You don’t really notice it too much at first. At each stopover on our summer Mediterranean wanderings we meet up with other yachties, and talk inevitably comes to your cruising…
Cruising life
‘I spent the next four hours winching her further and further up the mast’ – Pete Goss
When I was a ship’s boy in the Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service, an old-timer once offered a piece of advice: ‘Make the tide your friend, boy.’ I’ve embraced it ever…
Planning a cruise: Secrets of successful skippering
When planning a cruise more than a few days out it is rare that the navigation and weather stars align, allowing you to choose your destination, the time to leave…
‘Is there a chance that your family actually don’t like sailing?’ – Monty Halls
This month’s column broaches a very delicate subject. I’m not going to tiptoe around it, I’m going to take it head on, and ask the question that should loom large…
Exploring French Polynesia by boat: The call of the South Seas
Friday’s dinner topic in late September, 2022: ‘I don’t want to go to French school. I don’t even speak French.’ ‘You will make friends,’ I argued, but the hoped for…
Don’t cross the Dover Strait. It’s thick with traffic out there
Forty years ago this summer I made my first Channel crossing according to an old, delaminating, mildewed and fading logbook. It is the first logbook I ever kept because prior…
‘Sometimes your boat knows best’
Zen Again was heading west for Africa. We had departed our home port of Fremantle, Western Australia in June. We visited Shark Bay, Cocos-Keeling Islands, Rodriquez, Mauritius and Reunion. Now…
‘Navigating infancy makes rock pilotage and tidal calculation look like a stroll in the park’ – Libby Purves
I applaud the idea of families with small children trying out what cruising would be like with them as crew. One of the many things never mentioned in National Childbirth…
Sailing Around Norway’s South Cape
This is what Thor-Erik had meant. ‘When you sail past Cape Lindesnes, you go from one world to another,’ he had said when we had moored alongside his boat in…
‘Why I went over to the dark side’ – Pete Goss
Falling off a ladder teaches you many things. For a start the NHS treats a one-metre fall as serious, so my fall, from above first-floor level, should have had spectacular…