The Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, hadn’t experienced a summer invasion of this scale or caliber in more than two decades. The arrival of 30 grand-prix race yachts, and the onslaught of owners, shore crew, grand-prix veterans and eager sailing teams, was indeed a moment to behold. Everyone was hyped for the revival of the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s iconic regatta, and here in the busy seaport of Cowes, the Admiral’s Cup—once old, was new again.

Before we turn our attention to the current affairs in the UK’s cradle of sailing, however, a brief history of the Admiral’s Cup is necessary. The RORC founded the regatta in 1957 with a simple but compelling concept: a nation-against-nation series raced by teams of offshore yachts. At the time, the offshore racing scene was booming. The Fastnet Race was increasingly drawing international entries and Cowes Week itself was the jewel in the crown of the big-boat racing landscape.

The Admiral’s Cup stitched these elements together into a cohesive narrative: three-boat national teams, typically composed of the most competitive yachts from a country, would race a series of inshore events before culminating in the legendary Fastnet Race—the 650-nautical mile epic from Cowes to the Fastnet Rock and back to Plymouth.

The format was designed to reward versatility: a winning team had to perform in the tight confines of Solent courses and not just survive, but thrive, in the offshore waters of the Irish Sea and beyond. This highly compelling formula attracted the world’s very best boats, skippers, and crews, and many countries ran trials to identify and deploy their very best assets.

The 1970s and 1980s were the Admiral’s Cup’s golden years. In those decades, the Cup was the regatta to win for any serious offshore racing nation. Big-name sailors of the era—Lawrie Smith, Harold Cudmore, Ted Turner, and Iain Macdonald-Smith, to name a few—became household names in the sport. Simultaneously, some of the most famous racing yachts of the era—Impetuous, Morning Cloud, Ragamuffin, and Container—all became part of sailing lore through their Admiral’s Cup exploits.

National rivalries ran deep and fierce. The Americans brought cutting-edge design and deep pockets. The Australians were dogged and fiercely competitive. The Germans were ruthlessly well-organized. And the British fought tooth and nail to defend the Cup on their home waters.

At its peak, as many as 20 nations fielded teams, and the Admiral’s Cup became a spectacle, drawing international media coverage and hordes of spectators to Cowes and the Fastnet finishing port of Plymouth. By the 1990s, however, changes in rating rules (the transition from IOR to IMS), rising campaign costs, and the proliferation of competing grand-prix circuits, such as the Audi MedCup for TP52s and the burgeoning Farr 40 one-design class, as well as a growing calendar of superyacht regattas, all conspired to dilute the Admiral’s Cup’s once-unassailable status.

In 2003, only seven teams competed. The RORC cancelled the 2005 edition citing a lack of entries, and with no clear path forward, The Cup quietly faded, becoming a relic of its heyday, its trophies collecting dust behind glass in the RORC’s clubhouse in Cowes. It was a disappointing loss for the offshore racing community. For many, the Admiral’s Cup wasn’t just a regatta; it was an institution, a cultural cornerstone of post-war international yacht racing.

Over the past several years, however, the regatta’s revival was carefully planned by key members of RORC. Renowned French offshore racer Eric de Turckheim—owner and skipper of a string of serial trophy-winning yachts called Teasing Machine—was the RORC Vice Commodore in 2022 and headed the club’s program and race committee.

Not surprisingly, the Frenchman fondly recalls racing in Cowes in the 1970s, still in his early 20s and dreaming of one day being part of the glitz and glamour of the Admiral’s Cup. Tasked with bringing it back after 22 years, he smartly opted to simplify the event’s rules and regulations to make it easier for teams to be formed.

“Bringing back the Admiral’s Cup was important,” de Turckheim says. “RORC offshore races have been very successful and continue to grow in participation. You just have to look at the number of entries for the Fastnet Race, which grows every year. But it was also important to bring back the international teams to Cowes and the return of the Admiral’s Cup was one way of achieving that.

“Secondly, we wanted to give back some importance to inshore racing. RORC is very active on the offshore front but not so much with inshore. But we have so much inshore racing going on with the TP52s, the Maxis and the Maxi 70 classes and that makes it an important factor.”

Choosing the size of boats was a simple decision. “In the 50- and 40-foot range, you have some top boats and crews all around the world,” de Turckheim points out. “So that’s why we limited it to those two categories, which are quite professional.” 

The most intriguing change was the RORC’s decision to make the Admiral’s Cup a competition between yacht clubs rather than nations—a move that simplified the formation of teams given that coordinating things with a yacht club is infinitely more straightforward than dealing with national governing bodies. As great as it was to have the Admiral’s Cup be a nation-based competition, the appeal of the yacht club route is also compelling.

The RORC keeps good company, so it should be no surprise that the entry list ultimately featured a swath of top-tier international clubs, such as the Yacht Club de Monaco, Royal Hong Kong YC, Italy’s Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, the Netherlands’ Royal Maas Yacht Club, Royal Swedish Yacht Club, Yacht Club de France, New York YC, and Royal Irish YC. There were three German teams from Regatta Verein Greifswald, Bayerischer Yacht Club, Hamburger Segel Club, as well as two entries from the RORC.

The big-boat class featured six IRC-optimized TP52s, including four Botin designs. Peter Harrison’s Jolt 3 represented the Yacht Club de Monaco; Karl Kwok’s Beau Geste flagged for the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club; Maximilian Klink’s Caro sailed for the Royal New Zealand Yacht Club; and Gordon Ketelbey’s Zen hailed from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.

Slightly smaller, but designed as a TP52 slayer, was Giovanni Lombardi Stronati’s WallyRocket51 Django WR51—a boat with head-turning looks that was a weapon in both the inshore and offshore races. Equally striking to look at, but less sparkling in terms of results, was Niklas Zennstrom’s Carkeek 52 Rán. Worthy of note amongst the bigger boats was the Ker 46 Rost Van Uden, a member of the Royal Maas YC team run by Dutch around-the-world racer Gerd-Jan Poortman.

The small-boat class had Peter Harrison’s Carkeek 40 Monaco, American James Murray’s GP42 Callisto (sailing for RNZYS), Karl Kwok’s Botin 41 Beau Ideal (for Hong Kong)—a boat built specifically for the 2025 Admiral’s Cup, and Giovanni Lombardi Stronati’s JPK 11.80 Django JPK.

The format was six inshore races over three consecutive days in the highly tidal and obstacle-ridden confines of the Solent, sandwiched between two offshore races—the opening 165-nautical mile Channel Race and the final 695-nautical mile Rolex Fastnet Race, which took the fleet out to the southern tip of Ireland and back into the English Channel to the finish in Cherbourg, France.

With a double-points coefficient for the Channel Race and triple for the Fastnet Race, the challenge facing the teams was how to optimize their bigger offshore-configured boats for the inshore series, and how to make the smaller inshore boats—many of which had been set up to race in the regionally popular Fast 40 division—into potent offshore machines. It was a challenge that appeared to be welcomed by the owners and sailors alike, as a welcome change from Mediterranean-style windward/leeward racing. It also proved to be a boon for sail and systems developments across the fleets.

Rodney Ardern, a veteran of America’s Cups, Volvo Ocean Races, and Admiral’s Cups, and sailing aboard TP52 Jolt 3 for the Yacht Club de Monaco, says his team embraced the opportunity to break out from the norm of the 52 Super Series and usual offshore races. “This is a good combination of all that in a compact week,” he says. “We spent a lot of time developing the boats, and the sails in particular, with reaching sails, staysails, jib tops, and all of the kind of stuff you don’t spend a lot of time on unless you are on a pure ocean racing boat.”

Ardern says the major difference in the big boat class was between the older and newer boats. “Our 52 was an older design that dates back to when there were still reaching and coastal components to the Super Series. So, we don’t have sheeting systems that go through the deck, and that makes us relatively waterproof when we go offshore. Then, there are newer 52s like Beau Geste, as well as the specialist offshore 50s like Caro and Rán; those two are so powerful and have water ballast, so are pretty hard to keep up with offshore.”

Australian mainsheet trimmer Chris Hosking, racing on the all-new WallyRocket51 Django WR51, says the rejuvenation of the Admiral’s Cup has brought back an element of regatta racing that had been missing for a long time.

“In the Admiral’s Cup, there’s a lot of reaching and sailing at different angles and different modes. There are some skills that we are having to revive, for sure, and some that people are having to learn for the first time. Picking the sails for a day of inshore racing isn’t easy, either, when you have a windward/leeward first and then a round-the-cans course afterwards. You don’t know the course for the second race when you leave the dock, so we have to bring more sails than we would want to for weight, just in case.”

Then, there’s a great deal to think about, Hosking says, when it comes to switching a boat from offshore to inshore mode. “There’s obviously all the safety equipment that changes. The sail inventory changes. You do whatever you can to make the boat lighter: the reefing lines come out; all your bits and pieces like offshore gear bags and spares come off.”

Switching Django WR51 the other way—from inshore to offshore efficiency—means adding in an extra quota of reaching sails.

“Stuff like the Code 0, the jib top, and a big genoa staysail,” Hosking says. “Then there’s the capability to reef. We reef much earlier when we are reaching, and we might pull a reef in as low as 16 to 17 knots of breeze when we have got the Code 0 up and we need to sail a hot angle. It would be much more effective to reef the main rather than switch from a masthead zero to a jib top.

“With a boat that is this new, we are still learning and understanding every day. Even when we are racing, we are working out what the boat likes and what it doesn’t. It’s a constant process of evolution.”

The 30-boat Admiral’s Cup fleet made for a striking sight out on the swirling waters of the Solent. Given the levels of professionalism and preparation for most teams, starts and mark roundings were plenty intense, and boathandling at the front of the fleet was top shelf. Four clubs dominated the top of the leaderboard across the eight-race series, where the team scores were tallied based on individual race points rather than their series scores. The Yacht Club de Monaco’s immaculately prepared pairing Jolt 3 and Jolt 6 both won their classes to give the principality club the overall victory. Runner-up was Royal Hong Kong YC, where Beau Geste and Beau Ideal finished fifth and third. Third overall was Italy’s Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, whose Django WR51 and Django JPK 11.50 finished third and fourth in IRC1 and IRC2 respectively.

Credit is also due to the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Zen—owned and skippered by Ketelbey—which backed up an excellent inshore series with a fourth place in the Fastnet Race to finish 1 point in arrears of Jolt 3 in the IRC1 standings. Poortman’s young crew on the Ker 46 Rost-van Uden also performed well in the inshore racing, before pulling off a stunning victory in the Fastnet Race to finish fourth overall in IRC1.

There was, however, much more nip and tuck to the racing than results might suggest. The battle in IRC2 between Jolt 6, James Murray’s Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron entry Callisto, and Beau Ideal burned fiercely throughout the regatta. The Fastnet Race was the decider, with a 1-point overall advantage going to the Monaco boat only after coming out of a jibing duel with the Kiwi yacht on the final approach to Cherbourg.

So, the Admiral’s Cup is back, and, by any reasonable measure, its return was resoundingly successful. Chatter in the pubs and restaurants of Cowes during the regatta was all about the rosy future of international team competitions like this. Moreover, it seems the British flagship event’s successful return may have triggered a wider revival of international team competitions.

On the eve of the start of racing at the 2025 Admiral’s Cup, the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda announced an Italian version of the Admiral’s Cup—the Sardinia Cup—last held in 2012, would return in 2026. There were even numerous unsubstantiated rumors of plans for Hawaii’s Kenwood Cup (formerly the Clipper Cup) to also be revived.

The next edition of the Admiral’s Cup has been provisionally scheduled for July 2027 in Cowes. No doubt there will be evolution of the format by then—perhaps a return to three boat-teams—and the inking of a title sponsor to provide the necessary funding required to fully return this gem to its glimmering state.

The post The Radical Return of the Admiral’s Cup appeared first on Sailing World.

At the West River Sailing Club in Galesville, Maryland, there are plenty of options when it comes to racing classes, but the one that has held high court since the early 1930s is the homegrown Chesapeake 20. There is no equal to it anywhere in the world, but that’s because—with the exception of a few runaways—they don’t exist anywhere else. It’s a West River thing.

This summer’s Chesapeake 20 “World Championship,” contested on the same skinny waters for which the tippy 20-footers were originally designed and built by Ernest H. Hartge, had seven compete. Some were fiberglass, some wooden, and there was plenty of color and colorful local characters, with a few sailors as old as their boats. There were a few days of river racing, and after it was all sailed and done, skipper Alex Shafer, from Eustis, Florida, and his crew of Jero Tudor and Daphne Clancy emerged as the new world champions.

The country Shafer chose to represent was the Bahamas, and, naturally, his contribution to the regatta’s dinner party was conch fritters.

The biennial regatta is not technically a world championship, and Shafer is not Bahamian, although his family has owned property there since the early 1900s. And while he’s got Florida tags on this truck, his roots run wide and deep in Galesville—to the Hartge family and its historic yacht yard. That too is a West River thing, where everyone, it seems, is six degrees related to the Hartges.

Shafer’s abbreviated version of the class takes us back to Grandpa Hartge’s first hard chine hulls, built by hand and eye. It was a development class at the outset, but once rounded hulls arrived and proved to be faster, that was that, and that is where the class is today. “Chesapeake 20 racing was their pastime, their weekend,” Shafer says. “This was their NASCAR. You had workboat people, oystermen, crabbers, and eventually the businessmen would come and buy boats from my grandfather. For them, it was competition, to go out and see who had the fastest boat.”

Hartge’s boatyard built the vast majority woodies, 40 or 50, Shafer reckons, until a mold was eventually built, ushering in a fiberglass generation in the 1980s. Some of the earliest 20s are in museums, and scant others are scattered around the continent, but at West River today, there’s about 20 boats in various states of care. Shafer owns three: one cold-molded model, the very first fiberglass boat, and one of his grandfather’s originals, Columbia, built in 1939.

Shafer, like other West River sailing kids who group up on, around and were mentored in the Chesapeake 20 fleet, has been more active with the class of late, partly because of a renewed interest in racing them and a younger generation of post-collegiate 20-somethings getting in on the fun. Rob Hoffman, runner-up to Shafer at the Worlds, is new blood, as is Charles Anderson, the youngest hot shot in the fleet.

At the Worlds, “Robert was schooling all of us from just hopping on the boat,” Shafer says. “He came out firing and scared us at first. I think he sailed on the boats as a kid a couple times, so he was familiar with it, and just like everyone else there, there’s some sort of connection to it, either by family or by legacy of living in West River.”

Anderson, a 22-year-old professional coach and St. Mary’s College sailing team alumnus, had to miss the recent Worlds for work, but he, too, is deeply rooted. As an eight-year-old, he was omnipresent around the sailing club and the various Hartge workshops. “All these guys are like family,” he says. “They’re all my uncles at this point.”

When Anderson was 13, a member of the club who had passed away willed his Chesapeake 20, Four Aces, a 1960s woodie, to someone young from the club that would keep it sailing competitively and Anderson’s family happily took ownership. “It’s a good-looking red hull with cool racing stripes,” Anderson says, “but it’s old and needs a lot of work.”

While Anderson and his father got to work on Aces they bought a fiberglass hull boat from the 2000s.

And when he was sixteen, Anderson raced the Worlds with Roger Link, whom he considers to be his sailing mentor. “He was 70, out on the wire, ripping it,” Anderson says. “He’s an incredibly talented sailor that taught me how to race.”

They won the Worlds that year, entered as Swedes, making Anderson the youngest skipper to ever win it. They were supposed to bring Swedish meatballs to the party, but that never happened.

Hartge’s Chesapeake 20 was designed for the lighter summer winds of the Chesapeake, and is therefore absurdly over-canvased—thus the trapeze, which was added in the 1970s. Fourteen knots of breeze, Anderson says, is pretty much the top end of control for the boat.

“It’s a very shallow and round bottom hull with a centerboard that’s about 250 pounds, and the rudder is quite small, so there’s a tremendous amount of weather helm,” he says. With a Star Class-type mast and 250 square feet of sail area, Anderson says, “trimming the main is kind of a beast and you’re fighting the tiller the whole time. If you ever have a neutral helm, you’re doing something wrong. But if it’s flat water, it’s beautiful. When you get up to 7 knots, it’s a blast.”

In as little as 7 knots of breeze, depowering is definitely required, Shafer adds, and one would be wise to keep the mainsheet readily at hand to dump when necessary. Two to three crew is the norm, but class rules allow up to five. “I don’t know where you’d put them all,” Shafer says, “but when I was a kid we used to race with four or five of us.”

Downwind, with the whisker deployed, Anderson prefers his crew standing up by the mast, like Star crews do. Sailing tighter angles, he says, is his preferred technique. Jumping on powerboat wakes is fast. “I sail a little bit more aggressively downwind than the majority of the fleet, coming from a dinghy background,” he says. “It’ll plane if you have enough breeze, but it is quite scary.”

While still a development class, there’s not much left to tinker with these days, Shafer says. Advantages can still be explored in the foils and mast tune (although Anderson admits to not adjusting his much, if ever). What’s more important is how one presents the boat to the wind, and managing the wackiness of river racing. “You better be on your shifts,” Shafer says, “plus, we have current and there are really, really good sailors at West River.”

At its peak, the world championship fleet had upwards of 20 boats and while it remains a core class at the club, turnkey boats are harder to come by. Fixing up the old woodies takes commitment, but when a good one comes along, it’s promptly claimed. “Everybody in the club respects the class and understands its history,” Anderson says, “and everyone also recognizes that the sailors that are still sailing these boats have sailed them since they’re probably 10 years old. There’s a lot of legend and lore around it.”

Anderson owns a Laser and a Snipe, as well, but his Chesapeake 20s are more than boats in the family fleet. “I don’t think I would ever want to get rid of them,” he says. “They’re just beautiful boats, and it’s great to be a part of it. It’s kind of my favorite, and I’m excited to keep the class going and bring new people into the class.”

The post Chesapeake 20 Racing: the Iconic West River Tradition appeared first on Sailing World.

The denser the fiberglass ceiling, the more force is needed to demolish it.

In the case of the biennial Transpacific Yacht Race (established 1906), this force had been gathering for 72 years before Alli Bell became the first woman skipper to win this 2,225-nautical-mile race aboard Restless, her Cal 40, this year.

It began in 1953 when Willard Bell—Alli’s grandfather—first skippered Westward Ho, his Lyle Hess-designed 36-foot sloop, in Transpac. Bell returned in 1959 with Westward Ho and a crew that included his wife, Inez, before upgrading to Westward, his Lapworth 50, which he first raced in the 1965 Transpac alongside sons Charles (Alli’s dad) and Sam.

Over the years, Willard Bell skippered all five of his children—three boys and two girls—to Transpac’s iconic finishing line off Diamond Head aboard Westward.

“I don’t remember a time that Transpac wasn’t a big deal in my life,” Alli Bell says.

While Transpac and Westward, which is still in the family, dominate Bell family lore, Alli Bell’s lifelong dream was to own a Cal 40. “And the obvious thing to do with a Cal 40,” she says, “is to go race Transpac.”

Becoming the first woman skipper in Transpac’s 119-year history to win corrected-time honors and the King Kalakaua Trophy, however, was the result of great preparation, rock-solid leadership, outstanding crew work, and that most fickle of offshore currencies: Luck.

Plus, adds Bell, perhaps some ethereal VMG. But that’s premature storytelling. 

Alli Bell’s first of five Transpacs unfurled in 2013, when uncles Sam and Willie decided that Westward needed to fetch Diamond Head again. Westward’s 2013 crew included cousins Mara, Jon, and Graham, the latter of whom navigated Restless to its 2025 win.

Westward finished the 2013 Transpac third in its class and ninth overall, notching a high-water mark for the sailing Bells.

But that’s only half of Restless’s lineage.

Enter Stephen Driscoll, Bell’s husband and a lifelong sailor with his own Transpac heritage: Clem Stose, Driscoll’s great-grandfather, won the 1928 Transpac aboard Teva, his W. Starling Burgess-designed 56-foot centerboard yawl, before earning the race’s Barn Door trophy (read: fastest elapsed time of any competing monohull) as the captain of Vileehi, H.T. Horton’s Edson B. Schock-designed 80-foot auxiliary ketch, in 1934.

Bell, who is the Transpacific YC’s Rear Commodore and the San Diego YC’s Vice Commodore, fulfilled her first dream in 2019 when she purchased Restless, a 1967 Cal 40.

Bell’s first call was to cousin Graham, requesting his navigational services. Eric Heim (a professional sailmaker who raced off the clock), Driscoll (who was still solidifying his position with his then-girlfriend, now wife), and cousin Mara also got calls. Bell’s friend Greg Reynolds was a later recruit.

First, however, Restless needed love.

While the boat sailed the 1975 Transpac and came with solid bones, it wasn’t race ready. The hull-to-deck joint needed attention, its undercarriage had osmosis blisters, and its mast failed its survey. Moss adorned the toe rails, the cruising sails were just that, and the belowdeck spaces were dark.

“The first thing I did when I bought the boat was clean up the toe rails, which resulted in a lot of leaking because I dislodged all the caulking,” recalls Bell. “I knew I had to take it to the yard to glass over the deck-hull joint, which is a common fix on Cal 40s.”

Restless was hauled from the brine, revealing her undercarriage sores. The deck carried a railroad yard’s worth of headsail track that Bell wanted to remove for (eventual) cruises to Catalina, but which necessitated all-new non-skid. And since teak was already on order, the cockpit combing needed refreshing.

Belowdecks, Bell and company rewired everything, revamped the engine (more, later), installed a new head and plumbing, fitted a watermaker and a new stove, and revitalized all brightwork. “We did pretty much everything down below,” says Bell, explaining that Driscoll Boat Works handled the blisters, the hull-to-deck joint, the track removal, the non-skid job, and all painting.

Fortune smiled on Restless when Bell found a Cal 40 owner who was divesting his sail inventory. “He had only used the main twice,” says Bell, adding that she also purchased other racing sails from this owner.

Other sails, like the team’s heavy J1, came from an Ericson 35, while the J3 had existed in a state of uncompletion for years. Both were recut for Restless.

“It was a lot of piecing things together,” Bell says. But for the record: “Secondhand doesn’t have to mean ratty,” she says, noting that she also bought a brand-new genoa and a No. 2 spinnaker.

Restless’s used mast was gifted by Don Jesberg, a fellow Cal 40 owner who had recently outfitted his whip with a brand-new stick.

All up, Bell, who is a higher-education policy analyst, estimates that she spent somewhere in the high five figures or very low six figures preparing Restless for the 2025 Transpac, and for other cruising adventures. “I haven’t done the math,” she says. “But there’s no way it was much more than that, because I don’t have those kinds of resources.”

But it was the engine, of all things, that almost soured everything.

The team fitted a new high-output alternator, but this required sending some pulleys to a shop in eastern Canada for servicing. They were due back in SoCal in March; instead, they arrived in late May. “Another few days and we wouldn’t have been able to go,” says Bell, noting the ridiculousness of having an engine threaten a sailboat race. “The irony of that wasn’t lost.”

Another windshift arrived a week before the start when cousin Mara broke two ribs. Restless’s six-person crew became a five-person operation. 

“We were disappointed, but we dealt with it,” says Bell, explaining that the team adjusted their watch schedule accordingly.

So how did Restless outsail 52 other starting yachts, many of which benefited from much newer hull designs, professional crews, and brand-new sail inventories?

“Luck,” says Bell. “We were lucky that the weather pattern worked out that we could just point the bow at Honolulu and go.”

Some backstory: Transpac uses a pursuit-style start, with teams starting on July 1, 3, and 5. While there’s no question that the first wave of starters enjoyed the best breeze out of the gate, the race’s Forecast Time Correction Factor scoring—which is also used in the Newport Bermuda Race—levels this playing field.

Restless’s starting date put the team to the west of an upper-level low that created an expansive area of light winds. But even so, Restless was only one of 15 monohulls that shared that meteorological good fortune.

When pressed on this latter point, two fundamental truths of offshore sailing emerged.

“Preparation, number one,” says Bell. “Number two, crew work.”

Still, it wasn’t all VMG running: On July 7, the team learned that Donald Wyatt, Driscoll’s uncle and a three-time Transpac veteran, had passed away. 

“We got to thinking a lot about what it means to be doing what we were doing,” Bell says of retracing sea miles previously plied by family members and friends who had crossed life’s final bar. “I like to think that their spirits kept us on,” she says. “I just think there was something propelling us that was more than just the boat.”

Intervening angels aside, there’s no question that great sailing was the team’s driving force.

Sure, there was a squall with a 27-knot stinger that overwhelmed the number of wraps holding the spinnaker guy around its winch drum, but—aside from this small SNAFU—the team otherwise focused on smart navigation, fast driving, and attentive sail trimming.

Restless crossed the finishing line at 2223 on Sunday, July 13, posting an elapsed time of 12 days, 12 hours, 3 minutes, and 16 seconds. They were met at the dock by more than 100 family members, friends, and fellow competitors—by far the largest welcoming party enjoyed by any 2025 finisher.

While this boiled down to a corrected time of 8 days, 12 hours, five minutes, and 49 seconds, which put the King Kalakaua Trophy within reach, the team had to endure days of uncertainty as protests (none of which involved Restless) wended through the protest channels.

“It was a little bit nerve-racking, and it definitely set into my imposter syndrome,” recalls Bell. “You sort of wait for the other shoe to drop, right?”

Instead of shoes, 119 years’ worth of (fiber)glass ceiling tumbled when Restless was declared the overall winner.

“This should be an inspiration, and not just to women,” says Bill Guilfoyle, commodore of the Transpacific Yacht Club. “It should be an inspiration to anyone who wants to compete knowing that any boat that’s well-prepared and well-sailed has the opportunity to win this race.”

It also shows that Transpac’s future is as bright as the noonday sun so long as there are dreamers and doers keen to take on this trans-Pacific challenge. When queried about the implications of her success, Bell, in her characteristic low-key style, downplayed her achievement.

“I don’t think I’m anything special,” she says. “I’m someone who wanted to do something and did it.”

While that may be true, there’s also something to be said about those in the family who had a hand in her destiny. They’d be right proud of her commitment and preparation, and not the least bit surprised by the result.

The post A Restless Transpac Chapter appeared first on Sailing World.

It’s a foggy spring day and I’m off the coast of Connecticut on board Art Santry’s Judel/Vrolijk 66 Temptation, bucking sharp waves kicked up by a 22-knot westerly. The boat’s bow is punching through crumbling crests as we average 10.8 knots of boatspeed. It’s not a smooth ride by any means, and to avoid hard pounding, the helmsman must turn down a few degrees to get through the big ones. Over thousands of offshore racing miles, I’d been trained to feather the bow up slightly when climbing over a wave, to minimize shock loading on the sails, sheets and rig. But modern yachts call for modern techniques, and this different approach to driving Temptation through the waves is proving to be much faster—and a lot easier on gear and bodies.

This summer of racing reinforced the notion that the more we race, the more we learn, and there was plenty of discovery for me. On board Temptation, I served as tactician and a watch captain in three venerable ocean races: The Block Island Race (186 miles), the Annapolis to Newport Race (473 miles) and the Marblehead to Halifax Race (361 miles). Each was very different, of course, and our crew continued to refine techniques and re-learn many lessons that are easy to forget in a long offseason.

The Block Island Race dates to 1946 and is raced annually over Memorial Day weekend. This year, the fleet of 70 boats started on a late Friday afternoon off Stamford, Connecticut, heading east with a light breeze filling our spinnaker. Our class started one hour and 40 minutes after the first of 11 classes, and it took exactly that amount of time to pass 69 boats. Once out front, it was our task to spot the strongest wind on Long Island Sound. The shorelines on either side of the Sound are where we often find stronger breeze, but we observed more wind in the middle, so we chased after it. 

The gambit worked and we stretched away from the fleet. This particular racecourse takes us around Rhode Island’s Block Island, which we leave to starboard, and back into the Sound and its riddling currents. It was here, about 60 miles from the finish line, that the wind came in at 22 knots from the west. The short and choppy waves were making steering difficult so we experimented and learned to head down to avoid pounding. We also reefed the mainsail and did a bare-headed sail change to a No. 4. The boat was easier to control with the reduced sail area. We crossed the finish line eight hours ahead of the second-place finisher and yet, on corrected time, we won by a slim 57 seconds. It was a nice victory and an important reminder that every second counts.

One week later, Temptation was in Annapolis for the start of the race to Newport. This race originally started in 1947 with a course that ran from New London, Connecticut to Annapolis. A few years later, the course was changed to start from Annapolis so sailors could spend the summer in New England. The racecourse now includes a 115-mile scurry down the Chesapeake Bay before a 19-mile leg to an offshore sea buoy. From that turning point, it is 339 miles to the finish line off Castle Hill Lighthouse—the iconic welcome beacon to Narragansett Bay.

The wind was extremely light on the Chesapeake. It took Temptation 23 hours to reach the sea buoy. Our navigator, Hugh Doherty, analyzed many weather models and recommended we head well east of the rhumb line, reasoning that we would find consistently stronger northeasterly winds further offshore. His prediction was spot on, and we enjoyed a brisk upwind sail. The lesson, here of course, is to study every source of weather information available, and thankfully for offshore navigators today, there are many resources from which to pull. My usual strategy for a long-distance race is to sail on the rhumb line, unless there is a compelling reason to sail in another direction. In the Annapolis to Newport Race, our navigator made the case to head east, and it worked.

Unfortunately, my foul weather gear failed and leaked, and worse, my boots fell apart. It is beyond uncomfortable going on watch with wet gear when it is cold. When I got to Newport, I purchased new foul weather gear and better boots. Happily, not one of our crew was seasick on any of the three races. To avoid any chance of sickness I use a scopolamine patch, which is available with a doctor’s prescription. It is important to always stay hydrated, keep applying suncream, wear sunglasses and a hat, and of course, wear reliable foul weather gear. When you are comfortable, you are a more focused and effective sailor.

In advance of my summer of offshore racing season, I took the US Sailing and World Sailing Safety at Sea course offered by the Storm Trysail Club at the S.U.N.Y. Maritime College. The course starts with a mandatory 15-part online course that took me 13 hours to complete. At the end of each section there were 10 questions to answer. If I answered eight questions correctly I moved on (I had to take one section over when I answered only seven correctly). The most sobering part of the hands-on course was inflating and getting into a six-person life raft for 30 minutes. I found the experience uncomfortable. The fun of being in an enclosed life raft goes away quickly. The exercise reinforced my appreciation for being diligent when racing in the ocean. I encourage every sailor to take the Safety-at-Sea course, and not just once in your lifetime.

As the sun was setting on the final night of the Annapolis to Newport Race, we were just 32 miles from Castle Hill Lighthouse. The wrong hydraulic knob was turned, which eased off load on the tack of the headsail. On Temptation the headsail must be eased and the boat luffed when taking tension on the hydraulic tack. That did not happen and the hydraulic was pumped, causing the entire headstay luff feeder to fall on the foredeck and leaving us floundering without a headsail. After spending at least 30 minutes cleaning up the mess we sailed the remaining part of the race with only a staysail. The boat was 2 knots slower and tacked through 110 degrees instead of 80 degrees. The unfortunate episode probably cost about two hours. Temptation was first to finish and won our class, but we finished eighth in the fleet.

During our fast sail to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the wind built to 22 to 27 knots and headed several degrees. We elected to drop the asymmetric and set a reaching headsail with a staysail. The configuration proved to be faster, and we continued to gain on the fleet. As sunrise neared, the wind dropped a few knots and lifted. We were slow to respond and lost five miles on our closest competitors. It reminded me that the wind seems stronger at night and the waves look bigger. When twilight appeared, we set the spinnaker and spent the rest of the day making up lost ground. The lesson I relearned was to always have the next combination of sails ready to set. Often, I use a “10-minute rule” to wait to be sure the new wind strength and direction is going to stay before going through the change of sail routine.

The strong wind pushed Temptation to sail at high speeds. At times we were averaging well over 18 knots. Surfing the waves was like sailing a singlehanded dinghy. The best moments were being able to skip from one series of waves to the next. The boat would accelerate to 21 knots or higher. The problem was the boat was going as fast as the wind and the mainsail would luff and the boom would move to the center of the boat. Whenever this happened, the sail trimmers would give the helmsmen an unapproving scowl when the mainsail drifted inboard. They assumed the boat was way off course, but it was the apparent wind that dropped when the boat hit a high speed. After one exhilarating wave, the mainsail trimmer reminded me that I was an advocate for rotating people on the helm every hour. I smiled as I passed over the wheel.

There is an encyclopedia of different watch systems for long-distance passages. I have used many that range from simple (four on four off) to elaborate with different time sequences and sailors rotating on and off at short intervals. On Temptation the watch captains were on watch for four-hour periods. The rest of the crew changed watches two sailors at a time. The idea is to avoid confusion with a full crew changing watch at the same time. Temptation used the same system for all three races. The system works if every sailor keeps to their assigned time slot.

One of the most important things to do on a long race is to practice good communication. It is hard to hear when the wind is up, and boats are moving swiftly. Commands are lost when shouting from the stern to the bow. A better practice is to call the crew together and explain the next evolution, so everyone understands what is expected.

Temptation sailed over 1,000 miles during our three races. The boat was first to finish in each race, was first overall in the Block Island Race, won class in the Annapolis to Newport Race and set a new racecourse record by 46 minutes in the Marblehead to Halifax Race. We had a great season on the water and learned how to sail better—one race, one mile and one lesson at a time.

The post Real-World Lessons of Offshore Sailing appeared first on Sailing World.

She won the most races of any ILCA 6 competitor at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials. She’s only 25 years old, but with two back-to-back Youth World Champion titles to her name, she’s a respected force in one of the most competitive sailing classes in the world. Her name is Charlotte Rose, and a heartbreaking defeat in the lead-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics tempted her to walk away from sailing—forever.

It’s a feeling most will never experience: a brutal, cold, sterile “no” to everything you’ve worked toward for at least four years, sometimes your whole life. Arriving at the honor of representing one’s country and hopefully standing on a podium requires a fierce core belief in oneself that’s crafted by years of introspection and the encouragement of friends, family and coaches. It’s not a goal made lightly, and the risk of it all washing away with the result of one regatta takes another kind of strength to open oneself up to the possibility.

“To have it slip through [my] fingers is a pain that will sit with me for the rest of my career,” Rose wrote on social media a week after the Olympic Trials concluded.

Now, a year after the Paris Olympics, Rose is back on the international circuit chasing a podium on home soil for the Los Angeles 2028 Games. A lot has transpired since Trials, and reflection is a critical part of her rise from the ashes and planning of a new, stronger campaign.

Looking back on the eight-day marathon regatta in February 2024, Rose acknowledges she did “a lot of things right, but a lot of things wrong.”

On the final day, she had an early start on the penultimate race, and one too many mistakes sealed her fate. “Immediately afterward, I went to put my boat away and I just broke down crying in the parking lot,” she says. After finishing fifth at the 2023 ILCA 6 World Championship and qualifying the US for a berth in the ILCA 6 at the Games, then finishing on the podium at the 2024 World Championship (a feat no American has accomplished since 2016), “nothing matters” was the repeated phrase that fell out of Rose’s mouth over and over as cheers rang out for victors Erika Reineke and Ford McCann not far away. She wanted to quit, wanted to walk away from sailing forever, hang up her hiking pants and leave it all behind.

A chorus of “I’m sorry” engulfed her from loved ones on the ground and from texts on her phone, but it was her mentor, Leandro Spina, of America One Racing and US Sailing Team staff and 2008 Olympian Sally Barkow’s confidence that cut through the noise. “We’re going to figure it out,” they assured her. “This is not the end for you.”

Rose recalls Spina and Barkow standing by her side as her world crumbled. “They told me my abilities weren’t defined at Trials,” she says. “That didn’t sink in fully in the moment through the emotions, but now I know they were right.”

The grief from that loss was all-consuming. And even after time and distance to reflect and recall all of the positives of her event, Rose doesn’t claim she should have gone to the Games in place of Reineke. “It was anyone’s game, and this time it was Erika’s. She did a really good job.”

With swollen eyes from the weight of her new reality, Rose stood alongside Reineke and runner-up Christina Sakellaris at Miami YC for awards and to wish her rival well in representing the United States in Marseille.

The country’s focus turned to Reineke, as what naturally happens with each athlete who wins Trials. The Team and the nation rally resources and support around the selected athletes, and runners up are left to grapple with the dreaded “what now?”

It’s not malicious, but it’s painful all the same.

Rose returned to Houston, Texas, and “went numb.” She still had flights booked to Palma de Mallorca, Spain and Hyères, France for the final two regattas of the season, but couldn’t wrap her head around returning to the water. In the month northbetween Trials and Palma, she got sick twice with the flu. “I tried to move on but I couldn’t do anything.”

She was surrounded by love from her parents, boyfriend, and dog, but it was going to take a Herculean effort to get back in the ring.

Then it came time to finish the job. She went to Palma for the annual Trofeo Princesa Sofia and lost 10 pounds. People asked her why she was there. “I’m sailing, I gotta finish the season,” she answered.

Instead of staying in the region for French Olympic Week two weeks later, Rose felt the pull to come home and made a beeline for Houston to reset. Then she trekked back across the Atlantic for Hyères on the Mediterranean just 40 minutes east aof the future Olympic venue. She stayed in a house with Sakellaris and Lilly Myers, and Canadian athlete Clara Gravely, and her spirits improved. Rose even went on to win the entire event, taking home a gold medal just two months after losing Olympic Trials.

“It felt really good,” she says. “It was a strong ending to the season, but I still didn’t know what I was doing.”

Rose willed herself to follow through on the 2023-2024 circuit, then finally had to face the reality that’d been beckoning in the silence of flight delays, quiet rigging mornings, and waiting for wind.

Where to, now?

The answer to her question came while watching the Paris Olympics. August rolled around, she watched the Opening Ceremony, and felt the draw once again. “It ignited something in me,” she says. “I decided I’m going to do it, and this time I’m going to do it right.”

But what does it mean to “do it right?”

“Trials really shook me. When I said ‘nothing matters,’ I knew that wasn’t true. I’m more than my results. And while I still struggle with that today, I know that this time I want to stand on the podium with an accomplished mission of a balanced, fulfilled journey getting to that moment. I want to be the best version of myself when the medal rests around my neck.”

“My coach and I are working on developing an unbreakable process,” Rose says when we talk in August. “No matter what happens, it will not break me, and that’s how I’ll defeat the Olympic Games.”

It’s a dream she’s had since she was nine years old, and it only strengthened as she saw the effect her Olympic pursuit had on her father and on herself in return. “It’s the pinnacle of sport on such a big stage,” she says, “and I know that if I’m the best version of myself chasing this dream, there’s no barrier I can’t overcome.”

Father, Darren Rose, has been her biggest motivator, and she’s found that he’s also inspired to be the best version of himself when he sees Charlotte in relentless pursuit of the same. “I love my family and they support me so much, even though I’m not around very often. I want to show them that growth is always possible and there’s nothing you can’t achieve.”

With a year and a half of distance since a crushing event, Rose sits with a mature perspective. “This is a very cool thing that I get to do, and I have to keep in mind that at the end of the day it’s just a sailboat race. Not many people get to do this, I’m in a very privileged position to pursue this dream, and I’m just immensely grateful for my community that believes in me.”

LA looms, and so do the Trials. But maturity in the Olympic arena is a powerful and uplifting force.

The post The Hard Climb for Charlotte Rose appeared first on Sailing World.

We all know how critical sail shape is to performance and that the sheet controlling said airfoil is matched to the job, whether it’s a zero-stretch, minimum-diameter PBO sheet on a mini-maxi blade, or a fuzzy polyester jib sheet that grips the drum on a big cruiser’s primary. What, then, of the handshake between the two?

Tying directly to the clew is the most basic — though not always lightest — method of attaching jib and spinnaker sheets, and these days, the humble knot still has the biggest cohort of followers overall—everything from Club 420s to beach cats to large cruising and race boats. But there are tradeoffs that come with simplicity. For instance, the simplest of sheet-to-clew connections is the luggage tag (or cow hitch) on a 1-to-1 jib sheet system. Simply take a length of line twice the length of your boat, double it up to find the middle, pass that loop through the clew cringle and then pass the standing ends through the loop.

The luggage tag is a low-profile connection; it doesn’t slip and is as short as any other option, which is more of a consideration in some classes than in others, allowing trim right up to jib cars, fairleads and redirect blocks, such as foot blocks, barber haulers, etc. When you need clearance and simplicity and never change a jib between dock out and haul out, the luggage tag might be perfect for your application. This knot, however, can be the 3M 5200 of knots when it truly sets, especially if it’s a soft polyester line in a high-load application (think J/24 genoa) or if the sheets live on the sail and go through a few wet/dry cycles. 

On the plus side, in cases where the luggage tag is ubiquitous, you’re only likely to need to remove the sheets when they are damaged and need replacing; in which case, what the heck, bust out the knife. In most cases, however, the sail and sheets age gracefully together in the bag and never need to be separated.

As one moves up to larger boats, the simplicity of a knot may still be desirable. It’s not uncommon to see bowlines or buntline hitches get the nod on everything up to masthead genoas on 70-footers — but those bring more considerations. First, tying a knot reduces the strength of a control line by as much as 50 percent, though headsail sheets are often overspecified to ensure maximum grip on winch drums, self-tailers and, of course, the trimmer’s hands.

Of greater concern is the size and bulk of the knot. On a typical 36-plus-foot crossover, a properly tied bowline with a tail, while simple to attach and easy to untie, will create quite a relatively sizeable wad of rope at the clew, likely to catch on everything between the fairleads — shrouds, lifelines, deck cleats, you name it. And, if you’re racing and have a crew crossing in front of the mast, a heavy bowline in 14mm sheets can also add the excitement of possible blunt force trauma to a bowman’s day. For all of these reasons, the simplicity of knots at the clew is generally not enough to earn them usage on larger race boats.

Race boats (and well-sorted cruisers) generally rely on three broad categories of sail connections: hardware, textile and hybrid systems. Hardware solutions come in many forms, from small ball-bearing blocks on the clew rings of 2-to-1 jibs, like those on Stars and Flying Scots, to large titanium T-rings, which are webbed into the clew of a sail and feature a central T-shaped post that an eye splice in the end of a jib sheet slips over.

On large racer/cruisers and grand-prix boats, trigger snap shackles are ubiquitous, especially on tacklines, sheets, guys and halyards on forward sails. Tylaska, Ronstan and Wichard make stainless and titanium versions of these versatile workhorses, popular because they are reliable, very strong, won’t flog open, and can be spiked open under load.

Also available are small, cone-shaped fids (sometimes referred to as ‘Martin Breakers’) that allow the option of remotely releasing the trigger on these shackles, often the tack shackle coming into an asymmetric spinnaker drop.

Two caveats with snap shackles of any type are weight and the potential damage they can cause when the sail flogs—anything they can reach can potentially be dented or otherwise damaged, leading to a cottage industry among marine canvas fabricators of padded mast base protectors, neoprene shackle boots and similar.

Another popular option to consider for jib sheet, main halyard and outhaul connections are Tylaska’s J-Lock shackles. Their low-profile design fits through most genoa lead cars, simplifying leading changing sheets, and also makes them a little less likely to ding up your pride and joy. They are super strong, easy to operate and have a plunger system that makes the possibility of them flogging open remote.

With the increasing prevalence of low-diameter, high-strength single-braid lines, (HMPEs like Dyneema specifically), soft textile connections are having a day. Distinct from tying knots directly to the sail, textile connections are spliced systems designed to capitalize on the strength of these high-modulus fibers as well as their lightweight, non-water absorbing characteristics, while addressing the shortcomings of tying a knot—difficult reversibility, bulk, strength loss, etc. Soft, light connections that take advantage of Dyneema’s natural slippery texture are a no-brainer for connecting sheets to asymmetric spinnakers, adding lubricity as they drag along the shrouds during a jibe.

Much of the prevalence of textile rigging solutions can be traced to the viral popularity of the soft shackle. Made from as little as 18 inches of single-braid HMPE, a soft shackle is, in essence, a sliding loop buried back inside itself with a stopper knot at the other end. Using the “finger trap” characteristics of single-braid rope, the loop is opened, slid around the stopper knot, and milked smooth, creating an incredibly strong loop that can be used for everything from hanging water bottles below to armored vehicle recovery (the overland and 4×4 market for soft shackles dwarfs their marine use).

Years ago, several videos showing step-by-step how to make soft shackles appeared online and had the effect of demystifying working with high-tech rope, and really got the average Wednesday night warrior thinking about ways to use the light, strong fiber all over their boats. Soft shackles have become so ubiquitous that every rigger has their own spin on them — some are covered with 48-plait Dyneema chafe sleeve, some use ‘ripcords’ to make the loop easier to open, some use unidirectional (unbraided) fiber…the customizations and variations are seemingly endless.

As boats get larger, ‘softies’ have their place. Oftentimes, they’ll be spliced into a reeving eye of a single jib sheet, and the two sheets are then soft shackled to the clew of the sail, allowing the lazy sheet to be moved independently.

They are also handy and light for connecting snatch blocks and other deck hardware, as evidenced by the number of block manufacturers – Nautos, Antal, Harken, Ronstan, etc. – that make a lash-on version of their gear.

Another simple method of connecting spin sheets to asymmetric kites is to put 1-inch eyes in the stripped end of each sheet. Then, pass the tail of a ‘pigtail’ (a 20-inch or so length of single-braid Dyneema with a 1-inch eye in one end), through the eyes in the spin sheet ends and then back through the eye in its own other end, leaving you with the two sheet ends lashed together and a single 20-inch, small diameter tail that then gets tied with a bowline to the clew of the sail. The pigtail is small and slick, allowing it to drag around the rig easily, and the sheets can be swapped to a new kite with only one knot to untie. The downsides of using Dyneema single-braids to attach sails are few. 

To be sure, a soft shackle takes more time to open and to attach than a trigger shackle (and gets progressively more difficult as they age), and the hundreds of small denier fibers that make up each plait of the rope are susceptible to chafe. That said, the many advantages of Dyneema connections – UV stability, zero water absorption, extremely light weight and low stretch. With the myriad variations available, there are solutions that address the threats (chafe sleeve, PU coatings, etc.) and should make soft connections a serious consideration.

A final category is what I would describe as ‘hybrid’ connectors – pieces of hardware that rely on a combination of textile rope and a bit of hardware. Companies such as Antal, Ropeye, Equiplite, Nodus, Wichard, Tylaska and Harken, to name a few, all make trick little anodized bits that take the best of both worlds and use them in creative ways. Oftentimes these solutions can be as simple as an anodized ‘dog bone’ – a short, often conical bar tapered towards the center that can be used as a ‘button’ in place of a stopper knot on a soft loop attachment.

Spool shackles are a similar idea – a spliced eye in the end of the sheet passes through the spool, then through the clew of the sail, and then back around the ends of the spool. A soft rubber O-ring slides down to add an element of security when not under load.

At the far end of the simplicity spectrum are high-load shackles that utilize milled spools in conjunction with covered, braided or unidirectional-HMPE fibers, pre-stretched and heat set, often with a Velcro belt to hold everything in place when not under load. Also popular with commercial rigging operations, units like those manufactured by Equiplite are advertised with strengths up to 3,000 tons. For your 36-footer, you can expect to pay a few hundred dollars for one and to then be amazed at how simple, light and strong they are.

At the end of the day, there are an almost infinite number of ways to connect sheets to sails, and every situation has nuances and considerations. What type of boat? Sail? Are you racing or cruising? Is there a chance that you will change sails? If you’re racing, find the good guys in your class and see what they are using and ask them why. If you’re a DIYer, consider getting a set of fids and watching a few YouTube videos about making softies. That will get your mind spinning on the possibilities that exist, and on finding a solution that matches your budget, ambition and needs. Now go get connected.

The post Knots Work, But These Connections are Better appeared first on Sailing World.

After an especially hot and humid weekend in Tampa, Florida, during the 2024 Buccaneer North American Championship in 2024, the sailors were ready to consider holding their next big regatta somewhere cooler, somewhere in the polar opposite direction.

But where to?

Avid Buccaneer sailor Bruce Lee floated the idea of holding the 2025 version 5,000 miles away, a remote flyer to the more temperate and midnight-sun environs of Alaska. The regatta organizer would be the Alaska Sailing Club on Big Lake, an hour’s drive north of Anchorage.

There were, however, a few obvious challenges with this scheme. Competitors were not likely to hitch their boats and tow them all the way to America’s 49th state, but maybe they would fly there and use local boats. It just happens that Alaska Sailing Club is big on Buccaneers with members owning more than a dozen of them. The regatta could split entries into A and B fleets and there would be just enough boats to make it a round-robin style regatta. Problem solved.

But now for the bigger question: Would anyone come? 

For Buccaneer sailor John Weiss, there was “no hesitation.”  

And he wasn’t alone. Sixteen teams from the lower 48 signed up and the regatta was a go.

The club itself has only 110 family memberships, but people quickly jumped in to help. “Steve Ryan said, ‘If you organize, I’ll get the boats,’” Lee says. “Nancy Black headed hospitality. Tom Harrison and Jim Auman were on the water. Elaine Hunter, Dave Johnson and Darren Black did everything. Brie Busey kept things together.”

The Alaska Sailing Club has carved out a rustic nook on the south shore of Big Lake, with one club building and a half-dozen basic private “condos.” The club is “dry,” which in Alaska-speak means no running, potable water. That also meant water bottles and port-a-potties for competitors, but this, too, was no barrier to inviting 60-plus friends for a week of sailboat racing and partying.

To ensure fair racing, the boats had to be equal and that task fell to Ryan, who worked on the fleet for nearly a month, sometimes with Lee’s help. Lee, who now escapes Alaska winters by snowbirding to Phoenix and sails with the Arizona Yacht Club’s Buccaneer fleet, brought some racing sails from Buccaneer sailors there to supplement the Alaskan quiver. Well before competitors arrived, the two of them measured and tweaked and did side-by-side speed comparisons. Dock gossip suggested that one or two of the boats were just a bit slower than the rest, but a statistical breakdown at the regatta’s finish found them to be essentially equal. Mission accomplished.

They also imported me from Arizona to serve as principal race officer, and with that they got my wife Maryellen and daughter Elizabeth as a Race Committee package. We were lured by the legend of this Buccaneer championship, the tales of friendly competition and fun times. Before the regatta began, Harrison briefed me on Big Lake, known for frequent and substantial wind shifts. He also imparted one bit of very useful local knowledge: if a float plane lands, it has right-of-way. Good to know.

The typical wind pattern on Big Lake brought sailing breeze in the afternoon and evening. With daylight lasting until midnight, the schedule was a little unusual. “They flipped the script,” says Jimmy Yurko, who has been sailing Buccaneers for 27 years. “Instead of rushing to get a boat ready in the morning, we sailed into the evening. After racing it was saunas and campfires.”

With kids, dogs, s’mores and a steady supply of good food, the regatta and its Alaskan hosts had it all. The food was plentiful and delicious. Volunteers served continental breakfast, then around midday Nancy Black and crew laid out an elaborate meal that they called dinner. During racing in the evening, they followed with soup and sandwiches. Three kinds of soup each time: such things as vegetables and wild rice, salmon chowder or moose chili. One dinner included reindeer sausage.

“We wanted to actually share some Alaska,” Black says. “Not everywhere can you get salmon chowder and moose chili.” 

While Black was handling hospitality, husband Darren was racing with their 15-year-old son Jake Black in B Fleet. Their other son, Gabe Black, was racing with his girlfriend Adrianna Ramirez in his own boat.

“Gabe’s a serious sailor,” Lee says. “How many 17-year-olds do you know who bought their own Buccaneer?”

The A fleet had 12 competitors and the B fleet had nine. We met the goal of 21 races over four days with boat swaps between every race. After on-the-water boat-to-boat exchanges bent a masthead fly after the first race, they decided to send everyone back to the nearby docks for exchanges from then on. 

Meanwhile Big Lake lived up to its shifty reputation, but Harrison and the mark-set team kept up, actually twirling the course nearly 90 degrees between a couple of races, with no delay.

On a hill overlooking the racecourse, non-racers gathered to watch and hoot and holler. Someone even live-streamed the action on Facebook and bragged that he had 55 people watching.

After stumbling to a bad finish in the penultimate race, enduring champion Ed Mantano and Shannon Devine fell behind John Weiss and his crew Jay Foght by a fraction of a point to decide the championship. Trevor and Rachel Bach claimed first in B. The young Black and Ramirez team rode consistent finishes and a couple of bullets to a second-place standing in B.

Weiss summarized the Alaskan Buccaneer 18 North American Championship as “An insane vacation wrapped around a highly competitive regatta.”

Where, he asked, “can you get 12 close races and then take a helicopter to a glacier and go snowmobiling?”

“They made it a family vacation,” Lee says. “I’ve never seen so many of the families before.”

The vacation theme sat well with a fleet of close friends.

No protests, one redress, one general recall, three boats OCS and no shouting. After trophies and the requisite group photo, it was off to glaciers, mountains, mushing trips and the rest of what this great, wild land has to offer.

It was, indeed, a good time.

“There’s a comfort and familiarity to the class,” says Yurko, who with his wife Kristi, will host the next Buccaneer National Championship (their third) in Maryland in October 2026. “We’re friends on and off the water, we support each other and it goes way beyond sailing.”

That is the Buccaneer way. They’re just happy to be together wherever they meet.

The post How the Buccaneers Raided Alaska appeared first on Sailing World.

Charles Higgins, head coach of Tulane University’s sailing team, has been coaching collegiate sailors for nearly two decades, and he knows what’s required to get his sailors to the top. “If you’re trying to win championships, you need a skipper in each position to at least get you close to the podium. But the crew is going to be the difference that gives you the win.”

That difference was on full display when Tulane finished second at the 2025 Women’s Fleet Race National Championship, an achievement Higgins attributes to his team’s depth and versatility, especially when it comes to his crews. “We need crews who are excellent and amazing when it’s blowing 25 to 30,” he says. “Very few teams can compete at an elite level in those conditions, and we want to be one of them.”

In college sailing, the spotlight often falls on the skipper, but spend any time around top programs, and you’ll understand why these teams are so successful. It’s the crews that often make the difference. The best crews are athletes, tacticians, and exceptional communicators. They don’t just pull in the jib or take directions from their drivers; they call shifts, keep the boat moving, and set the tone onboard. As coaching gets sharper and as technology pushes the sport forward, the role of the crew has progressively become one of the most demanding and decisive elements of the game.

Many of the most elite college crews are produced by college coaches who are exemplary crews themselves. Amanda Callahan, head coach of the Roger Williams University sailing team, applies her own crewing background to her coaching, which can be seen through her teams’ unique and effective tacking style. Coined by Callahan as the “leg-up” or “chicken wing” tack, she explains that this technique helps her crews to be “a little bit more explosive through the tacks and to have snappier tacks when you need them.”

She adds, “You don’t need them all the time, obviously. But that is something that’s definitely unique to our program.”

This level of technical sharpness is far from a gimmick. It represents a broader evolution in college sailing, where crews are no longer expected to be a passive aspect of the boat. They’re tactical assets, physical performers, and often the emotional core of the boat.

What’s often missed is how much effort and dedication crews put into honing their craft. When asked what separates good crews from great ones, Callahan responded, “athleticism number one; you really have to be able to move with a lot of power through the boat, but also, with a lot of finesse.”

For Callahan, developing good crew boathandling is essential for top results. This level of performance requires discipline, consistency, and internal motivation. Maren Matthews, a rising senior crew for Roger Williams, explains, “We really focus on strength and conditioning at Roger Williams, and we take fitness really seriously. So, since I’ve taken my fitness a lot more seriously, I feel like I’ve been a stronger crew. I don’t have a step-up crew, so I’m sailing in all conditions. I really have to be in the right shape in order to be able to perform at all those different times.”

In addition to prioritizing fitness, Roger Williams’ practice debriefs ensure that crews are involved and supported. These sessions include video review, which Callahan says is focused on crew boathandling, an area where she believes her team sees some of its biggest gains. Beyond physical ability and boathandling, being a top-tier crew also requires excellent communication and versatility.

“Great crews are able to overcome situations with whatever that may be,” Higgins says, “and if so, they will be highly successful.”

Communication and knowledge of the sport are equally critical for crews. Matthews says her team holds additional weekly crew meetings. “The crews all meet up, and we talk about boathandling in specific for team racing boat handling maneuvers,” she says.

Higgins also emphasizes that one major distinction between average and elite crews is their communication style. He notes, “What you’ll find from most great crews is that they’re also going to be able to provide top-end communication and help with the packaging of the information to the skipper to help make decisions.”

Strong crews also bring an emotional and psychological edge to the boat. Chris Klevan, a standout crew himself and head coach of Stanford University’s sailing team, says, “I think the best crews have a sort of confidence that translates over to the driver.” He adds that a confident crew can transform a skipper’s mindset: “I think the best crews…it’s almost like a reputation. When the best crews get into the boat, the skipper just assumes that things are going to be better from here on out, because they’re with, whoever, and then, it kind of manifests. Like the idea that you’re going to do well, probably makes you do a little better.”

In college sailing, crews are no longer expected to be a passive aspect of the boat. They’re tactical assets, physical performers, and often the emotional core of the boat.

Higgins agrees and adds that consistency in high-pressure situations is another defining trait of great crews. He explains, “Consistency always tends to stand out. I think one of the criteria that is looked at by the All-American Committee, this is straight from the criteria on the website: the ability to help improve the results of the skipper that the crew sails with, and great crews have an ability to hop into a boat with someone new.”

What has driven this evolution in college crewing? Higgins believes it comes down to several key factors. One is the rise of high-level coaching, which has positively impacted youth-level crews. “The level of crewing you would see at the top high school level now is far beyond what it was 15 years ago,” he says. “And so part of that is the expansion of really good coaching at that level.”

He also attributes the advancement of college crews to the growing accessibility and use of technology. “Like every other sport, you see that there is a significant uptick in technology,” he says, “in particular video use and photos that people can look and see and coach with as well…now everyone has YouTube, everyone has friends that they can reach out to that have footage, and then they can take that, show it, use it, and really help speed up the process to get people up to a higher level.”

Additionally, Higgins emphasizes the impact that adding women’s team racing as a championship discipline has had on the importance of developing high-quality college crews. “Adding women’s team racing as a championship discipline has put a premium on programs having more and more skilled crews who can compete at a very high level,” he says. “Fifteen years ago, most teams probably focused on their top three or four co-ed boats and maybe two to three women’s boats, and that was it.”

When asked what advice she would give to aspiring college crews, Matthews says it’s all about mindset. She states, “If you don’t have the skill yet, you need to have the mindset of positivity and hard work and grit, and that will get you really far.”

The evolution of college crewing reflects more than advanced coaching, stronger athletes, or better boathandling; it reflects a growing recognition of a role long overlooked. Crews today are thinkers, leaders, and athletes whose presence can determine whether a team makes it to the podium or falls short. But perhaps what makes the best crews stand out isn’t just their skill, it’s their unwavering dedication to the craft. As Klevan puts it, “Crewing is not the most glamorous position, which I think is kind of part of the charm.”

For Klevan, the hours of practice, lack of recognition, and drive to give everything without expecting anything in return is what makes crewing a unique and worthy pursuit. It’s not about the spotlight. It’s about showing up with purpose and knowing that the strength and soul of the team often comes from the person not holding the tiller.

The post The Power of the Crew: Changing College Sailing Dynamics appeared first on Sailing World.

The start of the Blakely Rock Race is delayed due to fog and light wind. On our 44-foot racer/cruiser Dark Star we are milling around as the fog swirls around the Seattle-based racing fleet. Boats appear, then disappear.

There’s Terramoto with its new taller rig, then they’re gone. There’s Pippa with its graceful curving sheer line, before it too evaporates. There’s the Riptide 41 Blue with its new owner, which vanishes into the fogbank. As we’re yacht spotting, it occurs to me that a good percentage of the fleet are Paul Bieker-designed custom boats. 

How had this come to pass? 

Thirty years earlier, my wife Libby and I had launched the first Riptide, a light and nimble 35- footer named Ripple (in still water). Now there were nine custom racer/cruisers in the Pacific Northwest, which makes for one extended the Riptide family. 

Obviously, this development should be celebrated. These are very cool boats, each one different, each one a reflection of the owner and designer. And they all reside near Seattle or Vancouver. So, why not try to get all the boats together in one place?

I ran the idea by a few trusted associates (Libby, Paul, and a few friends). They were mildly amused at the idea, which was enough to encourage me to proceed. Then I learned that the first Riptide designed, the 55-foot cruiser Rocket Science was soon to depart for French Polynesia. This brought some urgency to the project, and I set a date for the first ever Riptide Rendezvous. 

As I contacted Riptide owners, I got very positive responses, so I knew this could work. In the end, the Canadian boats could not make the trip, but all the seven Seattle area boats agreed to come. The party was on. 

To begin, I arranged dockage with the Port of Seattle for slips at Shilshole, and then, with Corinthian YC for use of the adjacent clubhouse, we put on the schedule a talk by none other than Mr. Bieker himself. I didn’t really try very hard to generate attendance, but word traveled fast around the sailing community. I also invited previous owners of boats that had been sold. Then came the fun part; Riptide stickers, hats, flags. The original intention was a fairly intimate gathering of Riptide boats and owners, but it gradually morphed into a community gathering, as lots of local sailors were interested in the boats. 

When the fateful day arrived, I was nervous. What if the boats didn’t show up? What if nobody came? I had a restless night’s sleep, but in the morning, I moved Dark Star from its slip to the public dock. Bieker’s personal boat was already there, the plywood 27-footer Orn.  As I tied up, other boats started arriving, and my heart soared.  

First came Rocket Science, in the final stages of preparation for its ocean passage. Next came Ripple, our first 35-footer, now owned by our friends Christine and Justin Wolfe, of Orcas Island. Then Blue, a 41-foot speedster I had successfully raced twice to Hawaii.  Then the beautiful Pippa, a 30-foot day sailor. Then Terramoto, originally sistership to Ripple but since refined into the fastest 35-footer around.  Finally, the elegant and sleek carbon 30-foot rocket ship Baby Blue. I was nearly in tears. This was happening. 

The next two hours were magical. Lots of local sailors came and climbed around the boats. There were kids and dogs, old-timers and juniors, smiles all around. The owners were rightly proud of their boats, and it was also clear they felt part of a little club of fellow owners, people who wanted their own vision of a sailboat, and knew where to go for the design. Each boat is a kind of composition of the owner’s dreams and Paul’s vision and experience. 

When we moved to the yacht club, Bieker give a lovely and informative lecture on the evolution of his designs, from International 14s to America’s Cup and everything in between, including the nine Riptides in the Northwest. 

I got to thinking about why all the Riptides were in the Pacific Northwest. Surely these are universal designs that would be successful anywhere in the world? But maybe there is something uniquely Seattle about these boats. While each boat is completely different, they all share a few qualities; a desire for speed and simplicity, a disdain for rating rules, a sense that a racing boat should also be able to cruise, careful engineering with meticulous construction. Aesthetics that flow from function, free from preconception. A nod to the past, but something new. Boats that are fun to sail and designed to put a smile on the sailor’s face. 

Surely there are other examples of boats that are closely tied to place. Think of the Beetle Cats of Buzzard’s Bay and Cape Cod, timeless and perfectly suited to New England. The nimble Lido 14 in the enclosed basins of Southern California. The ubiquitous Flying Scot, a perfect family racer/cruiser for the lakes of the southern U.S. Or the radically over-canvassed Dhows of the Middle East. Each is reflection of place, not intended for universal appeal. Maybe the Riptides are just that for the Northwest; perfect sailboats for what we do here; race and cruise in a beautiful place, where the wind can be 5 knots or 30 knots. 

And perhaps there is something about the Northwest spirit that these boats reflect; independent yet traditional, technical but beautiful, unique but not precious. I don’t know, but I am eternally grateful to be a part of the Riptide family.

The post A Riptide Rendezvous appeared first on Sailing World.

Scenario 1: Leeward boat (Red) plays the winning move by shutting the windward boat (Blue) out.

With a well-timed tack just barely on, or slightly shy of the layline, Red can force the windward boat (Blue) to tack shy of the layline, shutting out Blue from the mark. This can end badly for Blue, who has to either slow down and unhook to tack behind, or jibe around. Either way, they lose significant distance, and worse, they are now well in the zone on port. This is not a good look if there is a wall of starboard tackers coming.

But it’s not so easy for Red either. To make it stick, first, they have to tack in just the right spot— shy of the layline and close enough to just make it. This is not without some risk. If they tack too shy, they won’t make it either, and there will be two boats trying to tack or jibe onto port in the zone. We know how messy that can get. 

Rules matter here, too, so as soon as Red starts their tack (passes head to wind), Rule 13 says they are the give-way boat until they complete their tack (are on their closehauled starboard course.) Rule 10 (port-starboard) says they now have the right-of-way. But Blue need not anticipate or take any action until the tack is complete. And even then, Red is not completely in the right yet. Rule 15 says that once they acquire right-of-way, they need to give Blue room to keep clear. In short, Red needs to get onto a starboard closehauled course with enough time for Blue to get out of the way.

Correctly played, Red’s powerful offensive move effectively shuts the door on Blue.

Scenario 2: Leeward Boat (Red) Delays Tack or Overstands, Allowing Blue Inside Overlap

Red may not be savvy to the above shut-out move and sail too far, or they may know the move and just misjudge and leave room for Blue to tack in there. I won’t spend much time on this because either way, Red just plain blew it. As long as Blue can tack to leeward without breaking the rules, and they can lay the mark, they should be able to round. Red has no choice but to keep clear as a windward boat and because Blue has mark room. Blue wins that chess exchange.

Scenario 3: Windward Boat Executes the Shutout

The third scenario is my favorite; it’s the “shutout” move where Blue takes full control of its destiny well before the layline, and well before either boat tacks. Blue needs to be thinking a few moves ahead and recognizes that Red, if they tack in that perfect tight layline spot, could shut them out (as in Scenario 1).  

The shutout begins with Blue aggressively bearing off to a position still to windward, but much closer to Red, preventing Red from completing its tack without fouling. By the time Red would start its tack, Blue would already be in a position where Red could not finish the tack while providing room to keep clear (Rules 13 and 15).

An important practical consideration during this maneuver is communication. Since Blue’s move might catch Red by surprise (as Red is likely focused on the starboard layline, approaching boats, or the mark itself), it’s smart—though not required by the rules—for Blue to hail, “Don’t tack too close!” with enough time for Red to see and digest the situation. This hail alerts Red to Blue’s presence and intention. Red should realize they have no viable option but to wait for Blue to tack, then tack and follow them around the mark.

The bear-away is the key to success; it has to be done right. Blue needs to do it soon enough to leave time to communicate, and close enough to be effective, but not so early and close that they risk slowing considerably in Red’s backwind.

Now let’s add the next layer of complexity: we’re in the zone. If Blue tacks outside the zone, as in our example, they have mark room and can aggressively use that (short of tacking) to get around the mark. But when Blue tacks in the zone, Rule 18.3 puts significant limitations on their actions. Even though they don’t have mark room, they are leeward boat (Rule 11) and Red can’t bear off on them to prevent them from going in there. But Rule 18.3, puts significant limitations on Blue’s actions, they can’t head Red up above closehauled. In a subtle update for the 2025-2028 rules that came out this year, this applies whether or not the original leeward boat, Red, tacked before or in the zone. In short, if Blue tacks outside the zone, Blue can do just about anything it wants to (short of tacking) to get around the mark making Red’s job of shutting them out harder. But if Blue tacks in the zone, Blue’s options to head Red up are limited, making it easier for Red to shut them out.

Occasionally, I use the shutout in the open course, not just on a starboard layline. Suppose I want to lead Red back, but I don’t want to tack just yet because of traffic or something like that, I can then hold them off from tacking for a bit. Wherever used, I love this move because Blue uses the rules to successfully reverse the control dynamic and put themselves in the drivers seat.  It’s a cool move to have in your tactical toolbox.

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