Features

• Southern crossing
  The notorious Bass Strait lives up to its reputation as Jack Gush and a makeshift crew run for safety to their home port in Hobart, Tasmania

• The write stuff
  Dick Durham peruses the winning entries in the YM/RYA Log Competition 2003

• The rocks are your friends
  The second part of Ken Endean’s ‘Sail like a local’ series on advanced pilotage

• Women and water: can they ever mix?
  Susie Wilde compiles a skipper’s guide to keeping a female crew from mutiny

• Destinations: L’Aberwrac’h
  Peter Cumberlidge is enchanted by the timeless atmosphere of this Breton port
  PLUS: Your free pull-out chart

• Survey Survey Survey
  Paul Jeffes helps a retired widower search for a blue water cruiser. Will a 25-year-old Oyster 39 win the day?

• Silence was golden
  In YM’s occassional Landfalls series, Pete Willetts recounts how his engineless cutter Almita ghosted out of Nieuwpoort in Belgium en route to Leigh-on-Sea

• Drama of the dream boat
  The three-year-old Bénéteau Océanis 400 was the stuff of Paul Tutt’s dreams… but she was also an ex-charter boat with a troubled history
  

On Test

• Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 43
  The quality of this practical all-round cruiser suggests that issues with Jeanneau’s build quality appear to be in the past, says James Jermain

• Chart plotters
  Toby Hodges puts four of the newest generation of hand-held colour chartplotters to the test

• New gear
  Cameras, batteries and fashionable foulies come under the YM microscope

• New boats
  YM previews three of the latest boats

• Buyers’ guide
  The best equipment that YM has tried and tested in recent months

Sailing skills

• A question of seamanship
  Don and Joan have a quandary finding a berth at St Vaast’s narrow pontoons

• Heavy weather
  Part one of this in-depth series looks at coping with summer gales, squalls and storm jibs

• A rough ride to Iceland
  Barry and Sue Fuller experience their first storm at sea in their Victory 40 and test a series drogue

• Chartwork
  A complete guide to chartwork begins this month with Mercator and gnomonic chart projections

• Cunliffe on cruising
  Reducing friction on board makes for a happy crew, says Tom Cunliffe

• Radar class
  The first of a new series on using radar

• Any questions?
  YM’s experts answer your queries

• Sailing quiz
  Five teasers to test your knowledge

Every Month

• Editorial
  View from the helm

• Opening shot
  Slipping through Loch Maaruig in the Outer Hebrides, by Jean Lawrence

• On watch
  All the news, including a shortage of berths and cruisers attacked at knife-point

• Readers’ letters
  The optimum sailing rig, a case for flare guns and the row over lifejacket ruling

• YM subscriptions
  Save up to 30% each month

• Next month
  Sneak preview of next month’s YM

• This cruising life
  Libby Purves lets fly about the poor state of nautical crockery

• Blue Water Letter
  Niki Perryman succumbs to her beachcombing habit in Tonga’s Ha’apai islands

• A-Z of second-hand boats
  The continuation of the Westerlys, including the Corsair, Falcon, Konsort and Jouster

• Around the coast
  Local news round-up from our coastal correspondents nationwide

• Confessional
  Forgive me Father, for I have sailed