Dedicated to Cruising the world under sail including destinations, navigation, sailing tips, safety ideas, yacht & multihull reviews along with stories and insights for the sail cruising life in the Mediterranean, Caribbean, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
The Maritime Executive Unlike left and right, “port” and “starboard” refer to fixed locations on a vessel. Since port and starboard never change, they are unambiguous references that are independent of a mariner’s orientation, and, thus, mariners use these nautical…
Transport for NSW will carry out a trial of new electronic speed signage at Swansea Channel in Lake Macquarie starting next week. NSW Maritime Executive Director, Mark Hutchings said the trial will continue until the end of September and provide…
The Maritime Executive On Tuesday evening, the superyacht Blue Magic lost control and struck a pier at the port of Santa Maria di Leuca, a popular tourist destination in southern Italy. A sailing yacht was crushed between the dock and…
Modern yachts with all their fancy technology leave little room for the unknown. For a proper ocean vessel, you need to go back a few centuries. Dig a hull from a mango tree, strap on a bamboo yard, a sail and…
Last weekend, volunteers with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) rescued two disabled yachts in Bristol Channel, an area known for its strong tidal currents. Both vessels lost steering and needed a tow to return to port. At high tide…
What is a Master Reef Guide and how do you become a Citizen of the Great Barrier Reef? These questions and many more will be answered at two Great Barrier Reef Festival workshops. Hosted by Lure in the Coral Sea…
VMRs from Fremantle to Carnarvon were put on high alert on Monday due to a yacht that was reported overdue. It had departed Rottnest Island last Thursday en route to Exmouth via the Abrolhos Islands but had not been heard…
Windsor Star. By Dalson Chen. Safe practices while boating are being emphasized by Lakeshore OPP after a sailboat mishap last week that left a person treading water with no lifejacket for half an hour. On July 18 around 6:45 p.m.,…
LoopTT The public is being asked for help in providing any information on a yacht which left Saint-Martin in June and was due to arrive in Trinidad but has not yet arrived. Facebook user Andrey Khokhlov shared a Facebook post…
The Maritime Executive According to a new study published July 4 in the journal Marine Ecology Progress, the distribution of living coral – the organisms responsible for reef formation – appears to be shifting to higher latitudes as temperatures rise…
An elderly yachtsman who was feared missing after setting sail on the English Channel has turned up alive and well. Trevor Franklin, 84, set out to sea on Stardog, a 30-foot ketch, from Newhaven on July 1. He was last…
Right from the beginning, ARC Portugal 2019 was going to be an extraordinary sail south; as well as being the 25th edition of World Cruising Club's multi-stage sailing rally, this year marks 25 years since the Marina de Lagos, sponsor…
A reader of Cruising Helmsman, and well-known contributor of excellent cruising stories, Cherylle Stone recently received the latest Notice to Mariners regarding military exercises in the popular Shoalwater Bay area. Due to live firing occurring the Army were to close…
The Moreton Bay Marine Park zoning plan has been in force since 2009 and is now due for a 10-year review. In preparing for this the Queensland Government is undertaking a technical exercise to remake the current zoning plan which…
The Atlantic Ocean hurricane season is almost upon us. Typically starting in June and ending at the end of November, the season usually encounters a sharp peak of activity in late August through September and affects the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean…
Maritime Safety Queensland has released updates to its Beacon to Beacon Guides for Pumicestone Passage and the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers. There have been significant changes to channels and banks in the northern part of the Passage and Caloundra Bar. So,…
A significant advance in the world's ability to forecast and monitor weather and climate is about to be launched into space and Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has booked its seat. COSMIC-2, a mission of six satellites designed to improve weather…
James Cook University scientists are recruiting people to train to log sightings of misplaced sea creatures after receiving new funding. JCU’s Associate Professor Jan Strugnell runs the Queensland arm of the Range Extension Database and Mapping project (REDMAP). “What it…
The Maritime Executive Dive Bahrain is preparing to sink a 70-meter (230-foot) Boeing 747 to provide a diving attraction for an underwater theme park in the Persian Gulf. The plane, built in 1981, will be the largest aircraft ever to…
The Maritime Executive The horse latitudes are regions located at about 30 degrees north and south of the equator. These latitudes are characterized by calm winds and little precipitation. It is common in this region of the subtropics for winds…
The Maritime Executive The Panama Canal published a proposal to modify its current tolls structure on Friday. There will now be a 30-day formal consultation period for industry feedback, which will close on July 15, 2019. For the dry bulk…
The West Australian. By Kate Ryan. Stepping onto his yacht with the ease of a seasoned sailor, you’d never know sailing legend Jon Sanders is turning 80 this year. He knows where everything ison his second home, penned at Royal…
Abell Point Marina is continuing on its path towards ‘cleaner’ living with the most recent development being the signing of a pledge with the Marina Industries Association to fully eliminate single-use plastics from within the marina. The marina has already…
The Maritime Executive Following the efforts of The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, coverage of the world’s ocean floor has now increased from six percent to 15 percent. This is equivalent to around 32 million square kilometers of new bathymetric…
NZ Herald. By: Chelsea Boyle. Dramatic video shows the moment a rescue helicopter crewman is winched into the ocean to save four stricken sailors drifting in a bright red life raft. After hitting the water, the rescuer swims to the life…
The Guardian A recently restored wooden sailing ship has sunk after colliding with a container vessel near Hamburg, northern Germany. Six adults and two children were injured when the gaff-rigged schooner Elbe No 5, originally built in 1883, collided with…
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is predicting that a near-normal Atlantic hurricane season is most likely this year. The outlook forecasts a 40 percent chance of a near-normal season and a 30 percent chance of an above-normal season. The hurricane season…
By Jean-François Ghiglione, CNRS, ecotoxicologist, at Banyuls Oceanography Laboratory and Romain Troublé, executive director of the Tara Ocean Foundation. Powerful images of marine animals choking on plastics; frightening statistics on the amount of trash found at sea; discovering that even the…
By Burnham-On-Sea.com Police are still trying to trace missing yacht skipper David Moore, whose abandoned boat was mysteriously washed up on Berrow Beach on Monday (June 3rd). Police say David used to live and work in Avonmouth near Bristol but…
A bight is a long, gradual bend or recess in the shoreline that forms a large, open bay. Bights are shallow and may pose hazards to navigation, so their depths, in addition to any submerged features like sand bars and…
“It is better to travel in hope than to arrive” is the often quoted mantra of the philosophical nomad who wishes to distinguish himself from the tourist or business traveller. However, the person who wrote this has clearly never been…
In 1956 a Turkish naval officer gave a copy of an early 16th century Ottoman navigational chart, drawn by Piri Reis, a captain in the Ottoman navy during the sultanate of Suleyman the Magnificent, to the U.S Hydrographic Office in…
That splinter of an idea: Sail to Lord Howe Island, had lodged there in my psyche many years, not festering but absolutely insistent. So, with the best (and worst) laid plans of mice, men and whoever else cares to dare,…
When Pittwater local Tony Roberts took off on his Crowther 42 foot catamaran, TacticalDirections on May 1 2006, he had no idea his travels would take him 43,629 nautical miles to 49 countries before completing his circumnavigation just last year….
Inflatable dinghies are a wonderful invention. It is true they do not have the rowing ability of a well-designed rigid dinghy, or the beauty of a classic timber tender but, for simple utility they are hard to beat. The inflatable…
We sailed into Turkey determined to be bound by no deadlines or obligations to do anything other than go where the wind blew us. The five weeks we were there comprised a long languid procession of hot and sultry days…
For thousands of years, man has heeded the call of the sea: whether for trade or piracy, for exploration and adventure, or to seek to understand more of his environment. Until the advent of aircraft, ships were the links that…
Heading out into a cloudy Plymouth Sound on Sunday 2 June, seventeen boats began their three week adventure sailing to the sunny Algarve with World Cruising Club's annual sailing rally ARC Portugal. ARC Portugal has been taking boats south to…
Sailing the wild side of Tasmania, its west coast, has been a long held goal: remote, rugged, less frequented, all aspects we value. But to cruise there safely, with a chance to see and explore pristine wilderness in all its…
Capt. Daniel A. LaliberteU.S. Coast Guard, retired Charles L. Duke, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, joined the Coast Guard on Aug. 26, 1925, amid the service’s dramatic expansion during Prohibition. A previous four-year enlistment in the Navy Reserve near the…
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