AIS tracking partnership Global Fishing Watch has expanded its reach with what it believes to be the first ever publicly-available worldwide map of “undetected dark fleets” – vessels that do not broadcast AIS.

Using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites, coupled with machine learning algorithms, Global Fishing Watch has figured out how to automatically track vessels without the use of satellite AIS…

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My colleague Shanghai Sailor is offended that anyone should have the temerity to describe the British monarchy as “antiquated and irrelevant”. Perhaps he’s been singing God Save the Queen so loudly he’s become deaf to both history and reality.

Like all hereditary monarchies, the House of Windsor (whose real surname was Battenberg) is an inbred collection of entitled spongers who’ve lived luxuriously off the public purse and their largely stolen private wealth. They are a high-end form of showbiz. In the UK they are the nation’s primary tourist attraction. They have no actual authority over anything other than their own pampered lives.

The whole notion of a hereditary monarchy is ridiculous. Installing someone as Head of State purely on the basis of who their parents happened to be is as nonsensical as accepting a hereditary brain surgeon…

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There is a fair bit of chatter about the abandonment of the brand new Infinity 52 Tulikettu. here is the end result of it all…

Tulikettu was sailing from Cascais, Portugal, back to the team base in Gosport, England across the Bay of Biscay. She was sailing with her foil fully retracted when the hull struck an unidentified floating object on Monday, April 18th. There was an uncontrolled leak in the boat, the cause of which was unknown. The crew triggered the EPIRB emergency transmitter on Wednesday, April 20, after midnight.

The four-person crew worked diligently to stop the inflow of water. Two of the crew were also experienced boatbuilders. After 10 hours, and within the arrival of the rescue ship they were able to make some temporary repairs to ensure the vessel would not sink. The team was approximately 300 nautical miles offshore, very likely beyond the range of helicopter rescue.

When the rescue ship was on approach, there was a lot of water in the boat. Not knowing whether the last repairs would work, the person in charge had two choices; to wait and see if the repairs worked, or to abandon the boat. The weather conditions were worsening, with high waves. The difficult decision was made to evacuate onto the oil tanker, ensuring the safety of the crew onboard as the logistics company had ordered the tanker to leave the area as soon as possible due to worsening sea state. No one was injured in the accident. The search for Tulikettu was stopped on Saturday, April 30.

Tulikettu was abandoned off the coast of Portugal. The boat was to take part in the world’s largest offshore sailing competitions. It was unknown whether the crews’ efforts worked. A new sighting of the boat was obtained on Monday, May 23rd. The boat was spotted by passing yacht and the crew reached out to the Tulikettu Social Media Channel via private message. When the tip proved to be reliable, the rescue operation was immediately restarted…

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If there is one sailing event that always makes my heart skip a beat it’s the Worrell 1000. It has always been like that from the first time I heard about the race back when who knows when. A long time ago. I grew up sailing beach cats out of Durban, South Africa. Hobie 16’s to be exact, and I simply loved it. We were just day sailing and the thrill was at a high level.

When I heard that there was a beach cat race along the east coast of the US that went from beach to beach and involved good music and pretty women in bikinis, I was totally hooked. When I found out that it was a 1,000 mile race, well my mind was blown. A thousand miles on a beach cat and on a Hobie 16 nonetheless. What an idea and what an event it was; until it wasn’t.

I bring this up now because the Worrell 1000 is back and the most recent race finished this past weekend. There are a few things to note here. I knew Mike Worrell, well that may be a bit of a stretch, I met him a few times. He was a mild mannered man who, back in 1974, as a result of a bar bet, you know how those things go, sailed his Hobie 16 from Virginia Beach to Florida. There were only two entries; Mike and his brother. Mike and his crew Steve McGarrett were the only ones that finished. They pulled into Ft Lauderdale after 20 days. From that bar bet and very humble beginning the Worrell 1000 grew in strength until it started to attract some of the best sailors in the world…

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The season of the recyclable prototype of Northern Light Composites, Ecoracer, the sportboat in flax fibers and thermoplastic resin designed by Matteo Polli and fully equipped with Onesails Nord Est 4T FORTE recyclable technology, begins with a victory at the Italian ORC Sportboat Championship. Ecoracer won the overall championship with 2-3-1-1-4-2.5 results in a fleet of forty boats.

Very light wind conditions characterized the championship: 8-10 knots on Saturday, when three races were held in the late afternoon; on Sunday the first race with very light wind with the morning “Peler” and two more races in the afternoon with a breeze of 8 knots…

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The South Pacific will once again become an expansive cruising destination. The New Zealand government announced last week that the country’s maritime border will “reopen to currently prohibited foreign flagged vessels including cruise ships, recreational craft, and specialist vessels” from July 31, 2022. In the announcement made on May 11, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinta Ardern, said, ““New Zealand is in demand and now fully open for business.” The move is expected to “increase the available pool of labour, while also speeding up our tourism recovery.”

The border reopening is set for 11:59 p.m. on July 31, and the news has been received with enthusiasm, as was demonstrated in the email we received from Sharron Beck at Whangarei Marina: “Finally we can receive yachts into New Zealand again soon …”

Whangarei Marina is one of several marinas and ports that have been upgraded ahead of the reopening. As reported in Sail-World last week, “New Zealand has spent the past two years expanding superyacht offerings across the country’s marine destinations.” Whangarei has an expanded superyacht refit facility; the Bay of Islands Marina has casual berthage for visiting cruising yachts and “a new 120-metre superyacht berth.” The city of Auckland has also received additional inner city berths.

As Pacific Puddle Jumpers and cruisers cast off for, and from, the South Pacific and head for popular destinations such as the Marquesas, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Tonga and Fiji, they can soon turn south to continue on to New Zealand and enjoy the region’s spectacular sailing grounds.

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