Armchair sailing

The loss of a yacht and three experienced yachtsmen is, without doubt, a tragedy. It is also one which needs to be properly investigated. However, there has been much self-satisfied and pompous nonsense written by yachties in the UK over the loss of the Ouzo and the possible culpability of the officers on board the ferry Pride of Bilbao . I was much relieved, then, to see this commentary by the well-respect columnist Dick Durham. His basic view appears to be, 'let common sense prevail': ...yachtsmen should be in no doubt: they should simply get out of the way of ships whether they have right of way (Ouzo as a sailing boat, did in this instance)or not. To put in a tack and let the ship pass would have been the safest course of action. Quite so. Living and sailing in one of the world's busiest harbours (Hong Kong), we are in no doubt what to do about ships: stay out of their way. Even if they can see you, which they probably can't, there may not be much they can do abo...

As the world's largest cruise in company/race, the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) looms close, the web is filling with tips, many of which would stand any long-distance sailor in good stead. Elaine Bunting started it at Yachting World and followed up yesterday with some of the feedback (much of it conflicting). She also directed us to Captain JP's Log which looks like a blog I might follow. Lots of fun tips here including not throwing rubbish to windward when a cabin porthole is open and the skipper's asleep in her bunk under it. Sounds like solid advice! As does the stop for a swim midway but wear a costume to stop jellyfish stinging the family jewels. Ouch!

I was directed earlier to the Crewseekers site which is a whole lot nearer to real sailing that the books I wrote about yesterday. This uses an intriguing business model where yacht owners can post for free and prospective crews have to pay a subscription of, currently, £60 a half year to access details of the sailing opportunities. Good thinking! You have to be careful to get the hyphen in the URL as crewseekers.com takes you straight to a site about rabbit mating. Strange.....but true.

If confined to your armchair and away from the water, the AudioSeaStories.com site may be the ultimate low maintenance alternative to sailing. You can purchase audio versions of many of sailing's most famous books here including Joshua Slocum's " Sailing Alone Around the World ".

From the old Global Challenge:

There is a marvellous set of photos at the pfm pictures web site . The 8 metre world championships is being foughts out in Scotland (I think) by classic yachts. I trust they'll forgive me for reproducing one of these marvellous shots as a way of tempting you to look at more.

There's an absolutely brilliant picture on Elaine Bunting's blog today of Emirates Team New Zealand banging into the 1m waves of Valencia yesterday. 1m may not sound like a lot but, it clearly was putting those thoroughbreds under pressure. I suspect the photographer's a pro and will be guarding this one carefully (I would in his shoes), so won't re-post here. I did, though, follow the lead of "favourite blogs" to sail-world.com's cruising page . This, in turn, led to a story about one Kiwi selecting the Marten 49 as his perfect fast cruising yacht. To say it's a bit of an Aussie Wally makes it sound like somebody who thinks the Wallabies can win the Rugby World Cup. Nothing of the sort. Check out the builder's site here (I assume they'll have no problem with me posting one of their snaps).

Asia Marine in Phuket has just listed a Warrior 38 which looks like a decent boat even though she's 21 years old. Does anybody know much about these Warriors and where I can find out more information about them?

Although this blog is supposed to be more about cruising than racing, I couldn't resist this picture from the Sailing Anarchy home page . As they say, what clearer reminder could you want than this shot from the Melges 24 world championships: There's some fun video of the same event here as well:

Even if you're over 100 years old, you can obviously still be very trendy. The venerable Yachting Monthly magazine has launched its own You Tube channel.

...with those words, 68 year old Robin Knox Johnston has just completed the Velux 5 Oceans and his latest circumnavigation. The BBC's report on it is here . There's some marvellous video of Open 60 sailing on the Velux 5 Oceans site which gives huge kudos to RKJ's achievement. Many men 25 years younger would struggle to manage one of these boats by themselves. Here's to quieter cruises in company Sir Robin...

This BBC story of the 40' catamaran found off the Australian coast, table laid for dinner, engine running, sails up and all three crew missing is one of the wackier ones from the cruising world for a while.

Some wild and woolly capsizes and high speed sailing here. One of the better dinghy sailing videos I have seen.

Looking for something completely different on Google, I came across (as you do) SetSail.com . This looks like an excellent resource for cruisers including lots of tips and ideas as well as cruising sailors' logs. The home page makes it look as they're mainly trying to sell you things (and maybe they are), but there's a lot here.

The magazine Business 2.0 isn't the place you would most obviously go to look for fun stuff about sailing. But, browsing their blogs today, I came across the Waterlog which includes some interesting posts including the latest with a marvellous photo of VC Tom Perkins' Maltese Falcon in all her glory. One question, though: I saw some posts somewhere a few weeks ago asking how well she sails. Look off her port quarter. It looks as though the rudder is well across to port and kicking up a heck of a lot of spray. Is she about to tack or is this a nasty case of lee helm?

My first ever sailing cruising was in Greece. The family and I also had a wonderful holiday there a couple of years ago with a flotilla (great for the kids). I was interested, then, to stumble across the Sailing Issues web site which provides some general sailing information (including a basic navigation course) as well as some really good information on cruising in Greece and Turkey.

I mentioned before that I enjoy the Furled Sails podcasts. I was intrigued by the one I listened to today about the Atlantic InterCoastal Waterway caught my attention. The idea of taking a sailing boat on inland waterways from Boston to Florida is an intriguing one. Having spent several family holidays in the Outer Banks soaking up the history of shipwrecks along the Carolina coasts, I can see the attractions of missing that part of the ocean trek south although I'm not sure how much sailing you'd get in. Even if you join the AIW in Norfolk, Virginia , it would still be 1,200 miles which could be a lot of motoring in a small boat! The podcast was an interview with the authors of the Managing the Waterways books which sound like just the thing if you wanted to do this trip. Other interesting resources were here , here and here .

Back down to cruising speeds and planning the trips we're going to take. I have begun to browse the passage planning software that's out there - not PC-based chart plotter stuff of which there is plenty, but packages devoted to voyage planning. I have enjoyed in the past playing around with Virtual Passages which describes itself as "The Ultimate Passage Planning Tool". The company adds "Take Armchair Voyages Across the World's Oceans using Actual Daily Weather and Nautical Charts". Sounds just like this blog, eh?

This is about as far from leisurely cruising as you can get. The French "Hydroptère" team ran through the 45 knot barrier in December and is closing in on the elusive 50 knots - the sailing equivalent of the sound barrier in post-WWII aviation. Check out the video on their home page if you think you've ever had a 'sleigh ride' down-wind. Impressive to note that they hit this speed with what appears to be two reefs in the main.

What do you think about Elaine Bunting's question on her Yachting World blog regarding the Island Packet SP Cruiser ? I like the more conventional IPs, but this one, I must say, does nothing for me. What's the boating equivalent of doing 40 mph in the outside lane of the motorway?

Once the boat is decided (an eternal process, of course), the next issue is to decide where to go to and from. My favourite resource for this is the encyclopaedic World Cruising Routes by Jimmy Cornell. If you wish you were sitting in San Diego, wanting to sail to Hawaii and on from their to Guam and Hong Kong, it can tell you when the winds and currents will be in your favour and, just as importantly, when the weather won't. Endless dipping-in fun. The next one on my wish list is the companion volume, the World Cruising Handbook . This tells you more about what to do when you get there. Noonsite is the related web site which includes updates and corrections to the World Cruising Handbook.

A grey, cool weekend (by Hong Kong standards) is a good time to be thinking about boats which would/could take you around the world. I divide these fantasies into two groups; the ideal boats for spending time in sheltered coastal waters around beautiful islands (Greece, Caribbean, Phuket, Barrier Reef, etc.) and those which would get you from one to the other - probably not the same boats. For category one, I hav e hankered after the Jeanneau Sun Odyssey DS range for a while. Not too much of the floating caravan look about them and beautifully set up for island hopping and lounging. But, those big windows make me nervous about the blue water at which time my mind turns to the likes of the Rustler 36 , the Bowman 40 and Rivals. Best kept out of marinas and in the open oceans those...

When we're not working...not often enough...we should be doing something completely different. I love sailing and, like most sailors, would like to do more of it. I devote quite a lot of time and attention to working out where, when and how. Of course, on which boat is also a great topic. And, while "on other people's" is the only sensible answer to that question, who wants to be sensible in these matters. There are surprisingly few blogs out there addressing this. I've found the furledsails.com podcasts and then a lot of sites which regurgitate PR for the grand sponsored round the world drag races. Not much, though, about regular sailors planning their trips. So, here goes.