Sailing Today

SAILING TODAY

GO FURTHER I SAIL BETTER I BE INSPIRED OCTOBER 2013 sailingtoday.co.uk £4.20 OCTOBER 2013 – ISSUE No 198

GROUP GEAR

Fun inflatables

Boys’ toys to sail, surf & paddle

African Folly Exploring the Gambia River in a home-built sloop

GAMBIA •

COWES WEEK •

DUFOUR 410 •

OCEAN VILLAGE

BOAT ON TEST

•

INFLATABLES

Wider wake

Dufour goes beamy with the all-new 410 SOUTHAMPTON

New gear, new boats – launching at the show Untitled-2 1 ST198_001 v8.indd 1

KNOX-JOHNSTON

Why the BBC has lost its compass on sailing

Lugger style Drascombe Drifter 22 on test SNUFF OR FURL?

How to tame your spinnaker the easy way

ATLANTIC SAFETY

Guide to the gear you need to cross the Pond 21/08/2013 12:37 12:25 20/08/2013

Strap book Contents

Regulars 8 newS

women at the Squadron, Studland Bay guidance, Ireland in an inflatable

16 readerS’ letterS Simple pleasures, cleaner prop, Stripper

18 what’S on 21 BroadSIde 66 BookS 74 rIdIng lIght 102 dISpatcheS howard Steen explores Shetland

Cruising

22 gamBIa rIver exploring the heart of africa by boat

32 Secret placeS rock-hopping in the Îles chausey your guide to ocean village, Southampton

48 coweS week

56

Joe mccarthy

34 gull’S eye

14-15

on board for the first cruiser race day

72 cruISIng clInIc

Boats

40 dufour 410 Is beamier always better?

54 roamIng catamaran prout Snowgoose 37 crosses oceans

76 draScomBe drIfter 22

boats 32 pages and kit

from trailer to sailer in 30 minutes

Gear

12 Southampton Show our picks of the new boats and gear you’ll find at this year’s boat show

56 fun InflataBleS

40

five toys and tenders tested

64 teStIng tank Sevylor electric outboard, video inspection camera, Boss sunnies

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Practical

68 atlantIc croSSIng part 2: the gear that’ll keep you safe tame your spinnaker the easy way cover Image: croSSIng chIcheSter harBour In a drIfter 22 – guy foan

Joe mccarthy

80 furl or Snuff?

may 2013 sailingtoday.co.uk

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New boats LAUNCHES | SOUTHAMPTON SPECIAL

MODERN CLASSIC Dufour 380

from £133,000

A revamped version of the older 375, the new 380 has many improvements including a smarter interior, better deck layout and much wider drop-down bathing/ boarding platform.  

UK agent: Marco Marine, www.marcomarine.co.uk Berth no: M274/326

Gemini Legacy 35

from £174,000

A vastly updated version of the well-proven, Tony Smith designed Gemini 105, the new Legacy has many enhancements to make her easier to sail and more comfortable to live on, including stub keels instead of daggerboards, twin inboard diesels and numerous layout improvements both on deck and below.

Oban Skiff

from £21,600

This 18ft 4in (5.6m) skiff is based on a traditional salmon fishing boat built in Oban in 1886. Built of larch on oak and with a round stern, she is typical of the small boats of that era. The addition of a centreplate is said to make her fast, manoeuverable and close-winded. Although the plate increases her draught to 2ft 10in (86cm), she draws only 18in (45cm) when it’s raised and can be beached easily.

Weighing just half a ton (550kg), she can easily be trailed and launched from a slipway, despite having room for six adults on board.

Builder: A&R Way Boatbuilding, www.aandrwayboatbuilding.co.uk  Stand no: A100 

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Builder: Gemini Catamarans www.geminicatamarans.com  Berth no: M158 

OTHER NEW BOAT LAUNCHES AT THE SHOW Hanse 445

Berth M259

Hanse 505

Berth M260

Lagoon 39

Berth M154

Lagoon 52

Berth M155

Broadblue Rapier 400

Berth M150

Nautitech 542

Berth M350

Oceanis 38

Berth M451

Oceanis 55

Berth M452

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Fountaine Pajot Helia 44 from £402,000 FP’s new Helia 44 is a very modern catamaran with panoramic views from the saloon. Lines are led to a raised helming station and a sun lounging area on the rigid bimini offers a great view.

A large solar panel mounted on the rear of the bimini provides plenty of charging power, reducing the need for generators.  

Builder: MI Cats, www.multihull.co.uk Berth no: M152

Bestewind 50

from £568,000

The Bestewind 50 was designed by renowned naval architect, Gerard Dykstra, and based on his own distinctive yacht, the aluminium-hulled Bestevaer 53ST. The 50 has a GRP hull and a cosy pilothouse to protect you from foul weather. She is heavily built to withstand rough ocean seas, but is said to have a fine sailing performance and is able to eat up the sea miles effortlessly.

She has a deep, aft cockpit for security and below she is spacious and intelligently designed for long-term cruising.  

Builder: K&M Yacht Builders, www.kmy.nl Berth no: M335

Wylo 35.5

from £168,000

A stout, long-keeled centreboarder extrapolated from the 1980s Nick Skeates design for his 32ft (9.8m) yacht Wylo II , in which he successfully circumnavigated the globe. The Wylo 35.5 has been put into production with the emphasis on keeping everything simple, fixable, inexpensive and easy to handle for world cruising.

The boat can be bought complete, as a bare hull, or in several stages for self-completion.  

Builder: Voyaging Yachts, www.voyagingyachts.com Berth no: M330 OCTOBER 2013 sailingtoday.co.uk

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19/08/2013 10:30

Looking north at high water, just a few islets were still visible

I

t had been several days of Force 6 and low scudding clouds when dawn finally lit up an empty sky.

Just past high water, the locks at Paimpol still gaped wide – in just a few hours all this would be glistening sand and mud, so we quickly slipped our lines.

No wind was forecast, but in the first sun-cream weather of a twoweek cruise, we didn’t mind motoring much; the last sail had been a hair-raising affair with a scrap of jib, threading between the rocks of Bréhat. When I noticed the ensign wasn’t flying straight astern, we realised there was some wind after all.

With the 120 per cent jib unfurled and a preventer on the main we “fizzed” east at a respectable 3 knots.

The tide turned and we were suddenly making 5 knots over the ground. Lunch came and went. The wind rose. One mackerel, then another, jumped our hooks. The breeze filled and backed, and by mid-afternoon, the spinnaker was up. By now we were doing 8 knots over the ground, as the redoubtable tides of this corner of the Channel did their work. The modern marina delights of St Quay Portrieux were far astern; Dahouet soon passed abeam, then Erquy, St Cast and finally St Malo.

The white-painted fronts of the parade at Granville poked their heads

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Secret placeS

Îles Chausey Eschewing the delights of St Malo and St Cast, Sam Fortescue anchored amid a lunar landscape in France’s Channel Island

over the horizon. Nine knots. Off to port, some lone rocks on the fringe of the Minquiers plateau slipped by like shark fins. Ten knots. A low lump appeared off the port bow and we began to turn in towards it. The spinnaker returned reluctantly to its bag on the foredeck and the engine came back on. With the sails furled, we followed a careful transit in between two fearsome lines of rocks, like molars in a jawbone – eyes always on the depth reading. Three metres… two… then jumping back up to eight, 10, 12.

We were in. Bobbing in a broad pool amongst the drying reefs of the Îles Chausey, the only Channel Islands still in French hands. Really, it’s an archipelago of islands. At high water it is the sort of reef you would go to pains to avoid. But at springs, when the tidal range is more than 12m, the water drains away revealing a vast network of golden sand banks that connect one island to the next.

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Secret Places

ÎleS Odet chauSey: river: 47º56’.29N 48º52’28N004º06’.16W 001º47’57W Grande Île According to most charts, the only deep water in the archipelago is off the main island, where a vedette from the mainland ferries in daytrippers. Just a mile long and half as wide, the island offers beaches, walks and the all-important restaurant and bar. There’s also a handy minimarket for fresh bread, cheese and so on.

Moorings There are local and visitor moorings south of La Crabière cardinal, opposite the quay where the ferry berths. They are first-come-firstserved and in hot demand, especially at weekends.

Shellfishing

SaM forTeScue

There are strict rules about what shellfish you can catch when, and how big they must be. The French distinguish between numerous types of what we just call clams, and in case you weren’t able to tell a praire from a palourde, there are leaflets on Grande Île and a team of roving wardens for enforcement. The eastern islands are bird sanctuaries

There were some motorboats anchored up when we arrived, but they shoved off as night fell, back to Granville on the mainland. Apart from us, just one boat – a Southerly which could take the bottom – shared this secret expanse with us.

Next day we set out with a bucket and a rake for what the French call la pêche à pied – combing the sand for shellfish. As the tide retreated, the pools of water dried up and the beach gave up its cockles and razor clams, which betray themselves as you pass with a squirt of water – like naughty schoolboys.

At low water, the rocks become stacks and the islands become mountains; boats in neighbouring pools disappear, except for their mastheads; forests of stakes emerge, tightly wound with ropes of mussels.

It is another world. And like the lock at Paimpol, once you’re in, you have to stay until halfway up the tide before you can escape.

Drying out If you can dry out, the possibilities here are endless. Be sure to walk the seabed at low water before you settle on a spot – there are plenty of obstructions. For fin keel yachts there are several deeper pools. The French chart SHOM 7134 is vital.

Share your own secret place, your thoughts about Chausey or about any other sailing issues www.facebook.com/SailingToday

www.twitter.com/SailingTodayMag

editor@sailingtoday.co.uk

OctOber 2013 sailingtoday.co.uk

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On test

Broad appeal An eager Duncan Kent finally gets his hands on Dufour’s latest cruising creation, the new Grand Large 410

All new hull design

The most noticeable changes from previous models are the hard chine, which carries aft to her transom all the way from amidships, and an extremely beamy rear-end. Her mast is also positioned a long way forward and the boom has been tilted down towards the gooseneck. This not only 40

increases her sail area a tad, and slightly lowers the centre of effort on the sail, but it also (and I suspect this is the real reason) assists the crew to stack the sail neatly into the zip-up sail bag without climbing around.

Dufour’s hull lamination is done by hand and the result is a very robust monocoque. Stringers are reinforced with the synthetic fibre Twaron, and run for the full length of the hull, criss-crossed by stout floor bearers to spread the loads. Her deck is a vacuum-infused balsa sandwich that is light, but rigid and well insulated.

She has a 9/10ths fractional rig, deck-stepped mast with two well swept spreaders, supported by chunky cap, intermediate and aft lower shrouds. The first two are led to chain plates on the topsides, the latter to deck plates, and she has twin backstays that help put plenty of pre-bend in her mast as well as allowing unrestricted access aft. A performance model is available with a taller rig and larger sail area.

We boarded via her wide, dropdown transom platform and stepped up into the teak-covered cockpit. In the aftermost end of the cockpit sole

Chines

the hard chine and wide stern improve her form stability noticeably, but be careful not to over-heel her or she’ll lose grip with her single rudder

photos: Joe Mccarthy

D

ufour has been building production cruising yachts for some 50 years and its boats have always emphasised space, comfort and practicality. Since the introduction of Italian Umberto Felci to its design team, performance has also played an important part.

The new Grand Large 410 supersedes the earlier 405, but is a completely new boat with an entirely different hull and deck. Her superstructure is very low and sleek, and her gently rising sheerline and a vertical stem give her an attractive, contemporary styling without any unnecessary frills. From the water she’s definitely a pretty boat – even for a traditionalist like myself.

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test bench Jake Frith, Sam ForteScue and GuY FoaN puT The laTeST gear Through iTS paceS

Sevylor SBM30 electric outboard motor We had our first look at this motor back in ST158 in June 2010. While it performed well for such a small, cheap and lightweight motor, we had some misgivings about its likely longevity.

Misgivings, it has to be said, that were sown by the manufacturer’s own recommendations. The brochure still states at the foot of its bullet point list of features: ‘Freshwater use or rinse in fresh water after use’. We worried that it said this so prominently and therefore also wondered just how

quickly it would self-destruct if we did not adhere to these recommendations.

So, we used it for a couple of months back in 2010, then stored it in a garden shed for three years with only sporadic seasonal use. at no point did it see a freshwater hose. This is just about the most damaging sequence of treatment you can give anything mechanical or electrical, and, to our surprise, it still works perfectly.

Some of the black paint is beginning to lift from the aluminium parts, but clearly the hub motor, which is vulnerable as it is immersed in operation, is still well sealed. it’s producing as much power as ever, but to recap on our original findings, this was the problem. it produces just 14kg of thrust.

Boss Alex 99 polarised sunglasses after losing a relatively cheap pair of polarised sunglasses overboard during this month’s group test, i soon set about finding a replacement. i recently discovered that not all polarised lenses block glare as they

64

should and a polarising filter is no guarantee of an effective glare-blocking lens. The alex 99 range from hugo Boss boast high-quality polarised lenses making them ideal for spotting wind on the water, and as the official glasses worn by the crew of the open 60 Hugo Boss, this is hardly surprising.

The stylish wraparound frame is comfortable and lightweight and earpieces can be heated and adjusted to ensure a tight fit. My tip would be to wear them on a lanyard, as it’s all too common for a sailor to lose their glasses! although the alex 99 glasses are fairly pricey, you

£128

top right: We’ve now taken to washing it after saltwater use Above: Some paint has lifted in places Below: 2.8 knots with a 2.75m inflatable, so we’ll not be setting many speed records

compare that with the 2.5hp four-stroke outboards commonly used on tenders that we tested in June 2011, which gave between 30kg and 40kg.

We achieved 2.8 knots two-up using the SBM 30 on a 2.75m dinghygo inflatable, which is fine out of the wind or tide. We also found that at the fastest of its five speed settings, its 12V motor was gobbling 29a out of our 105ah deep cycle lead acid test battery.

Working on a rule of thumb of 50 per cent maximum discharge, our total run time before recharging would be 1.8 hours. at speed four on the twistgrip control, current draw was only 15.9a, almost doubling the run time, but speed dropped to a rather sedate 2 knots. in use, the experience is almost completely silent, save a slight hum on level five and a chuckle from the bow wave, which makes it a very pleasurable, if somewhat eerie device to use. JF verdict: H H H H H www.seamarknunn.com

From £110

Above: Stylishly aerodynamic Left: We tested the matt blue metallic frame with grey lenses. See website for other options right: Lens cloth and quality hard carry case included

only get one pair of eyes! . GF verdict: H H H H H www.blazesunglasses.com

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