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.
It is almost a generation since 1994, when GPS finally relegated celestial navigation to being just an intermittent, time consuming and relatively inaccurate backup method of position fixing. It is true GPS was preceded by the Transit satellite system from…
The South Gippsland Yacht Club working with local businesses, the yachting industry, Bass Coast Shire Council, Inverloch Historical Society and Rotary and Lions Clubs has now conducted three very successful Inverloch Classic Wooden Dinghy Regattas. Since commencing on Australia Day…
Greece has not had good press lately and the Ionian Islands, as one of the more traditional cruising destinations, might seem a bit unexciting in our fast world of newer, further, better. But, they are not Greece’s favorite cruising ground…
I had been looking for a crew spot for an ocean crossing for a few weeks. An off-chance reading of the notice board in the Whangarei marina office started a conversation with the crew of an American ketch that was…
The human eye is exposed daily to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) with the main source our sun. Despite information campaigns, the general understanding of sun-related damage remains minimal at best. The aim of this short review is to highlight some of…
It was late in May and we found Pearl quietly floating in her pen awaiting her next charter adventure. It was terrific to be on a boat again and looking forward to a few days afloat. She was very clean…
Back in 2015 Cruising Helmsman attended the weekend-long Shagger's Rendezvous as part of its continued support for the ‘exclusively, non-exclusive’ yacht club originally formed in 2009. While attendance numbers were down that year, countering its normal trend of rising each…
When sitting around a cruisers’ campfire the mere mention of grab bags can certainly be one way to start a conversation. My grab bag was inherited from the previous yacht owner. Before moving my boat to its new home port…
Our boat was sailing on a piece of silk, the water so calm it looked like one massive piece of glistening cloth. The boat rose and fell as though the ocean was breathing. No faster than a walking pace we…
ARC Europe 2016 ended with a packed final prizegiving dinner at Marina de Lagos on Sunday 19 June where close to a hundred crew from twenty-three yachts enjoyed a celebratory end to what has been a memorable rally. Being a…
The Citizen. By CNS reporter/Shiraz Habbib. A new study has shown that more than one trillion pieces of rubbish are floating around the Indian Ocean. The combined weight of plastic in the ocean amounts to more than 38 000 elephants, North…
WILSONVILLE, OR – May 26th, 2016 – FLIR Systems have announced that the latest Raymarine LightHouse OS now includes a graphical weather forecast (GRIB) viewer app, which enables boaters to access Theyr global weather data on-demand directly on a Raymarine…
The Turkcell Platinum Bosphorus Cup is as much about a location and people as it is about yacht racing. Three days of competition centred on Istanbul, a city steeped in history and that celebrates diverse cultures; a centre-piece race on…
The Derwent Sailing Squadron today officially opened Tasmania’s largest and most technically advanced floating marina, built on the western shores of the River Derwent at Sandy Bay. The Governor of Tasmania, Her Excellency Professor the Honourable Kate Warner AM, named…
SAMUI, Thailand – Samui is ready to host a week of top sailing competition and tropical fun in the sun as hundreds of sailors from across Asia and beyond converge on Samui Island for the 15th Samui Regatta. To be…
Newcastle Herald. By Matt Carr. A SEARCH for a missing sailor off Port Stephens has officially moved from rescue to recovery, police say. Authorities on Wednesday night called off a search that combed the water from Nelson Bay to Stockton…
Montego Bay, Jamaica (May 16, 2016) – The Montego Bay Yacht Club, the Storm Trysail Club and the Hemingway Yacht Club announced today the 2017 Western Caribbean Series. The Western Caribbean Series will include the 33rd edition of the Pineapple…
Fort Erie Post. By James Culic. FORT ERIE – Port Colborne Marine Auxiliary Rescue (POCOMAR) members faced two metre waves and 15 knot winds on Lake Erie as they headed to assist a sailboat off of Point Abino Monday morning….
By Rafferty Baker, CBC News The City of Vancouver could be on the hook for thousands of dollars in salvage fees if the owners of a submerged sailboat in Vancouver's False Creek can't remove or fix their vessel. According to an emailed…
Cruising around the Philippines has been a fabulous experience – it really is a cruising paradise with 7,107 islands to explore. The country offers a huge diversity of amazing landscapes, from ancient rice terraces and formidable rugged rainforest mountains to…
Larchmont, NY – The Storm Trysail Club is pleased to announce dates for the next edition of Quantum Key West Race Week: January 15-20, 2017. The event will feature the same successful format as in past years: one day…
Yachts sailing under the flags of sixteen different nations set sail on Saturday 7 May for their offshore adventures as part of two World Cruising Club Spring rallies; ARC Europe and ARC USA. Venturing west to east across the Atlantic,…
When your boat goes up on a reef in a remote atoll the last thing you expect is your VHF call to be answered at four o’clock in the morning. Off Ile Boddam there is no beautiful soft sand to…
We secretly dreamt of the prestigious Nordic brands when we first sold up and left Sydney for Europe in search for a safe and comfortable blue water cruiser. Our hopes were set on our budget miraculously tripling or a Hallberg-Rassy…
For those of us who live on a cruising yacht you can be away from shore for extended periods. You will probably have a small and restricted fridge and you may enjoy yogurt, but ensuring you can have a constant…
Having good food on passage is most important in order keep energy levels up as well as morale, especially in adverse weather. But it also adds another dimension to the enjoyment of being on the ocean waves. Provisioning is actually…
In our early years of cruising, we learned the hard way about how important clean fuel is. I did not worry about the fuel as long as the primary fuel filter looked clean. On one offshore passage, however, the seaways…
Esperance Western Australia is just one of those wonderful places that is rarely visited and then only by boats travelling east or west across the Great Australian Bight. It is not to be missed. There is a friendly and welcoming…
When we first bought Kate seven years ago I found myself standing over our esky-sized Engel fridge wondering how we would ever manage to keep enough fresh food on board, let alone cold beer. I had sailing experience and professional…
PORTLAND, MAINE – A novelist who was twice rescued from storm-battered sailboats hopes his next adventure lacks in such drama. South Carolina author Michael Hurley plans to sail around the world after using the experience of scuttling his sailboat on…
Cruising skipper, racer, mentor, sailing instructor and instigator of a huge relief effort for the victims of Tropical Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu, Heather Sutton is one of the nominations for the inaugural Cruiser of the year award. Ideas locker editor…
As boat building capabilities overcome more and more engineering roadblocks, does there come a point when the design of such large yachts begins to hit the ridiculous (“totes ridic”, as my hipster son says)? Make your own mind up and…
Local residents of NSW town Brunswick Heads have expressed concerns that development plans for the boat harbour do not fit in with ethos of the area. Providing facilities for sailing, and maintaining a profitable business, are quite often constantly at…
How does circumnavigating Australia in a Top Hat sound? How about doing it singlehanded? Robert Lovelace was nominated by a reader and, after contacting Lovelace to congratulate him he sent CH the following story of that remarkable cruise. Well it…
Australian scientists are joining a privately-funded circumnavigation of Antarctica to investigate the impact of micro plastics and conduct a detailed whale survey. The Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition is a philanthropic project by polar explorer Frederik Paulsen and coordinated by the Ecole…
Catamaran agency and marina, Multihull Central will be holding its first 'Seabbatical summit' to help inspire, educate and provide experience to those who attend. Two summits have been planned so far for Brisbane on the 18th and 19th of June…
The Advertiser. By Amelia Broadstock. PORT River dolphin numbers have increased tenfold in two decades — an environmental triumph experts attribute to improved water quality in the long-polluted industrial area. In a new study paper soon to be published, Port…
Fifteen months ago, the World ARC 2015-16 fleet set out from Saint Lucia to sail around the world. Amongst the crews were many nationalities, backgrounds and reasons for taking part. Since then, they have sailed well over 26,000 nautical miles,…
Driving hundreds of miles through the Australian Outback with a boat in tow to a regatta in the desert is not an adventure for the faint hearted. But that was exactly the challenge taken up by the 20 rugged yachting…
Keeping dry and warm while sailing appears to be an impossibility given the factors stacked up against that happening. So it stands to reason that companies attempting to provide us with clothing face an uphill battle. It is easy to…
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