Sam Fortescue

Sam Fortescue

Sam Fortescue is a wide-ranging marine writer whose byline appears on everything from fiction to gear tests; boat tests to regatta reports.

Assignments run from 14ft dinghies to 350ft superyachts, but he is most at home on his reliable Sadler 34.

She has carried him and his family to the Caribbean and back, around the Baltic and soon to the Norwegian fjords.

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  • June 20, 2024

A well-known truism of boat ownership is that sailing with a fixed propeller is akin to towing a bucket astern. We all know that a feathering or folding propeller has…

  • December 13, 2023

The potential of hydrogeneration has been well understood for decades, but it’s only over the past 15 years that the idea has started to become properly commercialised. In essence, it’s…

  • November 29, 2023

This is really two devices and a subscription. The Display 2 is a robust waterproof Samsung tablet that runs the Orca app. It pulls in instrument data from the Orca…

  • September 27, 2023

When Guglielmo Marconi began sending radio messages between coastal radio stations and ships at sea in 1897, there were plenty who predicted the technology would have very limited scope. Yet,…

  • August 9, 2023

Designed for yachts from 30 to 60 feet, Ewincher is an electrically assisted winch handle recently upgraded and relaunched with more power and longer battery life. You can use it…

There is a wide range of tidal apps available, but choose carefully, as not all provide the same coverage

  • January 25, 2023

Tidal data is getting easier and cheaper to download. Sam Fortescue reviews the latest options in an increasingly crowded market and choses the best tidal apps for sailors

Best weather apps. A man holding a smart phone with a weather app open on it

  • January 19, 2023

Weather data is getting easier and cheaper to download. Sam Fortescue reviews the latest options and chooses the best weather apps for sailors

A woman with blonde hair in a pony tail and wearing a white tshirt at the helm of an Oyster 495

  • January 2, 2023

Oyster have long set the standard for luxurious blue-water cruisers, and the Oyster 495 is the new baby in the range. Even if you’re not in the market for one,…