54 and the first of the radical new Juan K-designed ClubSwan 50s were due for launch as we went to press in June. And the hull and deck are already completed for the first Swan 95S. It’s not all about the new boats and the future for the famous Pietersaari yard, though. The first Swan ever built, the S&S designed Tarantella, has relaunched after a major refit courtesy of some of the original hands that worked on her build. She will take part in the celebrations this summer, which include Swan’s 50th anniversary regatta. More than 100 Swans are taking part in the Oras Swan 50th Anniversary Regatta, which is being hosted by Turku Yacht Club in Finland’s oldest city from 27 to 31 July. Tarantella is the yacht that started Nautor’s Swan. Pekka Koskenkyla convinced Sparkman & Stephens to design this 36-footer to be built in the new glassfibre material. With a skeg separated from the keel, a rudder positioned aft and a keel with more ballast aft, the Swan 36 was a breakthrough design that proved as seaworthy as a traditional wooden craft,
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but was lighter with greater volume and better manoeuvrability. S&S went on to design the first 1,000 Swans over the next dozen years. Tarantella was bought by Nautor’s Swan in its 30th anniversary year and has been lovingly rebuilt under the direction of one of her original builders, Ralf Brannbacka. She will undoubtedly be the star attraction at the anniversary regatta and the Rolex Swan Cup in Porto Cervo in September. The Frers/Swan partnership success story rolls on meanwhile with the launch of the latest 115s, and the new 54 this summer.
Above: the new Swan 115 Shamanna. Above right: the yacht that started the brand, the 36ft Swan Tarantella, now restored
Pictured (above left) is the second Swan 115, a Flush Deck model called Shamanna. Launched at the same time was the Swan 115 Highland Fling 15, the first Race model. The name and number suggests this is the 15th boat of that name for Irvine Laidlaw. The former member of the House of Lords has owned and campaigned a succession of Swans over the last three decades. This Race version is a maxi race yacht, minimalist throughout and conceived for a large crew. Both new super-Swans are also due to attend the Rolex Swan Cup in Porto Cervo from 11-18 September.
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John Rae
Beken of Cowes
ON THE WIND
he Royal Racing Yacht Bloodhound, owned by the Royal Family in the 1960s, is celebrating her 80th year at sea and is available to charter. Prince Charles and Princess Anne both learned to sail on her during summer holidays. The fully restored 63ft Royal racing yacht is now available for day charter this summer around the Western Isles of Scotland, crewed by former HMY Britannia sailors.
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Bloodhound was originally one of three yachts constructed to the 12-metre handicap rule by Camper & Nicholsons in Gosport. Built in 1936, she was a distinguished ocean racing yacht with a list of accolades that includes two Fastnet Race wins. Prince Philip enjoyed success competing with her at Cowes Week regattas. www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk/events/ day-sailing-on-bloodhound
Above: Bloodhound racing in the Solent. Above right: the yacht on charter in Scotland
On yachtingworld.com this month Three Peaks nail-biter
The sailor and the hen
Blog from Pip Hare and her team in the exhausting, frustrating 3 Peaks race yachtingworld.com/news
French sailor Guirec Soudée sails to the Arctic with his chicken, Monique yachtingworld.com/features
How to be a good crew
The big rescue question
Chris Tibbs on what he looks for in a crewmember to join his yacht yachtingworld.com/features
Skip Novak asks what should be done about a surfeit of rescues in big races yachtingworld.com/comment
NEXT MONTH On sale 11 August
Claire Matches
Bloodhound celebrates 80th anniversary
Battle of the schooners A group of some of the world’s most spectacular schooners met for a racing contest off Palma in June. Elaine Bunting reports
Who to watch in Rio Helen Fretter takes a look at some of the hottest-tipped Olympians aiming to make their names in Rio
Whale graveyard VIDEOS yachtingworld.com/video
NEW SERIES ONLINE
When Keri Pashuk and Greg Landreth found hundreds of dead whales in Patagonia, they vowed to find out why and set sail with scientists on a research mission
From peak to trough Testing conditions
Scary gybes
Sail Faster Sail Safer – 12 part series
We test the luxurious Jeanneau 54 in a full gale off Cannes yachtingworld.com/video
5 of the scariest accidental gybes – could you get out of these? yachtingworld.com/video
The full series of Pip Hare’s advanced sailing techniques features/videos are now online yachtingworld.com/sail-faster-sail-safer
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The Three Peaks Yacht Race is one of the grittiest of them all. Dee Caffari and Pip Hare raced against each other and report
CROSSHEAD
LETTERS email yachting.world@timeinc.com Write to The Editor, Yachting World, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Rd, Farnborough Business Park GU14 7BF Letters may be edited as appropriate
Courtesy of the RNLI
handling nets, nor a chine and a flat bottom. So the Lemsteraak is not flat-bottomed. The rounded hull shape above the waterline belies an easily driven hull, while the tumblehome helps the leeboards to work vertically and rest more easily when hoisted. Long before aircraft wings and CFD, Dutch sailors and builders of traditional craft developed by trial and error highly efficient deep leeboards, which were aerofoil in cross section, hollowed on the outboard side and convex inboard, even toed in by 4° to provide asymmetric lift. These were truly sophisticated foils, quite unlike the flat leeboards of Thames Barges and Dutch inland waterways craft. So even before the modern pimping up, Lemsteraaks were powerful, fast sailing craft, far removed from the common outsiders’ description of such craft as Dutch barges. Finally, the Dutch Foundation of Ronde- en Platbodemjachten must be applauded for maintaining traditional vertical-cut sails, unlike the arms race in sail design and cut in other classic classes, which also often include inauthentic modern downwind sails for which the rigs were never designed. Hal Sisk
Built for speed
Well said, Skip Novak (Comment, May issue), and there are many good points made by those who advocate a payment scheme, be it charitable or otherwise. But no, sorry, no way! It should never come down to rescue being for sale. Why? The core reason will always lie in who makes the decision and how it is made on who pays and who does not pay and who gets the money. Perhaps, as one country has proposed, all foreigners should pay for local rescue services. Perhaps, according to others, only silly yachtsmen should be charged for services rendered. Professional seafarers, of course, would be exempt from tariff. It’s a difficult question. I think many view the solution to be voluntary contributions before (money in the RNLI tin) or after (money to service charities) according to the severity of services rendered and personal means. The extremely high professional capabilities of rescue services around the world should not be compromised by competition in financial gain. Paul Weychan
Your article on the Dutch Lemsteraak contains several errors. This boat type was not a fishing boat in the sense of a vessel catching fish. Instead it was developed as a seagoing fish carrier to transport fresh fish and mussels from the active fishing fleet to the markets as quickly as possible. Thus from the beginning Lemsteraaks were built for speed, and unlike the botters, schokkers, hengsts and hoogaars, they did not need to have low freeboard aft for
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Klaas Wiersma
No rescue bond
Above: money in the RNLI tin is better than the slippery slope of charging for rescue. Below: efficient leeboards on the Dutch Lemsteraak
Simple remedies for seasickness On your feature on seasickness, there are other contributory factors: cold, fear, hunger, strong smells, head in the bilge. I’ve never been sick, but have felt like hell, so sympathise with those who suffer badly. My suggestions are: Have a good meal eight hours before you go – in my case something simple like chicken and rice (eg, above). Lots of energy, easy to digest, gentle food. No alcohol, no hangover, no smoking. Take a Stugeron (this is my remedy) 12 hours before you go. Have a big pocket of stem ginger, plenty of food, don’t get cold, stop worrying. It has worked for me on five ocean crossings. And after two days any signs of sickness have gone. Jonathan Minor
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Riddle me this ....
Gut-wrenching reading Reading Skip Novak’s reminiscences about the capsize of Drum [during the Fastnet Race in 1985] (Comment, January issue). It seems just like yesterday, with the same gutwrenching anxiety. I’m very relieved it didn’t put you off sailing for we would all be worse off without your wit and prose when discussing your adventures of the deep south. Adrian Thompson
Above: what do you do about seasickness? We’d love to hear
Yachting World. See the illustration below. My question, as there doesn’t appear to be one in The Complete Yachtsman, is what is the solution? I can’t work it out. Peter Worsley
Can you work out how to solve the puzzle? email us at yachting.world@ timeinc.com
around the towed boat itself and that way release the knot. Ilan Shachar
‘The problem is to cast loose a boat towed astern of a vessel by a warp made fast to two thwarts as illustrated, the ends of the warp being secured on board the vessel. ‘These ends are not to be let go or touched in any way – the thwarts are fixed and the rope is not to be cut; in fact, it is a genuine knotting problem which might have puzzled Matthew Walker himself.’
Fwd port clove hitch loop – pass over transom under to bow leaves single stbd loop on fwd thwart. Aft – pass loop over transom – pass beneath to bow ... not sure what that leaves – should be a simple loop round the fwd thwart – release. John Kennington Cut the thwarts, not the rope. Alec Smith
Suggestions so far: The loop across the aft thwart gets pulled forward, in the meantime working enough slack through the clove hitch and getting enough slack to pass the loop over the towing vessel. Then the clove hitch can be undone, which leaves the whole loop still attached to the towing vessel by the two ends. In this hypothetical problem, the towing vessel is hypothetically very small. Steve Dyer
Chicken feed I enjoyed your article on French sailor Guirec Soudée and his hen (June issue). I like that he takes that chicken everywhere. I’m guessing that it’s emergency food? Alexander Velikokhotko
HAVE YOUR SAY:
Above: Soudée and his hen. Readers will be pleased to hear that both survived their winter in the ice and re-emerged in June to continue sailing
I recently obtained a copy of The Complete Yachtsman by B. Heckstall-Smith and E. Du Boulay, first published in August 1912. In it, at the end of the chapter on knots and rope work, is a puzzle first published in
Follow us on Facebook and on Twitter @yachtingworld for our take on the unfolding news, and let us know your views.
Grab the bight of the hitch around the aft thwart and move it towards the clove hitch. Slacken the clove hitch enough so you can pass the bight along the pair of ropes and all the way around – ‘through’ – the clove hitch, emerging looped over the top of the lines to the towing vessel. Then pass the bight over and under the towing vessel and pull it back ‘through’ the clove hitch. This undoes the hitch around the aft thwart, then it’s just a matter of undoing the clove hitch and casting off. Tom Wakeling Actually I think many people got the right idea going over the two towing boats, except that it should be possible instead of going over the two towing boats to loop
Take the end of the loop on the after thwart and drag it back through and around the clove hitch (following its original passage), drop the bight over the bow, drag down the length of the vessel lift it over the stern, bingo... Got any hard ones? Jonathan Paget So, the only viable options are: overhaul the loop of the toggle hitch so much that one could get it over the towing vessel, and then just cast off the remaining clove hitch. Logical but ludicrous. Or to beg the question, and cut the thwart or burn the rope. Also ludicrous. Andrew McDonald Feed the loop at the end back through the clove hitch so there are four lines running parallel. Then put the loop around the towed boat from the stern to the bow and pull it back through the clove hitch. Now you can undo the knot at the end and after that the clove hitch. Luite Bolhuis Burn the connecting rope. The puzzle says it can’t be cut, but . . . Martin Loughrey
Time Inc (UK) Ltd reserves the right to re-use any submissions sent to the Letters column of Yachting World in any format or medium
August 2016 I 19
COMMENT
MATTHEW SHEAHAN GETTING THE MESSAGE ACROSS TO YOUR CREW OVER A HEADSET IS NO EASY TASK, ESPECIALLY IN 50 KNOTS OF APPARENT WIND, SO WHAT DO CUP SAILORS DO?
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y wife and I had an intercom system on our motorbike once. I thought that having modern, wireless in-helmet comms would make talking easier on the move and save me the trouble of twisting my head around each time I wanted to ask her a question. But our holiday experiment only lasted a week and was a failure – not because the technology let us down, far from it, but because of the noise. My wife had warned me before I fitted the units into our helmets, but I had shrugged off her caution as an exaggeration; but she wasn’t kidding. Despite having ridden together for over 30 years I had no idea that she spent so much time singing in her helmet as we travelled. As the week wore on I began to understand what tinnitus felt like and by the end of the holiday we agreed to part company, albeit just audibly. For America’s Cup sailors the issue of communication is a crucial one. They too are helmets and have “the main challenge for wearing around 50 knots of breeze blowing past. Talking is barely body-worn headset possible and sign language is mics in harsh marine not an option as their hands are environments is dealing full, so shouting is the only way and even then it’s difficult to with background noise” hear and all too easy to misinterpret what’s been said. If you still don’t get the picture, imagine trying to hold a conversation with a passenger in your car outside the windows while driving at 60mph and you’ll begin to appreciate the Cup crews’ problems. But an AC class boat is more than three times the width of your car and with waves sweeping over it.
Communication solution Matthew Sheahan is head of performance sailing at Sunset+Vine
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Little surprise then that a key area of development for the Cup teams has been improving onboard communication. Conventional mics aren’t necessarily the way to go and Land Rover BAR believes it might have found a solution.
“It’s vital to get the comms right,” says sailing team member Matt Cornwell. “We have certainly had to step up the game from the pre-2010 era when it was nice to have it, but it wasn’t absolutely essential and you could get the job done with some fairly basic kit.” So the team turned to BAE Systems Applied Intelligence Laboratories and a system that involves using the body’s ability to transmit sound through bone.
Sound through bone “Bone conduction involves a surface transducer creating physical vibrations from an audio signal,” explains principal scientist Mohammed-Asif Akhmad. “The transducer must be touching the head of the user to conduct vibrations directly to the inner ear. The inner ear translates these vibrations into nerve impulse signals sent to the brain, allowing the user to hear audible sound. “The main challenge for body-worn headset mics in harsh marine environments is having to deal with loud background noise, as it can affect the clarity of the speech being transmitted. Similarly, they need to be rugged to operate in extreme conditions while still being comfortable and ergonomic for the user.” Clearly, the team needed to make the headsets and microphones waterproof and also include noise cancellation to dampen out the sound of the wind and the foils. And there was still the issue of ensuring that those with headsets could continue to communicate with crewmembers without them. Unsurprisingly for a Cup team they are reluctant to go into more detail as they develop the comms system further, other than to confirm that military applications could provide some of the solutions. “There are a lot of parallels and a similar environment to ours,” says Cornwell. “They need their kit to be waterproof and with a certain level of simplicity. They also need noise cancelling; their environment is louder than ours, and of course the kit needs to be really robust too. BAE has been looking at those solutions for the military market and we were able to tap right into that.” But can the new technology cancel out singing? If it can, count me in.
COMMENT
SKIP NOVAK MODERN-DAY ADVENTURERS PALE INTO INSIGNIFICANCE WHEN YOU CONSIDER THE EXPLOITS OF SHACKLETON 100 YEARS AGO
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n 20 May I had the privilege of attending the Shackleton Memorial Service at Westminster Abbey. One hundred years ago Ernest Shackleton, Frank Worsley and Tom Crean stumbled into the Stromness whaling station having made their desperate trek across the unsurveyed spine of the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. The Shackleton story is well known, but it is always worth repeating if only in brief. In the summer of 1914 they set sail from the UK just after the outbreak of World War I – Churchill telling them to “Proceed” when they offered their services to the war effort. Their ship, the Endurance, was beset in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea in the southern summer of 1915 after a failed attempt to land a party for an overland traverse of the entire continent to the Ross Sea, planned for the following spring. The Endurance slowly succumbed to the pressure of the pack during that winter and eventually broke up, the ship’s “shackleton’s famous company now ‘safely’ camped on the pack ice by 27 October. open boat voyage to For the next five months they south georgia is one drifted with the vagaries of the pack, meanwhile attempting to of the greatest sea manhandle their three boats survival stories ” and equipment north to reach open water. In the end they settled into a waiting game and by 9 April 2016 all 28 men were able to take to the boats, barely surviving the sail and row to Elephant Island during the onset of winter.
Greatest sea survival story Shackleton’s famous open boat voyage to South Georgia on the 22ft James Caird and the subsequent rescue of the men left behind on Elephant Island with no loss of life is one of the greatest sea survival stories of all time, arguably all owing to the leadership of Shackleton. His methods are now enshrined in syllabuses in many business schools – ironic when you consider all his
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pre-expedition business ventures ended in failure. I had a chuckle though when the Bishop of London, giving the address at the service, compared Shackleton and his men as true explorers with the “likes of the shallow modern-day explorers we see today in the media”. I am sure many Antarctic aficionados in the audience either laughed to themselves as I did or choked depending on how serious one takes oneself.
Re-enactments A repeat of the 800-mile Shackleton boat journey was once considered the Holy Grail for a host of modern-day adventurers. Trevor Potts and a UK crew finally managed to pull it off in 1994, making it to the island and managing to land safely (an even greater feat) – in the days before a support vessel was required. It has been tried three times since, including one aborted attempt in dramatic circumstances. I know, as Pelagic was the support vessel for the South Aris project in 1997. When halfway to the island at the height of a gale the Irish team capsized three times in succession, resulting in a flooded cabin and a banged-up crew. With more heavy weather on the way, they wisely abandoned their splendid replica of the James Caird – named Tom Crean – and Pelagic hightailed it to safety. They later completed the mountain traverse. The German adventure supremo Arved Fuchs sailed all the way to close to the island on his replica in 2000 and linked up the mountain section. This replica/ re-enactment concept was taken to extremes by the most recent and publicised project under the leadership of Tim Jarvis, along with well known sailors Paul Larsen, Nick Bubb and others. They did the boat journey and the mountain crossing, but the difference was they were dressed in traditional clothing and used equipment of the era. Although always impressive feats of research and organisation, these re-creations at any level are fundamentally flawed. Support vessels, GPS and links to the internet are givens – and they did not eat the seals and penguins that Shackleton and his men did. The Bishop of London had made a good point.
The Atlantic return
HELEN FRETTER WENT TO HORTA TO MEET CREWS WHO HAD SAILED THE ATLANTIC WEST TO EAST
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ention to a cruiser that you are doing a transatlantic and they will probably picture the traditional tradewind route, Canaries to Caribbean, with the wind on your back and the weather improving with each watch. It’s true that this is the most popular route – 260 yachts made the westward crossing on last year’s ARC – but it is not the only one. An eastward crossing offers a very different experience, which can be either highly enjoyable or almost overwhelmingly challenging. For this year’s ARC Europe the fleet first headed north, from the BVI to Bermuda (or south, from Portsmouth, Virginia), then east to the Azores, before choosing the final stage of their crossing – an island hop through the Azores and a 850-mile trip to Portugal with the rest of the rally, or splitting away to elsewhere in Europe. Some had sailed across on a previous ARC and wanted a sociable return trip, others completing a circumnavigation, or returning home after a World ARC. There were also crews from the US and Canada taking on their first transatlantic and seeking the reassurance of crossing in company. In late May the fleet convened in Horta, capital of the
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Main picture: Joanna Shaw at the helm of Slipper 1, which recorded gusts of over 59 knots on the Atlantic crossing
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Above: the fleet set out from Bermuda in mid-May, on a 1,800-mile leg to the Azores
Azorean island of Faial, and a traditional meeting point for Atlantic voyagers. Faial is a curiously intense place, a speck in the ocean just 13 miles long, separated by 900 miles of water from Europe and 1,800 from the Caribbean. There is very much a sense that forces bigger than you are in charge here – from the volcano that looms out of the mist, marking the island’s perch on the collision zone of three tectonic plates, to the squall clouds that roll in over the mountain ridge, bringing torrential downpours. Horta is a sailors’ town, but the crews gathering at Peter’s Café Sport are not those found in mainland yachtie pubs. To have arrived here under sail is to have earned your stripes, and while there are celebrations, there is also a sense of relief at having made landfall.
Below: William Shaw, owner of Slipper 1, and crew were given a warm welcome by the fleet into Horta
High emotions William Shaw, owner and skipper of Slipper 1, freely admitted that he was emotional and tearful on his first day on land. The family crew experienced 59-knot gusts and 7m swells on the crossing in their Bavaria 41, and were humbled by the experience. The Shaws own Slipper 1 in a partnership, and after many years cruising in Europe took the yacht to the Caribbean with last year’s ARC. Following a winter touring the islands, they joined the ARC fleet in Tortola, and began the eastward crossing with five on board – William Shaw, his son Robert and daughter Joanna, and two friends. The first stage, an 850-mile trip from the BVI to Bermuda, which started on 7 May, was relatively uneventful, the only surprise being an acceleration zone in the narrow passage between Tortola and St John islands.
motoring and sailing in reasonable conditions, and were treated to the sight of a sperm whale surfacing 20ft away. The following day, however, the pressure began to build. “We started getting increasing wind because of a frontal system coming in. By Friday 27 it was blowing quite hard. And over Saturday, Sunday and Monday it was building all the time.” The ARC Europe fleet receive weather forecasts from the World Cruising Club organisers, with the Atlantic divided into ‘zones’, each allocated a letter code. “On Saturday we were told that the weather in ‘KK’ and ‘MM’ would be good so we started to come south, and then we got a forecast the next day saying where we were was likely to be least intense place. So we turned and went straight up onto 071°. “We started off with 4-5m of main and a storm jib, but when we found that we were slewing round and getting taken off track, we wound the main in and took the storm jib down and just motored. It was evident as soon as we started that once we got the engine speed right it was the safest thing to do. “The seas were so big that if you had any sail up, it would cause you to more or less broach. Looking behind you – which is always a mistake – the seas were towering 25-30ft waves. Fortunately the sea length was quite reasonable, but some of the crests were breaking and the remnants of the crest would break over the back of the boat.” By the early hours of Tuesday morning, wind speeds
“i’ve been sailing for 35 years and i’ve never experienced anything like it” The Bermuda to Azores leg, the longest passage at 1,800 miles, started on 17 May. From the outset the fleet had a real mix of wind speeds. They tacked out from Bermuda in a 15-knot north-easterly. After a moderate start, the wind faded and Slipper motored through the night before picking up a gentle westerly. Most of the fleet experienced a lull and spent several days motoring in the middle of the crossing, and Shaw reports that by 25 May they were alternating between
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had built to 50 knots. “I’ve been sailing for 35 years and I’ve never experienced anything like it. It was screaming. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.” Joanna Shaw recalls: “It felt like a row of terraced houses made of water coming towards you.” With both her father and her brother on board, she says they were keenly aware of the potential devastation to the rest of their family if the worst happened.
Left and above: reduced sail mid-Atlantic on board Slipper 1. The crew later ran with bare poles under engine as the sea state increased. Below: Nick Mines
Nobody panicked
on Hejira guided
However, the crew stayed calm. “We talked through all the options and how to keep safe, and nobody panicked,” says William Shaw. “There were a lot of people quietly looking at one another though. We had the washboards in, the top closed, so we were as ready as we could be if we did get hit and rolled. We didn’t take any risks. Coming on deck you’d be on your harness points, moving around very carefully.” Shaw felt that they were on the edge of their boat’s capabilities. “This is a fairly lightweight cruiser and it’s really pushing it for what we did. I know people have done it in this sort of boat before, but if it had been any worse I’m not sure what would have happened.” However, Slipper acquitted herself well, tracking down the waves and with no gear failures under pressure. The yacht is fitted with a Whitlock autopilot drive, in which Shaw has complete faith. “We’ve had it since the boat was new in 2003 and it’s brilliant, just unbelievable. It has a 12V motor, but it’s got really big windings so it’s a big proper chunky bit of kit. I’d never have anything
another yacht suffering from autopilot failure for ten days of the Atlantic crossing
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also sailed across with the 2015 ARC. On the westward crossing he had been joined by his wife, eldest son and brother. However, work commitments meant his crew could not do the eastbound trip, so Crummey joined the ARC online crew list and began to search for replacements. “I made some good connections and got it down to about six people, all Yachtmasters or really well qualified,” he recalls. “Unfortunately I had numerous people drop out at the last minute. One guy even paid for his flights and then decided that he didn’t want to come.” Crummey’s wife jumped on a flight back to the BVI and they completed the first stage together, before his crew search resumed. He interviewed one sailor and, having reassured himself of his experience levels, signed him up. With his new crew’s flight landing just a day before departure, the duo set out having never sailed together previously. “It was quite breezy and we knew there was a low coming in that would catch us, so we all went quite south initially, then tacked and came north,” recalls Crummey. “Then overnight on that first night the autopilot decided to pack in.” The difference between perception and reality of experience levels became obvious immediately, as Crummey’s co-crew struggled to hold a course on AWOL in the 30-knot winds and 4m seas. Crummey took the wheel for 12 hours to ride out the worst of the conditions. Crummey was considering whether to retire, but the thought of heading back alone, into a following low, was equally daunting. “Do you do another 1,000 miles, or go back to Bermuda? It would have been pretty devastating if
“at night time to assist us we put nick in front of us with his anchor light on” Top: the crew of Testarossa trim constantly to improve boat speed. Above: transferring
else.” The yacht also has a 55hp engine and they had 150lt of diesel in tanks, and another 200 in cans, giving them plenty of fuel to motor when needed. Shaw adds: “If the engine note changes I wake up, you’re in tune with it, you have to be.”
fuel from Hejira to AWOL mid-Atlantic
Different perception For other crews, it was gear failure that characterised their crossing. Cliff Crummey joined the ARC Europe to take his Elan Impression 444 AWOL to the Mediterranean, having
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40°N
Gu l f
20°W
60°W
A U S New York
40°W
ARC EUROPE st rea m
40°N
EU
AZORES Horta
Tropic of Cancer 20°N
Tortola BVI
A
t
l a
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c O t i
MADEIRA
a n c e
30°N
CANARY ISLANDS
A
Caribbean Sea
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Lagos
BERMUDA
30°N
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CAPE VERDE ISLANDS
3,485nm total mileage (Nanny Cay, BVI to Lagos, Portugal)
yachts sailed from Bermuda to the Azores
31 we had gone back, but I think, if we’d still been on our own, that would have been the only choice.” Fortunately, he spotted fellow ARC entrant Hejira on AIS. “I knew Nick [Mines, owner] anyway, so I contacted him and he very kindly agreed to escort us across.” The two crossed almost the entire way in company, with AWOL staying within a couple of miles of their lead boat during the day, and within half a mile after dark. “At night-time to assist us, because my crew found it very difficult to sail at night by the instruments, we put Nick in front of us with his anchor light on and his stern light on – so he could look and steer. We did that every night, which worked a treat.” The pair adopted a two hours on, two hours off watch pattern, as they hand-steered across the Atlantic in Hejira’s wake. Crummey initially slept on deck, then left a fog-horn next to the helm so he could be awakened if help was needed on deck. Fortunately they had predominately light winds for ten days, giving Crummey a chance to retro-fit his previous autopilot, which worked for several days to earn the pair some respite. However, Mines and Crummey had realised that the same low pressure system that caught Slipper was approaching, and decided to motor rapidly towards the Azores. The crew on Hejira transferred 100lt of fuel to AWOL to allow Crummey to motor without constraint, and both boats arrived safely before the severe winds struck. If ever you were to find yourself relying on another yacht mid-Atlantic, Nick Mines and Hejira are exactly the sort of skipper and boat you would want to find. His Southerly 135 has been lovingly modified and prepared for all eventualities, including back-up systems galore
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Above: life at an
19% Multihulls
81% Monohulls
angle for Dagmar Garlin on the Xp 44 Garlix. The Garlins were returning to Germany after a double-handed
Oldest
79
crewmember Antonio Rui de Castilho on Allegro
Youngest
21
crewmember Bastien Adillon on Alegria
World ARC. Below: Karl of Halcyon VIII doing the traditional painting on the harbour wall
59 knots
highest wind speed recorded across the fleet
32ft
the smallest yacht in the fleet, Pearson Vanguard 32 Blue Mist which took
25 DAYS
1 DOG 10
days Hejira guided AWOL
0 Children taking part
1 Unicycle (that we spotted)
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Above: George Gamble examines his broken boom. The damaged section was cut out and it was welded in Horta as a temporary fix to enable Testarossa
with solar panels, wind generator and Watt & Sea hydrogenerators for recharging, and what Mines concedes are “spares of spares”. Even though Mines admits that sailing in company with AWOL did compromise their crossing, he says he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. “It was ten days, the majority of our trip. But they were very grateful and they got here safely, and you wouldn’t want that on your conscience otherwise.”
to complete her transatlantic.
Pushing the limits
Above right:
Not every ARC Europe tale was one of woe. Far from it – for many of the larger yachts it was a trip with plenty of variety, made even more memorable by some exceptionally close encounters with whales. Two Hanse 575s, Ximera and Seaside, were among the faster boats to enjoy smooth crossings. Will Downing, skipper of Ximera, sailed with a crew of six, several of whom had also been recruited through online crew searches, but rather more successfully. Both Downing and his partner, Michelle Weeks, are Yachtmaster instructors, so were able to focus less on the
Testarossa’s crew sailed with the main loose-footed, sheeted directly from a reefing pendant
race mode and says that his current Testarossa is bought as a pure cruiser, an antidote to the VX One keelboat he races. But the Testarossa crew were certainly not taking it easy on the ARC Europe. “We sail her real hard,” admits Gamble. “We keep the rail down and make the boat sail fast. We won’t reef until we absolutely have to . . . A lot of boats might reef and flatten the boat out; we don’t, we push 24/7.” This time they pushed a fraction too hard, and their boom crumpled during a gybe four days into the trip. The crew took the mainsail down and put the boom to one side, sailing under jib alone for the first night. The next day they set up the mainsail with a line from the third reefing point to a spinnaker block, and raised the mainsail until they could sheet it without the boom, sailing with it loose-footed. Confident in this arrangement, they continued at a good pace to Horta. “We went north to get pressure in the next low, caught that and just reached in. We were still doing 9.5-10 knots. When we got in they were sure we had motored a lot because we had crossed so quickly.” Although Testarossa may be a cruising yacht, Gamble sails with more performance-orientated routines than many bluewater cruisers. “We all take turns and drive for an hour a day, so we all get used to the boat and get a feel for what it’s like. “If it’s a great upwind leg and we’re really going to weather then I’ll drive just for the fun of it, but for just reaching along I’ll let the autopilot work and I’ll trim. We do trim our sails constantly . . . That makes a huge difference. This boat just absolutely hauls when you get her going.” While the camaraderie and onshore socials may represent much of the appeal of crossing with the ARC Europe for many boats, the position tracker gives a frisson of competition to Gamble. “Oh, we do watch the boats around us. We’re a little bit competitive; we can’t help it.”
“we keep the rail down and sail fast. we won’t reef until we absolutely have to” sailing experience levels of the crew they took on and instead ensure the crew would gel in terms of personality. The multi-nationality crew had clearly enjoyed every minute of their Atlantic crossing, including an abundance of freshly prepared meals which Will jokes “became a bit like ‘Come Dine With Me’ at times”. The first yacht home was George Gamble’s Testarossa, a Beneteau OC55, which arrived after ten days of sailing, an hour and a half ahead of Seaside. The reigning J/111 world champion has previously completed the ARC in full-on
30 I August 2016
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The 100ft sweet spot ELAINE BUNTING JOINS SOUTHERN WIND’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY REGATTA IN CAPRI AND FINDS OUT WHY THIS ITALIAN/AFRICAN COMPANY IS ON A ROLL
A
small fishing float ahead as we make a tack back inshore is the only clue that we are fast approaching the entrance to the Grotta Azzura. The navigator points it out, the tiny opening to the famous Blue Grotto cavern that was once decorated with statues of Roman sea gods, where the Emperor Tiberius used to swim and may (or may not) have scandalously besported himself with young accolytes. It is race one of the Rolex Capri International Regatta. Aboard Southern Wind 78 Whisper, we have been tacking to clear the north-eastern point of the island by threading through ephemeral bands of north-easterly breeze. The conditions for racing are so-so, at best. The wind vanishes in void patches only
32 I August 2016
to reappear and head us by 30° or more. A crewman is winched aloft to seek the breeze. Once a staple of the racing calendar, the regatta at Capri used to attract large fleets. But crews began to congregate elsewhere, notably Porto Cervo in Sardinia, where the winds are more reliable, and Capri fell out of favour. This is a shame, because the island, with its hills and high limestone cliffs, dotted with villas perched precariously at the edge, offers some of the most imposing coastal scenery in the Mediterranean. But in May the event was rejuvenated by a fleet of Southern Wind yachts. The Italian company, which builds yachts of 82ft to 115ft in Cape Town, chose this race series as the time and place to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The connection between the two is Willy Persico, the Italian engineer and businessman
❯
Main picture: SW100 Illusion of the Isles, one of 13 boats at this size
August 2016 I 33
Carlo Borlenghi/Rolex
Southern Wind has sold
SOUTHERN WIND
who founded Southern Wind and is still its CEO. Persico grew up in Naples and holidayed in Capri as a boy, and for him this is a special place. “This is a sentimental journey,” he admits. “I grew up sailing in these waters and we held the first Southern Wind Trophy here in 1998.” In the years since the Capri regatta was a big thing, something has happened that the collection of yachts in the harbour this year made startlingly clear: the growth of the performance big boat and, in particular, the seemingly unstoppable rise of the 100-footer. While cruiser-racers of 50ft and below have stagnated since the financial crisis of 2007/8, this highly specialised area has experienced unprecedented growth. The 100ft mark is where many new big boat/superyachts are being built, yachts designed for comfortable cruising, but shaped by a sharpening seriousness about competing in offshore and superyacht regattas. Southern Wind’s success, however, is something else again. Most builders of yachts at this size are creating one-offs, successful new yachts such as the bright green Briand design Inoüi, or the newly launched Frers design Unfurled. Bespoke is, after all, a watchword in this realm. But Southern Wind has not, until very recently, been a custom builder; it is a manufacturer of small production semi-custom series. Yet its most successful series has been the SW100. Since 2006, the company has built no fewer than 13 of these 100-footers, making them the most successful producer of series yachts right on the threshold of the superyacht. Besides those, it has built five SW105s, production expanded to a 110-footer and continues to develop with two newly announced performance Farr designs, the SW96 and SW105 (see New Yachts, page 66), while at the top of the range, the SW115 is the flagship of the brand. To succeed with series production of semi-custom superyachts is remarkable. But Southern Wind has other unique claims: the only builder of luxury yachts in Africa; one of the few shipyards in the world to do everything in-house: engineering design, build, fit-out. And it is one of the few yards to have remained in stable and continuous ownership and management for a quarter of a century.
A clear vision At the helm of SW78 Whisper is Michael, the former owner. Whisper is for sale. Michael now has a larger yacht, an SW94. Like many Southern Wind repeat customers, he has traded up. But with her 3Di sails and race gear, this 15-year-old Reichel/Pugh design is still competitive. When I ask why he stayed with the same brand, he says he likes dealing with the company, cites the customer service and remarks: “I looked at a Swan, but you pay a lot more for the Swan name.” You could argue that success at this size of yacht is a
34 I August 2016
Carlo Baroncini Photography
“This is a sentimental journey. i grew up sailing in these waters and we had the first southern wind trophy here”
case of the global rich getting richer. And while that is true, there has been a sliding scale uncoupling of great wealth from ordinary affluence, to understand the phenomenon of Southern Wind, you have to meet Willy Persico, the man who started it and still directs it. Persico has a clear idea that the company is there to make quality bluewater cruisers, comfortable for sailing round the world, but with the capacity for decent performance. He insists that, before being a boatbuilder, he is a boat owner. At the age of 78, Persico is still in charge of every aspect of the business. “I go to the office in Genoa every day. I go to South Africa four or five times a year for a couple of weeks and we talk on the phone every day. We share many decisions. Of course I should reduce my involvement, but I like to be involved in all the details, particularly the interior.” Persico, an oil company executive, created Southern Wind in 1991 by happenstance. The Cape Town yard that
Above: a light winds finish to the race on day two off the Faraglioni, the famous rock stacks on the SE corner of the island of Capri. Above left: another keenly sailed SW100, L’Ondine
Carlo Baroncini Photography Photos: Carlo Borlenghi
This picture: the successful campaigner SW82 Grande Orazio
August 2016 I 35
Photos: Carlo Baroncini Photography
SOUTHERN WIND
36 I August 2016
“at least ten per cent of our yachts have sailed round the world and many have done it twice”
Above: aboard Whisper with the afterguard on the downwind leg south of the island. Left: spinnaker peel on the 100-footer Blues
Above: Caption to go here xxx xx xx xx x xx xx xx x xx xx x xx xx xx x xx xx x xx xx x x xx xx x xx x xx xx Left: Caption to go here xxx xx xx xx x xx xx xx x xx xx x xx xx xx x xx xx x xx xx x x xx xx x x Main picture: Reichel Pugh-designed Whisper, which is now 15 years old and is still competitive, well raced and upgraded with the 3Di sails and race winch package
was building his Ron Holland-designed 72-footer went bust and Persico stepped in. “It was a crazy decision to set up a shipyard in Africa in 1991, when Mandela was just out of prison and there was a white government to be replaced quickly by a black government. But I took the chance and we are the only shipyard in Africa building luxurious cruising yachts,” he says. But it did bring together some of Persico’s long-held interests. “My father was manager of a shipyard in Naples after the war, and I grew up as a kid looking at the ships,” he explains. Later, he went on to work for an oil company and became involved in shipbuilding. “The company for which I was working purchased a shipyard producing hydrofoils in Sicily and I was president of that company for five years. So I had experience of managing a shipyard and when I took over [Southern Wind] I liked the idea.”
Over the intervening 25 years, the building methods have changed and the yard has expanded enormously. In 1991, they were doing wet lay-up, with a male mould for the hull and a female mould for the deck. A team of 30 people was employed at the yard, in a shed not far from Cape Town airport. Things began to change. Owners wanted lighter, faster, stiffer, bigger yachts. By 2000, Southern Wind was working with designers Reichel/Pugh and interior specialists Nauta on the more modern SW78, and carbon fibre was being used for the first time. Five years later an infusion method of building was introduced and the yard continued to expand. In 2006, Southern Wind launched its first SW100 and realised it had hit a sweet spot. A yacht design that crossed the threshold into superyacht territory, designed to be built in series, met demand that possibly exceeded even the company’s projections. Persico maintains that the rise and rise of the 100-footers is far from accidental. But surprisingly, he does not refer to the regatta and superyacht racing that is fuelling such an interest in carbon composite designs of this size, but quite different ambitions. “My opinion is that the 100-footer is the perfect boat for sailing round the world,” Persico declares. The SW100 propelled the company to another stage of expansion. By the time the first SW100 was launched, the Southern Wind yard employed over 200 people and had been redeveloped and expanded. Today, more than
August 2016 I 37
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Carlo Baroncini Photography
SOUTHERN WIND
Above: regatta winner Seawave, a deck saloon version SW102 launched last year, which went on to win overall, chasing SW100 Farewell in a pursuit race format
38 I August 2016
300 people work at the yard, some families on the second generation, Persico is pleased to add, and the facilities in Cape Town have been developed and modernised, with 14,000m2 of the 18,000m2 being under cover. “We can easily handle three builds a year up to 100ft,” Persico comments.
Racing and cruising ambitions On our race round Capri we pick up some wind along the western side of the island and the larger Southern Wind yachts begin to close up. SW100 Cape Arrow foots by, overhauling us slowly. As at superyacht regattas, the racing is run under the ORCsy handicap rule. For safety’s sake there are separate starts for each yacht, with times staggered by two minutes, in an order that sees gradual (and at times slightly confusing) reshuffling. The race crews on most yachts are a mix of permanent crew, guests, friends and a few professional sailors. On
Whisper, communication is in a mix of English and Italian – often not complete sentences in either language – and there is a lot of it. Yet it all works amazingly efficiently. The hoist at the windward mark, the gybes down the back of the island, close in by the huge limestone cliffs, all go smoothly aided by this ad hoc Esperanto. Racing is only part of the menu for these large yachts, but it is becoming more earnest. Pro crews are filtering in. The newly launched SW102RS Seawave has former Volvo Ocean Race skipper Matt Humphries on board, and goes on to win the regatta overall; there are some top sailors too on board the competitively raced SW82 Grande Orazio. Most family owners do both. The owner of one SW100 was racing, but planning a second circumnavigation with his wife and teenage children next year. For most, cruising is still the driving force. SW100 Illusion of the Isles was sailing along with a handful of people aft and no one visible on the front 70ft of deck.
“i believe that sailing will continue to attract people who want to have something that is distinctive”
“I came here with six friends to celebrate Willy Persico and his achievement,” says the owner, who has had the boat since her launch a decade ago. “We’re all sleeping aboard and champagne is our most important fuel.”
The next sweet spot? There is no ignoring the move towards performance sailing, though, which is why Southern Wind is building a fully custom Reichel/Pugh 90-footer for a specific client and has commissioned two new designs, the SW96 and SW105 from Farr and Nauta. These projects branch out into a high-performance, lighter-displacement cruiser, beamier and lightly chined, capable of being built in pre-preg carbon/Nomex and featuring lifting keels and more sophisticated hydraulics for quicker sail handling. Willy Persico observes that 115ft is potentially the next sweet spot, and he is not alone in believing this. The performance cruisers Baltic 115 Nikata was launched last
Top: Willy Persico, CEO of Southern Wind, is still in charge of everyday business at 78. Above: the yard’s newest design, a custom RP90 in carbon composite, emerging from a shed at the facility in Cape Town
year, and two Swan 115s have recently been launched in Finland, and two more are under construction. “We see that the trend is for performance. In recent years we see many clients interested in dual use, private use by the owner for cruising and racing, and charter to cut the expenses of the management of the yachts. We think that around 115ft is the next step.” Persico has a clear vision of where his company should go, and that includes beyond his eventual retirement. “I do not want to sell the company and I do not want to leave the company to my family because nobody has the capacity and it’s easier to find this in my team. So in future my team will become the shareholders in the company to continue my way to build boats. Or,” he adds quickly, “maybe their way to build boats.” The move towards higher performance may seem inevitable, but as a boatowner Persico maintains that sailing will never be predominantly about speed and that the market for superyachts, though it has declined, is not under any threat from power. “As an object a yacht should have a charm, an appeal that even the best powerboat hasn’t. I believe that sailing will continue to attract people who want to have something that is distinctive.” His yard manager, Marco Alberti, who has worked with him for over 20 years, agrees. “We will always be building bluewater yachts that can go round the world, feel safe and be reliable. Our yachts have gone to the Arctic, Antarctic, done the Sydney-Hobart Race, to Japan, to Alaska. At least ten per cent of our yachts have sailed round the world and many have done it twice.”
August 2016 I 39
rocking in rio THE OLYMPIC PARTY WILL SOON BE IN TOWN, BUT JILL DICKIN SCHINAS ENJOYED A PARTY OF A DIFFERENT KIND IN THE BRAZILIAN PORT
40 I August 2016
would have stirred us to cross the ocean – after all, Marseille scored 2nd place and Amsterdam was only just outside the top five – but Rio just happened to be on our way as we journeyed between Brazil’s two yachting playgrounds, the Bahia de Todos los Santos to the north and the Ilha Grande. And Rio’s New Year’s Eve celebrations are the most extravagant in the world. On Mollymawk we made the most of the thunder squalls and eventually arrived outside the harbour in the small hours of the morning. From here the tide took us in hand, sweeping us through the narrow entrance, with its overlooking forts, and into Guanabara Bay. We turned hard to port, crept along beneath the Sugar
Photo: Shuttersotock
carcely ruffled by a lazy late afternoon breeze, the sea was an oily pink and orange lake. Two miles to the north, an endless chain of tall, strangely curvaceous grey mountains hovered over a thin band of mist. The sound of surf breaking on the unseen beach at the foot of these mountains was like the distant roar of motorway traffic and this rumble had accompanied us ceaselessly throughout the day as we drifted south. Our destination now lay less than ten miles ahead. Rio de Janeiro came 1st in the New York Times list of places to visit in 2013. I cannot pretend that this accolade
August 2016 I 41
CRUISING
“we dropped anchor below the cable car and looking down on us was the statue of the son of god”
Above: Ipanema Beach is outside the main harbour. Above right: yachts moored below Christ the Redeemer in Urca, one of the cleanest parts of the harbour as it is flushed by the tide
Loaf – one of the city’s iconic landmarks – and dropped anchor right there, below the famous cable car. Even at 0400 the town was still bustling and its lights formed an amphitheatre all around us. Meanwhile, looking down upon us from the sky was the statue of the Son of God. A continual stream of aircraft came thundering overhead, turned at the last moment and then roared over our masthead. The runway seemed to float at the edge of the harbour, just in front of a huge bridge; but at first it looked as if the aircraft, banking again and making their final approach, were set to pass under the bridge. Later, the water wafting past the boat was strewn with flowers, and among them there were some model boats. Initially we thought that this might be a quaint means of scattering the ashes of some late-lamented person. But the little blue boats proved to be carrying offerings for the Brazilian ‘Queen of the Sea’, Iemanja. One bore a soggy letter addressed to the goddess asking her blessing through the coming year. Another carried a tacky plastic comb, a scrap of rather slimy soap, a cheap mirror and a small packet of talcum powder.
New Year celebrations As darkness fell over the city of Rio de Janeiro and the Corcovado mountain vanished beneath O Cristo’s feet, 200 yachts went streaming out of the harbour to watch the fireworks, and we joined the flow. Just around the corner lay the world’s most famous beach, Copacabana. It
42 I August 2016
was already thronged by two million ant-like figures, and anchored off the beach were no fewer than ten huge cruise ships, each bejewelled with glittering lights. We took up station inside the line of ships and close by a pair of huge tugs. Halfway between us and the shore was a string of 11 large barges carrying 25 tonnes of fireworks said to cost in the region of £5 million. Rio is, however, best known for its carnival, an event that the local council, with typical Latino modesty, bills as ‘o mais grande espectaculo da tierra’ and ‘o meior festa do mundo’. We were still in the area when this took place and were able to return to the city and check it out. ‘The greatest show on Earth’ it is not – not in my book, anyway – but the second claim is probably well-founded: Rio’s carnival probably is ‘the biggest party in the world’. Several million people all enjoying themselves as only Brazilians know how, with four days and nights of non-stop music, dancing and beer swilling. Visiting tourists are encouraged to spend at least one evening at the sambódromo, a massive stadium where the ‘Samba Schools’ strut their stuff in sequined satin and feathered finery. This side of Carnival is big business. The larger Samba Schools can produce a procession half a mile long with 5,000 participants, including film stars and celebrities, and they will happily spend £10 million on their efforts. (Yes, you read that correctly: each of the big schools reckons to spend ten million pounds annually.) Much of this money comes from sponsorship, but
Rio-Niteroi Br
idge
Niteroi
Rio de Janeiro Marina Gloria Corcovado Mountain Urca
Fortaleza
Airport
BRAZIL
Guanabara Bay
Salvador
N
Bahia de Todos los Santos
Rio de Janeiro Sugar Loaf Mountain
Atlantic Ocean
Florianópolis
Copacabana Beach
BRAZIL Guanabara Bay
Rio de Janeiro
Niteroi
Angra dos Reis Leblon Beach Ipanema Beach
ILHA GRANDE
Atlantic Ocean
0
Copacabana Beach
10
20
nautical miles
How’s the water? Rio’s water quality and, in particular, that of
from sight; but in this case, out of sight is
Guanabara Bay, where the Olympic sailing
certainly not out of mind.
Photos: Shutterstock
will be raced, has been hugely controversial
samples take from the harbour, experts
contaminated’ is how European and North
have said that athletes at all water venues
American health experts have described
will have ‘a 99 per cent chance of infection if
the vast lagoon that once was home not
they ingest just three teaspoons of water’
only to the Amerindian people, but also to
– although whether a person falls ill will
birds and fish and even to whales.
depend on their level of immunity.
Even in the 1970s the great bight of
While the sailors race inside
water above the Rio-Niteroi bridge was still
the bay, other Olympic competitors will be
lined by mangrove swamps and sandy white
doing their stuff in the waters off the
beaches, but the mangroves have since
Copacabana beach. Since it lies outside the
been destroyed by an oil spill and the
harbour, on the city’s seaward face, you
beaches lie hidden beneath refuse.
might imagine this place would be relatively
Guanabara receives much of the effluent not only from the sprawling city of
clean – but it isn’t. The hills behind the town are home to
Rio with its docks, oil terminal and slums,
some of the city’s poorest inhabitants –
but also from the town of Niteroi, on the
their sprawling favelas are the ones that
opposite shore. And since the pond is
feature in Disney’s recent cartoon in which
almost landlocked it’s no wonder that it has
the blue parrots make their escape. The
become a cesspool.
sewage from this area doesn’t even travel
The nearer you get to the harbour
through a pipe to reach the sea; it just rolls
entrance, the greater the exchange of water
down the slope. A fellow sailor taking a dip
and the less obvious the pollution, but the
on the beach gave it up after the third
flotsam and the poisons do still snag in the
condom washed past his nose.
nooks and crannies – and unfortunately the
Is there any corner free from sordid
Olympic sailing fleet will be based in one
sights? Yes, there is; there’s Urca.
such back bay, in the Marina Gloria. To be
Presumably this place gets a good flushing
frank, this place stinks. Floating rubbish piles up among the jetties and on the nearby beach, and
Above: most famous for its carnival, Rio attracts millions of visitors
After examining data relating to water
– and quite rightly so. ‘Chronically
by the tide, because the beach below the Sugar Loaf is reckoned to be the cleanest in the whole bay. The only flotsam that we saw
pollution levels are such that notices
while we were anchored here was flowers
generally place it out of bounds to
and Iemanja’s ‘toy’ boats. Whether the place
swimmers. In the light of much negative
is completely free from E-Coli and other
international publicity, the city is building an
viruses I don’t know.
outfall pipe to carry the sewage further
All I will say is we swam here and lived.
August 2016 I 43
CRUISING
Right: Mollymawk is currently on a tour of South America. Far right: Ilha Grande a few miles to the south offers bays, villages and pristine forest. Below: very little wind in Ilha Grande
Jill Dickin Schinas 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.yachtmolly mawk.com
44 I August 2016
the local government also chips in, and – needless to say – they want a return on their investment. Tickets for a seat in the sambadrome start at £70 and go up to about £300. So far as most Cariocas (or residents of Rio) are concerned, the Big Business side of Carnival is irrelevant. They get their fun on the streets and on the beaches. By 1000 there were half a million people on Praia Ipanema, and by midday there were twice that number. Adding all the beaches, we are talking about a belt of sand four miles long and about 100m wide, together with the strip of road and pavement – all with standing room only! The streets of the city were also thronged, and many were closed to traffic. There were people everywhere. And what were they all doing? They were partying, of course! They were dancing and laughing, and drinking, too – buying their beers from vendors who passed through the crowd, and throwing their empty cans down as fast as the ‘recyclers’ could pick them up. (You can get £1 a kilo for empty aluminium cans in Brazil, and although there’s no government-organised recycling, there are people who derive the greater part of their income from this source. As a result, 87 per cent of cans are recycled as compared with under 50 per cent in the USA.) Weaving our way along the crowded streets we encountered scores of blocos – down-market carnival floats attended by a cacophonous noise of drumming and trumpeting and pursued by up to 150,000 happy people. Some of the Carnival singers and samba dancers achieve
considerable fame, and even when their time has passed their fans still regard them fondly. One of the youngest performers was a scantily clad 13-year-old, who smiled prettily as her feet moved to the frenetic rhythm of the samba music, but even more popular was a former queen, a 93-year-old who had to hang onto the side of the float as it swayed to and fro. When she gave the crowd a flash of her fishnet stockings there were roars of approval.
Setting of perfection Rio certainly knows how to throw a good party. But when the show is over what is there to see and do in this city? Parties apart, Rio’s finest feature is its setting. Sailing in and out of the harbour, you are struck by the absolute perfection of the place – and, equally, by the way in which the city has spoiled that perfection. The three-pronged bay is hidden behind a wall of rocks and its entrance is adorned with a sprinkling of islets. No doubt the shores of this tropical paradise were once home to Amerindian people who lived idyllic lives in adobe huts and who traversed the placid waters in dug-out canoes. No matter that they spoilt the perfection of their existence by making war on each other and devouring their enemies; at least they didn’t trash the Garden of Eden. They would be shocked if they could see what has become of the place. As it is their memory lingers on only in local place names, such as Ipanema and Copacabana.
Photos: Shutterstock
“rio is not the place to spend a season hanging out – but there is such a place a day’s sail south”
Next stop: Ilha Grande Few yachtsmen spend a lot of time in Rio. It’s
Numerous trails lead to the island’s peaks or
not the sort of place that pulls the visitor in
to beaches on the windward shore, and a
and tempts them to spend a season hanging
rambler might encounter iguanas and snakes
out. However, there is just such a place hardly
and is almost guaranteed to sight a troop of
a day’s sail to the south. The Bay of Ilha Grande is a huge cruising ground consisting of a ‘Big Island’ which backs
saguin, or marmoset – the evil-faced monkeys that feature in the Rio cartoon. There are also cougars, jaguarundis (a
onto a wonderful collection of coves, inlets
very much smaller cat),and even jaguars
and little islets. There are various small towns
lurking in the depths of the forest. From a boat
and villages on the adjacent mainland, and
you can hear the bragging calls of howler
Ilha Grande itself is covered in pristine forest.
monkeys and if you go to the right beach (or the wrong beach?) you might meet crocodiles. Pretty much the only thing that the Ilha Grande area lacks is wind. All the same, we managed to spend three months here and to visit more than 30 anchorages without motoring once. Although there are always half a dozen tankers anchored in the lee of the island the area seems to be relatively clean – thus far there has been no major oil spill – and there is none of the plastic and sewage pollution you see everywhere in Rio. What effect the nuclear power plant at the back of the bay might be having on the water is something you might prefer to overlook.
The first Europeans to sail through the cleft between the hills must have been wonder-struck both by the beauty of the place and by its obvious value as a haven. No doubt the subsequent construction of a settlement and its expansion were inevitable, but still you cannot help but think with nostalgia of that pre-Columbine past. Nowadays a pall of smog often hangs over the bay, a fog of haze spread by the aircraft that roar in and out all day, and by the traffic whizzing around the streets, and also by the ships and fishing boats that head upstream to the commercial port. And that’s to say nothing of the sewage. It is said that more than 70 per cent of the sewage from the 12 million inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro flows into the bay untreated. Once you have taken up residence in the bay you are apt to be less conscious of the natural splendour of the place and more aware of the immediate surroundings. A berth in the Marina Gloria puts you right alongside the airport – with all that entails – and right in among the sewage and flotsam. A walk through the adjacent park or the nearby streets is not particularly inspiring either. “How do they manage to sell it as one of the greatest places on Earth?” asked another foreign yachtsman, having spent all day dragging around the town. “Ah, yes,” he then answered himself: “Aerial photography.” He’s right: all the postcards of Rio are aerial views. But you don’t actually have to take a flight to look down on the bay – join The Redeemer on that hill top behind the city. Most people make the journey aloft in a funicular railway and the entrance fee is included in the fare for the train, but even if you travel by that means you still have to join an hour-long queue before gaining admission to the hill. The greatest, the best and the number one place to see before you die? No, I don’t think so – not from the point of view of a cruising sailor for whom the whole world is an oyster stuffed with pearls. As far as I can gather, the New York Times placed it 1st on their list largely because Brazil was going to be hosting the World Cup. And now the city is about to welcome the Olympics Games. Rio may not be worthy of its top-ranking position, but it is still pretty special, and for anyone who happens to be passing by – between Cape Town and the Caribbean, for example, or on the way south to Patagonia – the city is well worth a week’s stopover.
August 2016 I 45
Main picture: Hummingbird moored just off the old Portuguese fortiďŹ cations of El Jadida
46 I August 2016
Moroccan adventure A SHORT HOP FROM EUROPE, BUT A DIFFERENT WORLD, MOROCCO MADE A FASCINATING WINTER CRUISING GROUND, SAYS RACHAEL SPROT
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andy, straight and with few deep water ports, the Atlantic coast of Morocco stretches for almost 1,000 miles down the coast of Africa from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Sahara. It’s not the most hospitable of cruising grounds: there are long distances between ports of refuge and inside the 100m contour swathes of fishing nets await the unwary sailor. And if that isn’t enough, a constant Atlantic swell creates breaking surf along much of its length. But as a destination for adventure sailing, it held huge appeal. We set aside two weeks to make the
350-mile trip from Tangiers to Agadir, which is more or less the southernmost navigable port in Morocco. Melissa, the first mate, and I launched the boat after a Christmas haul-out in Algeciras and motored out through the Strait to pick up the crew in Tangiers. We’d had a brief introduction to Morocco when we’d visited the Mediterranean port of M’Diq the previous December. After a slog from Cadiz into an easterly we arrived in the dark, unsure of what to expect. It was a pleasant surprise to find an immaculate marina next to the fishing basin, which was totally empty. “We’ve struck lucky!” I yelled to the crew, “Lines and fenders port side to, we’ll go on that hammer head.”
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Just as the crew were about to step ashore an officiallooking van drew up on the quayside and four men jumped out, blowing their whistles and frantically gesturing at us to back off. It turned out that this was the king’s marina, and we certainly didn’t look like royalty. After attempting to find room in the crowded fishing basin, which was laced with mooring lines, we were given a temporary spot on the fuel berth instead. So we had learned that all is not quite as it seems in Morocco. Even after our initiation to Moroccan berthing, Tangiers was not an easy first port of call. The pilot guide warns that navigation marks are routinely off station or missing, and sure enough the west cardinal off Cap Malabata was nowhere to be seen. However the entrance is easy to find from the constant flow of ferry traffic.
Our very own ‘boat guard’ Upon arrival it was clear that the limited berths for yachts were occupied by local boats. We were told to moor across the stern of a derelict ferry, where a self-appointed ‘boat guard’ took our lines. We tied up bows to the concrete quay, with a midships line to a mark on one side, and to the ferry on the other. The missing cardinal mark sat on the harbour wall, still blinking despite being high and dry. Our guard explained that it was ten euros a day for him to look after the boat (it didn’t seem to be optional). “I’m at your service,” he said, making a little bow. “Is there anything you need? Fuel? Moroccan flag?” “No, thank you,” I replied. “OK, can I take your charts? I need to make photocopies for other boats. And do you have any beer?” I reluctantly handed over a cold beer and a couple of charts, insisting that I get them back that afternoon and wondering who was at whose service. The eight crew arriving needed directions to find us, which went something like this: ‘Go to the fishing port, turn left at ‘smelly corner’, pass the barbecue shack to starboard, look for the old ferry, and you’ll see us astern.’ Remarkably they all found us and we set off to explore. It was sensory overload as we wandered the labyrinth of the medina, passing barrows piled high with pomegranates, sacks of dates and counter tops groaning with olives. While the crew bartered for carpets, Melissa and I went off in search of a local SIM card. We found a kiosk and while queuing a friendly berber man insisted on helping us out. Little did we know that an hour later we would be walking out of his brother’s shop having purchased traditional jalaba dresses and narrowly avoided buying beautiful, but utterly useless sequined slippers.
Above: exploring Tangiers, which soon turned out to be sensory overload
Moroccan Fatimas “Now you look like good Moroccan Fatimas!” he called down the street after us as we eventually made our escape, “No one will bother you or try to sell you things!” He seemed to miss the irony of this statement. The truth turned out to be quite the contrary; in our Moroccan guise we attracted far more attention from the street vendors, who now recognised us as easy targets. In a state of mild hysteria, we returned to the boat and decided it was time to set sail. Rabat is the next major port of call, and has one of only two marinas on the Atlantic coast. But the Bou Regreg river silts badly and an onshore swell makes the entrance hazardous.
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Right: skipper and mate try to blend in sweating the main in traditional jalabas
Deirdre Pontbriand Photos: Sally Golden
Top right: Tangiers fishing basin is
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Atlantic Ocean
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“In our moroccan guise we attracted far more attention from street vendors – they knew we were easy targets”
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Despite the light airs there was still a north-westerly swell hitting the breakwaters when we arrived. The marina staff advised us to wait for high water, when they sent a RIB to pilot us in. It was a magical river ride, passing close by the stone walls of the Kasbah. As the administrative capital and with a new tram service and wide boulevards, Rabat feels decidedly European. Lulled into this sense of familiarity, five of us decided to visit a Hammam steam bath. The marina secretary organised an appointment at her regular place, which was located in the bottom of a five-storey building and looked rather like a gym. We put on bikinis, much to the attendants’ amusement, and went through into the steam room accompanied by the sound of drum beats as the attendants beat their buckets and danced around us. This wasn’t quite the peaceful spa I had envisaged, but it was too late now. A pot of swamp green olive paste appeared, apparently to be rubbed all over, the only problem was that it would stain our swim wear. The bikinis were practically stripped off us. Our hosts then disappeared and left us to contemplate
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Above: our yacht Hummingbird is a 60-footer run by adventure sailing company Rubicon3
our fate. Here we were, completely naked and covered in gunk, in a nondescript suburb of Rabat. Was this a sort of ritual humiliation reserved purely for Westerners? Were our clothes still in the changing room? How would I explain to Bruce, my business partner, that Hummingbird was now under the command of three Hammam ladies while I was stuck in the basement of a tower-block? We were laid out on heated marble slabs and scrubbed with what can only be described as 40 grit sand paper. If this kind of energy was applied to Hummingbird’s decks at refit time we’d have her repainted in a day. The attendants chatted away and were intrigued to find that over half of us weren’t married. Did Erika want a Moroccan husband? They knew plenty of eligible bachelors, she just had to say. By now all British prudishness had deserted us and we were resigned to our fate. Eventually we were pronounced clean and returned to the boat, unmarried, but considerably chastened. The following day we left Rabat at the top of the tide and continued on past Casablanca. It seemed a shame to
Planning a Moroccan cruise O
A working knowledge of French helps.
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Prepare to be creative when tying up!
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Take jerrycans to fill up with fresh water and sterilisation tablets just in case.
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Fitting a rope cutter gives some peace of mind when negotiating the coastal fishing zone.
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Summer is the best time to go, but winter cruising is possible if you respect the swell.
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The gift of a packet of cigarettes can ease proceedings, but it is not always appropriate to
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Terrorism was a concern for many of our crew. Currently, the Foreign Office says that the
offer ‘baksheesh’ (small bribes) to officials. threat of terrorism is high, but this is the case for many European countries too. The ports generally have excellent security and we didn’t feel threatened at any point in our travels. We were warmly welcomed everywhere, apart from in the king’s marina!
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pass by such an iconic port, but we were warned that they didn’t have any room and didn’t want to risk being turned away. We made for the small port of El Jadida instead. The swell was minimal and the approach is partially protected by a rocky outcrop to the north. Once inside the 100m contour line there was the usual cobweb of nets to negotiate, but there were also several strange objects in the water which were hard to make out from a distance. On closer inspection they were people, far out to sea in black rubber-rings. There was no evidence of a boat that had towed them out, but as we were making landfall there wasn’t time to investigate.
Clearing in to El Jadida Fishing boats were rafted across the harbour, so we anchored in front of the old Portuguese fortifications, deploying the kedge astern to keep us clear of the traffic. And then began the clearing in procedure. First, the port authority wanted the boat details and a crew list. I had copies of the crew list, but they wanted the information on their own forms. Next was immigration, where the official was standing outside a Portacabin having a cigarette. We went inside and he took a swipe at the fluorescent light with a broom handle. It flickered on. “Welcome to Morocco,” he beamed at me, “Please have a seat, and a date.” He popped a couple into his mouth. “They’re from the garden of my mother-in-law. Best in Morocco. Take . . .” he gestured, and spat out a couple of stones. He was clearly in no hurry. He produced a sheaf of yellowing immigration papers from an otherwise empty desk and we filled them out. It was dark now, and I was missing dinner. “Finished?” I asked hopefully. “Oui, oui,” he replied, “Now you go to Customs.” Customs wanted all the same information, written out twice. This place had better be worth it, I thought.
Photos: Shutterstock
Sally Golden
Above: Rachael talks to her charter crew as they cruise under spinnaker. Above right: up the Bou Regreg river past the Kasbah in Rabat. Left: the old walls of El Jadida
“The dusty fortress walls feel as though you’ve stepped straight into the 16th Century”
It was. The fortress of Mazagan is a UNESCO world heritage site and its dusty walls feel as though you’ve stepped straight into the 16th Century. The beautiful cistern has been the backdrop to many a film, including Orson Welles’s Othello. Out of season and off the beaten track, we had the place to ourselves. The sea and its spoils are a precious resource in Morocco where many of the population struggle to survive. As we left El Jadida this came sharply into focus. The rubber-ringed paddlers weren’t out there for leisure, they were fishing. Sporting a tractor tyre inner tube and flippers they worked in pairs with a net strung between them. We felt privileged to be on the water for pleasure. There were two possibilities for the penultimate port of call: Safi, a large phosphate terminal and Essaouira, the picturesque fishing port and much-loved surf town further down the coast. We would have loved to go to Essaouira, but there’s a reason it’s a surfer’s paradise, and there was still some winter swell about despite the benign conditions. Safi it was. Berthing alongside a cadet training vessel, we were right in the heart of the industrial area on the appropriately named Quai des Phosphates. “It’s one of those places you wouldn’t discover unless you’re sailing . . . and apparently it has a very nice potters’ quarter,” I weakly tried to convince the crew of its merits. “Boy, you sure know how to pick your spots,” Andrew muttered as he stared bleakly at a pile of fertiliser gleaming on the dock. The immigration officers arrived and were blissfully efficient. Once we’d finished they couldn’t help but enquire where my husband was, to which I replied: “I don’t have one!” “Why not?” They sounded rather like a couple of great aunts I know. Getting a little fed up with this question, I said: “I’m married to the sea.” Smiles broke out between us. “Ah very good, much better husband,” one
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Far left: the cistern in El Jadida has been the backdrop to many a film. Left: tuna for lunch. Below: ceramics from the pottery
Photos: Deirdre Pontbriand
quarter in Safi
“By now we were right on the edge of the Sahara, and the heat and dust were palpable” chuckled. The other looked wistfully beyond the breakwater towards the Atlantic. Some things are universal, including the sailor’s dilemma of whether to answer the call of the sea or the pull of the heart! We had caught two tuna on the way down the coast from El Jadida, so we had them for lunch before we headed off. The pottery quarter sounded very like a tourist trap and I vowed not be bullied into buying anything, but it is also Safi’s main attraction (unless you like fertiliser) so it had to be done. A long row of shop fronts stretched colourfully down the street, and soon we were rummaging through acres of hand-painted wares. “Ever heard the phrase ‘Bull in a china shop’?” Veronica quipped as we navigated around the precariously over-stocked shelves.
Putting my foot in it Qualified to instruct RYA Yachtmaster Ocean and an MCA Master 200, Rachael Sprot grew up on yachts and, apart from completing an English degree at Cambridge, has spent her professional life at sea. She is skipper of Rubicon3’s exploration yacht Hummingbird. www.rubicon3.co.uk
52 I August 2016
We were given a tour of the co-operative, from the piles of fresh clay and stacks of firewood, to the painters, glazers and kilns. It was a fascinating insight into a local industry, but disaster struck in the dimly lit basement of the potters’ turning area. I trod on a tarpaulin which turned out to be covering a row of soft, new jugs. Embarrassed, I tried to pay for the damage, but they wouldn’t accept anything. Needless to say I did some serious purchasing in the shops! “How about the phrase ‘Putting your foot in it’?” Veronica joked. Against the odds, Safi had been full of interest, but it was time to head for Agadir. The prevailing northeasterlies gave us a lovely spinnaker run down the coast. By now we were right on the edge of the Sahara, and the heat and dust were palpable. It felt as though the true
continuation of our journey through Morocco would have to be by camel, and not by sea. Upon arrival we found ourselves in a huge marina, surrounded by restaurants and hotels. For the first time in weeks the quayside wasn’t coated in fish scales and the air smelt clean. There are plans to develop marinas in several of the Atlantic ports: in Tangiers construction is well under way. This will allow more yachts to make interesting diversions en-route to the Canaries and perhaps help identify Morocco as a cruising ground in its own right. Navigationally it’s a fairly straightforward coastline, the tidal streams are weak and the hazards are mainly those of fishing gear and swell, both of which can be avoided by choosing your weather and waiting for daylight. And the rewards are great: Morocco is only a stone’s throw from the Med, but you’ll feel as though you’re a world away. For those of us who like its lack of development, now is the time to visit: catch it while you can, while it’s still smelly.
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GREAT SEAMANSHIP
TALES OF THE FAR NORTH AS MINGMING II SAILS ON HER LONELY VOYAGE TO JAN MAYEN ISLAND, ROGER TAYLOR MUSES ON THE WEATHER, TIME AND A RUSSIAN BEAUTY WAITING FOR HIM ON A NEARBY ISLAND oger Taylor is a man who gets quietly on with life, making remarkable voyages in tiny, engineless yachts. He sailed 20,000 high-latitude miles in six years aboard Mingming, a junk-rigged 20ft Corribee, before buying a semi-derelict Achilles 24 for £1,500 including an outboard which he sold on eBay. This unlikely material was transformed into Mingming II. After several years preparing her for the Arctic using an aluminium lamp-post for a mast, sewing his own sails and rebuilding just about everything bar the hull, he was ready to go again. OK, you may think, he’s an eccentric. But Roger Taylor is no oddball. Well into his sixties, he is the best-balanced writer you will ever read. Not only is he a total seaman, he passes observations on to his readers that would have been the envy of Joseph Conrad. Here, in a passage taken from Mingming II and the Islands of the Ice, he offers advice on coming to terms with weather, good and bad, shares an acceptance of the ultimate inevitability of death then, to lighten up a bit, he injects a little erotic fantasy into a long, lonely voyage and pokes fun at a rude man at the same time. The extract finds Mingming II having just left Spitsbergen, heading towards Jan Mayen Island at 75°N.
INTRODUCED BY
TOM CUNLIFFE
Mingming II and the Islands of the Ice by Roger Taylor is published by The FitzRoy Press. Price £9.99 ISBN 978-09558 03574.
We were heading back towards open sea, so gone were the rigours of engineless pilotage close to the islands. This kind of navigation is a constant question of placement. If I put the boat here, or here, or here, what might be the effect of a becalming, or of an inshore current, or of an adverse tide, or of a nasty blow? Every move is circumscribed by its as yet unseen consequences. It is a form of geometric chess. All possible courses are considered, then discarded one by one until the move that carries the best risk:reward ratio is arrived at. It is this permanent uncertainty that keeps a voyage alive and interesting. To learn willingness constantly to revise strategy, to remain always open to all possibilities, helps one along the road to what I would consider the most important attribute of the seasoned sailor: total equanimity and indifference as to what the weather brings. There is nothing to be gained from hoping for this wind or that, or from raging against headwinds or calms. You will get what
“
Bob Aylott
R
Above: Roger Taylor aboard Mingming II, an adapted Achilles 24
you will get, sometimes helpful, sometimes unhelpful. It is healthier and less stressful to purge oneself of all hope as regards the weather, and to accept whatever comes with an equally positive mind-set. Weather is neither good nor bad; it just is. The sailor’s task is to exercise his skill in all conditions without any emotional overlay. Over time, all the vicissitudes of the weather even themselves out. A fair wind is pleasing, yes, but sooner or later it will be counterbalanced by its opposite. Better, then, not to rejoice in it too much, but simply to get on with the task of making the most of it. If one can accept all weather equally, sailing becomes a much calmer and more enjoyable experience . . . Racing downwind over the Spitsbergen Banks I thought about it a little more, and concluded that the other enemy of relaxed sailing is a misconceived notion of time, or more precisely, the relationship between past, present and future. If the past is no more than a mental construct of our experience, and the future a mental construct of our presupposed experience, that might imply that the only reality is the present, and it is there that we live. Yet the present moment is ungraspable. As soon as you reach out for it, it is gone. However infinitesimally you divided time, you would never arrive at the precise instant that could be deemed the present. The present is an illusion; it is no more than a chimerical interface between
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GREAT SEAMANSHIP
what we think has been and what we suppose might be. In its approximate form it is all, though, that we have. To have one’s focus drawn too widely from the fleeting present is to give oneself over to wish and expectation, with their necessary corollaries: uncertainty, anxiety and fear. These emotions, which can gnaw away at a sailor in so many ways, destroying pleasure and good decisionmaking, stem from over-absorption in what we suppose might be. Clearly one has to analyse the possibilities, and make the best dispositions possible, but beyond that there is nothing to be gained by worrying. The worst that can happen is that one can die. So what? It is going to happen sooner or later, and in relation to the infinite time passed peacefully before birth, and the infinite time to be passed peacefully after death, a few months or years are of little relevance. It does no harm to a sailor, or indeed any man, to learn indifference towards death.
It was a mean-hearted north-easterly that carried us out into the Greenland Sea, a cold, gimlet-eyed wind blowing straight off Franz Josef Land. It was as inconstant as it was unfriendly, this wind, sometimes working itself up into thudding gusts, sometimes whimpering to nothing. It came in, now from here, now from there, and kept me forever at the hatch, raising sail, lowering sail, easing the mainsheet, taking up the mainsheet, constantly adjusting the balance of the self-steering gear and the tiller. It made me earn my keep and I was glad of it: this was an Arctic wind if ever there was one and so, for all its inconsistencies, it was the noblest of winds. Technically we were crossing what the Norwegians call the Fram Strait, the stretch of water that separates Svalbard and Greenland. To make a tenuous connection with that great ship, while driven on by this polar wind, warmed me to the core. I knew well enough that my own excursions into these northern waters were little more than a pretence, a conceit, in comparison with those of the real Arctic explorers. I was little more than a tourist, a day-tripper, playing the hard man in a world become soft. I was contributing to nothing except my own sense of fulfilment, somehow trying to reconcile 19th Century dreams with a 21st Century world. I was profoundly aware of this sense of anachronism. Nonetheless, I could not see what else I could do. A whole life had driven me inexorably to this point; seeds sewn innocently 60 years previously were now bringing their final fruit. A man cannot fight his own nature. For a while I thought that this new wind, for all its alternating between the muscular and the effete, was going to develop into something steady, but it was a premature assessment. On the afternoon of Friday 8 August, our 35th day at sea, and after a noon-to-noon run of 81 nautical miles, the breeze once more started to dwindle. I made a rare mandatory exit of the hatch to put
Bob Aylott
An Arctic wind
Top: approaching the Weyprecht Glacier, Jan Mayen. Above: tiny interior of Mingming II. Above right: reaching 79°N
“hello, my name is olga. I am beautiful dorter of rich russian oligarch. Come and rescue me” 56 I August 2016
a safety lashing on the fittings that secured the mainsheet blocks to the after rail; they looked loose and vulnerable after five weeks of hard use. By 2200 the wind had gone. I lowered and lashed the mainsail, and on an easy sea that rolled us gently to a rhythmic lullaby, slept for eight hours. It was the longest sleep of the voyage, a deep, reviving sleep that recouped the accumulated deficit of the previous weeks of intense pilotage, the sort of sleep I would only ever allow myself in the remotest of open waters. I slept, relaxed and happy, my subconscious already ranging ahead across the Greenland Sea to that other island, Jan Mayen, and all its possibilities. At 0900 a zephyr came up somewhere from the west. I raised seven panels of the sail and in the longest and oiliest of swells we ghosted painfully on, now diverted to the south-west. Within a couple of hours the puffs had spun round to the east and we were back on course. We passed by the prominent red top and dark green neck of a bottle floating in the sea. I had no doubt that it contained a message, but it was past us before I could fish it out. I was not disappointed: somehow I knew exactly what the message said: ‘Hello, my name is Olga. I am beautiful dorter of rich Russian oligarch. I am stranded on island
Left: leaving Bertie Milne
Whitehills in Scotland en route for the Arctic Above left: Mingming’s chart table and galley. Below: Roger Taylor
forward to a nice matey chinwag, an old-sea-dogs-swappingyarns-of-the-Far-North moment. It was not to be. The skipper was not a happy man. He seemed more than reasonably offended by the fact that I called him up using his port of registration rather than his ship’s name. ‘My ship is GADUS! GADUS!’ With admirable restraint I apologised for the error and refrained from suggesting that it may be helpful if the ship’s name were painted in letters considerably larger than its port, rather than vice versa, but from then on it was all downhill. I managed to extract the information that the ship was Faroese and homeward-bound, but he clearly did not want to talk to me. For a while I thought that it was perhaps because I was flying a Red Ensign, or because he felt I ought not to have been there anyway. Perhaps his hold was not as full as he would have liked, or his wife had just telephoned him to say that she had changed her mind, and wasn’t going to leave him after all. Then I realised the reason for his unfriendliness. He had tried to rescue Olga, and she had put him straight: ‘Sorry, I waiting for close-by good-breeding Englishman with very nice yacht and banking at Coutts. You go fry your smelly Faroe fish some place other.’
“
Bear Island not far from were you are right now. Please come and rescue me. Love and kiss, Olga.’ The prospect sounded appealing, but it gets tiresome, after a while, having wealthy young beauties forever chasing you. I decided to give Olga a miss and sailed on. A great skua flew past and was attacked by a screaming Iceland gull. Two great black-backed gulls kept us company for a while. Overnight the breeze came up more steadily, first from the north then the east. Heavy cloud rolled in, bringing the occasional shower and brief streaks of sunshine. We moved gaily along under just three panels. By noon the next day we had covered 52 miles. An hour after midday a disgracefully sleek fishing boat appeared off our starboard quarter, heading our way and angling in towards us. It was huge, with a cruise-liner bridge and bristling with electronic gadgetry. It was clearly designed to extract as much life from the ocean as possible with the minimum of human involvement. In the lively sea that was running, the only name I could read on the ship’s side was the word ‘Klaksvik’. The fishing boat overhauled us, about a quarter of a mile on our starboard beam, and I decided to be sociable. I assembled my hand-held VHF and called up the ship. I had not spoken to anyone for 38 days and so was looking
north-east
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ON TEST: CONTEST 42CS OUR MINI-CRUISE ABOARD THIS IMPRESSIVE FAMILY CRUISER DEMONSTRATED THE QUALITY OF DUTCH CRAFTSMANSHIP ontest introduced a 42-footer to its range almost 40 years ago and it was considered a relative giant for a production yacht at the time. Today the 42CS is the smallest of the Dutch company’s range – exactly half the length of its newly announced flagship, the 84CS. But here is a model that cleverly represents everything this third-generation, family-run yard stands for – a manageablesized bluewater cruiser that has the options and attention to detail mastered from building larger vessels, and as such is an ideal introduction to the quality produced by time-honoured knowledge and skill. A particularly good-looking craft, modish yet elegant, the 42CS has that clever knack
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of feeling like a larger boat than she is. During a visit to Contest’s Medemblik yard I had the opportunity to take an example for a mini cruise – a return trip out to the Frisian islands directly west of the IJsselmeer. It was the ideal way to appreciate how this model is blessed with the pedigree of over half a century of builds. Contest is one of the largest and oldest family-run yards in the world, and conducts the whole build process on site – a yard with a rich past and a promising future.
Hitchhiking out to sea The good thing about being confined to tight channels with a large tidal range is that, if you time things right, you can get
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FACTS
Test Editor TOBY HODGES
Where we tested: Netherlands, from Harlingen to Vlieland and back through the IJsselmeer lock and down to Medemblik. Wind: from 0-12 knots. Model: 42CS with short-handed cockpit set-up and three cabins.
Photos by RICHARD LANGDON/OCEAN IMAGES
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ON TEST: CONTEST 42CS
Above: a deep, protected and snug cockpit. This is the short-handed version with no traveller. Left: a comfortable perch for the helmsman close to all sheets and running rigging. Right: wraparound coachroof windows
Above: a light, spacious and practically located galley. Left: lockingback through to the yard at Medemblik
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a slingshot ride on your way – like turtles riding the Gulf Stream. In such a manner we found ourselves enjoying a 2.5-knot tidal hitchhike as we spun out of Harlingen, the old fishing port north of the vast lock that controls the IJsselmeer’s marine traffic. On a rather still, light breeze afternoon, that sort of tide can do wonders for your apparent wind. Our destination and overnight berth was the island of Vlieland, 20 miles off the giant dyke closing off the IJsselmeer. Our test boat, Tessa, had already completed a season in the UK and was bound for the Baltic this summer. She is royally equipped – her owner has gone for a short-handed cockpit set-up, with single-point mainsheet, rigged so that all the sheets and running rigging can be managed from the helm. The powered coachroof-mounted winch has a remote switch by the helm, as does the jib furler. So within a couple of minutes and with minimal physical effort, the sails were raised.
“the quality of the contest’s build and fittings gives her a larger boat feel and a little big boat mentality” It became obvious pretty quickly why the 42CS won the European Yacht of the Year award in 2014. She is a delight to sail. Tessa’s twin carbon wheels, linked with Jefa wire, produce a tactile, direct and communicative feel at the helm. In the calm conditions we could feel every knot’s increase in wind. Her stiff construction belies her modest 11 tonne displacement (40 per cent in the keel), and her tall mast indicates performance potential. The afternoon Force 3 was from a direction just offwind enough that we could negotiate the barge-laden channel on port tack. When close-hauled we made between 6.2 and 6.4 knots at just over 30° to the apparent wind. This rose to 7 knots once the breeze hit double figures – which, with our friendly tide, equated to 9.5 to 9.9 SOG (speed over the ground). Tessa is not only well-equipped with optional top of the range extras such as a carbon Seldén mast, furling boom, generator and electric winches, but the standard spec
of most items, including running rigging, Andersen winches and Spinlock clutches, seems particularly high. Although 42ft might seem comparatively small for a cruising yacht today, the top quality of the Contest’s build and fittings gives her a larger boat feel and a ‘little big boat’ mentality. It helps to explain why Tessa’s British owner downsized from his previous Oyster 49, after looking for something smaller. He didn’t want anything over 45ft for ease of handling, but still wanted top comfort down below.
Intoxicating experience We conducted a photoshoot off Vlieland’s western shoreline for a couple of hours, where deep water continues right up to the beach. Sailing upwind at 7 knots towards miles of dry sand, before tacking or gybing away when just a couple of boatlengths off was rather a novel and intoxicating experience, but one I wouldn’t have
Above: nestled into Vlieland marina for the night. Tessa was royally equipped with top of the range extras such as carbon Seldén mast and furling boom
attempted without having confidence in the yacht’s handling. With the breeze up into double figures, I started to feel a little weatherhelm on the 42CS, at which point she is not quite as easy to keep in a groove. That attribute was instead reserved for flat-water sailing. We were treated to a magic sail that evening as we short-tacked up the channel leading to the narrow entrance to Vlieland marina. The water was milky smooth, with the 5-7 knots of wind unable even to form ripples over the tide. The 42CS continued to sail admirably well, averaging a knot less than the breeze. It was at this time that the 42CS truly showed her colours. The fact that we could keep sailing and really enjoy helming in the sort of conditions in which many mediumweight cruisers would have to motor is a testament to the Contest’s stiff build. And it speaks volumes of a hull shape that is equally adept at sailing in the rough stuff. We would wait for the 2m contour line to
August 2016 I 61
❯
ON TEST: CONTEST 42CS
A FAMILY AFFAIR THE CONIJN FAMILY HAS KEPT A TIGHT REIN ON QUALITY FOR 57 YEARS hree generations of Conijns have built this company up over half a century. Contest Yachts started life under Ed Conijn in 1959 when he began building the popular Flying Dutchman two-man trapeze dinghy. His son Fritz took the reigns in 1970 and Fritz’s son Arjen has led the company since 2003. Ed Conijn’s other son sadly died in a boating accident on a lake, hence his and the yard’s deep-rooted desire to make safe boats. Conijn was a keen sailor who ran a timber yard. Having seen a glassfibre boat in the US in 1958, he was convinced this was the way to build quality yachts. With the launch of the four-berth Contest 25 in 1959, he led the way in early glassfibre production. The yard exported over 600 boats of 25ft-37ft to the US in its first decade. The yard has remained at the forefront of technology and is used to building big boats – the first Contest 48 launched in 1976. “During these years my father changed from pure production to semi-custom,” says Arjen Conijn. In Arjen’s time, the yachts have continued to grow – indeed, during our visit, Contest was just announcing its largest model to date, the 84CS (see page 66). The yard continues to be privately owned by the Conijns. What is the secret to their success? “We are relatively conservative,” Arjen admits. “We have the knowledge and we keep control of development. Keeping control of quality is essential. Just being smart, but not too smart!”
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2 1 3 4
1
2
A large, practical foredeck is gained by using flush hatches and a low profile at the forward end of the superstructure.
3
The cockpit quarter lockers have relatively small hatches, but are deep enough to house fenders and a small inflatable tender.
A hydraulic vang and powered mainsheet winch make up for the lack of a traveller on the ‘shorthanded’ version.
4
Sitting-out panels on each quarter offer the perfect position from which to steer, within easy reach of the primaries each side.
Quality construction show before spinning her through a tack. The electric winches allow you to touch-trim the sails from the helm and the 108 per cent genoa provided a nice balance of power and size, making her easy to handle. Only once we were directly outside the marina entrance did we furl the sails and glide into the sanctuary.
Holland has a hill For anyone seeking a cruising destination within easy reach of Amsterdam or the IJsselmeer, Vlieland is a beautiful island with white sand beaches, a charming town and – rather unusually for the Netherlands – a forest-lined hill. The marina is very well equipped, the nearby town charming. I have sailed many times around the Dutch coastline, but this is the most picturesque haven I’ve yet come across. The only downside to our mini cruise was that our return journey to Contest’s Medemblik yard the next day involved motoring under breathless skies. It did mean, however, that we had ample time to run through the details on deck and below. This Contest has a very elegant, modern look, set off by a coachroof line with
62 I August 2016
wraparound tinted windows that offer privacy and sunlight protection. The cockpit design is superb: deep, protected and very comfortable. Contest’s sales manager, Marcel Offereins, explains that Contest built a plywood mock-up of the cockpit in the yard six months before finalising this design, so that it could be trialled and perfected by the build team. And it shows. There’s an ideal curve for your back in the forward coamings, with benches long enough to seat eight or where the offwatch can nap comfortably. The cockpit layout options come down to three different types to suit three different preferences: short-handed, performance cruising and cruiser-racing. I liked the short-handed version of the cockpit layout on Tessa, which has the mainsheet leading from the boom-end directly down to a block and winch set on a pod abaft the table. This is in reach from either helm yet still allows for walkthrough cockpit access – something the ‘performance’ layout with a cockpit bench-mounted traveller would obviously restrict. In summary, there really is little to find fault with on the deck design of the 42CS.
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I would always recommend a yard visit to anyone considering buying a yacht. In the case of Contest, it’s a sure way to lure a potential owner. Its vast waterfront yard at Medemblik has continued to expand since 1970. Contest was one of the first yards to adopt vacuum infusion in the late 1990s. It’s a technique that remains central to the company’s build philosophy, offering weight, stiffness and environmental benefits. “The nice thing is that you can work really precisely like this and you can check it easily,” says Arjen. Contest vacuum-bags its hulls for 24 hours to rid them of 99.99 per cent of air, then infuses the whole in one-shot in around two hours, to ensure any resin not required is removed. Conijn says the result is close to 70 per cent glassfibre and 30 per cent resin. “This shows how stiff your product will be, because resin is just weight, not strength.” He showed us an example of two sections of glassfibre hull taken from 1991 and 2001. The latter was less than half the width and weighed nearly half (2.4kg instead of 4.5kg) thanks to the significant reduction in resin content. Viewing this process, together with the longitudinal stringers used in the hull and bonded bulkheads, generates real confidence in Contest’s construction. As does its carpentry workshop, where beautiful woodwork and veneers are all made in-house. Contest also has the luxury of space. The full teak decks are set out, ready to be vacuum-glued in one section to avoid the need for screws.
Main picture: the latest generation of Contest owners, Arjen Conijn
“we are relatively conservative. keeping control of quality is essential. just being smart, but not too smart”
Above: Ed, Fritz and Anne Conijn aboard
Above: life on board in the early days
Above: restored 1971-built Contest 25
Above: Contest 31, a popular model
Milestone Contests 31 (1971) – was exported to the US and all over Europe. 48CS (1996) – Contest’s first semi-custom cruiser.
Above: Contest 29, launched in 1964
62CS – “The boat that brought us to the bigger level,” declares Arjen Conijn.
Above: the company’s recently announced flagship, the Contest 84CS
August 2016 I 63
ON TEST: CONTEST 42CS
Bright, modern interior Five comparatively steep steps bring you into a modern, bright interior. On descent, you perhaps might expect to find a raised saloon format. Instead the single-level low sole restricts any views out of the coachroof windows unless the boat is heeled. The natural light they introduce, combined with the extra headroom this creates, however, makes it seem particularly spacious. The décor is light and smart, if a little clinical. After all the carpentry skills we had seen on show in the yard, the abundant use of light oak veneer is a little underwhelming. Contest provides a semi-custom approach, offering a broad range of layout options by segregating the two or three cabin interior into forward, mid and aft sections. There are various berth/workroom options fore and aft and in the mid section a choice between portside or L-shaped galley, navstation or shower separate to the heads. The three-cabin test boat had the latter option. Instead of a navstation, the saloon table had a chart drawer, with Apple TV installed for beaming electronic charts direct to a pop-up flatscreen TV. A Mastervolt digital switching system made for a smooth, touchpad operation of the electronics.
64 I August 2016
Galley
Forward cabin
The L-shaped galley is well-laid out and at a sociable height relative to the saloon. It has a fiddled Corian worktop and reasonable stowage, however a strap would be required for working at the stove on starboard tack. A longitudinal galley to port is the alternative option.
The forward cabin feels rather dark in comparison with the rest of the boat, which is the one main drawback I could find with the 42CS’s interior. Hull portlights for owner’s cabins are de rigueur these days, but this has just a small hatch over the foot of the double berth. However this cabin does have 6ft 2in headroom, plenty of beam for the berth itself and reasonable stowage space.
Saloon A large, comfortable format with plenty of natural light and headroom, the saloon has a portside berth that springs open for easy access to some of its generous stowage. The table has a section that lifts for chart stowage and can flip over to double its surface area for dining with guests.
DATA CONTEST 42CS
SPECIFICATIONS LOA
12.85m
42ft 2in
LWL
11.76m
38ft 7in
Beam (max)
4.15m
13ft 7in
Draught
2.20m
7ft 3in
11,000kg
24,252lb
4,600kg
10,141lb
Sail area (100% foretriangle) 104m2
1,119ft2
Disp (lightship) Ballast Berths
6
Engine
54hp Yanmar saildrive
Water
381lt
84gal
Fuel
226lt
50gal
Sail area:disp
21.4
Disp:LWL
188
Price ex VAT: €418,000 (£324,310) Design: Georg Nissen www.contestyachts.com
SEE THE VIDEO yachtingworld.com/contest42cs
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Conclusion
Aft cabins The aft cabins have the common drawback of narrow entrances. It’s a fairly standard double berth and locker format, with generous headroom. Details such as soft-closing door mechanisms and ventilated wardrobes would give it that added premium touch.
At a time when Contest has just announced the largest model in its 57-year history, it is this, its smallest, three-year-old model that best demonstrates the timelessness of quality design and construction. The 42CS is blessed with a big boat feel and Dutch quality from an established yard currently on a roll. Easy to sail and easy to trim, she is a luxury family cruiser that excels under sail. The 42CS finds that delicate middle ground of providing performance in a seakindly manner. She has a modern, comfortable, well-proportioned and versatile interior – it may not suit everyone’s taste, but does at least offer semi-custom choices – and particularly appeals to owners like Tessa’s, who can afford a larger yacht, but would rather have top quality at a more manageable size. My past experiences of sailing in the Netherlands tended to be either in no wind or gales. Perhaps it should come as no surprise then that Contests are designed to sail well in all conditions, and for the helmsman to milk every moment.
August 2016 I 65
NEW YACHTS Southern Wind 96/105 ne of the conspicuous growth areas of yachting, albeit a specialised niche, is performance cruisers of around 100ft. This is being fanned by the intensifying seriousness and maturity of superyacht regattas, and an improved ratings rule. An indication of the demand is two new designs announced in June, the SW96 and SW105 from Southern Wind, the Italianbased company that builds semi-custom production series in Cape Town. The yard has already had much success at this size with its SW100 – 13 built to date – and the SW102, of which hull no 5 is under way. These were designed primarily for bluewater cruising, however, whereas the new designs have racing squarely in view. The diversification came about through the design of a custom carbon Reichel/Pugh 90-footer for a repeat customer who wanted something different. This branching out for the first time into custom building gave company CEO Willy Persico and his team the confidence to follow the trend for highperformance yachts and custom builds. “This gave us the experience of custom rather than mini series and brought us the idea to develop other yachts that are performance-orientated. So we decided to develop a 96-footer. We found the client after having developed the design and then we tuned the design to race, so [hull no 1] is a racing boat,” says Persico. “Then we had a third client who was talking to us about a 100-103-footer and who liked the 96, but he wanted it expanded, so we had a third yacht designed, the SW105. This is a performance cruiser with a huge garage to accommodate a tender and a jetski, which is unusual, but the client is not sure if the yacht is going to be for cruising or racing, so this is a solution that satisfies both.”
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Southern Wind has always worked with both Reichel/Pugh and Farr Yacht Design and it was to Farr that the company turned for the 96 and 105. “Our work with Southern Wind has gone back a long time and you can see a progression,” explains Patrick Shaughnessy, president of Farr Yacht Design. “Previous designs were round-bilged and had narrow transoms. These new designs are more powerful in the bilge, quite a lot wider and are quasi-chined. There are twin rudders and they have quite a lot of immersion to inspire confidence in an owner that may not be very experienced and they will be hard to broach.” “We are stepping in a lighter direction, but not aggressive in engineering and construction,” Shaughnessy adds. The two designs are indeed sportylooking, with straight ends and open transoms. The SW96 has a lifting telescopic keel, which is also a first for Southern Wind, but a feature regarded as essential by many big boat owners wishing to race and access wider cruising grounds. The SW105 can have a fixed or lifting keel. The interiors of both yachts are by Nauta Yachts, with whom Southern Wind has also worked for many years. Both yachts have four guest cabins and crew quarters aft. Hull lamination of SW96 hull no 1 is complete already and fit-out has begun, and a second yacht is already in the order book. The first hull of the SW105 is currently being laminated and both the new builds will be delivered next year. The first 96 is being built in carbon pre-preg and Nomex and will have a Southern Spars high modulus carbon rig. The 105 is less extreme and the first yacht is being built in carbon/epoxy resin, but this design can also be built in carbon composite.
Above: SW96 – the new Farr-designed Southern Winds show real potential, with wide aft beams and flatter bilge runs
Left: the light and airy interior of the 96 is typical of Nauta Yachts’ styling
Dimensions SW96 LOA Beam Draught Disp
66 I August 2016
29.23m/95ft 11in 6.95m/22ft 10in 3.4-5.4m/8ft 2in-17ft 9in 54.6 tons/120,371lb
NEW YACHTS with toby hodges
Dimensions SW105 LOA Beam Draught
Disp
31.97m/104ft 11in 7.32m/24ft 0in 4.5m/14ft 9in (ďŹ xed) 3.65-5.6m/11ft 10in-18ft 4in (telescopic) 68 tons/149,913lb
Above: powerful, sleek lines of the SW105
August 2016 I 67
NEW YACHTS
Dimensions LOA Beam Draught
Feeling 13.90 The demise of Southerly Yachts two years ago created a significant space in the market for large, lifting-keel glassfibre cruising yachts. This new 45ft Feeling may be the first to fill the gap. This smart, contemporary-looking new model is the result of the first collaboration between this Privilege Marine brand and the talented designer Marc Lombard. She features some of his current muscular styling trademarks such as reverse sheer, broad stern and hard chines in the aft sections. Tidy features include a mainsheet arch that helps support a neat sprayhood and bimini, and a fixed bowsprit that keeps the
68 I August 2016
13.80m/45ft 3in 4.30m/14ft 0in 0.92m-2.80m/3ft 0in-9ft 2in
Dimensions LOA LWL Beam Draught
Contest 84CS Our boat test this month features a trial cruise on the smallest of Contest’s range, the 42CS, which exemplifies the high-end quality of this family-run yard. However, it is the company’s most recent announcement of new, larger models that reveals Contest is bang up to date with the current demand for series-built, semicustom yachts. The 84CS, the first of which is planned for launch in 2018, is the largest yacht Contest will have produced in its 57-year history, and she will accommodate ten guests and up to four paid hands. The design allows for a fair amount of choice by potential owners, including the option of having either forward or aft master cabins and switching the crew accommodation accordingly. There is also an option for a tender well in that super-flush looking foredeck. For this and the 67CS, the first of which was launching as we went to press, Contest turned to the vast experience of Judel Vrolijk. The German design company has faithfully kept that elegant Contest line, while
anchor roller clear of the vertical stem. There are deep coamings to the benches and the twin wheels are positioned right outboard for clear sightlines forward. As with past models from Feeling, the lifting keel pivots up inside the hull. On the 13.90 it will be neatly contained beneath the saloon sole. Feeling says that, in addition to her two rudders and lifting keel, “two angled wings attached to the hull will aid stability when drying out and improve upwind sailing performance”. The first 13.90 is due to launch in spring 2017 and three versions will be available (basic, luxury and sports). Price ex VAT from €320,000 (£248,275). www.feeling-lines.comn
26.68m/87ft 6in 23.17m/76ft 0in 6.29m/20ft 8in 3.79m/12ft 5in
modernising the hull form, particularly below the waterline. As our boat test proved (see page 58), Contest has the knack of creating cruising yachts that are fun to sail. Vacuum-infused composite sandwich construction helps ensure a stiff reliable hull. Like the 67CS, however, the shape and appendages of the 84CS should move things on in terms of performance. She has a reasonably shallow underbody, which runs from an optional fixed bowsprit with integral furler extending over a plumb stem aft to twin rudders and a broad stern with soft chine. In common with the last three new Contest models, the modern interior is designed by Wetzels Brown Partners of Amsterdam. www.contestyachts.com
Above: the 84CS, a quality-built, long-legged cruiser with bags of style
Dufour 63 Exclusive Dufour Yachts has just announced it will be building a new semi-custom flagship model to present at the Düsseldorf Boat Show 2017. Given the recent move to this 60ft+ sector by its competitors, this is a timely decision by the La Rochelle yard. Few details have so far been revealed, however marketing, communication and product manager Paolo Serio tells us that documentation will start being released in ‘episodes’ from August. www.dufour-yachts.com
August 2016 I 69
NEW GEAR PanPan – a smartphone MOB beacon €80 What is it? Compact beacon and app that issues an alert when signal disrupted or beacon in the water. www.crewwatcher.com
f a crewmember were to fall overboard, are you sure you would always know immediately? Even if you saw it happen, response time remains critical to a successful recovery. A variety of different MOB alert devices have come onto market over the years, but the majority are systems designed for full crews, and are expensive enough to deter the average weekend sailor. By working with the single device most people now seem to have on them at all times – a smartphone – this new alert device and app could be a promising, practical and cost-effective MOB alert alternative. PanPan comprises a compact beacon and an app. The app constantly monitors any compatible beacons aboard. If a crewmember falls overboard, the app automatically sounds an alarm and provides the details needed for a swift recovery. These include co-ordinates of the MOB at the point of loss, time and distance to the event, as well as a constant update on the rescue heading. The beacon connects to any phone or tablet on board via a long-range Bluetooth antenna. The app detects when the signal is broken, but also uses a secondary verification to detect a man overboard – a
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PanPan is described as a virtual lifeline, a smartphone MOB alert device comprising an app (below) that constantly monitors any of its compact beacons aboard (above) and provides position info
water sensor that is intelligent enough to distinguish between submersion and waves or rain. Once back within range of the MOB, the app will also provide a homing signal. “All the phones/tablets on board running the app work together, adding redundancy and range,” says Jason Schot, the Dutch co-founder of PanPan. “The phone polls the beacon every second asking: ‘are you not in the water and still within range?’ If the answer is yes, all is OK. If not it will sound the alarm.” PanPan is a new concept still in the development phase. Schot reports that further testing will begin soon, including range tests, hardware and app testing at sea. Sailors can sign up to participate in this so-called Beta testing on the website and the first units will be available to buy through a crowdfunding campaign (if successful), due to launch on Kickstarter in July. Schot, who has a Masters degree in interaction design, initially created the concept to keep his father-in-law safe when sailing. “I enjoy solving problems by mixing creativity and technology,” he tells us. “At first I thought PanPan would not work because of Bluetooth’s poor range, especially when in the water, which would hinder sending an alarm signal. “By flipping the logic around (ie monitor for the loss of signal) I suddenly had all sorts of possibilities. Combine that with a specialised long-range antenna and we were getting somewhere.”
NEW GEAR with toby hodges
Borrow-it Mini-Pod life-saving device Having a buoyant item in the cockpit that’s quick and easy to deploy for an MOB is prudent seamanship. You’ve got a lifering? Meet the modern equivalent. British company Salvare has created a product that falls somewhere between a rescue sling and a Jonbouy: the Mini-Pod survival platform. It’s a smaller version of the multi-person Seapod, yet weighs less than half (3kg). Once deployed, the Mini-Pod is designed to keep one person out of the water – like an emergency auto-inflating bodyboard – and more clearly visible. ‘Although it doesn’t take the place of a liferaft or lifejacket, the device solves the age-old problems of quick deployment, visibility and staying safely out of the water to avoid hypothermia,’ is the pitch from the manufacturer. The Mini-Pod auto-inflates the right way up, is equipped with Solasapproved LED lighting and has hand- and footholds for boarding. Price £339 www.salvare.co.uk
BattMan battery monitors
Want to try an outboard before you buy? Do you only need an EPIRB once a year, or want to make some money back on that expensive deck gear item? The Fuller brothers, sailors from the UK, have built an app that might appeal to the yachting community. Borrow-it is a lending-based business model that allows people to rent or loan items for a given period. “This is of particular relevance to sailors when you consider the myriad of expensive equipment a boat owner may require, but only use once or twice,” says Angus Fuller. www.borrow-itapp.com
Sacqua bag
“Don’t use the fridge; we can live with warm drinks. And why is the cabin light still on – use a headtorch!” Batteries are expensive and their level of discharge determines their lifetime. So if, like me, you are a little paranoid about power consumption, maybe you need a battery monitor superhero. BattMan is a new, accurate waterproof monitor from Mastervolt that is cheap and easy to fit. The LCD display shows charge/discharge current to or from the battery bank, consumed amp hours and the remaining battery capacity. It can also sound an alarm when the battery bank has reached a state of critical discharge. Price from £139.20. www.mastervolt.com
What’s the best thing about Ikea? The blue canvas bags you get for carrying your shopping – they are cheap, durable, simple. Most of the time, simple is what’s needed aboard a boat, which is what makes this chic, foldable, lightweight canvas Sacqua bag look very promising. Plus it’s cheap. It folds down to the size of an A3 envelope, can take an impressive 20kg weight or 70lt volume and has a simple Velcro closure. It sounds ideal for throwing in the dinghy or locker – where the attached caribiner might also come in handy – or for dinghy sailors wanting to transport bulky, messy items such as lifejackets and wetsuit kit. Small wonder then that Sacqua is the brainchild of a sailor and mum of young dinghy sailors. Price £15. www.sacqua.com
Deck bag
Sperry Jaws
What do most sailors want after cleaning their boat? A cold beer. Follow that logic and you end up with this canvas bag that neatly stores a range of cleaning sprays, yet can double as an ice bucket. The August Race Deck bag, handmade in Devon, comes stocked with a range of cleaning products including deck wash, coatings and polishes – but no lager. Price £79.99. www.august-race.com
To prove that we at Yachting World feel responsible for keeping you up to date with the latest nautical fashion trends, feast your eyes on these new Sperry shoes – simply because a pair of Jaws-themed loafers in your life will guarantee some smiles this summer… Price £100 for deck shoes, or £90 for sneakers. www.sperry.com/uk
August 2016 I 71
GEAR TESTED
TESTED
OUR PANEL PUTS THE LATEST PRODUCTS THROUGH THEIR PACES
White Glacier Arctic 25 £825 Who’s it for? Arctic-rated immersion suit, which US company claims could replace a liferaft www.whiteglacier.com
his immersion suit is a much more serious product than it perhaps looks with me pictured in it. It will keep an occupant alive for up to 25 hours in Arctic waters, where water temperatures can drop as low as –30°C. White Glacier designed the suit to set new standards for protecting an occupant against hypothermia in polar conditions. That it is jump-proof from a height of 10m and fire-proof for four seconds indicates that it is clearly marketed at the commercial sector. But can the Arctic 25 actually offer a replacement to the traditional and trusted liferaft – as was claimed by UK spokesperson Thomas Harding? The product includes a new technical material called Thymus, which White Glacier describes as the next GoreTex owing to its leading buoyancy and thermal properties. The US company is keeping quiet about the technical details, but has plans for a Spinlock lifejacket, using Thymus, that is 60 per cent smaller. Although obviously overkill for most yachtsmen, if the Arctic 25 is capable of handling extreme conditions, it should manage everything else with ease. The best way to find out how practical it is is to give the £825 suit a trial out in open water. On my second effort, I was able to get into the suit in under the 60-second target time. Time to don is important, as once inside movement is restricted to the point where you would find it difficult to move around a boat easily. The water off the UK’s south coast was at its coldest and, without any protection, I would have lasted less than an hour even in the Solent. Once immersed, it’s very clear that there’s no shortage of buoyancy and the suit’s large size kept me well protected. There’s a clear screen that unfolds to protect your face in rough weather, and if it gets too bad, you can expand the chest area and bring your face and arms into the body of the suit and away from the spray. The suit then forms a sort of one-man
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72 I April 2016
raft, with an opening in the chest to allow fresh air in should the weather improve. On the outside there’s a floating line that attaches to other suits, and a hook for helicopter rescue. Unlike a traditional liferaft, there are no supplies packed into the suit – and if you wanted to pack sustenance separately, there aren’t any internal pockets for storage. The design and manufacture of the suit are first class to suit its purpose. The chances of needing it on a calm day such as I had for the test, however, is unlikely – it could be much less comfortable in big waves, especially as lying on my back was the only position I could manage. When it comes to polar safety in sailing, the market is slim. The direct comparison is an insulated liferaft, which might not offer a pleasant environment, but at least allows you to stick with the crew. The Arctic 25 may be a great development for the commercial sector, but it’s not so practical for sailors. Tested by guest reviewer Greg Goulding
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10 Left: the White Glacier suit and WightLink ferry on the Solent. The one-man suitcum-raft certainly works well in calm seas . . .
OTHER OPTIONS Stearns I590 Immersion Suit
Viking SOLAS suit
This US Coast Guard-approved suit is made from 5mm flame-retardant neoprene. It is not as high-tech as the Arctic 25, but that’s reflected in the price. Price £250. www.stearnsflotation.com
Also approved by the US Coast Guard, this is said to keep the occupant alive in freezing waters for six hours. It has less buoyancy than the Arctic suit, but movement is not as restricted. Price £200. www.viking-life.com
OUR REGULAR TEST PANEL
PIP HARE
ROSS APPLEBEY
HENRY BOMBY
RUPERT HOLMES
TOBY HODGES
Pro ocean racing sailor/Yachtmaster instructor
Skipper of veteran ocean racing charter yacht Scarlet Oyster
Offshore solo/Figaro sailor currently racing multihulls
Sailing journalist and short-handed offshore sailor
Yachting World’s boat test, yacht and gear pages editor
£175
Fugoo Tough speaker Who’s it for? Anyone wanting to play music anywhere, with top sound quality www.fugoo.com or amazon.co.uk
Garmin Virb XE £349.99 Who’s it for? A robust and intuitive full HD action cam, ideal for keeping in a pocket www.garmin.com I bought the original GoPro HERO with a waterproof housing, yet never really found it user-friendly. As a comparative HD action cam, however, this Garmin Virb XE is so much easier and more pleasant to use. Anyone, however technophobic they might be, can pick up this Virb, flick the record button and start filming HD footage. Moreover, the Virb is fully waterproof to 50m so you don’t have to keep it in a case (which can fog up with condensation) and, without a separate housing, the Virb picks up reasonable sound too. There is a secure locking panel for accessing the removable battery – the rechargeable one supplied lasts for two hours of filming. The compact and robust X and XE models lack the mini screen of the original Virb Elite, which is my one main negative point. Like the
newer GoPro models, however, you can view the live Virb footage remotely on an app via wi-fi – and it uses similar thumbscrew-style mounting kits to GoPro cams. I’ve used the XE with some success to shoot video from the rail at regattas or for boat tests. A one-inch display makes it simple to scroll through menu options, and a useful feature I use regularly is the dedicated photo button that takes stills at any time, even while the camera is recording video. The main improvements over the original Elite are in picture resolution, an increased variety of mounting options and a new G-Metrix program which, using built-in GPS and accelerometer, means it can capture action data such as speed, acceleration, height and G-force. The Virb XE is the high-end model that can shoot professional HD footage at 1440p/30fps and 1080p/60fps, and includes super slow-mo and time-lapse options as well as image stabilisation. Picture quality has proved to be reliably good, through a full range of light levels. The Virb is now one of my most constant travel companions. TH
9
10
My first impressions of this waterproof, shockproof speaker were that it’s so bombproof there seemed no obvious means even to power it up. But press and hold a discreet power button and not only does a light come on – but it talks to you. A rich bass voice resonates around the room announcing the fact that the device is ‘discoverable’. Very exciting. I have since tested this speaker well and truly at home and on the boat, and remain astonished at the sound quality and the battery life. We have a Bose Sound Dock at home – and I find the 360° sound on the Fugoo even better, despite its comparatively diminutive size. And its 40 hours of battery life mean you rarely have to remind yourself to plug it in. That the Fugoo is waterproof makes it perfect for cockpit use, and a bonus of a Bluetooth speaker is that, if you store music on your phone, you automatically have remote volume control from your pocket. This is the Hummer of speakers, hence a carry case is not necessary, although a neat pouch for various chargers, speaker link and USB cable etc is supplied. My best buy this season. TH
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Citrus Zinger Sport £16.99 Who’s it for? Those bored by plain water www.firebox.com A durable bottle with an integrated straw is a handy thing to have for the car or the boat. Add a juicer to the bottom part and you have the means to add some healthy flavour to your water too – just load some citrus into the base and screw it tight. I have used this bottle daily for weeks – only occasionally adding the built-in juicer. It’s the ideal size (795ml), voluminous yet portable and the carry loop makes it ideal for one-handed use. TH
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THIS MONTH HUGO BOSS SPECIAL REPORT: CAN YOU RELY ON GPS? SHORT-HANDED: SPINNAKER HOISTS WEATHER: EL NIÑO
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With a 5.8M BEAM and 3m long foils, Hugo Boss‘s ‘wing span’ is almost 12M
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EXTRAORDINARY BOATS JAMES BOYD ON THE LATEST HUGO BOSS IMOCA 60 One of the latest generation of IMOCA 60s with foils, British sailor Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss is looking to be a potent contender for line honours in the next Vendée Globe solo round the world race ould 2017 be the year that finally a non-French skipper wins the Vendée Globe? We don’t want to jinx this – because to complete, let alone win, a two-and-a-half month long, 28,000-mile non-stop solo round the world race does require some luck. But if there is a boat and skipper that could achieve this historic feat, then it will be Alex Thomson and his latest Hugo Boss. This year’s race, which starts from Les Sables d’Olonne on 6 November, will be Thomson’s fourth Vendée Globe on a Hugo Boss-backed yacht. This time he elected to build new and chose as
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his boat’s designers the race-winning partnership of VPLP and Guillaume Verdier, who have all but cornered the market in new IMOCA 60 designs. Like the five other new VPLP-Verdier designs, Hugo Boss is a semi-foiler, with giant and – frankly in her case – quite sinister-looking appendages protruding from either side that have been compared to ‘Dali’s moustache’ in the French press. The complex shape of these boards is because, just like on modern foiling catamarans, they must perform a dual role: their vertical surface creates lateral resistance to prevent leeway, while their horizontal surface provides upward lift beneath the hull, reducing wetted surface area and lift to leeward thereby increasing righting moment and stability. The result is a boat that does frequently ‘show keel’ and daylight beneath her hull an impressively long way aft and, in Hugo Boss’s case, in
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Hugo Boss’s hull is made from monolithic CARBON FIBRE. This eliminates the risk of delamination but without a core the inside of the boat is like a LOUD DRUM
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impressively little wind (ie with full main still hoisted). However, weighing around 7.5 tonnes and with no lifting surfaces on her rudders, she is no 60ft Moth. Nonetheless, just as is the case currently with the foiling multihulls, this development does represent one of the most significant performance boosts ever seen in monohull design. While Safran, Banque Populaire and No Way Back are the MkI of the new VPLP-Verdier designs and Edmond de Rothschild and St Michel-Virbac are MkII, Thomson refers to Hugo Boss as MkIII. She certainly has many differences from the others, most noticeably her giant foredeck chamfer.
Narrower and lighter According to Thomson, Hugo Boss is also the narrowest of the new boats. “We made a call quite early on that the foils would work. If the foils are working and creating stability and lift then why do you need to have such a wide boat?” A narrower boat is also lighter, with less wetted area and lower drag, he argues. It should be pointed out that all the new generation semi-foilers are compromises – the teams are sticking a toe into the foiling world. The boats all still have massive beam and hull form stability, enabling them to revert back to more conventional daggerboards if required. Apart from this technology becoming available, one reason these new foils have been fitted is the result of other constraints introduced to the IMOCA rule that have hampered performance. To contain costs and improve reliability, new boats must now be fitted with a one-design steel foil for their keel and a one-design rig, albeit in two types: wing or fixed. In fact, all the new boats have chosen the multihull-style 29m tall rotating wing, used in conjunction with deck spreaders that artificially widen the shroud base.
Above: as a rotating wingmast is harder to stay than a conventional fixed mast, the latest IMOCA 60s have the now-familiar deck spreaders, artificially widening the rig’s shroud base
Stability rules have also been rewritten, dispensing with the 30-year-old requirement that originally aimed to limit movable ballast by ensuring a boat at rest could heel no more than 10° with all her ballast deployed. As a result new generation 60s are no longer ‘water tankers’: water ballast tanks are now limited to four in total and, free of the 10° rule, these can be positioned over the chine for optimum effect – some older generation boats had more than 10 tanks, most positioned along the centreline. Typically new IMOCA 60s such as Hugo Boss now have around two tonnes of water ballast capacity as opposed to upwards of five. However, many skippers have been complaining that because they can no longer fit a forward ballast tank – which used to add some weight forward when sailing upwind or in a seaway – in some conditions the boats are horrific
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Thierry Martinez
Reduced water ballast
Above: to date Hugo Boss’s maximum speed has been 35 knots, a situation Thomson describes as “obscene”
Jonathon Glynn Smith
The curved foils extend THREE METRES beyond the hull
Lloyd Images
ALEX THOMSON – A POTTED HISTORY Gosport resident Alex Thomson, 42, first reached public attention when he became the youngest skipper ever to win a round the world race, coming 1st in the 1998-99 Clipper Round the World Race. Crewing for him was one Keith Mills, who has been Thomson’s mentor and backer ever since his move into the IMOCA class in 2003. This year’s Vendée Globe will be Thomson’s fourth, after he retired from his first two – in 2004 with damage to the deck, in 2008 following
a collision soon after the start – but finished a very respectable 3rd in an older generation boat in 2012. Other high-profile incidents include his mid-ocean rescue by Mike Golding in the 2006 Velux 5 Oceans, and the abandonment of Hugo Boss after the boat was rolled by a rogue wave in November 2015. However, he has had major successes, including a 2nd place in the double-handed Barcelona World Race in 2007 and 2nd in the 2011 Transat Jaques Vabre.
Benoit Stichelbaut
LOA Mast height Beam Draught Displacement Sail area
Above: both rudders kick up for safety in the event of a collision, or to reduce drag
18.23m 29.00m 5.80m 4.50m 7,500kg 633m2
59ft 10in 95ft 2in 19ft 0in 14ft 9in 16,535lb 6,813ft2
Left: Hugo Boss’s foils are the biggest in the IMOCA fleet and, although it is still early days in their development, ‘biggest’ at present seems ‘fastest’. Their tip-shaft angle is more obtuse so more of the foil is creating vertical lift/righting moment compared with those found on other new 60s, which have an angle closer to 90°
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amazingly impressive . . .”
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to live on. The motion caused by the foils and the noise from the monolithic carbon hull – the sandwich construction used previously had a sound-dampening effect – are quite unbearable. Thomson sheds some light on what it’s like on board: “For me the boat feels amazing, it behaves brilliantly, it feels great, the best I have ever felt about a boat . . . but it also scares the living daylights out of me. It doesn’t feel like you are out of control, it just doesn’t feel very nice. I haven’t really sailed multihulls and I am not used to that kind of speed, but it is so uncomfortable. The boat is tearing along and you are basically on your hands and knees – it is difficult to move around.”
Speed is ‘obscene’
Thierry Martinez
“And we are not fully foiling, we are semi-foiling, so the foil picks the boat up and it loses all the drag of the hull and up it goes and at some point you’ll go down a wave and you can’t get out of that wave, especially North Atlantic waves, which are short. So the slow-downs are very impressive, but, my god, the acceleration is amazingly impressive. It is quite astonishing what the boat can do.” The speed of the boat on the foils Thomson describes as “obscene”: “I have been over 30 knots more than I have ever been before.” To date Hugo Boss’s top speed has maxed out at 35 knots, which only a few years ago would have been respectable on a multihull of this size. But apart from the motion, the fitting of the new-generation foils at present has significant downsides. While canting keel IMOCA 60s used to perform poorly upwind because of their tiny daggerboards, by today’s standards, only a relatively small part of the new generation foils is used to prevent excessive leeway. Thomson explains: “The side force that can be generated is quite small compared to a straight board. We really didn’t make a lot of effort to go upwind because we felt we would never get to where the others are with straight boards, so why not concentrate on the important bit?” At present the new-generation IMOCA 60s such as Hugo Boss are optimised for the Vendée Globe and its predominant reaching and running conditions. The next step will be to improve their all-round performance. Now that the foils have apparently been embraced by the IMOCA teams, their big development will come over the next cycle in time for the 2020 race.
Left: Thomson hopes to be celebrating at the end of the Vendée Globe
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Like PRB, Hugo Boss has a forward-looking cockpit window. A ‘targa top’ roof may also be rolled over in poor conditions to protect more of the cockpit
The cockpit is extremely deep, offering great security for Thomson, while also lowering its centre of gravity. The roof can be retracted in better conditions
The gullwing foredecks of the last generation MACIF and Banque Populaire have gone. But Hugo Boss is alone in having a massive deck chamfer forward. This reduces weight and encourages the bow to emerge from waves more readily
The only hydraulics on board are used for canting the keel. Although there are halyard locks, the headsail tacks are cranked on via block and tackle. The paint on deck was developed by BASF and is novel in reflecting rather than absorbing heat – ie it remains cooler underfoot
Hugo Boss has twin rudders that kick-up in the event of a collision with a submerged object. Quite what happens when a foil hits something is less clear
Hugo Boss is unique in having the ends of her curved foils protrude through the deck. The two foils cannot be fully retracted simultaneously
Hugo Boss has the now common twin companionway arrangement allowing the pit to be located in between. Watertight companionway doors are mandatory
Spaghetti junction. The pit is largely free of jammers, instead relying almost entirely on lightweight and relatively cheap ‘constrictors’ to keep lines in place
Photos: James Boyd; Hugo Boss
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“The SLOW-DOWNS are impressive,” says Thomson, “but, my god, the ACCELERATION is
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SPECIAL REPORT
Brett Lewis/ywpix
DARIA AND ALEX BLACKWELL CAN YOU RELY ON GPS?
GPS has revolutionised our navigation, but it would be wise not to rely on it totally – just in case. Daria and Alex Blackwell have experience of anomalies
Left: a GPS anomaly witnessed in Maine, in heavy fog of course. Below: GPS anomaly recorded in Scotland. Note the zigzag course on the left. Could it have been signal interference by the Paps of Jura?
eriodically, and seemingly with increasing frequency, a cruiser somewhere posts a rant about how technology has reached the stage where paper charts and traditional navigation have been rendered obsolete. Some of these cruisers are very experienced. Until recently many government agencies professed the same opinion. The UK’s Royal Navy continues to teach astronavigation to officers, according to British defence minister Penny Mordaunt, and the US Naval Academy has recently decided to go back to teaching celestial navigation. There are good reasons why they are doing this, not least the security issues with the Global Positioning System (GPS). ‘After all, you can’t hack a sextant,’ reports the Military Times.
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more realistically 80m plus. DGPS (differential GPS), which uses ground stations in addition to the satellites, improves location accuracy to about 10cm when implemented under optimal conditions. President Bill Clinton made DGPS available to the general public in 2000 by executive order. It is solely because of this accuracy that DGPS devices in moving vehicles (eg cars) became a viable option. Under ideal conditions, other GPS systems, such as the Russian GLONASS, can be accurate to 2.8m. DORIS, the French ground-based radio-beacon-tosatellite Doppler system, is accurate to within centimetres of distance and millimetres of altitude.
How does GPS work? We all know that a GPS device receives signals from multiple satellites and computes its position, speed and direction of travel from these. The signals contain orbital data of the satellite and the precise time the signal was transmitted. The receiver compares this with the time it received the signal and is able to calculate an ellipse for its location for each of the satellites received. The point at which these circles intersect is the position of the receiver. The accuracy of the position increases with the number of satellites monitored. It decreases the faster the receiver is moving. Of note is that the signals are very weak. They are likened to a 20 watt light bulb viewed from 12,000 miles. The original system was developed in secrecy by the US military. President Ronald Reagan issued a directive making GPS freely available for civilian use “as a common good” in 1983, after a Korean Air
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Switching off the signals Lines jet was shot down. It had strayed into the USSR’s prohibited airspace. The US GPS system remains in the control of the military. Similar systems have since been developed by other countries and are listed in the panel (right); only one is non-military. GPS has a nominal accuracy of about 15m –
Keeping in mind that GPS was developed by the US to assist the military in navigation and in the highly accurate delivery of smart bombs, they have the power to degrade or switch off the service at will. They opened it up to civilian use as a matter of safety for airliners and shipping, but they reserve the right to block the signal to civilians if necessary. They occasionally have shut down the DGPS signal.
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GPS signals are so weak they are likened to a 20 watt light bulb viewed from 12,000 miles
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We have heard anecdotal evidence from fellow cruisers that GPS signals can be unavailable at or near military installations, nuclear submarines, or near sensitive places such as Washington DC or Norfolk, Virginia. Perhaps that is what accounted for the anomalous tracks we have occasionally seen on our chart plotter. Our smartphone uses both GPS and GLONASS to determine position, thereby potentially enhancing its accuracy. As it is not dependent entirely on one system, if GPS failed, we could still use the Russian system to navigate. Above: sailing over land as seen on our chart plotter and looking at the same land from our boat.
GPS anomalies GPS anomalies are far more common than you might expect. We have two completely independent fixed GPS systems on board and have come across areas where both displayed very strange tracks. On a foggy day while negotiating a tricky stretch of water in Maine (left), we were closely watching the chart plotter while passing between two islands and several rocky shoals. We had confirmed our course on the paper chart and were also tracking our progress on radar. Suddenly our position on the plotter started jumping all over the place. Our first reaction was to compensate by steering wildly to correct our course. Sense prevailed and we resumed our original course. With horror we watched the chart plotter’s antics, mimicked by our back-up system. At one point our plotted position jumped over a mile south. Had we compensated, we would have gone aground on the rocks to the north. After a stressful hour motoring slowly and watching the radar, we sighted the next navigation aid right where we expected it, and continued on our way using dead reckoning. A similar thing happened to us in Scotland. This time our plotted course kept zigzagging like a sewing machine while we maintained a constant heading. Of course this was in a convoluted, rocky channel. Some time later, we had a similar experience in Ireland, with zigzags replacing what should have been a perfectly straight line.
GPS chart accuracy Whereas the GPS itself is quite accurate, the inaccuracy of the charts in the chart plotters is an additional complication. The charts in many parts of the world often date back to the 1800s. For our local waters in the west of Ireland, we have some of the original Admiralty charts. One difference when comparing these with the new charts is that most depths and hazards have been deleted, as they have not recently been confirmed. Another is that the positioning may be way off. Whereas by sight and dead reckoning we know we are exactly in the middle of the channel, the GPS chart plotter shows us travelling over land. The entire bay is variously offset by up to a quarter of a
Left: overlaying the Navionics SonarChart, based on satellite imagery and modern soundings, over the outline of the ‘normal’ chart (green area and black line) clearly shows the error
Satellite systems GPS The US Global Positioning System consists of up to 32 medium Earth orbit satellites in six orbital planes. Operational since 1978.
GLONASS The former Soviet, Global’naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (GLONASS) fell into disrepair after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was fully restored in 2011.
DORIS Doppler Orbitography and Radio-positioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) is a French precision navigation
system. Used with GNNS systems, it offers very precise positions and altitude.
Galileo The European Union and European Space Agency system is planned to be fully deployed by 2020. The receivers will be able to combine the signals from Galileo and GPS satellites.
Beidou China’s system, formerly known as COMPASS, will expand current Asia-Pacific services into global coverage by 2020. India and Japan also introducing systems.
mile. In the Pacific, these shifts can be miles rather than metres. Without paper charts and visual corroboration, we might have ended up on the rocks on any number of occasions. Compound that with the issue of selective data at different magnification on vector charts, and you run the risk of hitting rocks and reefs that appear only in certain layers – this is what happened to Team Vestas Wind in the Indian Ocean during the last Volvo Ocean Race.
Jamming, hacking and spoofing National Interest Magazine ran an article on the US military’s worries about the GPS system. GPS jammers are readily available and quite cheap. Although illegal in the US and other jurisdictions, jamming devices are easily obtained. Plans for the original Wave Bubble are available free online. Hackers can disrupt the system, which is controlled from computers based in ground stations. There is a story of all GPS receivers in Wall Street failing at a particular time on most days. This was assumed to be a delivery person trying to evade their boss tracking their progress. These jamming devices (and they exist for cell phones as well), create a spherical area up to several miles across where all GPS devices fail. As you might easily imagine, this could potentially have devastating repercussions. Then there is spoofing. A strong signal mimicking
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{
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FOR EVERY OF TEMPERATURE INCREASE, THE NUMBER OF LIGHTNING STRIKES WILL INCREASE BY
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the real, but very weak satellite signal overpowers the latter and gives the GPS receiver false information. This can result in a ‘carry-off attack’ where a vessel, aircraft or even a smart bomb is directed to a different, potentially far-away location. Recent budget cuts in military defence spending have also raised questions about whether the ageing satellites currently in orbit supporting the US GPS array will be replaced. The oldest one still in service was launched in 1990. It has a seven-year stated lifespan. Since 2010, 12 new GPS satellites have been launched. More are planned, but whether they survive the cuts is unknown.
Struck by lightning The GPS receiver itself is a delicate piece of equipment. It does not take much imagination to understand that it will have its vulnerabilities. Most sailors have thankfully not had the experience of a lightning strike. We have. A previous vessel we had was struck twice by lightning. The first was a static charge that only caused our VHF to fail. The second time, the vessel took a direct hit – fortunately we were not aboard. All the electronics were fried: chart plotter, VHF, radar, autopilot, depth and speed sensors, etc. The wiring on the boat had melted. All electrical systems had to be replaced. Even the handhelds were destroyed. When we had the boat hauled, the fairing at the bottom of the keel had been blown out, clearly showing the path the lightning had taken. A study published in Science magazine concluded that climate change is causing an increase in frequency of lightning strikes. For every one degree of temperature increase, the number of lightning strikes will increase by 12 per cent. It may not sound like much, but in lightning prone regions, it could significantly increase the risk of being struck and unable to navigate electronically.
Alternative systems To overcome some of the weaknesses of the GPS system, the US Special Operations Command has called for small business innovation research to develop a Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) system that allows navigation by radio signals – similar to Loran-C. The US Air Force is looking at PNT using low-flying mini-satellites that can still transmit when the main satellites are blocked.
Loran-C as back-up Loran-C was a US land-based system that was decommissioned in 2010. It was a radio navigation system that triangulates position based on radio frequencies transmitted from towers on the ground. The US Navy has proposed reinstating the system. However, Loran-C is only useful near land in US waters, as it depends on line of sight RF signals.
What else uses GPS? The Automatic Identification System (AIS) uses GPS to determine a vessel’s position. AIS broadcasts the vessel’s position, along with course and speed as well as other data, on VHF radio frequency (RF). Received by other vessels, this line of sight transmission, may then be displayed on a chart plotter or other device, providing valuable safety information. Land stations can also pick up AIS transmissions. Web services such as Marine Traffic use this information to provide vessels’ positions and fleet information. Satellite or 3G/GSM locators, like the SPOT device and smartphones, can periodically report a vessel’s position to public or private networks. Satellite phones and Iridium GO! can also provide position reports via their constellation of Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites. The latter creates a wi-fi hotspot and gives your mobile phone the ability to send email, make voice calls, upload your position and download data from the internet, albeit very
The prudent mariner With all the potential pitfalls of GPS, the prudent mariner must see the sense in keeping up with old-school techniques. Dead reckoning using paper charts is what helped us each time we had issues. We carry two handheld GPSs, two smartphones with Navionics apps and GPS, both also with a GLONASS chip, and a dedicated laptop with navigation software and a GPS mouse. Radar is a useful back-up when sailing near coasts. We carry paper charts. We have a library of guidebooks and sailing directions with chartlets for local
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harbours. The guidebooks tend to have good representations of the hazards in harbours and often have better data than you might find on charts. When we sailed across the Atlantic, we had two sextants, a Nautical Almanac and tables, a handheld navigation computer for automated sight reductions,
slowly. In a new development, LEO satellites are now able to capture AIS broadcasts. With this, vessel positioning and fleet information will become truly global. The Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) has created a member vessel locator map using Marine Traffic’s reporting system as a benefit to members. Members can use one of at least five different methods to upload position reports, including AIS, mAIS, email position reports and satellite or 3G/GSM locators on smartphones. One OCC member has succeeded in setting this all up via Iridium GO! from mid-ocean and is now being tracked as he circumnavigates solo.
Google Earth images Using a few simple tricks it is possible to download Google Earth images and convert these into a file format usable in a GPS chart plotter or with computer charting software. It was suggested that Iridium GO! might be a good tool for this. However, Iridium states: ‘Since Google Earth is very graphic-intensive, it is not recommended for use with the Iridium data service.’ Customers are advised that the data speed of the Iridium GO! is only 2.4 kbps (that’s kilobits, very slow, like early 1990s dial-up speeds). If you have unlimited data ($125/mo) and are willing to wait a long time, then maybe. We have received high-res images from OCC members in mid-ocean via Iridium GO! They got through after several hours of transmitting and with the device getting quite hot, which it apparently doesn’t like very much. Most people download the files they will need before departing and create an offline library of chart images in advance. Two new systems, IsatHub and BGAN, offer 384kbps and 464kbps respectively. They are slightly more expensive, but more likely to give decent internet access. Technology is advancing very quickly.
star charts, as well as paper charts. By using the back-up equipment routinely for noon sights, we were assured we had not lost our ability to navigate by alternative means and we were able to enjoy the simplicity of our electronics. It may also be worthwhile looking at things like Polynesian navigation, which is making a comeback. The San Francisco Exploratorium Museum of Science has a site on wayfinding. Whatever you choose, the question of whether you need back-up or not will remain unanswered until the day the GPS is switched off. And then, quite frankly, you will want everything you can get your hands on.
Daria and Alex Blackwell are bluewater sailors currently based in the west of Ireland. They have sailed their Bowman 57 ketch across the Atlantic and back. They are co-authors of Cruising the Wild Atlantic Way. Daria is a USCGlicensed captain and Alex is a Master Mariner.
PRACTICAL
SHORT-HANDED SAILING PIP HARE ON SPINNAKER HOISTS
Above: hoist behind the jib in most circumstances and pull the windward clew to the end of the pole
Above: hoist from the mast for speed and safety, while your co-skipper tails the halyard
Above: hoisting using a snuffer follows a similar procedure. Try to control the speed of the bucket
Above: in light winds head up a few degrees to fill the sail
bucket, it may be worth heading up a couple of degrees in lighter airs to encourage the sail to fill. Try to control the speed the bucket goes up by applying pressure to the down line – this will avoid bunching inside the sock, which may hamper the drop. Check the head of the spinnaker is visible underneath the bucket, it is easy to lose a couple of square metres of sail area this way. Tie the snuffer line down to the deck with a slip knot.
ontrary to what you might think, you don’t need to grow another set of arms to perform a good spinnaker hoist doublehanded. The key to making it work is to break the manoeuvre down into separate parts, delegating who is going to do what. And of course don’t forget the golden rule: prepare and communicate.
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Preparation is key Ten minutes spent woolling the tack/windward clew of your spinnaker could avoid a disaster if the hoist goes wrong. There’s no need to do the whole sail, just focus on the portion that will be exposed to the wind before and during the hoist. It is even worth doing this if using a snuffer, to prevent wind getting in underneath and lifting the bucket early. Let the autopilot drive on compass mode and aim for a course as deep as possible, reducing the apparent wind, but not so deep the spinnaker will not fill (this will risk a wrap). I recommend hoisting behind the jib in most circumstances. However if you are new to snuffers, you can hoist bare-headed; you will lose a little time, but clear sightlines up the sail will help to ensure you are rigged up correctly before launching. Talk to your co-skipper all the time, to check you are both ready; even if it feels over the top, make it part of your standard routine. Set your pole up first: for a symmetric this should be at the correct height, with the downhaul preset to allow the pole to come back – If reaching pull the downhaul on straight away, if downwind in bigger breeze, aim to bring the pole back halfway. For an asymmetric, pull out and cant the pole as required, cant to roughly half trim if downwind – remember to allow the tack to run free so it EXTRA TIP doesn’t start to pull the kite Be ready to drop as out of the bag. soon as the hoist is Pre-set the sheet to an complete, coiling ‘eased’ position with tweakers the halyard and off, but ensure it is ready to run. tackline. Pull the windward clew, or tack, to
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the end of the pole. For asymmetrics the person on the foredeck may need to help the bulk of the sail out over the guardrails to reduce friction. Verbally acknowledge you are ready to hoist then go for it.
Snuffers If using a snuffer, follow the procedure above, but initially keep the sheet a little looser. During the hoist make sure you have a loose hold of the snuffer line so it doesn’t blow out with the wind. Once the sock is at the top, trim on the sheet and raise the
QUICK TIPS Whip a mark onto your halyard so you know you have reached full hoist, even in the dark.
Don’t even think about hoisting from the cockpit, fit cam cleats onto the mast, and hoist from the foredeck, tail through once the hoist is complete. Once tailed through always take the halyard out of the mast cleat after hoisting.
ISAF RULE 55 ISAF Rule 55 prevents the disposal of any items over the side while participating in a yacht race and this includes wool used to restrain the spinnaker. It is generally agreed that woolling the kite, particularly if double-handed, is a question of good seamanship and safety, so most race committees will modify the Sailing Instructions to reflect this. If in doubt ask your race committee to clarify the situation and from an ecological point of view always use a natural fibre wool and never rubber bands.
Next month: Pip looks at spinnaker drops without an army of crew to help
PRACTICAL
WEATHER BRIEFING CHRIS TIBBS EL NIÑO/LA NIÑA ver the past year or so we have heard a lot about El Niño. It has been a major event, one of the three strongest on record and it has even been called the ‘Godzilla’ El Niño. Globally we have seen the warmest year on record, as well as a January hurricane in the Atlantic and the second most intense hurricane on record hitting Mexico. Although some of these events may be expected in an El Niño year others came as rather a surprise, particularly the January hurricane, the first time since 1938 that one has been recorded so early in the year. El Niño tends to suppress hurricane activity in the Atlantic. This is because El Niño tends to strengthen the upper air westerly winds as well as the low-level easterly tradewinds. This increased wind shear restricts hurricane formation as it tends to destroy a developing system. Last year we had a generally windy tradewind crossing and the tradewinds blew hard through most of the Caribbean season. El Niño has been weakening through the year and it is now coming to an end as the central Pacific water temperatures fall. Expectations are that we will return to normal and then enter a cool period, with most models predicting La Niña. Although we think of El Niño and La Niña as being opposite sides of the same coin, La Niña has been described as being equated to a strong case of normal. As with all weather and climate models there is uncertainty, and although the US models give a 75 per cent chance of La Niña by the end of the summer, other models give a lower chance.
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The El Niño/La Niña effect Around the world El Niño/La Niña has a big effect on the weather, causing floods and droughts not only around the Pacific, but around the world. North West Europe tends to be less affected, La Niña moving the jet stream a little further north. What is more certain is that during a La Niña phase the Atlantic hurricane season experiences a higher number of named storms with a greater intensity than in El Niño years. This obviously affects the Caribbean and US, but will this affect the UK? As hurricanes move out of the tropics they take on the characteristics of small, intense mid-latitude depressions or merge with existing ones tracking across the Atlantic. These lows will have more energy than the ‘average’ low with stronger wind and more intense rainfall. The long-range hurricane forecast from the Met Office is for a slightly above average Atlantic hurricane season and this will typically bring more variability to our weather during the latter part of August through October. This does impact on our longer range planning: for yachts heading south to cross the Atlantic it means allowing more time as stronger depressions may mean longer waiting for a weather window. There is a trend for yachts to push the boundaries of the hurricane season by arriving earlier in the Caribbean and relying on forecasts to avoid storms.
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El Niño
Dry, sinking air Warmer than average Cooler than average
La Niña
Pacific Ocean
Above: El Niño and La Niña are the warm and cool phases of a recurring climate pattern across the tropical Pacific The lighter winds and lower waves of the summer months allow exploration of the windward side of the islands along with fewer yachts in the popular anchorages. Yachts crossing early before the end of the hurricane season are better to follow a southerly route, keeping on the east side of the Atlantic, passing close to the Cape Verdes, before heading west. This way the escape route is to the south if anything unpleasant were to develop en-route. We may also see a reduction in the tradewinds in the Atlantic, adding a couple of days to a passage,
but for anyone passing through and heading into the Pacific, La Niña tends to give stronger tradewinds and less rainfall in the east, but wetter conditions and a more active South Pacific Convergence Zone to the west. We can therefore expect the tail end of hurricanes to reach the UK, giving wet and windy spells in late summer, a slower Atlantic crossing, but faster Pacific crossing and a general cooling of global temperatures through this period. Although there is little evidence to support it, El Niño will no doubt be blamed for any cold, wet periods in the UK.
Below: after dominating the tropical Pacific for more than a year El Niño ended in May 2016
Equator
May 2016 Compared to 1981-2010
Difference from average temperature (0F) -9
86 I August 2016
{
CHRIS TIBBS is a meteorologist and weather router, as well as a professional sailor and navigator, forecasting for Olympic teams and the ARC rally
0
9
Climate.gov/NNVL Data:Geo-Polar SST
PRACTICAL
GET OUT OF THAT GILES SCOTT ON HOW TO ESCAPE A TRAFFIC JAM
GILES SCOTT, Finn world champion and British Olympic team member, explains what’s going on in this photo of a situation that occurred during the J. P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. Scott offers tips and advice on the best way to escape from the jam.
nyone who has ever had the delight of taking part in the Round the Island Race will understand how common it is to end up in a situation like this. This particular Round the Island Race demonstrates the wind failing as the boats have congregated around the Needles, with many appearing to have sailed dangerously close to the rocks, with little space for manoeuvre. Not only is there the risk of collision with other boats, but also groundings on the rocks, and all sorts of other problems. The thing to remember about rounding the Needles is that as well as the shallow rock ledge, which extends 250m to the west-south-west of the light, there is the remnants of the wreck of the Varvassi on the ledge. Although the wreck of this 3,874-ton ship is broken up, there are bits and pieces of her scattered all around the area, including the ship’s engine boiler, which can do some nasty damage if you get it wrong. Here the lack of wind and lots of tidal stream in that area has resulted in at least a couple of particularly risky situations (see the two examples I’ve indicated with circles). One circle shows a yacht pointing directly into the rocks and the other indicates two boats very close to collision with the risk of their rigs becoming entangled.
A
Scott’s advice on how to get out of the situation All boats in the picture look to be on the same gybe so windward/leeward is the key rule. However, this is complicated because the boat nearest to the rocks is unable to keep clear owing to an obstruction (shallow water, rocks). This being the
88 I August 2016
case, the inside boats all need to hail for room. The outside boat of the pack therefore, must take action to allow for room for all inside boats to pass the rocks safely. All boats, regardless of if they feel they are being infringed, must show good and proper intent to avoid a collision. From a racing point of view, as soon as the boats round the Needles, those on the inside are in the worst position as there will be a large wind shadow that they are likely fall into; but that said, there doesn’t appear to be too much wind anywhere!
How to avoid it in the first place To avoid the concertina effect, the boats approaching from the back of the fleet in seemingly more wind have a couple of options. The first would be to find a clear gap through the middle of the fleet, the second would be to go around the outside. Although option two is the longest route there’s a greater chance of finding clear air and less chance of ending up with any boat on boat issues. Having said that, it’s still a gamble – an example of one boat that looks as though it is opting for the ‘long way round’ can be seen just behind the lighthouse (circled in blue). Depending upon how long these boats have taken to reach this point from the start of the race, they will have to be wary of the tide as it turns at the Needles first and will seriously affect whether or not the boats can make it round the Island at all. The situation they have found themselves in is unfortunately fairly unavoidable in those conditions. I recall a Round the Island Race when this happened and many teams ended up retiring at this point owing to a combination of the factors mentioned. Interview by Sue Pelling
1
Avoiding action
The boats on the outside of the pack need to take action to give those boats further inshore room.
2
Olympic Finn class and is one of Team GBR’s greatest medal hopes at the forthcoming Olympics in Rio. Scott is also a member of Land Rover BAR America’s Cup team, which he will rejoin full-time after the Olympic Games.
3
Inside boats
}
Bearing off/gybing out
to take a longer route is sometimes the safest option.
Ted Martn
will need to hail for room.
Thierry Martinez
{
GILES SCOTT (29) is a four-time world champion in the
August 2016 I 89
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ESTABLISHED 1894 Volume 167 Issue no 3295 EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES: Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hants GU14 7BF. email: yachting.world@timeinc.com
Editor Deputy Editor Production Editor Test Editor Art Editor
Elaine Bunting 01252 555181 Helen Fretter 01252 555177 Belinda Bird 001252 555176 Toby Hodges 01252 555178 Robert Owen 01252 555180
Contributors Skip Novak, Tom Cunliffe, Pip Hare, Rupert Holmes Brand Manager Michael Beattie +44(0)1252 555339 michael.beattie@timeinc.com Account Managers Simon Spong +44(0)7816 443436 simon.spong@timeinc.com Tom Stevens +44(0)7867 503629 tom.stevens@timeince.com Leila Kajouri +44(0)7813 137862 leila.kajouri@timeinc.com Account Executives Chris Wilson +44(0)7989 428596 chris.wilson@timeinc.com Sam Shaw +44(0)7970 615618 samuel.shaw@timeinc.com Richard Torey +44(0)7816 286312 richard.torey@timeinc.com Trade and classified James Leaver +44(0)20 3148 2596 james.leaver@timeinc.com
INDEX TO ADVERTISERS Advanced Italian Yachts S.r.l 53 Allspars Ltd 85 Ancasta International Boat Sales Ltd 92,93 Axxon Composites Srl 85, Cover II Berret Racoupeau 83 Berthon International 90,91 Cannes Yachting Festival Cover III Cantiere SE.RI.GI. DI Aquileia Srl 98 Construction Navale Bordeaux 79 Discovery Yachts 23 Dixon Yacht Design 83 Dolphin Sails Limited 85 Doyle Sailmakers Inc 17 Dubois Naval Architects Ltd 83 Elvstrom Sails (UK) Ltd 85 Fraser Yachts Florida Inc 97 Friendship Yacht Company 83 Gerard Dijkstra & Partners 83 Hoek Design Naval Architects BV 83 Hoek Brokerage 85 Hood Sailmakers 85
Humphreys Yacht Design Ltd 83 Jeckells OF Wroxham Ltd 85 Karver 85 Kemp Sails Limited 85 Kiriacoulis Enterprises 98 Lilley Marine 95 Marine Survey Bureau 83 Marvin Series 83 Mediterranean Yachts 96 Mooring Sailing Holiday Limited (The) 31 North Sails 85 Onesails Gbr 85 Owen Clarke Design 83 Oyster Brokerage Limited 94 Oyster Yachts Limited 2 Reed Expositions France Cover III Sirena Marine Denizcilik San 21 Stephens Waring Yacht Design 83 X Yachts Cover IV Yachting Partners International 99
Advertisement Production Peter Burton 020 3148 2688 peter.burton@timeinc.com Advertising – Head of Market Stuart Duncan 01252 55431 stuart.duncan@timeinc.com Subscription Enquiries 0844 848 0848 Marketing Executive Amy Golby 01252 555183 International Editions Poppy Lawton 020 3148 5490 Syndication 020 3148 5476 ukcontent@timeinc.com www.timeincukcontent.com Managing Director Simon Owen Group Magazine Editor Garry Coward-Williams Group Managing Director Oswin Grady
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August 2016 I 103
BACKFIRE • Hugo Boss • New York-Vendée Race, May 2016 • Photographer Mark Lloyd
“the sun was behind us and we got this corridor of reflection against the freedom tower”
An incredible shaft of sunlight is reflected in the Freedom Tower, New York as Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss sails by underneath. This amazing light sabre photograph was taken by Mark Lloyd during a photoshoot in advance of June’s New York-Vendée solo race for IMOCA 60s. ‘We waited and waited for wind and there had been none, but on this day we flew for a shoot with Hugo Boss to promote the fact that they were in New York and Alex’s new boat. ‘Alex was on the Hudson River going back against the tide. The sun was behind us and we went through this band of light and got this corridor of reflection against the Freedom Tower. Hugo Boss sailed through it, though I am sure they couldn’t see that from on board because of the Code 0, and we lined ourselves up. ‘I knew right away that this was a good one. I put the [SD] card in my pocket and I thought I’d better not lose that! ‘If you look closely you can see a fishing boat so it’s not perfect and I think that’s quite cool. I left it as it was; I haven’t touched it.’
yachtingworldmagazine 104 I August 2016
#ywbackfire
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