Destinations with FREE chart...

  • Destinations with FREE chart
    Just 60 miles from the Solent, the great 18th century breakwaters at Cherbourg Harbour are the landfall for many sailors ?going foreign? for the first time. David Jefferson reports from Europe?s busiest yacht harbour, visited by 8,000 boats last year ? 70% of them British

  • Short cut from the Med
    A passage between South Brittany and the Med in less than two weeks without a single night at sea? In the first of a two-part article, Andrew Smyth brings Calypso, his Moody 43 (draught 1.5m), home from the blue waters of Sete through the Canal du Midi to the Atlantic coast. From its descriptions of pastoral idyll to its wealth of practical detail, his report makes indispensable reading

  • ISAF liferaft on test
    The YM team test the new ISAF liferaft developed in the wake of the Sydney-Hobart disaster. What are the new liferaft regulations? How much extra will they cost? Will they make you safer? We also look at the future of liferaft design.

  • PLUS: Dick Durham reports as a fly in the water on the RYA Sea Survival course
  • Time and tide?
    Mike Richey (left) was 80-plus when he sailed the Atlantic alone and into the Guinness book of Records in 26ft Jester. Seb Clover (below, as a young boy) was 15 when he made his solo record-making crossing. The two compare their experiences

  • Round the Island
    Crossing tacks with Ellen MacArthur and sailing alongside Tracy Edwards?s Maiden (for a nano-second), Carol O?Shea describes the fun of the annual Round the Island (Wight, that is) race. ?It?s not about losing a race, it?s about gaining a pewter tankard?

  • New gear
    Mike Kopman looks at the latest new equipment in the chandleries ? plus we report on Yamaha?s 2.5hp 4-stroke outboard engine

  • Midget 31 boat test
    Full-keeled double-enders are rare among today?s flat-bottomed, wide-transomed production fleets. Mike Kopman puts this Dutch-built, 200-year-old design through her paces during a Force 7 on the Ijselmeer

  • Sweden Yachts 42
    James Jermain steps aboard this eye-catching performance cruiser for a delivery from Orust to Hamble. She?s got the speed, but is she comfortable at sea?