Why charter? To have a deserved break afloat; to sail somewhere different; to try before you buy, especially if deciding between monohull and multihull; to see if it’s something your crew enjoys before embarking on longer-term cruising. Or all of the above.

For us, the plan seemed clear. After a decade of UK summers (an oxymoron!), where our family of four enjoys sailing dinghies and weekending our vintage micro-cruiser, it was time for some more reliable, sunny cruising. And the chance to try a modern production monohull presented an ideal opportunity for our daughters (9 and 13) to progress into yacht sailing.

Dubrovnik has become a Mediterranean cruising mecca. Not only is the ‘pearl of the Adriatic’ a UNESCO world heritage site to set sail from, with an old town made extra popular by Game of Thrones, but the islands strewn between here and Split offer some of the most enchanting, manageable cruising.

But I’d previously been put off the idea of chartering during summer school holidays, considering it too hot, expensive and, most of all, crowded. Thankfully, none of these preconceptions played out. In fact, from arriving in late July at Sunsail’s Dubrovnik base onwards, everything was charming. I would add surprisingly so – however there were some surprises in store.

Due to work commitments, we missed the first two days, compressing our week’s charter, but with the islands all lying to the north-west, routing decisions are easy at least – if the wind co-operates!

Chartering the new Sunsail 41.3 from Dubrovnik, a base which typically involves sailing to the north-west. Photo: Kelagopian/Sunsail

Full of surprises

I was genuinely impressed with the quality of ACI Marina, the Sunsail base, its staff and equipment. Were you stormbound you could happily while away a few days here – it’s easy to get into the old town, while quiet and relaxing with a superb pool and restaurant (Zephyrus YC), a well-stocked mini supermarket and good on-site facilities.

Indeed, despite normally itching to get straight off to a nice anchorage, we stayed put… our only night in a marina (and it was free!). It was a Monday so it was quiet, a strong wind was forecast that night and we had a small tech issue so decided to relax, victual, and enjoy the facilities.

The first real surprise came on boarding. I know the Dufour 41 having tested it the year before, so while the new voluminous boat was expected, the level of equipment it included was eye-opening. It was packed with mod cons I hadn’t even considered for a 40-footer, including aircon, genset, watermaker, freezer, microwave, electric toilets…

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How to take on a Caribbean yacht charter for racing

Regatta organisers are reporting a boom in Caribbean yacht charter entries, and, with more yachts available than ever before, the…

Sailing Pellew, the biggest Falmouth pilot cutter in 150 years

The upper reaches of the River Truro are not an obvious source of sailing innovation. No foiling cats fly over…

For us the electric outboard on the Highfield RIB was the biggest hit, eliminating smells and noise and ideal for the kids to up their helming confidence. Knowing most Sunsail yachts are in ownership programmes, I wondered how such a high standard spec level is decided and works out financially, so, at the end of the charter, spoke with specialist Julian Adams – see panel, page 61.

Most likely we have all experienced some tired charter boats before, and it felt luxurious to step aboard a shiny new model. Of course, while a luxury to have, all these items ramp up the complexity and hog most stowage space. Our rep acknowledged this and even suggested using one of the three heads to stow the fenders.

The view of Lucas Taverna while moored stern-to.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a chart briefing because the specialist was off on an emergency – the downside of not arriving on the usual handover day. But the briefing videos are good and base manager Keith Harvey is very thorough with his drone footage of each area and zones of caution.

I’m obviously old school because I still crave paper, including charts, cruising guides, suggested itineraries etc. However, it’s now all set up to be digital only.

That feeling of leaving the marina, motoring out of the channel and first hoisting sails is priceless. Šunj on Lopud is the perfect easy first/last hop, little more than an hour from the bustling city, and offers stunning clear water to laze and swim in, an amuse bouche of what was to come.

a quiet, protected corner in Polače, anchored with a stern line to a rock. Photo: Kelagopian/Sunsail

Still not knowing how busy future destinations would be, I phoned ahead to the Lukas Taverna at Kobaš in the Ston channel, and was met with a reassuring ‘no problem’. We’d had some local recommendations from a Yachting World reader, but the Sunsail team is also responsive and helpful with advice on WhatsApp.

While my fellow charterers were quiet that week, I later saw just how well some used it for live recommendations and any tech queries. Likewise, Harvey’s daily weather briefings are first class.

Sailing to shellfish

Sailing up the channel between Lopud and Šipan (Eliphati) islands and the mainland brought the second surprise: just how quickly and violently the conditions can change here. Many will know the mountainous backdrop plays a big part in the local weather and cruising here, particularly thunderstorm activity. And the wind can change very quickly too. In this case we were sailing in 7 knots when a 20-knot wind band hit with a 45° change in its direction.

Our heavenly spot off Pomen

This led directly to the next surprise: we were not to get the sailing experience I’d enjoyed on the test boat the year before, sorry kids. All that gear obviously comes at a cost: weight. Then factor in white sails only, the drag of a fixed three-blade prop and towing a RIB dinghy and pointing and headway ability obviously diminish.

That said my ‘first mate’, my eldest daughter, proved an effective hand, and the electric winches and stackpack made sailing a doddle. Also, at 40ft, the loads are all relatively light, so it’s easy enough to pull halyards by hand and quickly unfurl/furl sails for that impulsive 10-minute spell of sailing.

KobaŠ is a delightful cove with a couple of restaurants, including Lukas, which belongs to ‘no problem’ Nicolas’ family. They gave us a friendly welcome and helped us dock stern-to, with 50cm of clear water below our rudder. Father told stories to guests over a glass or two, while mother knocked up some memorable seafood. We’d heard the oysters in these waters are meant to be some of the best in the world and they didn’t disappoint. Equally the calamari and (very) local chardonnay were excellent (the secret is in the stubborn vines which grow on rock faces apparently). All worth the inflated prices you pay on the islands (€230 for four).

It was on discovering our first truly idyllic and almost deserted anchorage the following morning that we began to realise just how special these waters are. You go giddy with excitement, juggling between trying to capture it on camera and continually wanting to plunge into the intoxicating palette of blues. In fact, the rest of our voyage centred on trying to find the most beautiful waters to anchor and swim in. The choice is spellbinding.

Our voyage was one of finding such delights, with laughs and cool-offs along the way

Lazy pace

With the light breeze still from the north-west (on the nose), any progress along the Mljet coast needed to be done under power. But these longer passages, particularly motorsailing in calm seas, were wonderfully relaxing.

It provided proper family time, with occasional cool-offs and tow-alongs, all while skirting the coastline and poking our noses into any inlets that looked inviting.

Mljet is 90% vegetation, and full of these enticing pitstops, particularly around the protected marine national park at the northern end.

Winding through the delightful channels en route to its Polače heart, we passed numerous superyachts parked stern-to their preferred rocks in some of the choicest spots, so we were then thrilled to find a quiet corner with a good stake to tie a stern line to in the protected anchorage opposite the town.

Polače has plenty of restaurants, a dinghy dock and useful small shops. Bike and e-bike rental stores abound as tourists typically cycle from here to the salt lakes (too hot for us, thanks).

Watching the setting sun from the remote nature reserve Lastovo.

Those who moor at the many restaurant quays and eat there avoid the €120 park fee, but after getting fresh supplies via dinghy we were too content with our anchorage spot and ate aboard that night. This helped confirm that the Dufour’s transom dinette/grill setup is a prime feature. Barbecuing in boardshorts, diving in to cool off, and finishing with an aft platform shower is the life!

Around the headland is Pomena where we stumbled upon the most stunning small shoal by an islet, a patch of white sand large enough to precisely drop the pick into with just enough scope during a calm daytime. It was the most inviting water I’ve seen, our tiny slice of paradise.

From here you have to decide whether to stay local, as in Mljet and the PeljeŠac peninsula, or strike out for Korčula, with its postcard old town, or the more remote Lastovo, a 20-mile sail west. We only had two more nights, but the mystique of Lastovo beckoned.

After a long afternoon crossing in a dying breeze, we buzzed the north part of the island to glimpse Lastovo town nestled high in the hills, danced to cockpit tunes as we took in the western end before reaching Pasadur in time for sundowners. The anchorages and submarine pen area looked busy so we settled for a buoy (€40 on top of the three-day €40 national park fee), which brought peace of mind and another stunning swimming location.

Medieval old town of Korčula. Navigation is easy line of sight between islands.

A biodiversity treasure with some of the richest botanical areas in the Med, Lastovo was declared a nature park in 2006.

Yes, in hindsight, it was a long way to go on our timeframe (and further to go back into the weather), but to see the kids be water rats until after dark, then lie with them on the foredeck stargazing at what is said to be the second darkest night sky in Europe, forged an enduring memory.

Weighing it up

Normally when handing the boat back the next day it makes sense to get to an easy radius from the base. Which was our intention, honest. But after a long morning of beating into an unforecast wind and swell, it was too tempting not to divert back to our paradisiacal patch off Pomena, which proved so relaxing we ended up staying that night. After all the forecast was settled now wasn’t it?!
Scoping out the various restaurants and watching other visiting yachts claim their spots (a fun pastime) we settled on the friendly fish restaurant Konoba Herc opposite, only nudging in there after our final sunset swim.

From the most tranquil evening I woke to mayhem at 2am as a huge thunderstorm hit. Having checked all lines and fenders and got thoroughly drenched I fretted about how to get back to Dubrovnik if the storm continued. Despite a disconcerting night and tentative departure, the skies and seas settled almost instantly by morning, leaving mirror calm conditions for the 40-mile return, albeit under the iron headsail (with more idyllic swim stops).

The Dufour’s aft grill and bathing platform get the seal of approval

The re-fuelling and handover was slick, with excellent instructions. And because we’d elected to stay on in Dubrovnik for an extra couple of days, there was no panic to get to the airport. Instead, a chauffeured transit awaited to take us on to more relaxation – thank you Sunsail.

So again, why charter? It’s 3°C and mizzle as I write this, the days barely bothering to get light. However, I’m picturing that water, the laughs, the lifelong memories. A sailing holiday afloat together can ensure quality family time and is the reason many crave repeats as their children age.

I know we do.

Charter cruising tips

If possible allow time before or after. Get the cheaper flights. Decompress. We stayed between the airport and marina for a long weekend from where it was a €20 taxi into the old town or back to the airport.

Don’t overstretch yourself. On a digital chart it all seems manageable, but a 5- to 7-hour sail is a long slog under power! I’m my own worst enemy, wanting to see every last inlet. But that can limit time exploring ashore.

If sailing is a priority, you may need to limit your cruising radius. Instead of trying to sail from A to B, consider just going for pleasure sails at the optimum angles and in the best breezes.

Marinas in Croatia are seriously expensive (around €75-150 a night)! With the plethora of stunning anchorages and restaurant docks, they can be avoided unless weather-bound or sight-seeing certain towns.

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Regatta organisers are reporting a boom in Caribbean yacht charter entries, and, with more yachts available than ever before, the opportunities to pay and play for some racing in the sun have never been better.

The main Caribbean race season runs from February through to the end of April each year. For some the season begins with the RORC Transatlantic race in January, or the ARC rally in November or January, delivering the boat from Europe to the Caribbean.

The first big event is the RORC Caribbean 600 offshore, while the first major inshore event of the year is the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta. The season progresses with a series of superyacht events, but also mixed fleets at St Thomas International Regatta, the BVI Spring Regatta, Les Voiles de St Barths, finishing up with Antigua Sailing Week in April.

Plenty of local competitors move from island to island for multiple events, as well as US entries who can benefit from short flight times for their crews. For sailors in Europe though, getting a yacht across the Atlantic and back is the main obstacle to taking part, particularly if not planning a full Caribbean season campaign.

Chartering, particularly chartering a yacht that is equipped ready to race, presents a much easier way to compete for those short on time. While headline costs for race charter appear high at initial glance, gathering friends together means it can become much more reasonable. Compared to delivery or shipping fees and the wear and tear of taking your own yacht across, it can also be more cost effective.

Growth in Caribbean yacht charter

While still a niche segment of the charter industry, recently there has been an increase in the number of yachts available to hire for racing, and are ‘race equipped’. It’s a shift that hints at how sailors increasingly want to jump onto a boat and enjoy racing without the worry of ownership.

Swan 80 Kallima can be chartered for racing in the Caribbean. Photo: Laurens Morel/saltycolours.com

“When we started, we were the only ones offering decent boats that were set up for racing; well maintained, a good set of sails, and a boat that, while not necessarily a racing yacht, is fun to sail,” explains Andy Middleton, who founded Global Yacht Racing with his partner, Claire Kennard, in 2004. Since then they have built a business focussed on making racing accessible, offering both entire boat charters and single berths aboard for major events including the Fastnet, RORC 600 and Round The Island Race.

“A good race charter demands a lot from us to ensure a fulfilling experience for the client. A thorough handover is so important when you are about to push the yacht to go fast. We are straightforward about the condition of everything on board. We know that in racing things do break, so it’s important to look at the condition of the sails, lines, and deck gear to identify what’s worn and to what degree. If something breaks after we’ve agreed it’s well worn, that’s OK. We work very closely with clients to deliver an experience that’s fun.”

Another company which focuses on racing charter is LV Yachting, which Lucy Jackson has built up over the past 10 years. A background racing Swans gave Jackson first-hand experience of what makes for a great race charter.

Now a key player in the market, LV Yachting offers charter at major events aboard a surprising range of yachts, as well as opportunities to pay for single berths.

“What differentiates a good racing charter from the general market is that every boat we offer is properly set up for competitive racing. Clients regularly finish on the podium. It’s also diverse. You can race a Volvo 65, a Salona 45, an 80ft Swan; so repeat customers have often had a lot of interesting experiences and access to very competitive racing without the hassle.

“We take care of almost everything, so the logistics involved are minimal, certainly much less than bringing your own boat. We handle race registration, berthing and can organise transfers and accommodation ashore if you want as well. Over the years we’ve built up repeat clients who appreciate being able to just turn up and go.”

GYR’s First 47.7 EH01 sleeps up to 10. Photo: Global Yacht Racing

A helping hand

Race charter has some obvious challenges when it comes to insurance. Underwriters keep a keen eye on how much the risk factor increases when racing. Charter companies and yacht owners almost always ameliorate the increased premiums by putting one of their own team on board. “If you’re chartering to race, the experienced person we provide is there to become part of your team and help you get the most out of the yacht,” explains Lucy Jackson.

“It’s important to say they’re not there to skipper the boat – unless of course you want them to. In reality a few customers are initially resistant when they learn they have to have someone sailing with them, but then they see someone that knows the yacht and its nuances who just becomes part of the team.”

For charterers with less racing history, or who perhaps want to sail with friends and family, the charter company can increase the number of professional crew on board. “We can set things up for those with no experience or, for those wanting to compete at a high level, provide professional crew as well; we try to be flexible to shape the best possible experience we can, making it really tailored to the client.”

Racing in the St Maarten Heineken Regatta. Photo: LV Yachting

Keeping it simple

The bareboat classes are home to a surprising number of serial race charterers on the Caribbean circuit. Astride de Vin is a regular participant in the St Maarten Heineken Regatta as a crew member of ‘Something Hot’, an all-female team which charters standard bareboat yachts through Sunsail. This year they sailed a Sun Odyssey 41.

“We bareboat charter in the event primarily to have a really good time, but we are certainly also eager to win. For 25 years there has been a ladies sailing team participating in the regatta. Ours is all about female empowerment and celebrating the joy of togetherness.”

The Something Hot team, despite not sailing a high-performance yacht, gets results, last year finishing 1st and 3rd in individual races.

“It is an expensive thing to do, but at the same time, I understand the risk level a charter company and their insurers are taking,” de Vin cautions. “This also is part of the reason there is quite a high deposit. The companies have to work really hard to deliver good service during the competition itself. Sunsail was on the water to fix things when needed, even between the races.”

Choosing to charter a standard bareboat rather than one set up for racing inevitably involves a compromise. In the case of the Sunsail Caribbean fleet, for example, yachts are not equipped with spinnakers, poles, or cruising chutes. However, events like Antigua Sailing Week include a specific bareboat class for yachts racing under white sails; meaning racing can arguably be just as competitive. Yachts are raced in ‘charter trim’ with restrictions on what can be removed.

The start of the RORC Caribbean 600. Photo: Arthur Daniel/RORC Caribbean 600

Single berths

The other option for those who don’t want the commitment of chartering a whole yacht, is single berth crew places on charter yachts. Global Yacht Racing reports that around two-thirds of its business now comes from individuals buying a berth on board for an event, or related race training. They manage race prepped yachts for their owners to generate charter income with a fleet that includes a J/120, Sunfast 3300 and Beneteau First 47.7.

“My background is as an instructor and examiner, but what I am keen on is the coaching side of racing; showing people that anyone can have fun doing it,” says Andy Middleton.

“We see a lot of people coming to us on their own who have had a bad first introduction to racing. Shouting, stress; all the usual things. Some have paid for this stressful experience and assumed it to be the norm. We work hard to do the opposite, showing racing doesn’t have to be like that, whatever your level of experience.”

Coaching included

Middleton and his team now have a system to ensure ‘pay to play’ racing works well and, ultimately, increases the chance of a win.

“When clients join a boat for a race event, we will figure out where they are best placed on the boat and train together beforehand. The biggest focus by far is on clear communication because we have proven that’s what gets results. The biggest surprise for many is how a crew that has never sailed before quite often gets a place on the podium. We’ve proved you can do that, turn up, pay for a place, and achieve a great result.”

Training comes as part of the package when buying a berth for a racing event via Global Yacht Racing, with the scope varying according to the nature of the race. “In the case of the Round the Island Race we’d do a full day of practice. For the Fastnet it would be several weekends.”

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The upper reaches of the River Truro are not an obvious source of sailing innovation. No foiling cats fly over its shallows as at nearby Carrick Roads. The high-tech superyachts of Falmouth’s Pendennis yard are unlikely to appear anytime soon. Yet it’s here, among light-industrial units and auto-mechanics playing Radio 2, between a metal scrapyard and gas storage tanks, that one of the most interesting recent launches in British sailing has emerged, a Falmouth pilot cutter named Pellew.

In February 2020 the 68ft hull of the Pellew was lowered into the river from the Rhoda Mary Shipyard. When I visit a year on from that momentous day – the culmination of over four years’ work and goodness knows how many more planning – the frame of a similar 19th-century cutter stands on the hard mid-restoration.

“She’ll cost her owner a million quid to restore,” Luke Powell says. “But there’s no logic to wooden boats. Building one is just cavalier and mad, a romantic idea that it’s something worth doing.”

Grasp that and you’re halfway to understanding why Powell built Pellew, the largest Falmouth pilot cutter launched in Britain for more than 150 years. With 2020 lost, she begins her maiden charter season this summer.

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Perhaps only Powell would have had the nerve for such a project. Through his company Working Sail, managed by his wife Joanna, he has not only designed and built eight Scilly pilot cutters since 1993, but has also helped rehabilitate a genre of seakindly working craft that had been left to rot following the arrival of glassfibre. His largest previous cutter was Agnes, a pretty 46-footer currently sailing charters.

Falmouth cutters each carried eight pilots, but could be double-handed on their return to port. Photo: Nic Compton

Workhorse of the seas: The pilot cutter

In their day, Falmouth pilot cutters upped the ante. Larger and faster than their rival boats of the Scilly fleet, they evolved into cracking coastal workboats. Tough enough to look after crews as they bludgeoned into heavy oceanic swells west of the Scilly Isles yet easily driven in light airs; and able to race to windward to meet inbound ships yet manageable short-handed by just two crew.

Imagine a Land Rover of the late-1800s and you’re close. An obvious choice, then, when Powell looked to scale up.

For all that, Pellew represents a game-changer. She is a third longer than Agnes, with three times the displacement at 74 tonnes. Her 14in keel, frames and scantlings are of Lincolnshire oak fastened in bronze. A 9-tonne external lead keel supplements 14 tonnes of internal ballast (a neat trick that boosts internal volume).

North Sea Sails in Tollesbury, Essex, produced her vast 3,500ft2 of canvas flown over five sails. The 60ft spars are of Devonian Douglas fir – it took the driver of their low-loader two days to navigate a route to Truro.

Without a surviving Falmouth pilot cutter as a template for his replica, Powell worked from a 1:12 half-model plus contemporary photos of an 1855 boat called the Vincent that worked out of St Mawes (the name is from Admiral Edward Pellew, the son of a St Mawes packet-ship captain who became a hero of the Napoleonic wars, noted for his skill and humane treatment of prisoners). And despite her larger size, Powell produced her lines as he always did – on paper.

While eschewing CAD design sounds almost wilfully traditional, it’s Powell’s secret to fine-tuning a design. He explains: “You get more deeply involved in it [on paper] – you see the faults, the kinks in the line whereas on a computer it always looks good. You can’t look into the depths of a design if it’s too easy to make.”

Initial drawings usually take him a month. “Then I’ll leave it for a month to see it with fresh eyes. It’s absolutely like painting.”

Like painting, Powell believes that, certain parameters aside, 98% of good design comes down to aesthetics. “There’s no point building a boat that is not pretty. You have to fall in love with it.”
Most of us can relate to that.

Brute force is all that’s needed to haul in the jib sheet, provided here by Sam Coltman (left) and Luke Powell. Photo: Nic Compton

There’s no logic to the allure of wooden boats. Or at least none beyond their elegant lines, perhaps a second sense that on such craft form follows function. One look at those old pilot cutters and you feel that there is a boat to keep you safe in a blow.

As Yachting World’s Tom Cunliffe puts it in the forward to Powell’s terrific book Working Sail: ‘Luke Powell’s boats stand out in any seascape as the loveliest of all. His eye is extraordinary, but it never compromises the critical factor of how the boat swims on the water.’

A quiet radical

Coming aboard Pellew in Falmouth’s Penryn river, although she’s almost from-the-wrapper new, her spars and blocks still as shiny as conkers, she appears timeless.

Her off-black hull has a workmanlike heft to make the surrounding fibreglass yachts look like yoghurt pots, swooping rakishly from overhang to 23ft bowsprit. The only concession to modernity on deck is a doghouse over the main companionway to shelter charter crew.

Below decks, however, the old pilots would splutter into their pipes. Aft of a fo’c’sle with abundant stowage and a pipecot is a guest cabin with eight bunks stacked four a side, plus a spacious heads with a shower. A snug three-berth crew quarters with a separate heads and nav area are aft of the companionway.

Crew Kelda Smith (left) and Jess Clay tension a halyard. Photo: Nic Compton

Taking advantage of the full 18ft beam at the centre is a surprisingly modern living space. To starboard is a longitudinal galley with an electric hob and oven, and (what luxury!) a dishwasher.

To port is a pilot berth and heads, plus a dining table that seats 12 – the social heart of the boat which seems purpose-designed for yarning.

Powell lights up as we clamber below. “I love being aboard,” he says with a grin. “This feels like home. It’s the boat that I always should’ve built.”

Powell is one of life’s enthusiasts: garrulous, as romantic as he is practical when it comes to wooden boats, almost boyishly enthusiastic. He’s also as quietly radical as you’d hope of a man who, aged nine, sailed to Greece with artist parents on a 40ft fishing boat; Leonard Cohen became a family friend during their stay in Hydra.

Powell came back to England after a decade to learn his trade restoring Thames barges in Faversham, Kent. Aged 21 he returned to Greece, where a near-derelict pilot cutter caught his eye.

By then a jobbing nautical artist, he produced 50 paintings for her owner in lieu of the £3,000 price tag. It was while sailing in Greece on that boat, surrounded by one of the last wooden working fleets in Europe, that Powell had an epiphany.

“A long continuity of design and boatbuilding just stops in our time. I thought, ‘Is no one going to do something to keep this alive? Are we just going to walk away from hundreds of years of evolution?’” The upshot was Working Sail.

While romance went halfway to understanding the genesis of Pellew, the rest comes down to legacy. In the heyday of pilot cutters, before boat design became the preserve of naval architects with letters after their names, any backwater boatbuilder could’ve knocked you up a respectable wooden boat. It was just part of the trade, a knowledge passed down and refined over generations, founded on designs that had proven themselves on the water.

With a twinkle Powell says he is in “the peasant boatbuilding line”. He tells me of a letter he received from an established naval architect after launching Working Sail: “He wrote: ‘How dare you design boats! We have been educated to do this.’ When you think about it, there are a million different shapes to boats and they all work. I learned like the old builders did, by trial and error.”

So, he insists that Working Sail is nothing special. “We’re just the last people doing this.”

All of Powell’s boats are decorated with carvings, such as plant motifs around the mooring chocks and Pellew’s star at the end of the bowsprit. Photo: Nic Compton

Then Powell’s project got really interesting. After the demise of a project to restore a Cornish merchant schooner for want of funds, a friend and keen barge-sailor, Brian Paine, offered Powell a deal. He would donate £900,000 from the sale of his independent college in Rochester so that Working Sail could build a boat from scratch. (The total cost of Pellew was £1.2m.) There was just one condition – young trainees had to work on the build.

The decision was a no-brainer. “Everything dies if you don’t share the knowledge,” says Powell. “Pellew is about keeping those old skills alive.”

Five young shipwrights in their early 20s were hired to work alongside the experienced three-strong build team. Sam Coltman, 26, was lured from Pendennis to produce the metal fittings.

Everyone at the time realised Pellew was something special, he tells me as we prepare to sail, loosening the heavy mainsail, shackling halyards to the staysail and jib. These boats matter, he says: “Everything is different about a wooden boat: the movement, the creaks. They feel alive.”

Reassuring solidity

Powell fires up the 125hp John Deere engine deep within Pellew’s guts. The propeller shaft was set almost a metre off-centre to port. A good aesthetic call, but it gave Powell the jitters on his first trial.

“I wasn’t sure beforehand whether we would make it around the first bend in the river [because the shaft was offset] but she performed perfectly. She feels big under power but as soon as the sails go up she’s totally manageable.”

We hoist the main on one of the two not-strictly-authentic hydraulic capstan winches. “Cheating really,” Powell says, but they are there as a concession for a guest crew who will be largely novices.

“We don’t have the same skill set as those sailors of the old days. There’s no point in making her so authentic she’ll be dangerous.” He anticipates the winches will come in handy for gybes in a blow.

Pellew is embarking on a first charter season, cruising Cornwall and Scotland. Photo: Nic Compton

No chance of that for us coming out of Falmouth harbour. All sails flying – including the topsail for the first time – we make a respectable three knots towards the St Anthony Head lighthouse in a Force 3.

A mile offshore the wind fills to a southerly Force 5, tearing rags of foam from the waves. Pellew squares her shoulders and leans into the blue-black seas as the numbers climb on the log: 6 knots, 7.1, 7.5, 8 knots. “Hey! We’re really going!” Powell yells at the tiller. In a Force 7 she’ll “do 10 knots, easy”.

The topsail and flying jib come down as the topmast begins to flex. The gaff cutter was the ultimate rig of its era: flexible, relatively easy to manage, able to pivot a boat easily around its mast and drive it to windward. The perfect rig for pilot boats, in other words.

We make around 60° off the wind, perhaps a pinch less, racing towards the horizon like the pilots of old, our wake foaming behind like a steadily unfastening zip. Pellew shrugs off the building seas with an easy motion that engenders confidence. It seems a huge pity when we have to turn back.

No museum pieces

Not everyone agrees with Powell’s approach. Some classics societies have argued that replicas devalue the original boats; that the focus should be on preservation not recreation. Back on land he is scathing: “They’d rather there was one boat left that was unique so they could sit around it and polish it.”

Boats are machines, he says. “They have to function. The sea is no kinder to a boat that’s 200 years old. When they take something like the Cutty Sark and become anal about saving the wood it’s pointless. The actual boat is the shape and its fitness for sea, not the material.

The comfortable guest accommodation on board. Photo: Nic Compton

“A brand new Cutty Sark would have been much more valuable than that shocking relic now stuck above a glass cafe.”

So, yachts are not just made to go sailing they are – I’d recommend you sit down now, classics owners – also made to be ‘disposable’. That’s quite the statement from someone who has just spent five years building one.

“Boats should be mortal, not so precious you’re frightened of breaking them,” he explains. “If you break one make another! You can do that quite happily if the tradition is still alive, and the only way to ensure it’s still alive is to build not repair, which means new boats and new boatbuilders, which bring in more people, more energy. Get enough and the whole scene snowballs.”

I had assumed Pellew was another replica, albeit a large one. Yet she is in fact one of the most interesting launches in Britain in years. Combine her revival of the Falmouth pilot cutter, her blooding of a new generation of shipwrights and Powell’s refreshing take on a sector that can be somewhat Luddite and Pellew appears to be something more.

I don’t want to sound overly messianic here, but it offers a manifesto for a living classics industry, one based on more than nostalgia, and which should thrill all sailors. Better still, she is a stonking boat.

The long-term goal is to establish Rhoda Mary Shipyard as a hub for traditional boatbuilding: more apprentices (on my visit I met an evangelical 20-year-old who had never set foot in a marina before his traineeship let alone a traditional shipyard), perhaps a forge and a sailmaker. The hope is that Pellew will be the first of the big stuff.

But not for Powell. After five years living and breathing the build, he aims to hand the baton to the next generation. He wants to go sailing. This year he captains Pellew on Cornish and Scottish charters alongside his wife, Joanne, as first mate, a cook and, for longer passages, a trainee. Next year? Perhaps the Azores, maybe Norway or Greece.

The interior is surprisingly light and modern, concealing luxuries such as a boiling water tap and dishwasher, as well as a dining area for 12 crew to gather around. Photo: Nic Compton

“She represents freedom. She’s for going over the horizon. That’s what boats are all about.” Given her MCA Category 0 rating, those horizons are limitless.

So what happens if Powell is commissioned to create the first 110ft Cornish merchant schooner of the modern era? He thinks. Then with a smile: “I suppose I’d have to say yes, wouldn’t I.”

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The post Sailing Pellew, the biggest Falmouth pilot cutter in 150 years appeared first on Yachting World.

Looking north from the seafront at Cowes this April, you’d have seen the Solent as no-one in living memory has ever done: an empty vista of sea. Even two world wars didn’t unpeople the strait that separates the Isle of Wight from the UK mainland, which has bustled with the comings and goings of vessels for nearly a thousand years.

On the day lockdown eased, that ended. Everyone who had a boat wanted to go afloat, and the Solent filled once again. Even on windless days, yachts bobbed, sails up – there was nowhere to go, no rush to make headway, they were there for the joy of being out on the water alone. A pent-up urge for freedom has sharpened our focus on the pleasures of boating. Brokers were deluged with enquiries. Local charter companies, too.

Races and regattas around the world have been cancelled. Many ocean cruising sailors are still stuck. Boat shows are in doubt. This situation is temporary, but the aftershocks of the lockdown may be longer-lasting, potentially changing where we work and travel, and how we sail. A shift may be coming. In this report, we look at how we might buy, use and charter yachts after restrictions are eased.

Cowes Week has been called off for 2020. Photo: Paul Wyeth

Show and sell

Manufacturers and dealers have always been divided about shows. But how many people will want to travel to a boat show this year?

The big companies depend on them to generate leads, showcase new models and conclude sales. But smaller businesses and distributors find them a drain. Shows can be their largest expenditure in a year – transporting four or five boats and staffing a stand for ten days is a huge outlay.

But the dominance of shows may partly explain why the marine industry is so behind others in employing digital marketing tools. This is going to change; it is just a question of when.

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Liz Rushall, who compiled a report called the Futures Project for British Marine, analysing trends affecting future customers in watersports, says that the increased amount of time people spent online during the pandemic confirms the shift. “The danger for us as an industry,” she says, “is not going with it. We probably are not catching up fast enough.”

There simply isn’t enough understanding, she agrees, of what digital, social and video content can do, especially in marine businesses famous for their traditional outlooks. But look at car buying and house buying and we already see big changes, with FaceTime viewings, video walkthroughs, and 360° interactive tools.

“These save you stacks of time – it’s a brilliant thing,” says Rushall. “And every time change like this happens in another sector, consumer expectations go up for ours.”

Liz Rushall compiled a report into the future of the British marine industry

Some efforts were made early in lockdown to bring together ‘virtual boat shows’ but many were little more than an amalgamation of existing resources on another webpage or microsite.

“When I spoke to brokers, none was in favour of a digital exhibition. There is not a full understanding of a marketplace where everything could be together rather than through Google search,” says Rushall. “But look at how festivals are adapting by putting content online, and theatres. Some of it is about having a technical understanding about what is possible: you could have showcases of different experiences and activities, demos of equipment, put in interactive tools.”

Some brokers are ahead in the game, especially with video walkthroughs. Sue Grant of Berthon International has built out the brand on YouTube with guided tours of yachts in a distinctly British tone of quiet-spoken seriousness. In the US, East Coast Yacht Sales is a good example of a company that has created an impressive playlist of tours.

Online tools can help people visualise themselves on board. We noted last year at the US Sailboat Show in Annapolis how many people arrived fully informed about individual boats after viewing every available video tour of them. They were visiting the show to find out very specific information, or to meet dealers and negotiate a deal.

Some manufacturers are getting wise to this. The Hylas 60 was recently launched with a 360° web tour that gives a full view above and below deck. Others are working on software typically used in the car industry to visualise interiors in different finishes.

“The whole industry will have to reimagine itself, the way test sails and viewings are done. Now is the time to reconsider this and think creatively – how we engage with boaters rather than relying on the same format,” says Rushall.

Will virtual boat shows (above by Jeanneau) be the future?

For the time being, private viewings can meet a demand that has not abated, says Sue Grant, “But people are still looking at boats and prices are at pre-COVID levels.

“This has been a wake-up call. People want to spend time with family and friends and with most buyers we talk to it’s about the meaning of life, and about lifestyle. I don’t see that changing.”

The post Coronavirus and sailing: How COVID-19 will change the way we sail appeared first on Yachting World.

Champagne Hippy was never expected to sail again. When the keel ripped off the 82ft Polina Star III in July 2015 it sent shockwaves through the marine industry, and left a £5 million yacht sunk in 40m of water, four miles off the Spanish Costa Blanca (the crew aboard was fortunately able to launch two liferafts and was rescued by fishermen soon after the capsize).

After some 12 weeks on the ocean floor, the yacht was raised, a complex operation that further damaged the broken hull. It was taken ashore in Spain and declared a write-off: anyone who saw the photographs of the shredded structure and silted interior would have expected nothing else.

Equally unsurprisingly, the legal wranglings surrounding the Polina Star insurance claim were lengthy and complicated. Enter the family-run yard Boats.co.uk, on Essex’s River Crouch. The yard is mainly a motorboat dealer but a separate division does a lot of salvage work for insurance companies. They were contacted by the insurance company handling the Polina Star claim as it needed somewhere to secure the yacht for up to two years while legal matters were resolved.

Polina Star III was trucked across Spain and France, and through the Dartford Tunnel, before arriving in Canvey Island, Essex. She was unceremoniously shipped by barge up the River Crouch to Essex Marina, and locked away in a compound, out of bounds even to the boatyard staff. And there she stayed, in quarantine, until summer 2018.

The refit was completed in 13 months, with a team working 24 hours a day at times. Photo: oysterluxurycharters.co.uk

The Polina Star sinking was notably the first and only keel failure an Oyster Yacht has ever suffered. The hull construction of the 825s used a different system to all previous Oyster yachts. After the capsize, Oyster replaced the keel grid structures in the remaining three 825s and returned to its original manufacturing process.

The enormous costs of the incident contributed to Oyster Yachts going into receivership in March 2018. Under the company’s new management, led by Richard Hadida, the company now moulds all its hulls in-house and has brought in a Lloyd’s Register inspector to survey all yachts regularly during the build process.

Quarantined

Both compasses were reused, although one had a jellyfish inside it… Photo: Yacht Russia

“When Oyster went bust the insurers settled with the owner and the owner relinquished the boat to us to reduce his costs,” recalls Nick Barke, one of four brothers who run Boats.co.uk. “We had £180,000 of costs tied up in the boat at that point and we had to decide what to do.”

The brothers decided to repair the boat. Although they don’t usually work on sailing yachts, they had an in-house team with the skills required, and a 12-acre yard with all the workspace ready. They brought in outside contractors where additional expertise was needed. But it was never going to be a small job.

“The boat had spent a few months on the sea bed; it wasn’t pretty to say the least, there were barnacles pretty much everywhere. The effects of saltwater had got into absolutely everything, it was dirty inside, it still had food inside the boat, which had gone off. So the first thing we did was physically clean the boat from top to bottom, got out all the sand and silt.

“Then we started to strip the boat back to its bare bones, and at that stage we were able to properly assess the issues and the damage that was underneath.” The damage to Polina Star has been well documented, and was the result of manufacturing issues in the keel/hull grid structure. When the keel detached, metres of hull laminate also peeled away with it.

“There was nothing wrong with the hull or the main matrix. What was wrong was the connection between the keel stub and the prefabricated matrix, which was insufficient to support it.

“The keel was 20 tonnes and the loads had been transmitted to the hull, which is vinylester resin and very strong. But when [the matrix] snapped at the waterline on the starboard side, the boat then rolled and pulled the skin off to almost deck level on the port side. Then the vertical bonds above the keel stub snapped one by one and the keel fell off. “The hole in the bottom of the boat was so large that you could have parked a Transit van in it,” recalls Barke.

The original ensign from the Polina Star III, good as new after a wash! Photo: Claire Pengelly

The first stage of the rebuild was to strip out the original matrix. “More than half of the boat inside was removed, and the fibreglass was taken back to its bare skin. If you imagine a boat being laid up in its early stages, that was what it looked like,” Barke explained.

Modified keel stub

Next they created a plug to recreate the shape of the hull, and built a new, slightly modified keel stub for the keel, which had also been recovered from the seabed. This is a skilled area that the company specialises in. “We made the stub a little bit wider, slightly fatter at the back. Then we had the keel recast at Iron Brothers Ltd with the wider stub pattern, and then we physically started to lay up the fibreglass.”

The rebuild process was lengthy. “We’re talking four guys, seven days a week for six to seven months of laminating inside the boat – which took a little bit longer than I thought, to be fair,” admits Barke. By now, the time pressure was on, as Barke and his brothers had set themselves an ambitious target.

Photo: oysterluxurycharters.co.uk

“We found a sticker on board the boat that said ARC 2014. I didn’t know what that was so I Googled it and I said to my elder brother, James, ‘I’d like to do that next year’. We are not sailors, we’re motorboaters, so I’d never sailed before but I liked the idea of it.”

They entered the ARC 2019, which meant they needed to be in Las Palmas in the autumn of 2019. That became the deadline to finish. Besides creating a new ‘belt and braces’ integral keel matrix, designed in-house with a yacht surveyor, Barke and his team also moved the galley forwards to make the boat more charter-friendly.

“The original cabinetry was teak and quite dark so we decided to change every piece of wood to American white oak, which lightened it all up,” says James Barke. “We had a team of four cabinet makers working on the boat from autumn 2018 right through to the ARC start line.

“We also wanted the boat rebuilt to the highest standards so we aimed for Category 0 MCA coding (worldwide charter, no exclusions) and passed with flying colours,” he adds. The deck gear features salvaged original parts, including winches and steelwork.

The mast had snapped 8m up, so a new 100ft mast was built by Formula Spars in Ireland, although they were able to reuse the boom. Half of the bowsprit had also broken off, and the Barkes’ team searched online for photographs of Polina Star III for a reference to recreate it.

A complete new suit of sails was required, made by Dolphin Sails, although when clearing out the boat the brothers discovered a virtually brand-new bagged up trysail and storm staysail still aboard.

The carbon wheels are original, although the helm station was redesigned and fitted with new Raymarine electronics. Photo: oysterluxurycharters.co.uk

Upcycling

“We were able to reuse the steering hydraulic rams, the helm consoles, the carbon fibre wheels and the furlers (after a hefty service) as well as the windlass,” recalls James Barke. “The teak on deck was fine, we just had to change three planks that were damaged in the recovery. The teak deck is a work of art and testament to the quality that Oysters are built to.

“Lewmar supplied a new hydraulic system and we bought a machine especially to make all the new oil pipes.” The original port carbon fibre rudder had survived, but the starboard one was missing so they had a new one made in France.

“Everything mechanical and rigging wise is new. The original engine had corroded and electrolysis had got the better of it so we up-specced to a new Scania engine.” The boat is also fitted with twin Onan generators, a large watermaker and icemaker, electronics are Raymarine and the gallery appliances are Miele. The garage houses a new Williams 325 tender.

Champagne Hippy is fitted with a garage, giving space for tumble dryers, scuba gear and allowing the Williams tender to be deployed at short notice. Photo: oysterluxurycharters.co.uk

It was August 2019 by the time the structural work was completed and the engine bay fit out could begin.“We were cutting it a bit fine, we were finishing the boat on the way from Plymouth down to Las Palmas, so it’s been a long journey in every sense of the word,” recalls Nick.

Suddenly working with semi-custom yachting components presented a challenge. “The mast took nine months to make and the lead time for the engine was six months,” Nick adds. “Oyster’s suppliers were all great. A lot of these guys we hadn’t dealt with before, or even heard of, but they were all fantastic and loved the fact we were bringing her back to life.”

Passion project

Champagne Hippy’s refit was a true passion project, driven by a team who were not sailors, but had the vision to create something special and make the most of a unique opportunity.

Water toys include a Williams jet tender, Seabob, paddleboards and inflatables, as well as a dive compressor and scuba gear. Photo: oysterluxurycharters.co.uk

“The rebuild is three times bigger than the biggest project we’ve ever done before. It has cost us millions of pounds but it is built as a commercial boat to take charterers, mainly motorboaters who want to sail in luxury.

“So many people said it couldn’t be done and that for me was the main driving force. I knew it could be done but it did write off a whole year of my life,” concedes Nick, “I didn’t have a day off and I was working from 0600 until late every night.”

Was it worth it? “I felt this boat deserved a second chance; it was so sad to see it in that state. I couldn’t bring myself to cut the boat up, which many people wanted to do. Many people wanted the boat destroyed, but we took it on ourselves to repair it – anything’s possible if you surround yourself with the right people. We’ve got the right people and we brought this boat back to life. We are very proud of what we have done.”

As for the Atlantic crossing, did it convert non-yachtsman Barke to the joys of life under sail? “The endgame was being able to sail the Atlantic. I had not sailed at all before this; I did enjoy it.” But, he admits, it was rather rolly, “so I wouldn’t be in a hurry to do it again for a year or two!”

Specification

LOA: 24.22m (78ft 6in)
LWL: 23.64m (77ft 7in)
Beam: 6.30m (20ft 11in)
Draught: 3.22m (10ft 6in)
Displacement: 76 tonnes (167,551 lbs)
Sail area: 371m² (3,993ft²)
Built: 2014
Design: Humphreys Yacht Design
Builder: Oyster Yachts

First published in the June 2020 edition of Yachting World.

The post Champagne Hippy: From sunken wreck to luxury charter yacht in 13 months appeared first on Yachting World.

Beam. Or beam and volume. Those are the dominant characteristics that spring to mind about cruising catamarans. You expect huge full-width saloons and cabins spread out across metres of multihull.

But standing on the flybridge of the Lagoon 620 Lady Fiona, gazing down at a teal and turquoise Sardinian inlet, it was the height that really struck me.

I hadn’t seen my children for what felt like hours, as they scampered up and down the multi-level cat. They had bounced on the trampoline, climbed to the top deck to survey their domain, launched themselves from the transom steps into the sea, played raucous card games on the aft sundeck and then tiptoed down to their own cabin to cosy up with a book as the waves lapped by.

Far above the water, you glide over – not through – the waves

Lady Fiona was their castle for a few days and she offered as many secretive stairwells and comfortable nooks and interesting viewpoints as the traditional towering variety.

I will admit that the first sail was slightly disconcerting. Unlike a monohull, which has a direct line of sight forward to everyone on deck, there was no one place on the Lagoon 620 where you could see where everyone was. How could I keep up my silent parental head-count?

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But we quickly adapted our ground rules – no walking around the side decks underway without a grown up, holding onto handrails on stairs and so on – and sailed through the week without a slip.

The trade off is a spectacular 360° perspective that could not feel more different to slipping along next to the sea in a traditional cockpit. All sail controls are led to the flybridge, where there are port and starboard wheels for manoeuvring, and both sunny and shaded spots thanks to a wide bimini.

The crew were fantastic with children, and worked hard to make the trip enjoyable for everyone

Far above the water and the engines, you glide over – rather than through – the waves. Even down on the trampoline, barely a splash reaches your toes.

The stability is quite incredible. On our first morning motorsail out of Olbia, we were given a send off by a pod of dolphins before heading out into the swell. The Costa Smerelda is a millionaire’s playground and superyachts roar past with impressive regularity.

Just as our hostess, Michelle, climbed the stairs to the flybridge with a couple of mugs of freshly brewed coffee, a vast motoryacht suddenly altered course straight in front of us, sending a rolling wave towards our bow.

Breakfast is served on the aft deck

It may have been the ultimate First World problem, but clearly those coffees weren’t going to survive. Yet Lady Fiona barely flinched, the wave disappeared under our hulls with almost no perceptible pitching. Not a drop was spilt.

It can make you a bit lazy; knowing you can put your camera down anywhere and it won’t crash to the floor. But that’s nothing compared to the Olympic-level indulgence of a crewed charter. We genuinely never had to lift a finger.

DiYachting offer luxurious skippered and crewed charters on sailing yachts over 60ft (and a couple of hand-picked motoryachts). The company is founded and run by Matt and Lizzie Abbiss, a former skipper and hostess team themselves, and they know what truly works – for crew, guests and owners.

Utter indulgence

Lady Fiona was run by highly experienced South African couple Greg Evans, the yacht’s skipper, and Michelle Collins, a talented chef. Like all diYachting crew, they live on board for the whole season and get to know the boat and local area inside out.

Three times a day the table was beautifully laid, a spectacular meal served, then magicked away, while all we had to do was decide if we’d prefer to wakeboard or snorkel or sail on next.

The paddleboards found their way to the stern before we’d decided to use them, a basket of towels would appear on deck even before we’d climbed out of the sea, while iced water and fruit plates would be waiting to refresh us. The cabins were stealthily made perfect; boat maintenance carried out so unobtrusively it was barely noticeable.

You can expect five-star service three times a day on a crewed catamaran

We have been lucky enough to experience a skippered charter before, on a monohull. Every skipper and host/hostess team work differently, and how they interact with each group of guests very much depends on individual personalities (diYachting offer a very informative guide to everything from crew tips to onboard etiquette on their website) but the space of a multihull changes things too.

Lady Fiona is the Essense model of the popular VPLP-designed Lagoon 620, and the galley was in the stern of the port hull, freeing up the vast saloon as a guest lounge. In charter mode, the galley therefore becomes part of the working area of the yacht, and being served a meal on the aft deck is much closer to a private dining experience than any kind of crew table.

While Greg and Michelle would happily join us for lunch and a chat if we suggested it, for anyone who really values their privacy, a cat charter offers full service comfort without any sense that you are sharing each other’s personal space.

Lady Fiona is a Lagoon 620 operated by diYachting

Our accommodation was impossibly luxurious. The master cabin had a huge athwartships double, a study/dressing area, and then a glorious ensuite heads complete with twin sinks, separate WC and enormous shower, plus private access to the aft deck. From bed to Med in half a dozen steps: a pre-breakfast swim has to be the most idyllic start to any day (especially when breakfast is eggs cooked to order or freshly baked banana muffins).

There were two double guest cabins forward, each with bunk-level windows. The saloon was modern, subtly finished and incredibly spacious, but we spent most of our time pottering between the various outside spaces – the covered aft deck, complete with metres of seating, outside dining space and wet bar; the flybridge, covered by a bimini and with swathes of cushions including a popular sunken lounging spot tucked just abaft the mast, and the foredeck, with yet more recliners.

Archipelago days

After leaving Olbia we first popped into Porto Rotundo, a much-smartened former fishing village that now welcomes an eclectic selection of yachts and well-heeled visitors. We made a beeline for Bar del Molo, a traditional gelateria that’s been serving home-made ice cream from a tiled kitchen since the ’50s, before reaching up to Caprera.

Caprera, a small island in the Bonifacio Straits, is a nature reserve and popular cruising spot.

Water toys include a windsurfer, SUPs and towables

The butterfly-shaped inlet of Cala Coticcio offered a sheltered spot for the night, while the morning revealed a sandy cove hidden deep between rocky outcrops for idyllic swimming and paddleboarding expeditions.

But Coticco’s beauty is well known and by lunchtime dozens of small motorboats had poured into the bay, so we set off for a gentle sail to La Maddalena.

La Maddalena is the larger of the seven islands that make up the Maddalena archipelago off the north-east tip of Sardinia, and connected to Caprera by road bridge. This forces yachts on a pleasant circular route around – rather than between – the island group. We dropped anchor in Monte D’Arena, where the shore was dotted with small hotels and campervans, but the water much quieter.

With a wider bay allowing him to pick up some crosswinds, my husband took the yacht’s windsurfer out for a spin, while my daughter and I explored some of the miniature rock islands and tiny sand pockets scattered around the bay that were accessible only by paddleboard.

The characteristic boulders that decorate the shoreline also litter the seabed of Sardinia’s coast and care would be needed exploring on a self-skippered yacht. It seems obvious, but some of the best professional navigators in the world have been caught out whilst racing in these waters and approaching some anchorages after dark would require a good deal of confidence.

Lady Fiona’s layout, with the galley in the aft hull, leaves the saloon completely open for the guests to relax in

Fortunately, while some spots were very busy during the afternoons, the majority of visitors were dayboats that returned to port by early evening, leaving our anchorages relatively uncrowded overnight. We came across no flotilla fleets, and usually found ourselves sharing with larger private yachts, and one or two glossy superyachts.

As the wind swung more to the south, there was little incentive to leave Monte D’Arena and we stayed on to enjoy the water for longer before motoring back down the eastern coast of Sardinia.

Besides swim steps on each hull, one of Lady Fiona’s most impressive features was a hydraulic semi-submergible platform which lifted to house the 4.3m tender when under way and provided an aft swim deck and handy water toy launching point that was in constant use from the moment we dropped the hook every day.

Perfect lookout from a seat on the guardrails

When a couple of inflatables blew off the boat, Greg also proved just how quickly the tender could be launched from the platform as he went to retrieve them, making it a great safety feature.

Later we passed Porto Cervo, enjoying our top-deck view of some of the Wally crews that were out training ahead of the Maxi Worlds later in September. For a brief glimpse of how the high-rolling set experience the Costa Smeralda, we spent an afternoon off Cala Petra Ruja, listening to the Balearic beats drifting from the famous Nikki Beach resort, before continuing south.

A tiny kingdom

The reach towards Capo Figari proved to be the best sail of the trip, Lady Fiona eating up some 16 miles easily, nudging double figure boatspeeds as we cruised under towering cliffs. Just rounding the headland we were slightly too headed for the big cat, but were later able to ease sheets and continue our sail toward the imposing island of Tavolara, its summit hidden by a frosting of candyfloss white clouds.

We found a spot in the shade of Tavolara on its south-western edge, the bay rapidly emptying of day-trippers to reveal what must be one of the most spectacular anchorages in the Med. There is a single restaurant on the island, but its other draws are the walking and climbing trails up its 1,800ft limestone rock faces.

Tavolara, at 5km by just 1km wide, is known as the smallest inhabited kingdom in the world, and is technically ruled by the Tonino family, who lord over just 11 subjects and a herd of wild goats. However, at anchor that night it was us who lived like kings, as Michelle produced a show-stopping lobster pasta dish.

We rescheduled our final day to spend a memorable morning watching bottlenose dolphins play as the sun rose over Tavolara’s dramatic silhouette, before paddling over to a sandy isthmus that offered good snorkelling grounds – the island is part of a marine protected area and rich with sea life.

Tavolara might be the smallest realm in all the land, but it’s a powerful little place and we struggled to tear ourselves away. The last remaining compensation was a brisk broad reach back to Olbia, enjoyed from Lady Fiona’s flybridge with its master-of-all-you-survey viewpoint. Coming back down to earth would be a wrench.

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Multi-level living

Jumping from the cat’s impressive freeboard was a favourite activity

A couple of things surprised us about our big cat experience. One in particular was how the split levels change the dynamics – Lady Fiona offers both large sociable spaces and private quiet areas, which can be hard to achieve on even a substantial monohull sailing yacht.

It was also remarkable how quiet the Lagoon 620 was – no engine noise or generator hum and zero slapping at anchor. We all slept like babies.

Realistically, on most modern cruising monohulls, only one or two charter crew would be actively involved in sailing at any one time.

On a catamaran the big transformation was how the experience changed for anyone who was not helming. Life underway instantly became much more relaxed.

Five star service

Clearly a skippered and crewed charter is a luxury option, but we were blown away but just how impressive the whole experience was. Meals were restaurant quality, the living accommodation as comfortable as a very high-end hotel, the crew warm and professional.

The water toys were also superyacht spec – a 14ft fast tender, windsurfer, two SUPs, waterskis, wakeboard, and towable banana boat (which I suspect was the highlight of my children’s entire summer, the grins were plastered on their faces for so long afterwards).

The cost

This is trip-of-a-lifetime territory, but with the sheer space available the cost could easily be split between families. For anyone considering buying a new cat, it may also give a much closer comparison than a bareboat charter yacht, so could be money well spent as a way to experience life aboard a full-spec multihull before making a major investment.

A week on Lady Fiona costs from €19,000 in low season, rising to €26,000 in July and August.

The post Sardinia charter: Living the high life on a crewed Lagoon 620 appeared first on Yachting World.

The organisers of the International Multihull Boat Show in La Grande Motte, estimate that somewhere between 900 and 1,100 catamarans were built last year.

Demand is raging, leaving manufacturers scrambling to increase capacity to meet it.

The benefits of catamarans are obvious: more living space, faster performance off the wind (and sometimes on it) and a stable platform for a more family-friendly experience.

Sailors the world over were also thrilled by the performance of the boats in the last two America’s Cups, while the circumnavigation endeavours of Thomas Coville, François Gabart et al have shown that multihulls are up to the rigours of the oceans.

Charter has been one of the catalysts for demand: the facility to pick a new or favourite cruising ground from Tahiti to the Med and try out a catamaran there.

“In our time we have seen the standard go from pretty basic 27ft monohulls to an expectation of 40ft+ monos and cats, with air-con and many more comforts,” says Julian Adams, yacht sales consultant for Sunsail and The Moorings.

“Today’s charterer can now enjoy the thrills of a performance sailing boat without having to compromise on comfort. The added stability of achieving great performance while remaining upright also opens a door to bringing non-sailing friends on trips, without the anxiety of a white knuckle ride.

“Our fleet has approximately 40 per cent catamarans currently, and the demand for catamaran purchase is now equal or greater than for that of monohulls,” he adds.

Charter ownership is attractive because you’re not responsible for the boat’s upkeep, and you can typically spread the costs of ownership more widely than you can with an outright purchase.

As first-time charter boat owner Julie Boyd explains below, you can swap weeks on your own boat for weeks anywhere the company has a charter base: “We can now sail in places that we would never have taken our previous boat.”

Location, location, location

Pick a location where you are interested in sailing, not one that you think will charter well. And don’t be put off by that old story about the Med being unsuitable for catamarans because of tight berths. Adams says: “Those smaller spots where space is at a premium are often as easily accessed by berthing your cat on a buoy or anchor and using your larger RIB to access the dock. With berthing fees as they are today, this has more advantages than one.”

The best advice is to charter with the company before you join their ownership programme – you’ll quickly see how well they take care of the boats and of their customers.

“Looking around their fleet of boats will tell a story about the level of damage they suffer and the standards of day-to-day maintenance,” says Neil Bingham of Sail Grenadines. “I would strongly recommend viewing a five-year-old boat as well as the new ones.”
Maintenance is the crucial factor here. Of course, accidents happen sometimes, but a company with a good feel for its customers and a decent repair programme should be able to keep its boats in tip-top condition. Also, check who bears the upfront cost of maintenance – usually it’s the charter firm.

What programme?

Most charter companies offer different ways of paying for your boat. At one end of the spectrum you buy the boat outright and take an annual income (often guaranteed at between 7–9 per cent). You must have the capital available and commit to a four- to five-year contract. On the other hand, you can opt to pay a smaller proportion of the boat’s cost – typically 30-45 per cent – upfront, receive no income, then buy out the remaining value of the boat when the contract reaches term. This works out more costly in the end, but it is less capital intensive.

Sunsail and The Moorings even offer their owners a buyback option at the end of the contract, where the company pays you 20 per cent of the value to surrender the boat. “It’s popular because it avoids the final cash outlay, uncertainty of costs until sale and, in the EU, hefty VAT payment,” said Adams.

Dream Yacht Charter is another big operator with bases across the globe, including some less common destinations such as Baja California, Fort Lauderdale and Mauritius. As well as the more standard contracts, it offers a Performance programme, which gives boat owners exposure to two-thirds of charter income and access to tax benefits.

The downside is that you have to pay maintenance expenses. Dream also has a Crewed Yacht programme, suitable for boats over 45ft, where it will source the crew for you.

Does it pay?

Don’t expect ‘free’ sailing, but if you have the time to make full use of your 8-12 weeks of sailing each year, it should be much cheaper than chartering. And as you can see from the figures above, the cost of ownership is substantially lower than the upfront price of the boat.

Comparing the figures is useful – up to a point, but charter ownership is no commodity, and perhaps the best advice comes from Neil Bingham at Sail Grenadines: “It is important to choose a yacht or catamaran that suits you. This is an investment in leisure; the financial return is often not the most important thing you will get from a yacht partnership arrangement.”

Ocean Cat Sailors

Lucy Van Hove, La Cigale, Nautitech Open 40Sailors

Cruising round the world as a family has been a dream of Xavier and mine for decades – even before the kids came along! When we first started going out, we enjoyed sailing holidays in Europe on monohulls, but it was on honeymoon in the Grenadines that we fell in love with catamarans, chartering a Leopard, aptly named Two Purrfect.

When the opportunity came along to take a two-year sabbatical and follow this dream, the space that a catamaran afforded a family of five made it a logical choice. We wanted each child to have their own cabin, and there were also the other advantages, like the view from the galley when cooking, no roll and not having a keel trying to sink you in the case of a hull breach.

We also knew that we wanted a boat that paired aesthetics with performance rather than a floating caravan, which quickly narrowed the field for our selection. The Nautitech Open 40, with its sleek lines and good sailing record, was our preferred option. We had lusted after the Outremer, when looking round La Grande-Motte in 2016, but the maths of the Nautitech (80 per cent of the performance, 50 per cent of the price) made the choice a no-brainer.

We bought La Cigale in La Rochelle in September 2017, and set sail for the Canaries in October, negotiating fishing nets and tankers hugging the Iberian Peninsula.

In Las Palmas we joined the ARC Atlantic Rally. The seminars, support and tracking devices set us up for the ocean crossing, while the open cockpit of the Nautitech came into its own as a social hub, hosting impromptu parties that sometimes numbered more than 30 adults and children.

Since then we have taken on board that sailing around the world often just means fixing our boat in exotic locations. Some of this may be due to wear and tear, but in a new boat like ours it tends to be due to manufacturing faults. The scariest moment came on a night sail past St Vincent, when, in 30 knots of wind, we turned to take in another reef only to discover the wheel had totally stopped responding – the steering cable had snapped. We couldn’t open the engine compartment for repairs for fear of flooding from waves over the stern, and our Garmin autopilot was finding it impossible to cope on just one rudder.

On top of this we discovered that the handle of our emergency rudder was too long and was blocked by the helm seat. Luckily, our secondary Raymarine autopilot managed to cope on a single rudder, and we were able to steer safely into Rodney Bay, St Lucia, eight hours later, using our port and starboard engines.

We have had a couple more dramatic lessons along the way, such as don’t try to get wind by edging a gale; cats really don’t like it! Otherwise, it has been pretty much a case of plain, downwind sailing. In March we headed to Panama, crossing the Canal and the Equator in April – both epic maritime milestones, which we celebrated accordingly!

We are still pinching ourselves now to be in the Galápagos, preparing for our hop across the Pacific with a couple of other ARC families. Ultimately, we are heading to the Antipodes, where we plan to sell our boat before our sabbatical is over and we return to the UK. But the wind may change. Who knows?

Charter owner

Julie Boyd, Ciceron, Lagoon 39, Dream Yacht Charter

We have been catamaran owners for the past 25 years. We kept an Edel 35 in Neyland, west Wales, sailing her to the Med after we retired, before we bought Ciceron, a Lagoon 39, last July.
The Edel was fun to sail, but we decided to upgrade to a more comfortable boat with extra room for family and friends.

We were looking to buy a used Lagoon 380. We also decided that we were going to cut down on our time away from months to weeks. This would mean that the boat would sit unused in a marina for most of the year.

While we were discussing all this, we were offered London Boat Show tickets by Dream Yacht Charter, who kept in touch with us after we’d made inquiries some years before. Looking more closely at the owner-charter option, we decided that this would be an ideal way for us to fulfil our sailing desires.

We opted to buy Ciceron, based in Calanova, Mallorca, via the Dream Easy programme over five years. We paid 35 per cent of the cost of the yacht at the start and will pay another 25 per cent at the end. At that point we will either keep the boat, sell it, or put it into a charter programme and receive an income.

It is worth mentioning that the boat is of much higher specification than standard, including Yanmar 45hp diesels, 2,000W inverter, B&G touchscreen electronics, gel batteries and additional storage in the galley. We don’t receive an income with this programme, but nor do we pay any fees for berthing or management. We just pay a small turnaround fee when we use a boat.

During the five years, we get to sail our own yacht for 8–10 weeks per year in any of Dream’s bases across the world, such as Sardinia, Stockholm and the Seychelles. Being able to walk on board with a small bag to start our holiday, then walk away at the end without any maintenance or cleaning makes a pleasant change. We are very happy with our choice.

Report by Sam Fortescue

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Pelagic Australis, the flagship of my two-boat fleet, which includes the original Pelagic (my ‘Pelagians’ call me the Commodore), was back on station in the Falkland Islands at the end of August after our annual refit in Cape Town. While the bigger of the two boats made this annual 4,000-mile voyage from Chile with charter crew on board, Pelagic sat decommissioned in Stanley for the southern winter. Although I have never been one to follow a routine, this is a routine nonetheless and one that we have been keeping since Pelagic Australis was launched in 2003.

Planning a charter season in the high latitudes is essential. Yacht services could be described as primitive in the Falklands, not due to lack of expertise on the ground – the Falkland Islanders are a resourceful bunch – but rather because of the continuing economic and logistic stranglehold Argentina keeps over this British outpost since they fought the war of possession in 1982. A bilateral agreement allows only one overflight of Argentine airspace per week from Chile. The alternative is a twice weekly service from Brise Norton in Oxfordshire with the RAF ‘air bridge,’ subject to availability from the UK Ministry of Defence. Hence, there are no spare parts for yachts kept in stock in Stanley.

This goes for Puerto Williams in Chile, a charming venue at the ‘ends of the earth,’ where it is impossible to buy a spark plug. Ushuaia is better supplied, but whatever services there are in that city of 70,000 people get undermined by arcane regulations and bureaucratic inconsistencies for customs and port clearances. There is not even a fuel jetty for small craft in Ushuaia – we roll 200-litre barrels down the dock, one by one and siphon the diesel into the tanks.

Consequently, refitting Pelagic is done by remote control to a great extent. This means an end of season audit, then loading Pelagic Australis with things like her liferaft for the annual inspection, outboards, inflatables, any motors and alternators for servicing and of course the sails for loft inspection and repairs. Without our ‘walk in’ forepeak on Pelagic Australis, which is a virtual cargo hold, this would be impossible with a full contingent of charter crew. On the return ‘dead heading’ journey the big boat is full to the brim with spares, supplies and provisions, plus, more often than not, spares and supplies for my colleagues on other boats in the area.

I am left on the dock in Cape Town: I do the rounds and pay the bills. The preseason checklist is also a substantial office job. Cruising permits with the South Georgia government must be finalised. Same for Antarctica with the Foreign Office, which processes our Antarctic Treaty permit applications. All our charter guests are subject to bio-security requirements to prevent the introduction of alien species to these fragile polar environments, so several reminders are sent out to make sure everyone is on side with their equipment and clothing.

The International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators also has preseason checks including logging our applications and permits with our flag states. Verifying things like our company information, vessel call data, shore side emergency contacts, crisis management plans and our schedules for the entire season are necessary for a smooth operating season for the organisation, and for us.

Like many things today, it has become more complicated with more and more due diligence required, at least if you play by the rules. Sometimes it is hard to stomach, especially having been south in the golden period, decades ago, when we asked no-one and just cast off and went.

However, having jumped through all these hoops, whether it be for your first time, or in my case 27 seasons later, there is always that reward on making landfall: snowy mountains and icebergs.

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Entries are gathering pace ahead of this year’s Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week (3-10 August). For those still considering their plans, this year’s event will offer something for everyone, meaning plenty of ways to get involved in the racing action.

One option for sailors with the desire but not the tools is to charter a boat for either individual days or for the whole week. Britannia Corporate Events and Solent Events, both offer a comprehensive range of charter options for experienced sailors on a bareboat as well as for those new to the sport on professionally skippered boats.

Britannia Events can also offer one-design racing within the new Fairview class. Sunsail will again offer racing within their own dedicated class too.

In addition, the crew search forum is an invaluable tool on the event website, matching available crew with boats searching for extra crew for the Week.

For anyone not sure about which boat or option would suited them best, Solent Events are holding an open day from Gunwharf Quays Marina in Portsmouth on Thursday 18 April where the available options can be explored.

Sailors keen to take part in this year’s regatta are encouraged to submit their entry within the Early Bird discounted period which ends at midnight on Monday 27 May.

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With less then four months until the start of Antigua Sailing Week, entries are coming in fast and plans are well underway to make the most famous regatta in the Caribbean, a truly memorable event. If you want to take part, there are many charter opportunities for groups of friends or individuals to enjoy sailing and partying in one of the best places in the world.

Sponsor Ondeck has a range of solutions to get you racing, whether you are a beginner or a seasoned racer. Based in Antigua, OnDeck can provide whole boat yacht charters or places for individuals to sail in the official race programme.

Plus the hospitality side is not forgotten with complimentary happy hour frozen cocktails, Chivas Whisky and cold Carib being served to guests each evening from their hospitality tent right in the heart of the action at Nelson’s Dockyard.

“We are looking forward to a fantastic regatta in 2011 and will be working with the organisers and other supporting sponsors to help maintain this regatta’s reputation for great sailing and serious partying! We have a limited amount of yacht availability with 40.7s, one last Farr 40. There is also a limited amount of individual places available on one of our Farr 65s if you are quick. The recent addition of two beautiful Shipman 63s, under management to Ondeck, will also be a great addition to the regatta and we are looking for charters for these yachts,” explained Ondeck’s Simon Hedley.

From Mini-Transat to extreme Maxi record holder, there are many opportunities to enjoy Antigua Sailing Week:

Mike Slade’s 100 foot Maxi ICAP Leopard holds five world sailing speed records and numerous course records. Her first offshore race for the 2011 season will be from Antigua – in the RORC Caribbean 600 (See the March issue of Yachting World for more on this event, including pace notes) – the kick off event of the Atlantic Ocean Racing Series.

This is one of the most extreme yachts ever built and this remarkable race boat has limited availability to entertain charter guests during Antigua Sailing Week. Up to eight VIP guests can join the full race crew for the ride of their lives.

One of the stalwarts of Sailing Week is KH+P yacht charter, who have been bringing crews to Antigua for the last twenty years (380 of them to be exact!). Offering both bareboat and crewed charter, along with singles and all women crews on charter yachts and catamarans from 35 to 52 feet. Professional race trainers and a KH+P service team on a special lead boat is the reason for many top results in the bare boat classes (about 130 trophies during the years).

KA Yacht Charter’s 2007 Beneteau First 40.7 is available in full race trim with an owner’s representative onboard whilst racing. The yacht came third in class at Antigua Sailing Week 2009.

Sailing Logic’s British Beneteau First 50, Hydrocarbon is skippered by the highly experienced, Philippe Falle. The yacht has all mod cons, full set of racing sails and instrumentation, and is beautifully fitted out.

German charter company, Racecharter have several yachts available including: Jeanneau 35 One Design; Beneteau First 40.7; Farr 60 and a Mini-Transat. Some of these yachts are available just for day charter.

Global Yacht Racing’s Beneteau 47.7, EH01 is a proven race winner, having come out top yacht overall in this year’s ARC under IRC. Individual places are still available for Antigua Sailing Week.

Starchaser Sailing’s Swan 48 Snow Wolf is a beautiful, S&S Swan 48, which was completely refitted in 2009 and is well equipped for racing, coming second in Class in the last ARC. Snow Wolf can accommodate up to eight guests on board. Starchaser Sailing has other boats that can be made available.

Northern Child is a veteran of Antigua Sailing Week, the Swan 51 has a good track record and places are available for 2011. The yacht can accommodate up to eight live-aboards and a race crew of 12.

Girls for Sail has just two places left on their Elan 37, Diamonds are Forever. The team has a reputation for sailing hard and playing hard. Both experienced sailors and novices are welcome but it is unlikely that you will spend too many nights in-doors with a good book. RYA Sailing courses are also available.

Phil Munday reports that there are still spaces available aboard Jeanneau 52.2, Great Escapes, with opportunities for live-aboard. Munday is a seasoned campaigner and Great Escape completed this year’s ARC in just 13 days.

Horizon Yacht Charters are based in Antigua and have ‘mother-ships’ and spectator boats available from 40-60 ft

For more information on charter opportunities and accommodation enquiries, go to the official Antigua Sailing Week web site.

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I’ve been on some scarily ill-equipped charter boats over the years and it’s made me very cautious. Since most of these were PR trips, and being written up afterwards, you’d think charter companies might make a special effort.

If I were in their business shoes I would. So would you. But often they don’t. Crazy.

On one charter in Finland a few years ago, the list of omissions was so serious that the boat wasn’t legal and I refused to take it.

There was a disastrous skippered charter in Corfu. The skipper was so clueless that he literally didn’t know how to navigate round a reef, he took lunch with his girlfriend below while we were motoring through a busy shipping channel leaving no-one on watch and anchored for the night on a lee shore.

On another occasion when we’d been berthed stern-to a quay he motored away full speed forgetting that the anchor was still set. He proceeded to dive on it with the engine still running.

That same day he filled the outboard engine with a cigarette hanging off his bottom lip and when I asked him to trim the headsails so I could take a few sailing shots he sent his girlfriend up on the foredeck with a pair of scissors. Seriously.

When I complained about a persistent smell of gas, his remedy was to go round giving the cabins a liberal spray of air freshener. It went on and on.

And at the end of the charter the company representative said he thought it would be best if I didn’t write about it. He said a critical article would affect their advertising with us.

Er, no, it doesn’t work like that. They really thought that after finding a charter so substandard that it was dangerous we’d collude with the company to conceal it from our readers and their customers. I think not.

So these days I always email in advance to say that I would like the safety briefing to include a run over the inventory (reputable companies should insist on this as a matter of course), and if it’s not all in order I don’t set off until it is.

My attitude is that if something is skimped from the safety gear list, especially if it’s a legal requirement, other hidden areas of the boat are probably neglected too, and it’s a fair bet that the fleet is not properly managed.

This goes for one-off charter boats as well. Some of these routinely sell places for long voyages requiring a far higher standard of preparation and self-sufficiency.

I met one unhappy crew in this situation at the start of the ARC. The German sailors had bought charter places on a Croatian charter yacht. It had arrived late, and they’d already had to pay out for three unexpected days in a hotel. Now it had arrived in Las Palmas it spectacularly failed the initial compulsory safety checks.

Among other deficiencies, it had only one out-of-date fire extinguisher, gauge in the red, it was short on flares, the cooker had fallen out of the gimbals, the lifelines weren’t secured and the guardrails were held on by the friction of the clevis pin on one side and on the other by a shackle that was too small and whose pin wouldn’t screw right in. The list continued.

The skipper had to put everything right before the yacht was allowed to take the start.

One of the charterers told me that he’d known the boat was run on a shoestring and had been a bit shoddy.

“My brother sailed on this boat in the summer and he said there was a lot wrong with it but I was told it would all be put right,” he told me, looking morose.

I think the moral of these stories, one I’ve learned anyway, is not just to check the inventory careful, but to have a good nose around. Take up the floorboards up and have a peer into the bilges. Make sure you see everything working. Ask lots of questions and take notes and photos.

If you’re going offshore, get the skipper to show you the medical kit as well so you can see that anything previously used has been replaced. I’ve seen some shockers, such a skipper a couple of years ago proposing to set off across the Atlantic with nothing more a few dressings and triangular bandages, a tube of antiseptic cream and two blister sheets of paracetamol tablets.

If you are thinking of chartering a berth for an offshore or ocean passage, try if at all possible check the boat out in person first. If you can’t, contact some a couple of charterers and see what they have to say.

A sound boat is one that is properly prepared. A good skipper is someone who doesn’t allow any owner’s tendencies for cost-cutting to affect that. If things are deficient – and really this goes for an owner’s boat as well as a charter boat – be a pessimist and assume it is more of a characteristic mindset than a minor oversight.

The post Safe to charter? appeared first on Yachting World.

I’ve just spent the morning talking to Chris Satchwell who is a Director of Sunsail and runs that company’s programme of corporate sailing, team building and hospitality events from Port Solent in Portsmouth Harbour.

He gave me some impressive figures. Their fleet of 50 match Jeanneau Sunfast 37s had 6,800 yacht turnrounds (ie crew changes) in 2005 – so with an average of six crew per boat that’s an incredible 40,800 people through their boats’ companionways.

One of the biggest regattas they organise is for Polypipe, the British company that specialises in, er, plastic piping for the construction and other engineering industries. This had 480 crew taking part. ‘So, said Chris, ‘if you couldn’t find a plumber when the regatta was on you know where they were.’

The inter-brewery regatta sounds interesting too. The entry fee is a keg of their own brew.

For the full story on corporate charter and team building events see February 2007 Yachting World.

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Racing your own boat at Antigua Sailing Week sounds like great idea but often the logistics, and cost of sailing or shipping the yacht to the Caribbean, not surprisingly, keeps many potential competitors away. While some of the big racing yachts competing at the event are shipped out, others are sailed over and many of the smaller boats sailing from Europe make their way across the Atlantic on the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) at the end of the year.

An increasingly popular way to compete in Antigua Sailing Week without the stresses of taking your own yacht, however, is by chartering through one of the local charter companies in Antigua. While this may not suit everyone particularly those who prefer to race their own boat, more and more sailors are realising that the dream of racing in the Caribbean against some of the world’s fastest racing machines and world class sailors – something that once seemed so far out of reach – is now as easy as booking a flight.

One group of sailors to realise their dream last year, and who are back again competing at Antigua Sailing Week this year, are a team of long-time buddies who use the event not only to compete and have fun but as a reunion. They reckon they’ve managed to get the all clear to ‘go it alone’ for a week from wives and girlfriends back home and are well on the way to making Antigua Sailing Week an annual event.

To find out just how easy it is to sign up for a charter in Antigua we chatted to four of the 10-strong team about the process they went through to charter a yacht for the week. Colin Frost – logistics director for pharmaceutical company in Kent – said: “We can’t believe how straight forward it was and our debut last year sort of happened by chance really because we were looking for an exciting thing to do to celebrate several of our 40th birthdays. Seven of us came without the girls, which is a bit of sore point! It’s more a lifestyle than a racing holiday really. We had such a good time last year we decided to come again. This time there are 10 of us so we’ve chartered two boats.”

Simon Deane – IT director from Surrey added: “It was the event we decided on first of all. Then we had to decide how we were going to go about choosing a charter company. Interestingly we spent the most time trying to find out where to get the boat from. In the end, after lots and lots of internet enquires we decided on Sunsail, it was also the cheapest and the easiest option.”

Although lack of racing experience didn’t initially seem to be much of a concern to the group they were soon to realise once on the racecourse their safest bet was to steer clear of trouble and go for the safe option. Deane continued: “Although we all know how to sail, having shared a yacht on the Hamble for several years, and Mark [Winchcome] holding a Yachtmasters certificate, none of us had done much racing apart from the odd corporate event. As you can imagine we soon learnt that racing is a totally different ball game to cruising around the Solent. And actually potentially fairly dangerous. Only today we had a near coming together with a big racy thing bearing down on us at about a million miles an hour.”

As far as booking the charter is concerned the team say it’s very easy. Frost continued: “Once we’d decided on Sunsail it was just a matter of making a booking, and booking the flights. However, it is worth remembering that you really need to book a year in advance. This year’s yachts were booked in May last year and we got the last two boats. Also if you book early enough you’ll get a decent boat.”

Deane added: “The one we had last year was a right dog. It was a right, old tub. We went backwards most of the time. Learning the hard way we now know what to ask for when booking which includes making sure the boat has newish sails with furling mainsail, a boat that’s no more than two year’s old, slab reef main and, if possible twin heads.”

This year the boys managed to book their dream boats (two between 10 of them) and although they are not yet appearing at the top of the results, they’re really happy with the boats and the company as a whole “The good thing about Sunsail in Antigua is the maintenance and support you get. If you break your boat they come and sort it out immediately. It’s very important to have backup.”

Arriving in Antigua for Sailing Week for the first time can be a bit daunting. Although it really doesn’t take too long to familiarize yourself with the surroundings, and facilities its worth finding a local or someone who knows the Sailing Week procedure to help you along the way. According to the boys because there is not much guidance for newcomers to the event, they were really grateful for Sunsail’s help. “We do all feel there isn’t really enough guidance for first timers to Antigua Sailing Week. The logistics can be a nightmare until you know the form. The second year is always easier and you probably get more out of it. A tip would be to have a member of the crew who’s done it before, knows the ropes, where to go and eat, where to get provisions for the boat. This year, on the way from the airport when we arrived we got the taxi driver to stop at a supermarket en-route to the harbour and picked up all our provisions.”

In general however, this team of sailors who really have little racing experience between them, demonstrate how much fun they can have for a relatively small cost. According to the team the overall cost, living aboard, is about £1,000 per person for the boat and flight. All you need extra is spending money. Frost concluded: “You basically get a six-berth, 40ft boat that we fit five onto. You could easy take six but it’s quite warm out here so we decided we needed at bit more space. We had seven last year on a 45ft boat which was okay but a bit cramped.”

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UK charter company, Berkeley Marine Ltd, has been successful in winning the competitive tender for the seven RYA First Class 8s.

There was much competition for the boats which have delivered excellent match and team education and racing at many centres across the UK, with Berkeley Marine coming out on top. The company intend to add the boats to their already growing fleet of charter yachts and will be offering them for corporate events, challenge programmes, training and as part of a new race series which is due to be announced in late summer.

Tim Tavinor, who has managed the build process of both Shirley Robertson’s Yngling and Ben Ainslie’s Finn for the Athens Olympics will be handling the refurbishment of the Match Racing Fleet. Tavinor said: “I am very pleased to be involved in this project, Berkeley Marine have some exciting plans for the boats that should open up many new opportunities to a growing audience.”

Rob MacKay, Managing Director of Berkeley Marine added: “Our successful purchase of the former RYA Match Racing Fleet represents a significant result for the hard working management team at Berkeley Marine in the face of strong competition from established sailing venues and others. The considerable investment we have made on the purchase of the fleet of First 8s will now continue through to their complete refurbishing after which they will be offered to the corporate, club, youth and private charter for match, team and fleet racing. We are delighted!”

The boats will be predominantly centred on the east coast, filling a big gap in the region, but will be moving round the country as required.

For charter details contact bookings@berkeleymarine.co.uk or telephone 01245 211977.

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Kingfisher, the open 60 originally designed and built for Ellen MacArthur’s Vendée Globe 2000 Campaign, is being chartered under the banner of ‘Team888’by co-skippers Mark Denton and Jonny Malbon.

Denton and Malbon have worked together on many occasions and have joined forces to get ‘Team888’ off the ground. Ellen MacArthur commented: “Jonny has looked after Kingfisher for the last 18 months as Boat Captain and raced as part of her crew. He has a strong attachment to her and I know he will take care of her – it’s good to know she will be back out there. She is still very, very competitive and Jonny knows better than anyone how to optimise her performance.”

According to Malbon: “Team 888 is the result of many years waiting for the right time to take the stage ourselves – it will enable us to take on some top flight events, and draw on the skills and experience of those people Mark and I have met and worked with over the past few years. I am so excited about the formation of this development team, and cannot wait to get stuck into the season ahead.”

Team888’s season kicks off with the Daimler Chrysler North Atlantic Challenge in June, which finishes in Europe in time to take part in the Calais Round Britain and Ireland Race – a class race for the Open 60s. And finally, the Rolex Fastnet Race, which gives the team a chance to showcase the boats performance against the extensive fleet put together for this biannual classic.

Denton added: “We have had to take a big punt in order to secure the boat, but we will be on the start line in Newport. That said there’s still some financial mountains to climb for the team going forward, so we are hoping to attract some corporate partners who will realise for themselves the significant commercial benefits and branding opportunities available from sponsoring such a team. It’s a bit of a gamble for us without a doubt, but the opportunity just couldn’t be missed, and we believe we have put together a great package – experienced and dedicated sailors, three high profile events, and a legendary boat that needs no introduction.”

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If a trip on the Orient Express to Southampton and sailing a tall ship around the Solent to watch the America’s Cup Jubilee Round the Island Race appeals to you, make sure you sign up for the special day trip on 21 August organised by Topsail Charters and The Train Chartering Company.

This special package to view the America’s Cup Jubilee Round the Island includes a luxury trip on the Orient Express from Victoria to Southampton before boarding one of Topsail Charter’s beautifuly restored tall ships to veiw what is likely to be one of the world’s most spectacular maritime events with over 200 boats taking part.

The seven-day America’s Cup Jubilee regatta, which will be running throughout the week (18-25 August) will stage races and parades of sail by some of the world’s largest, most famous racing yachts including the magnificent J Class and 23 metres; the 12 metre class; the America’s Cup Class, together with a large number of vintage classic, as well as modern, racing yachts.

The day trip costs ‘360 per guest which includes Orient Express reservation, champagne breakfast and four-course dinner with wine, transfers, reservation and lunch with champagne on board a private schooner as well as the 100-page commemorative programme. Private Orient Express carriages for 20, 24 or 26 may be hired without a premium.

For futher details contact Topsail Charter on 00 44 (0)1273-890 328 or log on to the website:topsailcharters.com

The post All aboard the Orient Express for the big America’s Cup Jubilee appeared first on Yachting World.