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.…
Solo Atlantic sailing: Lessons learned en-route to Madeira
It was just before midnight in the eastern fringes of the Atlantic Ocean, about 130 miles south-west of Cape Finisterre. To my right I could see an ominous wall of…
Sailing round Britain with the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust: The magic of Moonspray
Despite a significant drop in the breeze, our arrival at Canning Dock in Liverpool coincided with a four-knot cross-tide to make things particularly interesting. Our yacht Moonspray ferry-glided confidently towards…
Spirit Yachts 52D: This stripped-back racer is a wolf in sheep’s clothing
It may have been high season on the Solent, but among the eclectic mix of race boats both big and small, one yacht was turning more heads than any other.…
Selling your boat in the Pacific: How to get full price after an ocean adventure
Buying a boat, sailing across the Atlantic and then exploring the Pacific, before selling it for the purchase price in New Zealand or Australia sounds like a dream come true.…
Smartphone navigation: Pip Hare’s top tips for sailing by iPhone
No matter how good navigation apps have become, using your smartphone as a main method of navigation is just not a good idea. The screen is tiny and you’ll struggle…
Sailing the Falkland Islands: A life-changing voyage on board Pelagic
In spring 2016 my partner, Magnus, and I delivered Pelagic, one of two yachts owned and run as a high-latitudes adventure charter boat by former Whitbread Round the World Race…
Anna: The modern classic yacht that conceals some serious technology
When approaching Anna moored at the dock, it’s hard to immediately tell whether she is a restored classic or a recently built replica. In fact, neither is true; Anna is…
And the winners of the European Yacht of the Year 2020 are…
Yachting World has been a jury member for the European Yacht of the Year awards since its inception in 2004. This involves shortlisting the best annual prospects into categories before…