Sitting on my living-room floor surrounded by tide tables, pilot books, and almanacs, one part of my upcoming voyage around Britain began to excite me more than the rest. I…
Yachting Monthly
Sailing from Scotland to Ireland: ‘The mountains were swathed in a blanket of cloud and the waves became enormous’
The magic and mystery of the western isles of Scotland capture my imagination and draw me back every summer. This once-great sea kingdom ruled by the Norse and Gaels is…
‘The day the sky turned red’ – Lu Heikell encounters an unusual phenomenon
Saharan dust being blown across the Mediterranean is not a new phenomenon, but here it usually arrives in the form of rain. Many times we have woken up on Skylax…
How to tension your yacht’s rig with wire or rod rigging
If you want to trim your rig correctly you should have some idea of the tension in the shrouds and stays, either by rules of thumb or a more exact…
How to improve power management on a yacht
I confess, I’m not a marine electrician, and my understanding of boat electronics is at best rudimentary, but I’ve now been managing my boat’s power generation and consumption for three…
Sailing across the Irish Sea: ‘We had never seen such evocative scenery’
Bleary eyed, we stumbled out of our sleeping bags as the boat rocked gently on her berth. Fumbling around we clad ourselves with nautical attire, had some breakfast and prepared…
Visiting the D-Day Normandy Beaches by boat
After the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk in June 1940, Winston Churchill promised, ‘We will return’. Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied landing operation which…
‘While we were out consuming the local delicacies, a stowaway was surreptitiously finding their way aboard’
Rat in Mi Kitchen, one of the greats by UB40, proved to have a whole new meaning when sailing in Greece this year. A rodent infestation was far from my…
Sailing to the Scillies and back: ‘In the timeless rhythms of the ocean, this latest period of flux and profound change is the greatest’
Being poked in the cheek and asked ‘Is this annoying? Is this annoying? Is this annoying?’ by my bored 11-year-old daughter Isla was indeed annoying. But what made it even…
‘We got battered by a storm that wasn’t forecast’
Although we had managed a brief visit to St Kilda, the Scottish weather during 2022 had not been great, so my wife Sarah and I pondered going somewhere warm. I…