A new factor in this modern age of cruising is the relationship between the rolling news cycle and crews at sea. Ashore, news is now a relentless, inescapable 24/7 battering…
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‘The disembodied VHF radio call had actually come from a plane’ – Lu Heikell
‘G’day Skylax. You haven’t done many miles today!’ Our greeting from the Aussie Border Force team rang out clear on the VHF radio. We hadn’t seen another vessel for days,…
‘Much to my horror I found the floorboards afloat… my boat was slowly sinking!’
Darkness still reigned when I warped Betty II, my 25ft gaff cutter, out of her mud-berth at Canvey Island, in the Thames Estuary. Once out in the deep water of…
‘What is the best thing to do when you enter a new marina? Laundry… yes really!’ – Libby Purves
Ever wonder what a person learns from 57 summers yacht cruising, serving as crew aboard boats from 18 to 50ft and then joint-owning a series of sloops and a ketch,…
‘There is nothing difficult about using marine-friendly suncream’ – Lu Heikell
Almost every day we are alerted to a crisis, be it social, political economic or environmental. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and start to block out everything and assume…
Inside the ‘shuddering blancmange’: Pete Goss gets a liferaft reality check
Battling inside an orange blancmange which is in the shuddering throws of a major fit, it strikes me that a liferaft is not the place to be. This is a…
‘Fitting the catamaran’s two hulls into a berth for one just wasn’t going to work’ – Lu Heikell
Driving down to Greece this spring with a car full of bits for Skylax was a bit of a shock to the system. It was the first time we had…
‘Suddenly we found ourselves in our child’s headmaster’s office asking if anyone’s ever taken a year off to go sailing?
Ever since James and I first met, we have fantasised about going on some kind of boat-based adventure. Every time we go on holiday, we lament the fact we can’t…
‘An orange glow lit up the horizon: an oil tanker had been torpedoed’ – Dick Durham
Inside an old jewellery box sits a yellowing fang set in a gold mount. It is the triangular molar wrenched from a shark jaw trolled for somewhere in the South…
Should there be both foiling and non-foiling classes in the next Vendée Globe? – Pete Goss
The Grand National of sailing that is the Vendée Globe has once again gifted an amazing romp around the globe, in which we were able to live alongside 40 sailors…