California sailing legend Paul Cayard, Australian-born racer Jimmy Spithill, and Susan Henn, the first known woman to compete in the America’s Cup, have been announced as the Herreshoff Marine Museum/America’s Cup Hall of Fame Class of 2025. Each sailor is recognized for their personal achievements and positive influence on the sport and in America’s Cup racing.

Paul Cayard has been in the sailing news for decades and has won seven world championships and the Whitbread Round the World Race, competed in seven America’s Cup campaigns, and is a two-time Olympian. He has also been highly active in official roles behind the sailing scene including board chair for the St. Francis Yacht Club, former executive director of US Olympic Sailing, and president of the International Star Class Association.

Cayard’s first America’s Cup campaign was as a sail trimmer aboard the 12 Meter Defender in 1983. He served as tactician in the 1987 America’s Cup in Fremantle, Australia. He went on to win multiple sailing events and championships including the International Star Class Worlds, the Maxi Yacht World Championship, and the 1997–98 Whitbread Round the World Race. In 2000 Cayard launched an America’s Cup campaign on behalf of his home club, the St. Francis Yacht Club, with his team AmericaOne. He is also an inductee of the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.

Jimmy Spithill was just 4 years old when Australia II won the 1983 America’s Cup. His first boat was a race-ready dump-find, recovered from a dump and made ready for racing, and in 1989, together with his sister, he won the first race he ever entered. In 1997 he captained his crew to win the Australian High School Sailing Championship. That same year Spithill was named New South Wales Youth Yachtsman of the Year.

In 1998 Spithill was recruited to race the Rolex Sydney Hobart race aboard Ragamuffin, and in 2000 at age 20, he became skipper of Young Australia for the 2000 America’s Cup in San Diego — the Cup’s youngest-ever helmsman. Subsequent America’s Cup campaigns followed, including roles with the USA’s American OneWorld and ORACLE teams, and Italy’s Luna Rossa. In 2024, Spithill retired at the conclusion of the America’s Cup in Barcelona but not before having led numerous teams aboard foiling trimarans, the foiling wing sail AC72 and AC50 catamarans, foiling AC75 monohulls, and the foiling F50s as captain for the US SailGP Team.

Susan Matilda Cunninghame-Graham Henn (1853-1911) is celebrated as the first woman to compete, and ultimately command a yacht, in the America’s Cup. Henn sailed aboard the 102-ft steel cutter Galatea in the 1886 match against the Mayflower. Henn and her husband Lt. William Henn sailed across the Atlantic for the race against Mayflower, proving Henn’s disposition for a life at sea. When her husband became ill during a race, Henn took charge of their yacht, once more demonstrating her exceptional sailing skills.

The America’s Cup Hall of Fame has inducted over 100 individuals since its founding in 1992. Candidates eligible for consideration include sailing team members, designers, builders, syndicate leaders, supporters, chroniclers, and other individuals of merit. Each nominee is judged on the basis of outstanding ability, international recognition, character, performance, and contributions to the America’s Cup. The members of the Selection Committee are intimate with the history and traditions of the America’s Cup and are committed to maintaining the integrity of the Hall of Fame.

Cayard, Spithill, and Henn will be honored on October 16 at the America’s Cup Hall of Fame Induction at the New York Yacht Club.

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A rough rendering of the Coast Guard’s Feb. 26 encounter off Southern California.

We are not alone in the universe!

On February 26, a USCG/Department of Homeland Security press release read: Coast Guard encounters over a dozen aliens off the coast of southern California.

How was this not bigger news?

After centuries of speculation and generations of fiction imagining other worlds and new beings, suddenly — on a Tuesday morning — the Coast Guard made first contact somewhere off SoCal.

Will the world ever be the same? Surely, something of this magnitude would forever change humanity.

Star Trek posited that after making first contact with an alien species, the nagging problems plaguing humanity vanished, or rather, humanity abandoned war and strife and instead sought to embrace what was beyond Earth. Aliens opened the door to a utopia.

Or maybe an alien encounter would be more like Star Wars, where war and strife were taken to the stars. (Not to worry, the bad guys have terrible aim.) Or maybe the alien encounter would be more like Watchman, where a false-flag attack from an extraterrestrial brought the US and Russia (still the USSR) back from the brink of nuclear war — uniting two foes against a common external threat.

Juxtaposing the Coast Guard’s previous press release, on January 21, a USCG headline read: Coast Guard interdicts 26 migrants near Oceanside Harbor. “Coast Guard crews interdicted a panga-style vessel. A boarding team safely embarked the 26 individuals who represented multiple nationalities, including those from Mexico, China and Vietnam,” a press release said.

The alien event on February 26 was, of course, a near-identical situation: The Coast Guard said that three assets “participated in the encounter … [Coast Guard] crewmembers turned over custody of the aliens, including Mexican, Chinese, and Indian nationals, to Customs and Border Protection for further processing.”

The Coast Guard added in the February release that they “work closely with federal and international partners to disrupt human smuggling operations and ensure the safety of those at sea.”

Latitude considered asking the Coast Guard about the language change, but decided against it. That would have been inappropriate. The Coast Guard is just following orders … and they have better things to do, like saving lives.

Clearly, the language change came from high above.

The day after the new administration was sworn in, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a memo directing ICE to use “alien” instead of “noncitizen” in all communications, rescinding previous guidance from 2021. “Alien” had long been the legal term in federal law but had fallen out of favor in some agencies due to its negative connotations. This is only natural — language is dynamic and has always evolved with time.

Being the starving writers that we are, we here at Latitude believe in the importance of words. We are open to words changing our minds, and we hope that our own words might give people who don’t agree with us something to ponder. Believing in language is a little like believing in life outside Planet Earth, though — it requires faith and hope, and it’s a little scary. Who knows if the message will be received?

Language can be manipulated (both sides do it) and set-in-the-stone morals can be flip-flopped. (Liberals now hate Teslas and conservatives love them.) Who is the enemy? (Those fu@king Canadians?) Whom are we afraid of? And where does that fear come from? From the words we read, or from what’s happening in our everyday lives?

We thank the Coast Guard for watching after migrants, aliens, extraterrestrials, individuals, commercial mariners and pleasure boaters with equal care and skill.

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“There are some heavy hitters here,” said Ed McCoy, my friend and frequent sailing partner.

“Agreed,” I replied. Since arriving about 30 minutes earlier at the backyard barbecue in Falmouth, Maine, just north of Portland, I had reconnected with an old friend and two-time Vendée Globe veteran, discussed emergency composite repair with a Class40 round-the-world racer, and listened in on a discussion about rounding Cape Horn in heavy weather. “I think only in Portland, Maine, and somewhere in France does a house party like this even exist,” I added.

My first arrival in Portland had been a year ago to pick up an old Open 50 called Sparrow and begin preparing for the Global Solo Challenge—a solo, nonstop, around-the-world race. I’d known about Maine’s reputation for unparalleled sailing and cruising; with more than 4,000 islands and a coastline longer than California’s, Maine is profoundly connected to the water. Whether heading offshore, hauling lobster traps, or commuting to a neighboring island, living in Maine and spending time on a boat tend to go hand in hand.

I also knew Maine’s boatbuilding reputation. Legendary marques like Hinckley, Lyman-Morse, Morris Yachts, and the well known Landing School all call Maine home. So does an adventurous, free-thinking, and entrepreneurial population with a can-do spirit. Unsurprisingly, Maine has become a state of expert boatbuilders and equally skilled mariners—the New Zealand of America, if you will.

Photo courtesy of Portland Yacht Services

What I didn’t know but quickly discovered is that Maine has also become the beating heart of American shorthanded ocean racing. As the finish of the Class40 Atlantic Cup and home base of every successful American campaign to finish the Vendée Globe, Maine—and specifically Portland—has become a major hub on the small but dedicated American shorthanded offshore sailing scene. A place that tends to scoop up round-the-world racing sailors and claim them as its own, it has a culture and passion for shorthanded ocean racing that is real and runs deep.

How it got that way is a story not just of place, but of sailing legends.

“Dodge Morgan set the tone here and set out on his record-breaking around-the-world sail here back in the ’80s,” says Maine Yacht Center General Manager Brian Harris. Morgan in 1986 became the first American to sail solo nonstop around the world, setting a new record of 150 days. While Morgan officially started and finished in Bermuda and sailed via the three Great Capes, he had originally departed from Portland. After finishing, he lived in Maine until he died in 2010. His Ted Hood-designed 60-footer, American Promise, today sails the Gulf of Maine as the flagship research vessel for the Rozalia Project.

“But there’s the history of Walter Greene too,” Harris adds. “He was a true pioneer of the multihull scene and became very, very famous both here and in France.”

In the 1970s, solo ocean racing was in its infancy, and sailors were still grappling with which was faster across an ocean under sail: a multihull or a monohull. Maine-based multihull designer, builder, and sailor Walter Greene, who died last July at 80 years old, was one of the beautiful geniuses who helped collectively answer this defining question that would spark a revolution in yacht design.

During the inaugural Route du Rhum in 1978—a singlehanded race from Saint Malo, France, to Guadeloupe, sailed without class restrictions, size limits, nor division between monohulls and multihulls—36 intrepid sailors from around the world brought together the most impressive fleet of ocean racing hardware ever assembled at the time. In the end, however, it was a tiny plywood trimaran from Yarmouth, Maine, designed by Walter Greene, that stole the show.

After more than three weeks at sea, Canadian Mike Birch and his 31-foot Greene-designed trimaran Olympus Photo crossed the finish line just 98 seconds ahead of Frenchman Michel Malinovsky and his massive 70-foot monohull Kriter V. In a story that couldn’t have been better scripted by the best minds in Hollywood, the stunning images of a small trimaran narrowly beating a huge monohull to win the inaugural Route du Rhum would effectively serve as the line of demarcation for the modern multihull movement.

Two years later, the 1980 OSTAR helped confirm that multihulls were the ticket to speeding across an ocean and that Greene’s Maine builds were wicked fast. American Phil Weld would win the race on Moxie, a Dick Newick-designed trimaran built by Greene in Maine. Third-, fourth-, and fifth-place finishers sailed trimarans designed and built by Greene. When the modern singlehanded racing movement began, the fastest boats in the world weren’t coming out of France or the UK; they were coming out of a shed in Yarmouth, Maine.

Around the same time that Greene was pioneering the modern multihull movement and cleaning up in the solo races, Portland native Phineas Sprague Jr. and his wife, Joanna, were wrapping up a four-year circumnavigation on a classic John Alden-designed schooner. Returning home and beginning the next chapter of their lives, the Spragues would go on to enter the marine industry with the founding of the Portland Ship Yard and Portland Yacht Services. A full-service boatyard that would eventually take on major projects up to and including new constructions and full restorations, PYS established itself as a major player on Portland’s relatively small but bustling working waterfront.

As solo ocean racing continued its maturation and the newly created Vendée Globe became the most prestigious solo ocean race on earth, Portland would again find itself playing a key role.

“After finishing the 2002-03 Around Alone, I was trying to figure out where to go and how to do the preparation for the Vendée Globe,” says Bruce Schwab. “I wound up in one of the Portland Yacht Services sheds for over a year…The support that Ocean Planet and I found was amazing, and I don’t know how I would have made it to the start of the (2004) Vendée Globe without it. In the process of preparing Ocean Planet in Maine, I got to learn about the maritime and yachting history here. I had been unaware previously of how deep it was and of the ties to shorthanded ocean racing.”

The following year, Schwab would go on to become the first American to finish the iconic Vendée Globe, the world’s toughest and most prestigious solo offshore sailing race. Finishing in ninth place with a time of just under 110 days, Schwab became a national sailing hero and only added to Maine’s rich shorthanded ocean racing legacy.

“After completing the Vendée, returning back to Maine became a homecoming for me,” Schwab says. “The maritime and yachting economy in Maine was a much bigger thing relatively than it is in California, and so it seemed that it would be easier to get back on my financial feet here. Also, there was the logistics of what to do with the boat since sailing it out to California was not financially possible at that point…I suppose it took me a while to get my bearings after the Vendée, but in hindsight I was ready for a new beginning, and Maine was the place to do it.”

He would fall back on his rigging skillsets to start a business in Maine before going on to found Ocean Planet Energy in Woolwich, just up the coast from Portland, which has established itself as an industry leader in marine batteries, electrical systems, charging systems, and renewable energy systems.

At the same time Schwab was returning to Maine to begin his next chapter, Brian Harris was also getting resettled in Portland after a decade of working on racing yachts in France and abroad.

“When I moved back to Maine, I was looking for a job and the Maine Yacht Center was in its final stages of being constructed, so I interviewed and got the job as general manager,” he says. “When I started here, there was nothing. There were no pencils or chairs, nor customers, and so we had to kick-start the thing from scratch.

“I had worked for Emma Richards on her Pindar program during the Around Alone 2002/03, and as we were wrapping up that project, I met James Burwick. James had just purchased an Open 40 that had sailed in the race, and he needed a place to refit it. I told him, ‘Hey, I just started this new job at this boatyard in Maine.’ And so James was customer No. 1 at Maine Yacht Center. It wasn’t a Pearson 26 as our first customer; it was a Finot-designed Open 40 preparing for another world tour! And that’s when Will Rooks came to work for us. Will is an exceptionally talented composite boatbuilder, and we needed someone to join the team for the refit.”

Rooks was also a member of the Ocean Planet project with Schwab and brought a high level of expertise to the fledgling operation. While Burwick and his growing family went on to complete a well documented lap of the planet on their Open 40 Anasazi Girl, their refit at Maine Yacht Center also marked the beginning of what would become a long and rich legacy of preparing racing yachts to sail solo around the world. As the business grew, the unique level of expertise housed within MYC grew as well. One by one, expert boatbuilders, electricians, technicians, and systems specialists joined the team. When American Rich Wilson set out to become just the second American to complete the Vendée Globe, he chose Maine Yacht Center to prepare his boat.

“When Rich showed up with Great American III, we did quite an extensive refit for the 2008 Vendée Globe, a race that was successfully completed,” Harris says. Removing the keel, mast, rudders, and most onboard systems, the boat was meticulously prepared from stem to stern by what was now a formidable team of technical experts that called Portland and Maine Yacht Center home.

When the refit project was completed more than a year later, the boat had been modified and altered enough that it had to be recertified as a class-compliant IMOCA 60. Conducting stability and inversion tests normally completed at a small group of facilities in France or the UK, the team strengthened Portland’s reputation as the place to refit a round-the-world racing yacht on American shores. When Wilson set out to sail the Vendée Globe a second time in the 2016 race, he again chose to refit his next IMOCA at Maine Yacht Center. And he again finished.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think that any of this shorthanded racing stuff would follow me here; it never even occurred to me,” Harris says. “But Portland is a welcoming place. It’s got a great harbor and an enthusiastic sailing scene. There is an adventuresome spirit here in Maine, and the sailors find a local community outside of the boatyard that endears them to Maine.

“There’s so few places to go really. In Europe, there’s a lot of places, but here in the U.S.A., there’s only a few places you can go that have the knowledge of working on these unique boats,” he says.

During the mid to late 2000s, the introduction of the Class40 changed the shorthanded ocean racing world, and Portland would further cement its place as the capital of American shorthanded ocean racing. Harris and team knew that this new design would be more affordable than an IMOCA 60 but still possess the speed and abilities of a planing monohull, so they sought out Akilaria in France—a Class40 designed by the late, legendary French designer Marc Lombard.

“We started bringing over incomplete boats and finishing them up for final assembly as well as commissioning. As a result of that, it also attracted other people with Class40 interest. That’s how we met Mike Hennessy and worked on both of his Dragon Racing Class 40s,” Harris says. “We worked on other Akilarias and non-Akilaria boats as well. Over time, Portland and Maine Yacht Center became the default place to work on these boats in the U.S.A.”

To this day, the Atlantic Cup—America’s largest Class40 regatta—ends in Portland after racing from Charleston and then Newport. Bringing world class professional sailors from Europe and attracting some of the most cutting edge ocean racing hardware on earth, the Atlantic Cup is an important part of Portland’s modern maritime heritage. During the recent Globe 40 doublehanded around the world race in Class40s, seven boats entered and five finished. Of those five finishers, three were prepared at Maine Yacht Center, including both American entries and the lone Canadian entry.

I arrived in Portland in August of 2022 to pick up Sparrow at Maine Yacht Center. A 1994 Open 50 designed by David Lyons, it had already raced in two BOC Challenges, and I had to prepare it to race in the Global Solo Challenge.

Having never been to Portland, the small seaside community quickly gained personal relevance the moment I decided to race solo around the world. A year after first picking up the boat and sailing down the East Coast and back, I returned to Maine Yacht Center to conduct my prerace refit. In the process, I fell in love with a local girl, and she even helped me find a local company, Shipyard Brewing, to become my title sponsor for the race.

My own race came to an unfortunate conclusion when I dismasted after completing 80% of the course and sailing in third place. But it was almost inevitable that I would end up back in Portland. Just another solo ocean racer and Cape Horn veteran who now calls Portland, Maine, home, I hope one day soon to work towards basing another campaign here.

While sailors and boats may come and go, their stories live on as part of the sport’s traditions, vernacular, and history. This long and storied legacy of shorthanded around-the-world sailing based in Maine has resulted in a vibrant culture and passion for the sport that is truly unique in the country. As the mystique and allure of shorthanded ocean racing and voyaging continues to grow, it’s inevitable that many aspiring sailors will at some point book a one-way ticket to Maine. What happens after that is anyone’s guess, but it seems safe to say this this story has many chapters left to be written.

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March 2025

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