Tabla de contenidos para December 2020 en Cruising Helmsman

AUSTRALIAN Sailing launched its latest Discover Sailing campaign for the summer season, titled: ‘Welcome to our playground’. The campaign focuses on sailing’s major point of difference to all other sports: its amazing on-water locations and unique, natural field of play. The goal is to amplify a simple message: sailing is a safe, friendly sport which takes place on the most beautiful playground on earth. Aimed at helping yacht clubs as they get back out on the water, the campaign will provide clubs with a fresh message to use when promoting and advertising the strengths of sailing in a changed recreational scene. It will grow awareness of and interest in sailing, with a key message of getting down to your local sailing club to discover the sport. Clubs will be issued…

SINCE 2014 Marsaudon Composites manufactured and marketed a range of high performance catamarans designed by Christophe Barreau under the names TS42 and TS5. All the boats shared common characteristics: lightness and power, structural quality of construction; refined interior style. Over the past three years, Marsaudon noted a change in future customers far removed from its French Breton roots. New Zealand, Australia, North America and its European neighbours now represent more than 50 per cent of its customers. So the company developed a new brand: Ocean Rider Catamarans, to be known as Orc. ‘Ocean’ because its boats chew up the miles on all oceans and spend very little time at the dock; ‘Rider’ to denote the current and future sailors looking for sailing sensations, adrenaline and exclusivity; and ‘Catamarans’ for obvious…

FINDING a haven is not always easy on a long oceanic coast. Finding anywhere sheltered enough to anchor a yacht, can take a good study of a large-scale chart and some imagination, coupled with good settled weather. Certainly, one thing you can expect to find on most Australian coasts are longish passages, between safe harbour. It is a great big country! Last winter I spent three months away from the Scottish winter with temperatures a least 25 degrees Celsius higher, teaching sailing on the west coast in the Indian Ocean. This gave me ample opportunity, to look for alternative places, to stop and anchor. One frequent passage I made between Geographe Bay and Bunbury looked promising on the chart. Provided closing the coast here was timed right, when the sun…

THE major advantage of trailer sailers is there are no expensive mooring fees. You store it like a caravan. Tow it to your destination and set it up, launch the boat and set sail. They are a cheap and affordable way of getting families and friends into boating. People who like adventure and exploring remote and interesting locations can use the boat like a houseboat and motor in shallow waters with the keel up, or simply anchor and go fishing. You do not have to spend days, weeks, or months to get there. You hook up the trailer and drive there in hours, or a day or so if to a distant location. Depending on the size of the boat most are between five metres to nine metres in length.…

FOR the first time, scientists have viewed the deepest regions of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and, in the process, discovered five undescribed species consisting of black corals and sponges, plus recording Australia’s first observation of an extremely rare fish. The complex and scientifically challenging research was completed aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor on its fourth expedition of the year, as part of the American Institute’s Australia campaign. Using a remotely operated underwater robot to view video of the bottom of the ocean floor, some 1,820 metres deep, the science team examined deep sea bathymetry, wildlife, and ecosystems. The collaborative mission brought together scientists from Geoscience Australia, James Cook University, University of Sydney, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Queensland Museum Network, and Queensland University of…

THE Marina Industries Association (MIA) has released the exhibitor prospectus for the Marinas21 international conference and trade exhibition. It will be held at the Marriott Resort Surfers Paradise, 24-25 May 2021, timed to follow the Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show. The exhibition is key to the event as an opportunity to keep up to date with the latest products and innovations and reconnect with suppliers. Marina manufacturers, pedestal and dock product suppliers and boatyard lifting and equipment suppliers are the perennial favourites. There was also strong interest from delegates in meeting exhibitors who supply safety and environmental equipment and consultant services; security and access control; marina management software solutions and fuel maintenance supplies and services. There has been a surge in interest in sailing as the community looks at ways…

HANSE Yachts announced it is enjoying a high demand for its range of boats. The world’s second largest producer of sailing yachts registered incoming orders in the amount of €62.0m in the first quarter of the 2020/21 fiscal year. This equates to an increase of 85 per cent. Cancelled cruises and long-distance travelling has seen potential travellers with more funds to spend on nice boats. Until recently, Hanse Yachts had to struggle with the effects of the lockdown. In late March, however, the company reported its highest first quarter order backlog in the history of Hanse Yachts. In contrast to other large shipyards, it could thus continue production until today. www.hanseyachtsag.com…

ALTHOUGH sailing to faraway places is an almost constant temptation for most cruisers, the current state of the world seems to invite us to turn our attention to local destinations, at least for the time being. Luckily, we have one of the seven natural wonders of the world right at our doorstep. The question is, for how much longer? Bigger than Italy and visible from outer space, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) spans over 2,300 kilometres along the Queensland coast. It consist of more than 3,000 connected reefs, about 900 islands and counts well over 15,000 species, including 1,625 different fish, 3,000 varieties of mollusc, 450 species of coral, 220 unique birds and 30 types of whales and dolphins. This incredible diversity and the importance it plays in broader ocean…

IF you have ever gone ashore and left your tender on the beach for a nice stroll only to come back and find the tide has gone out and left you with the problem of dragging a 150 kilograms or more of dinghy back to the water, or returned to find your tender filled with water from a big set of waves that flooded it, Or after coming into a popular ‘go-to’ spot found there is no room to leave your dinghy on the shore or pier. You are not alone; I have done all these and more. Well there is an easy answer. Years ago I read an article on this system and after another of the above calamities I decided to try it. What your need is: 40…

NEW yachts are constantly coming into Australia, but what happens to all the old yachts? One company in Pittwater is trying to change the lifecycle of old yachts by breaking them down into recycleable parts. Bianca and Brent Taylor of Broken Bay Barges are trying to clean up the marine practices to create a safer, cleaner and accountable industry. The Taylor’s own and operate their commercial barge business in Pittwater NSW, trading under Taylor’d Marine Services. They provide all manner of barge services and commercial diving, servicing Broken Bay covering Pittwater, Brisbane Waters and the Hawkesbury River. Brent is a commercial diver with over 21 years experience in salvage, vessel disposal, search and recovery, underwater demolition, aquaculture, hull cleaning, mooring management and consultation. Partner Bianca is an avid ocean swimmer,…

IN a powerful display, in which sustained speeds of at least 20 knots have been reached in the breezy Strait of Bonifacio, the foil-assisted, 43.3 metre Baltic 142 Canova has been enjoying fine-tuning being put through her paces in an intense testing phase. In a wide variety of wind conditions, the crew and builder representatives have been checking the use of the yacht’s dynamic stability system (DSS), its athwartships sliding foil. One of the great advantages of the DSS foil is that it reduces heel and motion making a yacht more comfortable while adding speed by reducing waterline. The yacht’s green credentials are impressive, too. Her electric propulsion system is quiet, environmentally friendly and has the ability to charge the yacht’s large battery bank without having to use a fossil…

I began to take a serious interest in cyclones in April 1989. We had come up to Hamilton Island from Adelaide to compete in Hamilton Island Race Week with the crew from our boat down south. We would be sailing the charter yacht Stylopora in the cruising division. The crew would stay on the boat in the marina and, to make room, Robyn and I had moved over to the resort. We had known about cyclone Aivu lurking in the Coral Sea for a couple of days. We were just there for the fun, but HI race week was starting to become a major ocean racer regatta and the marina was absolutely packed with serious racing machinery. In the Whitsundays, at 21 degrees south, we knew theoretically that Aivu might…

THERE has been a long build up in promotional marketing with regard to the newly-released range of Beneteau catamarans. Calling it the ‘Excess’ range set themselves a target of providing something that would pop into the market and make everyone go “wow”! The first of the line, the Excess 12, made it out to Australia and agency, Flagstaff Marine, are pretty stoked with the initial response. The thinking heads of Beneteau took a long look at the multihull market and tried to find a niche that had not yet been provided for. Given they were already producing the highly-popular Lagoon catamarans, they could not just produce a clone. What they came up with is simple in its logic. Catamarans had more and more been designed to be a cruising lifestyle…