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.

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.

Athena Racing has announced that world-renowned sailor and high-performance executive Ian Walker has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of its America’s Cup Challenge. Walker is no stranger to the America’s Cup, having skippered Britain’s Wight Lightning in the 31st America’s Cup in 2003. He has also led three Ocean Race campaigns, culminating in victory in the 2014–15 edition with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing.

His focus then moved to leading high-performance teams off the water. Walker served as Performance Director for the British Sailing Team, overseeing a hugely successful campaign that saw the team top the sailing medal table at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, winning five medals, including three golds. Following that, he joined North Sails, leading their expert UK sailmaking team for the past three years.

Walker joins the team following the recent announcement of the new America’s Cup Partnership (ACP). The Partnership will be led by an independent management team, moving away from a “winner-takes-all” model to one of mutual governance. Each competing team holds a seat on the board, with a shared focus on commercial growth, long-term investment in the event, and continued technical development and innovation across future America’s Cup competitions, which will now be contested every two years.

A two-time Olympic medalist, Walker expressed his excitement on returning to the sharp end of elite competition. “It’s an exciting moment to return to the America’s Cup with a British challenge that has the continuity of the last three campaigns, alongside the recent creation of the America’s Cup Partnership (ACP). That was a big part of my decision to take this on, because I believe in what the ACP is trying to achieve—creating a sustainable, viable commercial business model for the competition.

I’ve also worked with several members of the team previously, which gives me real confidence in what we’re building together.   

“The Cup has evolved enormously since I was last involved in terms of the boats, the technology, and even the balance between sailors and designers. But at its core, it remains unchanged, it’s about managing your resources, getting the best out of your people, and making every second count, in a race against time, and the clock is ticking.”

The move reunites Walker with Athena Racing Team Principal Sir Ben Ainslie, a former Team GB teammate at the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

“Ian is an exceptional leader with a proven track record of success with high-performance campaigns across the very top of our sport, there are very few people as qualified, both on and off the water,” said Ainslie.

Ainslie continued, “He also understands the complexity of running teams that need to be at the forefront of innovation and performance while meeting both budget and timeline demands. For AC38, that timeline is tight, and we needed a CEO who could hit the ground running and Ian can do that, he understands how to drive teams forward and the importance of continuity in achieving the ultimate goal.”

Walker concluded: “The America’s Cup transcends the sport of sailing and has so much untapped potential. I am excited about what lies ahead, just imagine how cool it would be for the team to win it for Britain.”

As INEOS Britannia, the team made history in 2024, as the first British team in 60 years to qualify for the America’s Cup Match, the first in 90 years to score points in the Match, and the first ever to win the America’s Cup Challenger Series. The achievements mark Britain’s most successful performance in the competition’s history.

The post America’s Cup Challenger of Record Taps Ian Walker as CEO appeared first on Sailing World.

in the cutthroat world of Rolex TP52 World Championship sailing, where every point is hard earned and every mistake amplified, American Magic Quantum Racing clinched its eighth world title by the narrowest of margins. The elite 52 circuit demands a meticulous and disciplined approach, and for Terry Hutchinson, the team’s longtime skipper, success came through both human capital and a continuous evolution of the team’s boat and sails. On the waters off Cascais, there was a measurable but delicate balance of aggression and control that reflects the team’s ongoing transition to a younger, dynamic squad. There’s a “meat and potatoes” philosophy that underpins their success, even when the “red mist” descends. The boss shares his thoughts.

How do you approach this series every year to make sure you have the complete package?

To succeed, the first area we start is with the team, and specifically with the people, because the people are our number one asset. So, when we consider success on the racecourse, we have to look at the whole program. We set a disciplined strategy based around our people and what’s executable. It’s one thing to say, “we want to win this regatta,” but it’s more important to ask how we’re going to win the regatta. Tell me what’s going to separate our team from the others, and what’s going to help us win this regatta. So, as a team, we’re always thinking about the people, the boat, the sails and the equipment.

How far out of a world championship of this caliber does that need to happen?

At the end of the 2024 season, Cascais (Portugal) was announced as the venue for the world championship. Straight away, we knew it was going to be a reasonably windy venue. And inside the 52 class rule we have variations of sails that we can use or not. This was the first world championship that I’ve raced with a J3-plus, which is a sail that’s in between a J4 and a heavy. That was a difference maker, but it was something that we identified that we needed to have, at least in our sail program, have the option to put a button on it, if we wanted it.

So, there’s one area of development. There was also the A2-plus, which is stronger than the A2, but not as heavy as the A4. The structure inside that sail is slightly different, and the sail was pretty good down-range in 17 knots of wind, but very good in 23 knots without the risk of breaking. So that was another sail evolution that takes time. 

Those are a couple examples of the sail development side of things that we considered to make sure that we gave ourselves the best chance at this event. It’s about reliability in the racing and reliability in the team. We’re a small team, so we’re sailing with an extra person on board, which is great. It makes the weigh-ins really hard, but that extra set of hands when it’s really windy is pure performance.

How essential was it to have that extra person?

By the time the regatta starts, all the teams would be overweight, but we’re carrying an extra person on board so we’re providing a little bit more hiking stability. And so, in a windy venue, and on these boats, you hike harder downwind than you do upwind, because there’s just so much to gain in performance. Where you see it on our boat going around the racetrack is everybody giving 110 percent in the hiking, so the performance there is awesome. It’s a measurable gain.

Teams push their boats and themselves so hard at these events, especially in the big breeze you had. How do you balance that part of it knowing there’s no room to hold back? 

We had very good boathandling, and the reliability of our equipment and our boat comes out of that. We broke a lot of stuff, but we got exactly what we deserved by being too aggressive at times. 

Is there one example that best demonstrates this?

One example is when we got into a tussle with the French at a top mark. We came around the mark, and the call was to do an “Indian,” which is basically a hoist and a jibe. The whole maneuver happens simultaneously. But we were on a J4 and it was 26 knots of breeze, and it was too windy, and I had a little bit too much red mist from the situation that we had just been in. I wasn’t thinking clearly and we went for the maneuver with some of the team members out of position. I’m responsible for taking up the new runner, and the new runner got trapped on the leeward side of the boom. The spinnaker went up inside the jib, and the turn was a little bit too fast, so the spinnaker ended up in the foretriangle. From there it snowballed.

This Quantum Racing team has been around for a long time and there’s a transition now to a younger squad working alongside mentors. What’s involved with that?

Starting on the bow, we now have Norm Berg, who’s the mid-bowman, and then Ian Liberty trims downwind. Victor Diaz de Leon is a strategist, Harry Melges (IV) is the helmsman, Sarah Stone is the navigator, and Luke Muller is the aft grinder. Individually, they’re all great sailors, so part of the learning process is getting us all to learn how to race together, how we communicate together and then instilling a certain level of discipline to know that at certain times we just don’t have to go for the kill. It’s consistency that’s going to win the regatta, it’s our reliability and how we interact with each other. I’ve nicknamed it “on board meat and potatoes,” because meat and potatoes aren’t fancy, but they’re always good. 

That, however, requires a certain level of consideration that we’re fast and that we have optimum performance all the time. It’s always taken into consideration that our boathandling, and the things that impact the boat’s performance, are going to be the consistency of the team. Within that, there is a level of accountability. That gets discussed and it gets developed and becomes part of the team’s culture and who we are. 

The new sailors may come with new ideas and approaches; how does those make their way into years of refinement and old habits?

We do have this balance of those with experience and those that have been developing their skill sets in smaller boats and coming onto something bigger. One good example is with Ian [Liberty]; after the first day of the regatta, because of his suggestions, we made an adjustment to our downwind technique, and we went from being just OK to easily being the fastest boat on the racecourse. 

What was the improvement there?

We were sailing in a side swell, so on starboard, the swell was on the beam, and on port it was on the transom. So, on port jibe, you could do a normal surf. But on starboard, the technique change was a big ease on the kite and a big grind on the main—almost grinding the main to center line. So, the sail trim was very asymmetric, and we get these big downs on the waves. And as soon as the boat starts to decelerate, the kite gets trimmed on and the main gets eased out to a normal position as the apparent wind is going forward. It changed the performance of the boat in such a positive way, because we weren’t just sticking our bow in the waves. The boat was breaking free, but it was doing it in a down way, not in a bow up way.

You use the term “process” a lot, what does that mean within this world-caliber team?

The process is driven around the performance and our accountability on board. We’re disciplined when we leave the dock. We’re disciplined when we show up. It’s a commitment to seven points or less on the day, and to understanding that we don’t win the regatta on the first three days. You win it on the last two days, but you can’t take yourself out of it on the first three days. 

We try really hard to share that level of responsibility on the boat. And I think that it’s something that is critical to the success everybody’s accountable for their areas, and at the same time, how you blend that together is probably where a lot of performance can come from, and then it’s just being tactically disciplined.

Everything about the 52 Series is sophisticated, especially onboard the boats where, in your case there’s yourself, a tactician, and a strategist in the afterguard, providing input all the time. How much latitude is left for the helmsman to follow his instincts in the moment? 

We’re pretty diligent about not chirping too much. Let’s take the start for example. I help with getting them into the spot, and then the final time and distance—the last 60 seconds are on them. It’s never one person; there’s the bowman, there’s Harry and I, and then there’s Sarah giving the time to kill. So, Harry is managing the platform. I’m giving them feedback, reassuring his instincts, and really backing them up so he can be highly confident in what he’s doing. 

The one race where we were OCS, the hard part was the computer and the Vakaros both had us behind the line by a reasonably large amount. All of our electronic inputs were saying we were racing, so we called Greg (Gendell) off the bow. Doing that, we lost our third point of certainty, and we were over by a meter or so. It goes back to the process, and there we slipped a little bit on our process. These are little things that even at the level that we’re after, we still make some of these mistakes.

How difficult is it these days, tactically, when no one is giving an inch?

The tactical side and the fleet management side of it is understanding where the boat can make gains, understanding the performance of the boat and your target boat speeds well enough. It’s understanding whether the posted target is the correct number to sail in that moment, or do you need to sail one-tenth under or over given each position of where you’re at. I can’t speak for what the other tacticians do, but I am very boatspeed focused in the moment, and continually updating the mode that we should be sailing. We won’t go more than 30 seconds without an update happening, because that’s how much we’re watching things evolve on the course. Regardless of whatever boat you’re racing, it’s important to have an intimate knowledge of the boat’s performance in traffic, versus a clean lane versus, boatspeed numbers and a range.

And what about fleet management?

I did two J/70 regattas this winter with 50- or 60-boat fleets. Getting clear and winning the first cross of a group of 20 boats versus being stuck in fifteenth is a massive difference. When you’re in fifteenth around the top mark your next opportunity to gain separation is downwind and picking a good spot to allow the boat to sail its mode, because traffic slows everybody down. It’s the same thing in the 52. At the Worlds we had 11 boats, so the hardest spot to be in was fifth, because it’s so easy to be in seventh if you screw up one thing. So, positioning wise, at any given time, we race with the mindset that people are going to make us suffer by tacking on us, so whatever we’re expecting, we have to pay it back to keep the distance the same.

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For those who have forgotten the Admiral’s Cup, a quick history lesson: The Royal Ocean Racing Club created the regatta back in 1957 and it was the stuff of legends until the event was canned in 2005 after participation waned. In its heyday it was a legendary big-boat showdown with three-boat national teams battling through grueling inshore races before tackling the epic Fastnet Race. As a young reader of Sailing World in the 1980s, I remember well the stories and images of this faraway circus of custom raceboats and sponsored teams. There was nothing like it.

When American sailor Ron O’Hanley, who has checked off virtually every major offshore race with his 20-year-old canting-keel Cookson 50, first heard about the Admiral’s Cup revival, his decision to participate seemed straightforward. 

“At the time, it seemed like a no-brainer, which was, in retrospect, quite naive,” O’Hanley says. “In the end, it was appropriately a heavy lift.”

His motivation stemmed partly from his experience chairing the strategy committee of the New York YC board. “I’ve always viewed the club in particular as having a special role in advancing the state of the art of sailing,” he says. “The idea of this thing coming back and coming back in the form that it was being proposed was quite attractive.”

If preparing for your local overnight race is a lot of work, consider the complexity of the Admiral’s Cup. Getting the boat to Europe may actually be the easiest part.

Stepping up to fly the burgee of the New York YC in this year’s new club versus club Admiral’s Cup format were members Stefan Jentzsch, with his sophisticated Botin 56 Black Pearl in the big-boat fleet, and Donald Thinschmidt’s Ker 43 Abracadabra with an international crew. O’Hanley initially planned to partner with another club member to fit the Admiral’s Cup’s two-boat scheme, but found this challenging because of what he perceives as a waning interest in distance racing in the United States. Finding a partner where everything aligned never happened. “It’s a time commitment and financial commitment, not just for the boat owner, but a lot of other people,” he says.

While his search for an American partner proved unsuccessful, an unexpected opportunity emerged when the Royal Irish YC approached him. As a relatively new member of the club, which he joined after enjoying his offshore sailing experiences in Ireland, O’Hanley instantly appreciated their commitment to the event. “They lined up a great small boat partner,” he says. That was Tom Kneen’s JPK 11.80 Sunrise, overall winner of the windy 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race. “To me, it was as much about supporting this thing and getting it off to a good start.”

The Royal Irish YC proved invaluable in assembling a competitive team. The Admiral’s Cup requires that each boat include two women and at least one member under the age of 27. “We used to have members under the age of 27 and now they all have children,” O’Hanley jokes, highlighting the challenge of meeting this requirement for established teams.

The Irish club also helped secure crew members and provided financial assistance to ensure their participation. Their moral encouragement proved significant, too. “I can’t understate the amount of moral support,” O’Hanley says. “Them on the dock, them shooting their videos…they sent me a picture of basically what was going on back in the clubhouse watching the starts.”

Imagine the same impact at any club in America, members rooting for sailing friends faraway, representing on the big stage. It was a missed opportunity for sure.

The beauty of the Admiral’s Cup is that it combines two distinct disciplines: fast-paced inshore buoy racing and complex, current-riddled distance courses. “The formats couldn’t be more different,” O’Hanley says. “You’ve got that inshore stuff…two laps around the course. And then you’ve got what they call ‘around the cans’ —we would call short navigator’s races around navigational marks—and then finally, obviously, the Fastnet.”

This variety places significant demands on both boats and crews. “It puts a lot on the boats and the crews to be able to do all that,” O’Hanley says. “It’s kind of the biathlon of sailing. I think that’s just a great format.”

Walking the docks at the event in Cowes, England, he was impressed by the evolution of custom designs, particularly the newer TP52s. “This latest evolution is just amazing,” he says. “The story used to be that they weren’t great offshore…they’re really highly refined, and they’ve become just much more versatile.”

He was equally impressed by the smaller competitors in the 40-foot range. “What really stood out there was just very powerful boats in a small package. They look like a heck of a lot of fun,” he says. “As I think about next time, I’m not sure whether I’d want to be the big boat guy or the little boat guy if I were to do it again.”

Privateer was notably the oldest boat in Cowes, but still plenty competitive in its conditions. “The only thing original on the boat is the hull,” O’Hanley says. “The prod has been extended three times. There’s a new rig, new keel, new rudder. We’ve done a lot to the boat.”

Despite its age, the boat—and the crew—delivered when it needed to. “Our two best races were one in heavy conditions and one in the lightest conditions,” O’Hanley says. He does, however, acknowledge that the boat isn’t ideal for the demands of the Admiral’s Cup. “It’s really not the horse for the course. If I were doing it again, I’d give real thought…”

He also heaps praise on the Royal Ocean Racing Club for its comprehensive media push, which he believes American yacht clubs could learn from. “The video and social media support from the RORC on this, and coverage was a real lesson to all of us,” he says. “The real-time excitement that got built there, I think was a good lesson for all of us, because it’s a little bit of an uphill climb here in the U.S. on distance sailing. Part of what we need to do is just show the excitement of it.”

Looking ahead, O’Hanley sees potential for increased American involvement in the Admiral’s Cup. “What makes the Admiral’s Cup, this format, this location, just so interesting and so challenging is also what makes it so rewarding,” he says. “I mean, there’s just an incredible sense of accomplishment. We certainly would have liked to have done better, and we think we know what we need to do to do better, but there’s just an extraordinary sense of accomplishment when you’re done.”

The next edition is on the calendar for July 2027. That’s plenty of notice, and the RORC reminds us Yanks that, “The Admiral’s Cup is more than a trophy, it’s the beating heart of international team racing.”

Get the defibrillator, STAT, because time is of the essence.

“If you’re a year out, you may be too late,” O’Hanley advises. “So, if you’re thinking about it, you ought to be thinking about it now. And I would encourage others to consider it and don’t be put off by the highly professional, purpose-built boats and all that. There are a lot of others in there, and so much of this is about the adequacy of your preparation, optimizing your boat and having the right partner, because it is a team event. It’s about the two of you, not just how the one of you do. Having the right boat makes sense, but it’s really about the preparation you put into it.” 

The post The Untold Challenges of the Admiral’s Cup appeared first on Sailing World.

American Magic announced in late October that it would not compete in the 38th edition of the America’s Cup in Naples, Italy. According to a team statement, the decision to end a bid for a third Cup challenge, “follows a comprehensive review of the event’s current Protocol and Partnership Agreement and their alignment with the team’s long-term sporting and strategic objectives.

“After extensive engagement with the Defender, Challenger of Record, and fellow teams, we’ve concluded that the present structure does not provide the framework for American Magic to operate a highly competitive and financially sustainable campaign for the 38th America’s Cup”, said Doug DeVos, Team Principal of American Magic. “We care deeply about the America’s Cup and what it represents. However, for a team committed to long-term excellence, alignment around financial viability and competitive performance is essential. At this time, we don’t believe those conditions are in place for American Magic to challenge.”

Having extracted itself from the Cup while also retaining all its previous campaign assets, currently idle at the team’s base in Pensacola, Florida, the team will likely be looking to liquidate its AC40s, its two AC75s and containers of equipment to any team looking to take advantage of the new 38th Cup protocol which stipulates new teams may use existing platforms.

Unconfirmed rumors of entering a team into the SailGP may hint at what’s to come, and the team is also aligned with Nautor Swan to activate a new ClubSwan 28 US series in Pensacola and Newport, Rhode Island in 2026.

“Our focus now shifts to the future,” said Mike Cazer, CEO of American Magic. “That means athlete and technology development, international competition, and continuing to drive advanced manufacturing and design innovation from our base in Pensacola.”

Founded in 2017, American Magic has represented the New York Yacht Club in two America’s Cup campaigns and supports elite American sailors across senior, youth, and women’s disciplines. The team will continue to invest in the sport through its Pensacola-based high-performance center and international racing campaigns, including programs that support U.S. Olympic sailors. These efforts reinforce Pensacola’s role as a hub for top-tier American sailing talent.

“To our teammates, partners, donors, and supporters — thank you for standing with us,” said Terry Hutchinson, President of Sailing Operations. “We could never have accomplished what we have without you. You are a vital part of who we are.”

The post American Magic Exits America’s Cup appeared first on Sailing World.

if you’re looking for a boat that is fast, fun and stable, look no further than the good ol’ reliable beach catamarans, which gained popularity in the early 1970s because of one man, Hobart “Hobie” Laidlaw Alter. Alter invented the Hobie Cat and went on to revolutionize beach-cat sailing with nearly 30 different models during his lifetime. The Hobie name lives on as a moniker of the many two-hulled sailboats still out there. But there are now many builders producing excellent alternatives: Nacra, Goodall, Cirrus, Topcat, RS and Topaz, to name a few.

My path to cat sailing is the same as many others. I caught the bug watching my father sail off the beach in Central America in the 1970s in a Laser with his buddies. Soon I had my own yacht, a Styrofoam Snark that I tricked out to be mine. I loved that boat. But one day, a family friend took me for a ride on a lime-green Nacra, and we tore up and down the beach with that boat. I was hooked on the speed, and hanging out in the trapeze blasting through the water.

My father sold the Snark, and that was the end of my monohull days. I sailed Prindle cats off the beach in Miami during college and got my first Hobie 18 SX with wing seats after that. I’ve always loved the speed of the boats because you can go places fast, but as I gained more experience, I started racing, then realized that I wanted an even faster boat. I transitioned into a Nacra F18 Evolution, a great boat and top of its class in the world. I raced around the buoys with world-class sailors, sailed expedition-style races, and even long-distance races. It all evolved from that one Nacra session.

I know that a lot of sailors are reluctant to try beach-cat sailing because of the unfamiliarity of it. Access to trying one can be a barrier too, so the best way to get hooked is to find a rental location when on vacation, a sailing school, or a sailboat dealer with an experience center or club with a beach-cat fleet. It’s good to have someone who knows what they’re doing to walk you through your first experience.

I’m confident that your first ride will, like with me, get you hooked, and maybe thinking how you can get your hands on your own starter beach cat. Here’s where I’d start looking:

The Hobie Wave is an exciting and insanely easy-to-sail catamaran for sailors of all sizes and skills levels. It’s readily available for rental at resorts and beach clubs, both new and used. At 13 feet long and 245 pounds, with a capacity of 800 pounds, this boat can be sailed solo or with a crew of four. It has a simple rig, with only a downhaul and mainsheet—and no boom. The rotomolded hull is virtually indestructible, so launching and docking is stress-free. The Hobie Wave enjoys a cult following among catamaran sailors, as well as a racing class for people of all ages.

The RS Cat 14 is the next step up in the entry-level catamaran world. It’s designed for youths and adults, from novice to experienced sailors. The boat has the potential to grow with you as your skill level improves by adding more sail options to the boat. Durable rotomolded construction makes it a very tough boat. At 14 feet and 275 pounds, with a capacity of two people, the boat is easy to move and set up, which makes it easy to trailer, and to explore and play in different venues. It’s simple to sail, but it also brings in that potential next-level sailing experience on the water.

For a versatile boat that’s ideal for coming into the cat world with something new and modern, the Nacra 500 MK2 is a solid option. With fiberglass hulls, boomless main, no daggerboards, and high-quality hardware and sails, the Nacra 500 MK2 is a fun, fast, and easy boat to sail, with plenty of options to eventually turbo the ride. It’s a good recreational sailboat for youth and adult sailors, as well as a fun boat to race with friends in a class or mixed fleet. It sets up quickly and is easy to transport. Sail it solo, double up, or take four people (including yourself) for a fun day on the water.

With the Nacra 570 MK2, the performance leap from the 500 to the 570 is real. The MK2 version of this boat is the top dog in the recreational-beach-cat market. Its strong and incredibly sturdy hulls, combined with its hydrodynamic and sleek design, make it way faster than the average beach cat, while still staying particularly stable. At 18 feet 3 inches, the boat is light for its size at 364 pounds, so it is easy to move around on land and on the water. If you are moving up from a Hobie 16 or an older 18-foot beach cat, or coming into beach-cat sailing from the sportboat or skiff world, this is a true beach cat that will check all the boxes.

The post Four Proven Catamarans To Get You Started in Multihull Racing appeared first on Sailing World.

Nothing else matters except beating that one boat across the finish line.

Which is why I’m maniacally trimming the sail even though it hurts like hell. Every time the winged-out jib folds back onto itself and refills with a violent snap, zingers of pain shoot into my right shoulder. It might be carnage to my rotator cuff, but screw it. I don’t care. Over my shoulder, straight off to starboard 100 feet away, is the pink boat with a crew in matching pink shirts. The two of us are battling it out at the tail end of the 21-boat fleet, as we have been for the past three days. There’s always one boat in every regatta that seems magnetic, right? Voila is that one, and right now we’re mathematically guaranteed to beat them in the regatta. This race is for all the karma marbles.

We’re neck-and-neck in the 14th race of the best-kept secret in all of one-design racing. While the two of us are hand-to-hand for our respective points and our dignity, the leaders are already halfway back to Cowpet Bay and the chillaxed St. Thomas YC, where the Cruzan rum and the all-you-can-eat buffet awaits. Here at the back of the fleet on the sand-colored Stinger, my teammates and I are broken, but we’re not quitting.

With me is our skipper Ian Scott, the finest gentleman yachtsman anyone could ever sail with. I’ve been his bowman on the J/24 Crack O’ Noon for exactly 37 years. Practically cradle to grave. On jib and spinnaker trim is Herb McCormick, who’s been cross-sheeting Crack O’s genoa sheets for more than 40 years. The two of them are lifelong Aquidneck Island mates. They’re brothers, as far I’m concerned. Both raised me to be the sailor I am. Which I guess makes them my sailing fathers.

That said, I’ve never sailed or raced with my own father, even though he’s the one who cast me off into the sport as a wee lad. That is something I regret, which is why I’ve recruited my 21-year-old son, Tim. He never liked sailing when he was young, and I never pushed it. Given his towering height, basketball naturally became his thing. Before we step foot on Stinger for a day of practice, he doesn’t know a vang from tang, a guy from a twing, or a tack from a jibe, but after a few practice laps, he’s plenty up to speed.

Show-Up-And-Race

So, that’s the four of us: Ian, Herb, Dave and Tim. Team Crack O’ Noon, checking in from Newport, Rhode Island’s J/24 Fleet 50, where the legends and Read brothers once ruled. We’re here for spring training—because we said we would be over too many beers seven months earlier. Our boat for this exercise is the aforementioned Stinger. It’s one of a dozen IC24s that are owned by the St. Thomas YC and used extensively for its adult racing, member gunkholing and the annual St. Thomas International Regatta, which everyone simply refers to as STIR. The regatta, which is always held in March when the trade winds reliably blow, is the club’s marquee event. And the marquee fleet is the IC24, which is essentially a modified J/24. Think of it as a mashed J/24, J/22 and J/80. There’s no genoa to rake across the rig. Just a happy little jib, a symmetric spinnaker, and legs inboard at all times.

The IC24 is a brilliant concept conceived by St. Thomas local Chris Rosenberg. As the class story goes, after Hurricane Marilyn wiped everything the club had, Rosenberg had the wisdom to reimagine and remake a J/24 as a comfortable, five-person, user-friendly interclub keelboat.

The interclub part of Rosenberg’s vision spawned the interisland IC24 phenomenon. There are now fleets in St. Croix and Puerto Rico, which is where the hot boats reside—dialed-in, dry-sailed. Across the fleet, “one-design” is “close enough” for laid-back Caribbean class racing.

But that doesn’t mean the slick-looking Puerto Rican IC24s are inherently faster than St. Thomas YC’s heavily used charter boats, which are available for STIR at a cost just north of $3,000. For that, and a $200 monthly yacht-club membership, we get unlimited use of the IC24, as well as the club’s Hobie Waves and Sunfish. With this deal, you can have one heck of a St. Thomas sailing vacation.

But it gets better. Hundreds of rentable condos flank the club, all of them with sweeping hillside views of Cowpet Bay and pristine islands in the near distance. From our four-bed condo with a balcony, for which we paid $3,000 for the week, we can walk exactly 87 steps to the club, straight to the launch, to the boat, to the racecourse and back.

There’s no reason to cook dinner at the condo because the club’s nightly buffet spread—pasta night, barbecue night and meat night—is all you need to race, eat, drink, sleep and repeat. That’s how it flows in St. Thomas.

Relaxation Earned The Hard Way

Such is the rhythm we settle into after our first day of racing, which we toast to with balcony beers. We’re solidly midfleet. We’ve had some good races; we’ve been in the mix with the top local boats at the first mark, but we’re losing boats on the run by not jibing soon enough. Our race-committee honcho is Dick Neville, a white-haired Aussie from Annapolis who’s the king of running races in the Caribbean. Because of the record-size IC24 fleet, there’s no room for Neville to set up in Red Hook Bay, where the IC24s normally race during STIR, so we’re wedged in around the corner in Nazareth Bay.

Neville has his race-committee boat parked 50 feet or so away from the coral-pocked headland. A short finish line is set on his starboard side, even closer to solid ground. He’s kind enough to enlighten us before the start of the first race that we should jibe immediately after finishing.

By the nature of the race committee’s parking job, Neville has favored the committee boat end, but there’s not a lot of wiggle room or runway for either a barging or Vanderbilt-style start. The one bit of local knowledge that everyone seems to know is to go left for the lift off the shore at the top of the beat, but with a 1.2-mile leg and a long line, starting at the pin end is a fast pass to the middle fleet, which is where we end up at the end of the day. The locals are crushing.

The first day’s friendly trade winds allow us to ease into the regatta, but the following morning, the palm fronds are hissing. Breeze on. Back home in New England, 25 knots often feels like a lot more. The air is colder, heavier, and punchier. In the Caribbean, 25 feels perfect: warmer, gentler, with diamond-filled puffs flitting across the blue. Don’t bother bringing foul weather gear to St. Thomas. But do bring gloves, because the salt-caked ropes carve bare-skin crevices to the bone. And pack your swim trunks for an after-race pit stop in Christmas Cove for a swim and the fresh-out-of-the-oven Easy Peasy Cheesy from Pizza Pi boat anchored in the cove.

Tears, Beers and A Bully

Twenty-five knots is what we get for the next five races. Tim is an overnight sensation at remembering the mechanics of getting the spinnaker out of the hatch without snagging on the shrouds, and then back into the boat during windy and chaotic leeward-gate roundings. While he’s blissfully learning and bleeding, the rest of us are having our issues: Ian’s oversize tiller extension keeps getting caught in the backstay. Herb is on doctor’s orders to not destroy his recently rehabilitated rotator cuff again. He has no winches for the highly loaded kite sheets, and he’s playing them straight from their respective blocks. I’m constantly fighting with the spinnaker pole, which won’t stay on deck, and through the leeward gate, I’m high-stepping through and around Tim and Herb to get back in time to hand-over-hand the mainsheet through the turn.

It’s a miracle we make it through all the tacks, jibes and corners without issue.

But we’re far from perfect. At some point in the blur of Neville’s five rapid-fire races, we whiff one windy jibe and wrap the spinnaker sphincter-tight around the headstay. It’s a bummer of a mistake because we’re having our best race yet. When you’re tired and beaten, St. Thomas’ 25 suddenly feels like a New England 25. For the last race, we cry uncle and shift to jib-and-main. We’re comfortable with our place and our purpose. We’re not here to win it, and a voice of reason in my head is loud and clear: Don’t make Tim hate this.

Just one more race. Let’s make it a good one.

We’re in the mix for the first lap, but without a spinnaker, we’re eventually at the back of the fleet. Approaching the weather mark for the second time, we’re on the port-tack layline, and out in front of us, two starboard tackers easily cross our bow. Behind them is a gaping hole in front of the next boat.

What do you know? It’s Voila. Of course it is.

As soon as the shouting starts, I know where this is going. They are way overstood, their jib is eased to the rail, and the leeward telltale is pointing skyward. Clean and easy, I think to myself. No problemo.

Ian pushes the tiller away to tack, as he has a million times before, but this time, the annoying extension gets lodged in the backstay cascade. It’s not a pro tack, but it’s good enough.

“That’s a foul!” someone bellows.

“No way!” I retort.

Enraged words fly as we round the weather mark, and the shouting continues down the entire offset leg. We split jibes after the rounding, and try as we might to out wing-on-wing them, they beat us easily across the finish. Oh well. I think. We’ll get ‘em tomorrow.

Back ashore, as we saunter down the quay toward the club bar, parched, sunbaked, wind-whipped, smarting and deflated, the pink boat’s skipper, still fuming, advises me of his intent to protest the incident. Paperwork is already filed.

Our futile argument carries on and over to a waiting area outside an air-conditioned shack in the parking lot where the jury is in session. I cannot convince him of the senselessness of the exercise. He beat us, we’re both at the bottom of the standings, and we’re both sticking to our stories. Besides, the rum is flowing, and there’s a rigged Hobie Wave on the beach with my and Tim’s name on it. Christmas Cove is calling, and the sun’s going down. This isn’t the world championship, pal. What are we doing here?

Go Have a Hobie Day

Thankfully, the committee promptly disallows the protest on account of Voila failing to display a protest flag. And thanks to that glorious technicality, Tim and I are soon zippering catamaran wakes with a rapid exit out of Cowpet Bay, water splashing through the trampoline.

Once clear of the mooring field, Tim takes over, nervously holding the tiller bar and beginning his journey to sailing bliss. He’s kind of a natural, and the smile on his face as the little cat takes off is a memory forever placed into the happy-memory drawer of my mind. He gets his Pi slice, and I get him a T-shirt to memorialize this precious father-son experience.

The ol’ boys back at the condo are duly impressed by our willingness to go back out to sea in the Hobie Wave after such a physically and mentally draining race day. YOLO, indeed.

The palm fronds are sizzling again as we ramble down the steps from our condo the following morning. It’s another glorious Caribbean race day, and we’re ready for it.

That is, until the mainsheet swivel-cam base explodes on the way out to the racecourse. Ian saves the day with a spare shackle that’s in his little plastic zipper bag of spare hardware. But as the day goes on, we’re not the only ones handicapped with breakdowns. At some point in another blur of five races, Voila blows its vang, and in the third race, our jib halyard skies to the top rig (the shackle tape job didn’t hold, I promise).

Voila and Stinger are now both playing in the jib-and-main minor league, and in the next race we’re at each other’s throats again, all around the course. On the final leg, they’ve got a jump on us, so I’m fighting the sheet and cursing at the jib, wishing for a spinnaker to make the pain in my shoulder stop. But they’re faster, have a better angle in the waves, and slip ahead halfway down the run. I’m cursing under my breath. We can’t lose to them!

Because Every Point Counts

But miracles do indeed happen, and just as it appears we will lose this battle, mere boatlengths from the finish, they spin out of control and head-to-wind, sails flogging in the wind. Behind the boat pops up its pink-shirted skipper, flailing in the water and waving the broken tiller extension in the air as his crew scrambles to stop and get him back on board.

It’s been a long time since I felt such true joy in someone else’s misfortune. But we’ll happily take that point, thank you very much.

They must have sensed my smugness, or they simply have it out for us, because in the next and final race, they seek us out in the final 30 seconds of the start, intently tacking to leeward and shouting at us to head up. As they would, they stuff us head-to-wind, driving us into a pile of boats above us.

Like, come on, man. Is that really necessary?

Our hopes of a good start, and to finish the regatta on a high note, are toast. We’re pinned against their windward quarter as we cross the line. There’s nowhere to bail out, and there’s a long starboard tack ahead of us. We’re screwed.

Until Neville mumbles a set of OCS numbers over the crackle of the VHF. Our friends are soon peeling off and heading back to the line to restart.

With an open course, the four of us collectively dig in deeper for a keeper. Through sheer persistence, we’re rewarded with our best finish. Viola is nowhere in sight the entire race. 

As the saying goes, we are only as good as our last race, so that night, over the last of our Cruzan-and-Ting “Crack-O Stingers,” we groan out our aches, empty the box of adhesive bandages, and raise our glasses to the wisdom of our spring-training block—and one to our friends on Voila. Racing is nothing without our rivals, and we met ours with poise. We’ve stirred it up, all right.

The post Stir It Up in St. Thomas appeared first on Sailing World.

I’ve overstood the windward mark by a few boatlengths, and as I bear away, the windward runner blade lifts a foot or so off the ice, then slams down hard. Still, the little DN iceboat slings me downwind like a proverbial bat out of hell. I’ve rounded third of 11 in my debut iceboat race, and I’m feeling pretty cocky. Until one boat passes me to windward as if I’m standing still. Then, another boat zooms past me to leeward. By the end of the leg, I’m dead last. Clearly, I have a lot to learn about how to sail an iceboat, especially downwind.

As a Midwest teen, I caught the sailing bug early and spent most of my spare time racing dinghies and crewing on any racing boat that would have me. Going fast was always the goal, and I vividly remember crewing on a 28-foot E Scow and planing for a mile or more on a two-sail reach. This was, to date, the fastest sailboat ride of my life. It seemed as though we were sailing as fast as the wind, and I began to wonder if breaking the wind barrier under sail was possible.

A little research back then revealed that, at one point, iceboats were the fastest man-made inventions on Earth. Large stern-steering iceboats on the Hudson River regularly reached speeds approaching 100 mph as early as the 1880s. The secret to an iceboat’s speed is fairly simple: Runners on smooth ice have very low drag compared with a conventional sailboat hull. Runner blade resistance is almost negligible at full glide, and almost any well-designed rig will allow the craft to break the wind barrier. As an iceboat accelerates, its apparent wind shifts forward and the acceleration is addictively breathtaking. 

Getting hooked on the hard stuff

Over the centuries, iceboat designs have evolved. Most Hudson River iceboats had a wide runner plank forward, a rear oval-shaped seating platform, and a tiller-controlled steering runner aft. Most were sloop-rigged, but some had huge lateen sails. These designs worked well enough, but the stern-steerer rig had inherent control problems when the runner plank lifted, resulting in spinouts and capsizes—not fun when sailing at highway speeds.

Today, almost all iceboats are cat-rigged bow steerers with the runner plank aft. The DN is the largest one-design iceboat class in the world, but there are several other successful one-designs, including the Arrow, Nite and Renegade, to name a few. There are also development classes and hundreds of home-built designs. The current speed record is reputed to be 143 mph, set on Lake Winnebago, in Wisconsin, way back in 1938. In a high-tech boat with perfect ice and wind conditions, 200 mph is not out of the question.

Until my late teens, I had never seen an iceboat, but that all changed in 1963 when I was a freshman at Denison University near Columbus, Ohio. In the fall of that year, I had crewed on Lightnings at the Buckeye Lake YC not far from the Denison campus. That winter was particularly cold, with weeks of subzero temperatures. Thick, snow-free ice formed on all the area lakes, ponds and rivers.

One day in February, I borrowed a car and drove to Buckeye Lake, where I witnessed a vintage gaff-rigged iceboat tacking its way toward the docks. The wind was in the upper teens, and the ice was Zamboni smooth. Even hard on the wind, the boat was moving at an impressive speed. The rumble of the cast iron runner blades carving their way across the frozen surface was all I could hear until the boat approached, suddenly spun head-to-wind, and stopped yards from where I was standing.

The skipper, an older gentleman with a big smile on his face, beckoned me, and asked, “You want a ride?”

Apparently, his crew had failed to show, so he’d ventured out solo, albeit without using the jib. He needed a mainsheet trimmer. And I needed a thrill. So, I shoved him off, jumped in, and we rumbled off onto a broad reach. As our speed increased, the mainsail luffed, and following the skipper’s orders, I trimmed the sheet in hard. We accelerated to a speed I’d never experienced under sail. My stomach was telling me that we must be sailing down an incline, even though my brain knew that the ice was perfectly flat. It was an odd sensation. The skipper did some calculations in his head and estimated that we were doing upwards of 60 mph. I took his word for it, but it felt so much faster. We bombed around the lake for about 30 minutes before he dropped me off where he had picked me up, then sailed away. I never got his name, but I will never forget the surreal experience.

Like riding a bike—on ice

It was almost 20 years before I got to sail an iceboat again. That time, I was living in upstate New York, where DN racing was a popular diversion for soft-water sailors waiting out the long winters. One of these icemen was Bill Sill, from Sodus Bay, New York, a large bay just off the south shore of Lake Ontario, east of Rochester. Sill was a gifted dinghy racer but also built boats, including DNs at his father’s marina. We became friends on the summer dinghy racing circuit, and he was always talking about the joys (and frustrations) of iceboat racing.

One Friday night in early spring, he called to tell me that the bay has smooth ice. He had an extra boat and invited me up to race the following morning. At 6:00 a.m., I was in my VW Rabbit heading to Sodus, about 2 hours away. 

He was right. The conditions were near perfect. The ice was about a foot thick and as smooth as nature can make it. It was sunny and the wind was in the midteens. I was dressed in downhill-skiing clothing, tinted ski goggles and a full-length international-orange jumpsuit (to make it easier for the first responders to find my body).

Bill threw me a motorcycle helmet that loosely fit and explained that the first race would start in five minutes. He gave me a 60-second safety briefing, including the fact that in iceboat racing, a windward boat has right-of-way over a leeward boat. I reminded him that I’d never skippered an iceboat before and maybe I should spend a few hours practicing before entering a race.

He dismissed that notion, saying that practice would be “boring.” Racing, he said, will be a better way to learn. Five minutes later, we were on the starting line. Six of the 11 boats were angled on starboard tack and the other group on port. Somebody counted down aloud: “Five, four, three, two, one—GO!” and we were off.

There was a lingering deep freeze that produced fine ice conditions.  I didn’t own an iceboat at the time, so I committed to building one in one night.

Sailing a DN upwind is somewhat similar to soft water sailing, but a lot faster. At that moment, I was feeling somewhere between exhilarated and terrified. By dumb luck, I caught a big lift going into the first mark (a bright red traffic cone) and rounded in third place close to the leaders. I knew that I would have to tack downwind because going straight was simply not an option, but I also assumed that the sail needed to be eased a little sailing on a broad reach. Not so.

Within a few minutes, the entire fleet passed me on the way to the first jibe. Knowing what angle to sail, optimal sail trim, and when to jibe is a very seat-of-the-pants skill learned over time and many races, and changes constantly based on wind velocity, ice conditions, and tactical considerations. I was utterly lacking in those skills. I improved as the day wore on but still finished last in every heat, and yet, it was one of the best racing days of my life and certainly the most exciting.

To the ice by whatever means necessary

Iceboating is a true addiction, and there is something unexplainable that happens to hardwater fanatics whenever perfection presents itself. Drop everything, reschedule meetings, cancel plans. I can attest to this: One week in January long ago while living on Cazenovia Lake near Syracuse, New York, there was a lingering deep freeze that produced fine ice conditions.  I didn’t own an iceboat at the time, so I committed to building one in one night.

Using a pair of long downhill skis I’d rescued from the local landfill, I assembled a rudimentary stand-up iceboat out of scrap plywood, two-by-fours and an old Windsurfer rig and two sails. I bolted the skis to the two-by-four frame, angled so only the inside edge touched the ice. I then installed foot straps made out of rope and short lengths of garden hose looped through holes drilled through the plywood deck. It was done by midnight and ready to test.

The following day, the ice was perfect, and the wind was 10 to 15 knots. I donned a bicycle helmet, ski goggles and ice hockey pads, and rigged the larger of the two sails. My kids looked on, with one of them dubbing the boat “The Rails of Death” and predicting my imminent demise. Undeterred, I hopped on, pulled in the sail, and took off at an alarming rate of speed. Seconds into the ride, a puff hit, the sail got overpowered, and in a blink, I was thrown into a 720-degree flat spin, me still dangling in the foot loops. To my surprise, I rose from the ice injury-free, and my craft was undamaged. It was back to the beach to bend on the smaller sail.

My next runs were much more successful. Rails sailed surprisingly well with the smaller sail, and I could steer it like a Windsurfer by moving the sail fore and aft. My kids even tried it and admitted that my contraption was great fun. I did some rough calculations and concluded that it could sail in the 25 to 30 mph range. No world records would be set, but it was not bad for a one-night workshop wonder. 

Subsequent winters got warmer, making for more snow and thinner ice, but I couldn’t resist buying an Icefish class boat that came on the market at a bargain price. The Icefish is an aluminum tube design that’s steered with foot pedals. Its double fiberglass seats look as though they’ve been stolen from a school lunchroom. This one was powered by a 75-square-foot Sunfish lateen sail with a Sunfish mast modified with fore and side stays. I got about five years of memorable days of breakneck speed on the Icefish before selling it to a farmer who wanted to try sailing it on his frozen 5-acre pond. 

These days, I get an occasional ride on a friend’s Locksley Skimmer, an aluminum frame affair with a canvas seat and a 45-square-foot sail. It’s no DN, but it’s still a thrill to sail on the rare days when we get clear ice and a fresh breeze.

Skills transfer to soft water sailing

Iceboating skills certainly translate to conventional sailing and racing. One of my Cazenovia clubmates, Ray Cudney, who sails a DN when conditions permit but also races everything from Lasers to J Boats, says, “One thing that always struck me was how quickly an iceboat responds to the slightest of sail trim. Iceboating teaches one how important the small adjustments are because it produces an instantaneous response. When you get it right, everything tightens up, the mast bends like a pretzel, and you are given that instant speed reward.”

Cudney also notes that small adjustments in mast design, runner shaping, perfect runner alignment and plank interaction, and even efforts to reduce bow-stay diameter all play a part in developing winning boatspeed. If you think about it, there are striking similarities between iceboats and the current crop of foiling craft. It’s all about reducing resistance and drag to a minimum, and both can sail several times the speed of the true wind.

Perhaps future America’s Cup skippers should have winter training blocks in Minnesota in February. But then again, once they experienced the rush of iceboating, they might be forever jaded and never go back to soft-water sailing.

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Paris Henken glances over her shoulder and takes in a Waszp going through its paces on Alamitos Bay in a wispy midmorning breeze. It’s a warm and sunny Mother’s Day, and the Alamitos Bay YC is already abuzz with the brunch crowd taking seats and sailors rigging in the boatyard. Henken and her sailing partner, Helena Scutt—both of whom are ABYC members and new residents in Long Beach, California—have walked to the club from their homes nearby. They’re now full-time residents of the sailing venue of the 2028 Olympics. They’re both clearly relaxed and excited to be where they are in life right now—teammates again in the 49erFX.

“I grew up in San Diego sailing Sabots, and I’m looking behind me here at ABYC, where I learned to race from age 10, then as a youth sailor, I’d come here every year in the 29er for the CISA Racing Clinic,” says Henken, 29. “I have been familiar with this area for a very long time.”

For Henken, the time between those foundational clinics and returning to her childhood sailing ground has included completing a college degree at the College of Charleston, where she sailed three Olympic campaigns all in the 49erFX—placing 10th with Scutt in Rio in 2016 when she was just 19, and two with Anna Tunnicliffe (Tokyo and Paris), losing both times in the Trials to Maggie Shea and Stephanie Roble.

Scutt’s path to the Olympic scene was different, but by no means less spectacular. Learning to sail at the age of 15, Scutt immersed herself in the sport, competing in her first Olympic Games at age 22. She completed a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford, became a Moth Class world champion, and had the distinction of being the only woman on the New York YC’s American Magic design team for the 37th America’s Cup.

Los Angeles Calling

With LA2028 on the horizon, unfinished Olympic business was all-consuming for Henken. The FX had been in the back of her mind since the 2024 Trials. She came up empty-handed after some crew scouting with the assistance of America One Racing (A1R), and then recalled an out-of-the-blue conversation with Scutt. On that call, Scutt had nonchalantly mentioned that she’d been thinking about FX sailing again.

“I thought Helena was calling me to catch up, because she’s my sister-in-law and we hadn’t seen each other in so long, then all of a sudden she brings up FX sailing, and I was like, ‘Whoa!’” Henken says with a laugh.

Realizing she had a lifetime to follow her engineering career, Scutt jumped on the opportunity to capitalize on more than a decade of exceptional sailing experiences. And competing on her home turf for a medal was an opportunity not to be missed.

“There’s nothing like the FX for me,” says Scutt, 32. “I love doublehanded sailing, working with somebody else, and the FX rewards being in sync in a way that I haven’t found in another boat. It’s fast and I like trapezing, but for me it’s about teamwork.”

Within days of teaming up, the pair headed to Palma for the first regatta of this year’s new Sailing Grand Slam Series. At the Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca (Spain), they had a terrific first regatta together, finishing eighth in a 46-strong fleet. “We’ve never had such a short lead-up, so we weren’t sure how it was going to go in Palma,” Henken says, “but it was all about getting racing experience with the competition.”

A few weeks later, the duo were in Hyeres, France. Rather than teams splitting into gold and silver fleets, this regatta was one fleet of 38 boats. Having never sailed an FX regatta with that many boats on the line, which the pair found competitive and challenging, Henken and Scutt secured second overall after 15 exhausting races.

“It was a marathon,” Henken says. “That was five days of three races per day with a medal race. We just kept solidifying what we knew how to do well in our control, and anything else we couldn’t control was about adapting. We could have won the regatta right at the end if I had called a better layline at the finish. Nonetheless, we surprised ourselves, and it’s exciting to know that we are competitive at the beginning of this journey.”

The competition is hard to pick right now, Scutt acknowledges. “It’s not lost on us that a lot of teams took a break after the Games, but we’re excited to already be beating teams who have just done the Games.”

Combined efforts over multiple campaigns places Henken and Scutt in an enviable position; both agree it is different doing a quad at age 30 versus 20. They have four years to work on this next quad, which is two more they’ve had in each of their previous campaigns. Not having to start over with a new crew is a big deal.

“With Helena, we are exponentially more steps forward than I would have been with anyone else because I know her and she knows the boat,” Henken says. “It takes so much time to be really good at this boat; the past 10 years of my life have catered toward Olympic sailing, and now I have all the tools and skill to make anything happen.”

Scutt agrees: “When I know what I want, I move pretty quickly, and this is why we jumped into a pretty competitive calendar right off the bat. I’m really excited that I bring a lot of skills that I wouldn’t have otherwise had if I had kept sailing the boat (after Rio), as far as technical aspects and being in faster boats than skiffs, and even the management experience is helpful.”

Together the Quad Squad

Scutt and Henken feel fortunate to be two of nine athletes selected to be part of the elite America 1 Racing Team for this next quad, with its emphasis on performance planning around elements such as scheduling, training, fitness and logistics.

“They know us very well as people and athletes,” Scutt says. “Our funding is not contingent upon our performance; they are not worried about results because they believe in our abilities, so we can focus on being professional athletes. Their help takes the weight of fundraising off our shoulders.”

Not forgetting that the Henken-Scutt union now includes a bronze medalist in the family, the pair are more motivated than ever to set their sights high for 2028. They’ve quickly adapted to the systems and processes that brought Hans Henken and teammate Ian Barrows their medals in Marseille. With a prior commitment for Palma, coach Willie McBride joined the pair very recently, so Henken coached his wife and sister for that regatta.

“It was really cool,” Scutt says with a broad smile. “Hans knows the boats inside and out, just as Paris knows the FX, so we benefitted from their combined knowledge. He really emphasizes the process and the mindset, and he’s coming at it from the athlete’s perspective, not necessarily that of a coach. He can also be super-honest with both of us; there is no beating around the bush.”

The Henken-Scutt duo are off to an enviable start; next up, the pair will race the 2025 European Championship in Thessaloniki, Greece, in June, followed by the fifth and final regatta of the Sailing Grand Slam Series, the Long Beach Olympic Classes Regatta, in July. The 49erFX World Championship in Cagliari, Italy, in October, will be one final check of the year’s progress.

“We’ve already had great success, and we can’t guarantee an end result,” Henken says, “but we can guarantee that we will try to do everything we can to be successful in 2028.”

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