Braced against the rolling of the boat, I sipped scalding tea from the mug cradled in my cold hands and watched the misty blue hills of Scotland materialise ahead. Wandering…
Yachting Monthly
Buying a boat ready for the Mediterranean: Retiring and finding maximum comfort
Our dream of buying a boat and cruising the Mediterranean could finally become reality. Now we just needed to turn fantasy into fact. Our new boat needed to be a…
East Coast Cruising: New York sightseeing by sea
Flying alone, I was due to meet our friends Janet and Richard in Rhode Island for east coast cruising, as our proposed UK crew had cancelled at short notice. Given…
How to optimise sail trim
It is difficult to describe ‘correct’ sail shape, but the three most important things to consider are: sail draft (the fullness of the sail), draft position, and twist (controlled by…
A Hebridean Swallows and Amazons experience
When I was age 12 , we went on a family holiday on the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides off Scotland’s west coast. I was pottering around the…
‘Our boat was full of water’ – lessons learned from one sailor’s sinking
Britannia, my 45ft twin-masted schooner, almost sank, not from storm damage or from hitting rocks, but from within. A water pipe broke in her pressurised shore water supply system while…
French dominate Ocean Globe Race finish at Cowes
Lionel Regnier and his crew aboard the veteran French Whitbread Race yacht L’Esprit d’Equipe returned to Cowes late on Saturday 14 April to take second place on elapsed time for…
A classic American cruise: Sailing from British Columbia to San Francisco
It felt great to be heading out to sea once more on a classic American cruise. The forecast was for an enjoyable sail to San Francisco over the next few…
‘We suddenly heard a loud noise from the engine. We had no idea what it was and it got us worried ’
The Kiel Canal provides a convenient shortcut between the North Sea and the Baltic, or as the Germans call it, the Nordsee and the Ostsee. We Europeans call it the…
‘Rod had single-handedly raised the price of shellfish in the San Blas by about 300%’ – Lu Heikell
Can we agree that it’s an old myth that sailors survive entirely on Fray Bentos pies and ‘pot mess’? Certainly on Skylax mealtimes are something to look forward to as…