Phil Sharp (remember him?) has a cool new project and with it, he finally gets a chance to have a competitive IMOCA boat to race all the big events. This boat will be sailed using zero-emissions hydrogen fuel cell technology. More here.

Title inspiration thanks to Gexa X.

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Launched at the start of 2023, the Sailart 17.5 is tackling the 5m sports-boat market (we didn’t know there was one – ed). With modern shapes, this keelboat is aimed at a sporty crew who wants to go beyond a dinghy. More here.

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We expect everyone has heard stories from sailors who, after having enjoyed beautiful sailing in Mexico, make their way back up the West Coast in the conditions that lead to the northbound trip’s being rightly dubbed the Baja Bash. In the January issue we share the story of one crew’s unexpectedly calm return from Mexico.

Vanadium, a 2019 Beneteau 41.1 sloop, had just completed the 2022 Baja Ha-Ha, captained by owner Mike Brost and crewed by his wife Kitti Brown, friend Steve Cauffman, and Crew Lister Jim Immer. The journey was a test for Mike and Kitti to see if they’d enjoy an extended voyage before investing in a cruising catamaran.

The southward Ha-Ha trip was a resounding success, with lots of fleet camaraderie and daily natural spectacles including sublime sunsets and performances by whales, dolphins and rays. But after three nights in Cabo San Lucas, it was time to return Vanadium to her responsibilities with the Sailtime fleet in Newport Beach. Steve had already flown home to his microwave physicist job, so the return crew would consist only of Mike, Kitti and Jim.

The northward Baja Bash has a notorious reputation for testing boats and crew morale, especially during the typical May/June time frame, when insurers coax cruisers clear of potential hurricanes. However, Captain Jim Elfer’s Baja Bash II book includes the surprising revelation that November and July northward deliveries can be an easier experience, as long as weather systems are avoided.

We had refilled the water and diesel tanks upon arrival in Cabo. A Walmart provisioning run provided all the goods needed to continue our gourmet cruise, facilitated by a freestanding 80-quart AC/DC Bodega freezer strapped into the aft cockpit to augment Vanadium‘s built-in refrigerator.

On the morning of Sunday, November 13, Vanadium raised anchor, exiting the pleasantly noisy Cabo beachside anchorage just as the massive Disney Wonder loomed into view.

Vanadium (named for the 23rd element in the periodic table and a key catalyst for the evolution of oceanic life) motored in flat seas with almost no wind around the oft-feared headland of Cabo Falso. It was a cakewalk in shorts and tank tops rather than foulies. We had easy motoring until evening, when the wind filled in at 10 knots on the beam for some fine, warm sailing. With three crew, we rotated through two three-hour watch cycles at night and morning, and then used a two-hour evening watch, which gave everyone plenty of sleep and a social time at dinner.

We bypassed the Ha-Ha stop at Bahia Santa Maria on the way north, since we were anxious to spend the Thanksgiving holiday week with our families. Though the common salutation is “fair winds and following seas,” we were instead blessed with fair seas and following winds due to glassy seas and often light wind, good for fast motoring. Though itching to sail, we were happy to be spared the typical headwinds and swells that make the Bash infamous.

Read the rest of the story in the January issue of Latitude 38.

The post When the Baja-Bash Is the ‘Baja Barely-a-Bash’ appeared first on Latitude38.

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The fifth annual Caribbean Multihull Challenge will begin in just over a month with a record number of boats on the start line. “From a high of 18 boats in 2022, we hope to come closer to the high 20s for this coming event,” says Stephen Burzon, the event’s volunteer director of marketing.

The three-leg racecourse combines a 60-mile sprint around St. Barth, a 52-mile dash around Saba, and a 27-mile circumnavigation of the island. “The combined winner of all three [will receive] a gorgeous and practical Oris Aquis Diving Watch provided by longtime sponsor Oris.” says CMC Steering Committee Chair Petro Jonker.

The event will also be adding a rally component for the first time to give less competitive sailors a chance to join the fun. The rally, officially titled the Caribbean Multihull Challenge Rally, is a three-day cruising event beginning and ending in Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten, with overnights at Anse Marcel and Sandy Ground in Road Bay, Anguilla.

This year’s increase in participation is also thanks in part to a partnership with Balance Catamarans, which is celebrating its 10th birthday this year. According to Phillip Berman, president and founder of Balance Catamarans, the rally is a perfect way to cap off the festivities, as “joining up with the CMC rally as a way to wind up our celebration fits in perfectly with our plans.”

For more information about the event, visit CaribbeanMultihullChallenge.com. To enter the race or the rally, go to YachtScoring.com.

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Every year, sailboat manufacturers around the world launch their latest models, and every year, SAIL magazine’s experienced boat reviewers spend days and weeks learning what’s new, talking with boatbuilders, examining the boats top to bottom dockside, and finally taking them sailing. This culminates at the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, where our review team gets together and makes its final assessments on which boats earn top honors. Results are announced in our January/February issue, and full reviews of the winning boats will be published throughout the year.

For almost 20 years, we’ve called this awards program SAIL Best Boats, but this year, we’re refining and renaming this program to better and more fairly represent the boats we’ve selected. Restricting boats to categories and labels—such as Best Cruising Monohull 30-40 feet and Best Performance Monohull 40-50 feet—doesn’t bring our readers the full picture. Too often, defining these boats by categories results in unfairly comparing apples to oranges, sorting boats with very different purposes and design briefs into the same bracket just because of their LOA, and inevitably kicking out some really terrific boats. So, starting this year, we’re honoring the Top 10 boats, period. By eliminating the artificial straitjacket of size categories and focusing on what are simply the Top 10, SAIL will present readers a more complete and equitable assessment.

So, without further ado, here’s the SAIL Top 10 Best Boats for 2023. After exploring a mix of bluewater boats, racer/cruisers, speedsters, dinghies, and multihulls, we’ve settled on the very best the industry has to offer. We were excited to see that designers and builders are steadily pushing the envelope in propulsion, electrical generation, and more sustainable options for getting out on the water. And as always, we admire the ever-evolving innovations and tenacity of the sailboat industry that makes what we do possible…

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The Environment

Spanish renewables developer Avangrid has announced that it is seeking to walk away from the current contracts for the Commonwealth Wind project planned for Massachusetts, saying that after months of negotiations the project is not economically viable in its current form. After two months of back and forth with the state and regulators, the company made a filing on December 16 proposing that the project be rebid in a competitive solicitation scheduled for April 2023.

“Despite unprecedented challenges in the global economy in the form of supply chain disruptions, historic levels of inflation, and rising interest rates, Avangrid has engaged in good-faith and productive discussions with Massachusetts state officials regarding these challenges and the need to restore the project to economic viability,” the company wrote in its public statement. “To advance this project as expeditiously as possible, Avangrid filed a motion with the DPU (Department of Public Utilities) to dismiss its review of the Commonwealth Wind contracts, which will allow all parties an opportunity to pursue an expedient path forward.” Read on.

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It’s been a long five years since the conclusion of the 2018 Volvo Ocean Race, and a lot more than the event’s name has changed. Here’s everything you need to know about this season’s premier ocean race before it kicks off on January 8.

The Route

Throughout every iteration of this event since 1973, The Ocean Race’s route has followed the same basic parameters: a circuit of the globe starting and finishing in Europe with stopovers scattered throughout. However, the route itself changes for every edition, and the stopover ports vary. This year, Alicante, Spain; Cabo Verde; Cape Town, South Africa; Itajaí, Brazil; Newport, Rhode Island; Aarhus, Denmark; The Hague, Netherlands; and Genova, Italy, are scheduled to host, and a “fly-by” in Kiel, Germany, creates an additional opportunity for fans to see the boats in race-mode while underway.

A discerning eye will note that this route is somewhat of a deviation from the typical Volvo Ocean Race routes of the past decade, which incorporated the Indian Ocean via stopovers in the Middle East, India, and Asia. It’s not clear whether this decision stems from a lack of willing host cities in the region, or the race organizer’s reluctance to put sailors back in waters that proved problematic in recent editions—including a fatal nighttime collision with a fishing vessel, the marooning of one team on a reef, and one memorable leg cancellation during which the boats had to be shipped from one port to the next due to piracy concerns. Instead, the teams will face off against a monstrous Southern Ocean leg, bypassing Oceania and stretching three-quarters of the way around the globe, south of the five Great Capes and through some of the planet’s most treacherous waters.

The Boats

The Ocean Race’s primary class is now the IMOCA 60, a box-rule class that’s been in production since the early ’90s, primarily used for elite shorthanded ocean racing such as in the Vendée Globe. According to 11th Hour Racing Team CEO Mark Towill, this means that sailors will have to be more in tune with their boats than ever. “When all the boats were identical, you pushed the boat as hard as you could. But with different designs in the race, you need to be more aware of your own boat’s limitations and strengths,” he says.

This approach has pros and cons—on one hand, winning a race in the design office doesn’t make for exciting spectating; on the other, different strengths call for more strategic racing—not to mention the introduction of technological innovations like foils. The IMOCA 60s will sail with five crew on board, including one on-board reporter and at least one female crew member. Since the 2018 edition, the race has mandated that every team include female sailors.

For the past few editions, the Volvo Ocean Race has been sailed in VO65s, a one-design class with a race-operated boatyard maintaining all the hulls, hardware, and sails to identical standards. Though VO65s will still race in the 2023 edition, they will be used as a training class, with all boats required to have at least three of their 10 crew members (plus an on-board reporter) be under 30 years old. The VO65 teams will also have at least three women as part of their crew and be allowed one additional crew member for the Southern Ocean leg.

Another interesting addition for this fleet is the VO65 Sprint Cup, which will add VO65 teams not competing in the full round-the-world race to some of the shorter legs and in-port series. Presumably, this has been done to provide more opportunities for underfunded teams and rookie sailors to get experience. But given how exhausted Volvo Ocean Race sailors typically are when they arrive at stopovers, it’s hard to say whether experienced teams will have the upper hand on these green short-course teams or not…

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We don’t know the science behind that transom (if there is any), but we both love it and hate it.  That ass may not age very well, but the boat looks pretty damn cool. More here.

Title inspiration thanks to the Happy Mondays.

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