World Cruising Club – E News
Find out what World Cruising Club – organizers of the ARC and other yachting rallies – are up to at the start of 2018.
Published 6 years ago, updated 5 years ago
World Cruising Club
eNews
Winter 2017/18
Welcome to the latest news from World Cruising Club! In this edition, we have an update from the close of ARC 2017, and an invitation for anyone thinking about ocean cruising to join us at the London or Düsseldorf boat shows in January to find out more and plan your next sailing adventure.
Best wishes for the holiday season and happy sailing in 2018!
World Cruising Club
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ARC Forum – meet the skippers
Saturday 13 January
Coffee from 10:00, Forum from 10:30-12:00
Novotel, EXCEL, LONDON E16 1AA
The World Cruising Club team will be hosting our popular forum on the first Saturday of the London Boat Show. This is your chance to meet with the team and learn more about what it is like to sail in the ARC.
The ARC Forum is for anyone interested in setting sail to cross the oceans with the ARC, whether you are planning for the future or almost ready to cast-off. Our panel of experienced cruisers – all of whom have sailed with the ARC – will share their experience on what it is really like to sail the from the UK via Portugal and the Canary Islands to the Caribbean and back. Discussions will include great boat gear, essential cruising tips, and inspirational tales. So whether you are planning a Biscay crossing, an Atlantic passage or a circumnavigation, get some great advice on how to prepare your boat for offshore cruising.
Take the panel’s ideas and suggestions with you into the London Boat Show and talk to the specialist bluewater suppliers exhibiting at the Show.
Connect with other future ralliers and meet and mingle with our panel and the team from World Cruising Club over coffee before the session and make the most of your visit.
The session is free to attend with advanced registration. Space is limited so don’t delay.
London Boat Show Ticket Offer: Buy a discounted ticket for £12.00 – and get a 2nd ticket FREE
We’re pleased to be able to offer you discounted entry to the London Boat Show by purchasing your tickets online through the link below and entering the discount code JG1 at the checkout.
Click here to purchase your boat show tickets online [BROKEN LINK]
Buy between 1 and 5 tickets at £12.00 each – and get a FREE ticket with each purchased ticket
* Tickets are valid for ANY one day of the Show including Preview Day on Wednesday 10th January.
* Tickets can be ordered up to MIDNIGHT on Tuesday 9th January.
* Youngsters 15 years or under go free (up to two per accompanying adult) provided tickets for them are requested when ordering adult tickets.
* A single transaction fee of £1.95 applies whether ordering one or more tickets.
* Tickets are only available as ‘Print at Home’ via the London Boat Show website.
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Boot Düsseldorf 2018
Meet the World Cruising Club Team
Come and meet the World Cruising team at Europe’s largest Boat Show. Running from 20 -28 January, boot Düsseldorf is the place to see new yachts and equipment with many World premieres taking place.
World Cruising Club’s team including German representatives, Wilhelm & Astrid Greiff and Director Jeremy Wyatt will be available on the stand E11 in Hall 11 every day to chat about all areas of ocean sailing and our worldwide events.
Join us for a glass of wine
Saturday 20 January, 5-6pm at World Cruising 11E11 The team invites you to join us for a glass of wine and some wild boar sausage. Please let us know if you like to join us.
Click here for free registration
ARC and World ARC Presentation
Saturday 20 January, 2018, 10am-1pm, Hall 10 (room 10.1A/B)
World Cruising Club is hosting a presentation over coffee at boot Düsseldorf 2018, in Hall 10 (room 10.1A/B) inside the show. The session will be an opportunity to discuss any aspects of the ARC and World ARC rallies face to face, plus meet with previous ARC rally skippers and other likeminded cruising sailors in a relaxed environment.
The rally briefing in part 1 is in English, and the ARC Skipper Panel Q&A will be in German.
The session is free to attend.
Pre-registration required.
Includes coffee
Click here to register your attendance
Information on the show, hotels and travel connections at www.boot.de
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Welcome Andy Bristow
A new hand at the helm of World Cruising Club’s events team
World Cruising Club is delighted to welcome aboard Andy Bristow as our new Operations Director. Andy has sailed for as long as he can remember and joined the WCC team in September following a full military career specializing in communications which saw him promoted to become the British Army’s Signals Officer in Chief. He also found time to complete the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race, manage and skipper the Army’s Offshore Racing program and skipper the British Army Antarctic Expedition which sailed from UK to Antarctica and back.
Onboard his own classic sloop he has enjoyed many single-handed, double-handed and fully crewed voyages including an expedition to Arctic Svalbard and other adventures. His logbook records over 250,000 miles and 15 transatlantic crossings so he is well placed to join WCC’s team of experienced ocean sailing enthusiasts!
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Learn what it takes to be a bluewater cruiser Ocean Cruising Seminar
Guildford, UK, 16/18 March 2018
If you’re considering making the transition from coastal cruising to blue water passage making, why not join our annual Ocean Cruising Seminar in Guildford, UK from 16 – 18 March.
Providing in-depth advice for planning and preparing to go ocean sailing, lecturers will share their wealth of knowledge in their specialist fields including refitting a yacht for offshore cruising, communications equipment choices, sourcing and interpreting weather forecasts and heavy weather sailing techniques.
An all-inclusive program of seminar presentations, speaker materials, hotel accommodation, meals, and social time together combine to provide a cost-effective, enjoyable in-depth learning experience.
A similar seminar also takes place in Annapolis MD, USA – 24/25 March.
Click here for more information and to sign up
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Sail to the Sun and Across the Atlantic
Discounts for double ralliers in 2018
For over two decades, ARC Portugal has been bringing together yachts of all shapes and sizes to sail south to Marina de Lagos. Offering wonderful sailing, superb seafood, and friendly beachfront ports, exploring the Portuguese coastline with the rally provides support for those getting their first taste of the live-aboard lifestyle.
In 2018, confirmed ARC and ARC+ participants benefit from one free crew space on ARC Portugal 2017 (worth £375). The rally departs from Plymouth, UK in June and crosses the Bay of Biscay to Bayona, then cruises south in a series of day sails with stopovers in welcoming marinas along the way to finish in Marina de Lagos on the Algarve a little over three weeks later.
Click here to read more about the route
or request an information pack
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Team SSB
Get your radio Ocean Ready
Last month ‘Team SSB’ were on-site in Las Palmas to provide HF SSB communications support for numerous boats before the start of the ARC. Joerg Drexhagen, together with Bob and Claire Smith, were particularly busy supporting participants to get the best out of their marine communications equipment and ensure each was ready to set off with correctly functioning equipment and the know-how to use it.
This year, Team SSB’s morning SSB radio net proved to be very popular, with many yachts calling in to check their SSB radios worked. The net could be heard all around the marina and beyond. Reports of the net being heard as far as the UK were made, that is the power of HF SSB radio.
“Although we came across some good HF installations, we still found a number of installation issues with poor antenna connections to the back-stay antenna.” Explained Bob, “In most cases, the problem was the wiring and rusty jubilee clip connection, which makes for a poor antenna. In addition, there were 3 yachts that had sailed down from Europe and decided to have ICOM M802 HF SSB transceiver fitted in Las Palmas, which we were able to do onsite.” Supplying and installing HF SSB equipment on any yacht, anywhere, is Team SSB’s business and many ARC participants were extremely thankful to have the Team SSB on hand to assist with equipment, installation, and training in the lead up to their ocean crossing.
To find out more about Team SSB please join their Facebook group [BROKEN LINK] or web page – http://www.seacom.uk
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Related to the following Cruising Resources: Rallies
SSB Radio installation and installers.
I want to report my experience on SSB and I would also like to express a word of caution about importance of proper installation of SSB and installers. I could stand in a Court of Law to defend my writing.
Recently we had an ICOM M 802 installed in Palma de Mallorca by an installer named Jörg Drexhagen (JD). We got his name from the World Cruising Club.
His name already appeared in this Forum in 2017.
He set the price for the installation, the date and the place. He choose the location of Palma because his home is close to an airport with direct flights to Palma. We came to Palma from Sardinia. He came to Palma from Germany on May 24, 2019. He seemed affable during the installation.
However, upon testing the SSB radio all the LED lights in the boat started flickering like in a discotheque and the regulator/charger of the solar panels started alarming. He said that all that was absolutely normal.
Later he realized that the regulator/charger was actually burned “because, he said, it was not grounded”. He admitted this problem as his own mistake for not recognizing that the regulator/charger was not grounded (usually they are not) and offered us to ship a new one free of charge next morning.
He said that the installation was all OK and we paid in full the requested fee.
We did not get any installation certificate nor training on the radio usage, as promised, because he tried to understand the problems created to the solar regulator. He suggested to do this over the phone.
He left the boat. The following week, he did not send the promised new regulator and actually failed to respond to our calls and emails for days. He later emailed us, admitting that he did something wrong during the installation and offered to fix his mistakes 6 months later, just before the start of the ARC in November 2019. In our opinion this would have been too late for us to learn the SSB operation. Furthermore, we would have been 6 months without any charging from the solar panels. He did not offer any other earlier date. Unacceptable.
Therefore, we had a total of five other electrician/electronic experts in Palma de Mallorca and San Diego, USA, examine the installation or its pictures. All agreed that: 1. The problem was not related to the lack of ground of the regulator/charger. 2. The tuner was erroneously placed inside the cabin and in close proximity to the regulator/charger. 3. The antenna cable from the tuner to the insulated backstay was more than 1 1/2 meters long inside the cabin and wrongly passing in the stern tube parallel and bundled to all the other electric cables for the solar panels, radar, Iridium Pilot, Simpson davits and navigation lights. 4. Furthermore, the antenna cable, out of the tuner, did not have any insulation from water/humidity.
I learned that cables carrying such a high RF could be in proximity and perpendicular to other electric/electronic cables but should never be in proximity and parallel, even less if bundled together.
They all agreed that these are fundamental mistakes and offered to provide a valid legal opinion, if asked to do so.
Since I was not contacted anymore by JD, I had two other electricians replace the regulator/charger for the solar panels, relocate the tuner in the stern locker and the copper strip away from any other electric cable. It took two days for two electricians and lots more money, being high season in Palma de Mallorca.
Needless to say, to fix JD’s mistakes in Palma and during high season was very costly. My biggest frustration was his complete lack of response, availability and professionalism.
I was later able to transmit and to receive on different frequency and send successful DSC to the Coast Guard stations, however, the amount of voice interference was in my modest opinion too much. I usually got only 3/5 clarity even in a non-crowded anchorage. I placed so called “ferrets” on the control cable and coaxial cable close to the tuner, without much improvement. I put a switch between the solar panels and the regulator because someone said that solar panels could interfere on 2 MHz band, without much improvement.
After involving 3 more “consultants” we eventually discovered the a pin in one of the connecting cable was bent and creating a poor contact according to one of the electronic consultants. Another big problem was to find “so-called experts” willing to work on an installation done by someone else and certifying the validity of the installation.
Final frustration was the total lack of response to my three emails in this regards from the World Cruising Club, that initially recommend Jorg Drexhagen to me. I never got a reply to my emails.
I later took a Long Range Course and Certificate on radio Communication in England and found out that this installer’s problems were not unknown to them. Feel free to contact me directly in this regard.
Giorgio