New leadership for Sail Canada >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News: Providing sailing news for sailors

New leadership for Sail Canada >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News: Providing sailing news for sailors

“I am delighted to be taking on the role as Chair for Sail Canada after serving the past two years on the Board of Directors,” said Cochrane. “I am looking forward to working with my fellow Board members, our Chief Executive Officer, Sail Canada staff, and our Member Organizations over the next two years.

“I would like to welcome Dan and Jennifer to the Board. As well, thank you to Kate MacLennan, who has devoted numerous hours over her tenure as a member of the Board of Directors for seven years, and then as our Chair for the past years. We will continue to benefit from her prior leadership going forward.

RYA Yachtmaster Exam: A day-by-day account

RYA Yachtmaster Exam: A day-by-day account of the Preparation you need to pass



Yachting World · 14 days ago
by Theo Stocker · Special reports


Theo Stocker knew he was a competent sailor, but not having an RYA Yachtmaster ticket was a gap he needed to fill. Here's how he handled the intense week of preparation and the one-day exam

Any very competent and highly experienced yachtsmen and women don’t have any qualifications at all and are content to keep it that way, but not being a Yachtmaster bothered me.

I was pretty sure I was up to the standard, but I didn’t know. Becoming an RYA Yachtmaster is something I’ve wanted to do for years.

Unlike RYA Day Skipper etc, the Yachtmaster is not an attendance-based course, but a one-day exam in which an examiner will form an objective opinion of your abilities, and recommend you to the RYA/MCA Yachtmaster Qualification Panel to become a Yachtmaster… or not.

Technically, no instruction is required beforehand and the theory course is not compulsory. However, you will certainly need theory knowledge of the level of the RYA Yachtmaster Offshore shorebased course, with practical experience and skills to match, to stand any chance of passing.

It is strongly recommended to have a few days’ preparation, ideally immediately before the exam, with the same boat and crew. Many sailing schools offer a Yachtmaster preparation course, normally of five days, with your examination at the end of it.

I completed my preparation course and exam, together with my friend, Andrew, at the Hamble School of Yachting.

During the pre-exam training it was made abundantly clear this was not a course on which we could be taught what we needed to know; this should have been gained over our years of experience.

The week’s aim instead was to run through the Yachtmaster syllabus to reveal our weaknesses and bad habits.


Traditional and modern navigation tools are used
Swatting Up

Andrew and I spent five days swatting up. The preparation course, led by instructor Matt Sillars, included Collision Regulations (I quickly found that I’d had significant ‘skills fade’ in my detailed knowledge of the IRPCS).

We practised safety briefings and engine checks; marina boat handling; navigation and pilotage; safety drills; manoeuvres, including downwind sail handling and rigging a preventer; and some of the softer skills involved in skippering a crew.

Thoroughly prepared, the exam was looming…

Article continues below…

Exam Day

The exam starts a day or two before the examiner turns up, as they may want to see a passage plan you’ve prepared in advance. It’s best to do this two or three days before to avoid a last-minute panic, but not too far in advance that you’ve forgotten the sums you’ve done and why you made the choices you did.

I was set a passage from Bembridge to St Vaast, giving me a potentially fiddly drying harbour at either end. After completing our plans, we did some last-minute swatting up on lights, shapes and sounds.

Exam day dawned bright and breezy with a forecasted good Force 5 from the south-west. Matt reassured us that making mistakes wasn’t the end of the world, if we showed competence in getting ourselves back on track.


Theo takes the helm

The only sorts of errors that would probably be an outright fail, other than flunking lights and shapes, are safety-critical things such as a collision, running aground, an inability to navigate and pilot, or an uncontrolled gybe.

We were joined at 0900 by our examiner Andy Wright, RYA Yachtmaster instructor trainer, examiner and centre inspector, and an MCA Master 200 who also works as an RNLI area lifesaving manager.

There’d be no ‘getting away with it’ here. We began the day with a coffee and chat, while Andy spent some time asking about our reasons for taking the exam, before laying out what he would be looking for: “I’m not going to be trying to catch anyone out, but what I want to see you demonstrate is that you can skipper the boat, navigate the boat, handle the boat under power and handle the boat under sail.”


Preparing for night nav
Safety First

We began, as we had during our prep week, with safety briefings. With the engine bay open, our examiner took time to probe our knowledge of troubleshooting, various parts of the engine, the significance of blue, black or white smoke from the exhaust (incomplete combustion, burning oil and overheating), how to change filters, impellers and belts and how to bleed the fuel.

On deck, we were asked to explain when and why each kind of flare would be used. None of it felt overly pressured, but it was certainly an in-depth examination of our knowledge.

During the day these conversations continued on areas that were not being practically demonstrated on the day – including 20 minutes on lights, shapes, sounds and collision avoidance, and how we’d handle different scenarios in traffic separation schemes.

We were asked to talk through our passage plans, and our examiner went further to see whether we knew what the administrative and immigration requirements would be on either side of the Channel – a tricky one these days.


Passage planning skills are thoroughly tested
Getting Underway

We began with marina manoeuvres in and out of a selection of increasingly tricky berths, putting the boat into positions that we might not have chosen, including a berth two spaces into a gulley with a yacht moored either side and another boat opposite.

Ferry gliding in bows-first wasn’t too tricky, but with wind and tide pushing us on, getting out again was harder. I opted to use prop walk to pull the stern out against a bow line – slightly unconventional, and it needed a bit of oomph, but I got away without a collision.

We then had half an hour or so to each prepare a short passage plan and pilotage, this time from Hamble to Portsmouth and back.

I was asked to explain the route I’d chosen. While I had the route in the chartplotter, I’d picked waypoints near easy-to-find buoys so I could see I was in the right place from the cockpit.

Underway, and with our fourth crewmember on the wheel (it’s recommended to have crew so you can demonstrate leadership and also help handle the yacht), I had decisions to make about how many reefs to put in, and was torn between sailing the boat properly and being overly cautious.


Working with crew

Next we were tested on our MOB recovery with a fender overboard. We went through our recovery drill and I was relieved to get back to the MOB first go.

Andrew and crew looked at me to see if we were doing ‘the whole thing’ and, as our examiner hadn’t flinched, we continued rigging the handy billy, attached the fender to the sling and hauled away until it was safely aboard, just as we had in our preparation week – it’s a complex process that really does need practice.

Once in Portsmouth Harbour, it was my turn to find and pick up a mooring buoy under sail. Handing over skippering duty to Andrew for his turn in the hot seat, I felt a wave of relief that my passage, pilotage and handling seemed to have gone okay.

However, we wouldn’t be finished until we’d each done our night navigation.


Engine checks
Night Navigation

Back on a mooring inside Calshot Spit it was time for dinner and a brief respite, before plunging on with night nav exercises.

We were asked to navigate to unmarked locations and given a bit of time to prepare these. Our examiner also checked our knowledge of how the radar worked for collision avoidance and for navigation, and how to extract relevant information from both the chartplotter and the AIS.

My night nav began well, using multiple sources of position information as requested, and just about making sense of my hastily drawn sketch and notes, looking for the characteristics of particular lights (you’ll need to know how quick VQ compared to just Q really is) and using the radar to plot our course.


Manoeuvres under sail are tested, including downwind sail handling and preventers

As it was top of the tide, however, every ship in Southampton seemed to set sail, including the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary cruise liner with attendant tugs, police launches and party boats.

My plan was thrown into disarray as we were blinded by disco balls and oil terminal lights alike. Luckily, Navionics is by no means banned, and a quick range and bearing in the palm of my hand gave me a course and distance to my imaginary point. Another step closer.

Next Andrew needed to pilot us up the Hamble River, where Hamble Point’s sector lights can be easily lost in the welter of shore lights, and I was asked to bring the boat alongside, stern first at the end of a long gulley, giving me another last-minute chance to mess things up.


MOB recovery techniques have been updated
Pass Or Fail

With the boat put to bed, we each headed off for a quick chat. Fortunately, our examiner told us we’d both passed. Phew!

Both Andrew and I had found the week intense, all-absorbing and demanding. We’d been forced to up our game, and our skills had been updated by a decade or two. There were lots of learnings to take back to our own boats and both of us felt we were now much better-rounded skippers than before.
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The Psychology Behind Why Outdoor Sports Are So Much Fun

 

The Psychology Behind Why Outdoor Sports Are So Much Fun

Outside Online · 5 hours ago

by awise · Exploration & Survival

To surf Dessert, a standing wave in the middle of the Ottawa River, one must paddle a quarter mile from shore, drift down to a set of rapids, line up the approach perfectly, pivot at just the right moment, and with a burst of power strokes either slide onto the shoulder or catch the foam pile. If you miss the wave, wipe out, or get flushed, it can take half an hour to try again, starting with a cross-current slog back to shore and a long hike upstream—in my case, lugging a SUP and stewing over what went wrong. Which I did dozens of times over the past few years. Which kind of sucks.

Proficient at riding a much more accessible but short-lived wave that only works when the river is surging with snowmelt, I sought the same feeling on Dessert. With absolutely zero success. This made me wonder why some of us spend countless hours learning how to ski or bike down mountains, or scrambling back onto paddleboards while dodging rocks in the rapids. Outdoor enthusiasts tend to be meticulous planners, not daredevils, according to Australian adventure psychologist Eric Brymer. So, what exactly are we craving?

Our Brains Like the Challenge

As exasperating as those attempts at Dessert were, the effort itself was probably part of the appeal. Evolutionarily, we’re programmed to follow the path of least resistance, but in modern urban lives, easy often begets boredom. If it’s a struggle to do something, the outcome can be more rewarding. “Outdoor adventure can feel good precisely because it’s hard,” says psychology researcher Michael Inzlicht, who runs the University of Toronto’s Work and Play Lab. “Despite these oversized brains, we’re still embodied creatures.”

Yet what if there doesn’t seem to be much ROI from all that floundering? So many swims at Dessert, a couple seconds of surfing. My progress may have been imperceptible, but each wipeout made me slightly less bad, suggests Inzlicht. To him, this is an example of “effortful leisure,” which can be a source of deeper meaning and purpose—or what he calls “eudaimonic wellbeing”—that hobbies such as binge-watching Naked and Afraid don’t deliver.

“Outdoor adventure can feel good precisely because it’s hard.”

Inzlicht was right, because this past summer, I finally began to figure out the wave. I locked in during the approach, kept my balance while turning, and committed to digging in with my blade. My rides were fleeting and butterflies set up camp in my stomach, but I had an inexorable urge to drive through rush-hour traffic to the put-in every day after work.

Unfragmented Consciousness

To understand what was brewing inside my head, as a water-logged proxy for what extreme athletes feel, I contacted Susan Houge Mackenzie, who moved to New Zealand from California in her early twenties and became a wilderness guide, leading clients on river surfing trips with bodyboards and fins. (Or as she describes it: rafting without the raft.) “There’s a tension between anxiety and excitement when you’re getting close to the wave,” says Mackenzie, now a sport psychology researcher at New Zealand’s University of Otago. “During activities like this, we’re almost always flipping back and forth.”

Fluctuating between these telic and paratelic states is common in whitewater. In the former, people are serious, goal-oriented, and arousal avoidant; in the latter, we’re playful, spontaneous, and game for a thrill. Individual personalities differ, but the multiphasic nature of these types of pursuits, plus a dash of fear, could be “a precursor to optimal experiences,” says Mackenzie. What’s more, the trajectory of emotions people typically go through while river surfing, from nervous anticipation to stimulation, relief, confidence, peace, and a sense of accomplishment, is derived from the ability to display expertise in a challenging situation and the creativity we feel while immersed in the activity—a buzz that persists long after we’re off the water.

“The skills required to navigate rapids,” Mackenzie says, “help you tune out other aspects of your life and focus on what’s right in front of you.” Circa 2025, this “unfragmented consciousness” is rare and precious.

A man surfing on the Kananaskis River (Photo: Aaron Black/Getty)

Even though she’s 9,000 miles away, it’s like Mackenzie is peering into my skull. In mid-August, on my birthday, I picked up an oversized sandwich at an Italian deli and spent the day at Dessert (named thusly, I’ve been told, because it’s a treat to be consumed after Ottawa’s spring surfing season is finished). On my second attempt, I paddled out, pivoted, and slid into a supersensory harmony. I was in synch with the wave, shifting my weight slightly and stepping back and forth to carve and glide on its short, steep face. My body seemed to move on its own—flying, floating—as if powered by the river, roaring over a limestone shelf toward the sea.

Later, sitting in the shade to eat that sandwich, all of my worries had evaporated. Problems morphed into possibilities. Small stuff was not sweated.

Flow State

Researcher Eric Bryner, from Australia’s Southern Cross University, tells me this wasn’t a cognitive leap. Looking at outdoor sports through the lens of ecological psychology, which revolves around the relationship between humans and the physical environment, he says that when we’re “dancing with nature,” we’re scanning and exploring with our bodies, trying to make sense of the world. Surfing is not necessarily an augmented process in the brain; distance and time might be directly perceived, catalyzing our rapid-fire actions. In this context, emotions we label as fear or anxiety are not negative, simply information to absorb as our bodies wobble and bounce and settle into energized focus. Basically: flow.

We’re on top of the world during and après surf, Bryner suggests, because activities like this, surrendering to the moment, failing and grinding, playing at the edge of our comfort zones in dynamic outdoor environments, are “a fundamental way to be human.” They shut down cognitive chatter, our haptic senses fully alive.

I confess to Byrner that I can’t stop thinking about river surfing. “Tiger in a cage,” he replies.

Confined in an artificial space, a tiger feels suppressed, unwell. Bogged down in cities and cubicles, that’s us. “Essentially, we’re locking ourselves in a cage,” Bryner says. “Some of us don’t realize there’s a door, and even if we see it, a lot of us are afraid to open it. But if you open it and step outside, you’re where human beings feel most at home.

“We call this adventure,” he continues, “but really, it should be considered normal.”

The post The Psychology Behind Why Outdoor Sports Are So Much Fun appeared first on Outside Online.

Great Britain wins SailGP Season 5 - Scuttlebutt

Great Britain wins SailGP Season 5 >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News: Providing sailing news for sailors 

Great Britain wins SailGP Season 5

The fifth season of SailGP finished as it should with Great Britain taking the title. They had been the form team, winning the most events (3 of 12), but still had to overcome the final stage on November 29-30 in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The season began and ended with events in the Middle East, and while the United Arab Emirates oil money must be good for the league, the meager shoreside fan action was matched by the light winds on the Persian Gulf. A league built on high adrenaline instead strolled.

However, the top three teams on the season leaderboard - Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia - survived the six fleet races to advance to the winner-take-all $2 million Grand Final. As this was the lone event decided on the fleet races alone, their focus was to keep defender Spain out, which made for odd optics as the best teams did poorly.

New Wallyrocket 71: The Next Generation Racing Yacht

New Wallyrocket 71: The Next Generation Racing Yacht

New Wallyrocket 71: The Next Generation Racing Yacht

Yachting World
November 13, 2025
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The new Wallyrocket 71 is the latest evolution in performance racing from Wally to rival other maxis on the market

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Wally launches a second Rocket. If the name and look seem familiar, it’s because we ran plenty of coverage of the first Wallyrocket 51 earlier this year, following its eagerly awaited launch and build-up to the Admiral’s Cup and Rolex Fastnet Race.

Yet just as we began featuring the first Rocket, Wally announced this larger sistership, with both yachts launching in the same season. Both are Botin Partners designs, and where the 51 is conceived to take on the TP52s and smash races on handicap, the 71 has the equally herculean task of becoming the ‘world’s most successful maxi’.


Wallyrocket 71 Django 7X became a world champ at its first major regatta. Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget

Compared with its main Maxi 72 rivals then (most of which have been extended), the Wallyrocket 71 is two tonnes lighter, with over 30% more water ballast (2.7 tonnes of it) for the same sail area, which brings advantages both in the light and going downwind. It can clock upwind speeds of 10.5-11 knots, while matching or exceeding true winds going the other way.

“We started from a blank sheet of paper, asking how we could beat the most competitive Maxi 72s on corrected time,” Botin’s Adolfo Carrau explains. “When they were designed, it was to a box rule, so many parameters were already set. Now, as everyone is optimising their boats under IRC rules, there is a lot more freedom.”


Clean, Spartan carbon interior – it’s a racing yacht after all. Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget

Giovanni Lombardi Stronati commissioned the build of the first 71, Django 7x, at King Marine in Valencia. It is already being campaigned by his Italian Django team, which represented the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (YCCS) at the Admiral’s Cup with the first 51. Once again, this team is galvanised by the affable Vasco Vascotto, who holds more world titles than any other sailor.


Django 7x’s first major regatta was the Rolex Maxi Yacht Cup in September, hosted by the team’s club YCCS, where it took on the likes of seasoned competitors such as Bella Mente, Vesper, Jolt and Jethou – and beat them all, to claim the first Rolex IMA Grand Prix World Championship. Quite the proof of concept!

Article continues below…



World’s Coolest Yachts: Wallygator II


“This was the boat that represented the style of Wally and was the first large yacht really able to sail…


Wallyrocket 51 review: Is this the world’s fastest new raceboat (on handicap)?


You have to admire the ambition. A goal to create the fastest race boat in the world (on corrected time)…
Wallyrocket 71 Specifications:

LOA: 21.44m 70ft 4in
Beam: 5.55m 18ft 3in
Draught: 4.90m 16ft 1in
Displacement: 12,500kg 27,558lb
Sail area (upwind): 305m2 3,283ft2
Sail area (downwind): 630m2 6,781ft2
Contact details: wally.com

Greg Norman on LIV Golf tenure: 'Don't judge me'

Greg Norman on LIV Golf tenure: 'Don't judge me'

Field Level Media

October 4, 2025

Aug 16, 2024; Greenbrier, West Virginia, USA; LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman at The Old White at the Greenbrier. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-Imagn Images (Bob Donnan-Imagn Images)

Greg Norman said he is proud of what he accomplished as the CEO of LIV Golf and that PGA Tour players have benefitted from the Saudi-backed league.

Norman, who stepped down from LIV Golf last month, called his time with the league "mission accomplished" in an interview with Australian Golf Digest.

"When you look back on the past 12 months, there's been a realization that all those investment dollars have done great things for the institutions as well as the players, in all parts of the world. Even with the PGA Tour (boosting its prize money with elevated events), I was quietly happy when I saw that, because the players benefited from it.

"Are they going to recognize LIV for doing that? No, but I do know that was a significant uptick for them. For them to be able to play for more money, even play in less competitive fields - they reduced the size of the fields -- I just said, 'Well, there you go.' The adoption, to some degree, of what we implemented has been accepted."

Norman, 70, acknowledged the time commitment along with the intense criticism he endured as one of the primary faces of the breakaway league did take a toll. But he also said that he would do it all again "in a heartbeat."

"It was very draining on me," he said. "I was working 100-hour weeks. I'm not going to say all the abuse was anything (of consequence), but what hurt me the most was the lack of understanding of why people would judge me and give the abuse they did.

"That was the thing that bothered me the most, because I'm the type of guy who will happily sit down and talk about things. And if I'm wrong, I'll admit I'm wrong. But don't judge me. Don't judge what LIV was truly all about."

Norman was the original CEO of LIV Golf when the league launched in 2021 and held the role until being replaced in January by Scott O'Neil, who serves as the commissioner. Norman stayed on in an unnamed position until his contract expired in August, according to Golf Digest.

Norman's comments came during a significant news week during LIV Golf's offseason. Cleeks team captain Martin Kaymer said 'several' high profile players on the DP World Tour are interested in joining the league, while The Athletic reported that LIV's losses have hit $1.4 billion during the first three-plus years of its existence.

Norman is now spending the majority of his time in Florida while refocusing his efforts on his golf course design business and a significant role on the organizing committee for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.

"I'd do it a little differently. But, yes, I'd do it again in a heartbeat," Norman said when asked if he would put himself through the LIV Golf experience again. "Like anything, you look back at losing a golf tournament and ask yourself, Why did you lose that golf tournament? Did I hit a bad 5-iron? Or did I not concentrate? So, you sit back and you analyze it, and of course you would do that. And, like any CEO, you have to learn by your successes just as much as by your failures.

"So, yes, absolutely I'd do it again."

SailGP: Four teams seek $2million payday

 SailGP: Four teams seek $2million payday

The SailGP sports league will conclude its fifth season on the Persian Gulf when 12 teams compete at the final event win but also the overall season title on November 29-30 in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The schedule begins with six fleet races split over two days to determine the event 12 winner, with the top three teams on the season leaderboard then advancing to the Grand Final to go head-to-head in a single winner-takes-all race.

The rules are simple: the first across the finish line takes the Season 5 title and the $2 million prize. Mathematically, only four teams can make it to the three-boat Grand Final race this Season: Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and Spain.

Will Spain defend its Season 4 crown? Can Australia get its third title? Does overall leader Great Britain retain form for final victory? Race times each day are 14:00-15:30 GST (05:00-06:30 EST)