More and more sailors are not just dreaming about but actually planning extended cruises to far-away places. While the majority may take any GRP boat across the Atlantic or into…
Yachting World
Follow Yachting World
What causes tropical revolving storms and how to avoid them
Tropical revolving storms (TRS) are called different things depending on where you are in the world: hurricanes in the North Atlantic and East Pacific, cyclones in the East Pacific and…
World’s coolest boats: The Finn dinghy
“The Finn is the boat that taught me the most,” says Musto. After sailing the Cadet, Musto moved into the Finn dinghy in the early 1960s. “Initially, I was 10½…
Offshore sailing routines: How emotional intelligence keeps your crew safe
Most sailing manuals focus on the practical: diagrams for how to rig a storm jib, troubleshooting guides for a temperamental diesel engine. But a successful passage also has an invisible…
First 36 SE review: Definitely race-winning material
Piran Bay is the most scenic part of Slovenia’s short coastline. The medieval village that lends its name to this busy stretch of water marks the picturesque entry to a…
The sailor’s guide to Quadrant Theory and Sea Breezes
Last month we delved into sea breezes, and the basic sea breeze is nicely summed up by the familiar picture (see Figure 1, below) showing an offshore gradient wind above…
Exploring Fiji and the Lau Isles: ‘There are no shops or medical services readily available’
The path through the jungle was hardly discernible and my ankle kept twisting on uneven limestone rubble. Our anchorage was no longer in sight this far inland, and the pleasant…
World’s coolest boats: The Sunfish dinghy
“The coolest boat ever would be the Sunfish,” says Van Aanholt. US duo Alex Bryan and Cortlandt Heyniger developed the Sunfish in the 1950s, and with an estimated 300,000-500,000 dinghies…
Polynesian Wayfinding: How these sailors navigated the open Pacific with no compass or GPS
From the Cook Islands to New Zealand is some 1,600 miles of open ocean. In November 2025 10 Hawaiian sailors cast off their lines to make the passage. The wind…
We sailed through ‘the world’s most dangerous place to sail’
The message was short: “If I don’t make it, know that I love you.” I pressed send to someone who’d stood by me for many years and placed the phone…
Buying an electric weekender yacht
The concept of range anxiety entered the lexicon with the advent of electric cars a decade or so ago. The debate over whether they could really replace a conventional car…
Understanding and making the most of sea breezes
Sea breezes are the sailor’s saviour on hot, still summer days when the country is sitting under an enormous high pressure system with very little overall pressure gradient. As the…
From the bonkers to the brilliant: The definitive top 100 coolest boats of all time
How do you define ‘cool’? It’s an unquantifiable quality. What’s cool to one person, might be banal or brash to another. But when it comes to boats, like people, some…
World’s Coolest Boats: The AC40 – ‘You feel like a Formula 1 driver’
“The AC40 is the coolest boat in the world because it’s like a little go-cart, super responsive. You can really rip it around the turns. You feel the Gs, but…
How to extend your summer cruising season in the Med
The eastern Mediterranean is a treasure trove of beautiful cruising grounds, spectacular natural beauty, ancient cities and amazing food. Many sailors would love to linger there for at least a…
No fridge, no shower, no engine: How we sailed around the World on £450 a month
“We made it!” said Christophe, “L’Envol has crossed her own wake, we have just completed a circumnavigation.” I looked around. We were still more than 100 miles from the Brazilian…
Fixing rig failure mid-Pacific: ‘The mast groaned with every roll. It was physically and emotionally extremely stressful’
We were adrift, 2,800 miles into our 4,100-mile Pacific crossing, with only enough fuel to take us another 450 miles. After that, it was anyone’s guess. A month previously we’d…
Inside the Transatlantic sailing experiments stripping celebs (and filmmakers) of control
Should you be invited to be one of a group of 12 strangers sailing across the Atlantic ocean on a small yacht – and you’d all be filmed during the…
We lived our own Odyssey in the Greek Islands
In the lee of the island of Oxia and the low-lying mainland, we altered course and sheeted in, the wind pulsing across the deck of our Voyager 38, Namika. We’d…
The tropical weather signals every offshore sailor must know
Sailing in the tropics, as you get to within about 30° of the equator the barometer will start to exhibit a twice daily rise and fall, on top of the…