How much demand can there really be for such a boat? They need breeze to really make it work, but we hope they both have success in this endeavor. And promoting one sailmaker as part of the deal is a big mistake. I’m sure the other sailmakers are just thrilled…

McConaghy is delighted to announce its appointment as the exclusive build partner for the next generation of Infiniti 52 racing yachts.

The Infiniti 52 is designed and engineered to deliver next-level offshore racing performance. Built around a highly efficient transverse DSS foil, the Infiniti 52 provides proven performance without the risk and cost of more complex class-driven foil solutions.

The 52ft yacht has proven to be an ideal size, performing successfully both inshore racing and offshore, regularly achieving 30-knot speeds. It is large enough to sail comfortably for an overnight, but light enough to exhilarate and excite. The DSS foil provides the Infiniti 52 significant righting moment allowing the yacht to be sailed with a smaller crew, sometimes half the number of a comparable yacht, increasing competitive efficiencies. More here.

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“What? Are you kidding me? That never happens!”

Such was the response from a sailing buddy when I told him I was joining the Rio 100 crew for the 800-mile Newport to Cabo race.

His reaction was certainly justified. While I’ve sailed off and on my whole life, my racing experience is limited to some fun times I had on an old 39-foot R-Boat back in the 1970s. So how did I come to be a walk-on to Rio, a 100-foot super maxi and the favored monohull to win?

Hold that thought and let me start with three things you must know about racing on a rocket like this. First, there is a world of difference sailing with a professional crew. It’s akin to a high school football player suiting up and playing in an NFL game. Second, it’s off-the-charts exhilarating to be ripping through the dark of night at 24 knots. Third, you’re almost always nanoseconds away from a catastrophe.

Rio 100 is a custom Bakewell-White specifically designed to win downhill races like the Transpac, Pacific Cup, and Newport to Cabo. It set the record for the Pacific Cup in 2016, won the prestigious Transpac Barn Door first to finish in 2015 despite breaking one of its rudders early on, won it again in 2017, and won the Merlin trophy in 2019.

The crew nicknames her “the aircraft carrier” for good reason. So beamy is the aft deck you could probably land a Harrier jet there. At 145 feet tall, the mast towers over anything in the harbor. Indeed, when bowman Ben Bardwell gets hoisted to the top to check things out, you can lose him in the fog. The main is so large it takes six guys on the grinders to raise it.

Because Rio 100 will often run two jibs plus a kite or reaching jib—plus the main, of course, and running backstays—there is a complicated plethora of lines on deck at most times. After five days of practice and three days of racing, I still only had a rudimentary idea of which sheet and line did what. Belowdecks, you can see straight down 100 feet from bow to stern. Aft of the galley I counted 14 pipe berths, but it was always dark—almost pitch black—and I may have missed some.

Surprisingly, the boat has a commercial kitchen-sized grill. While most maxi crews get a pouch of freeze-dried mystery and a cup of boiling water, we ate well on Rio 100. One night the crew even dined on grilled rib eyes…

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Because a 3300 and a 3600 weren’t enough, Sun Fast is now offering the Sun Fast 30, with an emphasis on one design short-handed sailing. But not so fast, you clever marketing geniuses – this ain’t no 30′ it is actually 34′!

Why they don’t just call it what it is is anybody’s guess, but in truth, an actual 30′ boat is just too small and not fast enough compared to a boat just a couple of feet longer.  And they claim that this is the first production model sailboat built from a recyclable composite material. More here.

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The 10th edition of the S&S Rendez-Vous brought together 44 Swan sailboats, all designed by the architecture firm Sparkman & Stephens.

This international presence made it possible to race for 3 days off the island of Elba, to admire the boats from this renowned firm, and to pay a last tribute to Lars Ström, friend of yachtsmen and manager of the technical office of the construction site for more than 30 years.  More here.

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You can take the sailor out of racing, but you can’t take racing out of the sailor. So, when Nicolas Berenger, product and commercial director of Dufour Yachts, tells me that we might have to tuck in a reef as we head out for the afternoon on the new Dufour 41 on the Bahia de Palma in Mallorca, I’m not holding my breath.

Berenger’s résumé includes seven Figaros and multiple French national championship titles. And all morning, as we enjoyed a shifty breeze around 12-14 knots, I had watched how he kept asking hull No. 1 of Dufour’s new model to do little more. Making 7.6 knots of boat speed in 13 knots of wind with the full main and the 108% genoa, he looked at the true wind angle (TWA) of 64 degrees and politely took the helm to push her up to more like 50 TWA, where we maintained 6.3 knots with little effort in the sparkling, flat water. Another 5 degrees up and we were still making good 6 knots, and as the breeze puffed up another knot, we lifted up to 41 holding on to 6 knots.

He seemed satisfied, and even more so when we bore off, set the bright gold Elvstrøm asymmetrical chute, and rocketed at 9 knots in 12 knots of breeze back to La Lonja Marina for lunch.

But now it’s afternoon, a spirited sea breeze touching 20 has filled in, and I’m thinking about what Berenger had said earlier, that in 18 knots true, it might be time to reef—if he were cruising. He mentions it again after we extract ourselves from the dock where the breeze had us pinned (a bow thruster is optional, and I’d get one) and motor into the wind leaving the harbor—7.3 knots at 2,400 rpm on the 50-hp Volvo with a folding three-blade prop on a saildrive. But in the end—no surprise—it’s the full main that goes up on the deck-stepped, 56-foot Z Spars aluminum mast, and we charge off into what is now a short chop with some whitecaps…

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The Starlink genie is out of the magic lantern and joins a long list of innovations presenting humans with the paradox of technical progress. Our July issue included a couple of stories on Starlink with our thoughts in Sightings, and a report from cruiser Doug Hornsey aboard the Orca 38 Mandolyn in Changes in Latitudes.

There was a time when people wondered why you would go to the movies when you could go to the theater, and a time when people thought social media would actually be a force for good. The launch of Starlink aboard sailboats is another seemingly irresistible technical marvel transforming the experience of those who sail.

Many experienced cruisers look at the arrival of Starlink with a mix of fear and trepidation as they scour the coastline for free Wi-Fi hotspots. Meanwhile, newer cruisers embrace Starlink as the ultimate work “from home” option and learn-as-you-go sailing tool. We recently spoke with a long-term, experienced cruiser from Mexico who’s seen the growing dichotomy in beliefs. Naturally, younger people are more ready to adapt to these changes, while older folks are lamenting the loss of what existed before. Some are trying to find the vague, middle path.

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