Chafe on sails and ropes is something we should expect as part of the general wear and tear on passage, but equally it is something we can protect against. Here…
When is the best time to sail away? The 9 key X factors to consider
I spend much of my time chatting with aspiring bluewater cruisers at boat shows and the seminars we organise, about all aspects of ‘living the dream’. Some have a well…
Sailing Alaska: A family adventure around the blissfully remote Admiralty Island
Standing on the bow of our borrowed 36ft steel cutter, I watched as my four children paddled the inflatable kayak through the iceberg-laden water. The sea had been busy with…
Tidal streams: How to predict them and use them to your advantage
Whether racing or cruising, our first thoughts are always: ‘What is the tide doing?’ When I grew up sailing in Scotland, leaving anchorages before dawn to catch a tide was…
Yacht shipping: How to prepare your boat for a trip on a transporter ship
Bypassing seasonal weather restrictions and being able to relocate quickly are among the factors making yacht shipping more popular than ever. Cargo ships cruise well in excess of the speeds…
Boom preventers: How to use one and why they’re worth the hassle to rig
Rigging a boom preventer will allow you to sail a true downwind course without a constant worry about crew safety. I also use it to pin the boom in its…
Francis Joyon sets new Hong Kong-London record on IDEC Sport
IDEC Sport sailed under the QE2 bridge at 0737 GMT to set a new Hong Kong to London record of 31 days, 23 hours, 36 minutes and 46 seconds, shaving…
Battle of the giants: The inside story of the Brest Atlantiques Race
On Tuesday 5 November four giant trimarans – Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, Macif, Sodebo and Actual Leader, and their double-handed crews – left a grey and sodden Brest on Brittany’s…
Ester: The classic Swedish racing yacht that came back from the dead
The phrase ‘ahead of its time’ is over-used, but in the case of Ester, a remarkable 50ft racing yacht built in 1901, it couldn’t be more apt. For a yacht…
Solo overboard: An extract from Miles Hordern’s Sailing The Pacific
Back in the early 1990s, a young man called Miles Hordern sailed his 28ft Kim Holman-designed Twister single-handed from the UK to New Zealand. He lived aboard in Auckland for…
The inside story of Greta Thunberg’s upwind Atlantic crossing on La Vagabonde
The sky flashed a blinding white light and a spark came down just a few hundred metres to port. We were going fast, and getting faster: that kind of fast…
Road to the America’s Cup podcast: What can sailing simulators teach us?
The reason is simple: every other means of performance evaluation has been neutered – or, at the very least, significantly hampered – by the Protocol, which bans tow-tank and wind…
Sailing Hawaii: A leisurely cruise around these picture-perfect volcanic islands
We started our Pacific voyage on board Distant Drummer, our 45ft Liberty cutter-rigged sloop, from Wellington, New Zealand, in June, 2015, bound ultimately for North America and the Pacific Northwest.…
Staysails: 5 tips on using them to turbocharge your boat speed
As Mike Sanderson points out, staysails are hardly a new idea. The old clipper ships used to use multiple staysails. However, the past five years have seen staysails become a…
5 expert sailing tips: How to win a yacht racing protest
You spend so much time and money honing your craft as a sailor, making the boat go faster… and then it can all blow up with a protest. In the…
Spirit Yachts: Inside the British yard behind some of the world’s most beautiful boats
For more than 25 years Spirit Yachts has been melting the hearts of yachtsmen with its distinctive range of wood epoxy modern classics. In that time the company has built…
Caribbean sailing tips: Chris Doyle on making the most of your time there
Chris Doyle’s is a name familiar to all Caribbean cruisers, as the author of best-selling cruising guides of the region. Having explored the Caribbean for more than 40 years, there…
Invisible Hand: This Pac 52 racer sees the TP52 class return to its offshore roots
The original Transpac 52 Class (TP52) left an indelible mark on US west coast sailing, but the few that were left racing in California represented a wide range of vintages…
Kickstart your Atlantic adventure: ARC 2019 entrants explain how they got there
If Kate or Russell Hall wanted to know where their eight-year-old and six-year-old boys had got to, all they would have to do was look along the pontoon for their…
5 racing tips: How to win when the weather forecast goes wrong
Will Oxley is nothing if not meticulous in his preparation. Which is why he wouldn’t panic too much if the weather forecasts were inconclusive, or proved to be completely wrong.…