Laura Dekker in Capetown

by Nancy Knudsen, Editor on 1 Dec 2011 Notoriously media-shy solo sailor Laura Dekker has not only survived a 50 knot storm to arrive in Cape Town at the end of her Indian Ocean passage, she has done it with a coolness which belies her sixteen years, and with little fuss outside the sailing world.

If she achieves her next leg as planned – from Cape Town back to Gibraltar in the next few months - she will then not be able to avoid a mainstream media storm as the youngest circumnavigator ever. As long as she completes this leg before September next year, she will take the unofficial record from Australia's Jessica Watson. The way she's handling her successive oceans, it doesn't seem a big ask.

What a good mixture of usefulness and fascination there is in this week's edition. Topping the list is the article about navigational charts directly from Google Earth. No more will you have to suffer the discrepancy between the real world and your electronic chart if you learn how to follow Paul Higgins' methodology.

Also making the news is a rally to dream about through the Canary Islands; PlanetSolar's arrival into pirate waters; an RYA published book about Offshore Sailing; some timely advice about smart bare-boat chartering; and Ten Tips on handling the main on a short-handed cruising boat.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, so browse down the headlines to find what interests you.

Sweet sailing!