Yet more stirring stuff from Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. Speaking at the crew allocation event last Saturday for the forthcoming Clipper around-the-world yacht race, the veteran circumnavigator addressed the assembled crowd, saying: 'It's not easy to sail around the world. It is tough. But then why do it if it's easy? Where's the satisfaction? It's doing the tough things in life that gives you satisfaction; take the hard route and afterwards look back on it and say, "I did something pretty special." That's what all of you are doing.'
More than 300 amateur sailors travelled to Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard from all over the world to discover which of the ten teams competing in the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race they will represent. Three-quarters of the 422 men and women who will be taking part in this gruelling challenge came together to meet their skippers and new team mates, travelling from as far afield as Perth in Western Australia, Oman, China, Nova Scotia in Canada, Ireland and the UK.
Sir Robin said: 'Bear in mind that more people have climbed Mount Everest now than have sailed around the world so what you are doing is very special. When you come back you will be different - we've seen it in every race. You'll have faced nature in the raw, put up with the cold wave going down the back of your neck at 2 o'clock in the morning when you'd just woken up. But you'll have achieved something you can be very proud of.
'When you come back I want to hear you say two things. One: "That's the best thing I've done with my life." And the next thing, because then I know you really have benefited, is when you turn around and say, "So far". Go on and live your lives, it's what it's all about.'
The Crew Allocation event is much-anticipated among those who have signed up to take part in this race around the globe. This is where the reality of their participation in the race truly begins to kick in; with a skipper in place, team strategies start to take shape, roles are assigned to the crew and, with about 100 days to go until the race start, the countdown is on.
The race is contested by ten identical stripped down 68-foot racing yachts, each sponsored by a city, region or country. Already confirmed for Clipper 09-10 are Hull & Humber, representing the host port for this edition of the race, Uniquely Singapore, Qingdao, Cork, Cape Breton Island and California. The remaining four yachts will be named in the coming weeks ahead of the race start from the Humber, on the east coast of England, on September 13.
Forget Britain's Got Talent. Readers of the Telltale blog have the singular opportunity to vote for a song that they think should be recorded at sea by a skipper currently competing in the Original Single-handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR). Yep, you read that correctly. Hannah White, the 26-year-old British sailor from Hampshire, sailing the Beneteau Figaro II, PureSolo, in what has so far been extremely arduous conditions, will record one of six songs chosen by visitors to her site as she races the 3,000 miles from Plymouth to Newport, Rhode Island, USA, in the coming days.
The photographer Hamish Roots, who is looking after Hannah's website while she is away, said that Hannah had all the equipment on board with her to record the track. 'She has a mic and all the songs on her ipod,' he said. 'It's a karaoke type thing.' Hamish added that at the time of writing Hannah was fourth overall in the race and doing well. 'She has come into some slightly calmer weather. The first 48 hours were crazy with some really strong winds.'
Hannah is being sponsored by PureSolo, the online music store for recording personal versions of well-known tracks. To get a flavour of her singing ability, Telltale readers can hear Hannah singing her version of I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing by the US heavy rockers Aerosmith. When the song was played to members of staff at Yachting Monthly Towers, one said: 'She's good, but not as good as my daughter.' Another said: 'Basically, she's crucified it.'
Voters have a choice of six songs: I'm Yours, by Jason Mraz; I Wish I Was James Bond, by Scouting for Girls; Mustang Sally, by The Commitments; Sound of the Underground, by Girls Aloud; Oops… I Did It Again, by Britney Spears; and Use Somebody, by the Kings of Leon. At the time of writing, Mustang Sally and Use Somebody were level pegging sharing 66 per cent of the vote. Britney's Oops … I Did it Again had not secured a single vote. The recording will be made in the next few days and posted on Hannah's website towards the end of next week.
The Telltale Friday film this week, comes from Costa Rica, via Canada. It is the fourth in a series of 'Vaca Brava films' charting the adventures of two Ottawa adventurers 'Fidel' and 'Pazcual Karim', who have travelled from their home city to Costa Rica on road and rail, shirking aircraft. After a series of salty mishaps they join the crew of a tour boat where they meet 'Yoann "Juan" Dupuis'. In this particular 'Con Mucho Productions' episode, 30 Degrees of Fun, the three amigos demonstrate their formidable athletic strength by performing exercises - sit ups, one-hand press-ups - for the camera. Their gravity feats seem barely believable!
We here at Yachting Monthly pride ourselves on keeping abreast of the latest in salty fashion trends, no matter how highfalutin. And so it is with great pride that we bring you a website that surely is for the sailor with everything.
You know the type: the latest Musto smock; state-of-the-art chart plotter with in-built Twitter feed; polo shirts that match skipper, crew - bimini. Now the outdoors clothing chain Timberland has created a website that allows visitors to, wait for it, design their own deck shoes.
Yes, gone are those embarrassing days when your footwear clashed with the upholstery down below. Forever banished is the howling faux pas that brought light green deckies and bright red storm jib together. Now you can create monogrammed shoes in 'aluminium' and 'cornflower' for every possible yachting occasion.
Last Friday, Telltales reported on the outrage a film documenting the last hours of a small sailing yacht had provoked on Youtube. The film, Bonzai ... Farewell Old Friend, showed the vessel being driven to a breakers yard and then savagely demolished to the sound of occasional laughter. Such was the surprise enthusiasm among YM.com visitors for the morbid item - it received 1,000 hits over the weekend alone - that Telltales has sourced another one for your grizzly delectation.
This film comes from the United States. It is called, simply, Sailboat Demolition, and has the subtitle 'This is how we destroy boats in Cortez, Florida'. In the opening shots our eager breaker reveals that he is to use a yellow tractor to visit the carnage upon the - it has to be said - less-than good ship Terra Ceia and even installs a second camera within the vessel to offer viewers a saloon point-of-view shot as the tractor bucket crashes through the hull. At one point the breaker even gets his tractor up on rear wheels only in his relish for the job in hand. Enjoy!
It's a lunch for living sailing legends and Yachting Monthly is thrilled to be a privileged guest at an historic gathering of British solo sailors in London today, all raising a glass and a cheer for a very British hero.
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston is hosting a private lunch at which the invited guests will include every British solo round-the-world sailor who has completed a circumnavigation since 1969.
On a warm spring day 40 years ago today, Robin's life changed forever when he sailed into Falmouth after 313 days aboard Suhaili to become the first man to complete a single-handed voyage round the world.
At 15:25 this afternoon - the exact time that Sir Robin Kox-Johnston crossed the Falmouth finish line of The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race 40 years ago - glasses will be raised by those assembled to toast this enduring hero of the high seas.
There are 18 living legends on the invitation list, including Sir Chay Blyth, Naomi James, Ellen MacArthur, Robin Davie, Mike Golding, and Josh Hall, as well as recent Vendee sailors Sam Davies, Dee Caffari, Brian Thompson and Steve White.
It's salutary to think in these days of instant mobile phone and satcom communications ('I'm on the train darling!') that in 1969 when Sir Robin crossed the equator on March 9 he didn't have the faintest idea that a massive mid-Atlantic search was underway for him.
'Fears grow for Knox-Johnston!' proclaimed one newspaper banner headline. Robin had last been sighted three months earlier, in November, in New Zealand. He had suffered a radio blackout due to equipment failure. No one knew if he'd rounded Cape Horn safely.
Suhaili was finally sighted on 6 April by a British tanker and made front page headlines in every Sunday newspaper. After a hero's welcome two weeks later in Falmouth, Knox-Johnston was declared 'distressingly normal' by a psychiatrist hired by the Sunday Mirror.
Meanwhile, the man dubbed 'the dark horse of the race', Donald Crowhurst who had been faking his voyage positions and keeping a phony logbook, was suffering enormous stress. On 1 July 1969, Crowhurst is believed to have stepped off his trimaran, Teignmouth Electron, and drowned himself after 241 days at sea. His abandoned boat was discovered a few days later 600 miles south-west of the Azores.
Gallantly, Robin Knox-Johnston donated his £5,000 winner's prize money to the Crowhurst family, which helped widow Clare them keep her home. 'Robin Knox-Johnston is a real hero,' says Donald Crowhurst's son, Simon, who was 16 when he chanced upon a copy of the book The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, about his father's voyage, in the school library. For the first time he confronted the shocking truth about his father's voyage into madness.
Forty years on, across the Atlantic, American Adam Turinas is heading a campaign to declare April 22 'Robin Knox-Johnston Day' and has posted a Facebook page.
'OK, so many of you will be reading this and thinking, 'Hey Dummy, April 22nd is Earth Day,' writes Turinas. 'Well, of course, it is, but it is also the 40th anniversary of Sir Robin's completion of the first-ever single-handed solo non-stop circumnavigation - a feat worth celebrating even though it conflicts with Earth Day ...'
Turinas also thought that maybe we could make RKJs' birthday 'RKJ Day' - but that's March 17th, and St Patrick's Day, and that's way too much of a conflict!' he admits! Robin celebrated his 70th birthday this year. But he'd rather you didn't remind him!
A film documenting the last hours of a small sailing yacht is causing something of a stir on Youtube. The film, Bonzai ... Farewell Old Friend, shows the boat being driven to a breakers yard and then savagely demolished to the sound of occasional laughter. Comments on the film range from, 'how sad', to 'nice movie'. One viewer asks: 'Why on earth would anyone do that rather than donating it for taxes if you no longer want it and can't sell?'
Perhaps the most emotional response comes from one Cncgranahan, who writes: 'I've never commented on a youtube video before... but this made me cry. So much care that had gone into the building of that vessel... and so many great memories of sailing enjoyed on it.... what a shame... and the snickering in the background... what is wrong with you people??? Just go sink that boat into the ocean where she belongs. You should be ashamed.'
On a lighter note, Cheers 1454, maintains: 'that'll buff right out'. We at Telltales are not so sure. You can make your own mind up.
Telltales has nothing but admiration for two quadriplegic British sailors refusing to let their disabilities get in the way of their sport.
Hilary Lister, a 37 year old quadriplegic from Kent, is attempting for the second time a circumnavigation of Britain - her Round Britain Dream. She hopes to set out from Plymouth at the end of May, and aims to become the first disabled woman to sail solo around Britain.
Hilary, who is only able to move her head, sailed into the record books on August 23, 2005, when she crossed the Channel solo. Since then Hilary has become the first disabled sailor to sail solo around the Isle of Wight and the first disabled woman to sail the length of the south coast.
Hilary's Boat Me Too is an Artemis 20, a 6m carbon fibre keelboat. Hilary controls the boat using a 'Sip and Puff' system that uses three straws connected to sensitive pressure switches. A gentle 'sip' on one straw will send the boat to go to starboard, a 'puff' will take her to port. The second straw controls the winch motor for both sails in a similar fashion. The third straw allows Hilary to control her Raymarine autopilot, to trim one sail relative to the other and raise or lower the height of the boom.
Hilary was forced to postpone her sail around Britain last year when she and the team hit bad weather, but is determined to complete the sail this year. Her aim is to raise money for her charity, Hilary's Dream Trust, which aims to help other disabled and disavantaged adults to achieve their sailing dreams.
Meanwhile, the first quadriplegic yachtsman to sail solo around Britain has now set his sights on an Atlantic Challenge.
Geoff Holt, 43, broke his neck when he dived into shallow water at the age of 18. He said: 'I last sailed the Atlantic just before my accident.'
Geoff will leave the Solent for the Canary Islands at the end of October, departing for Tortola at the beginning of December. He will sail the 60ft catamaran Impossible Dream singlehanded, but will have a personal assistant alongside him to help with day-to-day tasks like getting out of his wheelchair and having a shower.
Probably quite a few bankers are sailors. And no doubt quite a few sailors are also professional comedians, like Griff Rhys Jones, who feels he's been 'hung out to dry' - much like the £50 bank notes pictured.
Given the state of our finances these days, some of us might think there's not much difference between bankers and comedians! Certainly Fred the Shred must be laughing all the way to the bank. Does he have a yacht, too?
Meanwhile, poor Griff, who featured in Yachting Monthly recently with his lovely classic yacht, has been struggling for a laugh while writing a very good article on how his 'safe' deposit account evaporated with Lehman Brothers and wondering why his misfortune left the bankers totally unscathed?
'As it happens,' he writes in a guest column in The Times today, 'I was hardly aware that I had anything deposited with this distinguished banking house (or hopelessly greedy incompetents, depending on the way you choose to look at them) until I telephoned the manager of my account at a hedge fund.'
'I am just a standard freelance money earner with a moderately successful career,' says Griff... who goes on to admit he became 'intrinsically distrustful of all financiers in 1985', after the only "tax scheme" he took part in (an industrial building allowance) proved to be hooey.
'I have remained a suspicious old woman most of my professional life. And I have still been embezzled, suffered gross incompetence and been double and treble-charged (by mistake, of course). I have experienced the hubris of "bulletproof, perfectly legal" tax arrangements, the cupidity of lawyers and the stupidity of accountants who forgot to file, "tax advisers" who delayed meetings because they were so busy and then charged ten thousand per hour for out-of-date advice.
'So, briefly, like many, I had a bit of money in equities... I heard rumblings and warning beeps and decided to withdraw all my money from the stock markets in April... it was all in cash by June. Cash. Dangerous, but real stuff. Money in the bank.
'Well, let me rephrase that: money in a bank.
'Then the bank collapsed. It was apparently a "segregated" or "custody" account. These were both terms that I had never heard before. But everybody told me that was OK. The hedge fund briskly suggested that I contact the liquidators myself, and I would get my custody money back within a week.'
Six months on, says Griff, it transpires that, far from an answer within a week, the liquidators seem to want a few years to sort things out. They are offering to scrape together about a quarter of this "segregated custody account money pool" and then charge me for doing so. I may well end up owing them money, I guess.
'This is, by the way, actual money, not fantasy earnings or funds or "the value-could-go-up-or-down-money". It happened, by sheer accident, to be in a deposit account. The truth is that my real money, and the other custody accounts, increasingly appear to be the only actual money that Lehman had at all.
'But what makes it slightly bizarre is that the "false" money seems to be all right. Its brokerage divisions go on. Barclays and Nomura have taken them over. The jobs of the perpetrators of this asinine calamity have been secured.
'This is seen as great success. More soothing words were needed. "You're probably scratching your head about all this..." the lawyer kept saying, as if I were Winnie-the-Pooh. No doubt I needed the gruesome Robert Peston to help me with a diagram showing that "the good parts" of the bank have been sold on, while "the bad parts" are going to be taken up by the Government or shot or recycled or something. But in my Pooh naivety I thought of a deposit account as a good part, not a bad part. That's how much of a patsy I am.'
For the full article see www.timesonline.co.uk
Footnote: What do you call 10,000 bankers at the bottom of the ocean? Answer: A good start?
A new US law and legislation planned in Colombia aims to sink what has become South American drug traffickers' latest favoured means of getting massive loads of cocaine to Mexico and Central America - vessels the size of whales that glide just beneath the surface of the water.
On the rare occasions that these home-made 'semi submersibles' are spotted, the Coast Guard dispatches an armed team to board the craft. But instead the crew open sea cocks aboard their vessel, sending it and its cargo to the bottom. They then wave and jump into the sea to be rescued.
Colombia has yet to make a single arrest in such scuttlings because the evidence sinks with the boat. However, 12 people have been arrested under the US Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act of 2008 since it came into effect in October last year. It outlaws unregistered craft plying international waters 'with the intent to evade detection'. Those convicted face up to 15 years in prison.
Though semi-subs aren't new to cocaine trafficking, a more sophisticated variety averaging about 60 feet (18 meters) in length has emerged of late. With just over a foot of above-water clearance and V-shaped prows designed to leave minimal wakes, 'semi-subs' - hand-crafted in jungle clearings from fibreglass and wood - are nearly impossible for surface craft to detect visually or by radar outside a range of about 10,000 ft (3,000m). This accounts for their relatively high success rate.
They are propelled by 250 to 350 horsepower diesel engines and take about a week to reach Mexico's shores averaging seven knots, investigators said. Fuel tanks carry about 3,000 gallons of diesel, so no refueling is needed on the 2,000-mile journey from Colombia north.
Engines and exhaust systems are typically shielded to make their heat signatures nearly invisible to infrared sensors used by US and allied aircraft trying to find them. The cooling system of one semi-sub seized off Costa Rica in September piped engine exhaust through the hull and discharged it at ambient temperature. Unfortunately for the crews, such design sophistication does not extend to their quarters.
'The conditions are terrible,' said Captaiin Luis German Borrero, the navy chief in the Pacific port of Buenaventura. 'They don't have bathrooms. The beds are two mattresses draped over the fuel tanks, and the pilot can barely see through very small windows in mini-cabin. The noise and heat must be something infernal.'
With cocaine in Mexico fetching $6,500 per kilo — about triple the Colombian price, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration — an average seven-tonne shipment yields $30 million. On arrival at their destination, sub crews simply off-loading their cargo then scuttle their boat, investigators say. The roughly $1 million spent on each craft is simply written off as the cost of doing business.
Though authorities caught 11 semi-subs last year in international waters off the Pacific — with seven tonnes of cocaine seized in one off Mexico in September — they estimate from intelligence and interdiction that another 60 delivered their cargo, Nimmich said.
So far this year, sub crews have sunk five of their vessels off Colombia's coast after being pursued by drug enforcers.
Hats off to intrepid yachtsman Rob Clark, 35, from Liphook, Hampshire, who set off from the Solent last year to sail around the globe singlehanded - with his route dictated by the throw of a dice.
He was inspired by the novel The Dice Man, by Luke Rhinehart, to cast off in his 42ft (13m) Grand Soleit yacht. In Rhinehart's book, a psychiatrist allows a dice to decide many aspects of his life - from having affairs to what he eats. Rob said that the roll of dice would decide day-to-day things, but voting on his website by the public will decide his next port of call and route round the globe.
Recently he left the island of St Helena in mid Atlantic, bound towards Luderitz, Southern Namibia. In St Helena he met up with Zac Sunderland, the 17 year old American planning to be the youngest person to sail round the world. Both were waiting for spare parts to repair their boats. Zac sailing a 36-foot sloop left California last June heading eastabout.
Rob runs a conference production company based in Bristol, and set up his adventure because he got "restless".
"It's not a good time to run a business at the moment and I realised I was never going to be Richard Branson, never going to be a millionaire .... it was a good time to take a sailing trip.
To get the latest on Rob check here: www.w2n.co.uk/
Looking forward to Falmouth Week this year, which runs from 8-15 August and is sponsored by Henri Lloyd. Last year, despite the bad weather, more than 400 yachts and dinghies took part with about 1,500 crew plus families, friends and visitors. This year the event looks as if it will be bigger and better.
Racing will take place in Carrick Roads and Falmouth Bay. The colourful traditional working boats are back. Champagne Day has moved to Wednesday to provide a midweek break in some of the series racing, with special events planned for that day to bring sailing right into the harbour for the extra benefit of spectators. The final weekend races will now be at St Mawes on Friday and Flushing on Saturday.
Steve Nicholls, the Port of Falmouth Sailing Association's new chairman, said: 'The racing can sometimes appear distant and disconnected from people in the town. We will be running an evening sailing event on the waterfront, near Customs House Quay, to show people what Falmouth Week is all about. We are planning a parade of sail.'
The week begins with the Marching Carnival and leads into a full programme involving Events Square, the Princess Pavilion, Maritime Museum, Pendennis Castle, and businesses and groups throughout the town. As ever, things will not be limited to Falmouth, with special activities planned in St Mawes, Mylor, Flushing and the Helford. The week reaches a climax with the magnificent fireworks display over the harbour on Friday evening.
Surf Life Saving GB will be holding their National Championships for Nippers and Youth at Gyllngvase Beach over the final weekend and will be joining in the Falmouth Week festivities. They expect about 400 competitors and their families for this top class event.
You have to take your hat off to Mike Perham, the British teenager attempting to become the youngest person to sail around the world. The 16-year-old from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, who departed Cape Town at the beginning of March after overcoming yet more problems with his auto-pilot, is now closer to Australia than South Africa.
Mike has celebrated his 17th birthday by himself at sea, dodged numerous weather systems and even fixed the occasional mechanical/rigging problem on his Open 50, Totallymoney.com, including an autopilot rudder sensor and his kicker line. How many 17-year-olds can say they have done all that? This young man can certainly make his father proud - you can read an interview with Peter Perham in the forthcoming edition of YM.
In the meantime, here's Mike in his own words:
'This morning brought Rain. Lots and lots of rain. Many people who've sailed down here in the Southern Ocean have described it with one word: grey. Well, I can confirm that they're absolutely correct!
'It seems like there's no end to this very grey, very murky world that has suddenly descended upon me; sometimes the mist thickens, massively reducing visibility, and it's always damp. The deck hasn't been fully dry since I left Cape Town. I have to be careful to keep my clothes as dry as possible as once they're wet it's near impossible to dry them out.
'I've made really good progress in the last 24hours, Totallymoney.com has done us proud by ticking off 260miles - and the good news is that these fast conditions are set to continue.
'I've headed quite far north to avoid a bunch of light air still hanging around to the south. Also, by turning more northerly, I'm less prone to the effects of the lows that continually truck along down here.
'I've been doing a couple of odd jobs here and there but overall everything is ship-shape and Totallymoney.com's really tuned into the conditions so we're all happy.
'Today was the start of a new food bag and I so crawled into the forepeak to bring it back into the main cabin. Whilst crawling back into the main cabin I managed to get my middle finger trapped in the hatch as it swung shut with quite some momentum - followed by a rather loud "Damn it!" Nothing too serious, I'm happy to report!'
Three cheers to the two sailors who set out across the Bass Strait between Australia and Tasmania this morning in a record-breaking bid to raise AU$100,000 (£47,000) for the critically endangered Tasmanian devil.
University of Tasmania science students Adrian Beswick, 21, and Josh Phillips, 22, are racing a small, lightweight skiff to Victoria, Australia. They set off from Stanley on Tasmania's northwest coast in a 14 foot B14 skiff with one main sail and a spinnaker this morning.
A spokesman for their charity, Strait4Devils, said that the pair expected to make the crossing in eight hours, breaking the Bass Strait small sailing vessel crossing record of 13 hours made by Michael Blackburn in 2005 in a Laser dinghy.
Experts say that the Tasmanian devil faces extinction in the wild within 25 years due to the highly contagious and invariably fatal devil facial tumour disease.
By 2007, it had spread to 59 per cent of Tasmania, causing devil populations in those areas to decline by up to 86 per cent, figures released this year show.
The sailors have been struck by the devils' plight and want to raise at least $100,000 to help fund research for a cure to the disease.
'If we don't act soon, we might loose the Tasmanian devil just like the [now extinct] Tasmanian Tiger,' Mr Phillips said before setting off on the voyage.
"The devil should be around for our children and grandchildren to enjoy."
Eight hours or more of continuous sailing, balanced on a trapeze, will be an extreme physical challenge for the sailors across the notoriously rough Bass Strait.
A support boat is following the men.
Donations can be made via the Strait4Devils website.
Dutch boatbuilder Contest celebrates 50 years in the business this year. The company, based in Medemblik, has been built over the decades by three generations of the Conijn family into one of Holland's most productive luxury marques.
Ed Conijn, grandfather of current director Arjen Conijn, was one of the first people to see the opportunities for applying polyester materials in boatbuilding. As a keen sailor, he recognised a niche in the market in 1959, and the result was the open two-man leeboard boat called the Flying Dutchman. This was an instant success and served as the basis for the racing class of the same name. Over 600 examples of this enormously popular yacht were eventually built, giving an incredible foundation to Contest Yachts, which went by the name Conyplex in its first decade.
After the Flying Dutchman's success, Ed Conijn identified an increasing demand among fellow sailors for a fast cockpit sailboat. Anticipating a new trend, he teamed up with designer Luiten to create the first Contest 25 (above). The boat again met a clear niche in the market and ushered in the era of the first series builds in the Netherlands. During this time the basis for the constantly updated Contest Yachts house style was developed. Keeping in mind export to the USA, the tulip was chosen to represent the Dutch yard and each galley working surface included a typical Makkum tile. Partly due to these eye-catching details, the Contests soon attracted considerable attention.
During the 1960s and 70s the yard also worked on other new designs, such as the Contest 27, 29 and 31 HT. Gaining a name as a pioneer in yachtbuilding with a passion for innovation, the yard was the first in Holland to introduce a large steering wheel (instead of the helm tiller) and a comfortable solution for spray hoods. The designers also dared to move the cockpit all the way aft, despite the prevailing trend in sailyachts.
The real breakthrough in the 1970s came with the Contest 33, which marked the start of the second generation of Contests. Revolutionary designer Robbert Das combined aesthetics and comfort in a design without a doghouse that appealed to a large number of sailors. The following Contest 36 also attracted lots of attention from the international media as it was the first design to feature a centre cockpit.
To find out more about the special events Contest is planning, visit their website www.contestyachts.com
Good luck to the explorer, environmentalist, and British aristocrat David de Rothschild who will set out on a 11,000-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean at the end of March — in a boat made of plastic bottles.
Plastiki is a 60ft catamaran created from a special composite of recycled plastic. De Rothschild will take the boat, made buoyant by the addition of 12,000 two-liter plastic bottles along the hulls, from San Francisco to Sydney on an exploration of plastic litter - the most common in the type of ocean pollution.
The expedition is a way to highlight how materials can be re-used, said de Rothschild. 'It's about articulating solutions,' he said. 'We are showcasing smart materials, and all of these have an effect that can go much further.'
Seven billion kilograms of plastic are produced annually in the United States, but only five billion kilograms are recycled, according to de Rothschild's company Adventure Ecology.
A lot of the bottles end up end floating out to sea. The Great Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, where ocean currents shepherd much of this debris, is twice the size of Texas.
When Plastiki's voyage is over, the boat will be broken down and turned into emergency shelters, shipping pellets, clothes, and even more bottles.
Skipper Robert Foreman and crew Tony Leighton had a long crossing onboard the Nicholson 35 Blue Tarn in this year's Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC), a little over 24 days. But of all the memories they have amassed in their epic two-handed Atlantic crossing, one, recorded in crewman Tony Leighton's ARC blog on 10 December, will stand out above all others.
'Our Hydrovane self-steering gear steers us quite happily except when the wind is very light or we are motoring,' reported crew Tony in his blog, 'then we attach an electronic tillerpilot to the Hydrovane's own short tiller. Once, we engaged the tillerpilot but forgot to remove the locking pin on the rudder and the vane's tiller snapped.
'We were about to have morning coffee when the tiller snapped again. We checked and found the pin was unlocked, then looked over the stern to check the rudder, where we saw a 9ft hammerhead shark in the attack position (upside down) trying to bite the rudder blade. It had obviously prevented the rudder from moving which had caused the tiller to snap. We pushed down the throttle and zig-zagged on the wheel but it took 10 minutes before it left us in peace.'
The Caribbean sun can play havoc with marine materials of all kinds, from dodgers to dinghies, first bleaching, then rotting them. Perfect sense, then, to fit protective covers. But if the usual dark blues and light greys are a little too buttoned-up for you, why not do as the owner of this tender has done and choose denim? There's no better bet for a dressed-down dinghy.
Funny how the more abstract and esoteric aspects of navigation can at first seem dusty and impenetrable - brain-numbing even - and best avoided (or at least put off until next winter), only for some inspiring fellow to come along and blow all your preconceptions out of the water.
Take deviation, for example - the compass variety that is. I was out on the water with Tom Cunliffe, working on an article about compasses for a forthcoming edition - look out in the spring for our Expert on Board feature about swinging said instrument - when he suggested we pop by his old friend Ron Robinson's for a chat on the subject. 'He's THE person to talk about it all,' enthused Tom. 'He's just over there in Hamble and he's got picturesque office packed with nautical bric-a-brac that goes back centuries.' Well, you can't say fairer than that.
A tie-up, a skip and jump later and we were outside Mr Robinson's shop, a veritable treasure trove of salty curios that would make any yachtsman drool - here a half-size Hughes sextant from between the wars, there a rusting binnacle off something classic, propped up by a genuine working mercury barometer.
Mr Robinson himself was a revelation, one of only ten compass adjusters left working in the country, who - when not collecting marine antiquities - swings leisure yachts as well as boats for the Royal Navy and has even swung the QE2. He invited us in, talked us through his job and what instruments he uses and brought the whole subject dazzlingly to life.
Where once I instinctively yawned at the thought of calculating compass deviation, now I was captivated by this arcane and mysterious art. As he described his 'heavenly alchemy' and how when he's on a ship adjusting compasses he actually sees the polar reds and blues of the magnetic forces working their deviant ways on the instruments, it was as if I was being instructed by some maritime 'dowser' who instead of searching out pockets of water with wooden sticks, sniffs out those invisible malignant energies that send our compasses doolally. What an enlightening encounter with such an inspiring individual! Read the full story in the new year.
As the nights draw in and the winter gales increase, the Solent begins to empty. Soon, the usual crowds of dinghies, yachts and motorboats will be gone, replaced by a lone seagull, a handful of committed racers and sailing schools taking advantage of cheap rates.
But while the UK's most popular sailing area empties, another fills up. The desolate wastes of the Southern Ocean are set to be positively overflowing with yachts over the next few months. The Cape of Good Hope will look more like St Catherine's Point during the Round the Island race.
The Volvo Ocean race's powered up monster VO70s have already blasted their way round the cape, with six hardy amateurs in their Open 40s from the Portimão Global Ocean Race following close behind. The twenty-six remaining Vendée Globe competitors are currently approaching the doldrums, hot on the heels of Pete Goss and family in the replica mounts bay lugger, Spirit of Mystery.
Following them comes Michael Perham, the 16-yr old British schoolboy hoping to become the world's youngest circumnavigator in his Open 50, Totallymoney.com. Behind the lot of them comes legendary French sailor Thomas Coville and his maxi-trimaran Sodebo, set on claiming the solo, non stop record from his arch-rival Francis Joyon.
The Atlantic and Southern Oceans look like they'll be pretty busy over the next few months...
Meanwhile, the first quadriplegic yachtsman to sail solo around Britain has now set his sights on an 
