News

The entire membership of the Cruising Association is shocked to learn that Scott and Jean Adam and their crew Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle on board their sailing yacht Quest have been fatally shot by their captors following the hijacking by Somali pirates off the coast of Oman.

Scott Adam was a member of the Cruising Association and the yacht had been taking part in the round-the-world Blue Water Rally but had left the rally before the attack.

Our thoughts are with the family and friends of those who died.

The Cruising Association Information Centre is pleased to announce the acquisition of a complete set of up-to-date Imray Digital Charts for use by members on the PC in the Information Centre. The charts cover the following areas:

North Sea, South and East.

The English Channel

West Coast of Britain and Ireland

The Western Mediterranean

Atlantic France and Iberia

Eastern Carribbean

Where did you cruise last year? Got a story to tell?

Members are encouraged to submit an account of their cruising antics of 2010 for the annual log competition. There are a range of categories and if you're lucky, you might even win a prize. All logs submitted are held in the library and information centre at CA House where we have an extensive collection of logs going back to the earliest days of the Associaiton.

Henn Avasalu's letter (YM Dec p. 16) "Sail the Baltic" attracted our attention as it demonstrates the warm welcome British and other visiting yachtsmen receive all around the Baltic as well as highlighting some of the advantages of cruising this beautiful and interesting area. Henn has been unfortunate in meeting few of us because we are out there in considerable numbers but by October we have laid up our boats and returned home.

The Cruising Association is delighted that members Paul and Rachel Chandler have been released from captivity after 388 days. They are now at the British High Commissioner's residence in Nairobi and will be returning to the UK shortly. They were kidnapped from their 38ft yacht, Lynn Rival, in October last year in international waters some 600 miles from the coast of Somalia. Their yacht was returned to the UK by the Royal Navy in November, 2009.

Further to my “discovery£ that Weatheronline provides the UK Met Office meso-scale wind vectors, I have now found that COAMPS forecasts can be obtained in GRIB format for the Mediterranean, British Isles, Biscay, the North Sea and Scandinavia.

Because I rarely look at Weatheronline, I am a year behind the pace in noting that output from the UK Global and the North Atlantic European (NAE) meso-scale versions of the Unified Model are publicly available using a web browser.

HELSINKI 2010

From 5-9 July CA's Baltic Section met in Helsinki.  The venue was the home harbour of Helsingfors Segelklubb (HSK) at Lauttassaari.    HSK with whom CA formed an affiliation a few years ago welcomed our rally and gave the opportunity for many HSK members to meet with the Baltic Section members