Navigation, boat-handling, practical sailing skills

UK to have its own GPS system

2020-11-06T11:23:57+00:00December 3rd, 2018|News, Seamanship|

Mrs May has said that Britain would develop and build its own Global Navigation Satellite System, at a projected cost of £3-5bn. The announcement came on Friday November 30, as a reaction to the European Commission's position that its own long-vaunted Galileo system, due for launch in 2020, and developed with British engineers and scientists, [...]

Setting a square sail on a yacht

2020-11-06T11:24:01+00:00November 21st, 2018|Features, Seamanship|

   by Will Stirling There are many ways to set a square sail on a sailing boat; this is one of many; simplicity is a virtue. The following method has four ropes and a halyard. Two of these ropes are sheets – which it would be difficult not to invite to the party; without the [...]

Isabel and her watersail

2020-11-06T11:24:20+00:00October 19th, 2018|Seamanship|

Setting a watersail is something you can do in light airs to give you that extra half knot of speed. Typically watersails hang below the boom of a fore and aft sailing vessel, and mostly, on yachts, they are old jibs, or even the spare number two or three where you attach the tack to [...]

Tomy’s rescue latest – yacht salvage

2020-11-06T11:24:26+00:00September 25th, 2018|News, Seamanship|

   Latest on Tomy (from 3pm 26 September) The Australian frigate HMAS Ballarat will be within helicopter range of Ile de Amsterdam at first light tomorrow (Thursday) and will commence operations to pick up Gregor McGuckin, one of two Golden Globe Race skippers dismasted during a fierce storm mid-way across the South Indian Ocean last [...]

Surviving the OSTAR storm

2020-11-06T11:24:58+00:00July 13th, 2018|Life Afloat, Seamanship|

Neil Payter, his boat, Solent 1, is a 33ft Yamaha, with a small added bowsprit for the reaching sail    John Clarke, the Principal of Team Sailing, interviews Neil Payter RYA Yachtmaster instructor, following Neil’s completion of the 2017 OSTAR transatlantic race. A video of Neil's homecoming is below “I feel that the [...]

Eric Tabarly drowned on his way to the Fife Regatta – in 1998

2020-11-06T11:25:07+00:00June 21st, 2018|Heritage, Seamanship|

A wild night and a kicking gaff caused the loss of France's greatest sailor, on his way to the first Fife Regatta It's 20 years ago since France's greatest sailor Eric Tabarly was lost overboard from his beloved 57ft 1898 Fife cutter Pen Duick on his way to the first Fife festival in the Clyde, [...]

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