It was a sobering moment this past spring as my wife, Janice, and I put away our boat after a pleasant afternoon of sailing off Annapolis, Maryland. We’d just learned that Gov. Larry Hogan had declared that recreational boating was prohibited, starting the following day. The growing restrictions of the early COVID-19 pandemic felt confining already. There was so much confusion with restrictions being imposed on travel, school attendance, sports and workplaces, along with a new concept called “social distancing.” It was all combined to change our fortunate way of life, but if anything, we thought, sailing would be safe, right?

Nope. “Stay ashore” was the new commandment. What a bummer.

Regattas across the United States were canceled, sailing charters fell off the cliff, and boat shows were either postponed or canceled. Similar restrictions were put in place across America. I’d never spent so many days in a row at home, and as weeks passed, I felt a building desire to get back out on the water. When our governor finally lifted the restriction on boating, Chesapeake Bay was suddenly filled with boats. Dealers reported record sales of vessels new and old, large and small, and our freedom to be on the water was restored. The sanity of every sailor was renewed.

The Annapolis YC, which had canceled its busy ­racing schedule, decided to give a simple 12-mile race a try, one that required minimal ­race-­committee personnel. The new event was the brainchild of Kevin Reeds, who came up with the Two Bridge Fiasco race. The name and concept of the race was borrowed from a similarly formatted and long-running event on San Francisco Bay called the Three Bridge Fiasco. There would be no trophies, only bragging rights. Entrants were encouraged to race doublehanded with family members.

Reeds figured he’d get 20 to 30 boats, but he ended up with 133.

“I was flabbergasted by the response,” he told me.

The Sailing Instructions called for a pursuit start, where you cross the starting line based on your handicap time allowance. The starting sequence certainly spread out the fleet. As you might expect, it created quite a logjam at the finish line as the larger boats overtook smaller boats in the fleet.

Using US Sailing’s new Portsmouth Ratings Capability, Reeds said it was quite a challenge to rate a Laser Radial against catboats and a wide variety of other small craft. Ratings guru Bruce Bingman and his wife, Taran Teague, worked hard behind the scenes to bring the Two Bridge Fiasco together. Teague told me afterward that the philosophy was to get ­everybody—from a kiteboarder to a 50-footer—into the race.

Bingham received rating ­assistance from US Sailing’s Nathan Titcomb, who helped them get a Portsmouth number for every boat. He used US Sailing numbers and converted them back into PHRF to establish the starting times. The experience, however, reinforced Bingham’s concern with there being too many handicap rules. “One of the problems these days is that there are too many different numbers,” he told me. “I think yacht clubs need to stop offering so many different rating numbers because it’s just too hard to calculate all the scores.”

When I heard about the race, I entered my Hood 32 sloop, Whirlwind. I’d never raced the boat, but Bingman helped me navigate the process of acquiring a handicap rating, and we were off. I was curious how Whirlwind would perform in what could be the boat’s first and only race.

The race starts were staggered by about an hour, and competitors were allowed to sail the race in either direction. The course started off the US Naval Academy on the Severn River, and you could either head out to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge or up the river to the Severn River Bridge. Most boats chose the Bay-first ­strategy, but one boat that bucked the trend by heading up the river—a high-performance Nacra ­catamaran—ended up winning the race, with bragging rights granted.

We started at our designated time alongside three other boats with the same handicap. On the short beat to the first turning mark, we took a small lead and set our asymmetric spinnaker for a 3.6-mile run to the bridge. The breeze picked up to a brisk 18 knots, and Janice steered while I trimmed the spinnaker. Whirlwind was ­gliding along at 8.5 knots.

The spinnaker douse went reasonably well, and we sailed back upwind. A fleet of Etchells that were well behind on the long run made up ground on the beat. At the next windward mark, we set the spinnaker again and headed up the Severn River. It was going well, but as the wind went progressively light, the trailing boats caught up to us. What a delight it was to see 80 or so boats jammed tightly together on the final milelong sprint to the finish.

We sailed 12 miles in 1 hour, 49 minutes, and finished ninth in our 44-boat class. No official bragging rights for us, of course, but we did OK. Best of all, we had a great sail, and that was the point, right?

A few weeks after the Fiasco, Tred Avon YC in Oxford, Maryland, notified the US Naval Academy that they were unable to host the annual Annapolis to Oxford Race. Varsity Offshore Sailing coach Jahn Tihansky (who won the Fiasco on a ­catamaran) wanted a race that the academy’s midshipmen could compete in, so he helped ­pioneer a new race.

Taking a page from the Annapolis YC’s Fiasco, the academy created an alternative race called the Three Lighthouse Challenge. The course would take the fleet to ­channel markers close to Sandy Shoal Lighthouse, Thomas Point Lighthouse and Bloody Point Lighthouse. The course was 21.6 miles.

I entered Whirlwind for my second race. Bingman and Teague served as race officers for a traditional starting sequence. This time, my ­doublehanded crewmate was our son-in-law, Brian Conroy, who was competing in his first sailboat race. I figured he would be a good downwind ­helmsman. Ninety-five boats crossed the starting line in a brisk 20-knot wind and made a fast trip around the bay. Aboard Whirlwind, we made the passage in 3 hours, 40 minutes, with only 6 of the 21 miles sailed under spinnaker. We missed the podium by 1.7 seconds, but more important, it was another exhilarating day on the water. There was plenty of bragging around the Jobson family dinner table afterward.

As we passed the fleet on ­different legs of the course, I was astounded by how many different types of boats were in the race. The Three Lighthouse Challenge used six different ratings for 13 classes. I look forward to the day when we have one handicap rating rule. In this age of supercomputers, it would seem that goal should be attainable.

While Bingman’s concern is of too many handicap ratings, Reeds is of a different opinion. “We need to embrace different formats to get as many people out on the water as we can,” he said. “We find there are a lot of boats that spend time cruising that might like to do these kinds of races. We need to be more inclusive and more open to doing things in creative ways.”

Navigator-style races are becoming more popular, and these race distances don’t have to be excessive. I think two to five hours in duration is about right. It makes for an interesting day on the water, and you get to see many sights along the way. For us in Annapolis, we rarely race under the imposing Chesapeake Bay Bridge, but there is always some kind of intellectual challenge of passing underneath it. The roadway high above creates wind thermals, and tidal currents swirl around the bridge’s structure. Big gains and losses can take place around bridges.

During our two races on board Whirlwind, I learned a few valuable lessons: Clear sailing lanes are absolutely essential; be ready to shift gears by setting the spinnaker at a moment’s notice; give the crew a long trick on the helm; study the tidal currents; have plenty of food to eat; and don’t worry about the results. Finishing the racecourse is reward enough.

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The Sunfish. For thousands of sailors around the world, it’s an iconic name that conjures memories of beautiful beaches, colorful sails, whipping winds and a freedom that only comes from such a simple small craft. Many sailors have centered their love for the sport on a Sunfish—at summer camps in the lakes of the Midwest, along coastal stretches of both American coasts, and on pretty much any stretch of water between. First offered as a DIY wood kit in the 1950s, the Sunfish has been a staple of the recreational sailing and racing scenes for decades as a relatively inexpensive one‑design dinghy.

The ubiquitous and ­colorful singlehander has stood the test of time, but today it is at a performance crossroads. Technology has long surpassed the boat’s one-design ­limitations, and new generations of sailors are now drawn to modern dinghy classes with better equipment. But what if the Sunfish were reimagined with modern blades and a more efficient sail? There are several movements afoot to do just that, with innovations driven by Sunfish fanatics taking development matters into their own hands.

Leading one charge in the sail-development department is Kevin Farrar, of Farrar Sails in New London, Connecticut. He’s now manufacturing a ­non-class-legal Sunfish sail, one that he says is much faster than the triangular rag of yesteryear. The boom is also shorter on this rig, yet the sail area is increased by about 8 square feet.

“It’s clearly a significant change,” Farrar says. He’s been working his version of the Sunfish sail for several years. “The concept is to make something that’s going to make the boat appeal to 16-year-olds out there. This is a modern design, and it really works.”

His sails are getting faster too, generation by generation, as he makes tweaks that have also made the classic boat appear more modern. “Off the wind, [the latest generation is] radically faster than even what we were making in the second generation of sails,” Farrar says. “[The boats] are planing much faster. I’m not sure if they’re planing upwind quite yet, but it has taken [the Sunfish] a step beyond what the Laser is.”

Them might be fighting words. The Laser has long been the standard singlehanded dinghy, and it’s one of the most popular racing classes on the planet, but Farrar hopes his sail will help breathe new life into Sunfish sailing, perhaps even draw a new generation to what seems to be a declining class.

“It’s the basic lateen rig except that the sail area is 83 square feet, and the top of the sail is parallel to the waterline. You’re getting a lot more of the sail up and in better air,” Farrar says. “The boom has been shortened to about 10 feet.”

All equipment used in official Sunfish-class racing must have been offered by the builder at some point in the boat’s life cycle. And while the Sunfish’s modern blades are a big step up from the wooden blades of the early days, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. And that’s where Kent Misegades comes into the story. At his AeroSouth facilities, in Seven Lakes, North Carolina, he’s stamping out some pretty slick-looking foils for his Sunfish. He has a vertical rudder that has minimal weather helm, even in stronger winds. The current class-approved rudder is notorious for having strong weather helm when the wind pipes above 15 knots. Misegades says his rudder is better and faster (especially upwind), and it costs about the same as the Sunfish-class-supplied rudder. “I understand the one-design concept,” he says. “It’s an even playing field, so it really does come down to a comparison of skills. I understand it, but that, of course, kills innovation, so there are two sides to it.”

Misegades said he isn’t yet targeting the class ­association or asking racers to adopt his new daggerboard and ­rudder designs. He knows that most Sunfish owners don’t race, but no good sailor would ever argue against better handling. “I knew from the outset that any change of rules for the class is pretty involved, for good reason,” he says, “so, I never went about trying to convince the class to adopt them. We’ve never really gone to class ­racing, but something that’s intrigued me is there’s been discussion of a new rudder, and it’s opened their eyes to potentially get gear from a third party.”

Misegades says his ­rudder dramatically improves the Sunfish’s notorious weather helm, but he had other goals in mind during the design process. “The weather helm wasn’t my primary goal; it was mainly to reduce drag to improve pointing and speed,” he says. “I went through a lot of different plans; hundreds of iterations happened.

“It all comes down to the angle of the rudder, and in all angles, this rudder really is superior,” Misegades ­continues. “But there is one drawback to this vertical rudder in that it doesn’t scull. The Sunfish ­rudder does do that well.”

Misegades’ rudder is also prone to stalling during a tack if the helmsperson is not careful. “This vertical narrow rudder will whip the boat around, but it’s not nearly as ­effective as the standard rudder,” Misegades says.

AeroSouth’s foils are ­comparable in price to what class builders offer today. The wood-and-carbon version of the daggerboard is $350, which is less than the official class boar. AeroSouth’s rudder is $300.

The International Sunfish Class Association is likely to be slow in adopting this new gear, however. Perhaps for good reason. Larry Suter, who has raced Sunfish in seven different decades, has been pushing the class to set the stock rudder to 90 degrees. Doing so would be at least one step forward, he says. “If you go out in a Sunfish in 14 or 15 knots of wind, and if you feel the pull on the tiller and the pull on the mainsheet, it’s the same force,” Suter explains. “[The 90-degree rudder angle] really makes the boat a nice boat to sail. It doesn’t have the weather helm, and you don’t have to fight it.”

Lynne Randall, Florida Peninsula region representative for the Sunfish Class, is familiar with the new sails and blades being developed outside the manufacturer’s specs, and she is cognizant that the class association can’t simply change equipment every time a new piece of gear comes to market.

“It’s a really strong one-design group around here, so you have to keep the boat [setup in a way that’s] approved by the class,” Randall says. “These changes are interesting and fun, and some people are trying them out, but as far as one-design racing goes, you can’t do it.”

Randall says that the new gear will require investigation, testing, adopting and tweaking before it gets anywhere near approval under the class regulations. Drawing new sailors to an old class is an exciting idea, but so too is retaining the sailors who make up the bulk of the racing fleet

“Of course we want to grow the class, and it’s one of those things that evolves,” Randall says. “But if you want to sail ­recreationally, there are ways to try different things.”

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Events in 2020 laid bare a host of ­societal shortcomings. Inspiration says we must take action. In the next minute, the cynic in me shouts out that suddenly every institution from Harvard to your local YC to Gus’ Gas and Bait Shop now has a DE&I committee. Some, but I hope not all, will fritter away to mere talk. But in case you missed it, DE&I stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. Diversity means that everybody gets invited to the dance. Equity means that everybody gets to dance. Inclusion means that everybody has a good time. There has never been a better time to talk about this. Ordinarily, it would be outside the view of a racing-sailing magazine to broach these topics, but the fact is, the country we live in is jangled. We’re poised for a reset.

“US Sailing has 1,700 member organizations,” president Cory Sertl says. “In this moment, they’re coming to us for advice, and bringing with them a willingness and desire to diversify their memberships. That’s true whether they’re a prestigious yacht club, a community sailing center or an ­off-the-beach just-do-it.”

But how? How to go from good intentions to effective action. Writing this column was an education as I phone-walked my way through operations that are already fully engaged. They have lessons to teach. Take Karen Harris in Chicago, for example: Her 125-year-old Jackson Park Yacht Club on the South Side of the city is sited in a target-rich environment, if you’re talking DE&I opportunity. The surrounding community houses a large population of minority families, and the facility is suited to teaching beginners; it even works day by day for hosting caregivers who cannot afford to travel back and forth twice, to drop off and pick up (two bus fares for grandma versus four).

The only ingredients missing when Harris became commodore were initiative and commitment. She brought those. Harris says: “The club’s junior program was defunct, so we started from scratch and ran a conventional program the first year. In 2018, we became a 501c3, acquired grant money, and launched outreach.”

In summer programs that attract some 250 kids, there is scholarship funding for those who need it, and the demographic skews slightly toward minorities. So too does the staff, “but you have to literally grow that staff,” Harris says. “Our instructor-in-training program is for kids 13 to 15 who are mature, talented and play well with others. We waive their fees, and they shadow the certified instructors as an extra pair of hands until they’re ready for Level 1 training. When they pass the tests, I have another instructor I can hire.”

To date, that effort has produced three Level 1 instructor/role models. Harris says: “I hired them all, and we have another four in the pipeline. It’s only a matter of time before I can’t hire all the minority instructors we turn out. I want to see them fanning out and working all over the place.”

Go ahead, Karen. Make me jealous. One of the truisms of community sailing is that each location is unique. At San Francisco’s Treasure Island Sailing Center, where I serve on a DE&I working group, we have direct access to every fourth and fifth grader in the San Francisco Unified School District, but they do not have direct access to us. That is, every fourth and fifth grader is bused to TISC for a day of experiential learning, a little time in a boat and, for many, a first-time opportunity to trail a finger in the water or scrunch a toe in wet sand. Then they’re back to their lives on the other side of a very big bridge and, in many cases, to the other-other side of a large, complicated city. Even when they tell their teachers (as teachers often tell us), “That was the best day ever,” they might not find their way back. There is no straight path for them to grow into middle school instructors-in-training. In the summer, TISC attracts a diverse population of 300 kids. Some of them return after finding us through SFUSD (San Francisco Unified School District), but they have not, historically, become our certified junior instructors. We’re working on that. We want a cadre of Black, Latinx and Asian instructors for their value as role models—to bring the next group along—but also for their own sakes. Too many kids don’t know, and their parents don’t know, that there is a path to teenage jobs in the fresh air, developing responsibility, management skills and emotional intelligence—a path that opens doors. Perhaps I mentioned, we’re working on it.

Back on the shores of Lake Michigan, Harris has this to add about her working reality: “Chicago has 2 million people, but 800,000 of them have never even seen the lake. We get kids who think it’s the ocean, and they’re afraid of sharks. For that and for all the steps that follow, we have a clinical sports psychologist on-site to deal with anxieties, tensions and ­conflict resolution.”

So we see that good intentions are not enough. In New York at the Hudson River Sailing Center, many of the employees are also former students. The program looks for schools within bike-riding distance and selects middle school populations from schools with the highest percentage of kids who depend upon funded lunches. US Sailing vice president Rich Jepsen calls it “a social justice program as much as a ­sailing program,” and Hudson River’s Maeve Gately agrees [Correction: Ms. Maeve states for the record, “We are a youth development program—though we work with students of color, that does not make us a social justice organization. The distinction is important.”—Ed].

“We close the achievement gap by ­providing a transformative experience,” Gately says. “Younger students build boats in the winter, which is a hands-on ­geometry lesson. In the spring, they launch and invite their parents to celebrate the accomplishment. We teach the math and science of sailing, meaning we teach math and science. Also engine maintenance, sail repair, bookkeeping. In our last class, 98 percent of the kids went on to college. Some continue as sailors, and we like that, but it’s not our metric of success. Sailing is our platform for developing life skills.”

Up to this point, I’ve been writing about pathways for minorities and the underprivileged, but that’s only one dimension of the big picture. Sertle says: “Bringing women into the sport, and advancing them as coaches, is important. Developing metrics for measuring progress is important­—and getting adaptive sailing back into the Paralympics.”

George Washington University’s sailing team captain John DeRuff points to growth opportunities among “LGBTQ kids who participate in sports at a lower rate than straight kids,” drop out more often, and hide the feelings and fears that drive those decisions while burying their potential as leaders. In a world less screwed up, I could name names, but I’ll stop with that name, because DeRuff came out as a leader in a time when college sailing now has TIDE, which is The Inclusivity, Diversity and Equity taskforce.

In Jepsen’s long view, “DE&I matters were on our radar for a while. US Sailing finally formed a DE&I committee two years ago at the behest of the US Olympic Paralympic Committee, then everything ramped up with the social-justice crises of 2020.”

Add to that, I wrote about the Siebel Sailors Program this past spring, when it was ready to go large, right before we all got 2020′d and well before the streets were convulsed with protests. Funded by tech entrepreneur Tom Siebel in partnership with US Sailing, the program supports community sailing hubs in cities across the US, providing boats and coaching—high-level coaching which, for beginners, is rare.

Siebel program manager Blair Overman relates that during the pandemic, activity levels across the country varied from medium to sparse, but the time has not gone to waste. In the launch, there have been surprises for instructors who are used to kids who have never sailed but not to kids who have never waded in water to their knees. They’ve had to adjust. Many programs have been forced to crank up even greater creativity in how to get kids to their facilities. And the hallmark of the Siebel Sailors’ evolving curriculum—food—is validated. “Every time the kids come,” Overman says, “food is reinforcing, even to a kid who isn’t really, really hungry, but we get kids who are really, really hungry. Until they’re fueled, you can’t expect them to put up a best effort.

“We emphasize basic needs,” Overman continues. “We emphasize a welcoming, comfortable environment. We emphasize empowering students by giving them choices in at least one activity each day, something they can make their own. But executing on that? It’s hard. It has to be intentional, and it has to happen every day. We saw some coaches doing this instinctively, and they were getting the best results, so over the winter we invested time in training all of our coaches to their habits.”

The Siebel Sailors Program distributes its benefits through community sailing programs in every region of the country, and expansion is the mantra: reaching more kids. “You have to know that it can scale,” Siebel says. “My hope is that in 10 years, this will be transformative. Sailing is magical.” Magical, the man means, in changing lives in positive ways.

My report. From a few strongholds in the land of believers.

The post The Long Beat to Diversity appeared first on Sailing World.

It’s natural to get a pit in your stomach before the start of a big race. Even more so when the fleet is large and the line is crowded. This is partly because the boats are very close together, the closest together they will be in the race. Also, there is a perception among most of us that the start is the most important part of the race. Get a good start, and a good result will surely follow. While there’s truth in that, there is a second part of the race that is at least as important and should come with serious butterflies, if it doesn’t already. That’s the last third of the first upwind leg.

Here, at the pointy apex of the traditional racecourse, boats funnel back together and are again quite close to each other. Opportunities to gain and lose are enormous depending on how you play the myriad situations you can find yourself facing. Let’s explore some options of what to do if you find yourself in the front, middle and back of the fleet as you make your approach to the top mark.

Before we get into the details, a quick story. A few years ago, I was sailing with my very good friend, and brother-in-law, on his new J/70 Cool Story Bro (ask a teenager for an explanation of the name) in the first North American Championship for the class. We were sailing in the fall in Annapolis, which is a notoriously tricky place to sail—lots of wind shifts and current, and 90 boats on the starting line. Going into either the last or second-to-last race, we were sitting in around seventh overall. We would be ecstatic to finish in the top 10 in our first big regatta—pretty good for a brand-new boat and brand-new team.

My brother-in-law was steering, and I was calling tactics. Because we already had a bad race to throw out, I needed to be extra conservative and avoid putting up another big number. The race started, and we had a good lane on starboard heading left. Boats that had poorer starts ducked us and headed right. In the lighter air, the ­tacking angles were wide. The beat was a mile and half, nice and long to spread out the fleet at the top mark. Halfway up the beat, the fleet was separated left to right by at least a mile and half. You could not read the numbers of the boats on the far right of the course.

As we carried along on starboard tack, there looked to be a bit more wind filling down from the upper-left-hand side of the course. In my head, I knew that the farther left I went, the more risk I was taking. Looking at the breeze filling down ahead of us, I felt like a kid looking through the window of a candy store—so many bright and shiny candies, none of them good for me, but I couldn’t resist. We kept going on starboard.

We finally tacked a quarter-mile shy of the layline. Now we had at least ­three-quarters of a mile to sail on port, maybe more. If the wind held steady, if we got a little more ­pressure (giving us the ability to sail higher) or if it went left very slightly, we would be OK. We were in a position to lose if ­anything else happened.

As the odds would have it, my read on the wind was right. It filled in from the left and backed 10 or more degrees. Now we were well overstood and still had a ton of distance to sail. While we were still in the top half of the fleet, the boats that had dug back to the middle earlier were sailing less distance below us and were now starting to stack up on the starboard layline, bow to stern. We, of course, were overstood on the port layline. The situation was made worse by a strong adverse current at the weather mark. We unsuccessfully tried to pile-drive our way into the starboard line and twice could not make the weather mark, jibing around each time. We made some new friends though. Eventually we sucked it up and went behind the whole starboard lineup and rounded the mark very close to last. Luckily, the wind died and became quite shifty. We clawed our way back to the top half of the fleet and still secured a top 10 in the event.

There are lots of takeaways from this story. The biggest one is to be wary of the last third of the first leg. As the fleet comes back together at the first mark, you can very quickly lose and gain many spots. There are a few things we all need to be aware of as we approach the last third of the first windward leg.

Know where the laylines are: Laylines are the imaginary lines on which you can sail directly to the windward (or leeward mark). For bigger boats with instruments, software such as Expedition or Deckman will display your location relative to the layline and even time to go to the layline. For the rest of us, we need to get good at visualizing where the laylines are.

Also, be aware that laylines are not fixed in positions. The wind is always changing direction slightly, and increasing and decreasing in speed. On all boats, an increase in wind pressure will cause the boat to sail higher and change the position of the layline for that boat. The tactician must know where the port and starboard laylines are for the highest angle the boat will sail on both tacks, not just the angle you are currently sailing. The area between these two highest-angle laylines is commonly called the “cone” and truly defines the playing field you have to work with. Do everything you can to avoid sailing beyond these upwind. Once beyond these, you cannot gain any more tactically.

Default to keeping it in the middle: With few exceptions, keeping to the middle as you get closer to the top mark is a strong strategy, especially if you can maintain clear air. Think of getting to the edges of the course as taking bigger and bigger risks. Yes, you might gain 1 in 5 times, but more often than not you will lose. You’re trying to win the war, not the battle. One big-number race score can really ruin your entire event.

Lead back to the middle: Once past the first half of the beat, you need all eyes (except the helm) looking out and to windward, feeding information to the tactician on the relative positions of other boats, your vicinity to the laylines, wind pressure and more. In most cases, you are ­looking for good opportunities to get back toward the middle in clear air. Many times, you will want to lead boats that are on starboard and port back to the middle by tacking on their leeward bow. By doing this consistently, you will often force them to tack, sending them closer and closer to the layline, where they are destined to lose ground and for you to gain ­distance on them.

Know when to get on the layline: If you have been disciplined about getting back to the ­middle on the second half of the beat and staying in clear air as you get very close to the top mark, at some point you will have to insert yourself on to the layline. The big question is when or how far away? One of the best sailing coaches I know, Ed Adams, thinks that you should get on the layline no more than 10 lengths away from the mark. I agree and think that is good for smaller boats, such as Etchells size and under, but for bigger boats that might need more time to set up spinnaker gear, we could increase that to no more 15 lengths. Think about how long you are willing to endure having another boat come and tack on you when you are on the layline, then create your own rule of thumb.

Be aware of the dangers of the port-tack layline. Get on the port-tack layline only when you are very close to the lead of the race. For all other situations, tack on the layline for the two-length zone to avoid the risk of fouling starboard boats at the mark. As you approach the top mark, where you are in the fleet should dictate much of your strategy.

The same principles described here always apply, but might need to be modified, whether you are in the top, middle or bottom third of the fleet. Let’s consider a few scenarios. If you’re in the top third of the fleet, lead back to the middle whenever possible. If leading, attempt to herd the boats behind you into getting on the layline too soon. Give them clear air on the tack that takes them toward the layline. Whenever possible, always sail on the lifted tack. Doing so increases your lead on the ­trailing boats, which might have to sail headed tack to be in clear air.

If you’re in the middle third of the fleet—whenever ­possible—lead back to the middle, especially if the wind is stronger. Always try to sail on lifted tack to be in clear air. The default should lean more toward staying in clear air as you get farther down in this part of the fleet.

If the wind is lighter, you might have to get to the layline earlier than you want because the wind in the middle of the course will be significantly lighter. Then it’s OK to overstand a little.

If you’re in the bottom third, keep trying to lead back and avoid the laylines, especially if the wind is stronger. You will gain on the boats that get to the laylines too early. The lighter the wind overall, the worse it will be in the middle as you get closer to the top mark. If this situation develops, you will be forced to head to the layline. Go beyond it to avoid the inevitable boats coming out that might tack on you, especially if you are in a ­slower-tacking boat.

Always be on full alert and situationally aware on the last third of the first beat. Learning to handle it well consistently is the mark of a truly solid ­tactician and team.

The post How To Win the Top of the Beat appeared first on Sailing World.

My wife, Sarah, is my secret weapon for a lot of things, especially when it comes to mark roundings on Barnegat Bay, where she learned to sail. About 60 years later, she and I are racing our brand new Melges 15, and we’re in the hunt. We’re nearing the top mark somewhere between Marjorie’s Bar and Barrel Island, where locals know tide will be a factor.

“You’re going to want to ­overstand,” she says in a tone that means business.

The port tackers coming into the mark from the left are facing an adverse 2-knot ­current, and there’s a notable cluster developing where we don’t want to be. Summoning her years of local knowledge—learned in the pressure cooker of the Sneakbox fleet and passed down like the tablets from her illustrious forebears sailing E Scows—we hold high on the starboard layline (into the next ZIP code as far as I’m concerned), and pass elegantly around the hot, screaming mess to leeward.

This is when the fun really starts. In three tugs, she launches the asymmetric spinnaker out of the bow sock. We harden up and immediately rocket onto a plane. We manage the first jibe with a modicum of grace. But we’re quickly passed by Emily Haig and crew, father John, whose butt appears flush with the freeboard. (Note to self: As with proper grammar and holding the door for one’s lady, you cannot escape certain rules…including the need to hike.)

For the remainder of the day, Sarah is gracious enough to hold her tongue at the sloppy tacks, the cringe-inducing tactics and, well, let’s not mention the starts. But after every race in that July barnburner, we are relearning tacking, jibing, ­balance and tide sweep. We’re sailing fast and we’re laughing it up.

We are back in the game.

And that was precisely the point back in the plague-ridden winter of 2020 when we took a call from our friend Chris Fretz, a fellow traveler from Little Egg Harbor YC. He wanted us to pony up the money we weren’t spending on restaurants and buy into the sight-unseen idea of the Melges 15. Sarah and I had grown up sailing E Scows with our dads. In a more recent epoch, we crewed together on Doug Galloway’s LE-4 and rekindled our enthusiasm for the beloved boat of our upbringing.

I also discovered how much I loved sailing with Sarah—me on the jib, Sarah on the spinnaker, Rich Neff on the boards and uphauls, Doug tasked with getting us around the course unscathed. Excellent times. But then our friend Doug passed away from cancer—and the E Scow was just too much of a strain.

Enter the Melges 15.

Through the miracles of YouTube, I got a sense for the boat’s capabilities, fell madly in love with the kite, and sold my wife on the concept in about five seconds. Little did I realize, Sarah got the same email with the same YouTube link. She was in the next room putting together her pitch. We met in the kitchen and placed the order. Right then. Right there.

It came down to this: After the thrills of a performance experience like the E Scow, we were loath to retreat to a “retirement” boat with bench seating like the Lightning, the Flying Scot, or any of the well-regarded family of Marshall cats (insert apology to all loyal devotees here). We wanted our fannies to once again make contact with the gunwale. And like a lot of scow sailors (who’ve also had experience sailing iceboats), we are crazy for off-wind speed. Now Sarah and I are out there sharing the same adrenalin. In a big blow, with the kite up and the boat half out of the water, we are young again.

Bonus: We switch up the duties and both steer every other race, which gives the crewing party a chance to offer (mostly) sage, nurturing advice.

Builder Harry Melges III says that the design brief for the Melges 15 was challenging in its simplicity. It had to appeal to kids of all ages, like us.

“The classes with the best ability to incorporate the entire family are the ones that have generational success,” Melges says. “We really focused on making sure the M15 was fun, stable, durable, a great performer, comfortable for all ages to sail, and priced to be a great value.”

Apparently, we aren’t the only ones who’ve decided the Reichel/Pugh-designed M15 might be the “it” boat of our age. From a standing start this past spring, the class hosted its first three-regatta winter series in Sarasota, Florida, in January. The top-five finishers in the first regatta saw a mix of youth, experience and ­family togetherness. JJ Smith and Will Murray, of Palmetto, Florida—who were also top woman and top youth, respectively—won the first regatta, beating Finn Burdick and Melges president Andy Burdick, of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, with son skippering and dad crewing. There were Top Masters, Top Grandmasters, and what the heck, Top Mega Masters Ted Weihe and Joe Grabowski, of Sarasota.

What brought this 25-boat regatta together for the first winter series in a class that’s not even a year old? It might be something a little deeper than the “something for everyone” fallback. Someone, probably a Phoenician, said that a boat is a compromise. Strengths are offset by weaknesses. A gain here means giving up something over there. If there’s a compromise anywhere on this boat, we can’t find it. If anything, it’s built on this central premise: Make it fast and make it easy.

I see the Melges 15′s DNA in Reichel/Pugh’s big-boat ­offshore progenitors, like the record-smashing Wild Oats XI. A chop-cleaving plumb stem and narrower sections forward flare out to a maximum beam carried well aft. Flat sections from the midpoint translate ­farther aft to a wide transom that invites ready planing.

You see this design lineage in the Reichel/Pugh-designed Melges 24 and Melges 14. At every place the Melges 15 touches the water, the boat makes maximum use of the opportunity. That chop-­busting prow upwind transitions to a scowlike surf machine off the wind. With the kite up, the bow lifts out of the water all the way back to the chainplates. Even when we’re sliding down the front of a wave, the boat feels nicely balanced, with controls that fall effortlessly to hand, an easily driven sail plan, and spin-on-a-dime ­maneuverability. Sailing fast is stable, safe and fun.

So much for how the boat connects with the water; how does the crew connect with the boat? When I step aboard, I see that the rectangular cockpit is deep, and my knees offer thanks. The wraparound side tanks supply plenty of buoyancy either underway or just fiddling at the dock hoisting the sails. The pintles snap smartly into the gudgeons for the beefy alloy rudder. Likewise, the alloy daggerboard slots through a pair of trunk-protecting ABS plastic receivers.

The main and jib sheets lead into the crew positions amidships, and control main, jib and spinnaker. There are enough tweakable items such as the jib sheet leads and traveler to satisfy the confirmed tinkerer. The breakthrough vang design offers leech tension with a strut extending from above the gooseneck down to the boom, which makes traversing the cockpit a pleasure.

Our tour concludes at the bow, where the asymmetric kite emerges from a rugged bow sock affixed to the flat, elevated platform forward of the mast. The retractable sprit emerges, lancelike, when you pull the halyard, which is on a continuous circuit that leads out through the sock, through three grommets in the sail, ­culminating at the top. To strike, pop the halyard and pull on the douse line, which collapses the sail back into the sock and automatically retracts the ­bungee-enabled sprit.

So just what do we have here? It’s a quick-to-plane 15-foot doublehander weighing in at 230 pounds built around an easy-to-handle sail plan and a laugh-out-loud asym. Crew weight shouldn’t exceed 400 pounds. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. It’s a great boat for sailors with all kinds of different experience levels: emerging juniors, intercollegiate sailors, beginner and returning seniors, couples, moms, dads, and kids.

The racing is tight enough to offer close-quarters ­stimulation, and we’re always learning something new. The buy-in is manageable, and whole fleets are materializing out of the blue. If anything, the recent winter regatta series in Sarasota showed us that women intercollegiate sailors and other youngsters have an edge. But that’s always been the case, and returning alums (like Sarah and me) are just happy to be up there occasionally, where we can see the whites of their eyes.

When Sarah and I get off our Melges 15, the boat is the topic of conversation in the car, over dinner, and before the lights turn out at night. When we get off the boat, we want to get right back on.

Sarah calls her Dreamboat. It’s a perfect fit.

The post The Melges 15 Hits a Sweet Spot appeared first on Sailing World.

Nicolas Henard, president of the French Sailing Federation, was charged by the Paris 2024 committee to be bold and brave in his promotion of new Olympic sailing events. Like the dramatic gold-medal design of Marianne—the female symbol of the French Republic blended into the Olympic flame—the slate of events Henard and his colleagues at World Sailing voted in for 2024 is bold indeed. Nearly half of the sailing events will showcase hydrofoils. I witnessed that 2018 vote, and there were many arguments for and against moving so swiftly toward the future of foiling in the Olympics, but the door was thrust wide open, accelerating the inevitable evolution in high-performance sailing we are experiencing today.

Predictions that “everything will have foils” in the future, however, have yet to materialize. What’s missing? Big boats. Yes, the Ocean Race now has foiling IMOCA 60s, as does the Vendée Globe. Mini Transat designs are flying. The ­75-footers of the America’s Cup are developing by the day. But no one has been daring enough to build a big monohull sailboat with foils, save for a few of the horizontal DSS foil systems.

The benefits to either fully flying or foil-assisted sailing are known: more righting moment, higher speeds, less heel angle, maybe a more comfortable ride. But the prohibitive barriers are also known: Rating rules are not ready to interpret the dramatic speed deltas between foiling and displacement modes; large foilers would be far more expensive for their size and scale than a similar-size displacement monohull; and without any larger monohull foilers, foil-assisted cruising boats, ocean racers or superyachts on the market, few owners with the financial wherewithal have been willing to take the leap and be first.

Luckily, all the latent interest in foiling is finally showing up in big monohull projects. And who are the brave designers feeding this interest? The venerable Frers family is in the mix, and there are a few others behind closed doors who are secretly poised to turn renderings into realities. But is the rest of the sailing world going to follow these designers into the future? Will foils become a regular fixture at race weeks and offshore races, just as foiling dinghies and boards are now globally prolific?

“We’re applying foils to the casual sailor to achieve the same speeds as a motorboat,” says Mani Frers, the third-­generation yacht designer whose father, German, drew some of the most iconic racing and cruising boats of the past 40 years. “Clients are asking for speed, not necessarily foiling.”

Frers hasn’t seen his first foiling concept come to ­fruition—yet. But he’s getting close. His response to the application of hydrofoils has been predictably intense and unique, altogether avoiding the tantalizing desire to make a large yacht fly above the water. “One of the issues with foiling as a new thing is that no one applies science,” he says. “There are a lot of good things and a lot of BS. I apply foil technology to the whole package.”

Frers, whose son, German Frers VI, is fully involved in their Milan design house, is in the closing stages of two foiling designs: a 60-foot daysailer and a superyacht. He concedes that using foil assist to achieve higher speeds and a stable ride isn’t sexy compared with flying. But the end result of a steady 20 to 25 knots of boatspeed in 12 to 15 knots of wind is attractive.

“We want to bring these boats up to 20 knots and have them just sit there,” Frers says. “Then we start to depower. We use only two sails. It’s like free-ride windsurfing. People don’t want to wear helmets.”

Frers won’t yet reveal the designs he is running through the same simulators used by America’s Cup teams. Why can’t he describe the application of the hydrofoil? Is it sticking out the bottom? The side? Are there two, four or one? He can’t share what’s up his sleeve because it’s early days, and his clients don’t want to see their innovations appearing on other boats before theirs is created.

Regardless of the foil configurations, Frers says his superyacht design is fast enough to generate its own energy—an ancillary benefit of the foils. A hybrid propulsion system “harvests energy while sailing,” he says. “The big-boat foils kick in at 10 knots true windspeed. When under sail, it generates its own power. Foils create more energy. That technology is helping us create a new generation of yachts.”

Frers is blissfully free of ­rating-rule constraints with these two designs. But it is still surprising that rating rules—or the fear of not rating well if the owner does decide to race— is still driving demand for monohull designs. This is one reason why there aren’t any foilers being built and sailed by the average big-boat owner in major ocean races. But there are quite a few new foilers ­further down the size range.

Designers Laureano Marquinez and Nahuel Wilson, for example, were tired of waiting for a client to commission a fully foiling big boat, so they designed one themselves. With interest from clients in South America, New Zealand and Italy, the Argentinians tackled a 40-foot ocean-racing foiler called the MW40OF. The boat is lightweight, with large circular daggerboards similar to those of Alex Thomson’s IMOCA 60 Hugo Boss, as well as twin T-foil retractable rudders. It sure looks like the future of ocean racing, especially for amateur ocean-racing sailors who don’t mind spending their off watch bouncing around in their bunk with one eye open.

“We wanted to bring a fully foiling boat as simple and manageable as we could think of,” says Marquinez, who designed the midrange foiling Persico 69F that’s being used for the Liberty Bitcoin Youth Foiling World Cup. The MW40OF is currently a “very well-advanced preliminary ­project,” he says.

The MW40OF is expected to double the speed of a modern custom 40-foot displacement monohull. “If the boat is not fully foiling,” Wilson says, “the VMG is a little better, lower and faster.” He adds that the boat can find modes upwind to fully foil but that skimming at a wider angle is more likely the faster technique.

Yes, this is going to be a super-slippery boat. Even the renderings show No. 40 ripping through a gray, windswept sea and a menacing sky reminiscent of a Fastnet Race, foretelling its potential. Wilson says this is a movement in ocean sailing that can open doors for younger sailors with high-performance foiling skills. Steering, and even standing, on a 40-footer flying at 25 to 30 knots would be an acquired skill, and young foilers have that in spades, along with the ability to steer precisely when things are coming at them fast.

Before we see these influences, however, there first has to be a boat. To make a dent in the ocean-racing fleet, the boat must have a competitive rating. Being the first to tackle this design equation in the common size of big boats means taking the rating rules themselves head-on.

“This is a very early step in rating these boats,” Marquinez says. “In some senses, once you’re flying, the drag and forces of the appendages are easier to predict. But the ­transition is tricky.”

For Frers, the value proposition of foils is simple: They add speed and comfort. The attractiveness of the MW40OF is something more complicated. “It’s a new experience,” Wilson says. He draws his inspiration for the design from his Persico 69F, which sails with similar appendages and has a daggerboard instead of a keel. “A new program like this will bring a new dimension to club teams. Speed is really addictive.”

Speed is one thing. Foilers have that. But for the vast majority of ocean sailors, crews and owners, boatspeed is just one part of the equation. A lot has to fall in place for foiling to gain acceptance at traditional keelboat regattas, and through their designs, Frers, Marquinez, Wilson and others have a lot of questions to answer. If not bullish at the moment, they are incredibly upbeat.

“We hope to see more foilers, but it’s not super-easy to put one of these together,” Marquinez says. “It’s natural to see where performance sailing goes, but we don’t know where it ends. We do know that these steps we are taking now must be taken.”

Let’s not fool ourselves. The success of foiling big boats has everything to do with those who write the checks. And compromise in design will show the benefits of foils as a contributing solution rather than the main event. Not sexy, but better.

“The future depends on the client,” young German Frers says. “There’s not one route. The newer generation likes foiling, and others don’t think it’s real sailing. This type of foiling is letting more conservative people like foiling. It’s merging two concepts into one.”

The post Big Boats Will Fly appeared first on Sailing World.

My alarm goes off. I roll over to grab my phone. The bright light pierces my eyes. It’s 5:00 a.m. Half asleep, I silence it and continue to drool all over my pillow. Next, a knock on my ­bedroom door.

“Erika, are you up?”

It’s my teammate, Lucy. I want to reply with a yes, but only gibberish spews from my mouth. I know it’s time to get up. We’re launching in two hours.

Having arrived home from racing the previous night 10 hours earlier, we’re both dazed and confused as we organize our belongings. It’s my job to get the coffee going, to whip up a breakfast, pack the cooler, and fill our water jugs. On this particular morning, however, we have a bit of a role reversal. I come out of my room like a bear emerging from hibernation. I stumble to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and as I look in the mirror, I laugh at myself. I still have sunscreen caked on my face from the previous day. I guess I don’t need to reapply.

Oddly enough, this comforts me and I feel ready to seize the day. I seek out the Keurig. Today, caffeine is my breakfast of choice. At 5:45 a.m., I pour a second cup of coffee into my Yeti mug, we pack the car, and off we go.

From our home base in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, we have a 45-minute commute to the US Sailing Center in Miami’s Coconut Grove, and on this day, the passage is a Florida miracle: green traffic lights and no accidents on Interstate 95. It’s clear sailing all the way, and DJ Lucy sets the mood with Darius Rucker and Dolly Parton hits. Next up, Neil Diamond. Each of us were Boston college girls at one point, so “Sweet Caroline” is an obvious choice.

After cruising down Miami’s Bayshore Drive, we pull into the sailing center. “Knee Deep” by the Zac Brown Band is our entry tune. With a music lineup like this, the day is off to a good start. But it’s only 6:15 a.m.

It’s still dark and there isn’t a soul in the parking lot. We walk over to our boat, Ricky Bobby, turn on our flashlights, and go to work. After setting up the rig and tuning it for the morning conditions, we look out on the horizon. There’s a band of clouds across Key Biscayne, illuminated above the horizon as dawn’s early light brings life to the boat park. Sailors trickle in, the sun rises at 7:05 a.m., and we are scheduled to launch promptly at 7:30 for an 8:15 start. It’s time to “shake-and-bake.”

The night before, Lucy and I had reviewed our prestart routine because we had been struggling to get all the information we needed to feel confident starting in the position we wanted. Today is going to be different. We’ve formulated a routine that will allow us to nail the line at go and start in our desired location—even if that start is at the crack of dawn, which is something we’ll need to get used to as we continue on our Olympic campaign.

Earlier in the regatta, we had a bit of a mishap with our flow and footwork during one light-air jibe. Lucy went to flatten the boat and completely missed the wing and fell straight off the boat. I looked back and saw her dangling from the trapeze wire, waist below the water, attempting to flop her upper body back onto the wing like a seal.

Unsure what to do, I dropped the kite sheet and went to pull her back into the boat, but as soon as I started laughing (at her and with her), I had no strength to haul her from the sea. We’ve had this problem in practice before. If one of us starts to giggle, the other follows, and soon enough we can’t grip anything, or make it through a maneuver until all the laughter stops. Still dragging through the water, she yelled, “Erika!” There was no point in trying; I had a case of the giggles and was utterly useless. Somehow she managed to get herself back on the boat, but it was too late. We were both now on the same wing, which dipped, and we capsized in 3 knots. To Ricky Bobby’s point, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” In this race, we were definitely last.

Attempting to avoid another capsize, we practice jibes on our way to the starting line. Once we get there, we still have items to check off our prestart routine. We hover below the starting box, analyzing the layline and warming up with a few accelerations. When our start goes off, we hit the line perfectly.

The last race of the regatta comes down to a jibing duel between us and the first-place boat. Coming into the gate, we are five boatlengths shy of the starboard layline and on a collision course with our competitor. The opposing team jibes on top of us, and as the wind leaves my kite, I turn to Lucy, who—unphased—says, “We have to hold them to port lay.”

With 30 seconds to port ­layline, I’m not sure if they have the time to roll us and jibe ahead. All I know is we are moving at a snail’s pace and the sail is taking forever to refill. They open a gap and jibe to cross and get ahead. But, failing to make the cross, they have to jibe into an overlap at the gate.

I’ve seen this film before. Rounding the mark, we are going to jibe simultaneously into an overlap, and this time our competitor will have the upper hand as we approach the finish. Lucy and I know this jibe has to be one for the ages. We bear away into it, and Lucy focuses on the rate of turn and angle of heel while I lock eyes on my kite, which floats through the turn and refills on the new jibe, as it’s supposed to. Lucy, like a bunny, hops to the new wing to flatten the boat, which accelerates forward. We break the overlap, point our bow to the finish, and win the race.

At 9:30 a.m., we earn our first silver medal at the West Marine US Open Sailing regatta. We’re back at the dock by 9:45, proud of ourselves, proud of the improvements we’ve made since our last regatta. But most of all, we’re proud of our teamwork. We dream of a vibrant journey together, all the way to Paris in three short years. These moments are what Olympic campaigning is all about. And that’s why we rise. To shine.

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