For those dreaming of the joys of owning a yacht, Nick Ridley offers encouragement as well as a look at the harsher reality of financing your dreams

Far from being a lightweight trailer sailer, Nic Compton finds the third version of this modern classic to be a serious little cruising boat capable of handling far more than a little creek crawling

Gilbert Park swaps his ageing Mitchell 28 for a soft-riding Seaward 29

Tony Davies’ couldn’t find his dream boat ‘off the shelf’ so he took matters into his own hands with a 1978 Reinell 26-footer

What’s in a name? Quite a lot actually. As an example of the importance of a name, take the example of Royal Mail which, some years back, decided to re name itself as Consignia. I don’t need to tell U

I was shocked in a London hostelry recently to discover that our once-proud nation has been reduced to forming an orderly queue for drinks at the pub bar. It hasn’t happened in my local yet, and all i