Photo: Lydia Mullan

The Cruising Club of America (CCA) is a collection of 1,400 ocean sailors with extensive offshore seamanship, command experience, and a shared passion for making adventurous use of the seas. Their experiences and expertise make them, collectively, one of the most reliable sources of information on offshore sailing. In partnership with SAIL, the CCA is sharing some of this hard-won know-how in SAIL e-newsletters.

Recently, I flew on a Boeing 737 on an international flight, and as luck would have it, I was able to fly in business class. The aircraft was similar to every 737 that you’ve flown in, but the business class cabin, consisting of 10 seats, was very different; sort of like a mini-version of a larger aircraft’s business seating. As I customarily do, I reached under the seat to find the life jacket, as some of our flight would be over the Indian Ocean. Hmm, no life jacket, nor was there a compartment in the armrest that I shared with Susan. Having never had to evacuate an aircraft, thankfully, this wasn’t a crisis, but it was curious: did they not offer lifejackets for some reason?

Eventually, I “found” them, although their location was indicated by the pre-departure briefing (in Arabic, Swahili, and English) as well as the card in the seat back. The life jackets were stowed overhead, where you’d expect to find the emergency oxygen masks. Furthermore, the seatbelt operated differently than every other seatbelt that I’ve used: to release, you pressed a button along the axis of the belt, rather than lift a handle. In the dark, or with smoke in the cabin, I am not sure I could have figured it out. And the card in the back of the seat in front of me illustrated a completely different seat belt design.

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You have to wonder if there’s anything more that World Sailing and the IOC can do to further devalue sailing as an Olympic sport.

For decades we’ve been told that the primary aim of ‘updating’ Olympic sailing was to make it more inclusive, more appealing to youth, and more exciting for television. Instead, the 2024 regatta has, with few exceptions, scored poorly on all three of those objectives. Admittedly, the weather was dismal, but the problems ran much deeper than a simple lack of wind.

Take nothing away from the athletes themselves. Where the events in Marseille were conducted in fair breezes, in genuinely popular boats and under sensible scoring rules the acknowledged champions usually did well. But elsewhere some fine sailors who spent years developing their skills were denied medals they probably deserved.

The conventional regatta formats we all know, where races are scored equally with few drops, evolved over many years to reward consistency and reduce the element of luck which can be such a disruptive factor in competitive sailing.

But rather than accept those established principles and concentrate on making Olympic sailing fair and relevant the governing authorities have let the tail wag the dog. By straining to create events they imagine might be more attractive to youth and television, the IOC and World Sailing distorted both the range of classes and the formats they race under…

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I mean, who among us hasn’t at least muttered, “I’d like to kill that motherfucker”?

A 64-year-old German sailor is suspected of murdering his 71-year-old crew member after the International Multihull Meeting 2024 in Horten, Oslofjord.

Following the Multihull regatta in Norway, a 71-year-old German sailor was found dead in the water, allegedly murdered by his 64-year-old companion.

The tragedy occurred on the return journey from the regatta when tensions between the two men escalated due to the unsatisfactory results.

More here. And if you’ve got a comment, go here!

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Marseille, France (August 2, 2024) – The Men’s Skiff is one of 10 Sailing events held at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Using the 49er equipment, 20 teams competed in the 12-race Opening Series on July 28-31, with the top 10 advancing to the single, double-points Medal Race on August 1. When light air prevailed that day, the race was postponed to today to finalize the cumulative scores. Here’s the final report:

For all competition reports, click here.

Event details – Results – Notice Board

Diego Botin and Florian Trittel (ESP) fulfilled a lifelong dream by mastering the Men’s Skiff to become Olympic champions.

The Spanish pair sailed impressively throughout the regatta, finishing top of the Opening Series by a narrow five-point margin. Botin and Trittel had not won an individual race heading into the decisive Medal Race, but they saved their best for last, dominating the fleet in an exceptional show on the water to cross the line first.

New Zealand’s Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie followed in the footsteps of fellow countrymen and Tokyo 49er silver medalists Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, placing second overall. The Kiwis wrapped up the silver medal with an important third placed finish in the Medal Race, which saw them overtake Ireland’s Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove.

The Irish crew began the day in second, but dropped to fourth overall after an early crossing of the start line meant they had to restart the Medal Race.

USA’s Ian Barrows and Hans Henken, entering today in fourth, benefited from the shift in positions, managing to secure bronze after a brilliant fourth in the final sail.

“It’s a dream come true,” Botin said. “After years of putting the work in with the best team, with our families here, it doesn’t get any better…”

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North Sails (NorthTechnology Group) has been thought to have purchased both Quantum Sails and Doyle Sails, in their entirety.

To say this is potentially earth-shattering is to put it mildly! So far we have heard there are no plans to change any of the organizations day to day business, and for the short term, that is likely true, but we highly doubt that the staus quo will continue in the longer term.

What that will look like remains to be seen is of wild speculation, but we can bet there will a fair bit of dead wood to be tossed. Speaking of that, there are a couple of tossers at an inferior “loft” here in SD who will likely be sent packing! We just received the press release from NTG.

And of course, there a thread here that promises to be rollicking!

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It’s getting to be a habit. Yet another major Australian offshore race has ended with a controversial protest involving boats that placed first and second on handicap.

Keen followers of last weekend’s Sydney-Gold Coast race will have noticed the official results showed a tiny asterisk against the name of the winning yacht, Voltstar Yeah Baby (above). The * footnote confirmed that there had been a protest against the Class 40, but that the protest was dismissed.

What happened? As ever, it’s complicated and the facts are in dispute.

Rupert Henry, the owner/skipper of Mistral, the yacht that came second overall, believed that Yeah Baby had set a flying headsail during the race not listed on the boat’s IRC certificate.

Yeah Baby finished at 03:00. Mistral crossed at around 11:00am. Henry then asked the Race Committee to send a measurer to check Yeah Baby’s sail inventory for compliance.

Time now becomes critical.

SA has obtained a copy of the Protest Committee finding. It confirms the measurer didn’t come aboard Yeah Baby until 15:00 – 12 hours after the Class 40 had finished. The protest finding goes on to note that “the boat had been cleaned up, washed down and alterations made to the sail inventory”.

It is the nature of those “alterations” that was the crux of the protest. The measurer identified a Fractional Code 0 on the boat in addition to its declared sails. But the Committee concluded that “no evidence was presented to show that the Fractional Code 0 was on board or used during the race”. Protest dismissed.

It is understood that the owner of Yeah Baby attested that the extra sail had been put aboard after the race for the delivery.

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The Biz

Founded in 1966, Nautor Swan today boasts a comprehensive range of services. These include high-profile offerings through Nautor Swan Charter and Brokerage, Nautor Swan Global Service—which provides global assistance—and ClubSwan Racing, the sport division managed by professionals in the sailing world. Additionally, ClubSwan serves as a virtual yacht club, bringing together all Swan owners and fans under one roof.

With effect from today, following its strategy to evolve and never revolutionize, 60% of Nautor’s shareholding passes to Sanlorenzo ownership – a very important and positive step – a very important and positive step to facilitate continued growth and strengthen its reputation as one of the most important sailing shipyards worldwide.

The Boatbuilding Technology Centre (BTC) in Pietarsaari, Finland, remains the main production site for sailing yachts underpinning Nautor Swan’s heritage, together with the pillars of its DNA: elegance, quality, performance and reliability, and enhance the culture and the secular craftmanship, proper of the Ostrobothnia region.

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Photo courtesy of American Magic

It’s sometimes hard to wrap your head around all that’s evolved since 1851, when a syndicate of owners from the newly minted New York Yacht Club brought their schooner America to the UK for a summer of racing and returned with the trophy that would become the America’s Cup.

It helps to remember that no matter the era, the Cup has always been as much a contest of cutting-edge yacht design as it is of high-level sailing skills. Seen through that lens, the foiling monohulls that are racing in this year’s 37th America’s Cup, reaching—and likely exceeding—50 knots and resembling fighter jets more than sailing yachts, make sense.

It also helps to look back. When the Americans returned with their new prize, a syndicate member authored the Deed of Gift to create an international trophy to be contested between two yacht clubs—defender and challenger. Vast fortunes were often wagered to contest and defend a trophy that the original winners are rumored to have considered melting down into medals, and over time, the Cup’s mythos far exceeded any rational worth.

But this irrationality became an important part of the Cup’s gravity, and the contest’s winner-takes-all ethic galvanized. Sir Thomas Lipton, for example, challenged five times, spending staggering sums, but ultimately sailed home empty-handed…

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Photo by Wilbur Keyworth

Some of the best gifts come in small packages. So it was when my sister-in-law asked me and my husband if we would race her Herreshoff 12½ in the Annapolis Yacht Club’s Wednesday night series. Sidelined while recovering from back surgery, she couldn’t bear to see her beloved boat beached as well.

It was an intriguing offer, one you might say we couldn’t refuse. We had long admired the classy lines of this cheeky little sloop that Cindy had, for many years, sailed the wheels off of in the AYC series. We never got into the predictably Byzantine controversies surrounding the boat and its class (simply called H Class) including debates over rigs (Marconi or gaff-rigged), hull provenance (fiberglass versus wood), etc. When a boat has been in continuous production for 110 years—110 years—you can expect some kerfuffles.

All we cared about was the chance to spend time sailing this design, which Nathanael Herreshoff drew in 1914 to a brief from one Robert W. Emmons II and several of his friends. They asked the Wizard of Bristol—he of the likes of America’s Cup defender Columbia and countless other majestic and ultimately historic yachts—for a small boat suitable for children to manage even in the feisty breezes of Buzzards Bay (hence her first nickname, the Buzzards Bay Boy’s Boat). The goal also was a boat in which kids could “become familiar with the characteristics of the type of larger sailboats to which they might graduate later on,” according to the H Class Association website.

“It is unlikely that in 1914 or 1915 the genius of Nathanael G. Herreshoff or the inspiration of Mr. Emmons could have foretold the unique popularity and longevity of the design we have now seen for more than 100 years,” the website continues. “She is still considered to be one of the finest, if not the finest, small sailing yacht designs ever created. And as it turned out, the boat was perfect for all ages in the family, not just the kids.”

She really is a little big boat, with a full keel and a displacement of 1,500 pounds plus 735 pounds of ballast helping provide a profound stability we ran into on our first race day when the jib halyard block broke before the start. No problem, Johnny said, we’ll just sail over to a dock where we can get high enough to careen her a bit to reach the spar and replace it. Hah! Not a shot. We were DNS that day.

At 16 feet LOA, the 12½ refers to her waterline length of 12 feet, 6 inches, which sounds really tiny, yet her flared topsides and fine entry mean she can handle a chop (Buzzards Bay, remember), she rarely gets on her ear, and even if splashed now and then, you feel totally secure in her roomy cockpit.

You also feel like you’re in a Winslow Homer painting. The first time we sailed her, I found myself channeling Gatsby and Daisy. It would not go amiss, I thought, to include sloe gin fizzes in the gear bag.

That DNS, though, gets to the other reason we couldn’t refuse Cindy’s offer. It’s been many moons, two kids, a couple of houses, several jobs, six dogs, and several thousands of cruising miles since we’ve been on the racecourse together. What better way to ease back into it than this forgiving little boat which, in spite of its size or perhaps because of it, inspires a certain genteel intensity in those who sail her. Or intense gentility. Sometimes it’s not clear which.

But last night at the start, I looked over as five of us crossed the line together in a row, those jaunty bows glimmering in the late-day light, and I thought how remarkable it is that more than a century later, this little big boat can still be teaching us how to sail fast and well, and with joy.

Keep on sailing,
Wendy
wclarke@aimmedia.com

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August/September 20247

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