A Greek island cruise becomes a matter of life and death when Michael Solano suffers a stroke nine miles from shore
Learning curve
‘I flew across the boat and landed headfirst’
Jenny Rorrison describes the series of events leading up to her brain operation following a knockdown at sea
“We watched as the mast and sails fell into the water”
Alejandro Perez describes the moment when ARC yacht Garuda was dismasted 600 miles from land
‘What I learned from a dismasting in Antarctica’
Veteran polar sailor and mountaineer Bob Shepton reflects on losing his rig while sailing with a crew of school leavers in the Drake Passage
‘We should have turned back when the storm hit’
Adam Dunlop and his wife Maria learned a few hard lessons when their engine started to struggle mid-Channel in worse conditions than forecast
‘We learned fast in fickle weather on the Cornish coast’
Ingmar Hupp encounters fog, a fouled anchor and a 44-knot wakeup call, all while attempting to adapt to rapidly changing conditions
‘What I learned deploying my series drogue in a gale’
Steve Brown found his series drogue a big asset when riding out foul weather in one of the world's most inhospitable sailing grounds
‘My solo cruise ended in a liferaft’
Phil van der Mespel had always dreamed of a long offshore adventure. When unforeseeable disaster struck, careful preparation for the worst-case scenario saw him rescued within hours
‘We were caught by katabatic winds in Oman’
Barry Grey and crew feel the full force of a downslope wind and end up running aground and being rescued by the Coastguard
‘I saw flames licking out of the companionway’
Rosemary Young recounts fire breaking out on her family cruiser and shares the valuable lessons she learned