Recent content by westhinder

A neat solution for the chimney of the wood burning stove, so the sails don’t get stained.

Quite right. I was not overly impressed with the skipper’s explanation about not seeing the names of ships on his plotter. The Westerschelde is not a difficult river to navigate, but you have to pay attention to the shipping around you and avoid impeding them. It is not obligatory for a yacht to...

Ik heb geen achteruit. That’s quite correct and congrats you still remember that after all those years. I hope you haven’t needed to use the phrase more recently.

12-13 m is not a problem. Ossian is 12 m and has no bowthruster and we have never had difficulties. For the small harbours on the Volkerak you will have to check the depth, elsewhere no problem.

Plenty of good advice already. Just a couple of suggestions for places to visit which are a bit off the beaten track: on the Oosterschelde try Burghsluis in the northwest corner, a peaceful little harbour, or Sint Annaland in the beautiful Krabbenkreek. A visit to Neeltje Jans will provide...

We noticed a number of similar migrant vessels in several harbours on Tenerife last week

Could you possibly be confusing Scheveningen and Vlissingen? As far as I know Scheveningen has no link with the Staande Mast Route, whereas Vlissingen is the most southwesterly exit point.

Any experience with Navionics charts on chartplotter? I fully expect that not every rock will be on them, but as their data is sourced from the national hydrographic offices, I would hope that they are reasonably reliable. On the west coast of Norway we did not have any complaints.

I didn’t want to depend on touch screen only either and I’m glad I took the keypad. Putting a marker or a waypoint in an exact location when you’re hard on the wind in a seaway is so much easier. You will soon work out for yourself which actions you’re comfortable with on the touchscreen and for...

The remote keypad is mounted on a black plastic board which is fixed to the plotter. The wires are connected at the back. The whole setup sits in a bracket under the sprayhood and is stored inside the boat when not in use.

I’m watching this with interest as I’m planning to go there next summer too.

You can have that functionality a lot cheaper by combining the Axiom with a remote keypad. I picked up the idea on this forum and with one season’s experience I can thoroughly recommend it

I have made use of today’s dryer weather and a two hours’ lull in the wind to take down the sails. November and December were so atrocious that there was no sailing and the coming weeks it won’t be possible for different reasons. I’m seriously beginning to doubt about keeping the boat in...

In the Wadden Sea buoys are constantly being moved around to reflect the changing channels and depths. Charts are not necessarily redrawn at the same time. If in doubt, follow the buoys, not the chart

Plenty of these in the Wadden Sea, where often a channel branches off a main channel to go across the sandbanks to another main channel. If you work the tides carefully you can take the shortcut without having to go outside the islands. Interestingly in Dutch there is no ‘preferred’ channel, we...