When I was age 12 , we went on a family holiday on the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides off Scotland’s west coast. I was pottering around the…
Cruising life
Jeanneau SO 350 first look: Simplicity without stealing space
The Sun Odyssey 349 sold 2,500 hulls but after 12 years of service it was due for replacement. The new Jeanneau SO 350 answers the call. The 350 follows her…
A classic American cruise: Sailing from British Columbia to San Francisco
It felt great to be heading out to sea once more on a classic American cruise. The forecast was for an enjoyable sail to San Francisco over the next few…
‘We seemingly plunged off the edge of the world’: Experiencing freak waves
Salvage tug captain Nick Sloane can claim a library of feats of derring do amongst freak waves. He even salvaged the Costa Concordia, which was a wonder of engineering. If…
‘Rod had single-handedly raised the price of shellfish in the San Blas by about 300%’ – Lu Heikell
Can we agree that it’s an old myth that sailors survive entirely on Fray Bentos pies and ‘pot mess’? Certainly on Skylax mealtimes are something to look forward to as…
Sailing to Scotland: flitting north to a new home
Flitting is a traditional Scottish expression for moving house so our decision to move from Gosport to the island of Arran meant we needed a plan to ‘flit’ our Hanse…
‘The average age of this crew is 70 years old’ – Top tales from sailing across the Atlantic
People have been sailing across the Atlantic for centuries, following in the wake of Columbus in 1492, but there is still something about this navigation that quickens the pulse. It is a dream…
‘£10,000 and two broken engines in to my yacht purchase, I realised I may have made a mistake…’
Just about every middle-aged man dreams of buying a boat and going on a sailing adventure. The sense of freedom, the wind blowing across your balding pate without a care…
‘Why we’ll all miss the shipping forecast’ – Libby Purves
The long-wave shipping forecast reaches its centenary in 2024, though it’s not much of a celebration given that LW itself, ‘at the end of its life as a technology’, will…
‘Why a healthy dose of fatalism is good for you’ – Dick Durham
Nancy, my mother, drummed into me a set of lower middle-class rules, the origins and the validity of which remain, a lifetime later, lost to comprehension. Yet still I stick…