Sailing Today

THIS ISSUE IS the one that whets your appetite for boat show season by giving you an overview of the boats available to buy. As ever, there is an extraordinary wealth of options out there if you have the means to buy new. And the fact is that more people than ever seem to have the means. I have tested five different new boats in the last month or so and every company has said that they simply cannot keep up with demand. For some small companies working in very small volumes of yachts produced per year, this is pretty much understandable, yet when you hear that companies like Beneteau - masters of mass production - are struggling to keep up with demand, this gives you pause for thought. I…

Visit Southampton Boat Show in style Visitors to this year’s Southampton International Boat Show can take advantage of a new Quayside Club, offering three VIP packages. The Quayside Club will have three tranches. The White Sea VIP package includes “an official meet and greet on arrival at the show, entry into the show itself, a tour of the Waterfront Lounge, plus complimentary drinks and snacks for the duration of your visit”. Upgrade to the Coral Sea package and you will enjoy all the White Sea elements plus “you can sit back and relax with a delicious premium served gourmet buffet lunch overlooking the marina, in some of the best seats in the show”. The show organisers, British Marine, continue: “For those visitors looking for the ultimate opulent boat show experience, the Black Sea VIP…

DE CESARI 33 When plans were unveiled for the De Cesari 33 some years ago, this Ceccarelli design looked a bit like a wishful thinking scribble from the Italian designer. Well, clearly not, as the boat is now on the water and turning heads thanks to her distinctive looks and fine performance. This sits somewhere between modern classic and a sportsboat which is a confusing yet alluring spot. The boat is made of laminated mahogany with a teak deck. This gives the boat a modest displacement of 3,300kg while also providing a beautiful ambience down below. The interior is kept simple but elegant and the boat ids designed to be easily handled. This is not a racer more a fast weekender that will deliver you to your destination in style. ⬤ ceccarelliyachtdesign.com GT…

Over the years I suppose have read three or four magazine articles written by people who have used the Brittany canal system to get from St Malo on the north Brittany coast to Arzal in the south. The route provides a safe and much shorter passage which is not dependant on wind and weather. As a means of cutting short the journey to arrive at a chosen cruising area, all the articles naturally concentrated more on the speed of passage than appreciation of the journey. I wonder if more visitors from the UK should consider the canals as a holiday destination in their own right. Since moving to live permanently in Normandy, I have had several holidays on Cormoran, my Cornish Crabber, in and around the Rance estuary from St Malo through the…

I met a sad looking couple this summer. They’d spent weeks planning their cruise, dreaming of getting away from the treadmill, feeling the breeze, relishing the slow rise of the swell. And why the gloom? Because they were stuck in an indifferent marina, in a gloomy little town set amidst a dreary landscape. Let’s be honest - not all marinas are a joy to be in. I felt very sorry for them. We all suffer breakdowns and learn to cope with the slog of getting them fixed in places far from home; waiting three days for a spare part, then remember it’s a bank holiday so make that four. Or we pace the pontoon ready to greet the engineer who swore he’d be there by ten, it’s half past and no…

There’s a universal truth about any fledgling sporting event: the more successful it becomes, the more professional it gets, until it teeters on the edge of pricing itself out of existence. OK, there are some exceptions to this rule, and you might think that the hugely successful Premiership in English football is one of the most obvious examples but even there many clubs struggle. The top end of sailing is paid for in the main by privately wealthy individuals. The America’s Cup has never really pretended to be anything other than a plaything for the megawealthy, although Russell Coutts spent the best of 10 years and many hundreds of millions of dollars of Larry Ellison’s money to try to turn the Cup into a commercially viable event. Where Coutts failed with the Cup…