If you’re Christmas shopping for the sailor in your life or looking to drop a hint, Duncan Kent and Colin Jarman have some great festive ideas
Reeds weather handbook
Reeds Weather Handbook
You can’t go sailing without taking an interest in the weather; it dominates our time on the water and understanding it is essential. The author, Frank Singleton, was a senior forecaster with the Met Office and runs a highly regarded weather website. This is a deceptively simple pocket book, full of clear explanations and sound advice.
Price £8.99 Author Frank Singleton
Publisher Adlard Coles Nautical
The Adlard Coles Nautical Quiz Book
Nautical quiz book
This book is small in size, but contains 1,000 questions to tax the nautical knowledge of anyone and everyone. It would make great post-Christmas dinner entertainment, but would equally keep you thinking throughout a family cruise. Some of the questions aren’t too difficult, but many are really obscure. It’s a good stocking filler that will both flummox and entertain.
Price £6.99 Publisher Adlard Coles Nautical
Tablet power backup
Tablet power backup
The minigorilla portable charger features a lithium polymer battery that can be used to charge Apple or Android phones and tablets, e-readers and cameras. It boasts a range of selectable voltage outputs to suit your device from 5.0V to 19V.
Supplied with a universal AC mains charger, a protective neoprene carry case and a host of popular connectors, the minigorilla has short-circuit and over-charge protection. It takes 5½ hours to recharge from empty using the mains charger and an LCD screen indicates capacity. An optional compact, fold-up solar panel will charge it fully in around 9-10 hours of continuous sunshine.
The minigorilla offers up to 5-6 hours running a netbook at 10.5V, or two hours on 19V netbooks (with the battery left in, it may discharge in 30 minutes as it recharges the battery as well). Furthermore, it will only lose around 10 per cent of its charge after a year in storage, unused.
Price £99.95 Contact Powertraveller
Tel 01420 542980 Web www.powertraveller.com
WiFi video camera
WiFi video camera
The Muvi K2 is a ruggedised wireless video and stills camera designed to be linked directly to an Android or iOS device to give live HD video at a range up to 60m/200ft. It is smaller than the previous HD model, measuring a mere 6 x 4 x 2.3cm, and records high-definition (1080p) video at 30fps, or 720p at 60fps. The camera can also capture stills at 8, 12 or 16mp and has a photo-burst mode to take up to 10 photos per second.
New features also include a 180-degree rollover, allowing it to be mounted upside-down, and a removable rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack giving up to four hours of recording.
Price £199.95 Contact Veho Europe Web www.veho-world.com
Superspout
Superspout
This little device does just what it’s supposed to do – stop you from overfilling the outboard or genny tank. The simple plastic nozzle is designed so that when the level in the tank reaches the spout, preventing you from overfilling it. Simple, neat and cheap.
Price £9.99 Contact Superspout
Tel 01294 278091 Web www.superspout.com
Bodywarmer with buoyancy
Bodywarmer with buoyancy
The innovative Izeber Jacket from Tribord is actually a reversible gilet with a plain coloured outer on one side and high-visibility fluorescent orange inner with reflective stripes for wearing at sea. The gilet also boasts built-in flexible buoyancy (50N) material (polyethylene micro-beans) that not only keeps the wearer warm, but also helps keep them afloat should they fall into the water. Ideal for use in the tender when going ashore.
Sizes: S-XXL. Colours: Black, grey, blue, red.
Price £39.99 Contact Decathlon Web www.decathlon.co.uk
Classic sail calendar
Classic Sail calendar
Kathy Mansfield’s 2015 calendar is now available, which includes classics from the majestic Herreshoff schooner Eleanora to the diminutive Scandinavian 30m2, from the Scottish Fifes Mariska, Mikado and Solway Maid to the American Concordias and the New York 32s. This delightful calendar brings back the beauty of sail and lists the phases of the moon to help plan your next voyage.
Price £10.95 Contact Kelvin Hughes
Tel 01992 805200 Web www.kelvinhughes.com
The MOB LifeSaver
The MOB LifeSaver
Ever tried getting a man overboard (MOB) attached to the boat to lift them out? Usually, the short webbing lifting becket is nigh-on impossible to snag with a boathook, and even when you do, it takes one crewmember to hold the boathook and another to attempt to haul the casualty aboard.
A new invention called the LiveSaver from experienced RYA instructor, Duncan Wells, should prove invaluable to a two-person sailing team, especially when the crewmember left on board is slight and the MOB is heavily built.
The LiveSaver is a simple 1.5m-long, 3mm diameter, fluorescent Dyneema line capable of lifting close to two tonnes, with a triangular loop/eye in the end that is held open by a stiff plastic sheath. One end is attached to the lifting becket on your lifejacket, the other is designed to float free when the jacket inflates, offering the rescuer a much easier target for the boat hook, as well as the ability to attach the victim to the boat whilst setting up the retrieval system.
Check out the video at https://vimeo.com/104293800.
Price £23.95 
Contact English Braids
Tel 01684 892222
To read the magazine, with the complete Christmas gift guide, download the full edition here