Charleston Race Week 2021 got off to a rousing start on Thursday with organizers completing multiple races for all classes in moderate to medium conditions…
Call for Transat boat race competitors
Entries are open for the second annual transatlantic Route Saint Pierre Lorient – Pure Ocean Challenge which gets under way on June 13th. The open class event offers sailors a competitive way to travel to Europe for the summer racing season…
Analysis of the Kiwi AC75 Te Rehutai design
Before unraveling what the next America’s Cup will be like, it is essential to understand why Te Rehutai was the fastest, and here Chevalier Taglang discusses the advantages, in yacht designing terms, of the Kiwi second AC75…
M32 North America 2021 schedule
The season includes a mix of coastal distance and high intensity around-the-buoy racing building up to our anticipated 20 boat fleet at the Miami World Championship in November…
Champagne Barons de Rothschild adds some sparkle to SailGP
SailGP has partnered with Champagne Barons de Rothschild to add the requisite sparkle for the 2021 Season events across three continents and eight countries…
2021 Finn Europeans saved by Portugal
The 2021 Open and U23 Finn European Championship will be held April 12-16 in Vilamoura, Portugal. Wtih a fleet of around 50 sailors from 28 nations entered, the event is the beginning of the end of the extended road to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and for many it is being used as a warm up event to the crucial Finn Gold Cup in Porto in four weeks, the final Olympic qualification event.
Registration opens for 2021 Rolex Big Boat Series
The Notice of Race has been posted and registration is open for the 2021 Rolex Big Boat Series at St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco, California…
U.S. SailGP Team completes line-up
With the second season for SailGP to kick off in Bermuda on April 24-25, the U.S. SailGP Team have revealed its complete SailGP Season 2 lineup with the announcement of Daniela Moroz (USA), CJ Perez (USA), and Paul Campbell-James (GBR) to its roster in addition to its acquisition of Philippe Presti (FRA) as head coach.
The additions bolster a previously announced lineup that includes Rome Kirby (USA), Andrew Campbell (USA), Cooper Dressler (USA), and Alex Sinclair (ANT) — all selected by helm Jimmy Spithill (AUS) who took over team leadership from Kirby.
The U.S. team joins seven other campaigns in pursuit of the championship’s $1 million winner-take-all prize…
it’s on
Looks like big fleet racing in the US is starting to pop.
For the Melges 24, there is nothing quite like the anticipation of Charleston Race Week. It has become a massive, highlight event that elevates the level of fun and competition so high, it is powerful enough to set the momentum for the entire racing season. Read on.
Bob Holmes, a truly great champion
The recent death of Robert Joseph (Bob) Holmes was the passing of one of the truly great Australian 18ft Skiff champions. Bob was five times JJ Giltinan world champion and five times Australian champion over a ten year career in the class…
Shortening Keels
Figaro 3 – Sardinha-Cup – St.Gilles Croix-de-Vie FRA – Leg 1 – Day 1
Yesterday afternoon, the start to the first leg of the Sardinha Cup was given in St.Gilles (north of Les Sables dOlonne) in light winds. —– This morning UTC, the two-person teams had covered about half of the distance, with 160 miles to go to the finish. The gaps are very small, as always with the Figaros. Xavier Macaire/Morgan Lagravière FRA are leading with one mile ahead of Elodie Bonfous/Corentin Horeau FRA. Alexis Loison/Guillaume Pirouelle FRA are in third place 1.1 miles behind. —– The race-tracker is unfortunately not (yet) working, but it offers at least an up-to-date intermediate classification. The report and the video of the start.
Olympic Classes – Olympic Qualifier Asia & Africa – Muscat OMN – Day 5
The Qualifying Series for Fridays Medal Races in Oman were concluded yesterday with two races. —– In the 49ers, Ganapathy Kelapanda Chengappa/Varun Ashok Thakkar IND will most probably clinch the Asian Olympic berth, leading Akira Sakai/Russell Williams Aylsworth HKG by 17 points. In 4th place, Benjamin Talbot Daniel/Alex Burger RSA have already secured the African Olympic starting slot. —– The decision in the 49ersFX will be made between Chen Shasha/Ye Jin CHN and Molly Highfield/Sandy Wing Chi Choi HKG, 3 points behind. —– In the Lasers Radial, Nethra Kumanan IND goes into the Medal Race 3 points ahead of Emma Savelon NED. —– In the Lasers Standard, Ryan Lo Jun Han SGP won both races again yesterday and is the premature winner with a 34-point lead. —– With a 17-point lead, Natthapong Phonoppharat THA should be able to take the victory in the RS:X windsurfers. —– Amanda Ng Ling Kai HKG is 3 points ahead, good enough to win the womens windsurfing category, as there are only 2 competitors left in the race. —– All rankings. The report of the day has not yet been published on the event website.
Four-time Olympian Elías Calles now aiming to coach others to glory
Mexican sailor Tania Elías Calles achieved her dream of competing on the biggest stage – and now she’s striving to help others do the same…
USA trials for Junior Pan Am Games
The first-ever Junior Pan American Games is set to take place in 2021 on September 9-19 in Cali, Colombia. This international multi-sport event is for athletes in the Americas aged 18 to 23. Athletes from 41 countries will participate in this first edition. The Sailing events will be held over three days on September 16-18, 2021. – Full report
Placida or Punta Gorda?
French transatlantic race in June 2021
Entries are open for the second annual transatlantic Route Saint Pierre Lorient – Pure Ocean Challenge which gets underway on June 13, 2021. The 2150nm open class race starts from the French overseas territory St Pierre et Miquelon, off the east coast of Canada, and finishes in Lorient, France. – Full report
Mussanah Open Championship – Penultimate Day Results
Penultimate day of the Mussanah Open Championship, the final opportunity for sailors to qualify for the Olympics in Laser, Laser Radial, 49er, 49erFX and RS:X sailing and windsurfing classes…
Two more entries in the Global Solo Challenge
It’s been 15 weeks since the Global Solo Challenge 2023-24 was announced and the latest two entries bring the total to 15 confirmed entrants adding to the buzz around the event…
bad signal
Loss of satellite signal is a well-known operational risk, but few mariners are aware of the threat of GNSS providing a false time, position or direction even when still available.
When these position errors exceed a safe margin of error, they can cause ships to derive and transmit dangerously misleading Information. GNSS is not designed with inherent real-time integrity, which refers to the users’ ability to trust the data and receive timely warnings if it is unreliable…
Toyota Optimist Nationals: Leech and Clinton win
Tessa Clinton is halfway to her goal of being the most successful Kiwi girl ever at the Optimist national championships but has her sights on another achievement as well…
Sailing Aluminum Boats
The first cruising couple I ever met who was sailing an aluminum boat told me an interesting story. They were French—of course. They’d been anchored a long time and had a lot of growth on their hull. When finally they decided to move on, they jumped in the water to scrape the boat clean. When they climbed back aboard they found their previously perfectly dry bilge sump was slowly filling with water. As they searched frantically for the leak, the flow of water suddenly stopped. Mystified, they jumped overboard again to see if they’d missed anything and found a jellyfish clinging to the hull, so they knocked it off. When they climbed back aboard they found the boat was leaking again…
not easy street
With a cloud of uncertainty still looming over the 2020 – now 2021 – Tokyo Olympic Games due to the Coronavirus, many are already looking towards the 2024 Games in Paris as the next time that the best athletes in the world can get together and compete in a safe and inclusive environment. Generally relegated to sailing small dinghies that are the recipient of little to no media coverage in the United States, the excitement surrounding the first inclusion of proper offshore keelboat racing is palpable.
Sailing roughly 10-meter keelboats up and down the coast with two adults onboard is, generally speaking, much more relatable to the average adult sailor when compared to donning a wetsuit and racing a dinghy, skiff or foiling beach cat around the harbor. Combining this upcoming revolution in Olympic sailing with the pandemic itself and other shifts in the marketplace for new boat builds, doublehanded sailing has been booming as of late, as evidenced by huge increases in participation numbers for many of the offshore classics…
O’pen Skiff North American “Un-Regatta” overall
In another Class first, the O’pen Skiff class is proud to say that the 2021 North American Championship is the first known major class championship to have more female than male competitors in a mixed event…
A Race to Salute the Military
The Charleston Ocean Racing Association (CORA), a volunteer run, nonprofit organization, was formed in 1967 to foster a passion for sailing in Charleston harbor and offshore waters as a premier racing destination in the Southeast.
As part of that mission, CORA has organized the inaugural Military Salute Regatta for June 26 in Charleston, South Carolina. Active military and veterans will be the star crewmembers aboard racing and non-racing sailboats for this event which aims to honor all active military and veterans that served for the USA and get them involved in sail racing…
VIDEO: Back when skippers had color
They didn’t call Ted Turner the “Mouth of the South” without good reason which he exhibited on Mariner during the 1974 America’s Cup. The chirping between Turner and tactician Dennis Conner in this video is priceless…
sail on
The Santa Cruz surfing and sailing communities lost a long time friend when Jim Foley died yesterday after a year long battle with pancreatic cancer. Jim was the consummate waterman, an outstanding surfer and board shaper, sailor, boat designer, and builder who was always enthusiastic about sharing his knowledge and experience with any one who was interested.
Jim began his surfing career on rubber surf mats in 1950. By 1953 he and his father, Chuck, were building surfboards out of wood planks. Early on Jim was experimenting with shapes, materials, and construction methods. He was also experimenting with fin designs.
Jim realized the importance of a lightweight surfboard for best wave riding performance and in 1956 started gluing together Styrofoam insulation boards 2 feet wide, 4 inches thick, and 8 feet long. He coated these early boards with watered down Weldwood glue and covered the board with polyester resin. Jim’s early boards were cheap and easy to build, so much so that he could experiment with practically any shape to try out, sometimes 3 or 4 boards in a day…
Weather Routing: Comfortable Passagemaking
A weather forecast—like an old-school dead-reckoning plot—will decrease in certainty with the passage of time. Over the past five years of arranging offshore charters aboard our Swan 48, Isbjørn, and our Swan 59, Icebear, we’ve tempted the gods by consistently breaking the cardinal rule of cruising—sailing to a schedule. However, thanks to a fundamental understanding of big-picture weather patterns and a willingness to be flexible once underway, we’ve learned that even the toughest passages can be made comfortably. In this article, we’ll look at how we plan our passage calendar and the tools we use to forecast the weather. We’ll also analyze three difficult passages—Iceland to Ireland; a Bermuda-Azores Atlantic crossing; and a southbound migration from the Chesapeake Bay to the Eastern Caribbean—to see how these things all work in practice.
Transpac welcomes GoodEnergy as its 60th entry
The 63-foot Reichel/Pugh-designed GoodEnergy co-skippered by George Hershman and Mark Comings is now the 60th entry in this year’s 51st edition of the Transpac, the Transpacific Yacht Club’s 2225-mile ocean racing classic from Los Angeles to Honolulu…
Does anyone have a boat near Maryland painted Awlgrip Petrol Blue?
Anybody?
Are you ready for the 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race?
Marine safety experts Ocean Safety are delighted to be working in partnership with RORC, the organisers of the 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race to impart their marine safety knowledge, alongside their ambassador and racing veteran Dee Caffari…
2021 Toyota Optimist Nats – Will Leech dominates
Will Leech (13yrs) dominated the 2021 Toyota Optimist Championships sailed at Maraetai Sailing Club, which finished Tuesday afternoon…
Beneteau Oceanis Yacht 54 Boat Review
In profile, the Oceanis Yacht 54 is a handsome, purposeful-looking craft. (Jon Whittle)
The executives, design team, and craftsmen at the sailing division of Groupe Beneteau have made some interesting, innovative, and even surprising decisions ever since a regime change took place in the marine conglomerate’s upper-management ranks a couple of years back. This was clear from last year’s launching of Beneteau’s First Yacht 53, a sleek and powerful performance cruiser with the contemporary lines evident in the latest offerings from the top European naval architects. Now the company is continuing its ongoing design evolution with its latest dedicated cruising boat, the Oceanis Yacht 54. We tested the boat this past fall on a gorgeous day on Chesapeake Bay with a Beneteau team that couldn’t have been more excited about its potential, and deservedly so. It’s a rangy, clever, impressive yacht…
east coast style
With more than a century of Maine-based commercial and recreational boatbuilding and craftsmanship infused in their culture, Lyman-Morse began in earnest building sailboats and powerboats with souls over 40 years ago. The new LM46 is a perfect blend of these characteristics, where modern design meets traditional materials, combining uniquely to evoke the soul of modern sailing.
In those days the industry was rapidly evolving from one-off wood construction towards series-built production, and by embracing these innovations the yard grew quickly in size, talent and capabilities. Now Lyman-Morse has expanded to become not only the premier builder of choice on the Down East coast, but to also to service a long list of clients with a diverse variety of skill sets to become a premier brokerage and service operation as well.
Olympic Classes – World Ranking Lists – March 2021 – Charlie Buckingham 2nd Laser and Tom Ramshaw CAN 5th Finn top NorAms
After a one-year Corona break without any major series, World Rankings have been published again in March for the first time since long, but with the different travel and domestic restrictions in force around the world, the significance is relative. Please find hereafter a summary on the best North American ranks: —– Lasers: Charlie Buckingham, Newport Beach, CA, 2nd Standard; Sarah Douglas, CAN, 21st Radial; Paige Railey, St. Petersburg, FL, 28th Radial; —– Finn: Tom Ramshaw, CAN, 5th; Luke Muller, Ft. Pierce, FL, 34th; —– 470: Stuart McNay, Providence, RI and David Hughes, Ithaca, NY, 22nd men; Nikki Barnes, St. Thomas, USVI and Lara Dallman-Weiss, Shoreview, MI, 26th women; —– 49ers: Andrew Mollerus, Ithaca, NY and Ian MacDiarmid, Delray Beach, FL, 20th; Stephanie Roble, East Troy, WI and Maggie Shea, Wilmette, IL, 9th FX; —– Nacra 17: Riley Gibbs, Long Beach, CA and Anna Weis, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 17th; —– RS:X: Pedro Pascual, Miami, FL, 39th men; Farrah Hall, Annapolis, MD, 50th women. —– All ranking lists.
And so it begins…
Latest World Sailing Rankings – March 2021
World Sailing has published their Olympic classes World Rankings for the first time since March 2020…
The Crossover Effect
Derrick Fries Ph.D., two-time Sunfish World champion, channeled his inner competitiveness to fitness competitions and discovered sailing parallels that helped him achieve his goals. (Courtesy Derrick Fries Ph.D./)
I fell in love with sailing at a very early age. There were no video games and our black and white television was good for three stations. Spending a full day on the water practicing finding windshafts was the absolute best entertainment I could find, and I had all the time in the world to do it. But this changed as I got older. Then there were regattas, mostly two-day events, creating a large time drain. I burned endless hours rigging and derigging, traveling, and packing and unpacking the car. I loved it, but like many sailors, I struggled to balance all this with work and family…
scotm
Pretty great see almost all of the Vendee Globe female skippers get together. Sailor Chicks of the Mountain! Read on.
Eight Bells: James Gillinder Carson
James G. Carson, a true Lightning Class legend, passed away on March 21, 2021, at 94 years of age. James, Jim or Gilly as he was known, was a sailor through and through. He was a key member of the Metedeconk River Yacht Club (Brick, NJ), starting at a time before it actually had a physical clubhouse and the starting line was marked by a rowboat captained by his sister Margaret. He was instrumental in moving the club to its present location in a beautiful clubhouse on the south side of the river. Jim was Commodore of the Club eleven times and taught sailing to youngsters for forty years. However, Jim’s leadership and service reached well beyond the MRYC. He was a long-time volunteer and board member for the International Lightning Class Association and the Barnegat Bay Yacht Racing Association. Jim joined the International Lightning Class in 1949 and served in a number of leadership positions. He served as Chief Measurer in 1960, 1961, and 1970 and as President in 1971. He was the Lightning Central Atlantic District Commodore as well as the District Secretary for many years. For his efforts, Jim was awarded a Life Membership in the Class…
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