Whatever happened to Team Philips? James Boyd digs out the details of the giant cat's abandonment in the North Atlantic.

 .

Leader
The Coroner’s report into the 1998 Sydney-Hobart disaster is published – with some surprising findings

On the wind
Whatever happened to Team Philips? James Boyd digs out the details of the giant cat’s abandonment in the North Atlantic. Plus a first hand account of our man rounding the Horn in the BT Global Challenge

Letters to the Editor
In the face of increasing piracy, should we arm ourselves? Comments on Club Med’s violation of the Traffic Separation Scheme, and port politics

Dogwatch
There’s something familiar about the name of the new addition to John Passmore’s family

A good run
Elaine Bunting reports on a vintage year for the 215 yachts on an Atlantic crossing with the ARC.

Cruising Log
The RNLI is thinking of extending its services inland after a year of unprecedented calls for assistance during floods, plus a special report on the dangers of using nylon rope for anchoring

Letter from the Caribbean
Chris Doyle considers shifting sands and changing faces in his regular column from the Caribbean

Charter in the Mediterranean
Twenty pages of charter stories from the Med, including:
History and hideaways – James Boyd visits the re-emerging holiday destination of Croatia
Turkey, the traditional way – a gulet is just the thing for a family charter holiday
Squaring up to a storm – David Glenn sails a luxury 439ft square rigger in a Force 9
Competition – win a holiday aboard Royal Clipper
Life on the level – sailing the Atoll 6, a new style of charter yacht designed for outdoor living

Fishtales
It’s the 1987 Louis Vuitton Cup and America’s Cup watchers are dazzled by the speed of Kiwi MagicFirefly
What Firefly needs is a real keel-wetting, so where to next? How about the ARC?

Racing Round-up
Scandinavian girls on form at the Rolex Women’s Match Racing Worlds, ponderous negotiations at the ISAF and Gold medallist Ben Ainslie gets a new job

Xtreme sailing
Olivier de Kersauson’s new machine will be the biggest racing trimaran in the world

Diving south
Competitors in the Vendée Globe Challenge have reached the Southern Ocean but there is no slackening of pace. On board reports from Ellen MacArthur and Josh Hall

Leading Edge
An extraordinary twin-wingmasted craft that flies over the water like a bird

Offshore Essentials
Brian Savage and Colleen Ryan on generating, storing and managing power on board

What’s new
HF radio with built-in DSC, a two-bladed Autoprop and the first chart plotter to use the new NMEA 2000 protocol and what this means. Plus, we test the Magellan 320 handheld GPS

New yachts
Ron Holland-designed Discovery 55, building a 52-footer in steel at Sirius and three very different designs from Sparkman & Stephens

On test
Seeing double – How can it be that you can buy two Bénéteau First 47.7s for the same price as a single Bowman Starlight 46? Matthew Sheahan tests two similar-sized yachts with very different philosophies

SuperSail – Superyacht
revolution We estimate there are upward of 150 sailing yachts of 80ft or more in build around the world. What has caused this upsurge of interest in big yachts? David Glenn investigates

Yachts for sale
Yachts galore in our brokerage pages

Classified ads
Winter bargains and summer charters

Robin Knox-Johnston
Bursts of pure speed are all very well for The Race contenders but in the huge waves of the Roaring Forties a high average will be hard to maintain

 
 .