Gadzooks, September’s nearly over. What happened to the summer? Surely it can’t be almost winter again?

Yes, it can. Next week we put November to bed, as we say here, and there’s nothing quite like a magazine issue date to make you feel the pell-mell charge of passing time.

A casualty of late summer has been my poor old blog, which has been wilting in an untended corner of the YW website. This sad, unwatered little specimen was abandoned during a feast of holidays and extra projects (Top Yachts magazine – still on sale; another book; plus our Vendée Globe race guide — with the November issue, don’t miss it).

Now that light is appearing at the end of the tunnel it’s time to add water and hope that the dear reader (whoever that is) will return. Term’s begun again, here we go?