After the EU referendum on Thursday the UK has been plunged into uncertainty with regard our place in the world. Reports suggest that the leader of the Leave campaign Boris Johnson had no plans for what he would do should we leave. Whichever way you voted, as a sailor you will be impacted because most […]
With the explosion of Airbnb the world has become aware of the so-called social economy. Where for hotels this will mean competition with a person with a spare room who can rent it out for a few days to help them pay their mortgage, and taxi companies feel threatened by Uber, but what’s happening for […]
While many of us will be bewitched by the sight of flying AC45s in the America’s Cup World Series or the carnage currently taking place in the Transat Jacques Vabre, very few of us will ever be mentally or physically fit enough to sail a foiling IMOCA 60 or catamaran. In learning to sail, it […]
Most leisure sailors from around the world hail from the Northern Hemisphere. Unless you’re fortunate enough to live in the US or Caribbean you’re limited as to the length of your sailing season – around this time of the year most yachties are winterising their boats and many are hauling them out for winter repairs. […]
As with navigation and other boating courses, there are different grades of First Aid and medical courses that may come in useful depending on how adventurous your seafaring plans are. Most people don’t stray too far from a place of safety on their yacht, sailing mostly in daylight hours along the coast and thereby only […]
Since the dawn of time, sailing and alcohol have had a close relationship. Whether the Royal Navy’s old tradition of keeping its men addled by giving them half a pint of rum containing 70% alcohol every day (yet giving them the Cat o’ Nine Tails if found to be drunk on duty) or your stereotypical […]
In the coming year or so, several British sailors are going to make the headlines in elite sailing. There will be some great sailing spectacles in the media, with the Americas Cup World Series in Portsmouth next month, a serious British challenger for the next Vendee Globe, and a revamped UK based international Extreme Sailing […]
Reading these blogs you’ll be aware by now that I feel that the adventure has been stolen from yacht racing. Whether being able to watch someone eat their breakfast live on the internet at Point Nemo on the South Pacific in the next Volvo Ocean Race, or two supermaxi trimarans preparing to race around the […]
A lot of learning to be a good sailor is to get your head around the mathematics of a passage. Whether predicting where you will be on crossing a tidal stream or factoring in leeway into an upwind passage, or working out where to stow your provisions for a trip to effectively balance your boat, […]
Throughout my writing for The Boating Hub I have made quite a few jokes about how one sailing qualification or another won’t prepare you for a trans oceanic voyage. Whether the top sailing qualification in Luxembourg, or a day sailing certificate from any one of a number of other countries, a basic knowledge of sailing […]