James Wood gets to grip with navigation, passage planning, tides, buoyage, Colregs and more on his RYA Day Skipper Theory course
Seamanship
Mud team to the rescue! Lessons learned from running aground on a sandbank
Paul Simon used to sing to me that ‘the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip-slidin’ away’. I never knew he’d sailed the Suffolk coast. It was mid-summer and I…
Man overboard: recovering a casualty from a marina
Rupert Holmes shares top tips on how to avoid the dangers of falling in while in a marina and how to recover someone from a pontoon
Boat towing: lessons learned from assisting a dismasted yacht in the Atlantic
Ali Wood meets the ARC+ crew who battled squalls and rough seas to tow a dismasted yacht to safety
Baptism of fire: Sailing Biscay in a Force 8 on my first (and last) yacht delivery
Despite having never had aspirations to be a yacht delivery skipper, I was coerced into delivering a Moody 426 from the Algarve to the UK in 2006. It all started…
Boat engine failure in the path of a bulk carrier – lessons learned
Perhaps I should have known better. My sailing companion for the trip from Chichester Marina to Gosport, in my 19ft Mk1 Shrimper, was Scaf, a bearded friend from Belgium. I’d…
Dinghy rescue: How I helped two teenagers recover their capsized boat
The evening was warm and pleasant with just enough wind to keep the sails filled; autumn dusk had begun to obscure the distance. Yachts that had ventured up the narrowing…
Anchoring a boat: Top tips from a scuba diving sailor
Drifting in a hot air balloon over variable terrain and needing to drop an anchor, you’d surely try to select a good spot. When anchoring a boat, however, many people…
Passing planning for a shakedown voyage
With Maximus, our PBO Project boat ready for her shakedown voyage from Chichester to Poole, I turned my attention to passage planning. I dug out my old logbook and realised…
Lessons learned from sailing home in a Force 5 after engine failure
Philip, my husband, needed the car so I decided to take my Offshore 8m Karima S from Aith to Brae, where I teach sailing. Last time had been a bit…
9 expert sailing techniques to help you sail better, faster and safer
The best way to get a better boat is to improve the one you already have, I have long believed. Given many vessels are not set up as efficiently as…
What I learned from saving three boats during a record-breaking Force 12+ storm
Storm Eunice hit the UK on 18 February with the highest winds ever recorded in England at 122mph at the Needles, Isle of Wight. That’s literally off the scale: the…
“I had a banana for a mast” 300 miles offshore: Lessons learned from a mid-Atlantic knockdown
Golden Globe Race entrant and former Clipper Race skipper Guy Waites suffers mast failure 300 miles from the Azores
Anchoring a boat: 6 tips to keep you safe
If space is tight or the weather looks unsettled, it’s worth having a few skills up your sleeve to make the most of a tricky anchorage. Here are 6 tips...
What safety kit do you need for watersports?
Having the right safety kit for watersports is essential. I kayak every day and I also have a small motorboat which I use for coastal sailing. Often I sail alone,…
Dismasted on a delivery trip: How we fixed it and lessons learned
Rob Crabbe recalls the rig of a new yacht breaking on a delivery trip from Dartmouth to the Southampton Boat Show
Dramatic footage shows moment tow-line snaps in rescue of dismasted yacht
The 28ft French vessel was spotted on Sunday by Alfie and Ceylan Moore, who were sailing across the Atlantic on the ARC+ rally with friend Stu Finch and Alfie’s mum…
How to sail off a mooring
In many situations, leaving the mooring under power is the only sensible option. But if conditions allow, why not spare the engine and sail off instead? David Harding offers some…
Violent storm rages through Portugal boatyard – 60-knot winds from the top of a boat cradle!
Witnessing a violent storm from your boat is always unnerving, especially when it hits without warning. Fortunately we were in the yard and not at anchor. The Algarve in Portugal…
Trapped in thick fog with my 8-year-old daughter whilst on passage to France
Navigating through fog is frightening. At 91 years of age my sailing career is over, but I can’t grumble as I have some wonderful memories. Recently, whilst reading about the…