Carbon fibre race yachts are noisy beasts. Sharp creaks from the sheets in the cockpit,…
Expert sailing techniques
Night sailing – the essential guide for offshore cruisers
With a full moon and following wind, night sailing can be one of the great…
How to round a busy mark – Gold-medal racing tips from Hannah Mills
The Barcolana Race, which features a mass of different yachts all racing on the same…
Expert tips on getting your cockpit set up perfectly for short-handed sailing
The simple things we take for granted when sailing with crew can become a nightmare…
Telemedicine for cruisers beyond the reach of an airlift – how a phone call saved one sailor’s life
Anchored in a remote lagoon in the Solomon Islands last year, Tom Partridge and his…
How to reef short-handed and how to know when the time is right to reduce sail
The decision to reef is as much about boat handling as it is about wind…
How author Martin O’Scannall removed the engine from his yacht and learned to listen to the sea
For the Love of Sauntress – A Forty-year Affair published as recently as 2014 by…
The slingshot – mastering this high-speed racing manoeuvre is not just for the professionals
This particular part of the course, coming into Mark 1 on a reach on an…
How to reduce the risk of a nose-dive without dropping the spinnaker
The quarter tonner class has a reputation for some incredible broaches, but it is possible…
30 expert tips for crossing the Atlantic – from checking the sails to choosing crew
1. Keep the downwind sailplan simple What’s the best sail configuration for a downwind crossing?…
How to get past a cut-off low pressure system – a true weather router’s dilemma
How many times do skippers – racers and cruisers – report that some of the…
What to eat when sailing short-handed – a nutritional guide for offshore sailors
Your diet offshore should be as good as, or even better, than it is at…
How to be a winning skipper – the surprisingly simple secrets to forming and leading a great crew
What is the secret to a happy crew that bond at sea as a team…
Solo skipper Sam Davies on why panic is the worst response to a man overboard emergency
It looks as though either a trimmer or the bowman has gone to leeward to…
Short-handed sailing: Pip Hare on gybing a symmetric spinnaker
Gybing a symmetric kite double-handed is a tough manoeuvre and there is no question that…
Weather expert Chris Tibbs on how to predict and cope with fog at sea
Radar and AIS help to make navigating in fog safer, but it is still an…
Dee Caffari finds out the hard way why Three Peaks Race is one of the world’s greatest endurance races
We were heading into the shore and just past Bear Grylls’s island, Saint Tudwal’s Island…
How to execute the perfect spinnaker drop when sailing short-handed
Dropping the kite double-handed may seem a daunting challenge, but provided you take adequate steps…
Off-piste sailing: serene rock-hopping footage from Kragero, Norway
Close encounters of the rocky kind are normally the stuff of sailors’ nightmares, but the…
Get out of that! What to do when your spinnaker snags a racing mark
It looks a rather pleasant day on the Solent with 15 knots and sun, and…