A Mini passes the test in preparation for the…

Read more on Sailing Anarchy

Long Beach, CA (September 17, 2021) – Today the top three skippers racing in the 56th Congressional Cup regatta at Long Beach Yacht Club here cemented their positions in the semi-finals, but the battle is still waging for fourth place and who will advance to the next stage.

In round robin racing, Johnie Berntsson (SWE) and Eric Monnin (FRA) joined the ranks of the untouchable and will move into the semi-finals tomorrow. Ahead of them, Taylor Canfield (USA) continued to flaunt the form that earned him his second World Match Racing Champion title in 2020, and four Crimson Blazers.

The Crimson Blazer is yacht racing’s equivalent to the The Masters’ green jacket. It’s more than just a red sport coat: it a sign of joining the legion of celebrated skippers who have donned it before. Dennis Conner, Peter Holmberg, Dean Barker, Harold Cudmore, Chris Dickson, Ted Turner, Bill Ficker, Ken Read, Francesco Bruni … LBYC members tease that when Simone Ferrarese won his Crimson Blazer in 2013, ‘He was like a little kid on Christmas morning, he was so smitten with winning it. We think he slept in it.’

In today’s racing, in a light breeze that freshened up to 10 knots, penalty flags flew and collisions continued. Infringements of the strict rules of racing – determined by an expert team of on-the-water umpires – come at a hefty price, as a penalized boat is required to do a 360-degree penalty turn; while their opponent slips away…

Read more on Scuttlebutt

Newport, RI (September 17, 2021) – In their best ‘better late than never’, San Diego Yacht Club continued their torid pace which began yesterday with two bullets, winning both races again today to catapult them up to second overall and shrink the lead still held by Southern Yacht Club.

Read more on Scuttlebutt

Brown and Stanford sailors battle to the finish at the 2021 College Sailing Team Race National Championship hosted by the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. (Wilbur Keyworth/)

An abbreviated year of competition after piecing it all together, it will be exciting to watch the seasons unfold once again with the full breadth of the ICSA on the water. There are six conferences in the ICSA, here are some teams to look for and some insight to our Pre-Season Rankings…

Read more on Sailing World

We don’t give a fuck if you don’t think this belongs on our site or not. We know it does. This is a brutal murder of  1,428 of one of this earth’s most treasured species. It is unacceptable by every measure, and we are horrified beyond belief. You should be too.

On Sunday night, September 12th, a super-pod of 1428 Atlantic White-Sided Dolphins was driven for many hours and for around 45 km by speed boats and jet-skis into the shallow water at Skálabotnur beach in the Danish Faroe Islands, where every single one of them was killed.

Sea Shepherd believes this to be the largest single hunt of dolphins or pilot whales in Faroese history (the next largest being 1200 pilot whales back in 1940), and is possibly the largest single hunt of cetaceans ever recorded worldwide.

While Sea Shepherd has been fighting to stop the ‘Grind’ since the early 1980’s, this latest dolphin massacre was so brutal and badly mishandled that it is no surprise the hunt is being criticized in the Faroese media and even by many outspoken pro-whalers and politicians in the Faroe Islands…

Read on.

Read more on Sailing Anarchy

On Thursday, the ship management division of Stena confirmed that two tanker crewmembers were killed by a large wave off Cape Horn last weekend.

On Saturday, as the Euronav-owned oil tanker Arafura was rounding Cape Horn, en route to Long Beach from Brazil, she ran into rough weather and heavy waves. An alarm went off towards the bow, and the chief officer and the bosun went to attend to it. During the evolution, they were struck by a large wave and killed. An investigation into the incident is underway, according to Stena subsidiary Northern Marine Management, the ship’s manager…

Read more on Sailing Anarchy

The lightweight construction of the 46m performance cruiser, Royal Huisman’s project 405 aka Reichel / Pugh – Nauta 151, employs the shipyard’s new “Featherlight” method which combines the best of both worlds: performance and comfort. The turning of the modern performance hull at Royal Huisman’s new-build facilities is an important milestone in the build process…

Read more on Sailing Anarchy

Squalls are well known to sailors who cruise the middle Latitudes. Eventually, you become complacent to their bluster. But squalls vary in magnitude, and while crossing from Tahiti to Oahu, our 47ft Custom Stevens sloop paid the price for carrying too much canvass as we were batted over by a sudden punch of wind and a hammering of rain that damaged our headsail.

It was a star-filled night, and I had failed to notice the clouds creeping up from behind us. Salubrious trade winds became instant mayhem. My wife, Ivy, and I rushed to disengage the windvane steering and douse our headsail. Struggling with the furling line, we tried rolling up our headsail, which was now shaking our boat like a chew toy. Our Yankee usually furls with little effort, but nothing could persuade the wind-filled sail to obey this time around. With a final tug, we felt a sudden surrender and our Yankee rolled in, presumably. The squall quickly passed, leaving us dripping wet and licking our wounds.

Eventually, we tried to redeploy our Yankee and continue on our way. But when we hauled in on the sheets they fell limp in our hands. Further investigation revealed the stainless-steel ring that is normally stitched to the clew of the sail had torn away, and though it was still loosely furled, our Yankee now threatened to flag open and flog itself to pieces while the sheets lay like coiled vipers on the foredeck. We sailed like that the rest of that night with the unfettered corner of our Yankee continuing to wag at us in the darkness. Finally, at daybreak I went forward to retrieve our wayward gear. It was now all too clear, though, that we were officially clewless in the middle of the Pacific…

Read more on Sail Magazine

Since the America’s Cup shifted toward heightening its commercial profile in 2007, there has been a list of cities that hoped to profit as well. But each opportunity required investment, which required a best estimate on the return.

But for Valencia (2007, 2010), San Francisco (2013), and Auckland (2021), that return failed to deliver.

Of the international cities bidding on the 37th America’s Cup, the Irish city of Cork has been most public about the process, but their enthusiasm is now getting shaded. Here’s a report from The Irish Times:

Sources in all three Government parties as well as senior officials have privately expressed their concerns about the project. – Full report

Read more on Scuttlebutt

The Collegiate Offshore Sailing Circuit (COSC) will have three events held in its fleet of one-design Figaro 2s. With six Figaro 2s currently deployed at colleges or maritime academies, COSC has six more Figaro 2s available for charter.

Event Schedule:
Sept 18-19: Newport, RI to Oyster Bay, NY – 105nm
Sept 25-26: Oyster Bay, NY – out/back, 100nm
Oct 9-10: Larchmont, NY – daily distance Gold Cup at Intercollegiate Offshore Regatta

Details: www.cosc-usa.org
Questions: info@cosc-usa.org

COSC’s Mission:
To teach fundamental offshore seamanship to college sailors, by installing a one-design fleet of offshore capable boats in college sailing teams (for use during their academic semesters) and thus to expand the pool of offshore capable mariners in the USA…

Read more on Scuttlebutt