RYA North West Cruising Conference – Report

 14 March 2015
Warrington

A lively, informative and entertaining day with
This was an interesting and informative day, attended by about 90 sailors based in or around the North West, but sailing over a much wider area.
Broadcaster PAUL HEINEY decided in 2011 that he was going to set sail for Cape Horn. By the time he returned he had completed a voyage of 18,000 miles, and 11,000 of those were single-handed. This made a fascinating talk, and will soon be available to read in his new book ‘One Wild Song’.
Engineer and magazine contributor VYV COX spoke on Anchors and Anchoring, hinting at the inadequacy of CQR anchors ‘ like an Austin 7’, and also making a good case that weight of chain alone does little to improve holding power.  See http://coxengineering.sharepoint.com/
Boat-builder DAVID MOSS was interviewed about his 50 years in wooden boat-building, restoration and repair.  40 of these have been spent running his boatyard just up the river from Wardleys. See http://www.davidmossboatbuilders.com/
There were also talks from IAN LOFFHAGEN of Rowlands Marine on developments in electronics and the 
RYA’s GUS LEWIS and STUART CARRUTHERS with updates on cruising and legal affairs​.