Table of contents for May 2026 in Yachting Monthly

Modern life is myopic. We prod at screens, while alogrithms channel us into ever-narrower rabbit holes. The solace of sailing is that it forces us to look up, breaking down the artificial confines in which we find ourselves. We discover that nature, sometimes benevolent, is in fact utterly indifferent to our presence, and we must therefore toe the line when it comes to respecting the forces and elements through which we travel. Nowhere is this more apparent than in South Georgia, where Pete Goss has finally fulfilled a lifelong ambition to sail in Shackleton’s wake. There, life is boiled down to an unsentimental battle to feed, mate and survive. The cycle of life is on display in gory technicolour while visitors are pelted by 50-knot rainstorms and dwarfed by vast…

The impact of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interference on maritime safety, vessel operations and port security is ‘very serious’, with sailors’ navigation and safety equipment at risk, a report by the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) Maritime Interference Working Group says. In 2025, at least two collisions and groundings were reported linked to GNSS interference in regions such as the Baltics, Straits of Hormuz and the Red Sea. With hundreds of vessels being affected daily, the RIN report details the scale of the problem on modern digital vessels whereby GNSS jamming and spoofing present a significant cybersecurity vulnerability and ‘urgent risks’ to maritime safety. GNSS interference refers to anything that disrupts a ship’s satellite-based positioning signals. This is usually caused by: jamming, which is blocking or overwhelming the satellite…

THIS MONTH’S EXPERTS SOLENE GIRAUDEAU-POTEL is a marine scientist and sailor. In 2023, she left for a North Atlantic circuit with her husband, Joe on their Rival 32 EDD HEWETT had sailed to all seven continents by the time he was 20. He now runs Ardent Training whilst cruising on his own boat HARRY DEKKERS is an RYA YAchtmaster Offshore. He was Commanding Officer of the Royal Netherlands Navy’s sail training vessel JAMES KENNING is an RYA Yachtmaster Offshore. He has crossed Biscay and the Atlantic, and is now in the Med on his 2008 Regina 43 Switch to solar showers I’m always amused when my land-based friends assume that my live-aboard lifestyle means I never shower, but it’s true that showering onboard a small boat feels like a luxury,…

SOLENE GIRAUDEAU-POTEL is a sailor and marine scientist. In 2023, she sailed a North Atlantic circuit with her husband, Joe, aboard their Rival 32 Sailing has the unique ability to allow us to be outside of our natural environment; being a land animal at sea can become addictive. The sensation of being one with the ocean can make us think that our presence has little or no impact on the environment through which we’re sailing. Certainly, any impact we do have is easy to overlook when compared to the big polluters of shipping, fishing, fish-farming and shore-based global industry – for which systemic change is essential. But individual actions matter too. Sailing is a privilege, and it allows us to enter and closely interact with sensitive ecosystems and wildlife that…

Swiss sailor Renaud Stitelmann has won the inaugural McIntyre Mini Globe Race, racing solo 24,000 miles around the world in his 5.8m home-built yacht Capucinette, in an extraordinary milestone for offshore racing. Stitelmann won almost every leg of the race and set the race record at 180 days, 11 hours and 25 minutes with an average speed of 5.54 knots, or 133 miles a day, through all weather conditions and across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. He was the first of the 11-strong fleet in identical 5.8m (19ft) self-built plywood yachts to arrive in Antigua on 7 March in the four-leg race. He returned to the start point 377 days after setting off on 23 February 2025 and having visited 15 ports in 13 countries along the way. ‘Round…

LETTER OF THE MONTH wins a bottle of Chilgrove Bluewater Edition ultra-premium gin made by sailors in the Sussex Downs, who blend the finest botanicals with a neutral grape spirit. www.chilgrovespirits.com UK residents only, RRP £39.95 Self-recovery Rachael Sprot published a very informative article on lifejacket selection (YM Jan 2026) and this rekindled my thoughts on the subject. For years I have worn a harness, not a lifejacket, and am nearly always clipped on, but influenced by the RNLI campaign ‘Useless unless worn’ I decided to switch to a jacket. During a recent solo sail from Scotland to northern Spain, when coming across Biscay, I had to go forward to reef as the weather picked up (in the middle of the night, of course). I was wearing my new lifejacket…

RACHAEL SPROT is a Yachtmaster Examiner with an impressive number of sea miles logged, from Lofoten to St Lucia and beyond Q Mike and Linda are crossing the Channel from Poole to St Peter Port via the Alderney Race in their Bavaria 38, Isabel J. However, the AIS, which they usually rely upon, has stopped working. They’re over halfway across and have negotiated the SW-bound stream of traffic without incident, however they can now see an intimidating line of ships on the starboard side. The wind is E F5, they’ve rigged a preventer, poled out the genoa and are making 6 knots. Mike wants to heave to and wait for a better gap in the traffic. Linda thinks they should stand N on since they’re under sail and well clear of…

MARIANNE PIGGIN is the engagement specialist for the Environment Agency’s Hurst Spit to Lymington Strategy Team Climate change is driving sea level rises, and over the next 100 years, our seas are expected to continue rising by over one metre. In some areas with high, rocky coastlines, this may have limited effect. For low-lying coasts, however, that may already rely on coastal defences, as well as coastal infrastructure such as harbours, the impact on how they weather storms and operate in normal conditions is much more significant. To understand what this might look like in practice, and the impact it might have on the harbours and coastlines we enjoy and rely upon for sailing, we took a look at one specific area of coastline with various features that make it…

Stavanger was an undisputable highlight. But after a few days, the weather looked suitable to continue south. There are very few places to stop along Norway’s exposed southern west coast. It was interesting to realise that the Norwegians very rarely sail out to sea! Most of their boating is done inside fjords or skerries. By now we had learned we shouldn’t be alarmed by new Norwegian friends’ warnings – we had rounded a variety of headlands that locals had warned us would be treacherous but our lifetime of sailing in the UK meant these supposedly major challenges were just a normal bit of coast for us (minus the complication of tide!). We departed Stavanger having planned two long day sails. We first sailed to Rekefjord, but unfortunately arrived with a…

ROB MELOTTI - is YM’s technical editor. He was a dinghy instructor before switching to marine publishing more than 20 years ago We may never know the origin of the phrase: ‘Where there’s muck, there’s brass’ – but as a southerner, I feel it in my bones that it’s best understood spoken in a Yorkshire accent. On one level it means ‘If you are willing to take on the dirty work, you can charge good money for the service’, but there’s a cannier interpretation too. Novoloop is a Silicon Valley startup that can turn almost any plastic waste into material that is good enough to make brand new sports shoes – a multi-billion-dollar market worldwide. Novoloop prefers the phrase: ‘Garbage is gold’ and ‘Where some see waste, we see possibilities’.…

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ROB GIBSON has spent his life handling small boats. He is an RYA Yachtmaster Instructor who has taught sailing techniques to many hundreds of students Sails are not flat sheets of fabric but are cut and fabricated so they form a shallow dish shape. To trim a sail we point the leading edge – the luff – directly into the wind and then pull the trailing corner – the clew – slightly across the wind. This sets up a steady airflow around both the concave (inside) surface and the convex (outside) surface of the sail. POWER ISN’T EVERYTHING… Sail shape physics Diagram 1 (right) shows a boat flying a single mainsail having a nice even curved shape. The coloured arrows represent the forces produced by the pressure difference between the…

If you would like to recommend a marine charity doing great work (including care for the environment) contact julia@golden-duck.co.uk There’s a very close relationship between the yachting community and those who served in Coastal Forces during WW2. Many of those who became officers had volunteered for service through the RNVSR (Royal Naval Volunteer Supplementary Reserve) as well as the established RNVR. They were weekend sailors, cruisers, dinghy racers, motor-boaters – all amateurs – but they bought some basic understanding of navigation and boat-handling. There was, however, little that could have prepared them for the challenges of handling an MTB or an MGB at night in situations of extreme peril. The ‘hostilities only’ crews, who manned their relatively small, flammable vessels, were possibly even more impressive as many of them had…

TOM SANDERS trained as a deck officer in the Merchant Navy. Having worked on Cruise Ships he is now in Offshore Energy. He cruises a Colvic Countess 35 Would it sound far-fetched if I told you a simple piece of paper could save your boat from expensive breakages and repair, or even peril, and in extremis, save the lives of you and your crew? Yet when the World Health Organisation introduced a similar unassuming piece of paper into surgical operating rooms around the world, it slashed major complications by a third and cut surgical deaths by over 40%. No new tech, no miracle drug, just a simple list… a checklist. They proved so effective that in 2009 they became mandatory across the NHS and are now used worldwide. You may…

Email: yachtingmonthly@futurenet.com Postal: Confessions, Yachting Monthly, Future PLC, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6JR Send us your stories in less than 200 words Muddy Mersea mayhem Mark Taylor It was supposed to be a straightforward mission. Three salty sailors had reached the Mersea Quarters; mudbanks surrounded us, and visions of beer lay ahead. We jumped into the dinghy like men on a mission, zoomed up Thornfleet Channel, zipped across the Gut, and tied up smartly alongside West Mersea’s Hammerhead pontoon. I had just finished saying, ‘Good job the outboard’s running well – we’d never make it all the way back with the paddles,’ when one of us dropped the kill cord overboard… It sank like a stone. No problem! We had the dinghy bag – packed with emergency spares!…