Features

• Total loss!
  Why are insurance premiums soaring? Dick Durham asks three leading companies and finds that lawyers share something in common with powerboat owners and terrorists

• A solo bite at the ocean
  Paul Heiney sails into a gale on the first leg of the Azores and Back Race and describes the pleasures and perils of his first solo ocean passage

• It?s showtime!
  Tanya Leech checks into Southampton Boat Show with a shopping list of gear for her blue water boat in the Caribbean ? a 36ft Westerly Corsair

• Westcoasting: sounds of Scotland
  Ken Endean sails through Scottish sounds between Islay and Skye in the penultimate episode of his series

• Biscay Triangle Rally
  Blue Water Rallies linked up with YM for their cruise in company from Torquay to La Coruña and back to La Trinite

• Destinations: Milford Haven
  Arguable the best-kept secret in South Wales, this marine Arcadia has many delightful anchorages, some of them in the UK?s only coastal national park
  
  
• Survey! Survey! Survey!
  In the second of our new series, surveyor Paul Jeffes helps yachtsman Jim Little find a suitable boat to fulfil his dream of living aboard with his young family in the Mediterranean

Sailing Skills

• A question of seamanship
  A visit to Paul Gaugin?s home on the Aven river beckons, but is it worth the risk without a chart?

• Learning Curve
  James Mcnaghten is rescued by a French lifeboat after a sailing trip from the Solent to St Malo in December gets hit by a winter gale
  
  
• Yachtmaster class
  Tom Cunliffe on how to negotiate locks, plus sailing skills tips for all abilities, and seamanship tips
  
  
• Sailing Quiz
  Win Transas Nautic NaviGator chart software
  
  
• Any Questions?
  Can you use a spinnaker as a cruising chute and wiring sacrificial anodes
  
  
• Better Boat Handling
  Simon Jinks on how to use springs to manoeuvre out of a tight corner
  

On Test

• Bénéteau?s First 27.7
  Simon Jinks steps aboard this pocket rocket from the design board of Groupe Finot, who created the Open 60s, and enjoys an exciting sail

• Wheel pilots
  Simrad?s WP30 and Raymarine?s 4000

• Shaken and stirred
  Toby Hodges looks through the lenses of four image-stabilised binoculars with much greater magnification than conventional 7x50s

• New Gear
  Simon Jinks and Paul Gelder run the rule over the Sensor Max VSD water pump and the Navman Tracker 5500 chart plotter
  
  
• Essential Buyers? Guide
  Our guide to some of the best products we?ve tested this year

Every Month

• Editorial
  View from the helm

• On Watch
  Gipsy Moth IV to sail again? YM proposes to get the famous yacht back in the water
  
  
• Readers? letters
  Close encounters of the worst kind

• Next month/YM Books
  Sneak preview of YM?s November issue

• This Cruising Life
  Libby Purves joins husband Paul Heiney to sail back from the Azores and feels like a ?rival female? and a Jonah

• YM subscriptions
  Save up to 30% every month

• Blue Water Letter
  Do the Greek gods have it in for Rod Heikell as he sails his yacht seven tenths from Turkey to Rhodes and Crete?

• A-Z of second-hand boats
  Shes and Sigmas under scrutiny
  
  
• Around the coast
  All the local news from our correspondents at all points of the compass

• Property
  A converted brewery in Plymouth has stunning views of the harbour
  
  
• Confessional
  Honeymoon high-jinks and putting the boot in