And then there was light, most welcome it was, too after a gruelling drive via several motorways into the pitch black New Forest. I drove on, motivated by the thought…
Cruising life
Shared boat ownership: All the fun at a fraction of the cost?
Many sailors dream of owning their own boat, with heady dreams of a seafaring life, but the mundane reality is that many yachts sit unused for the majority of the…
Conquering the Northwest Passage
The Atlantic passage had been strange. The crossing from Scotland to the west coast of Greenland, or vice versa, is usually ‘the meanest Atlantic crossing of them all’, fraught with…
Sailing in the Atlantic: ‘Fog, gales, hurricanes and calms in one voyage’
Zen Again, our Japanese designed and built 1980s IOR ¾ tonner, is a well-equipped ‘pocket’ blue-water cruiser. She has over 50,000 miles under her keel with us and about twice…
Sailing a 100 year old Brixham Sailing Trawler from Scotland to the South Coast
Eight days after leaving Oban on the west coast of Scotland, we arrived at the Fowey estuary on the Cornish coast. The guests and crew on board were oblivious to…
A cross-channel adventure from Suffolk to the Netherlands
With apologies to Shakespeare – our dilemma could hardly be compared to Hamlet’s, but it was real. Once again, though for the first time since Brexit, we were heading for…
‘Do people charter to go sailing, or to travel to interesting places by yacht?’ – Lu Heikell
When researching ports and anchorages to include in our pilot books, Rod and I tend to spend a lot of our time in some of the most popular places, making…
‘Mayday, Grandad overboard!’: A race turned lifeboat rescue
Henry, my grandson, and I decided to sail together for the Fowey Sailing Opal series, the last yacht race series of the season, as his dinghy season was complete and…
Sailing to Haiti: ‘Visiting Haïti has been one of the most unique and rewarding experiences of my life’
Lordship, my Westerly Sealord, had been stranded in the Dominican Republic for two months. I had been sailing from Martinique towards Cuba with two friends. We were having trouble with…
How to lay your own mooring
Over the years I have had deep water moorings laid for me and also dug in my own half-tide moorings. Both have been in positions which suited the craft I…