Table of contents for Issue 12 in TIDE

It took more than four decades for the DynaRig method to become a reality – but when it did, it was a complete game-changer for large-sail yachting. Its contemporary interpretation was first implemented by Dykstra Naval Architects on the iconic Maltese Falcon, built in Turkey by Perini Navi and launched in 2006. More than a decade later, another landmark boat began her maiden voyage sailing under the power of an evolved ’Rig system. At 106.7 metres, Black Pearl was not only the biggest sailing yacht in the world, but also the most technologically advanced. Her length may now have been surpassed by Jeff Bezos’ 125-metre Koru (which is actually said to have been inspired by Black Pearl), but she remains the most innovative out there. “The benefits of Black Pearl…

There’s something about the rugged Uruguayan peninsula where José Ignacio is located. The little fishing village, relatively unknown until recently, has a slower pace of life. In winter, the population is less than 300 permanent residents, according to the most recent census. In summer, however, the population swells. Historically, the town welcomed South American elite – mostly from Argentina – today, anyone in the know, from anywhere, stops by. ‘As one recent guest put it, “Leave your homes and come live at Posada Ayana”’ But although José Ignacio has been gradually building a reputation as South America’s chicest beach town, it’s still blissfully under-the-radar. The pace of life is unhurried and unharried; Uruguayan rhythms dictate the day. Breakfast is late; lunch later. And at the heart of it all is…

You would be forgiven for missing the launch of Sarissa back in 2023. Builder Royal Huisman kept Project 404 on the down-low, so she slipped into the water and departed for the Mediterranean largely unobserved. With her exceptionally slender hull and razor-sharp bow throwing barely a ripple, she was gone. TIDE is therefore delighted to be able to throw more of a spotlight on this exceptional yacht. Drawn by Malcolm McKeon and engineered for highly efficient operation, she is perhaps the ultimate exponent of the marriage between performance and comfort. “The owner’s team came to us with a fairly detailed brief,” says McKeon. “They wanted something with exceptional performance – an easily driven hull shape and a large sail area. We started at 57m but ended up at 60m, so…

“The night we arrived in Patagonia was the toughest,” Karin van Leeuwen, owner of Aragon, reflects. She and her crew had been 24 days at sea and this was the first land they had seen, but it didn’t feel romantic. “The coastline was coated in the heaviest rain I have known – it was absolutely pouring down like a curtain – with hail mixed in,” she recalls. “There was 40kn of wind with insane waves. We hit 24kn under storm jib and trysail. It was only when we got into the Magellan Strait that things finally settled down. Dawn broke and the land opened up before us; ice-capped mountains and fjords full of glaciers. Then, it was beautiful.” Most of us know the immortal lines from Robert Frost’s poem ‘The…

There’s magic in the air at Refugia Chiloé. Early on my first morning, surrounded by the scent of damp earth on the hotel’s dew-covered backyard trail, a hummingbird stops to peer at me with beady black eyes, iridescent feathers shimmering in the pale light, wings a blur as it hovers in my eyeline. It’s gone in an instant but the image remains, a harbinger of the many precious moments that await guests at this 24-room hotel set on the edge of the remote Rilán Peninsula. Many visitors to Chile miss out on Chiloé Island completely, sailing past or flying over it on their way down to the jagged peaks and sprawling plains of Patagonia. But stop here and you’ll find a bucolic land of myth and mystery where people welcome…

“Architecture is a little bit like music: it’s about rhythm, silences. We don’t want our architecture to be loud,” says Juan Ignacio Ramos, the figure behind Estudio Ramos, a 35-year-strong family-run firm with dual bases in New York City and Buenos Aires. Despite their desire not to “scream anything” with their work, Ramos and his son and partner, Ignacio Ramos, have certainly caught the design world’s attention. Ramos and Ramos serenely presented their book, Honest Modernism, at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, showcasing their firm’s ethos: to respect simplicity, consider a project’s “ideal scale and sustainability,” and encourage reflection – much like, say, a great Cubist painting or a jazz riff. Of particular note, also in Venice (this time in 2016) – and what prompted their international approval rating to…

So much of a wine’s identity hinges on its terroir – the growing conditions unique to a particular location. At Bodega Oceánica José Ignacio winery on Uruguay’s Atlantic coast, that’s a trio of clay soils, a mild climate (where it never gets too hot or too cold) and an ocean air that swoops up from not only the Atlantic Ocean but also the two lagoons that bookend the once sleepy nearby fishing village of the same name, now a bohemian hotspot and starry hangout. ‘‘‘We leave 100 bottles at a time to rest in steel cages for six months,” he explains, adding that the cage is guided to and from the ocean floor by divers from the Uruguayan navy’ The effect can be understood as soon as you taste that…