Recent content by davidaprice

Actually if you follow it to the end, you'll find it's about two things: mutual recognition of licences (in my opinion a good thing) and making licences mandatory for boating in all countries (in my opinion a bad thing). Another couple of criticisms of the questionnaire: it only allows you to...

After last summer's sailing was cancelled due to a broken shoulder, next year the plan is to return to our usual 4-6 weeks' day-sailing hops sailing west from Helsinki, through the Archipelago Sea and Åland Islands, most likely across to the Stockholm archipelago and thereabouts, then back...

In one of their guide booklets (§1.6), the Finnish 'Keep the Archipelago Clean' society states that MARPOL Annex V requires all yachts over 12 metres to display a placard notifying passengers and crew of the annex's garbage disposal requirements. Here's an example placard . Here's a page from...

In Helsinki (so quite brackish water) I polish my propeller to a shine every Spring, and I never get any growth on it. It might be that the brass polish I use leaves a layer of wax.

I use an iPad and (more often) an Android smartphone. But that's just because those are what I had anyway, not specifically chosen for sailing.

On our Maxi 999 the ST jib's sheet goes from the clew to the block sliding on the ST traveller, then forward to a block behind the forestay, then back under the ST traveller to the outermost sheave on the starboard deck organizer (the one in your first picture between the grab rail and the...

Being in Finland I was following Tapio Lehtinen, he whose boat sank last year in the Golden Globe Race in the Indian Ocean. This year he's entering the corresponding but crewed Ocean Globe Race in his Swan 55 'Galiana'. For practice they entered the Fastnet, and were dismasted off Portland Bill...

Merihaka Boat Club Finnish ensign, Finnish national ensign, Red Ensign; courtesy flags for UK, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Austria (not to be confused with that of Latvia), Åland islands; set of signal flags permanently tied together for dressing overall; member flags for...

We had a presentation from our local rigger here in Helsinki. He told us that many cruising boats here still had their original rigging from the 1980s, and it was still fine. Of course we don't do much offshore sailing here, mostly staying within the coastal archipelago, and the water here is...

The record for V065 is 602.51 .

Could they not scare off the birds by putting whistles on the tips of the blades? Not sure I'd like to live close to one, mind you.

That doesn't have smooth sides like the Flettner rotor, is it a Savonius wind turbine? The weird thing about the Flettner rotor is that the ship's engines rotate the rotor, it's not the wind rotating the rotor.

Well I win this one, Viking Grace had a Norsepower Flettner motor from 2018 to 2021, and we often saw her passing us on her Stockholm - Turku route as it passes through the most popular Finnish summer cruising grounds. Although Viking Grace's later and slightly larger sister ship Viking Glory...

Luckily the subscription can be used on all your devices, you don't have to pay again for a second device. I use the Navionics app on my Android phone (Samsung S10+), on my iPad and in extremis on my work's iPhone, which I take on longer trips as an emergency backup.

There are various articles about boat maintenance, etc. at the Swedish NF class association website: Klassförbundet för Nordisk Familjebåt . Google Translate does a fairly good job with them. They have a Facebook group, and you can be sure most Swedes will understand English if you go there and...