Practical Boat Owner

Published by Time Inc. (UK) Ltd Practical Boat Owner is Britain's biggest-selling boating magazine, trusted and respected by all its readers. A source of useful and helpful information for both power and sail boat owners, PBO helps you get the most from your boat acting as a forum for interacting with like-minded individuals.

Practical Boat Owner

Brave adventurers with the acting editor

Yacht lost after prop entanglement

A leap of faith in heavy seas

ARC fatality and yachts abandoned

Off-duty MOB response

Electric boat charging network

Boosting electronic capabilities

Yacht drug smuggler gets luxury assets confiscated

World’s ‘most expensive fish’

RYA’s carbon reduction pledge

Cruising Association new president

DIARY DATES

SOUTH COAST AND CHANNEL ISLANDS

WEST COAST, WALES AND IRELAND

SCOTLAND

EAST COAST AND SOUTH-EAST

Letters • Readers share their thoughts and opinions

Channel hopping • Essential monthly highlights from the world of online sailing channels with Kass Schmitt

Tracing the sailing Selbys • Sailing’s in your dreams, not your genes

Blankety blank • The joy of extracting a blanking rubber ring from the blanking bilges was short-lived

Birding from the helm • Why counting seabirds as a sailing hobby is an educational addiction

Fairey Swordsman 30 • Peter Poland tests a crowd-pleasing jet boat with James Bond connections

Little luggers • Compulsive boat owner Clive Marsh explains why little luggers make perfect trailer-sailers

‘We sold up and sailed away’ • Meet the ARC21 families who’ve given up everything to sail the world

Transatlantic with the ARC

Do we still need pyrotechnic flares? • Gilbert Park discusses modern distress signalling options, safety regulations and what kit he takes on board for boating and kayaking

What the RYA and the MCA say about carrying flares

CROSSING AN OCEAN What safety equipment is required for an offshore rally?

What the boat owners say • Nick Deacon and Michelle Cruwys are sailing ARC 21 with their grown-up children on Maalu 4, a Nyad 511

Katie McCabe round Britain • A dream to sail solo transatlantic is all well and good, but if you’re 14 and your mum says no, it’s time to look for options closer to home

Is Caledonian Canal cheating?

Unofficially the youngest solo round-Britain sailor

Lockdown project is just the ticket • John Rogers is a big hit in his restored classic wooden launch

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New Gear • Rupert Holmes with the latest marine innovations

Toplac single-pot paint • In 2017 Richard Hare painted his Golden Hind 31’s sheerstrake with a single pot paint. How did it perform?

Red Original bags • Ali Wood puts Red Original’s waterproof bags to the test

Mast down • Rob Crabbe recalls the rig of a new yacht breaking on a delivery trip from Dartmouth to the Southampton Boat Show

LESSONS LEARNED

PROJECT BOAT RESTORATION Time for a rewire • Maximus’s electrics are condemned and the running rigging will need to be replaced… but it’s not all bad news

Which nav lights are permissable where?

PROJECT BOAT RESTORATION Choosing and applying antifouling • Hard or soft? Copper or silicone? Ali and James Wood choose hull antifouling paint for Maximus and get to work with the rollers

Hull coatings – epoxy vs polyester resin

MANUFACTURER Q & A

APPLYING ANTIFOULING TO MAXIMUS • James Wood gets to work priming and painting the antifouling

TOP TIPS

Antifouling do’s and don’ts

Prop shaft bearing saga • A botched repair overseas...