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Tom Cunliffe | |
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| Born | 1947 (age 76–77) |
| Occupation(s) | yachting journalist, author, and broadcaster |
| Website | www |
Tom Cunliffe (born 1947) is a British yachting journalist, author and broadcaster.
|
Tom Cunliffe | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1947 (age 76–77) |
| Occupation(s) | yachting journalist, author, and broadcaster |
| Website | www |
Tom Cunliffe (born 1947) is a British yachting journalist, author and broadcaster.
Cunliffe learnt how to sail in a 22 ft gaff sloop as a teenager on the Norfolk Broads. [1] After studying law at university, he chose not to enter the profession and effectively ran away to sea instead. [2] He has worked as mate on a coasting merchant vessel and skippered private yachts as well as having been a delivery and charter skipper. He was a sailing tutor for many years, progressing from running a dinghy sailing school in the south of France to becoming a senior offshore instructor at the British National Sailing Centre in Cowes. He has been a qualified yachtmaster examiner since 1978. His many cruises in his own yachts span the Atlantic from the Arctic to the South Atlantic, east to west as far as you can go. He and his wife are keen motorcyclists and have crossed the American continent in both directions, each riding their own machines.
Cunliffe has been a regular contributor to Yachting Monthly, Yachting World , Sail magazine,Classic Boat and 'Sailing Today' for many years. [3]
A professional writer since 1986, Cunliffe has won the Best Book of the Sea award twice, for Topsail and Battleaxe and Hand, Reef and Steer. [4] He is author of the important Shell Channel Pilot for the English Channel.
In 2010 he presented the award-winning six-part BBC documentary series, The Boats that Built Britain . He also presented the popular 'Boat Yard' series for Discovery TV. He now has a big following on his YouTube channel, 'Yachts and Yarns'.
When not sailing his 44 ft cutter Constance, Cunliffe lives in the New Forest with his wife Ros where he rides a large motorcycle, grows roses, and drives a 1949 Bentley. [5]
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schooner also has a square topsail on the foremast, to which may be added a topgallant. Differing definitions leave uncertain whether the addition of a fore course would make such a vessel a brigantine. Many schooners are gaff-rigged, but other examples include Bermuda rig and the staysail schooner.
A sailing vessel's rig is its arrangement of masts, sails and rigging. Examples include a schooner rig, cutter rig, junk rig, etc. A rig may be broadly categorized as "fore-and-aft", "square", or a combination of both. Within the fore-and-aft category there is a variety of triangular and quadrilateral sail shapes. Spars or battens may be used to help shape a given kind of sail. Each rig may be described with a sail plan—formally, a drawing of a vessel, viewed from the side.
A yawl is a type of boat. The term has several meanings. It can apply to the rig, to the hull type or to the use which the vessel is put.
A point of sail is a sailing craft's direction of travel under sail in relation to the true wind direction over the surface.
Gaff rig is a sailing rig in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the gaff. Because of the size and shape of the sail, a gaff rig will have running backstays rather than permanent backstays.
Tacking or coming about is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing craft, whose next destination is into the wind, turns its bow toward and through the wind so that the direction from which the wind blows changes from one side of the boat to the other, allowing progress in the desired direction. Sailing vessels are unable to sail higher than a certain angle towards the wind, so "beating to windward" in a zig-zag fashion with a series of tacking maneuvers, allows a vessel to sail towards a destination that is closer to the wind that the vessel can sail directly.
Gipsy Moth IV is a 53 ft (16 m) ketch that Sir Francis Chichester commissioned specifically to sail single-handed around the globe, racing against the times set by the clipper ships of the 19th century.
In sailing, a boom is a spar (pole), along the foot of a fore and aft rigged sail, that greatly improves control of the angle and shape of the sail. The primary action of the boom is to keep the foot flatter when the sail angle is away from the centerline of the boat. The boom also serves as an attachment point for more sophisticated control lines. Because of the improved sail control it is rare to find a non-headsail without a boom, but lateen sails, for instance, are loose-footed. In some modern applications, the sail is rolled up into the boom for storage or reefing.
"Man overboard!" is an exclamation given aboard a vessel to indicate that a member of the crew or a passenger has fallen off of the ship into the water and is in need of immediate rescue. Whoever sees the person fall is to shout, "Man overboard!" and the call is then to be reported once by every crewman within earshot, even if they have not seen the victim fall, until everyone on deck has heard and given the same call. This ensures that all other crewmen have been alerted to the situation and notifies the officers of the need to act immediately to save the victim. Pointing continuously at the victim may aid the helmsman in approaching the victim.
Bernard Moitessier was a French sailor, most notable for his participation in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, the first non-stop, singlehanded, round the world yacht race. With the fastest circumnavigation time towards the end of the race, Moitessier was the likely winner for the fastest voyage, but he elected to continue on to Tahiti and not return to the start line in England, rejecting the idea of the commercialization of long distance sailing. He was a French national born and raised in Vietnam, then part of French Indochina.
Denise "Dee" Caffari MBE is a British sailor, and in 2006 became the first woman to sail single-handedly and non-stop around the world "the wrong way"; westward against the prevailing winds and currents. In February 2009, Caffari completed the Vendée Globe race and set a new record to become the first woman to sail solo, non-stop, around the world in both directions.
In sailing, heaving to is a way of slowing a sailing vessel's forward progress, as well as fixing the helm and sail positions so that the vessel does not have to be steered. It is commonly used for a "break"; this may be to wait for the tide before proceeding, or to wait out a strong or contrary wind. For a solo or shorthanded sailor it can provide time to go below deck, to attend to issues elsewhere on the boat or to take a meal break. Heaving to can make reefing a lot easier, especially in traditional vessels with several sails. It is also used as a storm tactic.
James Spithill is an Australian yachtsman.
The Sadler 29 is a popular British sailing yacht designed by David Sadler. Over 400 Sadler 29s were produced. In April 1988 the Sadler 29 was the oldest design to take part in Yachting World’s Mini Rally.
A sailing boat that is carrying too much sail for the current wind conditions is said to be over-canvassed. An over-canvassed boat, whether a dinghy, a yacht or a sailing ship, is difficult to steer and control and tends to heel or roll too much. If the wind continues to rise, an over-canvassed sailing boat will become dangerous and ultimately gear may break or it may round-up into the wind, broach or capsize. Any of these eventualities puts the safety of the crew and the vessel in danger. To over-canvass a sailing boat is considered unseamanlike and imprudent. In order to reduce sail, individual sails may be lowered or furled and existing sails may be reefed. Counter-intuitively, many boats will sail faster, and certainly more smoothly, comfortably and safely, when carrying the correct amount of sail in a strong wind than they would if over-canvassed and excessively rolling, heeling, carrying too much weather helm or repeatedly rounding up.
Competent Crew is the entry-level course of the Royal Yachting Association for those who wish to be active crew members of a sailing yacht. It is a hands-on course and by the end of the course participants should be able to steer, handle sails, keep a lookout, row a dinghy and assist in all the day-to-day duties on board.
A watersail is a sail hung below the boom. It is used mostly on gaff rig boats for extra downwind performance when racing. Often a watersail will be improvised from an unused foresail. Its psychological effects may be more effective than its aerodynamic ones.
Because they are so low down, they do not pull as hard as you might hope, but in races they have a shattering psychological effect on the opposition. To see a long boomed gaffer overtaking from dead upwind with spinnaker on one side, and main, topsail and watersail on the other, is devastating. She seems to fill the sky, while the air for 50yds ahead of her is so still that the victim's pipe-smoke goes straight up as his yacht is inexorably overhauled.
Adlard Coles Nautical is a nautical publisher, with over 300 books in print. The company publishes books on topics of interest to sailors and motorboaters and also ‘landlubbers’ with an interest in the sea. Their list includes almanacs, cruising guides, pilot books and how-to instruction books, as well as large format photographic books, sailing narratives and sea-related reference, maritime history, humour and trivia books.
Mike Peyton was a British cartoonist, described by his biographer as ‘the world’s greatest yachting cartoonist’.
The Day Skipper qualification confirms that the successful candidate has the knowledge needed to skipper a yacht on shorter, coastal cruises during daylight. The Royal Yachting Association administers the qualification, although most of the training is carried out by private companies.
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