Marie Tabarly, the daughter of French sailing legend Eric Tabarly, has stepped out from the shadows of her famous father and rewritten history, becoming the first over the line in…
Yachting Monthly
Why marking the lines on your yacht is crucial
Many cruising yacht skippers mark very little on board their boats. They rely on experience and remembering how the sails should be set in various conditions. But it is an…
Cruising Corsica and Sardinia by yacht
Cruising the Mediterranean in my own yacht has always been a dream, and it finally became a reality in 2023, with the June delivery of a new Hallberg-Rassy 372 in…
Maiden crew’s First Mate Rachel Burgess: ‘The girls showed how tough they were’
I got the call while sitting in a little cafe in Horta in the Azores. Say ‘hell, yes’ first, think about the logistics second. So that’s how I became First…
A beginners guide to easy yacht navigation
When you first start to learn about yacht navigation it can seem complex and pretty nuanced, but in reality what you are doing falls into two overarching styles. The first…
What are the most affordable ways to start sailing?
Pardon the liberal use of cliches, but as somebody once said, ‘Sailing equates to standing in a cold shower tearing up £10 notes.’ If it’s racing, it will be £50…
‘Dodging ships can feel like being a chicken crossing a very busy motorway’
The North Sea at night: I love it. It can turn wild, like any mountain or desert, but that’s not all the time. When it’s calm, fishing lights appear, dodge…
Sailing around 3,500 miles on the 1917 schooner Oosterschelde: Training in a time warp
I have always wanted to sail on a tall ship; to experience night watches on the high seas, to make sail changes, to helm. Although I’ve done all these things…
‘We passed no living creature apart from three cows and a lone sheep’
There aren’t many places where you can anchor so close to a mountain it breathes on you. In heavy weather the draughts of exhaled tempest that rush down the sheer…
Why I took my Ketch rigged yacht and turned it into a brigantine square-rigger
People have asked why I decided to change a perfectly good ketch into a staysail schooner? It’s a reasonable question. The simple answer is that I always wanted a brigantine.…