Yachting World March 2020

Online www.yachtingworld.com YouTube Yachting World Facebook @yachtingworld twitter @yachtingworldmagazine If you think you can picture what kind of space, accommodation and stowage you get on a 40-footer, or a 45-footer, think again. As Toby Hodges explains in his pick of the best new yachts on page 58, the increased hull volume and performance seen in race yachts has filtered to cruising designs. Plumb bows and larger bow volumes, increased beam carried well aft with twin rudders to maintain feel and control – all are becoming the norm, increasing the apparent size for a given LOA. There is, as he notes, no real downside, except if you prefer the more traditional aesthetics of a narrower yacht with fine ends and sweeping overhangs. Another trend is the number of new launches for…

A new race to the Fastnet Rock and back has been launched by the Royal Western Yacht Club of England in Plymouth, to bring a classic format offshore race back to its home city. The event was created in reaction to the controversial announcement by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) last year that the two next Rolex Fastnet Races in 2021 and 2023 will finish in Cherbourg, a course it says was chosen to allow the event to accommodate larger numbers of competitors. The Lonely Rock Race will start from Ryde on the Isle of Wight and go out to the Fastnet lighthouse off the south-west corner of Ireland before returning to a finish in Plymouth. It mirrors the traditional 600-mile course of the 95-year-old Fastnet Race and will…

All seven crew from the yacht Showtime, a modified Ker 40, were rescued from a life raft after the keel of the yacht broke away on their return delivery from the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. Showtime’s keel detached at around 0230 local time on 5 January when the yacht was approximately halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, beating upwind in 45-50 knot winds. The yacht is understood to have inverted immediately, approximately 17milesoffshore. Navigator Rob Buchanan told local reporters that the crew owed their survival to one crew member “doing one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen”. After they’d safely dived out from the inverted yacht, crew member Christian Charalambous removed his lifejacket to swim back under the boat and retrieve the life raft. “The boat was trying to kill…

Discovery Yachts has been restructured after going into administration and being immediately bought in a pre-pack sale late last year. The Southampton-based company, which builds the Discovery and Southerly range of yachts, is now owned by Binti Marine Holdings Ltd, a UK subsidiary of Binti Holding GmbH. Behind this is German businessman Werner Schnaebele, who originally bought shares in the company in 2018 and made a further loan in 2019. Since reinvesting to save the business he has become the controlling shareholder. Schnaebele currently has a Bluewater 50 catamaran in build. In 2018, following a management buyout of Discovery from its founder, John Charnley, some £2m was raised through crowdfunding. The largest of these investors was Schnaebele. But the company ran into trouble last year when Discovery Yacht Sales Ltd…

The Royal Ocean Racing Club’s (RORC) annual Transatlantic Race in November will move to a new date in January from next year. The event normally begin in November from Lanzarote and goes to Grenada, but the new date will kick in for the seventh edition in 2021. It is hoped the calendar move will make for a more rapid crossing and boost numbers for the Transatlantic Race, which has struggled to attract a decent entry list. The reschedule also sees a shift in how the RORC calendar is organised, and for 2020-21 the Rolex Middle Sea Race will become the start of the new points season, rather than the end. “The RORC Committee felt that having the Rolex Middle Sea Race as the first race in the Championship would encourage…

Series superyacht builders Southern Wind unveiled this 90ft (27m) performance catamaran in January at the Düsseldorf Boat Show, a project that could be a forerunner of a new breed of superyacht-sized multihulls. Multihulls may be the fastest-growing area of the sailing market, but so far there have been only series production options or full custom boats. The SWCAT90 concept, developed with Southern Wind’s long-term partner Nauta Yacht Design, has been designed to hit that semi-custom, in-between sector. Nauta’s founder, Massimo Gino, explains that the cat has 50% more deck space than similar sized monohulls and in fact the overall space and volume is comparable to a 128ft (39m) monohull. Olivier Racoupeau, responsible for the naval architecture, thinks the speed potential of this carbon composite cat also looks very promising and…