Table of contents for March 2016 in SAIL

The sixth annual Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image awards were given out last December, and photographer Rick Tomlinson took home the Public Award for this shot of Team Brunel sailing past Cape Horn during the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race. “This picture wasn’t taken by chance,” Tomlinson said. “It was a big work thanks to the Volvo Ocean Race team and my colleagues that came with me to the Cape Horn.” To see the photo that won Greek photographer Nikos Zagas the Jury Award, along with more photos from the competition, visit sailmagazine.com.…

If any one sailor has been synonymous with the Rolex Sydney Hobart race in recent years it has been Australian winemaker Robert “Bob” Oatley, the owner of the legendary maxi Wild Oats XI, who passed away on January 10 at the age of 87. A passionate sailor, Oatley continued to hone his 100-footer so that it remained competitive long after its inaugural Sydney Hobart in 2005, when it won a “treble” by taking both line honors and the Tattersall’s Cup, and setting a new course record. In all Wild Oats XI has earned line honors eight times. In 2012 the boat scored another treble, and it still holds the course record of 1 day, 18 hours, 23 minutes. Future Sydney Hobart races won’t feel the same without Bob Oatley.…

Despite their massive boats, massive logistics and even more massive budgets, neither French solo-sailing legend Francis Joyon aboard the 103ft IDEC Sport nor Swiss sailor Dona Bertarelli aboard the 131ft Sprindrift 2 succeeded in their Jules Verne Trophy attempts begun late last fall. Though the two tris and their crews performed magnificently, with boThefforts remaining on pace through much of the Southern Ocean, a large high-pressure system with little wind ultimately doomed both attempts in the Atlantic. For the record, the time to beat remains 45 days 13 hours, as set by Loïck Peryon and his crew aboard the 130ft maxi-tri Banque Populaire V in 2012. As for the two sailors looking to set a new under-40ft solo circumnav record, both American Joe Harris aboard the Class40 GryphonSolo2 and German…

CONTACTS Dehler Yachts dehler.com Bavaria Yachts bavariayachts.com Seawind Catamarans seawindcats.com Germany’s renowned Dehler brand underwent some serious rejuvenation therapy after it was acquired by Hanse Yachts a few years ago. Production was moved to Hanse’s Greifswald facility in the former East Germany and much-needed development cash was injected into the brand. The first result of the union was the Dehler 38, closely followed by the 46. Latest in the line is the Dehler 42. There are no surprises in this Judel/Vrolijk design, whose hull lines, styling and deck layout closely follow those of its siblings, but it has a number of options that allow buyers to tailor the boat to suit their sailing styles. The tapered aluminum mast, for example, can be replaced with a carbon-fiber version, and there are…

Out of Lisbon in the Gulf of Cadiz tonight and southbound for Tangier, with 20 to 25 knots of wind on the port quarter and 5ft to 8ft seas, we’re reaching at nearly 10 knots. The motion is easy, the angle of heel steady at five to 10 degrees, and there’s no question that we are on a sailboat. A big one. Though this feeling of movement without effort would be familiar to any sailor and the bridge looks remarkably like the cockpit of my 33-footer, everything else on this boat is magnified. This is Star Clipper, a 360ft, four-masted barkentine—and she is to a typical cruise ship as a limousine is to a bus. At that moment we were under upper and lower topsails, main and mizzen staysails and…

When my husband, Dave, and I bought a 29ft sharpie as a summer home, we outfitted her with much of the old gear from our 34ft Creekmore, Eurisko, including her composting head and solar panels. We planned to buy equivalent new parts for Eurisko when we moved back aboard her. But reality rarely matches theory. Researching solar panels for the first time in 13 years, we discovered that much had changed. Panels produced higher output for their size, but larger panels were being manufactured to meet the ever-growing demands of boaters. Our usage had actually decreased over time as our three children grew up and moved off the boat, and the space allotted for the installation of solar panels remained the same. Most panels were too big for the only…

Sailing Scene Are you out there sailing, cruising and living the sailing life? If you are, send your sailing photos to sailmail@sailmagazine.com for a chance to have them featured in these pages. Here are a few pictures from other readers, taken during their latest cruising adventures. I photographed our exit from the Gatun Locks in the Panama Canal. And we thought our 52ft cutter was big… —John Calvano, via sailmail@sailmagazine.com I took this shot from the Dinner Key Mooring Field in Coconut Grove, Florida. —James Noland, via sailmail@sailmagazine.com @sailmagazine FOND MEMORIES Many years ago I had the pleasure of attending a lecture in Toronto given by Sir Francis Chichester. Charles J. Doane’s article “Driving Miss Gypsy,” in the December 2015 issue rekindled some old memories. I was in my mid-20s…

As far as fleets go, the collection of boats that greeted me as I motored into Hampton, Virginia, in late October was as varied as they come: sloops, cutters, catamarans, a trawler and even a trailer-sailer, all geared up and ready for an adventure. I had brought our Norlin 34, Ostara, down from Boston’s North Shore to join 20 other boats in SAIL’s second Snowbird Rally down the Intracoastal Waterway. Always one to be fashionably late, ours was the last boat to arrive in Hampton for the rally start. I was waved into a slip at the Hampton public pier by a smiling Tom Hale, co-leader, along with On The Water Chartguides authors Mark and Diana Doyle, of the 2015 Snowbird rally. The get-to-know-you dockside drinks party that afternoon was…

While my wife, Terrie,and I were cruising the west coast of Ireland last year aboard Nada, our Malo 46, we had a forecast of an approaching 45-knot gale—not a good combination! We were near Baltimore Harbour, which, although more-or-less landlocked, is large enough to allow choppy seas to build up, so we decided to head up the nearby Ilen River. The Ilen has numerous stretches that are not navigable at much below half tide given Nada’s 6ft draft. In between the shallower sections are deeper pools with just enough water and swinging room to keep Nada afloat at low tide. The limit of navigation is at a boatyard where we thought we could either raft up alongside the quay or anchor in one of the deeper pools shown on our…

The baby of the Hanse 5 series, the 315, looks surprisingly serious at the dock. She’s got an almost predatory look, even compared to any 50-footers that might be in the area—which seems funny until she gets out on the water and kicks some booty. Between her easy-sailing rig that cuts down on tacking drama and her excellent balance, this boat seems to say, “Step aside Google, Tesla and GM with your self-driving cars, I’m a self-driving boat.” CONSTRUCTION It’s harder to build a small boat than a big one, because you have to try and pack all the same amenities and decent sailing characteristics into a more restricted platform. However, this entry-level Hanse, which replaces the older 325, does an admirable job of accomplishing this, thanks in large part…

With the dollar almost at parity with the Euro, there’s never been a better time to go chartering in Europe. Here’s a quick guide to where and when to go, and how to get there. CROATIA To understand why Croatia has become one of the world’s top charter destinations, just open up Google Earth and zoom in on the Adriatic Sea. On one side is Italy’s eastern seaboard, pretty enough in its own right but not much of a sailing area; on the other, the spectacular coastline of Croatia. Some 1,200 islands dot Croatia’s Dalmatian coast; only 50 or so are inhabited, and many of the remainder enjoy national park status. Besides being blessed with some of the most beautiful scenery in the Mediterranean, Croatia’s coast and hinterland are redolent…

I grew up close to Lake Champlain, and while I only recently sailed her waters, I spent many years exploring the wonders that lie along her shores. Fourteen miles wide, 125 miles long and up to 400ft deep, Champlain serves as the border between Vermont to the east, upstate New York to the west, and Canada to the north. Framed by the towering Adirondack Mountains on her western shore and the majestic Green Mountains to the east, there is no shortage of incredible vistas. Photographer Michaela Urban and I began our sailing adventure in the historic town of Plattsburgh, New York, about halfway up the western side of the lake. Our trip happened to coincide with the annual celebration of the historic Battle of Plattsburgh, which was one of the…

After years of failing to live up to its reputation as the toughest off shore race of them all, the 2015 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race was one to remember, with tough weather and even tougher luck beating up the 108-boat fleet from the word go. The carnage began an hour before the fleet set off, when the official start boat began taking on water and had to return to shore. Soon afterward, there were multiple collisions within the TP52 section as crews tacked toward Sydney Heads and the open sea—where things only got that much worse as a “southerly buster” combined with a south-setting current to create boat-breaking conditions off the coast of New South Wales. So bad was the weather the first night out that two 100ft maxis, Perpetual…

Now in its fifth year, the Atlantic Cup, a one-design Class40 regatta featuring inshore racing, a pair of offshore legs and a hefty cash purse for the winners, is expecting to attract up to 10 boats by the time the starting gun sounds this May. First to sign up this time around was skipper Mike Hennessy of the Owen Clarke-designed Dragon, a veteran of all four Atlantic Cups. Although his team suffered an “unfortunate introduction,” as Hennessy put it, to a rock in Narragansett Bay in 2014 that knocked him off the leaderboard, Hennessy says he is more enthusiastic than ever. “We know we are going to have to bring our A game to win in in the 2016 edition,” Hennessy said. “The 6,000 ocean miles that we raced in…

The market for rotomolded plastic kayaks is enormous, but the realm of rotomolded sailing kayaks is much smaller and has for some time been dominated by Hobie’s two Mirage Island model trimaran kayaks. By combining the company’s proprietary pedaldriven Mirage under-the-hull paddling system with efficient, but easy-to-handle sailing rigs, Hobie has succeeded in creating a new class of fun, yet versatile, small sailboats. Like its recently departed founder, the famed surfb oard shaper turned beach-cat guru Hobie Alter, the company is always striving forward, so I wasn’t too surprised to learn it has made a big investment in upgrading both the singleseat Adventure and the double-seat Tandem (of which the Mirage Island line is comprised). New features include fuller hull and ama forms with reverse wave-piercing bows; an improved Mirage…

I was reminded of a few things during my week of cruising in the Pacific Northwest—you can’t always trust a weather forecast, it is a lot harder to get into the United States without a passport than it is to get into Canada, and the San Juan and Vancouver islands offer some of the most beautiful cruising grounds I’ve ever seen. The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the very most northwest corner of the United States that sit off Washington state, north of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, west of the Rosario Strait, east of the Haro Strait and south of Boundary Pass. To the east sits Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. With so much coastline and so many islands, the region offers a wide array…

Strops, grommets and shackles made from rope were found on every sailing ship for hundreds of years. The making of them was part of the sailor’s craft and their uses were legion. By the time commercial sailing went the way of the dodo, though, much of the ropecraft that held the square-riggers together had already dwindled away. In its place came metal wire and metal shackles, and for generations there was no real alternative to these. Not that we leisure sailors really cared—wire and steel did a fine job as far as we were concerned, and you don’t miss what you’ve never had. All that changed with the arrival of high-modulus line. At the highest end, PBO, Kevlar and carbon fiber standing and running rigging adorns grand prix boats, but…

Got your own tips? Send them to us at sailmail@sailmagazine.com? Long-distance cruisers need be prepared for all eventualities, including sometime deploying a stern anchor—for example if you’re cruising in Pacific Northwest or the Baltic where anchorages are often steep-to and it’s common practice to anchor from the stern and tie your bow off to a rock or tree on the shore, or in the Mediterranean where you often have no alternative except to go bow- or stern-to a quay. Except on smaller boats, though, it can be a real bear to haul up a stern anchor and rode by hand, especially when you’ve dropped it in deep water as in many Pacific Northwest anchorages. I saw this nifty arrangement on a Norwegian boat in St. Lucia at the end of…

Will there ever be another ocean race as dramatic and compelling as the 1968-69 Golden Globe? It’s hard to imagine. This legendary competition, the first to lead solo sailors on a nonstop course around the world, was so imbued with pathos that it has inspired interest among both sailors and the general public for nearly 50 years now. It seems the steady stream of books, films and even stage plays on the subject will never cease. The Shakespearian sweep of the race was, of course, most acutely embodied in Donald Crowhurst, the madly ambitious electrical engineer who faked his voyage by sending in false position reports and then stepped off his boat to his death when he realized his deception would be revealed. Soon we will be treated to yet…