sailing today

Contents

www.www.sailingtoday.co.uk

NEW BOAT TEST Elan 350. 66

may 2011 Issue 169

04 Sailing Today May 2011

102 WEAThEr haven’t the foggiest.

60USED BOAT TEST Etap 26i.

78 ANTIGUA ChArTEr Life’s good in the Leewards.

Ph

oto

ro

d l

ew

is

Win! P100

28JUST IN! New gear.

May 2011 Sailing Today 05

This monthNews AND viewsSailing news 6

Readers’ letters 12

View from the RYA 16

Riding light 146

GeAR AND eQUiPMeNTBooks 24

Just in 28

Gear on test 36

Buyer’s guide: Sat Phones 44

Group test: Battery monitors 50

BOATsUsed boat test: ETAP 26i 60

New boat test: Elan 350 66

Your Boats: Albin Vega 72

CRUisiNGmy maRINa Sutton Harbour Plymouth 74

Chartering in the Leeward Islands 78

Vasco da Gama Rally 84

seAMANsHiPDifferent types of rig 92

Weather: Spring fogs 102

PRACTiCALFitting a wind vane 104

Q&As with Nick Vass 110

WIN! WIN! WIN!Old Pulteney 12-year old whisky 12

Pair of Barton’s maxi ‘K’ cam cleats 14

£1,000 worth of Chatham gear 100

sUBsCRiBe AND sAve! 58

www.

SAILING BOOkS We read them so you don’t have to.

44BUYErS GUIDE Sat Phones.

INDIA: Vasco da Gama rally.

Missed a copy? Call 01778 392 496

24

84

SailingNEWS


The RYA has expressed concern after the developers of a proposed offshore windfarm announced a preferred location off the Dorset and Hampshire coasts, which the RYA feels will be ‘poorly located for navigational purposes’.

Eneco, the project developers tasked with building the windfarm, has identified the most suitable area as a stretch of the seabed approximately 76 square miles in area and some 8.2 miles from Peveril Point in Swanage, 10.2 miles from Bournemouth and 8.4 miles southwest of The Needles and the Isle of Wight.

Caroline Price, the RYA’s Planning and Environmental Advisor said: “Eneco’s announcement confirms that they have identified their preferred development area

within the West of Wight Round 3 Zone which was allocated to them. At this stage, however, Eneco has not produced any detailed plans as to how many turbines are proposed or how they might be laid out within this area.

“Navigation through operational windfarms should not create significant additional risks for recreational boaters, however we are concerned that the preferred development area, as confirmed by Eneco, is poorly located from a wider navigational

perspective.”Over the past year, Eneco

has been appraising the area and has concluded that a project of between 900MW and 1,200MW of capacity could be located in the northern part of the awarded area, a site that covers 76 square miles.

Chris Sherrington, director of the project, said: “After comprehensively evaluating key aspects of the project in relation to wider stakeholder interests, we have chosen the most suitable location for the wind park.”

According to Eneco, the £3bn project, set for completion in 2019 will power around 600,000-800,000 homes. It is understood that Eneco is keen to engage directly with clubs and training centres in the local area and hear individual concerns and comments. To this end, public information days to hear more about the Zone Appraisal and Planning process and the location of the wind park were held throughout March, and there are a couple still to take place as follows: Bournemouth: Pavilion Theatre – Wednesday, 30 March 2011.Swanage: Mowlem Theatre – Thursday, 31 March 2011. To find out more, you can visit Eneco’s website at www.enecowindoffshore.co.uk.

Clearer outlookWeather forecasts three times a day are available for all 19 of MDL Marinas UK’s moorings. The forecasts, which include wind speed and direction, wave depth, visibility and temperature, are by weather expert Dr Simon Keeling who has more than 20 years’ experience in the weather industry and is an expert in forecasting for sailors around the UK.

Prout Passes awayFrancis Prout, who with his brother Roland is viewed as one of the pioneers of modern catamaran design, has died aged 89. The Prout brothers were one of the first boatbuilders to design and mass produce cruising catamarans .

The two brothers began building Prout catamarans more than 40 years ago in Canvey Island, Essex and their achievements included producing the first multihull to circumnavigate the globe in 1964.

Son Steve Prout paid tribute to his father, stating that this was “the end of an era in catamaran building.” He added that Francis would be “sadly missed and the achievements he made and the contributions to the catamaran industry he made, alongside Roland, his brother, will be hard to follow.”

The Prout brothers actually started out as canoeists and represented Great Britain in the 1964 Helsinki Olympics.

DreDging DelayeDA £20 million plan to deepen the navigation channels in Falmouth harbour has been put on hold because experts claim the work would damage 8,000-year-old red algae beds.

Polar trageDyThree crew, including one British sailor, are presumed lost after their polar expedition yacht Berserk was lost after being caught in a severe storm in the Ross Sea, Antarctica in February.

The Norwegian owned 48ft steel yacht was being used as part of ‘The Wild Vikings’ expedition, which aimed to reach the South Pole in order to mark the centenary of Amundsen’s successful expedition of 1912.

Berserk had previously dropped two crew on the ice to make an assault on the South Pole. The pair abandoned their quest and drove their quad bikes for almost 24 hours before reaching New Zealand’s Scott Base. The three crew lost were named as Robert Skaane, 34, Tom Gisle Bellika, 36, and sole British crew member Leonard Banks, 32.

News briefs

new winDfarm ProPosal RYA NOT BIG FANS

Send your stories to [email protected]


After more than two years ashore, legendary world girdler Lively Lady is back where she belongs; afloat and ready to return to the high seas.

The sailing charity Around and Around was given the custody of her for 25 years by her owners, Portsmouth City Council. The news follows a protracted wrangle over her ownership, which left the elegant old 36ft yawl, built in India in 1948, gently decaying at Hayling Yacht Company’s yard in Hampshire. With the dispute sorted, Around and Around is setting about getting her in order.

Steve Mason, co skipper of the boat, explained: “Over the past couple of weeks she has

been antifouled and the hull painted, just to get her back afloat. More work is needed in the short term to get her sailing again for this year.

“The original plan was to sail her to Liverpool for the Boat show in the spring, but sadly the show has been cancelled so a new fundraising plan has to be put in place.”

Once the summer is over, Lively Lady will undergo a massive overhaul, which will entail removing the deck and all its fittings, waterproofing and replacing it, a new mast and rigging along with a new doghouse, as well as stripping the hull and repainting and varnishing.

Lively Lady shot to fame in 1968 when her owner, Alec Rose, a greengrocer from Portsmouth, sailed her around the world

with a single stopover in Australia. She made a second circumnavigation in 2005 with a crew of disadvantaged youngsters.

Any donation or assistance to keep her sailing is more than welcome. Also,

thanks must go to The Hayling Yacht Company for its help with the restoration project. To find out more, visit www.aroundandaround.org.

Ben Ainslie was moderately more animated than the tailor’s dummies he was surrounded

by as he modelled at an exhibition entitled ‘Round the Island in 80 years’.

This was a preview event for this Summer’s Round the Island race. Launched at sponsor J P Morgan’s Great Hall in London, the exhibition brought together a selection of relics from previous races, including a wealth of old photography, waterproofs and also many previous winners. Over 100 guests were treated to a feast of imagery, anecdotes and characters.

The Exhibition will be shown on the Isle of Wight in June. The first race took place in 1931 with 25 entries. The 80th Round the Island Race will take place on 25 June. To find out more, or register your entry, go to www.roundtheisland.org.uk.

Boat show BluesMIE, organisers of the inaugural Liverpool Boat Show, have blamed the economic climate for the show’s late cancellation. MIE cited slow exhibitor take-up for the show planned for April and said the long term potential for a major boat show in Liverpool needed to be protected. The show was launched 18 months ago and enjoyed strong support from many major marine brands.

PortBooker enters the nether regionsThe Spanish company Portbooker, the online mooring reservations centre and worldwide marina guide, has announced the opening of a new office in Amsterdam.

Portbooker has information on more than 8,500 marinas and operates on a similar principle to lastminute.com for hotels. In the last year, bookings have increased by 34 per cent.

marine Conservation Zone ProgressThe ‘Marine Conservation Zone Project’ published its third set of progress reports showing the latest iterations in the project to identify Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs). MCZs aim to conserve areas of the sea, protecting rare, threatened and representative marine habitats and species, whilst minimising socio-economic costs to sea users.

The progress reports published online show work in progress for recommendations to identify new MCZs in an area covering over 240,000km² in English territorial waters (0-12 nautical miles) and English, Northern Irish and Welsh offshore waters (12-200 nautical miles). To view the reports, go to www.mczmapping.org.

lively laDy BaCk where she Belongs

Anchoring Solutions

Contact us for your free brochure or visit our website

☎ 023 8045 8400 · [email protected] · www.maxwellmarine.com

From a bow roller to the latest rope/chain windlasses

and remote controls, trust Maxwell to

supply the whole package.

round the island hits 80

News briefs

44 Sailing Today March 2011

There’s only one way to keep in touch at sea when you’re out of range of the GSM/GPRS mobile phone coverage – by satellite communication. Duncan Kent takes a look at what’s available to fit the average bluewater cruiser’s budget.CommuniCations satellitesBoat owners have been using satellite communication networks in various different guises since the launch of the world’s first dedicated communications satellite – Telstar – way back in 1962. Of course, this was used for commercial and scientific purposes only, and it wasn’t really until the late 1980s that satcomms became readily attainable for the general public.

These days satcomms are much more efficient and user friendly, as well as being considerably less expensive than during those early years. While Sailing Today readers are unlikely to invest in the full-blown, digital Fleet Broadband systems that are installed on commercial ships or large racing boats, they frequently take sabbaticals to go bluewater cruising or to compete in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (a transatlantic rally held every year

from Las Palmas, Canaries to St Lucia in the Caribbean), and need to keep in touch with family or business during their travels.

satComms for yaChtsmenI distinctly remember installing one of AT&T’s Inmarsat ‘C’ terminals on a colleague’s boat back in 1994 so he could keep in touch with the magazine during an Atlantic circuit. It took me several days to set it up, with the help of a BT engineer, an AT&T programmer and a satcomms software expert – in addition to making frequent baffled phone calls to the laptop manufacturer.

Later, in 2001, I took part in the ARC and we decided to try to maintain a blog for the magazine by installing and using a handheld Iridium device and a data link to our laptop. Once again, setting the whole system up was a nightmare and took several days of trial and

error before we struck lucky, but after that all went swimmingly for the trip and we were able to update the blog and receive weather routing advice via satellite at all times, as well as swapping email with our families.

Today the whole experience is much more user friendly and most of the bugs have been ironed out of the operating systems. Furthermore, laptop computers are far more powerful, as well as being ‘plug and play’ ready and able to self-set installation parameters automatically.

satellite network operatorsWhile there are a number of companies offering satcomms services, only a few of these are really relevant to maritime operations and even less to the leisure yachtsman. Superyacht owners might find it worthwhile to invest in fully installed terminals giving them

Satcomms P

HO

TO

: Bry

an S

mit

h, h

ttp

://r

eelw

ater

pro

duc

tio

ns.c

om

Buyer’s guideOur Buyer’s Guides complement our group and long term gear tests and provide essential background information about gear and equipment.


Sailing Today’s Buyer’s Guides strive to give you enough information for you to choose a particular product that is most likely to suit your needs. Unlike our gear tests, there is no element of testing involved in compiling these guides, so we are unable to give you a review of their performance unless they later become a subject of one of our extended Gear Tests, which many will in the long run.

March 2011 Sailing Today 45

INMARSAT – ISATPhoNe PRo

broadband data facilities as well as voice comms, but smaller private cruising yachts are likely to only really need voice comms and relatively low speed data capability for text and email. Moving up to proper web surfing, particularly broadband, is a big jump and requires a fat wallet.

There are realistically only three main satellite networks available for yachtsmen – Inmarsat, Thuraya and Iridium. A fourth, Globalstar, has a constellation of 40 Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites and has expanded rapidly, becoming well established in the USA. However, though boasting coverage to 70 per cent of the world’s population, it currently only concentrates on the more abundantly inhabited land areas and only covers certain sea areas close to the coast.

Founded in 1979, Inmarsat currently uses 11 (soon to be 12) ‘High Earth Orbit (HEO), geo-stationary satellites’ (i.e. they remain in the same geographic location above the earth at all times) that offer coverage from 72ºS to 72ºN. It has nearly always been at the

top end of the satcomms market, supplying commercial vessels and the like with hugely powerful communications systems, but recently it has also made a move into the lower cost, ‘budget’ end of the market by producing a handheld phone, shortly to be improved with a low speed data link for email etc.

Thuraya, another HEO, geo-stationary constellation, has been supplying satphone services since 1997 and has introduced many ‘firsts’ during this time – including the smallest, lightest handset and the ability to revert to regular GSM cellular networks when in range of a transmitter to save on call costs. With access in over 140 countries, Thuraya provides coverage across 70 per cent of the world.

Iridium started off well in 1998, then went through a rather shaky period at the turn of the millennium, but survives today on a far sounder basis, thanks to a successful rescue bid. The Iridium network is unusual in that it is an LEO constellation that employs a

much larger number of satellites (66) than the geostationary networks, meaning it can offer total worldwide coverage – including the Poles.

Unlike the GSM mobile phone, a satellite phone is designed to work with a particular network and can’t be switched by simply changing the SIM card and contract.

airtime paCkages and tariffsAs with the cellular mobile phone contracts available in the UK and Europe, satellite airtime packages are extremely complex and, I suspect, deliberately so. Most yachtsmen off on a time-restricted sabbatical will probably prefer to buy prepaid airtime minutes rather than sign up to a long contract, so usage will be a little more expensive. After taking into consideration the initial cost of the phone itself (none are free, even with contract) the cost of actually using the phone on a pre-paid tariff is roughly two or three times that of a regular GSM mobile, depending on how many units you buy in advance or what contract you are on.

satcoMMs


The first ever handheld satphone from Inmarsat, this phone is designed to work in rain, dust storms, searing heat, sub-zero cold, tropical humidity or freezing fog and has the longest battery life of any satphone currently on the market – up to eight hours talk time and 100 hours’ standby. It’s also as simple to operate as a GSM mobile.

Primary features include voice, voicemail, texts, email, Bluetooth, hands-free and GPS location. In addition it has a calendar, alarm and calculator, and can even sync contact information from Microsoft Outlook. At the time of writing, data facilities have not yet been enabled, but this is apparently imminent.

The layout of the phone and the operating logic are very similar to a standard mobile phone, so it is said to be intuitive to use. It also has a high visibility colour screen and large keys to assist dialing with gloves.

Inmarsat has also just launched a waterproof, intelligent docking station for the IsatPhone Pro, the IsatDock Marine, which offers a below-decks

installation without losing the flexibility of a handheld mobile. Rated at IP55 for water and dust proofing, the docking station has a waterproof, protective membrane.

The IsatDock measures 270 x 189 x 101mm and can be mounted on a horizontal or vertical surface. An external antenna is available if required.

The IsatDock’s built-in GPS engine supports tracking and alert functions, including periodic reporting, manual position report updates, remote polling and the sending of an emergency alert message.

Prices: IsatPhone Pro circa £600; IsatDock Marine base station circa £1200; external antenna from £430.Accessories: AC and DC chargers, Micro USB cable, wired headset, wrist strap and support CD.Options: Bluetooth headset, solar charger, carry case.IsatDock Marine options: AC power pack, 10-32Vdc power

cable, privacy handset, 2m Alert wiring loop, handset lock key and quick start manual.Inmarsat airtime tariffs: On pre-paid, the cost of a landline call works out at around £0.55-£0.79/min, depending on the quantity of pre-paid units you buy. Texts are around £0.40/each (160 characters) and calls to GSM mobiles between £0.65-£0.95/min. Post-paid contracts have no connection charge, but a monthly fee of between $20-$60, depending on the deal. Call charges on post-paid

phones can drop to $0.90/min, but are more usually $1.00/min.

Contact: www.inmarsat.com

PH

OT

OS

ro

d l

ew

is


NEW boaT TEST

Why do we go sailing? It’s a question that most of us never ask ourselves. Perhaps it’s for the delight of travel and the discovery of hidden creeks and new landfalls. Maybe we seek satisfaction in good seamanship and pride in a well maintained vessel. And what of the exercise, excitement and camaraderie? It’s a combination of all these, I believe, but let’s not forget the out and out joy of hoisting canvas, switching off the engine and gliding almost silently across the sea. This is sailing – the rest of it is fantastic, but peripheral. The rest can be achieved with a caravan, canoe or motorboat.

Different owners will give different levels of importance to the actual sailing experience. Seakeeping, space, comfort and solidity will often triumph over speed and there is a balance to be struck. There are plenty of boats out there for out-and-out racers and a huge choice for more conservative cruisers too. The Elan 350 is aimed between the two markets. It has obvious appeal to competitive sailors,

but also has plenty to offer to cruising yachtsmen who want to come off the water with a grin as wide as this boat’s exceptionally broad transom.

The 350 is big sister to the 310 that impressed us last year (ST 156). The wide after sections and sharp chine give

her masses of stability and designer Rob Humphreys has been inspired by the shape of Open 60s, whose lines provide control and speed off the wind.

The Elan 350 is designed for sailors who like to smile, though our test sail proved she’s not without her faults.

The cruising sailor can often find himself at odds with the racer, while the cruiser/racer yacht can sometimes seem at odds with itself. Miles Kendall stepped aboard the Elan 350 to see if she had the right blend.

Speed freak


elan 350

>>


cruiSing

Antigua is a vile place and a dreadful hole.’ Well, that was the verdict of a 26 year-old Royal Navy captain who moored

his 28-gun frigate, HMS Boreas, here at English Harbour in 1784: the young man was Horatio Nelson. The Antiguan’s attitude to Nelson was one of animosity. Nelson was here to enforce the Navigation Act, which banned trade with foreign countries using foreign ships – for his efforts he was sequestered for eight months on board Boreas.

Two centuries on, the island is an idyllic sailing playground, still served by the northeasterly trade wind that powered England’s iconic naval hero.

My first taste of sailing in the Caribbean is a

luxurious one. Our yacht, Mystery, a 2009 40ft Bavaria, is moored stern-to outside Nelson’s Dockyard. She’s just a 20-yard walk over a manicured lawn from the bar, where 16 hours earlier a huge raucous party had seen in the New Year. Jack, the skipper, his partner Alexandra and her son Nikolai are remarkably chipper given the evening before. They have spent the previous week cruising the south and east coasts of Antigua and are keen to head south for some adventure.

After settling into my cabin, we wander off towards Falmouth Harbour down a white picket fenced lane in time for happy hour at the Life Bar and Grill and then pizza at the Pizzeria. We

the Leewardslife’s good in

Can there really be one region that offers Atlantic thrills with Med sunshine for all sailors? After 14 days of 20kn winds and no tacking, Paul Harvey thinks so.

>>

‘


antigua

ANTIGUA

English Harbour

MONTSERRAT

Desirade

Marie Galante

Les Saintes

Portsmouth

MARTINIQUE

ST. LUCIA

WI

ND

WA

RD

I

SL

AN

DS

LE

EW

AR

D

IS

LA

ND

SJolly HarbourDeep Bay

GUADELOUPE

Deshaies

DOMINICA

LEEWARD ISLANDS

Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

Caribbean Sea

Basse Terre

32˚C89˚F

21˚C70˚F

12 days rain/month

the Leewardsan idyllic sailing playground, still served by the northeasterly trade wind that powered England’s iconic naval hero

“

”

Jamie and I used to sit in our Limehouse local, overlooking Old Father Thames, wondering what it would be like to bring Esper into London. It had long been an ambition of ours to sail into a big city – maybe Hong Kong or New York – and now this dream was coming true in Mumbai.

Like any major port, the approach is intimidating. You must navigate queues of commercial vessels speeding through a patchwork of shipping lanes. Fishing boats lay their nets in increasingly crowded fashion as you near your destination, ensnaring unsuspecting yachts. As you pass, the stench of countless earlier hauls makes your eyes water. You continue to dodge nets right up until arrival, while returning boats buzz you, hurrying to offload their morning’s work.

Mumbai shrieks in your ears and laughs in your face as it tweaks your nose, not so much tickling your senses as ravishing them. It is a city of extremes and superlatives, but for a yachtsman it can be less than hospitable. We were surprised to find that there is no marina in fact not even a pontoon in this great city. We anchor in a sea of mulligatawny soup, complete with lumps lurking beneath the fast-moving surface. Outside the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, slap bang in front of the tourist area of Mumbai, Esper jostles for space amongst small wooden racing dinghies and superyachts, while ferries converge on us from outlying areas. Ten days earlier we were sailing in the clear and silent waters of the Arabian Sea, watching the moonlight on the water and whistling at dolphins; I wonder why we were in such a rush to come here. Fierce currents race back and forth with the tides and when the wind gets up it can make for an anxious night’s sleep. Wealthy Indian yacht owners slumber peacefully at home in bed while their crews maintain a vigilant anchor watch, day and night. We dig Esper well in, set the anchor alarm and check our transit lines regularly.

Checking in to Mumbai is not easy. First there is no point in trying to get anyone from the port authority

to answer your VHF call, they simply ignore yachts. Second, dealing with officialdom on your own in Mumbai is a notoriously rocky road to tread. With the help of Marine Solutions (see box) and the Royal Bombay Yacht Club – of which we were given honorary membership during our stay – we had the luxury of local help. In spite of this we still needed the help of Lo Brust, who organised the Vasco Da Gama rally. He was on hand to ‘negotiate’ our fees down to a size befitting our limited budget.

ImperIal BletherThe job of arriving in India took two days; a long and painful process destined to be repeated wherever we went. We only have our imperialistic past to blame for the interminable waiting in halls and offices while one piece of paper is moved about from file to tray and back to file again, all the while being scrutinised and stamped by dull-eyed officials. It seems the Victorian reverence for procedures and bureaucracy has been enthusiastically embraced by our Indian cousins. We had plenty of time to scrutinise our transit lines and get used to swinging wildly on the hook as we waited to be allowed ashore.

The last ‘t’ having been crossed, our crowd of sea-weary travellers (most of us having not set foot on land for three weeks) were ready to go ashore. As there is nowhere to moor against the wall in Mumbai you have to anchor your tender about 30m away and rely on the altruism of a passing dinghy for a lift. Luckily for us, the rally sponsor, Marine Solutions, put on a launch to shuttle us from boat to shore in the morning and evening. The fast, smart launch – driven by an immaculately turned out Raj, in designer shades – coupled with our honorary membership of the Royal Bombay Yacht Club, made us feel like genuine Bollywood stars.

We pile into the launch and watch as, 500m away, Apollo Bunder, the sturdy 19th century pier, looms under the giant Gateway of India, erected for a long dead British king. The gothic Taj Mahal Palace Hotel,

What’s it like to cruise the coast of India? its exotic shores are off the radar for all but the most intrepid of cruisers. Fresh from completing a perilous transit of the Arabian Sea, Liz Cleere and Jamie Furlong report back.


cruiSing

the hard wayMumbai to Jaigarh

Bombay

Bombay bicycle club (top). The ubiquitous

Indian bus (centre). Dharavi smiles (bottom).


Vasco Da gaMa Rally

>>

STTips

STFacts

STTips

YourTips

STAsks?

VideoST


SeamanShip

What’s in a Rig?3

The Rustler 42 is a tidy example of a Bermudan cutter.

12TypeS of rig

To conSider!

PhoT

o: R

ick

BueT

TneR

PhoT

o: d

unca

n w

ells

Bill Dixon is the legendary designer for top builders, including Hanse, Tayana and Moody, where over 4500 yachts have been built in the 30 years that

Bill has been designing them. His Moody Classic 45 is just beautiful and Bill also has many custom designs gracing the exclusive playgrounds of the yachting rich. He seemed the ideal person to discuss rigs with.

I was rather hoping to be able to compile a handy list of the attributes of each of the rig types and come up with an all round winner, but there really is no such thing as a winner. Talking to Bill, I soon learned that all designs are invariably a compromise. You see, we want a sailing boat to do two things. First we want her to go to windward, which means that we need to have a set of sails that are aerodynamically efficient and that work together. Second, we want to go downwind when the sails will not be working aerodynamically, but will be stalled, the wind just pushing the boat along. Those are two very different things, requiring differing sail and rig set ups, which we have to combine onto one boat.

What I learnt is that the boat and rig design is governed by stability, boat

performance and ease of handling. And of course money.

The faster you want the boat to go, the more drive you need and the more sail area you need to pile on, so on a Bermudan rig Pic 2 – a single mast and a triangular mainsail – you make the mast taller. But the taller you make the mast, the deeper you need to make the keel. The deeper the keel, the greater the wetted surface area of the hull, the more the drag, the less the speed, the more you need extra sail area to drive the boat. Back to square one.

Now we change the hull and keel configuration to a flat bottom with a bulb keel. That cuts down drag, but it’s a good deal more fragile than an encapsulated keel. And so it goes on. Increasing the mast height to gain greater sail area is generally the modern way and these rigs are known as High Aspect Ratio. The other way to increase sail area to get more drive is to increase the overall length of the boat by adding a bowsprit and spreading acres of sail over its length, filling in the gaps as you go with staysails, flying jibs and topsails, until you produce a gaff cutter Pic 3. These generally have shorter masts than bermudan rigs, which give them a Low Aspect Ratio and may need only shoal draught keels.


I’ve got a ketch, he’s got a cutter, they’ve gone for a junk rig, traditionalists yearn for a gaffer, the racers are using blade sails. Just what’s in a rig and why do most of us end up sailing a bermudan sloop? Duncan Wells investigates with help from designer Bill Dixon (pic 1).

>>

choosing a rig?

PhoT

o: d

unca

n w

ells

1

2

Beautiful, but with all that washing out and a million miles of string, not exactly the short-handed weekend cruiser.

PhoT

o: g

uy f

oan

PhoT

o: d

unca

n w

ells

sailing today

Documents

suitable area

local area

awarded area

preferred development

boatsused boat test

group test

square miles

project developers