Explore More with Imray Ceri Hurford-Jones

If you have a boat on the South Coast or hire one this year you must listen to the podcast! Rachael Sprot has been sailing in the Solent for over 20 years. For this episode she talks to marine podcaster Ceri Hurford-Jones about some of her favourite places to visit and why you should too!!



To order a copy of her guide to the Solent or any other Imray publication just visit https://store.imray.com/collections/books-1

For this episode of Explore with Imray marine podcaster Ceri Hurford-Jones is joined by two very special guests.

The managing director of Imray, Lucy Wilson and Adam Browne a qualified Yacht Master and First Mate with 59º North Sailing.

Adam lives, together with Laura and their lovely canine friend Angus, on board Yellow Matilda, a 1990 Hallberg-Rassy 312 powered both by the elements and an electric motor!

This episode is all about charts vs digital, the interplay between the two, what's best for the boat owner, what's best for getting more out of you, the boat, where you want to go, your pilotage and how it all works in together.....and what does the future hold?



For more information just click on;

https://www.imray.com/
Yellow Matilda

For this episode, marine podcaster Ceri Hurford-Jones meets two heavyweights of the yachting world to talk about perhaps the best known pilot book of them all, The Shell Channel Pilot.

The sailing legend that is Tom Cunliffe is handing over editorship of this long-lived and authoritative tome to its first woman compiler, Rachael Sprot, herself a rising star in the world of sailing writing and from a family of well-respected sailors and authors.  

To many, Tom needs little introduction.  A celebrated career as a broadcaster, writer and Yachtmaster Examiner began when he was sent off to the Norfolk Broads as a teenager with his best mate and a book entitled ‘How to Sail’.  At university he sailed when he should have been studying, and his first boat, Leihane, a 22ft centreboard sloop, led to him buying a bigger boat, Sarri, on which he and his wife Ros lived, berthed in the mud on the Hamble River in the 1970s.  A chance meeting with a man in a pub who said he would give them a job if they sailed to Brazil led to them stocking up and setting off with just £50 in their pockets. He ended up working at the National Sailing Centre at Cowes, where he became skipper of the race boat Griffin, narrowly missing out on the infamous ‘79 Fastnet Race. Since getting his bus pass (his words!) Ros and Tom bought Constance, a 44ft Bermudan cutter that really allows them to stretch their sea legs.

Rachael Sprot is a sailing instructor and a Yachtmaster Examiner who’s been sailing since she was a child, when she was told in no uncertain terms that she’d be grateful for it one day! A prolific writer for sailing magazines including Yachting Monthly and Yachting World, she has run various boats when involved with Rubicon Three, a sailing adventure company, but has just bought her first ever personal boat, a pretty, long keel, 1970s-built Cheoy Lee 36 that she says is now taking an awful lot of her weekends to get up to scratch.

Although Rachael has just embarked on her own journey with the Channel Pilot, she has an impressive number of sea miles logged, from St Petersburg/ Svalbard to Tahiti. Now, as the book changes authorship, so too will its voice, as it has since it was conceived by K. Adlard Coles in the 1930s.  It has long encouraged even the most novice sailor to explore the waters of the English Channel, and the wealth of knowledge it shares includes not just data but a guiding hand, a rich narrative and a sense of exploration that will be relished by all!

To get your copy of The Shell Channel Pilot visit https://www.imray.com/product/The-Shell-Channel-Pilot/IB0202-2/

In this episode Marine Podcaster Ceri Hurford-Jones meets up with Annabel Finding to talk about the Imray pilot book she is newly responsible for……. The Channel Islands, Cherbourg Peninsula & North Brittany.

We had a lot of fun whilst chatting, as I’m sure you’ll be able to tell…but we did have all sorts of technical issues whilst recording….NOT anyone’s fault….such are the challenges of us both being on boats with Annabel’s located currently in Turkey!! So please excuse some of the variations in sound!!

The Channel Islands, Normandy and Brittany coasts can seem a daunting sailing area for those unaccustomed to their ways, but this book provides reassurance and so much practical advice that anyone using it will feel confident of success.' (Yachting Monthly). It is the definitive pilot for anyone interested in the challenge of exploring the less frequently used passages and anchorages.

To find out more just visit:

https://www.imray.com/Publications/Imray+Pilots/Imray+pilots+and+cruising+guides/North+West+Europe/IB0199-1/ 

It’s my pleasure to welcome you to another edition in our series Explore with Imray. As I get to talk with more of the editors behind the wonderful pilot books Imray produce.

I hope you’ll enjoy hearing more about their passion for the water along with some of their favourite anchorages and of course discovering more about the cruising grounds they cover which hopefully will provide you with some inspiration for your next cruise.

In this episode I met up with Jane Cumberlidge to talk about the pilot book she is now responsible for……..The Bristol Channel and River Severn Cruising Guide including Milford Haven to St Ives including the Navigable Severn to Worcester

Yachting monthly said ‘This pilot book covers nearly every creek, pill, river and harbour from Milford Haven to St Ives via Lydney and Bristol. It’s beautifully illustrated throughout, with inspiring photographs and a comprehensive set of harbour chartlets. Plenty of historical and cultural asides and a wealth of detail on shoreside attractions’ .

To find out more just visit;

https://www.imray.com/Publications/Imray+Pilots/Imray+pilots+and+cruising+guides/North+West+Europe/IB0012/

For this episode marine podcaster Ceri Hurford-Jones had the great pleasure to hook up with Chris Howes the editor of 2 pilot books - the Fenland Waterways and The River Great Ouse and its tributaries. 

Chris had kindly moved his barge ‘Lily May’ upstream on the Great Ouse for our chat in order to get a decent Wi Fi signal (which also necessitated him temporally putting up an 8ft ariel pole) such are the challenges of communications in some of the far-flung outer reaches of the UK!!

An Amazon customer said ‘5 stars - quite simply, if you use the river Nene, then you need this book. It tells you where all the Friends of the River Nene spots are, it tells you where you can moor for the night, it tells you tons of info about places of interest. Just buy the book, it will really improve your river life.’ 

This is a great podcast that will have reaching for this link ;https://www.imray.com/Publications/Imray+Pilots/Imray+Inland+Waterways+Maps+%26+Guides/British+Isles/IB0212-2/