SKIPPERS’ TIPS - Homemade mast steps - Watch schedules - Tiller steering
NEW GEAR - Our pick of the DAME R&D Excellence in Adversity entries
ME & MY BOAT - Why the Dufour 425 GL is ‘solid, spacious and ocean capable’
UPGRADING ELECTRONICS - Mike Reynolds shares a way to get the latest gadgetry at a fraction of the cost
QUESTION OF SEAMANSHIP - How best to assist an inverted dinghy?
REPAIRING SAILS - The essentials of sail first aid, and what tools to carry
SAIL SMARTER - How to modernise your boat without breaking the bank
LYME REGIS - Dag Pike finds a quiet spot to drop the hook at this Dorset resort
LA ROCHELLE - Stunning architecture, great food and beaches await those who explore France’s Atlantic port
A LAST HURRAH - A bittersweet Scottish adventure with old friends
GERRY HUGHES - ‘Never, never give up on your dreams,’ says the first deaf solo circumnavigator
VENDEE RESCUE - Pete Goss examines the seamanship involved in Kevin Escoffier’s rescue by Jean Le Cam
ANCHORING - Why bigger isn’t better
HEAD TO HEAD - The Hanse 348 and 418 go up against each other in our boat test
Regulars:
EDITOR’S LETTER
NEWS - Sailor of the Decade
LETTERS - Collective effort
DICK DURHAM - Royal yachts
PETE GOSS - Resource management
LIBBY PURVES - The ‘Salt of reality’
CRUISING COMMUNITY - Teen honour
BOOKS - Sailing the Waterways of Russia’s North - Irene Campbell-Grin
CONFESSIONS - Tin cans needed
Pete Goss is uniquely qualified to comment on the rescue (p46) as one of the few to have done exactly this - for Raphael Dinelli during the 1996/7 Vendee Globe. His insights are gold-dust to us mere mortals because they are tempered by real experience and apply to coastal cruising as well as ocean crossings.
Have you considered how you would operate your safety gear when your fingers are numb with cold, for example, or precisely how you will fish out a man overboard? It’s certainly given me plenty to consider on my boat. As Goss says, there are no shortcuts to the ‘good, honest seamanship of an old sea dog.’
There is one more quality that underpins good seamanship, and that is humility: an appreciation of our own insignificance on the face of the sea and a preparedness to put our own ambitions aside to assist and support others.
It is for this reason that another sailor is also being celebrated. He may not have broken records, but he has been changing the face of sailing. Jon Holt, the quietly spoken teacher from London, rarely seeks the limelight himself but has propelled his students into the upper echelons of the sailing world. In the process, he has inculcated in them a love of the sea, a sense of their own worth, and an experience of real responsibility that will last them a lifetime. ‘He has been named YJA MS Amlin ‘International Sailor of the Decade'