With the BirdyFish Race resting its dolly on the sands of SkyBeach Resort, we watch as Tampa Bay glasses-off. With our Boat of the Year testing session on weather pause, we head to a beachside thatch hut for a debrief in the shade. Up next is the VX Two, described as a 15-foot ­doublehanded hiking skiff. Without any breeze, we are not rushing to go sailing because this beauty demands whitecaps.

While we wait for the sea breeze to kick in, the VX Two’s new US representative, Ed Furry, soon gives us the low-down. This boat is built by Mackay Boats in New Zealand, which also builds Olympic 470s, 29ers, 49ers and a list of other high-performance class hulls, and as expected, the VX Two is one sharp-looking vessel. The hull itself is identical to Mackay’s VX Evo hull, but the deck is all VX Two, configured for an intermediate doublehanded skiff team.

“It’s a simple boat to sail, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to sail,” Furry says. “It’s easy to sail and race, but it will require a bit more of a technical sailor. For someone coming out of junior sailing, it will be a little sportier—it’s a fast little boat.”    

Simple and slick are the first words that come to mind as Furry tours us through the boat. High-level development and tweaking of the systems by the engineers at Mackay before launching this boat into the world has produced a stunner. It’s as if all the temptations to over-tech and complicate it were ­intentionally avoided. From the transom to the bow and the spliced lines to minimalist hardware, there’s nothing superfluous about it. That’s the sort of obsessiveness to detail that gets them to 209 pounds all-up.

The flip-up rudder has a quick-release skewer, and the daggerboard slots flush into the trunk. To note, the foils are super-high-aspect specimens with razor-sharp edges and pointy tips that will need the tender loving care they deserve.

The mainsheet comes straight off the boom, skiff-style, which really opens up the cockpit and puts the sail load at hand. An experienced forward crew will appreciate floating-jib leads and the smooth-­running halyard purchases at the mast for quick and dynamic mode changes, as well as the curved carbon jib-cleat brackets that don’t have any hard edges. The spinnaker is a single-line launch-and-retrieval ­system for a high-clew kite that’s pulled through a large throat in the foredeck and into a sock on the cockpit floor. The rig is a tapered one-piece carbon extrusion, but future rigs will be two-part, Furry says.

Like the BirdyFish, the VX Two’s simplicity doesn’t require much of a briefing, so 30 minutes later, with diamonds on the bay, Boat of the Year judges Mike Ingham and Erik Shampain kick off their session in a 10-knot afternoon sea breeze. We give full-throttle chase in the RIB as they tear off across Tampa Bay. With the kite lifting the bow and the judges leaning aft, they’re easily pegging double digits on the boat’s Vakaros unit.

“We hit 13.7, and it was really easy to get there,” Shampain says. “And it isn’t hairy at all when you do get there. The kite is a small skiff design with a narrow clew box, like on the 49er and 29er, so it’s really easy to trim and pull around the zippered jib luff through jibes. Two big pulls on the sheet, and it’s through.”

What impresses Ingham the most is the feel on the helm. “It’s almost crazy-responsive both upwind and downwind,” he says. “And the boat is also really responsive to crew-weight movements. It’s a boat where you’re going to be really active and moving a lot, but it also has a decent amount of stability. Yes, it’s a skiff, but it feels much more like a big dinghy.”

“It’s super-efficient” is Shampain’s immediate assessment after sailing. “Everything runs so smoothly; there’s no friction anywhere. The sails are perfect, with a nice-looking main and the battens on the jib. At first, I thought the kite would be too small and flat, but it was really good for planing.”

What stands out most about the VX Two for Shampain, however, is the build quality and detailing. “It’s beautifully finished—elegant with the joins and the rounded corners—and the ergonomics were great. In the tacks, when I was ­forward, I wasn’t stumbling on the kite bag, and it was easy to get straight to the hiking strap.”

For Ingham, the angled contours of the cockpit tanks are comfortable for hiking. “It fits my body well, the straps are in the right place, and there aren’t any pressure points on the back of my legs.”

Both judges agree that the boat delivers next-level skiff-style dinghy sailing, so it will require some getting used to, but it’s the sort of boat you’ll be frothing to rig when the breeze is on. “You will get wet, but this boat will be forgiving at high speeds,” Shampain says.

In the event of a capsize, righting lines run beneath rails, but for our capsize test, Shampain, at only 145 pounds, went straight to the daggerboard and righted the boat himself, scooping me (at 185 pounds dry) in it, holding on to the hiking strap. Easy.The boat, as sailed, was priced at $26,000, which the judges find surprising given the quality of the boat and its performance. It is perhaps the price—the dollar-for-speed—that has Shampain pondering which of the fantastic four (J/7, Storm 18, BirdyFish Race, and VX Two tested in St. Petersburg) is most worthy of a Boat of the Year title. We’ll find out this fall; we have many more boats to consider. For now, it’s in the running, but all four delivered excellence.

The post VX Two: The Big-Kid Skiff appeared first on Sailing World.

For the second day of our 2025 Boat of the Year winter edition in St. Petersburg, Florida, in February, we wake up to the welcome sounds of breeze through palm fronds, knowing that the first sail of the day is a foiling session. On tap is the curious 15-foot BirdyFish, said to be the best entree-to-foiling craft there is. With a distinct scow hull, J-shaped foils, a rudder with an elevator, and a powerful sail plan, the boat is plenty quick. Bonus points there.

But there are also two compelling attributes for wannabe foilers: It doesn’t tip over when it stops, like every other monohull foiler. That means more time sailing, less time swimming. And second, the thing is beginner-proof, which of course means more time sailing, less time fixing or figuring it out. Moth sailors can relate.

Easy flight is the premise of the BirdyFish, whose French designers and builders dabble in the IMOCA space and have figured out how to make this little scow fly so effortlessly. If you can sail a dinghy, you can ­definitely sail the BirdyFish.

“This boat sails like any other boat,” Hardy Peters, of East Coast Sailboats, says. He’s the boat’s distributor in North Carolina and has been sailing the foils off it since he got his hands on it this past fall. “But once it takes off, you’re following your apparent wind. It’s that simple.”

Hardy’s 20-minute ­presail boat tour is all that the judges require. While the BirdyFish looks complex on its dolly, there actually are not many ropes to pull, and everything is sorted. The J foils slot into casings like leeboards (and can be reversed if need be) and are stored in their upright position, with a lift line leading up to the mast. Once they’re in their slots, the rest of the rigging procedure is cake: Hoist the jib, the gennaker on a furler, and the main up the groove of the carbon rig. Nothing to it.

One important piece of gear, Peters points out, is the bungee keeper that goes from the transom corners to the forward tip of the tiller. “That keeps you honest by keeping the rudder centered,” he says. “The rudder movements with this boat are incremental—I’m talking inches only. The only time you’re pushing the rudder hard is when you’re tacking. The bungee is a safety feature for learning to foil, to dampen the turn and keep you from spinning out. When you get good, you can take it off—if you want.”

One of the biggest challenges for Moth and Waszp sailors is launching, but the BirdyFish comes with no drama. Lower the rudder and foils about a foot, get the boat past the shallow, unfurl the jib to get to deeper water, put the rudder down (at 3 feet of depth), and then push both foils down into their cassettes. Put the keeper bungee over the top, cleat the foil lock-down lines, and you’re off and running. No further adjustments required.

Following this very procedure, Shampain jumps in first with Peters, and they’re promptly off and foiling, hovering only 2 feet above the surface—that’s maximum ride height. There are no mechanical adjustments to foil. It’s all about shifting weight forward, building speed, waiting for liftoff, and then shifting weight aft to let ’er rip.

“I think they nailed it,” Shampain says after he singlehandedly sails the boat in 10 to 12 knots of breeze and flat water. “Without a lot of experience, and having sailed Moths once or twice—barely successfully—I felt pretty successful. It was really intuitive. What was amazing is how much real apparent wind it was making.”

Shampain’s true-wind angle was about 65 to 70 true when foiling, noting that the boat goes upwind just fine with the jib and fairly deep with the gennaker, which would make it a good one-design course-racing boat. When it’s in displacement mode, it delivers the same sensation as a scow. “While it’s not going to be the fastest foiler at the club,” he says, “it will be the most accessible. Adults and youth sailors can experience and learn how to foil in a safe way, where there’s much less risk of crashing and getting hurt. Safe, easy entry to foiling, that’s what this boat is about.”

Ingham, who was rehabbing a shoulder surgery, has his reservations about jumping into the BirdyFish, but after watching Shampain and Peters, he’s keen to give it a go. He’s glad he did.

“The innovation on this boat is like, wow,” Ingham says. “It is an easy foiler, but it’s so responsive to fore-and-aft weight movement, so you can tweak it to get good at it, but at the same time, to get it foiling, you don’t have to be good at it. It’s just kind of automatic.

The boat does, however, have a tendency and ability to turn really fast if you let go over the tiller, he adds. “I felt like I had to hold the rudder really firm and stable, but I also had to drive with a purpose—like if I wanted the boat to go up, I had to make it go up, but when I wanted it to go straight, I had to work really hard to go straight.”

With the class active in Europe, Peters is confident that US class racing is not far behind. He has imported a half-dozen boats, with a vision for a one-design circuit soon. The boat is currently available in a Fun version for $24,000 and a Race version for $25,000, but the next batch, Peters says, will have price increases.

The post BirdyFish Race: Your Easy Ticket to Fly appeared first on Sailing World.

The first nominee on the list for Sailing World’s Boat of the Year judging team in February is the J/7, which J Boats unveiled in the dead of Rhode Island’s winter in December 2024, ice on deck and all. Here in St. Petersburg, basking in its slip at the SkyBeach Resort, it looks better already. On board to brief us is Chris Tait, a dealer from the Northeast who’s handling the J/7’s Florida roadshow. He’s sold a lot of J Boats over the years, but this one, he tells us, has everyone’s attention. Small is the new big.

“This boat really fills a void in the marketplace for a small keelboat daysailer,” Tait says. “It’s a simple family boat, a first-time boat, a club boat, a program boat. It ticks a lot of boxes.”

It’s amazing how many people the boat’s cockpit swallows and still sails impeccably, he adds, drawing our attention to 8 feet of comfortable seating. There are even seats aft of the ­end-boom mainsheet bridle. The J/7 is indeed spacious, and the ­coamings are angled outboard, which makes them comfortable when sitting inboard or on the rail for a better view. 

“You want to hike so bad, but you don’t have to,” Tait says. “We’re all used to ­hiking on a boat, but this is just as comfortable sitting back, chilling out, and enjoying the sail.”
US yacht clubs are increasingly turning to club-owned fleets to attract and retain members; the J/7, Tait says, encompasses all of what they are asking for: a simple and durable boat with low offseason maintenance. Belowdecks on the J/7 is glossy white gelcoat, a 6-foot V-berth, and 5-foot settees. There’s no battery, electronics or facilities. There’s not a single piece of wood on the boat or a ­redundant piece of hardware.

For the jib, 2-to-1 sheets lead to Harken SnubAir winches. The mainsheet cascades to a swivel cleat on a post, and the Dyneema backstay splits and snap-shackles to the cockpit walls. The rig is a deck-stepped (hinged) aluminum spar on a compression post. There’s a ring on the mast for symmetric sailing and an optional bolt-on prod for an asymmetric spinnaker. There are no downwind sails for our demo, but the judges sure wish they were.

Keeping it simple also keeps the price down for club-flee­­­t purchases, and to that end, we’re told that the China-built and US-assembled base-boat price is just shy of $55,000, excluding sails. The full sail-away package brings it to $70,000 with a trailer (there’s a single lift point for hoists, and the boat weighs 2,300 pounds).

Shallow draft was high on the priority list for designer Al Johnstone, and the result is a 3.8-foot trapezoidal-shaped bulb keel, ideal for skinny coastal waters and inland freshwater playgrounds. We’re happy to have it when sailing through Tampa Bay’s shifty shoals.

With the boat brief complete, the judges exit the marina under mainsail and into a 10-knot northerly that lays the water board flat.

BOTY judges Erik Shampain and Mike Ingham promptly have it gliding upwind, wishing they had another J/7 to line up against. It’s in their nature to tweak, so they fidget with leads and controls and their weight placement, and soon settle in and relax. There’s not much they can do but sit back and enjoy the sail. That is the point.

Before turning downwind, Ingham spins the boat through a mock 720 penalty turn, and the boat circles its length. The boat’s straight and deep ­rudder blade glides it through the turns, even without any kinetic assist, confirming that it would be a responsive boat for ­club-level team- and match-racing skirmishes.

Once they turn downwind, Shampain instinctively moves forward and crouches at the shrouds to wing the jib, wishing instead he had a spinnaker sheet in hand. Still, the boat tracks nicely dead-downwind with a slight weather heel, responding to subtle weight movements.

“I really like the idea of a short sprit and a furling ­spinnaker,” Shampain says with a grin after a few minutes of fighting the jib clew. “Or a jib boom. But, ­definitely, a spinnaker is a must.”

Ingham, who has spent more time on the helm, notes after sailing that the boat “has really nice stability and steers really well, even from a dead-stop. There’s always flow on the rudder, so I can see how this would be a really fun club racing boat. It’s pretty darn simple.”

The post Simple Pleasures With the J/7 appeared first on Sailing World.

The Storm 18, which its creators categorized as a daysailer when entering this new US-built small craft into Sailing World’s 2026 Boat of the Year competition, is so much more. The design brief is for a versatile craft for clubs and hyperactive ­sailing centers that need a boat for teaching first, racing second, and for the adults and the youth squads expanding into team and match racing.

The backstory on the Storm 18 is a long one, but it takes root in the Northeast, where a number of Long Island Sound-based yacht clubs have been pushing their vintage Ideal 18s well past expiration dates. Storm Marine, a new company formed to bring this boat to market, identified a demand for a lower-­cost US-built boat for clubs and community sailing programs. A collective of industry veterans conceptualized the boat, produced a prototype, and for the better part of a year, put it into the hands of opinionated sailors and program directors. What was presented to the judges in St. Petersburg in February was close to final, but there was more tweaking to come. By early spring, they said, they would be into production with the real deal.

The 1,300-pounder is expected to “deliver an exceptional sailing experience,” Storm Marine’s Bill Crane says, “a stable and safe platform that is versatile enough to be used by learn-to-sail participants, junior sailors, family racing, interclub racing (fleet racing, team racing, and match racing) and ­institutional staff.”

That’s a lot of boxes to check, but after a few hours of sailing, both BOTY judges, Mike Ingham and Erik Shampain agree that they’ve somehow managed to tick them all.

“They found their niche,” Ingham says. “It’s not flashy, but they got it right for what they want to do with it, which is a lot.”

As the boat skews heavily to institutional usage, it is essentially overbuilt, Crane says. “Whereas a lot of boats have stringers and bulkheads, this boat has two main pieces. With just two transverse frames, the vacuum-bagged hull and deck are flat-bonded along the rail, which is protected with a rub rail.”

One interesting approach used by the builder, Fulcrum Speedworks, is gluing all fittings to the laminate. No holes required: Every piece of hardware is mounted to glued G-Tech plates with stainless-steel threaded inserts. This approach has also allowed them to experiment with hardware locations and refine the boat’s ergonomics during its development, and there is a lot of hardware to handle the asymmetric- and symmetric-­spinnaker setups. For the asymmetric, there’s a retractable pole in a foredeck trough, and the spinnaker pole is loosely stowed inside stainless-­steel brackets on the boom.

The aluminum boom is a ­substantial rectangular section and quite a head-knocker (I can attest). According to Crane, the prototype’s boom had already been raised 40 mm from its original location, and will be raised another 120 mm. The boom will also be lengthened 100 mm to offset the change. Another change to the final version includes ditching the heavy and expensive aluminum rudder head. They will instead slot the tiller directly into the top of the rudder. What was, for our test, a kick-up rudder will be fixed.

Sailing it doublehanded in 10 knots and flat water, Ingham’s assessment is that “it’s a ­pleasure to drive. It’s very ­sensitive to body weight and sail trim.”

Shampain agrees, adding: “It does have a nice balance and a sportboat sort of feeling, but there’s some weight to it that gets it through the chop. It’s really responsive to crew weight and heel, but it did feel like a heavier boat at times when it got really light.”

Crane is OK with the boat being overbuilt. He likes the ­slogan: “It’s a fast slow boat.”

Inexperienced sailors should feel safe, he says, and experienced sailors will have fun with it. It is, indeed, stable at the dock and under sail, the judges note. They tried to force a capsize, but the fin keel and 245 kilograms of ballast weren’t having it.

Having been left with a ­positive ­lasting impression, both Ingham and Shampain return to shore pleased with the responsiveness of the spade rudder and the overall comfort of the boat. Four adults max would be about right, but it would be an easy singlehander too.

“It was a real pleasure to drive,” Shampain says. “And all the right systems and sail controls are there in the right place to teach everything—vang, outhaul, cunningham and traveler. I like that they didn’t oversimplify the boat; it’s just techie enough, but with all the seating and the soft deck [SeaDek panels], it would be a great little boat for harbor sailing.”

The post The All-Purpose Storm 18 appeared first on Sailing World.

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the Universal Rule, introduced by Nathaniel Herreshoff in the late 1890s. The rule aligned with letters of the alphabet, with I being the largest class, followed by the infamous J Class down to the S Class, a small open daysailer still actively raced in the US. European preservationists have long maintained many of these yachts and their history. The P Class is one of the Universal Rule era that has attracted the strong interest recently from Europe. Over the past 10 years, four of these classics have been found, restored and shipped off to Europe. The class was originally designed to ply New York’s Long Island Sound, Newport and water north of Boston, in the area of Marblehead. The yachts came from the boards of some of the most famous designers of the period: Starling Burgess, Nathaniel Herreshoff and William Gardner.

The lead proponents for this class revival are Bruno Troublé, America’s Cup skipper, and John Anderson, a transplanted Brit who has restored four P Class yachts for Troublé and his group of friends. Troublé once admired Falcon II, a Q Class yacht during a New York YC cruise, which Anderson and his father-in-law had rebuilt. Troublé was so enamored with the boat that he enlisted one of his friends, Pascal Oddo, into buying it.

Bringing the boat to Europe and racing in the Med, Oddo recruited his brother Phillipe for part of his crew. Intrigued by the yacht, Phillipe insisted he have his own, but he wanted something a little bigger. Oddo and Troublé then spoke to Anderson, who had worked on Falcon II, and were soon venturing to Wisconsin to inspect a ­couple of boats. There, they found the P Class Olympian, designed by William Gardner.

They had Anderson fly out to look at the boat and estimate the restoration work, as well as determining how they would reconfigure the sail plan back to a gaff rig. Olympian had spent most of its time in the Midwest. The owner had maintained the boat to a degree and had even installed a carbon Marconi rig. Oddo purchased the boat and had it shipped to Anderson’s farm in Warren, Maine, where he built a new gaff rig for it. They anticipated the deck needing to be replaced, but it was discovered that all of the deck braces were rotted.

The project expanded to replacing the entire deck and moving the engine to the centerline of the boat. The deckhouse was reduced because the existing one was esthetically too large. Several days before the boat was to be shipped to Europe, it was put in the water, the rig was organized, and then the boat was trucked to Newport, where Troublé and its owner took it for its final sail in US waters. Roughly two years of work had been required to refit the classic yacht, and Olympian arrived in Europe in 2014.

The Oddo brothers were now racing—although not against each other—one with a P Class and the other with a Q. Naturally, another of their friends took an interest in the P. This time, a search uncovered a boat that had been renamed Chips, which had spent most of its recent days in Newport. The boat was originally called Onda and spent its early years in Marblehead, where it was designed and built by W. Starling Burgess, the designer of three America’s Cup defenders in the 1930s.

The rumored name for Chips came from a story that at some point it was won in a poker game. Adrian Pearsall, an architect and furniture designer, bought the boat in 1986, restored it in Pennsylvania, and took it to Newport, where the family sailed and raced it. In 1993, it was sold to Genevieve Cerf, but with the right of first refusal for Pearsall and his family if it was ever to be sold. In 2007, a buyer approached Cerf, and she sold Chips back to Pearsall’s son Jed and his partner Bill Doyle. They sailed and raced between Newport and Marblehead until Anderson and Troublé came to Newport to take a look.

Anderson’s assessment was that it needed everything. Every frame in the boat was broken and its backbone was rotted, but Frenchman Bernard Liautaud wanted the boat. So Chips was shipped up to Anderson’s farm, where he lifted the hull off its keel and replaced all of the frames.

“I think we kept three yellow pine planks on either side, and we had to replace the rest,” Anderson says. “We used Sipo rather than the yellow pine and riveted the whole boat rather than use screws.”

A new engine was installed, the coach house trimmed, and its brass portlights were replaced with smaller beveled-glass ­windows. “We kept the original mast but made it taller,” Anderson says. “Bruno wanted a larger sail plan, so we scarfed in about 6 feet to the foot of the mast.”

Liautaud then had it shipped to France in 2018 to join Olympian. With two P Class restorations now racing in France, there was an even greater interest in the class. Troublé was on the lookout for another. Anderson knew of Corinthian, in Connecticut, but doubted that the owner would sell it. Corinthian was designed and built in 1911 by Herreshoff, his project No. 708. The boat changed hands several times before finding its way to Michigan, where a number of the P Class boats seemed to have spent a lot of time. It then ended up in Louisiana and was not well-looked-after.

Glenn Kim, of Connecticut, had Corinthian trucked to Connecticut, where it sat on blocks for a number of years. He was not initially interested in selling, but like all the others, Corinthian was eventually sent to Anderson’s farm for a total restoration, lifted off its keel, and stripped the bones to save its interior cedar planking. A new coach house and engine were installed. The cedar interior was stripped of paint and varnished to its original state before finally being trucked to Newport and promptly shipped to Europe in 2021 for owner Sebastien Bazin.

In 2021, with three boats now racing, the class was generating even greater interest. Stephan Lobmeyr, an Austrian living in Paris and an International 420 sailor as a youth, was next to take the leap, and his search led to the Herreshoff-designed Joyant.

Joyant was quite a bit larger than other P Class yachts racing at the time of its build, being 58 feet overall and about 35 feet, 6 inches at the waterline. This was about 3 feet longer on the waterline than its competitors, and it had about 200 square feet of additional sail area. Following its launch in 1911, Joyant’s racing results were so dominant that other designers and members of the class said that the rating rule needed to be changed to make the displacement and sail area proportional to the length.

By the early 1920s, Joyant was on the Great Lakes and was converted from a gaff to a Marconi rig. After World War II, the boat was back on the East Coast, first in Miami, then New York, and ultimately in Portland, Maine, where in 1975, while being lifted by a crane, it was dropped on its side and declared a loss. Two furniture-makers hauled its remains to Cape Cod, hoping to salvage wood from the hull and deck.

They found that process harder than they thought, so the yacht sat in a backyard for 25 years, until restoration master Jeff Rutherford, of California, visited its remains on behalf of client Bob McNeil. When Rutherford saw the state of the boat—it was missing its keel and rudder, plus there was significant deterioration of the hull and deck—he told McNeil that it was not worth the effort, but McNeil proceeded anyway.

Joyant was dug out from its resting place, placed in a custom cradle, and shipped to California. McNeil returned the yacht to its original configuration—without an engine, and back to a gaff rig. Ninety-five percent of the boat was built with new wood, and to minimize maintenance, it was encased in fiberglass. McNeil sailed with his family and in races between Newport and his Maine home in Islesboro.

After McNeil’s passing, Joyant was available, and it was Troublé, with current owner Stephan Lobmeyr, who came knocking. A fourth member of the class would be attractive and might enable the four to have their own starts. Joyant had risen from the ashes roughly 20 years before, but there was still work to be done, with the most painstaking part being the removal of the fiberglass shell. There was also modification to the rigging to equate it with the other P Class boats, and an engine installed.

With the arrival of Joyant, there are now four P Class boats racing in the Med. There are few others still in existence: one in Italy awaiting restoration; another in New York, which has been converted to a ketch; and one in Nova Scotia, which appears to have been well-preserved. Perhaps they too might join the European fleet someday, but in the meantime, P Class racing continues, drawing the admiration worthy of these ­fascinating classics and the stories that are preserved deep in their timbers, or ­whatever remains of them.

The post P Class Sails from Past to Present appeared first on Sailing World.

The Royal Ocean Racing Club’s now-classic Caribbean 600, which starts and finishes in Antigua after snaking through nearly a dozen islands, once again provided perfect conditions. On start day in mid-February, the fleet set off in 16- to 20-knot easterly trades, beating toward Antigua’s windward side. On board Bryon Ehrhart’s 88-footer, Lucky—a machine that likes reaching more than beating—we couldn’t wait to get to the top, crack sheets, and show the fleet what this monster is capable of. After weaving through the early starters and swapping tacks with the upwind-oriented boats in our class, the moment came to get the fractional code zero on the stick.

Our plan was to sail triple-­headed to Barbuda, a 120-degree true-wind-angle reach. Lucky’s skilled foredeck team and sailhandlers got the required sails on deck, plugged them in, and prepared for launch, all while fire-hose conditions swept the deck. These are the guys who make it happen. With reaching sails deployed and the final upwind workhorse bagged, the boat locked in at 20 to 25 knots of boatspeed at 25 degrees of heel, and the fleet was left in our wake. We had a 5-mile lead after the 35-mile leg to Barbuda. That is what Lucky was built to do.

Built in 2013 and campaigned by George David as Rambler 88, this Juan Kouyoumdjian design is an ocean slayer, built to win line-honors trophies and smash records when the conditions permit. Ehrhart, a longtime ocean racer, insurance executive and a robotically nice guy, took on the project two years ago. He began his international ocean-racing projects in 2006 with a TP52 of the same name, which he and his crew sailed the absolute bottom off. After that, he moved on to a Reichel/Pugh 63, on which I had the pleasure of sailing with him, winning the Newport to Lizard Transatlantic Race in 2015. From the 63, Ehrhart upgraded to a Maxi 72 and now the 88-foot Lucky. When he sponsored the 88, he knew that he needed a top-notch crew—and it just so happened, the boat came with one.

Led by Brad Butterworth, this team is as deep is it gets. They’ve sailed so many miles together that the efficiency and fun are palpable and infectious. Where other crews brief before maneuvers, these guys look at each other, utter a couple of pleasantries, and then get the job done as seamlessly and as skillfully as possible.

I had the pleasure of sailing with this group many moons ago on the Judel/Vrolijk 66 Numbers, owned by Dan Meyers. Back then, I was the lowest guy on the totem pole. My original job was to pack kites on board, fix them at night, drive trailers to and from regattas, and speak only when spoken to. Fifteen years later, I’m glad they’ve accepted me back. Despite my new “watch captain” title, I still try to operate like the guy who shoehorned his way in as a 20-something looking for an industry foothold, and if it weren’t for one of Ehrhart’s amazing ­initiatives, I’d still be the nipper.

Ehrhart has mandated that the boat always have six American under-30s working in the program and sailing races when opportunities arise. Trust me—the deliveries, preparation for each race, and boatwork are hard. These youngsters work long hours under the tutelage of some of the toughest cookies in the business. Stu Wilson is Lucky’s boat captain, and he’s in charge of the workforce. He runs a tight ship and is developing their skills to a level where they can lead future race programs. They learn to respect and develop the skills, intensity and precision necessary to compete at a high level. Sam Rosenbaum was able to do the transatlantic race with us this past winter, becoming a 21-year-old record holder, and Luke Tougas raced the 600 with us, an ­experience that other 19-year-olds can only dream about.

Tougas pitched in everywhere he could as the boat careened through the Caribbean daylight and darkness. On a boat like Lucky, in this race, you don’t usually go more than a watch without a maneuver or a sail change, except for the long run from St. Martin’s Tintamarre Island to Guadeloupe. The lee of Guadeloupe can often determine the race’s winner. When you get there has a huge impact on what diurnal effects you experience. We got there midmorning, less than 24 hours into the race, and were met with leftover drainage that would soon give way to some thermal reverse flow. The keen eye of Juan Vila, our navigator, helped us keep the boat in pressure and get back to the accelerated gradient on the far side of the island. As the proverbial canaries in the Guadeloupe coal mine, we watched our rivals on the 100-foot Leopard close up on us, but as soon as we were back into the trades, we didn’t need to look back.

Other than one squall line that we were able to play to our advantage between La Désirade and Barbuda the second time, it was straightforward. After a long, final 30-mile beat from the island of Redonda to Antigua, we were crowned line-honors champions—another great result for Ehrhart, a crew of grizzled veterans, and a young guy who’ll never forget the experience. Whether it’s 0600, which is when we finished, or happy hour, there’s one thing you can count on with this race: flats of cold Carib lager that the race organizers deliver to the boat when the dock lines are taut. This race is an exhausting sprint for a boat like Lucky and its crew. It’s an accomplishment that deserves to be celebrated—and an easy reminder that I’m lucky to be included.

The post Lucky’s Caribbean 600 Victory: A Record-Smashing Sprint appeared first on Sailing World.

Before we tackle the hardware phase of the Still 2 Crazy project, let’s rewind for a moment to its beginnings. My father, Jon Shampain, and his boat partner, Robert Plant—with my help—purchased and started a full rehab of a vintage 1996 Melges 30, a sportboat that had runners, an articulating bowsprit, and overlapping genoas. Dad and Plant started by stripping the boat completely, even removing the chainplates. Then every hole was filled, and delamination in the gelcoat was ground away, filled, and faired. Because the boat is now almost three decades old, we added knees under the stanchions and ribs under the genoa lead system to prevent the deck from flexing. We also added laminate under areas where we knew there would be high loads, such as under padeyes and runner-­block attachments. We added winches for the runners, so we also added pads and backing plates for the new winch locations.

The runners were a good place to start. Originally, the boat had a purchase system that led belowdecks. While it was lightweight, it also was complicated, with many ­moving parts, and it allowed water to get inside the boat. So we opted for a 2-to-1 above-deck system that leads to a pair of Harken 35.2ST Performa winches, which are powerful yet smaller self-tailing two-speed winches. This should give us good control of the mast when tacking and jibing in a big breeze.

Using Harken’s online resources, I printed and built a scaled-to-size mock-up of the winch and positioned it where we wanted it on the boat, to verify that the line would reach the winch without affecting other systems. Incorporated in the system is a series of the 57 mm Black Magic blocks, which are the perfect size and strength to handle the runner loads on this 30-foot fractionally rigged sportboat. At the top, we have the purpose-built 57 mm runner block, which is designed for runners. At the stern, we have the standard 57 mm Black Magic blocks attached to the boat with Dyneema loops. In the cockpit, the 57 mm Black Magic foot blocks direct the runner to the winches.

The mainsheet system got a makeover as well. The original fine-tune adjustment ran through a purchase belowdecks. And while it was clean, like the runner system, it let water down below. I exchanged that for a standard system, similar to what you’d find on a Melges 32—a 6-to-1 with a cam base behind the traveler and a 4-to-1 fine-tune on a low-profile base in front of the traveler. We use 57 mm soft-attachment Carbo blocks on the boom and a double Carbo block on the traveler car. The fine-tune uses 40 mm Carbo fiddle blocks. For the mainsheet and fine-tune cleats, I spec’d the Harken fast-release fairlead. I find that it is easier to cleat and uncleat, and it has less friction on the big eases. The traveler itself has a 3-to-1 using a combination of 40 mm and 29 mm Harken Carbo blocks.  

We had some fun with the genoa car ­system. The boat was designed with tracks for the genoa and separate tracks for a jib, along with all of the purchase systems needed for the cars. It was all pretty old, and it was looking as if we were going to have to replace all of the tracks and cars. Instead, we designed a floating lead system that is light, cost-effective and simple. Under the location of the genoa and jib hardware, we mounted Harken’s 12 mm bolt-down ­fairleads to the deck. Then we spliced in a 2-to-1 Dyneema strop to Harken’s floating-­jib lead rings. These were spliced to a 3-to-1 purchase led to a cleat near the genoa winch. The strops for the No. 1 genoa and No. 3 jib are spliced together so that one line adjusts everything. Last, we added the Harken Grand Prix jib lead eye in front of the winch to prevent overrides. Voilà! Floating leads that are simple, easy on the pocketbook, and still have the 6-to-1 purchase for easy adjustments. The genoa lead cleats have Harken’s extreme-angle fairleads, which align the rope and allow us to cleat and uncleat them from the weather rail.

While on the genoa system, I was unsure how I wanted to set up the outboard leads. While I try to avoid adding stainless parts to a sportboat because every ounce matters, there is a time and a place for everything, and once again, Harken had something special. In the locations we thought that the outboard leads should go, we mounted 56 mm fixed padeyes (Harken 2759) with two bolts. Folding padeyes are great and Harken’s new Gizmos are great, but I really wanted to get the eyes as far outboard as I could, and that meant fastening them to the curved radius of the deck/hull joint. A two-fastener fixed eye let me mount them inline on the rail on a curved surface. They have a round eye built in and are very strong. I can attach a block to them, I can run a sheet through them, or I can clip a shackle or carabiner to them. And with working loads around 2,500 pounds, weighing just 1.3 ounces each and costing less than $20 apiece, with these I could do no wrong.

I’ve long felt a need for a high-load block similar to the 57 mm Black Magic block but one that was a little smaller. Harken’s new Fly blocks are amazing but too small for what I had in mind. As if to answer my prayers, Harken designed a new 45 mm Black Magic loop block—exactly what I wanted for the aft spinnaker blocks. They easily take the load, run smoothly, and are very light. In front of them are 75 mm Harken Carbo ratchet blocks. In light air, we can trim without a winch; in heavy air, we can turn the ratchets off and trim on the winches.

Another area that got a full makeover was the articulating-bowsprit purchases. There is a pole extender, a pole retractor, a pole-pull to starboard, and a pole-pull to port—each with its own purchase system belowdecks. Originally, they were led through the back of the companionway or the side of the cockpit. These were places where plenty of water could egress. My father came up with the idea to lead it all to cleats inside the companionway but facing outward to where the pit person would ­naturally be in maneuvers.

But because it wasn’t my idea to begin with it, I didn’t like it. But he got his way, and I admit that it works extremely well. Just inside the companionway are two standard cam cleats angled out to the cockpit with, you guessed it, extreme-angle fairleads on them. It really makes cleating, uncleating, and lining up the rope with the cleat a breeze. The pole-out incorporates a pair of medium-size Harken wire blocks. These are very strong and good when using small, uncovered Dyneema lines.

A 2-to-1 purchase is plenty for this function. As it is with the pole in, we did a 2-to-1 after trying a 1-to-1. There was some binding in the pole system, and the 2-to-1 seemed to alleviate that. Because less strength is needed for this function, we were able to use lighter Harken Carbo blocks. Because the articulation controls load up a fair amount more, we designed an 8-to-1 system using Harken Carbo blocks at the back end and high-load wire blocks at the front.

The boat came with an older code zero, and I was eager to get it on a furler because furling these sails makes setting, dousing, and use in general so much easier. Our previous Still Crazy had a great Harken unit, so I was confident that it was the way to go for us. The Harken Reflex Unit 1 furler with the top-down furling option and Harken’s 10 mm Torsion Cable was an easy choice. I am a fan of the interchangeable bottom pieces, so you can have one lower drum and multiple spinnakers with torsion cables ready to go. Clip in and clip out for easy storage or sail changes. In addition, we installed a retractable bobstay to help us maintain luff tension when sailing with the code zero. 

The Lineage Report

As a part-time rigger, I enjoy finding different ropes and exploring applications for them all. I worked with Marlow on this project. Let’s start with one of my favorite ropes and one of my go-to products for J/70 rigging: Marlow’s D12 MAX cores. This core is available in SK78 and SK99. It is strong and has nearly zero stretch. This is a key ingredient for jib halyards, main halyards, control pennants, backstays and runners. It’s also important in spinnaker halyards and tack lines, especially on boats with code zeros, where maintaining luff tension is essential. We used a lot of it on this project, and it’s performing as expected. Because it’s strong and also easy to splice, we were able to use 6 mm on the primary runner and 3 mm on the checkstays and topmast runners.

For spinnaker and genoa halyards, we chose their MGP Tech 50 covers with the D12 Max core. The MGP Tech cover is a Technora-based cover that is very grippy in the clutches and on the winch while providing good durability and chafe resistance. In fact, it’s so good in the hands and with chafe resistance that we also used it for the genoa sheets. For spinnaker halyards, we chose small Tylaska shackles and added Marlow’s chafe sleeve to reduce chafe when the halyards pull off center at the top. We are trying Tylaska’s spool shackles on the jib halyards. They are working well, albeit I need to lengthen the splices to accommodate the press rings in some of the older sails

For the runner tails on these fractional boats, heat resistance is key because the rope heats up under so much load when eased. For this reason, we went with Marlow’s MGP P Tech 50. While similar to the rope described above, the P tech has PBO woven in to help with the heat resistance. Of course, because overall stretch is a concern, D12 Max is in the core. To keep the weight down, we spliced a lightweight tail into it where it will never be loaded. We used Excel R8 for a clean and finished look that matched the runner tail itself.

For the spinnaker sheets, I wanted an all-purpose set and a light-air set. For the AP set, Marlow suggested the same cover as the genoa sheets and halyards: MGP Tech 50 but with a low-stretch softer core, such as D12 78. It sounded like a great idea and has proved itself well. For the light-air sheets, we went with another recommendation from Marlow: Excel HPR 6.5. It’s lightweight, strong, and easy to grip.

MGP Furler 50 is excellent for the code zero furling lines. It provides good grip in the furling unit and is easy to splice in a continuous loop. We added a small detachable block on a bungee with a clip so that the unloaded end stays tensioned. This keeps the continuous furling drum from ­back-spinning as you furl.

Tack lines live in clutches and are not adjusted much, so we thought we could use a simple cover over the D12 Max. MGP Racing fit the bill, with a simple polyester cover that is cost-effective but still works well in the hands and clutches. 

We used plenty of Excel Racing for ­control lines as well. It is a Dyneema-cored polyester-covered line that’s great for jib leads, vang, cunningham, outhaul, traveler, etc. It comes in many sizes and colors.

The post A Melges 30 Redo: Deck and Rigging Upgrades appeared first on Sailing World.

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

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

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

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

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

This led her to an abandoned Newport 29. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s when things went pear-shaped. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So she did the logical thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abie McLaughlin, age 38, had a breakout year in 2024, achieving a hat trick of North American championship wins in the J/88, Tartan 10 and S2 7.9 classes. Having quickly earned a reputation as a skilled and dedicated amateur sailor, she is now in demand as one of the best foredeck crews you’ve never heard of—until now.

McLaughlin’s low-key personality has kept her under the radar. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, she’s been sailing with Trey Sheehan’s and John Evans’ Hooligan and Airplane programs for several years, racing shoulder to shoulder with professional sailors on the TP52s, Tartan 10s, J/70s and more. She’s often one of only a few amateurs on the boat she races and, more often than not, she’s the only woman. You’ll find her on the pointy end, moving sail stacks and tackling the unsung grunt work.

Her résumé also includes a win at Charleston Race Week in the Melges 32 class and a slew of offshore races. With so many days on the water, it’s surprising to peers that McLaughlin doesn’t work in the sailing industry. Few 9-to-5 careers offer enough time off to keep up with the pro-sailing lifestyle, but her availability is key for the competitive programs that count on her contributions. 

“I max out my vacation time,” says McLaughlin, a product designer with an Ohio-based lighting company. She’s an active year-round crew with the availability to travel around the globe for events thanks to a strong relationship with her long-term employer. Average weekend warrior McLaughlin is not.

“It’s a family-owned company,” she says of her employer. “They’re boaters in Cleveland, and we’ve come to an agreement that they understand I have a passion for sailing. I want to sail as much as possible, but I also obviously need to do my job. As long as I’m doing it well, they let me be flexible. I’m extremely lucky.”

The arrangement is a successful formula for McLaughlin. She often works in the morning and takes time off in the afternoon for practice sessions or race days. It’s a ­flexibility that not all amateur sailors can secure, but while her time on the water has kept her in demand, pro sailing is not something she’s ever strongly considered. Maintaining her amateur status allows her to race in classes that have limits on professionals.

Besides, having aspirations of a professional sailing career is not what got her into sailing. “I was dating a guy who brought me onto a beer can race Sunday afternoon at the local yacht club,” she says. “I didn’t even know there were sailboats on Lake Erie, I was that naive. It was a big-breeze day, on an Express 37, and I fell in love with it immediately.”

After three years of beer can racing and “not really having a role,” McLaughlin wanted more. She joined the women’s learn-to-race program at Cleveland’s Edgewater YC and found herself on a J/22, learning the ropes with more responsibilities. 

“When you are 33 percent of the team, you learn really quick,” she says. 

After a summer in the women’s program, the “opportunities just started rolling in,” with invitations to race in other fleets. Tall and thin, McLaughlin understands that her stature made her more desirable for teams looking to fill a certain role, helping her hitch a ride in the fast lane to high-performance racing.

“I think I was the right size,” she says, “so I probably got opportunities quicker than I should have, to be honest.”

But McLaughlin also started gaining a reputation for her work ethic and fierce sense of competition, a holdover from her days growing up as a competitive skier. “My mom’s been a ski instructor for 30 years, and my dad was a ski race coach, so I was technically a very good skier,” she says. “That’s my first passion in life, ski racing.”

Skiing shaped a discipline that has crossed over to her passion for sailing. Both sports also offer the same truth: “The time you put into it is what you get out of it,” she says.

The days when McLaughlin’s size and availability were a ticket to opportunity are behind her. Now, it’s her foredeck prowess and the impressive string of triumphs taking the spotlight. Her win at the J/88 North American Championship was with skipper Lindsay Duda on Sin Duda!. The regatta, hosted by Macatawa Bay YC, was a master class in how to win a championship: Start fast and stay ahead. With McLaughlin on the bow, Sin Duda! won the first two races and had points to spare by the last day, taking pressure off the team to close out the regatta.

“Wrapping up with one race to spare was a great feeling,” McLaughlin says. “That event was really challenging. It was shifty, with varying wind conditions, and the fleet was very strong. We had a great first day, which put us in a position to have some confidence in our boatspeed, our boathandling and our crew work. We all felt that as long as we could sail clean and maintain composure, we had a shot at winning.”

One week before, also at Macatawa, was the S2 7.9 championship with skippers Dan Cheresh and Brad Boston on Extreme2. And a month before that, in Chicago, it was the Tartan 10 championship with Sheehan’s Hooligan. The three-win championship run revealed the depth of McLaughlin’s versatility. She says that the success she’s enjoyed thus far comes down to being a fluid, ­resourceful and mindful athlete.

“Core foredeck responsibilities are really similar boat to boat,” she says. “The bigger adjustments are adapting to each team and their unique nuances. You have to be easygoing. You have to have a positive attitude, and I ask a lot of questions. If you’re hopping from boat to boat and you’re on a boat for the first time, you’ll most likely be surrounded by people who know that boat a lot better than you, so learn from them. I try to be a ­chameleon adapting to each team’s dynamic.”

Being a strong team player is her value-add, she says, which is more important than ­having a specialized technical skill. Mastering soft skills, such as communication and adaptability, are her proven traits. “I sail with a lot of boat owners who prioritize personality as much as talent when they form their teams,” she says. “Gelling as a team ­elevates your performance.”

She’s taken the same ­attitude offshore on the TP52 Hooligan, adapting her mentality “from a sprint to a marathon” and determining where to add value alongside her ­more-experienced professional teammates. Overcoming imposter syndrome was the first hurdle. 

“I often think about the first day I stepped onto the TP52,” she recalls. “It was the biggest boat I had been on. The sails were heavy and the loads were big. I questioned my abilities and if I had a place on the boat. After a few practice days, I learned techniques to make my job more manageable. I noticed small jobs that I could take on, in addition to my responsibilities, which made other people’s jobs easier.”

Namely, she took on “crappy jobs like packing kites and moving the stack down below” and even making coffees. Four years later, her persistence has paid off. The Hooligan 52-footer recently won the SORC Islands in the Stream Series ­overall after a strong finish at the Nassau Cup Ocean Race in February. 

“I sail with a lot of boat owners who prioritize personality as much as talent when they form their teams. Gelling as a team elevates your performance.”

With another victory under her belt, McLaughlin looks ahead to a host of new challenges in 2025, including the J/70 Mixed-Plus World Championship in Lake Garda, Italy, later this year with Evans’ Airplane. She’s also on the hook for a few more offshore races. “I’m actually still not sure if I like offshore,” she admits. “I do it, and, at the moment, it’s terrible. You’re like, ‘Why do I do this?’ And then you finish. You get there, and you’re like, ‘Man, that was great.’”

Whether inshore or offshore, McLaughlin’s experience is ­passion-driven. It’s clear that she’ll stay at the top across classes, showcasing just how important it is to be versatile to win, as long as it’s fun. “I haven’t found [a boat] I haven’t liked,” she says. “I love hiking on that uncomfortable rail on the T-10, and I love blasting downwind on the TP52. It can be uncomfortable and still fun, slow and fun, fast and fun. I love them all.”

The post Talent and Experience On the Bow appeared first on Sailing World.

The tidy Vakaros RaceSense platform is gaining wider usage across many one-design classes and is universally lauded by the sailors. As a race officer with the New York YC, I and many others, have been working with engineers at Velocitek for several seasons to develop a similar system. The platform has gone from using the same L1-L5 GPS technology used in RaceSense to now using Real Time Kinematics technology. This, we’re certain, gives us next-level starting accuracy.

Real Time Kinematics is essentially a GPS standard that achieves accuracy through using differential positioning. This requires the use of two separate receivers, a base station and a “rover” to correct errors in real time. The base station is set up in a relatively stable (onshore) environment within 12 km of the race area. This unit continuously receives signals from GPS satellites and compares the calculated position based on those signals to the known position of the unit. This allows the unit to detect satellite signal errors that affect GPS accuracy, calculate the corrections, and then transmit them to the rover receivers on the racing boats and the receivers mounted to the race-committee assets. The rover units then apply these corrections to their own GPS data, bringing overall accuracy of the RTK system down to 1.8 cm (max). The distinction between 1.8 cm accuracy and 1-meter accuracy is the difference between being able to use the tech for protest arbitration and for hearings, and it also allows for extremely accurate tracking and replays—data that can really help to level a one-design fleet and get newcomers up to speed quickly.

The RTK platform was used for the club’s recent Resolute Cup, as well as all of its Sonar and IC37 class races in 2024, and race officers were confident of its accuracy for OCS calls. With such precision, all the standard starting shenanigans—general recalls, jailbreaks when the line spotter’s view is obstructed, and hiding in the middle of an OCS clump—went away. The result was saving an average of one race every 1.5 sailing days—surely one of the most compelling data points to come out of the project.  

In the recent past, having run hundreds of start sequences and more than a full season’s worth of practice sessions and regattas with the L1-L5 standard, patterns emerged relating to error frequency and the inevitability of compound GPS errors causing inaccurate results. The accuracy of an L1-L5 GPS signal gives it 1-meter precision, meaning the signal can accurately place the transponder on your boat within a 2-meter circle, so the 1-meter potential error can be in front of the transponder or behind the transponder. Keep in mind that there’s another transponder on the pin with the same error distribution, increasing the error range to 2 meters. This, of course, also applies to the boat-end transponder.

Through usage, we quickly learned that the PRO had to retain the authority to override any obvious GPS errors at the start. Using L1-L5, we would get the OCS report at 0:00, confirm bow numbers verbally with the PRO, and hit a button on the phone or tablet to confirm, sending the OCS notifications to the offenders. It took only a couple of seconds and was almost always complete before the VHF courtesy hail was transmitted. With RTK, we are now confidently “full auto,” allowing the system to make the OCS calls and immediately notify boats when they are over and when they are clear.

Our rules adviser and staff sailing director were involved with the integration of the system into our race documents to ensure compliance with the Racing Rules of Sailing. Preferring to err on the conservative side until we moved to RTK accuracy, we made it clear to competitors that “OCS calls will be based upon visual observation of the Race Committee” and added reference to the Velocitek system in the section where we discuss the RC’s intention to hail OCS boats over VHF. We also stipulated that failure to do so isn’t grounds for redress. All other trappings of a Rule 26 start remain unchanged: flags (including X-ray), sounds and courtesy VHF announcements.

As you can imagine, we fielded numerous “you called me over, but the box said I was good” comments in the early days, but we accepted and were open and transparent about the system shortcomings as it developed. It often felt as if we were building an airplane as we taxied down the runway, but having the IC37 Class sailors involved in every step of the process made it a rewarding project for all as the system evolved.

For 2024, we’re advancing to RTK accuracy. We’re certain at this point that it’s the right solution for starting sailboat races, and the industry agrees. Vakaros recently announced that its HALO (High Accuracy Location and Orientation) RTK device is on the horizon, so exciting things are on the way with RTK. The units will get smaller and sleeker—the size of a hockey puck—and will integrate into a boat’s NMEA 2000 bus, eliminating the need to charge the transponders at night and allowing starting data to be displayed on an existing display, with no need for an additional screen at the mast.

For smaller boats or boats that don’t allow pinging, we’ll begin to see screenless units that rely on lights or sound for OCS notification, and integration with smartwatches where class rules allow. There will be a push for integration with various handicap systems, with a goal of being able to see a boat’s current corrected position in the fleet during the race and having the system generate ­provisional results as the last boat crosses the finish line. 

Next on the to-do list is for RTK starting technology to become open source, with the development of a standardized system that will allow sailors to use the hardware of their choice to display the data. It would behoove us all as sailors for there to be one network that is compatible with all devices.

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