A sailing miscellany
On the evening of December 19, 1981, the ship Union Star suffered engine failure off the south coast of Cornwall. With a storm building, the Coastguard attempted a helicopter rescue. But the weather forced them to stand off and the RNLI launched the Penlee lifeboat Solomon Browne to help instead. Nobody from the Union Star …
Sea-sickness is a common malaise, experienced by most sailors at one time or another. But setting sail alone for even short periods can also have effects on mental health. Most sailors know the story of Donald Crowhurst. When he slipped his lines in Teignmouth to take part in the first Golden Globe race neither he …
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 …
For most sailors, it is second nature to pull on a life jacket before slipping the lines. Modern designs are lightweight and comfortable to wear, and can last many years if serviced regularly and professionally. Early life jackets, though, were a different matter altogether. They were bulky and inconvenient, yet did the same job that …
Sail Ho! co-skipper Aleksandra has so much fun creating creatures and characters for our animated videos that she wanted to do more – so her designs are now available on a range of merchandise in the new Sail Ho! online store. Visit the shop at sailhoshop.com (or just click on this paragraph), and it’s sure …
Captain Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz, the Polish sailor and marine engineer who became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe solo, has died at her home at the age of 84. Born in 1936 in Warsaw, Captain Chojnowska-Liskiewicz began sailing in childhood. She moved to Gdańsk to study shipbuilding at Gdańsk University of Technology, where she met …
Gone are the days when a skipper in the UK could hop aboard their own boat and go exploring Europe without a care in the world. Brexit has locked British sailors into not so splendid isolation, effectively making any passage more than 12 miles from shore a bureaucratic nightmare. So what’s changed? And who is …
Read more “Captain’s notes: how Brexit bombed British sailing (and who to blame)”
Sailors can be a superstitious bunch. It’s hardly surprising, given the dangers of life at sea in years gone by – but even now, there are some who look out for portents that might please or displease Neptune (pictured below in Gdańsk), and none of them are taught on the RYA Dayskipper courses. So what …
For most sailors, it is second nature to pull on a life jacket before slipping the lines. Modern designs are lightweight and comfortable to wear, and can last many years if serviced regularly and professionally. Early life jackets, though, were a different matter altogether. They were bulky and inconvenient, yet did the same job that …
Sea-sickness is a common malaise, experienced by most sailors at one time or another. But setting sail alone for even short periods can also have effects on mental health. Most sailors know the story of Donald Crowhurst. When he slipped his lines in Teignmouth to take part in the first Golden Globe race neither he …