Go Affordable Boating Seminar: Meet the Speakers
Part of Cruising Skills Week
Explore Cruising Skills Week Discover Go Affordable Boating Seminar
Tom Cunliffe
Tom read law before going to sea. He ran a sailing school in France and was an MCA Yachtmaster Instructor Examiner for 40 years. He served in traditional sailing ships, skippered and delivered private yachts, raced offshore and was mate on a merchant vessel. Since 1971, Tom has cruised his own boats to Brazil, Greenland, the Caribbean and Soviet Russia, to name but a few. He is an award-winning nautical author with broadcasts including ‘Boatyard’ and ‘Boats that Built Britain’. Tom’s YouTube channel has 40,000 subscribers and he continues to cruise his 45-foot cutter each summer in the Baltic.
Banner image: ©Lester McCarthy
James Parnell
James is a longstanding CA member and has sailed in a number of small boats on the east coast since the 1980s. In 2009 his family took a year out and sailed from the UK to the mediterranean and kept their boat there ever since. A boat sharing club enables him to sail UK waters as well and cruise the near continent. He has been a CA volunteer in a number of capacities and is currently Joint Secretary of the Mediterranean Section and recently a member of the CA Council
Camilla Herrmann
Camilla trained as a journalist, then worked in corporate communications for many years before becoming editor of Cruising magazine for the CA in 2015. She also now edits the monthly CA Newsletter and the Yearbook, and is a member of the CA’s Council. Camilla started dinghy sailing with her late husband Sam in 1986, eventually buying a Westerly Storm 33, Kalessin of Orwell, which they sailed from Suffolk to the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal and the Baltic with their sons. After Sam died in 2024 Camilla sailed around most of Britain. Kalessin is now up for sale and, like you, Camilla is looking for cheaper ways to go boating.
Lu Heikell
Lu grew up in the west country and gained a love of cruising and dinghy sailing from her father, Peter. She met her husband Rod when she joined him as crew on a trip from the Azores to Gibraltar in 1999. Many sea miles, including a circumnavigation later, she and Rod have lived, loved, and worked together for more than twenty-five years and split their time between the Isle of Wight and Greece when not on their beloved yacht Skylax. Alongside Rod, Lu is co-author of several pilot guides including Greek Waters Pilot, edits the Imray-Tetra chart series, and is a regular columnist in Yachting Monthly.
Malcolm Denham
Malcolm is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, who started his career in engine design. After a spell with Lloyds register of Shipping, he worked for BP for the rest of his career. He has worked in fuel and lubricant development and ran the engine and vehicle test facilities. In the 1980’s he was a keen performance windsurfer. Having sailed on friend’s boats and chartered during the late ‘80s, he decided to be on the water rather than in it and bought a cruising yacht a Rival 34. Malcolm is a Yachtmaster offshore and he his wife Julie now own a Maxi 1100, which they keep in Southern Brittany and mainly sail the Atlantic coast of France and Spain.
Laura Hodgetts
Laura wrote the Dorset Echo’s Afloat page and became the Echo’s accredited reporter for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic sailing events, before joining Practical Boat Owner, where she has worked for over a decade as news and cruising editor. She has passed her RYA day skipper, Dinghy Sailing Level 2, Powerboat Level 2, Windsurfing and Kitesurfing beginner.
Alison Wood
Sailing and watersports are Ali’s passion. As a child, she raced Mirror dinghies with her parents and went on to cruise the North Wales coast in everything from a fibreglass trimaran to a 100-year-old wooden gaffer. These days Ali lives in Dorset and enjoys wild swimming, paddleboarding, surfing and sailing dinghies in Christchurch harbour. She previously owned the PBO Project Boat, Maximus, refitting the 43-year-old cruiser with her husband. Ali is the features editor for Practical Boat Owner.
Katy Stickland
Katy co-founded and ran the marine services company - Store Bay Marine Services - in Tobago with her husband John. They provided technical services for visiting sailors, living aboard their S&S 34 in Store Bay, before returning to the UK. Katy previously wrote for the Yachting and Boating World website, was news editor at Practical Boat Owner from 2017-2021 and worked for Yachting Monthly magazine for over five years, three years as deputy editor, before rejoining the PBO team as editor in 2023. She has also contributed to the 'Superyacht Services Guide' and 'A Cruising Guide to Trinidad and Tobago'.
