There’s one moment from the 2023 Mini Transat Race that is seared into my memory. I was six days into the Atlantic, crossing alone on my 21-footer Terminal Leave. The trade winds were cranking and the boat was surfing along. I remember it vividly—tiller in one hand, mainsheet in the other, appendages humming as the boat accelerated down each wave. Nothing but wave tops and open sea in front of me. For hours everything felt perfectly in flow.

And then, in one explosive moment one of my rudders sheared off the transom. The boat rounded up violently, and I was suddenly in survival mode. Once I discovered that there was no water coming into the boat, I focused on the repair and diverted 300 nautical miles further south to Cabo Verde for a technical stopover. Without a satellite communication link to my shore team, it was on me and my Pilot book to find a port. Fortunately, or maybe through telepathy, I arrived at the correct dock that my girlfriend coordinated to have help available on a Saturday morning.

With the rudder repaired and remounted, I got back to it. Once at sea, alone again, I was reflecting on the previous 48 hours and reminded myself that I was racing for a larger purpose. Sure, getting to the finish was the point, but I was really out there to raise awareness for U.S. Patriot Sailing, the dear-to-my-heart non-profit that supports the veteran community navigate much bigger challenges than I could ever experience in my little boat.

The three years of commitment to that race was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I am truly grateful I had the opportunity to race amongst the now and future legends of the French solo offshore racing scene. I am frothing, ready to take it on again. But this time, I’m attacking the race with the most advanced boat I can get my hands on. A focused mindset and a renewed sense of purpose is driving me every day.

The Mini 6.50 fleet used for the race has evolved dramatically from its origin in 1977. Racing across the Atlantic every other year since has led to radical design advancements that eventually make their way to the larger IMOCA 60s of the Vendée Globe. The newest generation of foiling ocean-racing sailboats are rewriting what is known to be possible. Consider this: Nicomatic-Petit Bateau, a foiling Mini 6.50 Proto, broke a new distance record for 352.59 nautical miles in 24 hours during this year’s race. That confirms what many of us already know—the foiling Mini generation is an open invitation to blitz the course.

While I’ve been thinking a lot about what it would mean to participate in this race again from a performance perspective, rather than a mere participant, I’ve also thought about what the race represents for me. After a decade on active duty in the Marine Corps, the last Mini campaign was a bridge that helped me transition back into civilian life. Through that experience, U.S. Patriot Sailing was central to my journey. While my first campaign was about raising awareness for the organization, this next one is about expanding support so more veterans can access the same community that helped me.

When I began exploring what a second campaign might look like, one name kept surfacing: Samuel Manuard. Manuard is one of the most influential and forward-thinking French naval architects today, with a specialty in offshore shorthanded sailing. His designs range from Class40s, to the winning IMOCA in the recent Transat Café L’Or, and even the new generation of planing performance production boats for Beneteau. Simply put: His boats are fast.

In addition to his legendary designs, Manuard is approachable and responsive. Our relationship began with a simple e-mail, in English, and no introduction. From the outset, he believed in me and was transparent about the design process. In November 2024, we finally met in person, on the famous Vendée Globe pontoon next to Charal 2, just days before it was to set off on its non-stop race around the world. From that initial handshake, we were committed to working together. It was a surreal moment as I locked in this incredible yacht designer and knew I would be one day crossing the starting line on the newest generation Classe Mini 6.50.

In the Spring of 2025, my partner, Jane Millman, and I met again with Manuard in France where we spent hours talking through the design options. As he sketched what he thought the boat would look like, we talked through the pros and cons of specific features—and there are many. The campaign is now launched and construction is underway at JPS Production, in La Trinité-sur-Mer. It will be a state-of-the-art carbon flyer. This new prototype is the next evolution of Manuard’s foiling design, with a scow bow, large foils, twin T-foil rudders, a canting keel, rotating wing mast and deck sweeping mainsail.

There were certainly reservations and reflective moments as I committed to this project. A foiling Mini is an entirely different experience from my older RG 650. The learning curve will be steep. Mistakes will be obvious and costly. The speeds will be higher, the loads greater, and everything far more extreme. It’s more boat, more power, and more responsibility. But that’s also what makes this next chapter so exciting. The goal isn’t to simply complete the race; it’s to push the boundaries of design and maximize performance. Ultimately, my new mission is to win the Mini Transat.

The race starts in two years, but the race to get to the starting line began long ago. The build, testing, training, qualification races, preparation, and refinements will be wrapped into a relentless campaign. This time, I understand the process better. I know what weeks at sea alone feels like and how fatigue creeps into decision making. I am far more mature and know how to stay disciplined when the weather doesn’t cooperate or a routing choice doesn’t pan out.

My expectations are high but grounded. I know I will need to adapt to this new foiling platform, refine my boathandling and understand the complex systems on this boat. I’m ready to put in the work as I focus on this campaign full time and bring onboard with me the more than 700 U.S. Patriot Sailing participants across multiple states. With locations on both coasts, and two new teams located in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, the impact and reach of this organization continues to expand. The organization continues to provide veterans with community and a renewed sense of purpose supporting each other, which often disappears after taking off the uniform. While solo sailing is a lonely challenge, the difficulties faced after returning from combat deployments or transitioning to civilian life are far more isolating for many veterans.

The foiling element is fitting, for this new campaign is an opportunity to give back at a higher level. It is a platform to raise awareness and to increase support. By helping the organization expand programs and create new opportunities for veterans, there is a bright future for the veteran community this team supports. If I have learned anything over the past few years, it’s that purpose is what gets me through tough miles.

The next two years will be demanding, humbling and exhilarating, but all of it will be worth it. While I’m excited for the race to come, I’m more eager to share the highs and lows, and to inspire. In two years, I will be at sea, savoring my victories and facing my failures. I will be alone in my foiler, propelled by wind and a patriot’s purpose.

The post The American Sailor Intent on Foiling Across the Atlantic appeared first on Sailing World.

“One thing that I love about distance racing is the 10-minute victories,” says Jaime Mack, a few hours into the 2025 Round the County Race.

This annual two-day event organized by the Orcas Island YC and the Friday Harbor Sailing Club circumnavigates the islands comprising Washington State’s San Juan County with a Saturday night stopover in Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. The 65 nautical-mile race regularly attracts triple-digit fleets and unfurls in early November, with even-numbered years rounding clockwise and odd-numbered years taking a counterclockwise course.

The direction matters, of course, because the waters surrounding the San Juans have notoriously strong currents that can leave a fleet parked up or inverted, especially when someone forgets to ply the wind machine with enough Benjamins. Much like the 2025 race.

I consider Mack’s words as we slowly fetch Matia Island, maybe 10 miles into our 34 nautical-mile first leg. While November in the Pacific Northwest is often wet and stormy, and always dark, this particular weekend is a stunner: bluebird skies, sunshine and warm temperatures.

Better still, our skipper Justin Wolfe has assembled a great crew consisting of Ben and Jen Morgan Glass, and Andy and Jaime Mack aboard Ripple (in still water), his Paul Bieker-designed Riptide 35. We’ve never sailed together as a crew, and most of us are new to the boat, but Ripple is well-prepared, and our logistics are carefully sorted.

There are just two hiccups: foul currents and a dearth of breeze.

Still, we’ve had our wins.

Take, for example, the first “chapter” from the starting area at Lydia Shoal, in Rosario Strait, to Point Lawrence, Orcas Island’s northeastern-most point. The smart money, at least temporarily, wagers on the course’s western edge, while we find ourselves milking a thin kelp- and rock-dodging breeze that carries us east, then north.

Flash forward two hours, and we’re slatting in lumpy waves next to other boats that started with us, temporarily looked smarter, only to be (closely) examining our sheer line or transom at this next restart.

I savor this 10-minute victory, as the rest of the day looks challenging.

The Round the County Race has a long history of temperamental winds, so the Sailing Instructions require boats to record their times at the legs’ halfway points, perchance it becomes impossible to finish the complete legs by the 1800 cutoff.

Such is our fate aboard Ripple, as it becomes clear by 1430 that our objective is evolving from finishing the leg to fetching the halfway mark by its 1600 deadline.

Still, math is math, and the VHF calls start at around 1530. We aren’t happy to announce our own retirement 10 minutes later, but the last 2 miles will be someone else’s 10-minute victory.

We tuck Ripple into its berth three hours later, and the reason for the race’s strong local following refocuses: Sailors, bundled in winter jackets, mingle on the docks with libations and victuals. There are a few groans about the day’s breeze, of course, but most scuttlebutt that I overhear involves sunshine and warm temperatures. This is my fifth time doing this race, and every year is different, from torrential rains to big breeze to frigid temperatures, but the race is (usually) good sailing, has a laid-back vibe, and the chance to hang with friends in Roche Harbor are—for me—its gravity.

We nail our boat-end start the following morning, and we assume a windward lane as we reach toward San Juan Island’s Hanbury Point. Our A1.5 spinnaker is pulling, and after yesterday, 7 knots of Speed Over Ground feels big.

We shift gears several times between the J1.5 and the A1.5 and commit to an offshore lane that gives us fine views of San Juan Island’s western shoreline. Jibing Ripple’s kite is easy in the 10 to 15 knot breeze, and the boat’s water-ballast system, combined with our active crew ballasting, keeps us rumbling.

Mount Baker’s glaciated summit appears as we reach San Juan Island’s southern flanks, and, eventually, the leg’s halfway point. But as we pass Colville Island, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the missing Benjamins again become problematic.

We push up Rosario Strait, bucking a 2-knot current and hanging onto increasingly fickle fingers of wind with Ripple’s A1.5.

Mack’s words about 10-minute victories play out again as our section of the fleet negotiates Bird Rocks. We opt for a westerly routing, but for a pregnant hour, the smart move looks to have been the easterly line. Jen Morgan Glass, our tactician, and Wolfe work some magic, linking scuffed-up stretches of brine amongst swaths of greasy-looking saline, while the rest of us keep the sails—and mood—trimmed.

It works, sort of.

Our position, which had been looking bearish, transitions into another 10-minute win, before the bottom falls out. Flow detaches from our foils, and nothing budges our SOG above zeros. Painful.

Mountaineers say the final 5 feet are the crux of any climb, and this truism resonates as we stare at the finishing line for what feels like hours. We’re talking frisbee range, but bow stems are all that matter.

And we’re not alone: the nearby fleet compresses, all of us parked, as we rifle through headsails and kites. All options hang limply as the sun slouches west.

We drift toward the finish line in a tight scrum-cum-rulebook-knowledge-melee. We finally catch the RC’s finishing whistle and clear out, making room for others who are still fighting for their final five feet.

The day’s bonnet blue sky fades to black as stars and a waning gibbous moon punctuate our delivery back to the Orcas Island YC. I burrow into my down jacket and consider how celebrating 10-minute victories helps to justify hours of hard work while also distributing the day’s dividends more widely across the fleet than mere award-ceremony hardware.

Granted, it would be nice to use some of these dividends to bribe next year’s wind machine, but it wouldn’t be a full value Round the County Race without restarts, challenging currents, kelp, and the tapping of local knowledge.

But hey, at least it didn’t rain.

The post The Allure and Agony of Seattle’s Round-the-County appeared first on Sailing World.

Following the historic corrected-time win of Alli Bell’s team on the Cal 40 Restless, the Transpacific Yacht Race celebrated its first Trophy Ceremony for the 2025 edition of this biennial ocean race on Tuesday, July 15, at Waikiki Yacht Club, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The night’s celebration—the first of three ceremonies—welcomed an exuberant crowd of sailors, friends and family to honor the winners of four of the race’s 10 divisions, plus several other trophies.

Tom Holthus and crew aboard the Botin 56 BadPak claimed top honors in the Boatswain’s Locker/Yanmar Division 1; John Raymont and his Fast Exit II team, racing aboard his Ker 52, won Mount Gay Division 2; Jack Jennings led the Reichel/Pugh 68 Pied Piper and crew to first place in Whittier Trust Division 3; and owner Don Wilson and his team aboard the Gunboat 68 Convexity2 were the fastest cat in the two-boat smithREgroup Multihull Division.

Bryon Ehrhart and his talented team aboard Lucky, his 88-foot Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed maxi, etched their names in history and on the prestigious Barn Door Trophy, for the fastest elapsed time of any monohull [Eds note: after finishing, Lucky was assessed a 9-hour elapsed-time penalty for several race and measurement infractions regarding their sail inventory and the use of an undeclared outrigger), while Raymont and his Fast Exit II team earned the Merlin Trophy for the quickest passage to Hawaii aboard a conventional monohull (read: with fixed ballast and manual winches).

Earning recognition in front of many of sailing’s biggest names gathered in Waikiki Yacht Club’s lovely open-air dining room is an accomplishment few sailors will achieve. For many, it represents the culmination of sailing careers that stretch back decades, if not generations.

A Generational Passing of the Transpac Torch

Enter 20-year-old Kelly Holthus, a rising junior at Tulane University, who just completed his fifth Transpac Race aboard his father’s BadPak. The younger Holthus first raced to Hawaii as a 12-year-old in 2017, and while he said he understood how the sails worked during his nascent night watches, the finer points of trim were above his greenhorn pay grade.

No longer: these days, he runs the bow aboard the powerful offshore steed.

“It’s a night-and-day difference,” said Kelly Holthus in a post-racing interview, of his learning curve, which he actively accelerates at every opportunity. “Now I’m a full, contributing part of the team,” he said, describing making eye contact with BadPak’s drivers before shimmying forward on the bowsprit, sometimes hundreds of miles from terra firma. “You’re in the middle of the ocean going 15, 17 knots in five to 10-foot waves,” he said. “I’m up there, and I’m comfortable.”

Sarah Young, who just graduated from Dartmouth before completing her second Transpac aboard Vitesse, Tom Furlong’s Reichel/Pugh 52, is another example of this historic race’s generational momentum and the dedication to one’s craft that’s required to earn this coveted spot aboard a fast ride in this prestigious event. Young may be Furlong’s niece, but there’s zero chance she would be trimming kite if she hadn’t earned her own All-American bona fides on Dartmouth’s sailing team.

“Our Vitesse team was clear before we left the dock that everyone would be up on the deck for all sail changes, kite changes, jibe,” said Young, describing one of Vitesse’s smartest calls. “That was a really strong decision and made our team better because it’s a lot safer to have everyone up.”

Starlink Changing the Game

Young, who was aboard Vitesse in the windy 2021 Transpac, said a 2025 crux involved wending their way around a persistent light-air patch that defined the race for many teams. “The toughest part of the race was just understanding the weather system, understanding how far south we had to go, and striking a balance between distance and weather systems,” she said.

This same decision vexed far more experienced navigators.

“The problem with going so far south is that it’s a whole lot of extra distance,” said Peter Isler, a two-time America’s Cup winner and 2025 navigator aboard Pyewacket, Roy Disney’s star-studded Andrews 70. “You sail a lot of extra distance, but you’re trying to balance extra distance versus windspeed and boatspeed,” Isler continued, noting that while Pyewacket plunged south this year to escape the worst of what Disney termed “the Pacific Pothole,” he’s voyaged closer to the equator on previous Transpacs.

“That wasn’t a new one for me,” Isler said, noting that the team ultimately sailed about 2,350 nautical miles on the race’s 2,225-nautical-mile rhumbline. What’s new are the tools for route divination.

“Starlink opens up the satellite imagery game—being able to read the clouds and trying to infer from above what’s happening down below,” he said, referring to the fast and cost-effective satellite-communication kit that all but one boat in the fleet carried this year. While Isler, a past holder of Transpac’s outright course record, reported that he wouldn’t have looked at different weather models prior to Starlink, the system affords the ability to study high-resolution satellite imagery of coming clouds.

“That can be a game-changer if you understand how to put your weather knowledge together and how to read it,” he said.

A Fast Run Home

GRIB files and satellite imagery aside, spectacular downwind sailing has always been Transpac’s biggest magnet. “The last five hours of the race were super exciting,” said Keahi Ho, who just completed his fifth Transpac aboard Merlin, Chip Merlin’s Bill Lee-designed 68-footer, describing driving the sled for the team’s fast final miles under clear, moonlit skies.

But fast-and-furious sailing isn’t without hazards. “The boat was going as fast as it possibly could,” Ho continued, noting that the team was sometimes tickling 28 knots of boatspeed. “We stuffed the bow super deep—we thought the whole boat was going to go end-over-end, but somehow it came back up.”

Ho first crossed the Pacific at age five with his dad; now 51, life’s ephemeral nature was front of mind when considering this race. A firefighter in Lahaina, on nearby Maui, Ho lost his house and boat to the tragic 2023 fire that ravaged his hometown while he was working to save other people’s lives.

“I thought about maybe not going this year, but I’m glad I did,” Ho said in a post-race interview, noting the importance of taking advantage of life’s great opportunities. “After the fire, we’ve been super grateful for all the things we get to do—it reminds us how precious life is.”

Schooled At Sea

Twenty-three-year-old Max Roth, who grew up in Honolulu and recently graduated from Cal Maritime, echoed Ho’s sentiments of gratitude, but for different reasons. Roth sailed his first Transpac in 2023 as a crewmember aboard the Andrews 77, Cal Maritime, but this year he returned to his home state as skipper of T/S Cal Maritime-Oaxaca, a Santa Cruz 50.

“It was a lot more rewarding because I got to be the skipper for a group of my friends,” he said, noting that his crew consisted of Cal Maritime students and recent alumni, including five Transpac first-timers. His race, he said, was made possible by Cal Maritime and the school’s donation program.

“I didn’t feel the pressure of being the skipper as much as I thought I would,” Roth said in a post-race interview, noting that he surrounded himself with offshore competence. “My navigator and my other watch captain are very experienced, and I was able to rely on them. It didn’t weigh on me that I had to be up every hour to make sure the boat sailed well or safely.”

While Roth leveraged well-timed jokes and Welch’s Fruit Snacks (a crew favorite) to conjure cockpit levity during the race’s inevitable low-tide moments, he described watching the team’s younger members grow and mature, both as sailors and people, during the race.

“It was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life,” Roth said of skippering.

The Transpac race runs deep in Roth’s world: His father, Michael Roth, is the race’s chief judge (“We’re doing our best not to see him,” joked Max), and the race concludes on the waters where he learned to sail. “I came home to family and friends that I grew up sailing with,” he said, noting that his Laser was patiently sitting on Waikiki Yacht Club’s docks. “They were all there—I got to see my coach of 14 years at the dock.”

As for future Transpacs, Holthus, Roth and Young were clear that their journeys across the Pacific have just begun.

“My ultimate goal is to be able to run a program of my own,” said Holthus, who has spent his second decade studiously absorbing the wealth of sailing knowledge aboard BadPak and the other programs with which he’s involved. “I’ll have a lot of work to do before that, but every time I go out there, I’m learning from people, and I’m one step closer.”

The post Transpac’s Trophy Haul Marks A Pivotal Edition appeared first on Sailing World.

Few finish lines are more spectacular—or more well-earned—than that of the Transpacific Yacht Race. Stretching from a starting line off Los Angeles’s Point Fermin, to a finish off of Honolulu’s Diamond Head, this 2,225 nautical miles of Pacific gives sailors ample opportunity to press their off-the-breeze inventory against typically cooperative tradewinds. This biennial race is organized by Transpacific YC with three pursuit-style starts so that all finishers can arrive in Honolulu at a steady pace over several days. As of press time (July 13), a total of 19 boats have crossed the finish line, with 30 arriving over the coming few days.

For some competitors, this stretch of sea represents less than a week of work; for others, time is measured in weeks. Irrespective of one’s elapsed time, all finishers must ultimately pass between 762-foot tall Diamond Head Lighthouse and the red flashing R2 buoy, about three quarters of a mile offshore. While the sight of Diamond Head can be a salve for sea-sore eyes, the waters between the bricks and the buoy display a wealth of color—from aquamarine beach-side shallows, to darker green reefs, to navy-blue hues of Moloka’i Channel.

While all boats compete for the race’s handicap honors, Transpac’s coveted Barn Door Trophy celebrates sheer offshore speed and is awarded to the fastest monohull finisher, sans calculators or rating rules. To earn a spot on the trophy—a magnificent, four-foot slab of carved Koa wood hanging in Hawaii Yacht Club—is to make history amongst 120 years of ocean-racing titans.

Bryon Ehrhart, owner and skipper of 88-foot Juan Kouyoumdjian-designed maxi Lucky (née Rambler 88), earned this honor on Friday, July 11, at approximately 0723, Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time, sending the 2,225 nautical miles in just 5 days, 21 hours, 23 minutes and 49 seconds. Ripping across the finish line at 24 knots, Lucky was flying a full mainsail and triple headsails, with her 17-person crew piled onto the windward quarter for additional righting moment.

Lucky’s is the fifth-fastest elapsed time in the history of the race, which is downright impressive given the significant light-air patch that parked on the racecourse last week, coupled with reports that the tradewinds have been a click softer than normal this year.

“I don’t think I’ve ever finished a race going 24 knots, and so I had a chance to really see the power of the boat shine,” said Ehrhart in a post-finish interview. “The Moloka’i Channel is famous and there’s a reason it’s at the end of the race: It’s your last challenge, and you better meet it.”

Ehrhart should know.

Racing his previous Lucky in the 2021 Transpac, the rudder of the Judel-Vrolijk 72 divorced itself from the yacht near the finishing line, quashing what had been seven days of magnificent sailing. The team was towed ashore by the U.S. Coast Guard.

“This was five and a half days of glorious sailing, and we got to finish,” said Ehrhart of the 2025 edition. “The epic thing for me was coming back four years after losing our rudder 30 miles off the finish and meeting that challenge.”

The challenge included developing new sail technology, meticulous vessel preparation, flawless crew work and smart calls, compliments of world-famous navigator Stan Honey. Lucky finished with zero gear breakage, which Ehrhart called a testament to the crew’s pre-race preparations.

“This is a water desert that’s as beautiful as any other desert you’ll see,” said Ehrhart of the racecourse’s sweep of ocean. “You finally see a piece of land. And when you see it, you’ve got Diamond Head,” he said.

Once at the docks, Bill Guilfoyle, Commodore of the Transpacific Yacht Club, and other race officials welcomed Lucky to the Aloha State with ice-cold Whittier Trust mai tais served inside pineapples, a tradition that honors all finishers, irrespective of their arrival times or durations.

“You don’t get leis anywhere else in the world for finishing a race,” said Ehrhart.

Doublehanded Crew Set a Impressive Transpac Benchmark

While Lucky powered across the Pacific with a small army aboard, the second yacht to cross the finish line—Fred Courouble and Charles Devanneaux, co-skippers of Rahan, Devanneaux’s stripped-down Beneteau First 36—took a decidedly different tack as the race’s only two-handed team.

“When you have a crew, you have a specific job. You do a little bit, then you go to sleep,” said Courouble at a dockside interview moments after Rahan made landfall. “I don’t say it’s boring, but it’s a normal challenge, you know? And the more you have challenges, the more interesting the race is.”

The price for this fun? “Your lack of sleep,” Courouble continued. “You start to hallucinate.”

Rahan’s race got sporty about 400 nautical miles from the finish when the spinnaker wrapped around the forestay, creating what Courouble termed “a beautiful salami” of unusable sailcloth.

Despite this setback, the two-handed crew, who have been racing together since 2012, continued attacking the remaining miles. Devanneaux said their final night at sea was their finest, a sentiment echoed by his lone shipmate.

“Last night was good because we were fighting Picosa, our direct competition,” said Courouble, referring to Doug and Jack Jorgensen’s J/111, the third boat to finish. Courouble and Devanneaux did the logical thing: They hoisted their biggest kite.

“It was a good decision, but the boat was flying,” Courouble said. “We wiped out a lot.”

The decision paid handsome visual dividends: Rahan finished as the Hilton Hawaiian Village’s weekly Friday evening fireworks lit the night sky.

Picosa was racing fully crewed, though Jack Jorgensen reported that sleep deprivation was also an issue for their last few nights. While the team avoided making any sail salami, they struggled with battery issues. “Everything was off except our instruments,” said Jack in a post-racing interview, adding that the team ran their engine in idle for almost four straight days to keep the electrons flowing.

Then there were the night watches.

“We had a lot of squall activity at night, and the nights were dark,” said Jack, who was skippering with his dad, Doug—who is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his first Transpac—aboard. “It led to good seamanship and being able to change sails quickly and change modes fast when the wind came up.”

As for their final day at sea, Jack reported that the team played things cool.

“We knew we were solidly in second behind Rahan, so we just wanted to sail conservatively and not break anything,” he said. “We had a couple huge wipeouts earlier in the race that were pretty sketch, and we were trying to avoid any huge issues, losing any sails, or hurting anyone.”

The move paid off, and the team finished in the dark, about nine hours astern of Rahan.

Instead of fireworks or battery issues, Lodos—Tolga Cezik and Rade Trimceski’s Seattle-based J/111—crossed the finish line on Saturday morning as surfers were catching rides off Waikiki.

“Relieved, ecstatic, excited,” Jennifer Hoag, Lodos’s trimmer, bow person and occasional driver, said in a phone-call interview as the team was motoring into Ala Wai Harbor for their leis, mai tais and much-anticipated cheeseburgers. “We pushed hard our last night,” she said. Abandoning their watch schedule, they hoisted their biggest downwind kite despite the occupational hazards.

They white-knuckled through a 30-knot squall for 30 minutes, but the tactical gambit was spot-on: “We actually put a lot of distance on the boats behind us just from last night.”

While the adrenaline flowed during Lodos’ final night at sea, dopamine and serotonin also played prominent roles during the voyage.

“We had one sunset where we had dolphins playing in our bow,” said Hoag, adding she was fortunate to share her first-ever Transpac experience alongside her dad, John, who was one of Lodos’ watch captains and primary drivers. “We had our kite up on a plane and these dolphins are playing with us. We’re going 16, 17 knots at sunset—it was just beautiful.”

Nautical beauty and sailing with one’s father were also major themes aboard Don Wilson’s Gunboat 68 Convexity2, co-skippered by John Hildebrand and Josh McCaffery and crewed by a Murderer’s Row of sailors who boast multiple wins in The Ocean Race.

“I got to sail one of the most amazing oceans in the world with a really unique crew on a fast, cool boat,” said Ava Wilson, one of Convexity2’s drivers, moments after finishing her first Transpac, also with her father, Don, onboard. “Ripping at 27 knots across the Pacific Ocean was absolutely awesome.”

Convexity2 delivered big grins, but, said Wilson, the race wasn’t without its tests.

“We had pretty solid bow stuff going into our early morning today,” she said. “It was a rude awakening for me.”

As was the team’s occasional loss of hydraulic power.

“It was 12:30 in the morning, pitch black and our hydraulics weren’t working,” Wilson said. “We were looking to do a maneuver, and we had to get everybody on deck and figure out where the issue was coming from.”

This, of course, was where the Convexity2 crew’s vast offshore experience shined like July 10’s full moon.

“Everybody was really levelheaded,” said Wilson. “The crew saw some hesitation in me, and they were like, ‘look, it’s all good.’ And they told me exactly what to do, and I was able to do it. We worked through it quite quickly and got back on track.”

Hydraulics hijinks aside, Wilson clearly loved her experience.

“My best watch was last night,” she said. “Getting to see the sunset into the stars and the full moon, unobstructed, and we had 15 to 20 knots of breeze, and were cruising along—it was incredible.”

The post A Transpac Race For Keeps appeared first on Sailing World.

The Volvo 70 Tschüss 2, owned by Christian Zugel and co-skippered by Johnny Mordaunt, claimed line honors in the West to East Transatlantic Race 2025 in an elapsed time of 07d:15h:29m:10s. Tschüss 2’s crew for the crossing was Zugel, Mordaunt, Al Fraser, Andrew McLean, Campbell Field, Christopher Welch, Edward Myers, Fredric Shanks, Neal McDonald, Nicholas O’Leary, Pete Cumming, Stefano Nava, Stu Bannatyne, Trystan Seal.

Zugel may be relatively new to offshore racing, but his recent achievements with Tschüss 2 are nothing short of astounding. Since July 2024 Tschüss 2 has won four major offshore races overall under IRC and logged 22,000 nautical miles in the process. Tschüss 2 has been the overall winner for the 2024 Roschier Baltic Sea Race, the 2025 RORC Transatlantic Race, RORC Caribbean 600 and looks untouchable for the West to East Transatlantic Race.

“This was a phenomenal race – very fast and far beyond my expectations,” said Zugel after finishing in Cowes. “We ended up beating the IRC corrected time record by 30 hours. That’s something I never imagined when we set out. In this campaign we’ve now sailed the same as one lap around the equator – including two transatlantic races. We’ve been pushing hard, but smart. Our boat is still in great shape, and our crew is motivated and injury-free. We could probably go sailing again tomorrow!”

Reflecting on the crossing itself, Zugel added, “It’s hard to put into words. You leave Newport in fog, thread your way through the Gulf Stream with bizarre wave patterns and bubbling 25°C water, and then make a break north just in time to ride a cold front across the Atlantic. I’ve flown over the ocean 150 times but sailing it is something else entirely.”

His advice to others? “Go for it – but be prepared. You need a serious boat and a professional crew. If you get caught in 55 knots unprepared, that’s trouble. But for me, this was the race of a lifetime.”

Full Speed Across

“Our watch system is pretty slick,” commented Nicholas O‘Leary, revealing what life is like on board in the North Atlantic. “We run four groups rotating every two hours with two watch captains—Stu Bannatyne and Neal McDonald. It means there’s always someone on deck who knows exactly what’s going on, and intel gets passed seamlessly.

“When you’re helming in zero visibility, spray flying, pitch dark and fog so thick you can’t see two boat lengths, you’ve just got to trust the numbers. You’re trimming for VMG constantly. Despite the brutal conditions, the mood on board was always positive. Everyone’s a pro, and even though most hadn’t sailed together before, we clicked fast.”

A Clean Run

Co-skipper Mordant attributes the team’s success to the highly experienced offshore sailors and a well-prepared boat with virtually no equipment failures. “The key to our success across has been the strength of our team,” he says. “We’ve got some of the best offshore sailors in the world, each bringing a wealth of experience. That knowledge trickles down and creates a solid foundation. The crew know what to expect, how to stay safe, and how to push performance. It’s about discipline and consistency, and it’s worked again.

“We push hard, stick to our plans, and execute well. From my side as boat captain I’m pleased to report virtually no equipment failures – just two minor issues, and neither were on me. The boat was fast, the team was sharp, and we were calm even in tough conditions like zero visibility at 22 knots.”

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for most sailors, running aground and abandoning their vessel to the rocks, waves, and wind might be reason enough to pause ambitious plans to race singlehanded across the Atlantic aboard a caffeinated 21-footer. But Ambre Hasson isn’t most sailors.

While Hasson didn’t grow up sailing, didn’t race in college, and didn’t take to the sport until she was 27, the Franco-American caught the sailing bug during the pandemic. In 2020, she traded her tech startup job in New York City for a prototype Classe Mini in Lorient, France. Hasson isn’t reliant upon a trust fund or sitting on IPO trappings. Instead, she’s fueling her campaign by working on other people’s boats; soliciting sponsorship, donations, and generosity; and keeping her overhead low.

Along the way, she’s racked up 15,000 nautical miles and some encouraging results, including a second-place finish in the Mini Transmanche 2024.

Hasson was born in Paris in March 1993, but her family left France when she was 7 to travel. Three years later, they settled in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Hasson would eventually earn her BA in economics from the University of Virginia before moving to Brooklyn, New York.

While Hasson loved her Big Apple experience and “followed the rhythms of the city,” this changed with 2020’s COVID lockdowns. “I was losing my mind,” she says, explaining that she flew to Florida and was working remotely when she decided to buy a sailboat. “I have no idea where the idea came from,” she says. While she had sailed “once or twice” as a kid with her grandfather, she had no experience. So she started volunteering at a sailing school in exchange for lessons, and she began perusing Craigslist. 

This led her to an abandoned Newport 29. 

Hasson joined the Great Resignation and spent the next two years living aboard and learning to sail. She also followed the 2020-21 Vendée Globe and began absorbing information about IMOCA 60s, Class 40s, and Classe Minis. “A seed was planted and began growing,” she says.

Shoots emerged in 2022. Hasson, who is bilingual, was traveling around France for the summer and experienced the Mini world firsthand. “There were all kinds of people,” she says. Some of those she met had sailed all their lives and had amassed serious miles, while others were just going for it. 

“So I decided to buy a Mini,” she says. 

That’s when she found No. 138, a 1995 Pierre Rolland-designed prototype, which she purchased—layaway-style—for about $24,000, with the dream of sailing the Mini Transat 2023. 

This gave her about six months to get the boat sorted and sail the race’s prerequisite miles. The Classe Mini’s racing season began in April. Hasson started seven events but finished only four. “I was starting to see a pattern,” she says.

Still, there were bright spots, including a second-place finish in the doublehanded Gran Premio D’Italia, but her reality was that she was sailing an old boat on a thin budget, with limited time to complete her 1,000-nautical-mile solo ­qualifier before the event’s July deadline.

Hasson burned this fuse to the final 12 days, forcing her to accept a suboptimal weather window that required skirting four major depressions and sailing upwind in 35 knots. “I was on the edge of control,” Hasson says, describing sailing at 13 to 14 knots with a double-reefed mainsail and solent, once she was finally able to bear away. 

But she made it to Port Bourgenay, where she called for a tow to help her negotiate the port’s tricky entrance.

That’s when things went pear-shaped. 

“It was surfing weather, not sailing weather,” she says, explaining that while the channel is deep, shallows lurk outside the buoys. An inflatable was dispatched to help her, but it was struggling in the conditions.

“I kept going under my jib,” she says. “I had a bad feeling.”

A breaking wave caught the boat’s port quarter, pushing it outside the channel. Hasson’s keel found the bricks, and the ensuing compression loading from the seas turned her keel into an instrument of destruction. Seawater began flooding the bilge. 

“There’s always a solution at sea,” she says, “but I realized that there was nothing I could do.” 

Hasson grabbed her essentials, jumped overboard, and swam—then crawled—onto the beach. Worse, a peanut ­gallery had assembled atop the seawall. 

“There was a lot of rage,” she says of the experience. 

While her inclination was to repair her baby, she was told that it would cost anywhere from $62,000 to $83,000 to fix her $24,000 boat. She didn’t need her UVA degree to ­compute this cost-benefit analysis.  

“The months that followed were very hard,” she says, explaining that she had put everything she had into the boat and her Mini Transat dream. Worse, she says, detailing a conversation with her mother, was her anxiety that without a boat, she couldn’t sail. 

So she did the logical thing.

“I wanted a boat that was beautiful, one that I could ­picture myself on,” she says. “I didn’t want a scow.”

She found No. 618 in Finland and agreed to buy it.

The catch? Her insurance company hadn’t paid her claim, and she didn’t have the money. Fortunately, circumstance began intervening. As an example, she describes an impromptu dinner with a friend and his deep-pocketed ­buddies. She walked away with a $10,400 donation, which she used to secure her second Mini in late 2023.

Hasson was back in the game, but No. 618—a 2006 prototype Finot-Conq named On the Road Again II—was far more complex than her previous Mini; this one came with a canting keel, rotating mast, lifting rudders, daggerboards, and water-ballasting tanks. “It’s an IMOCA, just one-third the size,” she says.

Hasson spent 2024 ­training with a group of Mini sailors. “They were serious and had more experience,” she says of her first few months. “I was never able to keep up with the group—it was demoralizing, and I lost confidence.” The only thing that kept her going, she says, was a breakthrough moment when she found her “positive anger” and completed a tack inside of 3 minutes. This allowed her to finally keep pace.

More importantly, her confidence returned. “I discovered how to sail the boat solo under spinnaker,” she says, describing a race where she passed 20 boats overnight. 

In total, Hasson started and finished four races in 2024: the Mini Transmanche, the Mini Fastnet, the Mini en Mai and the Plastimo Lorient Mini. She also dispatched her 1,000-nautical-­mile solo qualifier. En route, she clocked 18.1 knots of boatspeed, learned to use her autopilot, and got comfortable pushing the “friction point” of control. “I’m not scientific,” she says, explaining that she relies on feel to know when the boat is balanced. 

Like all sailors, Hasson has her weakness. Weather is one. The Mini Transat fleet uses single-sideband radios, not satellite communication systems, to access “broad” weather reports. While skippers generally know where the lows and highs lurk, their ­low-resolution information means they’re essentially dead-reckoning their weather routing. 

Enter sailing’s ancient arts. “I’m learning how weather works,” Hasson says, explaining that this includes studying clouds for meteorological telltales.

While the Mini Transat 2025’s September start is looming, Hasson envisions less racing this season. “It’s important to start the Mini Transat fresh,” she says. “I’ll do two, maybe three races.” 

That said, Hasson envisions ample on-the-water time. “I want to cross that finish line ­knowing that I gave it everything and seized every opportunity,” she says. 

When asked about her postrace plans, Hasson says that she can’t see herself returning to the startup world. “Sailing is a bit of an addiction, but to get the same high, you need more drug,” she says, adding that she’s sailed aboard Class 40s and Figaro boats. “It’s impressive how much more power they have. It’s a bit intoxicating.”

The post Ambre To the Atlantic appeared first on Sailing World.

Conor Fogerty was feeling it. Aboard the husky, well-prepared Beneteau 44.7 Black Magic, with Fogerty on the wheel, we were closing in on the fifth day of the 700-plus-nautical-mile SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race. Having just passed Thor Rock, we were fast approaching Rathlin Island, the northeast corner of the Emerald Isle’s rugged, wild coastline. The lights of Scotland blinked on the far horizon. The next 24 hours would unfold like a fever dream. But first we had to negotiate dark, craggy Rathlin.

The island marks the crossroads between two converging ocean currents, where the North Atlantic jumps the Irish Sea. It was more than a bit messy. Before the race, I’d heard many a Rathlin horror story; boats had been known to park there, anchor deployed, for double-digit hours if they happened upon it when the tide was foul. Rathlin has converted many race leaders into race losers. It’s not something for which you can plan ahead: You get there when you get there.

Luckily, we nailed it perfectly.

I was grateful that Fogerty was at the helm. Just before the start, I’d been informed that I’d be sharing both watch and driving duties with him, which was daunting. A professional delivery skipper, he had 35 transatlantic voyages to his credit, including a victory in the grueling 2017 edition of the OSTAR singlehanded race aboard his Jeanneau Sunfast 3600, for which he was named Irish Sailor of the Year. For the most part, I’d hoped I’d held my own, but something had also been made ­crystal clear: I’m no Conor Fogerty.

As we passed the blinking ­lighthouse off Rathlin’s headland, the speedo ­registered a modest 4 or 5 knots, but the adjacent GPS numbers told the larger story of the favorable escalator on which we rode: 12.5 knots. At that moment, under Fogerty’s steady hand, Black Magic creamed into a cauldron of swirling current, the intersection of boat meeting sea putting us briefly into submarine mode. A drenching wall of water swept the decks and filled the cockpit. I remember thinking, This is June, and that effing wave is too damn cold.

A few hours later, at dawn, we were once again in open waters. With roughly 75 nautical miles to the finish line off the town of Wicklow, and 35-knot gusts right on the button, the northern shoreline was behind us. It was the home stretch. The good news? We were back in the Irish Sea. The bad news? We were back in the Irish Sea.

My unlikely tale of scoring a ride on Black Magic began almost a year earlier and in an unlikely place—at the annual Fleet 50 J/24 awards ceremony in my hometown of Newport, Rhode Island. Earlier that summer, with the same knuckleheads I’ve raced J/24s with for decades, we snagged for our fifth man a bright, savvy Irish kid named Jack Cummins, who was teaching sailing at the Sail Newport community sailing center for the summer. I mentioned to Cummins that, despite my Irish surname and ancestry, I’d never visited Ireland. If I ever made it, I wondered, might he show me around?

“You should come do the Round Ireland Race,” he replied. “My mom used to be the commodore of the Wicklow Sailing Club that runs the race. I can get you on the boat I’m sailing on.”

The rum was flowing and, I reckoned, likely doing the talking too. All of which led up to this past April, when I received this email from Black Magic’s owner, skipper and navigator, ­seasoned Irish yachtsman Barry O’Donovan: “Jack Cummins has mentioned that you are interested in doing the Round Ireland Race this June. We have a good, energetic crew lined up and would be delighted if you would join us. Let us know your thoughts?”

It was an offer too good to pass up. Now I just had to figure out exactly what the Round Ireland Race was all about.

The first edition was in 1980, with a fleet of 16 boats, and it has run biennially ever since (with the exception of the COVID cancellation in 2020). It generally draws a strong UK entry list, though George David’s Rambler 88 represented the US in 2016 and set a monohull course record of just over two days. These days, it’s sponsored by SSE Renewables, an operator of onshore and offshore wind farms.

Those are the hard numbers, but the heart of the event—and I’d soon learn that, as with everything Irish, soul and spirit are paramount—comes from the funky little grassroots club that runs it. There are far more prestigious yacht clubs in Ireland, such as the Royal Cork, that would love to host the country’s premier offshore race. But it’s the biggest undertaking by far for the unpretentious sailing club and the cool little town of Wicklow (St. Patrick himself is said to have landed on its shores). It seems that practically every member volunteers in some capacity, and once the race is underway, the clubhouse remains open 24/7. No matter when you finish, frothy Guinness awaits.

“Energetic” was an apt description of the Black Magic crew. Ciaran Finnegan was the de facto boat captain, who’d been sailing since he was a wee lad. His right-hand man was his fellow Round Ireland vet, Robert Kerley, who could impressively hand-roll cigarettes in a small gale. Joss Walsh was a 6’4” all-around waterman built like a linebacker (always good to have one of those dudes on hand). My J/24 mate Cummins fit right in with this tight band of Celtic brothers.

On the other hand, O’Donovan, Fogerty and I constituted the geriatric over-60 set. We were accorded respect from the young brothers as the elders we were.

Surfer Peter Connolly and Dominic O’Keefe, who kept everyone well-fed, rounded out the male majority. The lone woman on the team was O’Donovan’s daughter, Labhaoise (pronounced LEE-Shuh), an excellent sailor who also served as the no-nonsense crew chief. I was told at the outset to stay on her good side, and I tried my best.

It was a tight, good-natured and often hilarious bunch; I often felt like I’d been beamed onto the set of an Irish boating sitcom. And, as I was soon to learn, they were some badass sailors too.

The sailing instructions for the 704-nautical-mile contest are deceptively simple: “Leave Ireland and all its islands excluding Rockall to starboard.” The mileage suggests a distance race, but the weird fact of the matter is, you’re never all that far from shore. That’s not the only confounding issue.

At the club before the start, I asked ­three-time race veteran Tim Welden for his take on the racecourse. “In fact,” he said, “it’s 13 different races, from headland to headland. There’s different breeze and currents at each one, and you restart every time. You get a taste of everything, all points of sail. Light winds, heavy weather. Night and day. Dozens of watch changes. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s a pretty race. It’s really hard. Then there’s the elation of finishing. You know you’ve done something.”

A 45-knot gale in the open Atlantic was the miserable lowlight of the 2022 race; Kerley sailed it on Black Magic and recalled it vividly. “It was humbling,” he said, with a faraway gaze. “That’s what offshore sailing does. It humbles you. What you thought you were good at…” His voice trailed away, leaving me with my own humbled thoughts: What the hell had I gotten myself into?

With that, on June 22, we were outbound from Wicklow Harbor. It was a gorgeous day, with bright sunshine and 14 knots of southerly breeze, and the Irish naval patrol ship George Bernard Shaw on station at the starting line. Over half of the 48-boat fleet flew foreign flags, a point of pride to the Irish, who are keen on hosting an international event. Spectators were perched on the rolling, emerald hills above Wicklow, the sort of scenery that inspired Johnny Cash to croon about the “40 Shades of Green.”

I was glad that I took it all in because the world around us would soon close down.

The first 150 miles or so were largely a light-air beat, much of it in heavy mist that made steering a challenge; with zero visibility, the horizon vanished, with no clean demarcation between the sea and the sky.

There’s one word to describe the Irish Sea: ghastly. The edgy seas are short and angry. There’s no carving through it; you just pound into it. 

I had but one bucket-list wish for the entire race: to get a close look at iconic, legendary Fastnet Rock. O’Donovan had whetted my appetite further by saying that the stretch from Fastnet around the coast of Kerry—past Mizen Head; the Bull and Calf Rocks; the Great Skellig Rock, where monks built beehive huts centuries ago; and the Blasket Islands—was his country’s most scenic coastline. Alas, we passed within a mile of Fastnet, socked in by heavy fog (I may as well have stayed in Newport), and never saw a bloody thing, nor any of the other landmarks.

“Just the sound of the sea breaking on them,” O’Donovan said.

“Don’t worry,” Cummins said. “It’s just a rock. The important one to see is back off Wicklow. That’s where we’re going.”

For a while, it seemed as though we’d never get there; soon the breeze disappeared entirely. We watched in dismay as several boats, just a mile or so away, did end runs around us. “We are in the hole from hell,” Fogerty said.

Eventually we escaped into the Atlantic. Historically, this is the juncture where the ocean swells begin to appear, accompanied by a fresh southerly, promoting a spinnaker run northward up the west coast. For a while, we had just that, with 25 knots of favorable breeze as we downshifted kites from the A1 to the A2, and for a spell registered speeds of 10s and 11s. We still couldn’t see a damn thing, steering by ­instruments. But at least we were finally moving.

At long last, sliding past the coast to Galway, the sun made an appearance, and we enjoyed some of the prettiest sailing of the entire trip. Happily, I could now see what we’d been missing. Even at midnight, it never really got dark, with a ­glowing red sky juxtaposed against the green, green coast. Unfortunately, the breeze had swung north, and we were back charging upwind into it. Getting dressed to come on deck was a stumbling dance, and once on the wheel, it was hard to get into a groove.

“It’s like having sex for the first time,” Walsh said, when I asked if he had any steering tips. “You have to feel around in the dark for a bit. But at least now you know why so many Irishmen move to the States.”

And, it occurred to me, why they love golf.

Once along the northern shore, it was one sail change after another, and we got to see the whole inventory: kites, jib, genoa, code zero. Though none of them were up very long. Also, we were lucky; we’d missed a nasty low-pressure system that had formed behind us, a full-fledged gale. Nearly a dozen boats retired, bailing into the many little sheltered harbors dotted along the Atlantic coast. At least Black Magic was still a going concern.

Then, fortuitously, we slashed past Rathlin Island, and the end was nigh. Which is when O’Donovan had one final, sobering announcement. Another potent low had cropped up, packing a punch. Dead ahead. In the Irish Sea.

With Rathlin astern, Cummins had an observation: “Chutes and ladders, that’s what this race is about.” Indeed, we’d been shot with ­dispatch into the Irish Sea. One more day to go. It turned into a long one.

We were hard on a building southwest breeze, which would fill all day long. It occurred to me that we were five days into it and had enjoyed downwind sailing for perhaps 10 hours. On a day like this, there’s but one word to describe the Irish Sea: ghastly. The edgy seas are short and angry. There’s no carving through it; you just pound into it. Especially as the breeze mounts into the 20s and 30s. The first reef went in. Then the second. The bright spot was that we were on a ­starboard-tack fetch to the finish.

Of course, there was one more bit of drama. Black Magic was apparently as tired as we were. The mainsail battens started to pop, the leech line gave up the ghost, and it felt as if the whole sail might fail. Which is when the A-team—Finnegan, Fogerty, Kerley and Walsh, which could be the name of an Irish law firm—went into action, cracking off and basically nursing the whole shooting match onward. Later, O’Donovan would say: “We had a following tide for most of it, which could have carried us past Wicklow if we’d lost the main. It was the best crew work I have experienced in my long time at sea.”

I spent the last few hours on the rail ­alongside Cummins, who offered a geography lesson as we slipped down the coast: Howth, Dublin Bay. Finally, up ahead: Wicklow. Then, just before midnight, after 5 days, 10 hours and change, the finish line. Our results were middling: fifth in IRC Two, 21st overall. No matter—I remember what I’d been told I’d feel: elation. It was true. It all felt like victory to me. 

Four boats had finished within the hour, and the Wicklow clubhouse was rocking. The first Guinness was heaven. Next came a piping-hot full Irish breakfast: fried eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, black pudding, thick toast and delicious Irish ­butter. Easily one of my top all-time repasts.

There was just one final mission: Before the race, the Cummins family had basically adopted me, and with its conclusion, Jack’s parents granted my wish to take a quick road trip back down along the southern coast, to see from land where we’d passed by sea. We paid a quick stop in Kinsale, a sister city to Newport, and scarfed down fish and chips at the Fifth Ward Bar, so named for an iconic local neighborhood. It felt like closing a circle.

But the best part was driving up to the proud Kinsale Heads outside the city. Just a few days before, I’d been at the wheel on one of the sunniest days of the race as we engaged in an inshore tacking duel with Nieulargo, a Grand Soleil 40. From high above, I replayed every tack, every cross of one of the most memorable sailing days of my life. With that, my Round Ireland Race ­adventure was officially in the books. What more can I say? It was all grand craic.

The post The Craic of the Round Ireland Race appeared first on Sailing World.

My last doublehanded race of the season was the Drheam Cup, a 600-mile adventure starting in Cherbourg, France, and finishing in Brittany. I asked rising British star Will Harris if he would sail with me on the Sunfast 3300 Red Ruby as co-skipper. To my surprise and delight, he agreed. For me, this was like Carlos Alcaraz agreeing to be my doubles tennis partner, a younger (than me) sailor at the top of his game.

After racing dinghies in his youth, Harris applied to the Artemis Offshore Academy in England, and spent two years learning to be a shorthanded offshore sailor. He then raced four seasons in the French Figaro circuit, the crucible of mostly younger offshore sailors. It is considered the most competitive shorthanded racing in the world, and nearly all of the top racers in that discipline have come through the Figaro. With one-design boats, there are no excuses. Everyone trains really hard, and 400-mile singlehanded races are often won by seconds, not hours. Figaro sailors learn to master all aspects of the game: preparation, navigation, boathandling, offshore tactics, energy management and boatspeed.

Harris’ success in the Figaro earned the attention of Boris Hermann, who asked him to join the Malizia IMOCA program in 2019. Harris began by helping to prepare the boat and help with training, but soon his talent and energy propelled him to a co-skipper role. In fact, Harris was the skipper of Malizia for the Southern Ocean leg of The Ocean Race in 2022, and co-skipper for the boat’s ­doublehanded races.

The 2024 Drheam Cup was the most competitive doublehanded offshore event of the season, and the final leg of the IRC Doublehanded Europeans. When we arrived in Cherbourg, Harris immediately began diving into the weather. He spent hours analyzing GRIB files and current charts in the two days before the race. He also had good thoughts on how best to prepare our boat for the race, so I got to work on that while he was working out our strategy. 

We were meant to sail the Prologue (practice and promotional race) two days before the start, but there was no wind, so our first actual sailing together was an hour before the start of the Drheam Cup. I got a little too excited at the start and was over early, earning us a 1-hour penalty. Ouch. Harris was nonchalant about it though and just got on with the job of getting to the next mark as quickly as possible.  

The first leg was a 90-degree reach to the corner of the Corentin Peninsula. We started with the jib, but when the breeze lifted a bit, we set the code zero and really took off. After the rounding mark, a 30-knot squall came through. We got the kite down just in time, and the leg across the English Channel turned into another windy jib reach. When I was steering, I would try to steer around the waves to maintain speed, but Harris suggested that I just go straight, with minimal variation from the course. This turned out to be much faster.

As we approached the turning mark at The Shambles, the wind lifted 10 degrees. Harris suggested that we try the code zero, even though the angle was a little marginal. We got it set up and hoisted, then unfurled to realize a 1-knot speed increase. Only a couple of our competitors set their zeros, so we stretched out another mile on most of the group.

By now the wind was blowing 20 knots, and it was completely dark. For the last hour of the leg, Harris focused on tracking into the mark as efficiently as possible, using course over ground to compensate for the current. He was also deep into working out our strategy for the next leg, a 200-mile beat up the English coast of Devon and Cornwall to Wolf Rock. The wind was forecast to clock right a little, so staying on port tack was the priority. However, Harris predicted a little tidal advantage offshore at Portland Bill, so we took a short tack after the mark to ­better position us for that. 

It was not an easy night. The wind was gusty, and the waves were big and steep. There was limited visibility, so it was hard to keep the boat going fast. I really struggled to keep up to targets, but when Harris was steering, he managed to keep the speeds higher with a little more heel and a looser jib. In the wee hours of the morning, we finally got the expected right shift in Lyme Bay and tacked onto starboard. As dawn broke, it was clear that we had not had a great night. My inability to keep the boat going fast had cost us, and the top boats in our class were now close behind us. With 150 miles of tricky upwind sailing to Wolf Rock, there would be plenty of opportunities ahead.

Harris took a systematic approach to rounding headlands. Because there is typically a right shift when the headland is to starboard, you want to round close. But if you approach the headland too soon or get too far in, the wind will be lighter. So, picking the right place to engage the shore is critical. We used those principles to good effect at Start Point, getting a nice right shift to extend our lead a little. But Plymouth Bay was tricky. Offshore, the wind was steadier, but inshore, there were more shifts to play, plus the wind was expected to clock right eventually. So we stayed right, but not as close to shore as some boats.

As this was playing out, the wind started to die. We made the decision to change from the J2 to the J1. Since we were in the port headstay groove, we started the change on starboard tack, then tacked to port when the new jib was up. We had a little trouble with the feeder when dropping the J2, so we sailed on port a little longer than we intended, splitting from our little group. But as we finally lowered the sail, we noticed more wind ahead, so we carried on for another couple of minutes. When we tacked back to starboard, we were lifted and had more pressure than the boats to leeward. Over the next two hours, we extended our lead from 2.5 nautical miles to 3. 

As we passed The Lizard, the open Atlantic Ocean lay ahead. There were 10 more miles to the turning mark at Wolf Rock. Night was falling as we played the shifts in the dying breeze. We could see lots of lights astern, but we managed to keep them there and rounded with a 2-mile lead in our class. The next mark was a virtual waypoint set 150 miles southwest in the open Atlantic. Harris had managed to download a fresh weather forecast just before we lost cell coverage at Wolf Rock. 

The breeze was forecast to die and go left during the night and morning, then eventually build from the south. So instead of staying on the rhumb line, we set the code zero and reached 10 to 20 degrees below course, sailing fast toward the expected shift. As dawn broke, there was very little wind, but it was shifting south. As it slowly built, we were able to tack and take advantage of our southerly position. We could barely see the other leaders in our class, now 4 to 6 miles behind.

Day 3 was spent sailing upwind in medium air. When the wind shifted left, we would foot aggressively, maybe 10 degrees off full upwind. When the shift was right, we would come on the wind, or maybe take a short tack—all the while focusing on boat trim and rig setup to keep Red Ruby going as fast as possible. When we finally rounded the Drheam Waypoint at midnight, we had a 6-mile lead on the second-place boat.

Now only 140 miles to the finish, the forecast was not good. There was a ridge of high pressure blocking our path to the Brittany coast. Harris made a bold call to try to skirt the ridge to the north. This meant again sailing 10 to 20 degrees low of rhumb after rounding the waypoint. Initially this gave us fast code-zero reaching, but as dawn broke, the wind was indeed dying and lifting as forecast. We switched to the spinnaker, and there was just enough wind to keep it full. Now we could see some of our competitors coming up behind. This was going to be nerve-wracking.

By noon, it was still light but starting to shift right, which meant we had passed the axis of the ridge. The chasing boats had now closed to within 3 miles of us. But we benefited from getting the new wind first, jibed, and gradually stretched out as we approached Pen Marche on the Brittany coast, only 80 miles from the finish at La Trinite sur Mer.

Because there is typically a right shift when the headland is to starboard, you want to round close. But if you approach the headland too soon or get too far in, the wind will be lighter. 

As the wind settled, there were three competitors clearly within range of us. The French J/99 Axesail had been following us all day. We owed them a little time, plus we had the 1-hour penalty from the OCS start. They got to within 3 miles of us as the wind died, but we had stretched it out to 6 miles. 

The team on the Sunfast 3600 Bellino had taken a more direct route, and now ­continued to stay offshore, 7 miles astern. We rate nearly the same, but there was the penalty. And another 3600, Diablo, had also made gains but was still 10 miles astern with 60 miles to go. It was going to be all on for the final night and next morning.

By sunset, the wind had steadied to about 12 knots dead running. We could tell from the AIS that Axesail was essentially following us but making gains with its spinnaker pole against our sprit. We were holding off Bellino and Diablo, but they were offshore, so they could get different conditions as morning arrived. We had one more important decision to make: which side of Belle Ile to pass on the way to the last turning mark before entering Quiberon Bay and the finish.

Harris was thinking about passing inside, which would give us more routing ­freedom. But there could also be more wind offshore as morning arrived, a common occurrence in this part of the world. In the end, we chose inshore, and that turned out to be wrong. As the sun came up, our kite started to droop. Even worse, the current started to run against us. By now we could see Axesail about 4 miles back, but she was also light.

The offshore boats kept a little more wind and were gaining steadily. We were fighting the light breeze and adverse tide, trying to find pressure and escape from the current. By the final turn at Ile de Hoedic, the sea breeze was building, and it was a straightforward fetch for the final 8 miles to La Trinite. There were no more cards to play. We finished first in our doublehanded division, but Axesail came in 45 minutes later, and Bellino shortly after. So, both beat us, but we corrected a few minutes ahead of Diablo to take the final podium spot. 

It was a bittersweet ­ending. We had worked hard and sailed really well. One big mistake at the start, a little off the pace on the first night, a little error at Belle Isle. But overall, we had sailed our boat fast and smart, using leverage and forecasting to position us to gain in changing conditions. On the other hand, it was a race we could have won, and knowing that hurt.

In the big picture, we sailed well enough to win the Doublehanded IRC Europeans (this race plus the previous Cowes to Dinard Race), which was my big goal for the year. In the really big picture, it was fantastic to sail with someone as skilled as Harris. I learned so much by watching him ­prepare and make decisions during this race, in addition to his boathandling and speed skills. Combined with his calm demeanor, he is really the consummate shorthanded sailor, and I felt really fortunate to have this opportunity to witness the skillsets of someone at the top of the game.

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The Marine Mammal Advisory Group is calling on the global sailing community to participate in an anonymous survey, documenting collisions at sea between sailing vessels and marine life.

The Marine Mammal Advisory Group is a coalition of stakeholders established to collaborate on the protection of biodiversity, and to explore solutions to collisions with marine life for the sailing and boating sector. Collisions with floating objects and marine animals are an unfortunate occurrence in the global sailing sector, with many reports encounters including marine megafauna and whales.

The organization is appealing to the global sailing and boating community to take part in the vital work of identifying collision hotspots by taking part in this survey.

Founded in 2022, the MMAG collaborates across the marine industry to advance technical innovations, improve risk assessments, encourage live reporting and citizen science, and foster education and outreach initiatives. According to the most recent data from the Marine strike log maintained by the MMAG, which collates reports from sources such as; the International Whale Commission, media reports, and one-to-one surveys from the sailing community, over 50 percent of all collisions reported result in damage to either the vessel and/or its crew, as well as possible injury or death to marine life.

While the sailing sector only represents a percentage of the annual global ship strikes, the scale of these incidents from the sailing sector largely goes unreported because, unlike the shipping sector, there is no requirement for systematic reporting for strikes at sea within the sailing world, so they often only appear in the news cycle when they impact a boat’s sporting performance.

Building the global strike log database is key to understanding where the hot spots are that need to be avoided. With a significant part of the input coming from one-on-one interviews with the sailing community, the MMAG is requesting all sailors who have experienced a collision or strike at sea to report their experience via the survey link.

Why report your experience?

• Protect marine life: Help identify high-risk areas to minimize harm to whales and other marine species we share the ocean with
• Improve crew safety: Your unique data supports safer sailing by reducing risks to crews and vessels
• Be part of something bigger: Be part of this international effort to gather critical collision data
• Raise awareness to find solutions: Help highlight the true scale of collisions in the sailing sector, often underreported.

“We’d like to thank in advance everyone who takes the time to complete this survey,” said Damian Foxall, professional offshore sailor, Co-Founder and Coordinator of the Marine Mammal Advisory Group. “Seafarers are the eyes and ears of the scientific community, by sharing our observations we build a better understanding of our impact on ocean life and can use this knowledge to inform better practices as we shift our role from being Ocean users to Ocean stewards.”

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After six days of competitive inshore and offshore racing within three classes, two new and one returning team have been crowned ORC World Champions at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court. These three teams demonstrated an exceptional level of preparation, practice and eventual execution to prevail after six days of intense inshore and offshore racing among the 43 entries with top-level sailors from throughout the United States and around the globe.

Two North American Champion titles have also been awarded among Maxi class yachts competing in their own series and the entries that were originally planning to compete in a Class C, but were folded into racing in Class B.

The final day of racing today was spectacular: 10 to 12 knots of northerly breeze in flat water and under sunny skies produced some of the closest inshore racing of the week, a fitting end to a highly competitive world championship regatta.

The new 2024 ORC Class 0 World Champions are those that raced on Victor Wild’s TP 52 Fox 2.0. This team dominated this new class—first introduced to the ORC Championships this year—by winning five of seven races, enough to build an insurmountable 9-point lead overall. The silver medal position went to Peter Askew’s Botin 52 Wizard, and bronze to Andrew Berdon’s TP52 Summer Storm.

The Fox 2.0 team included Andy Horton, Harry West, Chris Hosking, Cooper Dressler, Dean Curtis, Graham Post, Jareese Finch, Kelvin Harrap, Maciel Cicchetti, Ignacio Postigo, Orrin Starr, Santiago Lange, Scott Nixon, Aidan Naughton and Lucas Chapman.

“This is Victor’s third TP52,” said Horton, tactician for Fox 2.0. “This boat was specifically built for the ORC Worlds in 2020, then Covid happened, yet we’ve always kept this regatta on the long-term planning and just slowly chipped away at the details that we’d need during this event. The right crew members, and the guys working on the boat have been endlessly trying to improve it.

“This includes things like the sails, which were sized for this regatta, and the different types of sails, like some specialty reaching sails we’ve been developing for two years. The boat mods and doing all of these other regattas were training with this bigger picture in mind, to come to the ORC worlds and do well.”

Yet things were not always easy nor perfect for Fox, such as during the first race of the event, the Long Offshore Race.

“We didn’t have the greatest start, and we were chasing all the other boats down,” Horton said. “And then on the big long run one of our halyards slipped and the wind instruments got chucked, so all of a sudden we were blind going into the night. Our sails were too flat for the breeze: we expected it to be windier, so we had our heavy-air main and a J2 that were the only upwind sails on the boat to keep the boat light. So, I knew for about 10 hours that we were gonna have a tough night.

“And you know, the guys sailed the pants off the boat. I mean, it was amazing to see everyone work so hard without wind gear. All night long, we challenged. We got back up to the front, and it got really light, and we fell back, and then we fought all the way to the finish and picked up a couple boats on the last 30-mile beat and ended up second. This was an outstanding effort by this team.”

Similarly, the new ORC Class A World Champion dominated their class through a similar long road taken to the top. Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Botin 44 Interlodge IV managed to win all races but two among 19 rivals, the largest class in the event.

“Austin and I have been racing for about 20 years,” said Gwen Fragomen, “and I was on different positions on his boats, from foredeck on a J/24 to pit on a J/105 and then sewer on the Swan 42. Yet until recently I’d never been at the helm, and so this is really fabulous. It’s a bit daunting to be a world champion today.”

She explained this was a project that grew out of their TP52 program to give her an opportunity to drive her own boat.

“I think that we’re really fortunate because the team are super sailors,” she said. “I’m very passionate about ballet, and I think of them as being great choreographers. I mean, they execute brilliantly. So, I really give credit to the team and to Tony [Rey] as the tactician. It was really a great performance, better than Swan Lake.”

Besides Rey the other choreographers on board Interlodge were Kris Matthews, Nick Ford, Adam Minter, Carlos Robles, Tom O’Donnell, Christian Kamp, Norman Berge, Hartwell Jordan, Jay Davis, and Brad Marsh.

Second in Class A were Don Thinschmidt’s Ker 43 Abracadabra, and third was Henry Brauer’s Club Swan 42 Tio Loco.

 The road taken by the Class B ORC World Champions was literally the longest of any team at this event – from Poland to Baltimore by ship, then to Newport – but was also nearly three years in the planning and execution and had the experience taken from winning their class in two prior ORC World Championships in Sardinia in 2022 and last year in Germany.

Victory was only assured by Marcin Sutkowski on his Grand Soleil 44P Wind Whisper 44 after ensuring that their runner-up rival—John Brim’s Italia 11.98, Rima98—could not finish today’s final race with a score lower than the 2.5-point lead Wind Whisper had going into today. So, the two match-raced the course, which drove both back far enough to use their discards yet retaining their top two places in the final results. Third was Bill and Jackie Baxter’s J/111 Fireball.

“This was a fantastic event, I’m really glad we came to defend our title,” said Sutkowski. “We have a mix of pros and young sailors on this team, so we are building and learning all the time. We are looking at keeping the boat here in the U.S. this winter and doing some more ORC racing. Next year I hope to have a new Class A boat ready for next year’s championships.”

The remainder of the Wind Whisper 44 team included Joan Navarro, Aksel Magdahl, Hugo Rocha, Stanisław Bajerski, Kacper Gwóźdź, Mateusz Gwóźdź, and Piotr Przybylski.

Meanwhile the Maxis took advantage of great racing conditions today by having another two inshore races, with wins in each by Hap Fauth’s Maxi 72 Bella Mente and Jim Swartz’s Maxi 72 Vesper, which emerged victorious after nine races to win the ORC Maxi North American Championship title.

The ORC Class C North American title was won by Jeremy Alexis’s Melges 32 Fleetwood, and NEKA Sailing’s modified J/105 Sleeper won the Class B all-amateur Corinthian Trophy. The Class A Corinthian Trophy was won by Bob Manchester’s J/133 Vamoose.

“We congratulate all the winners and podium finishers at this World Championship,” said ORC Chairman Bruno Finzi. “The New York Yacht Club race managers working with our team did a fantastic job this week of providing fair and competitive race courses. The racing for everyone was always close, and we hope to see some of you join us for next year’s ORC World Championship in Tallinn, Estonia.”

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