If we’re honest, passage-making often means motorsailing, says Jess Lloyd-Mostyn.
Imagine yourself on our boat. We are off the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. The moon is setting. It’s five in the morning, the wind is nine knots from the northwest and we have plotted our latest position on the paper chart on the nav-table. We have travelled only seven miles closer to our destination in the last 12 hours. We know there is a little current against us and the small lighthouse to starboard hardly seems to have moved for a day.
The forecast is for light winds for the foreseeable future. We left knowing the wind would die and took this in preference to the 50-knot winds that kick up in this area between lulls. We are lucky, though, that the sea is flat. We have a choice: continue tacking up into this mild headwind for the foreseeable future – at this rate the 120 miles we have left will take us nearly nine days – or we crank up the engine and reach our destination in a day. Would you stick to your engineless ideals, or opt pragmatically for motorsailing?
Denne historien er fra Summer 2017-utgaven av Yachting Monthly.
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Denne historien er fra Summer 2017-utgaven av Yachting Monthly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Midsummer on Hanö
This wonderful little island in the south-east of Sweden is a real gem off the beaten track
ADVENTURE SAILING TO HAITI
After spending two months in the Dominican Republic, Andy Brown sails west to Haïti bringing medical and school supplies to the town of Mole Saint Nicholas
In celebration of bad sailing
New owner Monty Halls tests his sailing skills with his family aboard their Colvic 34 ketch, Sobek. A recently qualified Day Skipper, Monty faces a few unexpected challenges...
Winter brings excitement and opportunity
Oddity’s double glazing, insulation and heating create a warm, homely environment as I bash out this column.
ADVENTURE MAISIE GOES TO GOES
To depart or not to depart? That is the question. Is it safer to stay, or suffer the wind and weather of a rough North Sea?
'MAYDAY, GRANDAD OVERBOARD!'
When David Richards and his grandson Henry went out racing from lowey, they didn't expect their sail to end with a lifeboat rescue
VERTUE
For a 25-footer, the Vertue has a huge reputation and has conquered every ocean. So what makes this little boat quite such an enduring success? Nic Compton finds out
Sailing siblings
Mabel Stock, her brother Ralph, a friend Steve and an unnamed paying passenger passed through the Panama Canal in December 1919 on the sturdy Norwegian cutter Ogre. They were towed to a quiet anchorage in Balboa away from the boat traffic but within rowing distance of the shore.
TECHNICAL MAINSAIL MODIFICATIONS
Safety and performance improved hugely when Mike Reynolds reduced the size of his mainsail and re-configured the systems controlling it
PILOTAGE DONE PROPERLY
Chartplotters are an amazing aid, but can detract from your real-world pilotage if not used with caution, says Justin Morton
