The authors of RCC Pilotage Foundation publications are all experienced sailors with extensive knowledge of the areas covered.  As well as the research done in preparation for each title they continue to provide regular updates and corrections which include information and feedback from users of the pilots.  We encourage you to send us your feedback and any other pilotage information to help ensure that we can provide up to date information.

Coronavirus Lockdown

During the current world crisis our authors have been unable to continue much of the research they would normally be undertake for new editions and annual supplements. After recent virtual meetings held using zoom we were delighted to be able to hold a live conference for our authors on 16th November. Held at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club with those unable to attend in person joining us on Zoom we were able to welcome new authors and cover a wide range of issues. This has given the opportunity to provide a picture of the team members relaxing after the end of the formal sessions..



Books and E-Pilots

AuthorPublicationsWebsite
David & Susie Baggaley

DAVID & SUSIE BAGGALEY

David and Susie Baggaley have lived in Menorca for over a decade and their Beneteau 42, Kookaburra, is based in Addaya. They have cruised these islands extensively for several years. David and Susie are authors of Balearic Islands.

Balearic Islands Islas Baleares (English edition)
David Read Barker

DAVID READ BARKER

David was co-author of The Black Sea with his wife and life partner, Lisa Borre. We regret to announce that David sadly passed away in 2022, just two days before his 78th birthday.

The Black Sea
Lisa Borre

LISA BORRE

Lisa has a background in environmental management. In 2005 she and David Barker embarked on an extended cruise in their Tayana 37ft cutter Tayana which took them from US to the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

The Black Sea
Henry Buchanan

HENRY BUCHANAN

Henry has worked for the RCCPF since 2009 and became sole author of Atlantic Spain and Portugal in 2012. He was an Engineer in RN submarines, with holidays spent cruising the coasts between Norway and Gibraltar. After a circuit of the Atlantic islands in 2007/2008 he cruised the Mediterranean for four years before a return to Britain in 2013 via the Atlantic coast.

Atlantic Spain & Portugal Atlantic Spain & Portugal Espagne Portugal (French edition)
Nick  Chavasse

NICK CHAVASSE

Nick learned to sail on the Norfolk Broads aged six, and grew up sailing Wayfarers. He has been cruising for over 30 years in Western Europe and always finds himself back in Brittany. He is a dinghy and cruising instructor and sails a Bowman 40. He spent 20 years in the Army before setting up his own marketing company. He started researching and writing for the Pilotage Foundation in 2015.

Atlantic France Atlantic France The Morbihan West France
David Hackett

DAVID HACKETT

David Hackett grew up in a seaside home in Cork messing about in boats. His love of yacht cruising stems from teenage family holidays sailing in West Cork aboard a converted Baltimore sailing trawler. David first cruised to the Isles of Scilly as a teenager in 1970, and has taken his family on summer holidays there every year for the last 30 years. He has sailed various dinghies in and around the Islands almost every summer. He lives near Falmouth in Cornwall, and for many years he has sailed to the Islands and cruised around and about them, often several times, in his own yacht Pinstripe of Penryn. David is a retired cardiologist who has cruised extensively in Northwest Europe. He has completed the Fastnet Race as crew. In his own yacht he has cruised on many occasions to the Isles of Scilly, the West Country, Southwest Ireland, Brittany, the West of Scotland including the Hebrides, as well as a sailing circumnavigation around Ireland. He has sailed more than 17,000M, is an RYA Offshore Yachtmaster, and a member of the Royal Cruising Club (RCC).

Isles of Scilly
Francis Hawkings

FRANCIS HAWKINGS

Francis Hawkings was brought up in the UK, where he sailed dinghies and then a Contessa 26, mostly on the West Coast of Scotland. In 1993 he launched his Tradewind 35 Plainsong in California and has been sailing her in the Pacific, the South Atlantic and the Caribbean ever since. After a shakedown cruise from California to Hawaii, Francis and Plainsong did a long loop around South America between 1997 and 2000, sailing from San Diego to French Polynesia, Pitcairn, Rapa Nui, the Patagonian Channels of Chile, Cape Horn, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, the Caribbean and Florida. Now Plainsong is on the move again and heading generally west, having sailed from California to Japan via Hawaii in 2021 and then on from Japan to the Philippines in 2024. Francis divides his time between California, Scotland and wherever Plainsong happens to be.

Pacific Crossing Guide Pacific Crossing Guide Pacific Crossing Guide Southern California Channel Islands
Paul  Heiney

PAUL HEINEY

Paul discovered his love for sailing in his early twenties. He started with a tiny 17 footer, bravely taking her across the Thames Estuary and onwards to Holland. He now has a 38 foot cutter, Wild Song, which he has taken to Cape Horn and back on a largely singlehanded sailing adventure of a lifetime. Although a cruising sailor, Paul joined the Azores and Back Race in 2003 which gave him an appetite for ocean sailing. This led him to take part in the Singlehanded Transatlantic Race in 2005 - nearly 3,000 miles in 32 days alone. Paul also has a regular column in Sailing Today magazine.

Cape Horn and Antarctic Waters Ocean Sailing
https://www.paulheiney.com/
Annie Hill

ANNIE HILL

Annie Hill has been enjoying an almost continuous roving commission since 1975. In this time she has sailed over 150,000 miles, largely on two boats: the junk-rigged, plywood, 34 ft Badger and the gaff-rigged, steel, 35 ft Iron Bark. In this time she has sailed from 73° N to 61° S, has cruised in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and spent a winter aboard in Greenland, frozen in for 7 months. She is now based in New Zealand and is building a new junk rigged boat. She has written two books: Voyaging on a Small Income and Brazil and Beyond, both of which are still in print.

Cruising Guide to South Orkney Falkland Island Shores Supplement South Georgia 1995
http://anniehill.blogspot.co.uk/
Hilary Keatinge

HILARY KEATINGE

Hilary ‘grew up’ in Dun Laoghaire harbour and has been living and sailing ever since. Hilary began sailing in a clinker-built pram dinghy and progressed to a Heron; she sailed and team-raced in university Fireflies, then a Flying 15, a GP in Nigeria, an Enterprise in Zimbabwe. She and her husband Bill bought their first cruising boat in Jamaica in 1970 - a Tartan 27, from there they raced and cruised in various craft in Australia and for 11 years in Dutch waters. Their last boat, a much beloved Aphrodite 42, was summer home to them in many parts of the Mediterranean. A teacher, journalist, author of Ijsselmeer Harbours (1989); The Flavour of Holland (1994); also compiler of a history of the Irish Cruising Club 1979-2004; and now co-author of Atlantic Islands.

Atlantic Islands Atlantic Islands
Judy Lomax

JUDY LOMAX

Judy started sailing dinghies in her teens. Between 1989 and 2014, she and her husband David spent 16 summers on their 1985 Beneteau First 345 Cloud Walker (owned from new) sailing in Norway, between the Swedish and the Russian borders and to Svalbard (which they circumnavigated in 2013) and Jan Mayen. Judy continues to sail Norwegian waters each summer, always researching and updating as she goes.

Norway Norway Norway
Andy O'Grady

ANDY O'GRADY

Andrew O'Grady started cruising when 17 and has been a member of the Royal Cruising Club since 1978. He qualified as a doctor and after working in Newfoundland and the Shetland Islands he sailed to New Zealand. He built Balaena for long distance cruises to remote places. More recently he has cruised the Baltic, before returning to Argentina and Chile.

Argentina Argentina Argentina pdf Chile Chile Chile Chile North Chile South South Georgia Guide 2005
Tom Partridge

TOM PARTRIDGE

Tom Partridge is an enthusiastic blue water sailor and completed a four year circumnavigation on his boat Adina in 2017. Favouring off the beaten track destinations, he has a keen interest in navigation and has written several authoritative articles on the topic. Tom is responsible for the marketing of our books & looking after our social media platforms.

Chagos Archipelago
Steve Pickard

STEVE PICKARD

Steve has been with the Pilotage Foundation since 2009 and has extensive experience of cruising the waters for which he writes since 1976 when he visited both South Biscay and Mediterranean Spain on a winter yacht delivery! More recently he circumnavigated Spain to survey Galicia to the Gironde, a trip that had Gibraltar and Cowes as its most southerly and northerly points. We regret to announce that Steve passed away earlier in 2024 after a short illness having been taken ill while at sea. He will be profoundly missed.

Costas Del Mediterráneo Español (Spanish edition) Cote Cantabrique (French edition) Mediterranean Spain Mediterranean Spain South Biscay South Biscay
Kitty Van Hagen

KITTY VAN HAGEN

After many years on the offshore race circuit Kitty and her husband left the UK in 1997 to cruise around the world in their 45’ aluminium yacht on which they first crossed the Pacific in 2001. They bought an Oyster 56 in 2007 and continued cruising the Pacific for the next 8 years. Kitty wrote cruising notes for Alaska and British Columbia before taking on the Pacific Crossing Guide.

Pacific Crossing Guide

Baltic Group

AuthorPublicationsWebsite
Graham and Fay Cattell

GRAHAM AND FAY CATTELL

Contributors to Baltic Sea and Approaches

The Baltic Sea and Approaches
Miranda  Delmar-Morgan

MIRANDA DELMAR-MORGAN

Miranda was brought up on her father’s boat, Laura, a ‘Nobby’ built (1908) on the lines of a Morecambe Bay Prawner. She and her parents lived afloat for over three years on the River Crouch in the early 1950s before moving ashore after the birth of her sister, also called Laura. In the mid 1970s until the mid 1980s she lived and worked afloat on large private and charter yachts based in the Caribbean during the winters and mostly, though not entirely, on the eastern seaboard of the United States. After initially cooking she started skippering, and at 23 was in charge of a 75’, 1939 Alden schooner which she raced in classic boat races in New England. She has sailed three transatlantics, skippering two of them on her sextant, and done many thousands of miles under sail. After marrying a landscape gardener, Edward Sprot, she and Edward bought a timber ¾ tonner, Polar Bear, and she taught him and their two daughters to sail. They owned Polar Bear for twenty years and took her ranging as far as Gdansk, in eastern Poland, to St Kilda and Baiona, and most ports in between. She and Edward now sail a Najad 390, Pelonia, and cruise extensively. However, their cruising has been curtailed by the virus and they have been restricted to British waters for the last couple of seasons. She is a contributor to Baltic Sea and Approaches with responsibility for Germany, Poland and Baltic Russia

The Baltic Sea and Approaches
Annette Ridout

ANNETTE RIDOUT

Annette was brought up in Denmark and has been sailing for over forty years. With her husband she completed a 9 year circumnavigation on their Swan 47. Recent summers have been spent cruising Scandinavian waters. A regular contributor of pilotage information over the years she is now responsible for the Danish section of The Baltic Sea and its Approaches.

Baltic Sea South Atlantic Islands The Baltic Sea and Approaches
Madeleine Strobel

MADELEINE STROBEL

Madeleine has edited the Finland RCC Foreign Port Information notes since 2012 and is now author of the Finland section of The Baltic Sea and its Approaches. She trained as a teacher and as an artist painter. Since the 1970s, she has sailed extensively with her husband on their yacht in Germany, Sweden, Finland and Norway.

Baltic Sea Corsica and North Sardinia (English edition) Corsica and North Sardinia (English edition) The Baltic Sea and Approaches
https://bowman40.blogspot.com/