Thought plastic bottles or shopping bags were the biggest source of trash pollution in our seas and oceans and on our beaches? Discarded cigarette butts outnumber both of these combined. If you enjoy a quiet smoke on board, that’s your business. Though you probably already exercise good practice such as puffing away downwind and refraining …
If Poland isn’t thought of as one of the great sailing nations, it’s understandable. After all, the country has historically had relatively limited access to the sea (at times, it’s had no land either), and for half a century after the Second World War the activities of would-be skippers and crew were severely limited by …
Sixty years ago, in the autumn of 1959, Brit James Wharram and Germans Jutta Schultze-Rohnhof and Ruth Merseburger (pictured below) sailed into the Conwy river on Wharram’s self-designed catamaran Rongo. The trio had just made history, with the first west to east North Atlantic crossing in a multi-hull. Wharram, Schultze-Rohnhof and Merseburger had already caught …
Today, September 26, the International Maritime Organisation celebrates World Maritime Day – which this year focuses on women in the maritime community. On October 3 2018, British sailor Jenny Socrates left the Royal Victoria Yacht Club in Canada for her second attempt to sail solo, non-stop around the world. Just under a year later, on …
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You don’t have to be British to drown, and your boat doesn’t have to be British to sink. For some, though, you do have to be British to benefit from the life-saving expertise of the RNLI… The RNLI is using two per cent of its funds on overseas projects aimed at preventing children from drowning. …
Read more “Captain’s notes: RNLI saving lives? How dare they!”
We’ve only spent a few days in the Solent – and only the western half at that. But it was enough to persuade us that, with the exception of Yarmouth, it’s no place for us. July 2019 We were congratulating ourselves on successfully navigating the Needles Channel for the first time (having dealt with a …
Read more “Captain’s notes: heaven and hell, or contrasting views of sailing the Solent”
Sailors would get into an awful lot of trouble without weather forecasts. In fact, they can still encounter challenging situations even with them – as we have learned from experience. For, while we now have access to a great many sources predicting the weather, the chances are that they are not going to be 100 …
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Any training provider delivering a shorebased course for the RYA, whether online or in a classroom, will give you access to all the materials you need. There’s a lot to be said for reading around a subject, though, so here are our recommendations for books supporting the Yachtmaster theory programme. The Complete Yachtmaster, Tom Cunliffe …
Read more “Captain’s notes: best books to support the RYA Yachtmaster Shorebased theory course”
Christian sailors in Scotland are taking an evangelical message to the sea, with a voyage from Glasgow to Southampton this summer. Russ Fairman, a cruising instructor and member of the Catholic Celebrate Charismatic Renewal group, is using his boat Mintaka for the journey. The crew will take part in prayer, praise and worship en route, …
We’ve discovered what we think is the best tablet/app/chart combination in the world for navigation… We have a dedicated chart plotter on Amneris, a rather old but still functional Garmin. And of course, we have paper charts in the navigation table to cover whatever waters we’re cruising in, along with pilot books and the indispensable …