Around 5.20 pm of monday october the 19th a sailing boat without crew was discovered motoring in circles on the IJsselmeer, the large central lake in the Netherlands, close to the shore of the province of Friesland. After entering the boat it was assumed that there had only been a crew of one on board, later identified as an 68 year old man from Leeuwarden.

13 year old Laura Dekker has been placed under supervision of child wellfare and is not allowed to leave on her world voyage.

The judge had come to the conclusion that it is likely that a 13 year old can not deal with extreme situations that may occur during such a trip.

Laura will be examined by a child psychologist and her parents have not been declared unfit and keep custody over Laura.

In Holland we now have a public row over a shorthanded Sailorette.

The minister does not want her to leave.

It's allready been a while now that the boat is in the shed for the winter layup. But the trip to get there was a memorable one.

I am interested in discussing techniques needed for short hand sailing. My sailboat is not equiped with self steering gear except for the brake on the wheel. Setting the main and thereafter tacking is the information I am seeking. I look forward to hearing from someone in this regard. Thanks Hart Beaver

As an inventor I always think about how to do stuff. And as a lazy one, how to do stuff in the most effective way, with the least amount of energy or in the shortest amount of time.

I had learned quite quickly that you do not want to drag an outboard engine over the boat to get to land, and more importantly, you do not lift it from the brackets when you are on the back of the boat!

I recently had problems with my saildrive gearbox, had the boat pulled out of the water, Gearbox replaced and the refitted, a week prior to doing the Intelegence Telecoms East London - Port Elizabeth Yacht Race single Handed.
Last Year I won this event with line honours single handed.
This year I was not so lucky.

I was in a rush this year to get my boat in the water. My small boat that is. I had an apointment to go sailing with a group so I did not want to let them down. With my bigger boat I had encountered a lot of problems with the renewal of the deck surface so at this point I was happy to have another.

After a bit of a sprint to finish some varnishing it wat time to put her back in to the water.

So the screws were braking my expensive planer blades.
The only solution I could come up with was to remove the screws before planing. But how to get to them without using the planer?

As part of the deck renewal I had to make a new deck for the scoop.

In the proces of prepairing the scoop for the new deck I made a very handy tool for marking the future plane that the deck would rest on.