Does your dog love paddleboarding and surfing? If so, make your way to Poole this weekend for the UK’s only dog surfing and paddleboard championships. Article continues below… Now…
PBO Staff
Best lithium batteries: 12 powerful options for your boat tested
Boat owners have long relied upon the lead-acid battery to start their engines, run electric lights and, these days, to power inverters to run household items such as kettles, microwaves…
Sailing around 200 islands in a 4m dinghy
Funny how small ideas in life often turn in to bigger ones. The Yodare challenge is definitely one of those. What started out as sailing around one solitary island in…
How we designed and built a folding dinghy for under £350
A dinghy adds an enormous amount of fun to a cruising holiday, but on a small boat there is always the problem of where to stow it. Hang it on…
Pip Hare races Vendee Globe rival Costa towards Cape of Good Hope
Pip Hare should cross the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope early tomorrow, her first of the Vendée Globe’s three Great Capes. Lying in 20th place, onboard Medallia, she’s…
Stay with the boat or take to the liferaft? Escoffier’s impossible decision
Could you describe what happened? It’s still hard for me to believe it; to believe that I broke the boat inside the wave at 90 degrees. I should have taken…
Lay up or sail away? Ideas for enjoying winter afloat
Ask a dozen boating enthusiasts what they do over the winter and you’ll get a wide range of answers. Some value the escape from the water to allow them to…
Devon Yawl test sail and review
A friend and I once decided that instead of sailing, an August hike might do us good. So we took the coastal path from Branscombe to Bigbury. On the leg…
How to climb your mast and work aloft safely
As much as I love sailing, there is one thing (besides rebuilding the head) that I really have a problem with, and that is the height of the mast. No,…
Home before lockdown – 26ft classic boat delivery from Essex to South Wales
Due to family commitments I found myself having to move to Wolverhampton late last year from West Sussex. I’ve never lived far from the sea and the boat I have…
Restoring a 1950s Bembridge Scow
Few things can be more satisfying than saving an old wooden boat from the chainsaw and bringing her back to life; but this can be a very expensive exercise as…
DIY anti-surf device for towing a dinghy
I’ve owned my dinghy for 30 years and the friend who sold it to me was killed in a motorcycle accident not long after. I’ve given my son sailing lessons…
How to: service your lifejacket
Attitudes to wearing lifejackets have changed slowly but surely says offshore sailing instrucor and Rubicon 3 founder, Bruce Jacobs. As with car seatbelts, lifejackets are something that we automatically wear…
Coronavirus lockdown: English marinas and sailing clubs allowed to open today
English marinas and sailing clubs are permitted to open today following a change in Government guidance which allows people to travel to the coast and use the water. The Government…
Port hopping the north coast of Cornwall in a small boat
My wife, Sue, and I had been thinking about cruising the north Cornish coast on our trailer-sailer for the last decade, despite Mark Fishwick’s opinion in his West Country Cruising…
Slow boat around Wales – coastal and inland circumnavigation in a Vivacity 20
When we first moved to Deganwy I saw a programme on Welsh television with a couple of guys from Aberaeron who had circumnavigated Wales in a Drascombe longboat. That looks…
Wild about sailing in the wonderful Whitsunday Islands
Do you want to experience a new cruising ground, something exotic, visually stunning, an adventure with crystal clear water, interesting flora and fauna… and no crowds? I have the answer.…
British designer James Wharram’s round-the-world adventure on Spirit of Gaia
The morning breeze was just starting to fill in as we headed out of Port Vathi on board Ionian Spirit, an old Danish fishing boat converted for charter. As we…
Night watch in the North Sea – how I beat the fear by facing it head on
As I prepared myself for my first meeting with the North Sea, I thought about the legend among sailors. There is, it is said, a monster living beneath the North…
Big new small yacht: Beneteau Oceanis 30.1 tested
Thirty years ago a small boat might have been anything less than around 24ft. However, that number has since leapt upwards, with many large manufacturers paying scant attention in the…