30 Dec: Round the World teenager puts pilot problems behind him
Michael Perham's chances of being back in the UK in time for his 17th birthday in March are looking slim. Dogged by problems with his NKE autopilot, he has spent almost a month in Las Palmas, in the Canaries. He's now under way again, but faces light headwinds and slow progress.

Even so, after what must have been a very frustrating Christmas,  Mike said it was "absolutely brilliant" to be on his way again.

Criticism of the NKE pilot is understandable, but Mike says that with every hour of trouble-free operation, his confidence in the repaired system is increasing.

A couple of things to bear in mind:-
1.  Mike isn't totally dependent on one autopilot: he has a back-up system (a Raymarine). But if he had carried on with his primary system out of action, then he would have had no reserve.
2.  Windvane systems served the likes of Hasler, Chichester, and Knox-Johnson very well. But they don't work on boats like Totally Money, which is designed to operate at 20+ knots, and would be particularly unreliable when surfing downwind -- the very conditions in which Mike's autopilot will be most important to him.

Sunday December 21 was the winter solstice -- the shortest day of the year.

From now until the summer solstice in June,the sun will rise a little later each morning, and set a little later each evening.

So although many regard the Solstice as the "start of winter", it's equally true to say that we've turned the corner, and are now on our way to summer.

18 Dec: Ofcom U-turn on licence price hike?

Ofcom appears to be backing down – at least partly – from its plans to introduce massive hikes in the cost of coast radio station licences.

The original plans,  published in July, were for a ten-fold increase in the licence fee for a typical yacht club base station (from £75 per year to £740) and were to be rushed into force for April 2009. They were met by a hail of protest when the general public realised that Ofcom was planning to help itself to over a quarter of a million pounds a year from the RNLI – one of the UKs most popular charities.

In a significant shift from its original plans, Ofcom now says it intends to offer “organisations that have a large number of transmitters around the country” a nationwide licence deal. In a bizarrely back-dated press release (it’s dated 23 October, but refers to 30 October in the past tense!) Ofcom claims that “for widespread organisations like the RNLI this would be much cheaper than holding a separate licence for each channel at each location. We estimate that, based on the RNLI’s use, its fee under the new arrangements would be less than £20,000.”

See Call me a cynic on the Comment page.

Representatives of the RYA and BMF have had another round of meetings with officials at the Department "for" Trade, to stave off yet another threat to impose a "drink drive" limit on recreational boaters.

The legislation is already on the statute book, in Section 80 of the misleadingly-named "Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003", but it has never been brought into force.

Successive transport ministers have announced their intention of doing so, but on each occasion so far they have been persuaded of the fact that it is unnecessary and would be unworkable.

The DfT is likely to publish a so-called "consultation" document with as little publicity as possible in the run-up to the Xmas/New year break.

Look out for it on www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/open

The previous consultation is still available on
www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/archive/2004/alnm/alcohollimitsfornonprofessio1104, with the results on   www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/archive/2004/alnm/conresalcohollimits

See Yo ho ho and a bottle of mineral water!on the Comment page.

End of the line for old EPIRBs