With two new marinas on Lefkas alone, and several developments planned for the surrounding islands, Tom Fletcher looks at the future of the ever-popular cruising area…

As the Ionian goes from strength to strength as a cruising area, it is only natural that it must change with the times. Many long-term visitors and residents wish that it would stay the same as it was when they first came and retain its off the beaten track charms. However, the volume of tourism and yachts are increasing, and the region must adapt to continue to offer an attractive cruising area.

New developments and new marinas should go ahead. They will irrevocably change the areas they are situated in, but they will also help conserve nearby locations by accommodating a huge volume of boats in a well-designed modern way. They will take some of the load off the smaller harbours and bays. One marina will have a large catchment, leaving the rest of the area to a more natural future.

That does not have to mean losing the spirit of the past Ionian though. The charm of quiet fishing harbours and quiet anchorages ought to be protected. But the increasing volume of tourism is a hard problem to solve and is being played out in numerous locations across the world. The only responsible thing to do is to embrace progress and to try to guide it in a positive, sensitive direction. It is pointless to hide one’s head in the past and hope that change will pass us by.

The major concern is the environment. Whilst we all like to believe that sailing is an ecologically friendly activity, this is not always the case. The sheer volume of boats has a marked effect on our surroundings, and on wildlife. Ecological damage to the area from the constant use of anchors, holding tanks emptying black water into the sea due to a lack of pump out stations, pollution from engines and from service industries… the list goes on.

Responsible sailors and charter companies, like Sail Ionian, now rely heavily on solar power, reducing the use of generators. Electric outboards are also a major step forward. We try to improve every year, organising beach clean-ups, providing eco-friendly detergents on board the yachts and pushing new developments in green technology. We have been trying for years to find a cost-effective filtration system for the yachts’ water tanks to reduce the purchase of bottled water!

For the local municipalities, providing new facilities is a key contribution to improve standards. Marinas with modern facilities have a raft of benefits to the environment and to the local population. Collection points for waste oils, proper sewage disposal and adherence to many EU standards benefit residents as well as visiting sailors. To maintain that these developments are not wanted and will destroy the charm of the area is churlish and short-sighted.

As visitors to the Ionian, we must understand that this region, and Greece as a whole, is only just coming out of a major recession. The priority must be on a sustainable, profitable future for the region. Developers need to be held to account in this respect. Infrastructure must be invested in by the government, so that the islands can cope with the volume of visitors they receive.

Recently completed projects on Lefkada include the marina in Vassiliki and a new yacht harbour in Nydri. Unfortunately, neither is operational yet due to legal paperwork – a constant plague in Greece. The 100-berth marina in Vassiliki, which includes a substantial breakwater and new ferry quay has been held up by legal wranglings for 2 or 3 years now. When it finally opens, it will provide a much-needed facility convenient for Lefkada, northern Kefalonia, and Ithaca. The impact on the town will be beneficial, with new business and employment to support the boats and business the ferry brings. 

Nydri’s smaller 70-berth harbour should also start operating soon and will hopefully open the town to sailors. Previously the main town quay has always been taken over by large day-trip boats, leaving little space for visiting yachts. It was also badly exposed to swell and winds from the east which the new breakwater will provide shelter from. 

The mainland has its share of planned developments too, with a 400-berth marina planned for the area just to the north of the existing harbour in Palairos. There is also a large luxury hotel planned close by, near the beach of Varko. How many of these planned developments will come to fruition remains to be seen, as funding and legislation can be unpredictable.

Grand plans in Mediterranean: New Ionian marinas

One of the most contentious of the proposed developments is in Vliho Bay, Sail Ionian’s home. For many years now, a large marina has been slated for the south end of the bay. Recently, progress seems to have been made, with visits by various ministers and the publication of a 500+ page report and various architect’s drawings. The study goes into considerable detail about the environmental impact on the local area.

This marina is planned to accommodate over 800 berths, making it far bigger than Lefkas’ marina, and has a budget of €47 million! Local opinion is divided, and it is a subject sparking lively debate. The plan includes substantial redevelopment of the sea front in the village of Vliho, and dredging of the south of the bay. It is probably the most ambitious project in the Ionian and will make a huge change to the local area – if it actually goes ahead.

The mayor of Lefkada, Thannasis Kavadas, was quoted as saying “The Marina in Vliho, which with a capacity of 848 berths will be the 3^rd largest marina in the country, in addition to the development it will bring to the wider area, is part of the great goal we have set to turn Lefkada into a leading destination and maritime centre tourism in the Ionian. We continue, on the path of major investments, for the progress and well-being of our country and its people, with truth and work for Lefkada”.

Administration buildings and a 12-meter-high control tower are planned for the Vliho seafront, a new fishing harbour, and the south of the bay will be home to a hotel, swimming pool, and villa-style residences, as well as various support services and a boat yard.

Whilst this brave vision is an example of what the future could hold for Lefkada, it would be nice to see some more effort made to retain the character of the bay, with its history of fishing and shipbuilding. The striking modern architecture certainly does not blend into the current character of Vliho. Though it will at least replace the dilapidated hulks and sunken wrecks that persist in the corners and seem to be immovable to the municipality, despite the bay’s protected status!

Ionian marinas: Controversial development

Probably the most controversial development though, is planned for Atherinou Bay on Meganisi. The local municipality have been pushing since 2015 for a 90-berth marina in the bay, which many regard as one of the most beautiful anchorages on the island. As you can imagine, it is hotly debated with passions running high for many long-term visitors and residents. Three floating pontoons are planned to project out into the bay, with a length of 60 – 75m, anchored to a 200m floating walkway along the shore, and associated service buildings.

The Mayor of Meganisi, Pavlos Daglas, said: “A project that will spectacularly upgrade both the region and Meganisi as a whole, while it will be a driver of development as it will upgrade the tourism product of our island, it will create prospects and incentives for new investments in our place and, by extension, new jobs.”

The artist’s impressions show a sleek modern design, with low-lying buildings designed to blend into the bay’s natural landscape. 

Atherinou has always been a busy bay, with a beach bar, taverna, shop and quayside. In my opinion, a well-designed small marina would be an advantage to the area and stop the repeated environmental damage that occurs every day from countless anchors. The marina facilities will further help to protect the environment and the neighbouring bays of Kapeli, Abeliekie and Elia will greatly benefit too.

To safeguard the future of the Ionian for everyone progress must be made. Developments like these must be allowed to go ahead. But they must be held to high standards, with the vision being one of protecting the region, not of profit. The area cannot continue with the anticipated volume of boats and prosper without changing.

Facilities are as crucial to the future of yachting as the green technological development of the boats themselves. A vision for a future of electric propulsion, green energy, 100% waste recycling, and a policy of ‘leave no trace’ must be the aim, and new marinas are essential for that ambition.

Tom Fletcher is a hugely experience skipper and instructor at Sail Ionian. For more information, visit the Sail Ionian Website.

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The post Changes to Sailing the Med: How Ionian Marinas are Developing appeared first on Sailing Today.

There is a certain kind of sailor that I am always in awe of: the single-handers, Jess Lloyd-Mostyn tells us…

From the storybook-like tales of Joshua Slocum, the steadfast determination of Robin Knox-Johnston and the romantic adventuring of Bernard Moitessier to the gutsy female role models of Ellen MacArthur, Laura Dekker and Jeanne Socrates, the people who choose to sail solo are a constant source of inspiration for me. 

Those are the big-name heroes of sailing, known worldwide for their bravery, capability and strength. They are an entirely different world and another league from what I and my family are doing. But, closer to home, there are many single-handers who go out cruising like us. Not racers trying to win prizes or glory. Just ordinary folks with an unshakable curiosity about the world and a desire to go and explore it on their own terms.

In Tonga we met a pair of brothers from the United States, each with his own boat. Both had wanted to sail the world, neither wanted to answer to another voice as captain. They would sail along similar routes, at more or less the same time, sometimes making vague plans to reunite and at other times intentionally branching off in opposite directions. They had a lovely form of camaraderie; each appreciating and understanding the various challenges that the other must have faced and we listened to the two of them swapping stories for hours.

We met Charlie in the Komodo islands. He was from Australia and had little money but used it on the best boat he could. He had gradually and steadily made his way up the coral coast, into the Louisiades of Papua New Guinea, and island-hopped westwards through Indonesia. He hadn’t come from a sailing background but was taking things slowly, learning what he could, minimising his risk by taking a gentle approach to his voyages.

Tony befriended us in Malaysia. He traded his tips on Thai island anchorages for a cruising guide to the South China Sea. He was from a military background and had set his boat up extremely thoughtfully and deliberately so that it handled perfectly with a lone crew. Like us, many single handers grow to love their windvane setups as they can be depended on much like an extra pair of hands. They can be the key to a more enjoyable solo cruise, more periods of rest and a steady course held while you work on deck.

And, whilst these sailors were approaching their time at sea with a ‘give-it-a-go’ attitude, eager to meet new opportunities and the challenges of utter self-reliance, all of us cruisers should move past the sense of awe or intimidation we might feel when encountering them and instead ask for their suggestions, as you never know when you might suddenly be forced to be a single-hander yourself.

Importance of Single-handed Sailing

Starting our family and raising our three children afloat has meant there have been many times when we have taken turns to sail alone, while the rest of the crew slept on. Certainly, there was always another person there if really needed but it is surely a good thing to hone independent skills and techniques for handling a boat solo. A sudden squall on nightwatch, an encounter with a fishing vessel getting too close, or a decision to tack were all things that both myself, and my husband James, learned to attempt by ourselves, in order to try out our cruising competence. Sometimes we’d rise to the challenge of tackling these experiments. On other occasions we’d fall short and struggle, pulling the sheets clumsily, trimming the sails awkwardly.

But still, even if you’re surrounded by plentiful helping crew hands, it’s always important to at least try single-handed sailing and to manage alone. After all, if James fell overboard, I would need to harness the skills to safely manoeuvre the boat back to him and get him back on. This was so much on my mind in the early days that we incorporated it into our mile-builder courses and RYA sail-training; knowing that for a life at sea ahead of us, there would be times when each of us might be trusting the other one with our lives. 

Perhaps the most crucial gift that any experience of single-handed sailing can give us is the psychological strength to reflect on and analyse what we are capable of. Even the most stalwart lone sailor relishes the companionship of swapping stories with other cruisers at the bar; even the most jam-packed family cruising boat should be made up of several capable solo sailors. Ultimately, we are all single-handed, or should at least learn to be.

Have you tried single-handed sailing yet?

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The post Single-Handed Sailing: Importance of Learning to be a Solo Sailor appeared first on Sailing Today.

Dreaming of dropping everything to sail the world? Sailing La Vagabonde Riley Whitelum & Elayna Carausu have done just that, becoming parents, digital yacht nomads and internet sensations in the process… 

They sailed Greta Thunburg across the Atlantic and now, together with the Young Cruisers Association, have developed a much anticipated boating community app, Milly Karsten reports.

Riley Whitelum and Elayna Carausu have been sailing around the world for 9 years. With over 1.9 million subscribers to their YouTube channel, Sailing La Vagabonde, and helping to develop and launch the SeaPeople app, this Australian couple are certainly bringing a new and exciting dimension to seafaring.

‘It’s just dopamine hit after dopamine hit’, Elayna and Riley told me over a Starlink call between my London office and their boat off the coast of Amami Ōshima, Japan. 

Having met in Greece back in 2014, this Australian couple just weeks into knowing each other, took a leap of faith and set sail for the rest of the world. Elayna, tells me, “It was just meant to be one month of island hopping Greece and Turkey, and when my return flight to Australia was (…) Riley asked me, ‘do you want to come live on this boat with me and sail the world?’. Elayna was just 20, and Riley 29.

Having followed their journey on instagram and YouTube for years, I was keen to hear about their dreamlike and beautifully documented adventures first hand. However, these seasoned sailors, now parents, digital nomads, and internet sensations, also bring to light a new and continually evolving way of life, where sailors and adventurers can live and work on the go, at sea. They’re one step ahead of the working from home revolution – they’re over the horizon, and showing us what we’re missing out on. But it’s not all been picturesque archipelagos and plain sailing…

How has it been becoming digital nomads with Sailing La Vagabonde and creating content together at sea?

Elayna: It took a year for us to be able to earn a living from the YouTube channel (…) to earn what I could earn at a bar basically, it took a year for that, and it was hard work… and obviously didn’t cover the costs of setting up a production boat for bluewater cruising. 

Riley: If we go back and tell the story… We ran out of money and Elayna was making movies, but very infrequently, (…) a bit of a comical thing in between Elayna and I was that I was very practical, and I was saying well in the end what is it all for? Maybe we should be concentrating on basically anything else… 

Riley then admitted that in the beginning, with little income being made from these videos, he was sceptical, but Elayna saw potential, and asked him to give it time.

E: After a year we completely ran out of money, we had to fly back to Australia to get work. Riley worked offshore again on the oil rigs, for maybe what 3 or 4 months?… And we saved up again then flew back to the boat. 

R: But during that time our audience, which was quite small at the time, were freaking out, and they were like ‘is this going to be the end of the movies?’ … Some of those people said look, ‘sign up for this website called Patreon and we’ll all chip in a couple bucks and we can get you going again’. 

What advice would you give to someone wanting to do this?

E: We’ve seen people start out thinking it’s a good business plan, and hope on a boat and completely fail (…) that can’t come first, you need to sail and have fun and, have the videos be an afterthought and it’ll evolve. 

R: Or you know, the videos can be your passion, but sailing and boats has to be as well, you can’t have that as a secondary (…) you need to be tough basically, you need to be able to live a really hard life, not because you think you’ll make some money out of it (…) very few people are going to get compensated adequately if you consider it a job… If its a way of life that you enjoy, then yeah, it’s a banger way to live!

Are your parents and friends fully on-board?

E: We started at a time when travel blogging was just kind of new, (…) For our friends and family it was really surprising and weird, and when we’d go home for those first few years people didn’t really know how to talk about it with us (…) mostly they wouldn’t even ask, it was like we were doing something so out there it was hard to even talk about it. 

R: Social media still had that stigma… We operate in a bit of a grey zone, because we’re not merely Instagrammers, I like to think we’re not… We are on social media, but we’re not documentary film makers either, although we try to get as close to that as we can these days. So people didn’t know where to put us immediately…

E: We’re definitely not tik-tokers, (…) we’d rather just work really hard on YouTube, make good quality movies that people can sit down and watch and learn something, rather than the fast paced [Scrolling].

What has it been like raising your family on board?

R: The great thing is that Lenny in particular really and truly loves the boat, (…) we’ll spend more time away than he’d like, and that’s exactly how we’d want it, we want them to be excited to go back to the boat.

E: We bought them both back when they were only 6 weeks old, tiny little babies (…)  There’s so many easy little hacks, for example a chair that clips into the saloon table that clips them in when Riley and I have to go and take a reef (…) I think learning to sail trained us for children, because someone always has to be alert (…) someone has always got the kid hat on, like someone’s always aware of where the kids are and if they’ve got their life jackets on.

Sailing La Vagabonde & Greta Thunberg Across the North Atlantic 

In 2019, climate activist Greta Thunberg made a double crossing of the Atlantic to attend two climate conferences, her return eastward journey was made on La Vagabonde with Riley and Elayna – a harrowing winter crossing, and one which Elayna was not convinced of doing. Yet, when asking the sailing duo what their best experience had been, they’re answer was this:

R: The most rewarding is the most difficult, so whatever your hardest passage was, arriving after that is the most rewarding, so that’s going to be the Greta Thunburg trip across the North Atlantic. 

E: We had a week to prepare for this trip, we had a really great female English sailor, Nicky Henderson (…) so we had Nicky, Riley, Me, Greta, and Greta’s Dad.

R: And Lenny…

E: Who was only one… and when we left there was snow, there was ice on our boat the day we left and it was snowing, in the Chesapeake Bay, it was freezing.

R: Milly it was a ******* disaster!

E: It took us 19 days to get across the other side, and in that time there was freezing cold weather, there was hot water from the Gulf Stream…

R: There was lightning that was striking the water right near… Nicky was at the helm, she is such a rockstar… we just cannot believe how incredible… what a leader she is! 

R: I mean I could talk about that for hours… we had to go up the rig in 20 knots… the furling line for the headsail snapped and I had to go out the front in legitimately… we don’t even know what it was, but it was well over 40, because it had sustained 40 for I don’t know how long, and then the wind picked up and that’s when the line snapped (…) I had to go forwards, like crawling on my belly to try and furl in manually the headsail, while Nicky was trying to go dead downwind… 

E: You felt ‘the sublime’ on that crossing didn’t you 

I asked what this was…

R: More philosophy… So, in order to have an encounter with ‘the sublime’ the necessary ingredients are power outside of your control, particularly if it’s nature, and you need to feel threat of your life, so your life needs to be basically out of your control (…) and it was the first time that I really felt that way. 

E: It’s a feeling of Awe… 

The SeaPeople App

Alongside their sailing adventures, bringing up a family onboard, and creating content for over 1.9 million YouTube subscribers, Elayna and Riley have been busy with a new project – working with the Young Cruisers Association to create and launch a specialised app to connect sailors around the world. 

If you’ve watched their videos, you’ll know these two don’t shy away from talking about the rainy days, and trials of living/working/parenting on a boat. They talked to me about their experiences of seafarer’s isolation, particularly through the pandemic, and their difficulties with mental health over the years. 

It’s certainly a lesser spoken aspect of living afloat… We hear of grand dreamlike adventures and are shown remarkable photos of beautifully calm or high seas, but easily miss checking on a key component of life – connection and community. And so, it seems the SeaPeople app is an exciting step in the right direction.

“SeaPeople is an app designed to bring all the elements of the human side of boating into one place. Sharing your photos, the stats of your trips, your tracking history, and communicating with other boaters has been spread across multiple platforms for too long. SeaPeople brings it all into one place.”

E: We really needed something to connect all sailors… to organise sundowners on the beach, to see who’s around you, who’s onboard, if they’ve got pets or children, where they’re going and at what speed… like you can see the world on a beautiful world map and zoom in on anyone’s boat and ask them a question, ask them if they’ve got a spare part… It’s really for connecting all seafarers. 

R: Everyone on a boat, they’re living this crazy adventure, and everyone’s got a story to tell, that’s why everyone had a blog and these disparate websites that were popping up all over the world for each individual boat… this is a way for friends and family to jump on to see where you are, what you’ve been doing, and then to see other similar people that might be nearby’

SeaPeople: The Hail Feature

For Riley and Elayna, the most exciting part of the SeaPeople app is the ‘Hail’ feature. Unlike VHF, where if someone doesn’t hear you, or the message doesn’t get through, there is no way to find that message again, this feature of the app allows you to broadcast a message which stays out there – creating a space for community, conversation, and advice. 

E: With Starlink, now is the time for an app like this.

R: These ancient devices that we’re still using, like AIS and VHF, it’s just so necessary for this to exist now, for everyone’s safety and just conveniences. 

Download the SeaPeople App

We’re excited to announce the SeaPeople app will be available to download from 10th October this year. Visit www.seapeopleapp.com

How to Watch Sailing La Vagabonde Videos

Follow Riley and Elayna’s latest Sailing La Vagabonde adventures – www.youtube.com/sailinglavagabonde

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The post Sailing La Vagabonde: Digital Nomads at Sea & New Boating App appeared first on Sailing Today.

Tom’s Podcast on How to Avoid Cabin Fever – Give it a Listen!

How to Avoid Cabin Fever

‘Love, soft as an easy chair…’ sang my watchmate for the tenth time since eight bells, following with a whistled version of what he imagined to be the next line. I thought how much better Barbara Streisand delivered the number and ground my teeth silently. 

The wretch was clearly missing his girlfriend, but why he had to load up his angst on the rest of us was beyond me. ‘Why doesn’t he finish the song,’ I thought. ‘Or better still shut up?’ 

Spike, for that was his name, and I were signed on as gash hands aboard a beaten-up vessel headed south for better weather which had so far eluded her. It was February. The gales blew, the mainsail was so old that only regular attention with the needle saved it from blowing out of its bolt ropes, and the main topsail set like a pensioned-off pillow case outward bound for the rag bag. There was simply no excuse for our skipper, a paranoid hater of his fellow men; the mate was a manic depressive while the cook could only be described as a human mistake. Faced with such morale-busting circumstances, we focsle hands had every reason to be nice to one another, yet even in our small world the atmosphere was strained. These days I can see that Spike probably disliked the way Bert left his kit lying around. I didn’t care for it myself, but Bert was an amiable sort of guy. I don’t suppose my shipmates were crazy about my practising the harmonica either but, like so many before me, I fancied myself without sin, placing responsibility for the tense ambience firmly on Spike and his endless repetition of that single tuneless phrase. 

Sailors have always had a superstition about whistling. The popular explanation is that the malefactor will whistle up a headwind, but I’m convinced the truth is different. Any vessel far from land is a potential hothouse of cabin fever. We can’t escape our companions and they are certainly stuck with us. A snatch of tune whistled over and over again can provoke reprisals varying from a quick-acting dose of paraffin in the morning tea to a shove in the back near the rail on a dark night.

The chandler’s shelves are crammed with useful instruction manuals, but no author offers simple advice on dealing with a shipmate ripe for a punch on the nose. Yet grief between humans obliged to live cheek by jowl goes back a thousand years to the days of the Norse sagas and no doubt far beyond. If you haven’t experienced aggravation on a boat yet, never fear. Sail with friends or strangers for long enough and you will. Here are a few pointers. 

Unhappiness is catching. Put one misery guts in a crew and you’ll soon have a handful more. The classic sign of impending cabin fever and conflict on an extended passage is when one shipmate becomes uncharacteristically quiet and introspective. Unless the sufferer has a nasty attack of dyspepsia, he is either worried about his business or, more likely, he has a wife or sweetheart back home. Either he’s feeling bad because he’s having all the fun and she’s slaving away paying the mortgage, or he’s convinced she is even now getting it on with the plumber. In either case, he’s decided he shouldn’t be here at all. The fact that he’s obviously depressed loads you, the skipper, with the suspicion that you have fallen short in leadership when you have probably done nothing of the sort. The knock-on effects are inescapable and, whether it’s sex or the office, you have a dying duck on your hands who will wear down the spirit of the troops as surely as a Jonah. It’s your job to take steps, and the best answer is somehow to get Mister Longface talking. It’s a lonely world when you’re worried, and most discontented people can’t wait to cough it all up once they find a friend. Having rooted out the problem you can at least reassure the victim. Tell him his plumber is an ugly weirdo with nasty habits, or that his wife is probably as happy to have a quiet week or three on her own as he is. If being a confessor just isn’t your bag, delegate the job to a sympathetic crew member, but you must recognise the signs and act.      

Manners are another area of concern. When my daughter was four and still susceptible to the influence of her seniors, I shipped a young man who, among other unsavoury traits, used to pick up his wooden plate and lick it clean at the end of dinner. Although an undeniable vote of confidence in the victuals, we didn’t want the child to grow up imagining this was normal behaviour. Although inherently a decent lad, his wide array of unacceptable antics was worse than irritating. At twenty years my junior, all it really needed was a firm private word, and once I bit the bullet I was surprised at how readily he accepted the advice to clean up his act. The rest of the summer passed in comparative harmony and I was spared a stretch in the Scrubs for violent crime.

A third classic point of conflict and cabin fever occurs when people’s motives and aspirations fail to concur. On varying scales, such misunderstandings lead to divorces, boardroom brawls and wars between nations. At sea things are much the same. A ship can only go one place at a time so, if two parties want something different, one is going to be disappointed. Not having the option of stepping off onto a passing wave, the aggrieved party will generally be entered onto the list of undesirables by becoming alienated. This is bad news if the unhappy soul expected a jolly week’s yachting with nightly frolics in convivial anchorages, to find instead a prolonged session with half a gale in deep water. It’s even worse if a teenage daughter fancies an afternoon in the pricey marina handy for the boardwalk shopping mall when you want to drop the hook in a quiet creek for free. 

The best solution to cross-purpose aggro I ever heard of was dreamed up by a crew who circumnavigated from South Africa. Before committing to the trip, they sat down at the saloon table and thrashed out where they would go, why they would go there, and how long they might stay. Next they agreed who would be responsible for what, how much each would pay, and so on. The consensus was then written up as ship’s articles which they all signed. When the first rumblings of trouble sounded somewhere down in the Pacific, the skipper had only to summon all hands and lay out the agreement to which all were bound. End of problem.

As a postscript I must return to the provocation caused by the evil habit of whistling. If someone came up on deck, whistled or sang a tune from beginning to end just once, then went below again, nobody would mind at all. They might even enjoy it. It’s the unspeakable repetition of a disembodied phrase that does the damage. People don’t even know they’re doing it. 

Not long ago I was visiting a marina washroom. A lifetime had elapsed since that awful voyage with Spike, Bert, the misanthropic skipper and his mad mate. As I shook off my oilskin, a sound I recalled with horrid clarity came warbling from behind one of the loo doors.      

‘Love, soft as an easy chair….’

I slumped over the basin with a sense of déja vu before the flush sounded loud and long, and a grey-haired Spike appeared at the toilet door, somewhat stouter, but cleaner by far than ever he was in the old days. It beggared belief not only that he was there, but that the phono needle in his brain was still stuck on that same phrase. I thought of hiding in the next cubicle, but instead I manned up, shook his hand and bought him a pint. 

I’d been wrong about Spike all along. He might have been a dodgy shipmate, but once ashore he stood the next round like a gent. By the third pint, we were laughing our wellies off about that awful cook. 

‘Never hold a grudge’ isn’t bad advice either.

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The post How to Avoid Cabin Fever: Tom Cunliffe’s Column appeared first on Sailing Today.

In the first instalment of our four-part series with author William Thomson, we learn how to navigate by the stars. 

Where you are, and where you’re heading

In May 2022 I travelled to Polynesia on a project with the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation to explore how modern sailors in European waters can apply natural navigation techniques used by Pacific seafarers thousands of years ago. From watching birds to gazing at stars, riding waves and spotting clouds, we hoped to create a new way of navigating that brings together the best of both worlds, embracing technology while celebrating the timeless beauty of natural techniques. In this article I will focus on celestial navigation – stars – exploring how a basic understanding of their movements can aid your night passages, adding an extra level of information to help you work out where you are and which way you’re heading.   

Celestial Navigation: Pole Stars

As you would imagine, there are two varieties of pole stars; one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere. The northern variant is Polaris, guiding us true north more accurately than a compass, which points to the magnetic pole (and can lose accuracy if it’s near a phone or iPad). But for its wonderful precision, the North Star has one great flaw; its brightness, or lack of – there are more than fifty brighter stars in the night sky, which means it doesn’t stand out at all when you look north. To overcome this, the trick to finding Polaris is to firstly locate the easily recognisable Plough, which famously looks like a saucepan (see Infographic). 

Depending on the time, it could be either way round or even upside down, but regardless of its position the two outer stars (Dubhe and Merak) will always point towards the North Star. Simply extend an imaginary line five times the distance between the pointers and Polaris will be the only star in that area of the sky. True north is directly below the pinprick of light.  

Polaris’ altitude is equal to your latitude, which means at the North Pole it is directly overhead and at 45 degrees north it is halfway up the sky. In a beautiful symbiosis of celestial navigation, for every degree south you travel it drops by 1 degree, meaning that at the equator the North Star sits on the horizon and is not visible at all from the southern hemisphere.  

If you find yourself here, either chartering for a holiday or circumnavigating, it helps to familiarise yourself with the Southern Cross, a group of stars that pinpoint south.  

Using the Pole Star technique in the Southern Hemisphere is more complex than using Polaris because you need to do another ‘line visualisation’, like with the Plough. The first task is to find the Cross. This is done most easily by scanning the horizon at twilight and finding the two bright pointers (see Infographic), which are some of the first stars to appear after sunset. Soon after, you should see the Southern Cross appear nearby in the darkening sky.  

Now, for best results, you want to do a double line-up. Firstly, extend a line out from Gacrux towards Acrux and beyond. Secondly, imagine a line between the pointers and then extend another from the middle, going out at right angles. Now visualise this line bisecting the one from the Cross; the point beneath this is due south. As you can imagine, this technique is more complicated than using Polaris to find north, but with practice it does become second nature. Elite Polynesian navigators could also use the Southern Cross to calculate their latitude, but we’ll save that advanced technique for a rainy day. 

Celestial Navigation: Horizon Stars

From your location a particular star will always rise at a specific point on the horizon, move through the sky in a pre-determined path and then set in the same place. To understand why this happens, it helps to know a little background celestial navigation theory. Firstly, we imagine all stars embedded into the ‘celestial sphere’ (see Infographic), which is like an orb that surrounds the earth with its poles and equator in alignment with ours. Every star has a fixed position on the celestial sphere and its ‘celestial latitude’ (position north or south of the celestial equator) is called declination. This is what determines where a star rises; its bearing north or south of east is connected to its declination.  

For example, Alnilam, the middle star in Orion’s Belt (see Infographic) has a declination of 1 degree north, so it rises 1 degree north of east (89°) and then sets in a mirror-image, 1 degree north of west (271°). Sirius, which is the brightest star in the sky found by following a line from Orion’s Belt, has a declination of 17 degrees south, so it rises 17 degrees south of east (107°) and sets 17 degrees south of west (253°), when viewed from the equator. The bearings change with your latitude, but from the Northern Hemisphere Sirius will always rise approximately E-S-E and set W-S-W, part of a vast natural compass in the sky. By understanding this theory, all you need to know is a star’s declination and you can predict where it will rise and set.

Zenith Stars

Apart from Polaris, all stars share the same pattern of spending half the time rising and then half the time falling. The moment they are highest is called ‘culmination’ and this is of great use to navigators. Firstly, this is because stars always culminate on a due north-south axis. Whether it culminates to the north or south of your location depends on the star’s declination and your latitude.  

If its declination is more northerly than your latitude, it will culminate due north. But if its declination is more southerly than your latitude, it will culminate due south. At the equator, Sirius will always culminate south because its declination is 17 degrees south. In contrast, Arcturus has a declination of 19 degrees north, so from the equator it will be culminate due north, exactly above Polaris. However, from Europe both iconic stars will culminate due south because their declinations are more southerly than Europe’s latitude. 

In addition to guiding you on a north-south axis, culminating stars can help you find your latitude. This is based on the rule that if a star’s declination is the same as your latitude, it will culminate directly overhead. This is called a Zenith Star. Polynesian navigators used the concept to find their way between islands, particularly along the ‘Sea Road’ between Tahiti and Hawaii.  

Because Arcturus’ declination is the same as Hawaii’s latitude, when they sailed the route from Tahiti, Arcturus would start low on the horizon. But with every 60nm north they travelled, its culmination would rise by one degree (a fingers’ width from your outstretched hand). They knew the precise moment of culmination because Arcturus would be directly above the North Star, once they got north of the equator. Finally, after more than two thousand miles, Arcturus would culminate directly overhead, at their zenith, and they knew they were on the right latitude.  

While these techniques were used in Polynesia thousands of years ago, the beauty of natural navigation is that they can be equally useful today, closer to home. For example, Vega has a declination of 39 degrees north, which is the same latitude as the Azores, so you can use it for a cruise down south from the UK, observing it getting higher every night until you’re on the right latitude and it’s culminating directly overhead. 

Pre-planning pays dividends when navigating with the stars; knowing what times they rise and culminate, and the bearings at those moments, empowers you to get your bearings with a quick glance at the sky. All you need to do is select one of the fifty-eight official navigation stars, use your Star Calculator to work out where they will be, and off you go! 

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The post Steering by the Stars: A Guide to Celestial Navigation appeared first on Sailing Today.

The hybrid technique of anchoring, rafting and docking all at the same time, while staying cool and calm, is possible… So, here’s a guide to becoming a professional med-moorer…!

Med Mooring Masterclass

Now, this is the one thing about Med sailing that can really give UK sailors the heebie-jeebies. Back in the UK, we’re used to horrible tides and hideous weather but Med mooring is something new. Put simply, it involves backing towards the quayside while dropping your anchor, securing the stern to the quay, and then tightening up on the anchor. Simple enough? Yes. But if you screw it up, I guarantee it will be in front of a full taverna of ‘experts’ critiquing your technique. 

Picture the scenario: the morning has been glassy calm and you’ve motored, soaked up some sun and perhaps anchored and gone for a swim. After a long lunch, a light breeze pipes up and you sail lazily towards your destination. No hurry, you’re on holiday. By 4pm, the wind is starting to howl and you realise it’s time to stop having fun and head for port. By 5pm, you approach port and the wind is screaming. Everyone else moored up hours ago and you spy one last, very narrow, quayside spot.  

You’re sunburned, tired from all the fresh air and gasping for a cold beer. Yet the horror of Med mooring in a screaming gale has to be dealt with. At this point, as you back tentatively towards a sea of boats, an Italian man in budgie smugglers (yes, it is always an Italian man, always in budgie smugglers) will head towards the bow of his boat and start bellowing instructions at you in a friendly but ultimately unhelpful manner. This is the point at which you lose the plot.  

So, what’s the key to making it easy? Well, it’s utterly facile to say, but you need to be prepared. There’s not much to it, but the amount of times I have seen a boat back in while the crew are still wrestling with fenders and scrambling with lines is surprising. So here is your very simple checklist. You need: 

• fenders already in place and set to the height of the toerail with a decent-sized fender on each stern quarter and also a fender hung horizontally by a line at each end at waterline on the transom  

• two lines set up on the stern cleats that are nicely coiled and ready to be deployed, and a designated crewmember to deal with them 

• someone at the bow on the anchor winch who has been briefed to drop the anchor when you give an agreed signal  

If you’re towing a dinghy, move this forwards towards the bow. Make sure the anchor is free on the roller and ready to drop. Now, sometimes you have no choice in this, but if there is a selection, then it pays to give it some thought; you may be drawn to the wide-open spaces, but this is not always a good thing. If there is a crosswind blowing at all, then the more space you have, the more chance there is you will be blown around as you try to secure the boat. If you select a nice narrow space, then once you are in it, you are effectively held in place by the yachts to either side while you sort out your lines and tighten up on the anchor.  

The type of yacht you moor alongside makes a difference, too. If it’s a high-sided superyacht it provides good shelter, but it can be intimidating to come alongside if there’s a crew aboard who might go spare if you scrape it. If a yacht is the same height as yours, you can guide yourself in with your hands if needs be. 

Dropping the anchor is obviously critical. Get this wrong and it doesn’t matter how well you park, you’ll have to do it again. The key is not to cross over someone else’s anchor chain as this leads to a whole world of misery the next day. If you’re lucky, the water will be clear enough that you can just look down and see where the anchors are. This, however, is rare. A visual inspection of the boats already on the dock and the direction in which their anchor chains are pointing should help. There is a bit of guesswork involved though. If there’s a crosswind, you’ll also have to make allowance for being blown down.  

Now you need to start backing in and dropping the chain. You want to be around three or four boat lengths out, although this is also dictated by depth; some Greek harbours can be ridiculously deep, so more chain is required. I have witnessed a yacht back gently in while dropping the anchor and chain into the dinghy that was tied at the bow. This did not work very well, although, remarkably, the boat was left in this state overnight. Avoid repeating this mistake. 

If it’s calm, you can back in gently and drop plenty of chain. It should be relatively hassle-free. It’s the wind that is the problem, as you need enough way on the boat to ensure you don’t get blown off course, but also to be moving sufficiently slowly to actually drop enough chain for the boat to hold. It’s therefore worth starting your anchor drop a bit further out and maintaining decent speed as you approach. Stay calm and don’t be afraid to bail out if you aren’t comfortable with how things are going.  

Obviously, by the time you reach the quay, you don’t need to be dropping the anchor any more. You should have briefed your crew already about this, but I have done this and still found them blithely lowering away while the stern lines are being secured. It’s annoying but not the end of the world as you have to tighten up on the chain anyway.  

At this point, all the action is at the stern, where you need to get your stern lines on. As often as not, there will be helping hands on the quayside. As soon as you have one or preferably both lines on, you are in a good place as, unless you are in extremely windy conditions, you can knock the boat gently ahead and keep it nice and straight by ‘steering’ it on the stern lines. This keeps the boat off the quay, and you can tighten up the anchor chain at your leisure. Make sure you don’t have any lines in the water before doing this! 

The best part of med mooring: Afterwards

Now feeling relaxed, you can tighten up your anchor chain and pray it doesn’t pull out. Once it is nice and tight, reverse hard on it and tighten up the stern lines so that you can actually step ashore. Once satisfied, head for a taverna and enjoy a cool beer. 

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The post Med Mooring Masterclass: How to Moor with Perfect Technique appeared first on Sailing Today.

While things rarely go to plan at sea, passage planning and spending time on the theory are among Clive Loughlin’s top cruising tips.

Theory is for use in practice 

When teaching Day Skippers I will often set them a first-night pub quiz:  If A and B are 10 miles apart and we have a boat speed through the water of 5 knots – how long will it take us to go from A to B if we have a 2 knot tidal stream with us, and how long if we have 2 knots against? 

With zero tidal stream the journey would obviously take 2 hours, but going with the tide our speed over the ground is 7 knots so the 10nm would take a bit less than 1hr 30 mins; and with the tide against and an SOG of just 3 knots the same journey would take over 3 hours – more than twice as long. 

Of course everyone gets the correct answer, but this often triggers the recollection of nightmare passages that they have done as crew, when the skipper had them slogging into a foul tide for hours on end with the result that they finally arrived at their destination, tired, wet, demoralized, and too late for the restaurant they had booked. 

Time is precious, and everyone will have juggled all sorts of commitments to be able to get together with family and friends for a weekend’s sailing.   

Once on the boat everyone will be keen to get going straight away, and so a few hours passage planning in advance of a trip can easily make the difference between a horrendous endurance test, with everyone tired and grumpy and never wanting to go sailing with their skipper ever again; and a super chilled and relaxed weekend with everyone chatting enthusiastically about where to go next time. 

This issue includes a plan for a weekend’s sailing in the Solent, and my starting point for this was making multiple copies of the Almanac’s tidal stream chartlets for the area, and then marking them up with relevant times, so that I know what is flowing where for every hour of the trip. 

Once this is done it is then a relatively simple matter to see whether or not a passage from A to B makes sense at a particular time.  

With good planning we can make the very most of our time on the water and achieve far more, and have a much happier crew. It is also an enjoyable exercise in itself. 

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The post How to Passage Plan: Clive Loughlin’s Cruising Tips appeared first on Sailing Today.

We know what it’s like at the end of a sailing day… whether you’re wondering where to spend a balmy Brittany evening, or already racing an unknown competitor to get that last buoy, the top priority is finding the perfect, no fuss, peaceful anchorage. After all, once you’re done anchoring in Brittany, you can fully enjoy the picturesque surroundings, swimming in the turquoise waters, lazing on the boat, or heading ashore for supplies and to explore options for dinner! Here’s our guide to finding the top spots to end your sailing day in Brittany…

Top Ten Anchorages in Brittany, France  

Based on data from Navily.com.

Port Kerel 

Navily rating: 4.79/5 

Characteristics: Sand bed, 34% protection rating 

If it’s isolation you’re after, this may well be your spot. Situated on the southern side of Belle Ile en Mer, just off Quiberon, this spot offers good protection from most winds if not from a northerly swell. This is a deep anchorage with no access to mobile phone signal – perfect for a total disconnect. The small village of Bangor is within walking distance. 

Anse de Combrit 

Navily rating: 5/5  

Characteristics: Mud river mooring, 100% protection rating 

A picturesque mooring on the river Odet above Benodet. Not too much in terms of facilities but gained a very high score due to excellent protection and tranquillity while also being a (motorised) tender ride from Benodet. 

Anse de Saint-hernot 

Navily rating: 5/5 

Characteristics: sand bottom, 100% protection rating, beach access 

A charming mooring to the east of Douarnenez that won rave reviews thanks to a combination of excellent protection – particularly from prevailing SW winds – plus crystal clear waters. 

Anse de Morgat  

Navily rating: 5/5 

Characteristics: Mooring buoys available, Sand bed, 100% protection rating, Beach reachable by dinghy, max length 11.5m 

Looking for anchorages in Brittany with white sandy beaches? Tucked in to the south of Ushant (France), this peaceful anchorage earned rave reviews thanks to good access to a nice beach, plus shops at the small village of Morgat. 

Ile Longue  

Navily rating: 4.8/5 

Characteristics: Sand bed, 100% protection rating, Beach reachable by dinghy 

Lying in the heart of the Golfe du Morbihan and tucked to the east of Ile Longue this anchorage won rave reviews thanks to superb shelter, no mooring fees, wonderful tranquillity and good access to the nearby village of Larmor Baden. 

Anse du Fret 

Navily rating: 4.8/5 reviews 

Characteristics: Sand bed, 100% protection rating, mooring buoys available  

A good anchorage not far from Brest but offering a stark contrast to the big town. A peaceful anchorage in the heart of France’s Parc Naturel regional d’Armorique with a nice beach and access to a couple of restaurants ashore.  

Contact: +33298270197 

Mooring in Port Blanc 

Navily rating: 4.8/5 

Characteristics: Sand bed, 12% protection rating, mooring buoys available 

Looking for picturesque anchorages in Brittany? This is a stunning spot which also offers mooring buoys. Located just to the south of Treguier and offering a good day trip from the Channel Islands. The anchorage got very low protection rating as it is exposed to NW winds but the magnificent location evidently made up for this.  

Contact: VHF Ch9 or +332 96 92 89 11 

Anchoring in Plage de Brouel 

Navily rating: 4,75/5 

Characteristics: Sand/mud bottom, 100% protection rating, beach and water point accessible 

Situated in the heart of the Golfe du Morbihan, this anchorage garnered strong reviews thanks to a combination of good shelter and holding combined with access to the small island of Arz. There is a nice village on the island which is 10 minutes walk away. 

Anse de Pen-Hir 

Navily rating: 4.73/5 

Characteristics: sand bed, 88% protection rating, beach and snack bar accessible 

Hidden away south of Ushant, this is a very highly rated anchorage providing good protection and access to an excellent beach. The creperie located just above the beach was also a hit. 

Plage du Coz Pors 
Navily rating: 4.71/5  

Characteristics: Sand bottom, anchoring and mooring buoys, 65% protection rating, water point and snacks available 

Of the a anchorages in Brittany, this is on the larger side, facing onto a lovely white sand beach surrounded by rugged pink granite rocks. Located not far from Lannion this proved a hot with reviewers although it is prone to be roly poly if the swell is from the NW. There is a good selection of bars ashore in season and you can explore the island of Renote at leisure. There is a 12 Euro charge for a mooring buoy regardless of size of boat.  

Contact: +33296153800 

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The post Anchorages In Brittany: Guide to Finding Peaceful Anchoring Spots appeared first on Sailing Today.

We don’t talk about it much, but seasickness is a real menace. Michelle Segrest looks at ways to combat it.

A Rough Guide to Seasickness

Simply put, seasickness is pure misery. Until you truly experience it, you can’t really say that you know what it feels like. You can say you’ve been queasy, or that you felt a bit dizzy. But make no mistake—when you truly experience seasickness, you’ll know it. 

If you’ve never been seasick, let me try to describe it for you.  

Imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had, combined with the worst possible food poisoning. Then throw in a nasty case of ​the Flu complete with vomiting, chills, cold sweat, dry mouth, and a pounding, throbbing headache.  

Then, feeling all of this simultaneously, step inside a washing machine and turn it on the fast spin cycle. Then, just to get the full effect, hop onto the fastest, most swirly, most topsy-turvy roller coaster you can find. As your insides are spinning with the rest of you and you begin to feel the contents of your belly rise to your throat, strap yourself into the cockpit to be sure you don’t fall overboard. More importantly, this will prevent you from voluntarily throwing yourself overboard because this is precisely what you will want to do.  

Charles Darwin once wrote to his father, “The misery I endured from sea-sickness is far far beyond what I ever guessed at. If it was not for sea-sickness, the whole world would be sailors.” 

For some of us, the wretched phenomenon will strike every time we go to sea. At some point, you just accept that it’s going to happen. It can be minor, or it can be severe, but it will affect some of us to some degree on every passage. For others, the seasickness strikes less frequently. The bouts can be shorter and manageable, and perhaps they only show up in heavy offshore conditions or for other specific reasons.  

An experienced captain once told me that it’s all about tolerances. For him, he was fine until the waves reached three meters, then he generally became seasick. But in sailing conditions with less than three-meter waves, he was fine. For me, the seasickness hits me once I can no longer see land. It generally affects me for the first three days of any offshore passage, and then I tend to get my sea legs by using some natural remedies and mental techniques.  

While some sailors only suffer mild seasickness and infrequently, for some, the debilitating effects can last nonstop for several straight days and nights, as it did for me while crossing the Bay of Biscay in a 43-foot steel ketch.  

At times, I believe that every sailor experiences some level of seasickness—even if they don’t suffer as severely as I do. Experience can help. Preventive measures can help. There are ways to manage the uneasiness and to quell its effects. But let’s be clear—there is no sure-fire cure. 

Seasickness is a fascinating phenomenon. I am ultimately intrigued by it when I am not experiencing it. Therefore, I have studied it deeply and tried almost all the so-called cures—chemical, physical, natural, and psychological.   

The Science of Seasickness

Seasickness, or mal de mer in French, is the reaction of your body’s inner ear balance system to the ship’s unfamiliar motion. Your brain sees things on the ship such as walls and furniture and instinctively knows from past experience that they should not be moving, but you are. Think of it as a battle of the senses. Your balance-sensing system (your inner ear, eyes, and sensory nerves) senses that your body is moving, but the other parts do not. For example, if you’re in the cabin of a moving vessel, your inner ear may sense the motion of waves, but your eyes don’t detect any movement. This sensory mismatch confuses your brain, and in turn, you feel sick. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 100% of us have—or will—succumb to seasickness on rough waters.  

Ancient Greeks referred to it as the “plague of the sea.” Even the most seasoned mariners can fall prey to seasickness. Producers of the popular TV show, Deadliest Catch, revealed that even Edgar Hansen of the Northwestern and Jonathan Hillstrand of Time Bandit still get seasick at the beginning of each season. 

Experienced sailors who suffer from the phenomenon generally don’t stop cruising. Instead, they take precautions to lessen or prevent the miserable effects.  

There is no cure for seasickness—except maybe sitting under an apple tree. However, here are 30 tips that will help you battle your way through it.

Classic Tips for Seasickness

1. Try to stay on deck in the fresh air and focus on anything other than the moving ship.  

2. Remember that you need to let your brain adjust to this new unstable environment by allowing the horizon to act as the true point of reference. 

3. If you choose to take seasickness medicine, it’s best to take it about two hours before departure. Once the seasickness sets in, it’s too late. 

4. Try to avoid medicine that will make you drowsy if you know you have a shift at the helm within 6 hours. 

5. When you begin to feel queasy, stay busy. Grab the wheel to feel a sense of control or focus on a small task.   

6. Many professional mariners suggest putting an earpiece or earplug in your non-dominant ear to provide balance. (If you are left-handed, place the earpiece in your right ear.) 

Pharmaceutical Tips

7. Don’t take any medication or pharmaceuticals for seasickness without first consulting your doctor. 

8. Scopolamine patches work for some people, but not for all. They require a prescription and can be expensive. For me, they caused severe headaches that were worse than the seasickness. 

9. Some antihistamines can help with seasickness and motion sickness, but you should consult a doctor before taking them. 

10. Some serotonin-based anti-nausea drugs have been known to help sufferers of motion sickness and seasickness, but definitely consult a doctor before using them. 

11. Migraine medications have been known to help with motion sickness, but please be sure to consult a doctor before using them. 

12. Some seizure medications may help with seasickness, but you should consult a doctor before using them. 

Natural Tips 

13. If possible, lie flat on your back in the cabin in the middle of the ship and try to sleep (sometimes this is not possible if you are sailing with a small crew). Either stand up or lie flat on your back when you feel the seasickness set in. Don’t sit. 

14. Try to eat, but avoid spicy, acidic, or fatty food. Eat bland foods (crackers, bread, bananas, rice, plain pasta, applesauce, toast, etc.). Avoid dairy, alcohol, and anything that may make you feel bad on land. If it upsets your tummy on land, it will most definitely upset it at sea. Consider the reverse tastes of food (for example, an apple or banana tastes a lot better coming back up than tuna or yoghurt). 

15. Stay hydrated. Hydrate well the day before and the morning of departure. This means avoiding alcohol and also taking at least a few sips of water, even during heavy bouts of vomiting. Hydration will also help to prevent muscle cramps. 

16. Don’t try to cook in rough conditions. Instead, prepare in advance some snacks and cold meals and have them available to grab and eat quickly in the cockpit. 

17. Prepare a thermos of ginger tea before departing and keep it handy in the cockpit in case the queasiness sets in. In fact, anything with ginger can be very helpful for sufferers of seasickness. Try ginger tea, powdered ginger capsules, ginger candy, ginger snaps, ginger ale, even raw ginger between the teeth has a very soothing effect.  

18. Try peppermint to prevent seasickness. While sailing, I often would simply dab a little mint-flavoured toothpaste on my tongue and found it very helpful. 

19. Try devices like wrist bands or sea bands. 

20. Carrot juice, apricot juice, parsley, sage, rosemary and many other herbs and plants have been known to help with seasickness. 

21. Aromatherapy has been known to help people avoid seasickness. Use a fine mist sprayer with distilled water, lemon oil, cedarwood oil, dill oil, lavender oil and a few drops of spearmint. Spray it lightly on your face. 

22. If possible, lie in a hammock. This can greatly quell the motion. 

Psychological Tips

23. Do not stare at objects your brain will interpret as stable. Anything that involves staring at one point such as reading a book, staring at a computer screen, doing detailed needlework, or even staring at a compass might bring on a bout of seasickness. 

24. Try to relax and not focus on your fears. The anxiety of fear can greatly contribute to seasickness. 

25. Hold a potato in your left hand or find another trick that you can convince yourself will work for you. Sometimes mind over matter works if you truly believe it. 

26. When you feel the uneasiness set in, try to distract yourself with something that requires concentration (for example, recite the Greek Alphabet, count to 100 in German, sing or recite all the lyrics of a song, recite dialogue from your favourite movie).  Listen to an audible book or music. In other words, distract your brain. 

27. Embrace the things you love about being on the water and try to focus on the good things rather than the queasiness or the fear. 

28. Arm yourself with information but try to avoid doing too much research about bodies of water or conditions that scare you. 

29. Focus on the destination rather than the difficulty of the passage. Picture yourself on a soothing, relaxing beach (or wherever is your happy place).  

30. Challenge yourself. For example, while suffering four straight days and nights of seasickness on a Bay of Biscay passage, I challenged myself to never miss a shift, no matter how badly I felt.  

Everyone is different. If you are a sufferer of seasickness, use these tips as a guideline and then find what works for you. 

About the Author 

Michelle Segrest, journalist and sailor, has written a book about seasickness: “How to Battle Seasickness: 100 Tips to Help You Get Your Sea Legs,” available digitally or in paperback.   

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The post A Guide to Seasickness: How to Avoid/Combat Feeling Rough appeared first on Sailing Today.

Sustainability and environmental responsibility at sea might slip when cruising along dreamy mediterranean coasts, but here’s a welcome guide to remind us, from Sustainable Sailing Greece

The Sustainable Sailing Greece Initiative

Greece has long been associated with sailing, and thousands flock every year to sail in the crystal clear waters, chartering boats or joining flotillas across the different island regions. The Ionian in particular has seen a huge increase in the number of boats available for charter over the past years, many drawn by the region’s lighter winds and the diversity of islands to explore.  

What few people realise is that this sailing hotspot also overlaps with ecologically significant areas, including the Zakynthos Marine Protected Area, and several marine Natura 2000 sites covering over 430,000 hectares.  And what is becoming apparent is that the huge growth in boat traffic is adding pressure on these fragile marine ecosystems and the coastal communities. 

Casual sailors, chartering a boat for a week or two are usually unaware of the specific environmental issues in the Ionian region they are sailing through, and until now there was limited information available on best practices to help them to avoid negative impacts they may inadvertently cause for example through poor anchoring, which destroys sea grass Posidonia meadows, or how to interact with marine fauna that they may encounter on their journey. 

To address this, a landmark project was launched on World Ocean Day last June with a start up grant from the Ionian Environment Foundation: Sustainable Sailing Greece, aiming to work with charter companies and local organisations to provide information for visiting sailors, helping them take positive action for protecting the beautiful and unique coastline and sea of Greece. The launch focused on the production of a new Sustainable Sailing Guide, in partnership with over twenty charter companies operating out of Lefkada and Corfu. 

The Guide’s success

Over a year in the making, the Guide worked with charter companies and had input from dozens of sailors who helped shape the content to be relevant for skippers and their crew chartering boats in Greece. It drew inspiration from the RYA’s GreenBlue and Sailors for the Sea resources for sustainable boating, and includes a wide range of resources produced by Greek organisations working on marine conservation. The Guide is now on over 400 boats and available online, providing practical and simple tips for sailors on how to avoid harming the beautiful marine environment when boating and how to ‘do your bit’ with responsible practices on board and on shore, such as how to avoid pollution, leave no trace, lowering speed, choosing sustainable fish at tavernas, and advice on mooring. It also contains easily accessible information on the Ionian marine fauna and flora, and for visitors who want to play a more active role with the protection of marine wildlife, there is also detailed guidance on where to report sightings of mammals such as sea turtles, monk seals and dolphins, and how to observe them without causing undue stress and disturbance. 

The main environmental issues the Guide is aiming to address is the degradation of marine biodiversity and habitat, especially Posidonia seagrass meadows. These are critical for mitigating the effects of climate change as they bind 35 times more CO² than forests on land – they really are the lungs of the Mediterranean. We float above these amazing worlds but then drop anchor, in many cases causing damage to the seagrass and coral areas that take decades to restore. The Guide offers some practical tips on how to look out for these areas and anchor (or long line) safely without causing damage – second nature for experienced Med sailors, but good reminders for those who are new to these waters.

The Sustainable Sailing Greece initiative also aligns with Greece’s commitment to promoting sustainable tourism, which was highlighted at an event hosted by the Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) to promote the initiative last December in London.  As GNTO UK Director Eleni Skarveli noted:
It is very important for Greece and the sustainable growth of Greek tourism to support initiatives like the Sustainable Sailing Greece guide, included also within the SustainableGreece platform. VisitGreece is focusing on synergies that safeguard our seas and marine ecosystem so that we can all enjoy and proudly inherit them to the next generation. 

Interaction with companies and their clients over the course of last summer’s sailing season confirmed that there is great interest from all sides to do more to protect the seas. As readers of Sailing Today will have seen in previous editions, there are a large number of exciting initiatives in Greece that are showing what the future of sustainable sailing could look like. Some examples include Sail Ionian’s increased use of solar and electric power, and Sunsail’s installation of water purifiers on board, and the transition to completely electric outboard motors. In addition to their solar panels and water filter installation, Seafarer also organise voluntary beach clean-ups with their clients across the Ionian and other areas of Greece.

The ecological voyage continues

Plans for building on this momentum for the 2024 season are well underway, with increased focus on sharing practical information on how to minimise destruction of the seagrass meadows. Adding to the reading materials available, a short video on good anchoring and long line practice in Greece will be developed in Spring, sponsored by Sunsail and Seafarer. The Ionian Environment Foundation is also ‘on board’ for phase two, and Exec Director Simon Karythis notes:

At the Ionian Environment Foundation (IEF), we have always supported effective and impactful grassroots projects which provide practical solutions to the region’s most pressing environmental issues. As the recreational sailing sector has grown over the last two decades throughout the Ionian, it has undoubtedly put increasing pressure on the marine environment and coastal communities. The Sustainable Sailing Guide  provides essential information to help recreational sailors reduce their environmental impact, and its widespread adoption in the industry really emphasises the project’s success, which is why we are committed to continuing our support in 2024. 

So before you set sail across the Greek seas this summer, do have a look at the Guide and look out for more resources coming out in the coming months to help us all make sailing more sustainable!

Want to learn more?

For more information and to get stuck into sustainable sailing, download a copy of the Guide or learn about other local projects.

Read More:

• Maiden & Tabarly Put Women at Top: Ocean Globe Race Results
• Boat Test: C-Cat 48
• Peloponnese: Sailing In Peaceful Greece

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