Rites of Passage

How do you measure sailing experience? For most sailors, it will be harbours visited and miles logged. But there’s more to it than just numbers- certain stretches of water pose unique challenges and their reputations hold a strange power in the imagination of all who set sail. Completing one of these passages is an initiation, a rite of passage that engenders respect of others and a new self-confidence. With a nod to the 1980s book Classic Passages, Yachting Monthly, the RCC Pilotage Foundation and Imray have collated a dozen or so of the milestone passages through, around and across British waters that should be on every cruising sailor’s to-do list. Passages covered include: Falmouth to Isles of Scilly (Sam Llewellyn) Lulworth to Salcombe across Lyme Bay (Megan Clay) Crossing the Thames Estuary (Peter Gibbs) Penzance to Milford Haven across the Bristol Channel (Jane Cumberlidge) West of Scotland to the coast of Northern Ireland (Norman Kean) Solent to Alderney across the Channel (Ros Hogbin) Harwich to Vlissingen across the southern North Sea (Garth Cooper) Falmouth to L’AberWrach (Jason Lawrence) Through Chenal du Four and the Raz de Sein (Nick Chavasse) Orkney to Western Isles round Cape Wrath (Hugh Stewart) Shetland to Bergen across the northern North Sea (Paul Heiney) St Kilda and back (Mary Max) Across Biscay (Madeleine Strobel).