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WRITING BY
REBECCA HAYTER
Featuring my new book: WILD SEAS TO GREENLAND
and Adrian Hayter's SHEILA IN THE WIND, republished 2020.
WILD SEAS TO GREENLAND:
A BOOK OF LOW-TECH DIY
AND HIGH-TECH PROTOCOLS THAT COULD HELP TO SAVE LIVES AT SEA.
Multiple award-winning journalist Rebecca Hayter spent four months on a voyage into the Arctic Circle with 1994 Whitbread Round the World Race winner Ross Field. Wrap up warm, take some brave pills and come onboard to learn from one of New Zealand's most successful ocean racers, through the words of one of its best yachting writers.
THE HARDEST PART OF A REFIT? DECIDING WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT. GET THOSE RIGHT, AND YOU'RE HEADED FOR SUCCESS.
How to hit the nail on the head.
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
When veteran ocean racer Ross Field planned the refit of his newly purchased, 20-year-old, aluminium yacht Rosemary, he drew on 35 years experience as a professional yachtsman, including many new build and refit projects. All yacht refits have different requirements, but they all benefit from a clear, overall decision-making process.
In Wild Seas to Greenland, I aim to capture not only what Ross did, but why. It's perhaps the most important element of a successful project.
I WOKE TO A SCREAM SO TERRIBLE THAT ICEBERGS SHATTERED.
IT WAS ME.
Highly Commended,
Best International Feature, Travcom Media Awards 2019
The noise… the wind that roared against the tiny bit of staysail and double-reefed mainsail, the screaming whirr of the windvane. I’d heard people liken monster waves to freight trains and now I heard the Midnight Express roaring past my station – or not. Occasionally the brakes failed and it smashed against the hull beside me in my port aft berth, rolling me into the pillows I’d lined up against bulkhead: boomph. It sounded worse than it was; the aluminium hull was a drum. Once there was a mighty deluge from above and yelps from Ross and Nick as the cockpit filled and drained.
"WEATHER ROUTING IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ADVANCES IN SAFETY AT SEA" - ROSS FIELD
Weather routing: a major reason I wrote this book and why you might want to read it.
Storms at sea remain the greatest threat to safety offshore, but no New Zealand yachting media has covered in detail the most important advance in ocean safety: weather routing, also known as route optimisation.
Ross Field and his son Campbell Field are experts in Expedition weather routing. Wild Seas to Greenland applies weather routing to a real-life scenario: our two-handed sail across the North Atlantic around intense storm systems, plus a technical chapter and appendix for more complex aspects of the technology.