The Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation publishes pilotage information through books and a range of media acessible through its own website www.rccpf.org.uk.
Reviews of the most recent RCCPF Publications and other books written by RCC members are shown below.
Skip Novak on Sailing: Words of Wisdom from 50 Years Afloat is a fascinating collection of articles contributed to Yachting World between 2014 and 2023.
A Cruising Adventure and How-To Guide by Nicholas Coghlan
Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation Balearic Islands 12th Edition, David and Susie Baggaley
Andrew Wilkes reviews Marek Jurczynski's publication
Skipper Lynam developed his love of the sea and sailing as a schoolboy at King William’s College on the Isle of Man becoming, in time, a successful canoe sailor.
Review of Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation publication ‘Norway, Mainland coast, fjord and islands, including Svalbard and Jan Mayen’ 4th Edition
Bermuda, Azores, Madeira Group, Canary Islands and Cape Verdes:
Editor: Jane Russell, RCC, RCCPF Publisher: Royal Institution of Navigation, 2020. Available as a free download
Nigel Wollen reviews Mark Fishwick's West Country Cruising Companion
An excellent pilot by Madeleine and Stephan Strobel updated May 2020.
4th Edition. By Rod and Lucinda Heikell. A Review of this welcome update by Will Pedder
This practical guide deserves a place of honour on the chart table of any sailing yacht venturing to the Chilean channels or, as Bill Tillman referred to them, ‘the magical place of the unknown’.
"The book is a triumph, and represents a significant raising of the bar. Jo is to be congratulated, and I do hope readers will be enthused sufficiently to cruise the South China Sea."
This book is a very practical guide to long distance ocean sailing, compiled by a very accomplished and experienced practitioner and aimed at the would-be ocean sailor.
This meticulously updated 8th edition invites the cruising sailor to safely explore numerous exquisite locations, reassured by the author's wealth of experience.
Our review of September 2019 updated to include CCA review as a download. This book is not a “how to do it” manual, more a compendium of the most important issues.....
"I commend Christopher and the RCCPF team on producing an excellent book that will be an invaluable resource to anyone making this trip (Trinidad to Tobago) for the first time"
Reviewed by Peter Bruce who says: "This Second Edition is thoroughly comprehensive and gives those with it a huge advantage over those without."
Reviewer Jay Devonshire writes: "An up to date Pilot Book is an essential, and this latest publication is to to be recommended."
For many a sailor, crossing the Atlantic Ocean is their holy grail, the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest for a climber. Both are immense challenges and preparation is key.
The RCC Pilotage Foundation has recently brought out a fourth edition, published by Imray, of their extensive guide to The Baltic Sea and its Approaches.
‘Gibraltar and the five Mediterranean costas of Spain form the subject matter of this pilot.’
Paul Heiney's lavishly illustrated book warrants a well-deserved place in the chart table and has plenty of general interest for those seeking inspiration for their next cruise.
This is a beautifully produced and extremely well structured guide to this very long and diverse cruising ground. Reviewed by Katharine Ingram
The Canary Islands Guide is very much a guide for tourists rather than a pilot book, but as such it has the information for a touring yachtsman to enjoy these islands.
For such a small country The Netherlands has an amazing 6,000km of navigable waterways and there is something there for everyone.
The revised edition of the Arctic and Northern Waters Pilot is a compelling volume that takes the reader into waters that few will travel, for those who go there it is essential reading.
Reviewers Katharine & Peter Ingram write: "This RCC Pilotage Foundation book is a beautifully produced and extremely well structured guide to the vast cruising area that is the Pacific Ocean."
The 3rd Edition of this very useable cruising companion is brought right up to date (2016) by Derek Aslett. Published by Fernhurst Books and available through Imray and many local chandleries.
The newly published third edition of the RCC Pilotage Foundation Norway pilot book by Judy Lomax is reviewed below by Madeleine Strobel
A Sixth Edition of the RCCPF Atlantic Islands Pilot has just been published by Imray. It is reviewed by Alan Spriggs (RCC) below.
This is the 7th edition of this well-known and popular book. There is much that is new in this edition, all beautifully explored and explained.
Over the last 40 years a select band of RCC members have undertaken extraordinary voyages to high latitudes in ordinary production yachts, including John Gore-Grimes in his Nic 31 Shardana, Willy Ker in his Contessa 32 Assent and Bob Shepton in his Westerly Discus Dodo’s Delight. But one name that deserves to be better known is climber and sailor Denise Evans, in her Tradewind 33 Dunlin of Wessex.
Shortly before she died in November 1993, Denise completed an autobiography, which has just been published. It is a fascinating account of a very full life. Denise was daughter of two pioneering climbers, Jean and Nea Morin, and climbing was her first passion, initially with her mother in North Wales and the Alps, then on a 1956 Evighedsfjord Expedition to Greenland and later in the Himalayas with her husband Sir Charles Evans (deputy leader of the 1953 Everest Expedition) and with an all-women team on the 1962 Jagdula Expedition. A film about the Jagdula Expedition including an interview with Denise and some of her original cine footage is on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4NeH7s_bqc
Charles introduced Denise to sailing on their honeymoon and she wasn’t put off when they dragged their anchors, blew out the jib and broke a forestay. They soon acquired Triune of Troy, a Laurent Giles Channel Class which they sailed to Norway and northern Spain in the 1960s, but it was only in 1983 that Denise acquired her own boat and started crossing oceans, initially to the Atlantic Islands, followed by an Atlantic circuit and then a cruise to Chile and a circumnavigation of South America. She took Dunlin back to Evighedsfjord in West Greenland in 1994 and 1998, followed by cruises to Spitsbergen, Iceland and East Greenland.
It is perhaps fitting (for the first woman President of the Alpine Club) that the first half of the book is largely devoted to climbing, but there’s plenty of sailing too, and the whole book has a Denise’s distinct voice, modest and self-deprecating, but determined and adventurous.
It seemed entirely appropriate that the launch of the book at Capel Curig just before Storm Darragh was interrupted by the red warnings sounding on multiple mobile phones! Nonetheless, there were lots of fascinating people there to pay tribute to Denise’s inspiration as climbing partner and skipper. Reaching Beyond - The Mountains and Voyages of Denise Evans is available from Delfryn Publications at £19.95
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