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.
Mark Fishwick compiled his first West Country Cruising in 1988, and the publication of a Tenth Edition by Fernhurst Books is a testament to its continuing popularity.
Cruising Guide to the Netherlands and Belgium is a new first edition from the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation.
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.
A Life under Sail – The Aquatic Adventures of a Royal Marine by Lieutenant Colonel Ewen Southby-Tailyour OBE RM. Published by Pen and Sword 2026. ISBN 978-1-03614-856-0. Price £29.99.
This is a splendid collection of some 37 chapters that covers a panoply of seafaring tales which both inform and entertain. Set mostly in chronological order, the book is brim full of sage advice for any yachtsman - experienced or novice. In addition to the photographs, starting with one of him as a baby taken by Evelyn Waugh, the book includes a number of Ewen’s fine drawings of charts and seabirds.
After writing in excess of 20 books this represents something of a valedictory ode to the richest of lives in and around the sea. His early adventures as a young boy aboard the 35 ton Bristol Pilot cutter “Olga”, developed in Ewen a love of gaff rigged yachts and he describes six of them early on in the book – four of which he owned himself. It is a measure of his joie de vivre that he named a succession of these “Black Velvet”.
An important theme through the book is Ewen’s advice to short handed sailors. The innovative watch-keeping system he developed for the Two Handed Round Britain Race in 1970 is a classic and is now tried and tested. There is also a chapter on watch-keeping for the Single Handed yachtsman gleaned from Ewen’s earlier biography of arguably the founder of modern shorthanded racing, Lieutenant Colonel “Blondie” Hasler DSO OBE RM and which is developed here in a chapter on the OSTAR. Amongst his many voyages, Ewen describes vividly sailing in the Arctic with the attendant challenges in addition to his experiences sailing in and around the Falkland Islands.
There are two chapters that draw from his novels Skeletons of Sadness and Death’s Sting: Duplicity and Deceit in the Balkans. Ewen has been a vigorous letter writer to the national newspapers and some of these provide an entertaining chapter towards the end of the book and an eclectic view of his take on life. There is a fascinating chapter on a history of the sextant with relevant anecdotes. Some of the sage advice that I referred to is contained in another chapter of his short stories for the Yachting World under his nom de plume of “Tumblehome” which offer cautionary and sometimes humorous yarns of life at sea. But it is not all about sailing and the book contains a chapter of a voyage in a narrow boat with a Royal Marines chum and of course Ewen himself was a highly influential Landing Craft officer. The final two chapters provide a tour d’horizon of his life to date and a gallop through the many craft that is has been his good fortune to sail in - square riggers, gaff cutters, sloops, schooners, dhows, junks, ketches, yawls, canoes, sand yachts and not of course forgetting landing craft, rigid raiding craft and hovercraft etc. He concludes with the words ”it is high time that I lowered the ensign, hoisted the riding light, poured a gin and raised a toast to what has been a truly ‘glorious ride’!
For anyone interested the sea and in an array of stories of “they that go down to the sea in ships” covering the past 80 years this is a rattling good read. An ideal birthday or Christmas present.
Brig Roger Dillon RM
