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

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

Luckily, we nailed it perfectly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A weak southerly breeze straggles across Lake Washington as the last of Seattle’s fall colors cloak the hillsides of the still-leafy Leschi neighborhood. Four local J/70s are gathered for a driving clinic, and the onboard combinations are unusual: all captains and no crewmembers. Ron Rosenberg, an Olympic-level coach and world-champion sailor, is helming a borrowed coach boat—a VHF in one hand, a Timex Ironman strapped to his wrist. “Be thoughtful about your next 35 seconds,” he advises the group as they roll ­rapid-fire into another starting sequence.

Absent are the sharp elbows that often define one-design ­starting lines. Instead, each team focuses on hitting the line on time and at pace, while extending the “grace and space” to one’s ­neighbors that Rosenberg outlined in his dockside briefing.

But instead of completing a race, the winner is determined by which helm gets their boat up to VMG speed first. Rosenberg issues a few gentle critiques and compliments as the boats return to the starting area. Drivers rotate, from helm to forward hand, and Rosenberg restarts the drill. Welcome to Seattle’s thriving J/Pod, where Ron’s the man with the plan: the plan to get faster together.

The J/Pod is composed of sailors of mixed ­ability and experience levels, racing aboard used J/70s flying secondhand sails. The group has amassed a strong regional reputation as a positive and encouraging place to advance one’s skills while having fun. Much of this rests on the foundation of mutual respect that Rosenberg has ­cultivated from the start and has nurtured through a shared ethos of improving one’s own skills by helping others to learn. The resulting tide of knowledge gained through Olympic-style coaching is lifting all boats, and J/Pod participants can count on Coach Ron to bring on-the-water joy and a high value per minute to each session.

Some backstory.

Spend enough time around Washington state’s saline waters, and you’ll doubtless hear about the J, K and L pods of resident orcas. While all three travel seeking salmon, the J pod tends to frequent the waters surrounding the San Juan Islands, where the Rosenbergs have long owned a home, and where they lived full time during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Given Rosenberg’s background, it’s not surprising that baking sourdough bread wasn’t on his agenda.

“This just started as a COVID project,” Rosenberg says, explaining that his international coaching gigs fell victim to travel restrictions. But finding himself on Orcas Island in a community of sailors and resourceful people presented a new and socially distanced coaching opportunity. “We had a doublehanded theme,” he says, noting that the original group was comprised of two-person “pandemic pods.”

Rosenberg’s marketing background (he’s long been the driving force behind McLube), his love for the area’s resident orcas, and the group’s chosen steeds provided the perfect moniker.

“We picked the J/70 as an inexpensive learning platform,” Rosenberg says. “You can really have some fun with it. The boat gets up and goes in the breeze.”

The J/Pod began with a handful of boats and sailors on Orcas Island, but, as word of Rosenberg’s coaching and the group’s culture spread, numbers increased as restrictions eased.

Rosenberg says that he realized that he was on to something big “when we had as many sailors coming up from Seattle to join us on Orcas Island for coaching sessions as we had sailors on Orcas.”  

Pacific Northwest racing sailors, it turns out, wanted high-level coaching.

Rosenberg smartly followed this lift and eventually brought his bit to the mainland. The Seattle J/Pod, for example, was founded in early 2023, and there are subpods as far south as Hood River, Oregon, and as far north as Bellingham, Washington. Today, there are about 55 J/70s and 300-plus sailors involved with the program.

Even more impressive, group members also have a few boats strategically placed on the East Coast and in Europe that they “cheap charter” to each other to enable travel sailing.

This growth, sailors say, wouldn’t have happened without the ­culture that Rosenberg instilled.

“We’re all there to learn together, and we’re all there to get better, and we’re all there to have fun,” says Mike Breivik, a founding J/Pod member (his was the Pod’s second J/70). “We’re not out there to tack on each other, and we’re not out there to be aggressive against one another. I think it’s one of the foundations that has allowed the group to go from two boats to what it is today.”

While Rosenberg doesn’t have an Olympic medal, he’s personally campaigned for the Games four times, and he’s coached numerous aspiring Olympians. This background, he says, instilled many important lessons that he’s carried to the J/Pod, from fostering strong mutual respect to the concept of focusing on DTL (that’s ‘distance to leader’) to the strategy of mentally erasing all other boats from the course and always sailing one’s own boat at its target VMG.

“We play chess, not checkers,” Rosenberg says, noting that while he welcomes assertiveness, he frowns on unnecessary aggression. “We don’t tack on others to push them back; we try to outthink them, outsail them and out-boatspeed them. I train sailors to look forward and to make good decisions, rather than watching the rearview mirror and trying to hold others back.”

One big advantage of this style of sailing, Rosenberg says, is that J/Pod fleets tend to be more compressed around the buoys than other one-design fleets. “It makes it feel like we’re racing in a 40- or 50-boat fleet, rather than a 20- or 25-boat fleet,” he says, noting that this fosters friendships, community, and learning opportunities. “Everybody has more fun when they’re not being hammered on off the line. Nobody deserves to be the victim of a bad experience.”

Another critical component of the J/Pod is a commitment to avoiding boat-on-boat contact. Should contact transpire, sailors apologize for the incident, and either debrief it on the water or back at the dock, often publicly. “They always know they can count on me to help as a soft-spoken arbiter,” Rosenberg says.

“Every day that we go on the water with this group, we come back better,” Doug Hansen says. “This is probably the fastest learning curve we’ve ever seen.”

Then there’s Rosenberg’s commitment to delivering a strong return on investment for everyone’s time. J/Pod boats are often wet-sailed, their jibs hoisted and roller-furled, kites left rigged, and mainsails boom-flaked and covered, allowing sailors to go from their car to the course in under 10 minutes. Presail briefings are kept tight, and debriefs often happen via a WhatsApp group.

“He creates a wonderful, positive environment, where we’re all excited to be here and excited to share,” says Bev Multerer, a lifelong racer who has been involved with the J/Pod since 2022. “This is some of the most fun I’ve ever had sailing.”

This level of high-quality coaching isn’t free, but Rosenberg’s business model reflects the same kind of forward thinking as the culture that he’s curated.

“Typically, somebody hires me for the day as their coach, and I either sail on their boat with them or I’ll be in the coach boat—whatever they want,” Rosenberg says. “I invite everybody else because that helps everyone learn faster, including the client who pays for the day.”

J/Pod members take turns “sponsoring” these sailing days. “We try to make it a program where everybody has something to gain,” Rosenberg says. “The selfish part is that I get to coach the people who I love, doing what I love, right here at home without having to get on an airplane.”

Not that airplanes aren’t involved. The J/Pod has its East Coast and European boats, and Rosenberg travels to about a dozen regattas each year with clients, and other attending J/Pod teams are invited to join up as tuning partners.

Once back home, traveling sailors debrief their experience with Rosenberg and with the greater group, detailing what they’ve learned, further caffeinating the collective learning curve. “This inspires everybody else, and it gives them confidence that they too can travel to regattas,” Rosenberg says.

Take the 2024 J/70 Worlds, which unfurled off Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The J/Pod was represented by three teams.

When asked if he would have traveled to Spain without his J/Pod experience, Boris Luchterhand, an early member of the Orcas Island J/Pod, was succinct. “No, no chance,” he says. “We had some great races and some OK races. We learned so much, it was an ­incredible experience.”

While clients fund the J/Pod’s on-the-water program, Rosenberg averages 20 to 30 hours of pro bono time per week. This includes time that Rosenberg devotes to onboarding new members, explaining the group’s culture and his expectations for all participants, and helping new teams find and purchase good used boats. Then, once aboard, he helps get these teams rigged and launched.

“We buy our sails at half-price or less,” Rosenberg says. “I hand-select and sometimes purchase large numbers of used sails from some of the bigger-budget teams around the world, get them shipped here, and then hand them off to the teams who want them.”

Then there’s the WhatsApp channel, where Rosenberg frequently shares detailed notes and multimedia content with all 300-plus ­
J/Pod members, almost half of whom are women. This combination of real-world and virtual coaching, coupled with Rosenberg’s ability to lean on other group role models—some of whom have Olympic medals, world-championship titles and America’s Cup experience—creates a powerful learning opportunity.

“Every day that we go on the water with this group, we come back better,” says Doug Hansen, a longtime local big-boat sailor who, along with his wife, Shelagh (also an experienced big-boat sailor), bought their J/70 and joined the group in 2023. “This is probably the fastest learning curve we’ve ever seen.”

Hansen describes the J/Pod experience as “drinking from a fire hose,” and says that he’s dumbfounded by the group’s talent level and ethos of sharing wisdom. “In between races, you’ve got Olympic medalists sailing past you, commenting on your jib trim, and why they were able to pinch you off,” Hansen says, ­noting that Rosenberg encourages faster teams to approach fellow ­competitors and advise how they bested them around the buoys.

In addition to many local sailing greats—including Jonathan and Libby McKee, Carl Buchan, Keith Whittemore, Christina and Justin Wolfe, Mallory and Andrew Loe, and Dalton Bergan—the J/Pod includes many Corinthian-level sailors who are interested in translating their off-the-water achievements to increasing their speed around the buoys. “So many of these sailors are business leaders and are so successful in other areas of life,” Rosenberg says. “All I’ve done is get them on the water in a way that they can discover their passion.”

While the J/Pod is flourishing in the Pacific Northwest, Rosenberg says that the keys to success aren’t bound by any particulars of latitude, longitude, or the group’s chosen steed. “I think the concept would flourish in lots of different places,” he says. “There’s no reason it couldn’t work in any multitude of one-design classes.”

Legacy is a heavy word, but as the J/Pod nears its five-year anniversary, it’s a hard one to escape. Rosenberg—true to his humble and gregarious nature—says that this isn’t something he spends time pondering. “If I’ve ignited passion for sailing in some small way, I chalk that up as a big win,” he says. “It’s awesome that we have so many smart, thoughtful people involved, and all they were lacking was either the time or the experience to know what it feels like to go sailing in a high-performance boat, at a high level, and to really enjoy themselves with their friends.”

Throw in the concept of self-improvement through collective advancement, and he says that the J/Pod model goes from “a ­win-win situation to one of ‘you can’t possibly lose.’” Neither could any of the boats that were gathered for the driving clinic. Sure, one bow was consistently the first to drop and accelerate, but, by day’s end, other boats and drivers were also winning.

Grace and space, it turns out, are as critical to enabling J/Pod sailors to thrive as bountiful salmon runs are to the group’s ­namesake orca pods.

The post Seattle Sailors Gather To Grow appeared first on Sailing World.

Lake Ray Hubbard, on the outskirts of Dallas, is a honey hole for Texan jig-slingers dropping hooks for white bass, catfish and crappie, but it’s also a sweet spot for fish of a different sort. We’re talking Sunfish, sailing’s most iconic and colorful one-design dinghy. Hubbard is plenty big, but when 100 sailors schooled for their world-championship title, it was indeed one fantastic feast.

Neck-deep in the action was Rod Favela, a competitor wearing multiple hats as boat wrangler, parts supplier, overnight repairman, broker, and entertainer. Those who’ve been in Favela’s position with a hand in hosting a major class championship know well the mental load: Racing in a world championship is tough. Doing it while on the clock is exhausting. Doing both well is superhuman.

The simple Sunfish came to the recreational sailing masses in the 1960s with Alcort Sailboats. The production run was a long one, and with a few other short-run builders, the hatchery eventually landed at Rhode Island’s Vanguard Sailboats and then finally LaserPerformance, which relocated production overseas to China in 2016 and now builds in Portugal.

Over the past decade, LP has frustrated Sunfish stalwarts and dealers, particularly in the US, with supply shortages and batches of poorly built boats. Sourcing boats, as well as class-legal replacement parts, has been a nagging issue for the class, all of which has prompted the International Sunfish Class Association to take matters into its own hands by licensing new builders and stripping LP of its ability to produce class-legal race boats.

It’s been a messy relationship, and one that was even messier when it came time to supply boats to world championships. Historically, Sunfish class world championships were provided-boat regattas that put competitors in even boats and injected new boats into the host fleet, or even started new ones. The convenience for all sailors to just show up in any country and race was a big deal. LaserPerformance stopped providing boats after the Worlds in Italy in 2022, and the last two (Miami and Texas) were bring-your-own, which is fine for the natives but not for foreign qualifiers who rely on charter boats. An international field is what makes a world championship legitimate.

The Sarasota Worlds in 2020 was the 50th anniversary of the class, and it was here where Favela, Mike Brown and the Rush Creek YC in Heath, Texas, put forth their bid to host the 2024 edition.

“Me being an LP dealer, on the world ISCA board and a Rush Creek member, it was a natural path for me to be involved,” Favela says. “The regatta chair, Mary Ann Hopper, is a very good Sunfish sailor too, and I gave her hell for not sailing in the event, which, by the way, was very wise of her.”

Favela being Favela, a top-level sailor with an equal amount of human energy, he went all in for his hometown championship. “I’m like: ‘I’m gonna sail. I’m gonna bring the boats and I’m gonna charter the boats, and we’re gonna fix the boats and help organize and sponsor and race, and I’m gonna kick some ass,’” he says with his ­characteristic and infectious laughter. “And that was ­working fine until Day One.”

Favela’s Vela Sailing operation is a sailor’s one-stop shop in nearby Rockwall, Texas, and as the local Sunfish dealer, he was the hook to source charter boats, especially for the incoming cadre of hot-shot Latino sailors. He took it upon himself, and his business’s reputation, to make sure the inbound LP boats, built time zones away in Portugal, were up to world-caliber standards. He was on the hook for 32 of them, at no discount, plus 110 new Texas Edition sails from North Sails at $600 a pop.

“When I talked to LP about their commitment to the Worlds, I said, ‘Listen, guys, this is a good opportunity to improve your reputation with the Sunfish class,’” Favela says. “‘So how about we work together on getting the boats a little better? And what I mean by better is at least go back as close as we can to what a Vanguard-built Sunfish was.’”

For any dealer supplying boats to a major regatta, the charter business is high risk and time consuming. “The logistics have many sides, then follows quality,” Favela says. “You have almost zero time to fix a boat that arrives four days before the first gun, and you have a customer who is coming from overseas with very little time to test, try, and feel comfortable with equipment, so everything has to be perfect. It is definitely a high-stress situation.”

Of the 100-boat fleet for the Rush Creek edition of the Worlds, 51 were privately owned boats. Forty-nine were charters, including Vela’s stash of 34 brand-new boats. “We needed more charter boats than what we could offer, so we had to rely on the private charters,” Favela says, which meant connecting owners with overseas customers and also managing transactions and logistics on the back end. “But it was amazing,” Favela says. “Everybody rolled up their sleeves, boats came in on triple-stack trailers from every side of the country, and everybody worked super hard to pull it off.”

The Texas Edition hulls—with an apropos red, white and blue, and Lone Star graphics scheme—made it to Rush Creek after an anxious holdup at a TSA-bonded warehouse in Georgia. With all hands on deck, screws went in, gelcoat blemishes got patched, and the goods were delivered to the sailors for a week of high-level racing.

“They were solid,” Favela says, satisfied in the extra effort and diplomacy that resulted in 32 race-ready vessels. For good measure, Favela kept one for himself, another dinghy in his personal stash.

His fascination with the Sunfish draws from his youth sailing days in Venezuela. There were no Optimists at the time, only the Sunfish left behind from the Pan American Games, which have long fueled South America’s strength in the class. Today, especially, Latin American sailors are highly respected for their big-wind, big-wave prowess, gleaned from ocean sailing and government-funded programs that nurture elite sailors to the world stage.

“They are scary-good,” Favela says of the Central and South American Sunfish sailors. “The Pan American status gets them support. They don’t throw a lot of money at them, but there is enough financial motivation to keep them engaged, so the competition is fierce.”

And because Latin American Sunfish sailors train in ocean venues, they are intensely kinetic with the boat. In Texas, for example, past world-champion Jonathan Martinetti, of Ecuador, led the way with three Rule 42 violations—pumping and rocking.

“They are very loud and aggressive with the way they work the boat,” Favela says, “and it works, but only if you do it the right way.”

And if you don’t, you get caught.

The physical prowess of the hard-hiking Latinos with their thunder thighs, however, wasn’t as applicable in the flat water and unpredictable windshifts dished out on Lake Ray Hubbard during the Worlds. These were conditions for world-champion Conner Blouin, of Charleston, South Carolina. Blouin, Favela says, is “just gifted and fast.”

His forte is simplicity in the boat, and his risk-management mastery gets him around the racecourse with relative ease. “He sails so clean,” Favela says. “He is able to cut his losses quickly. He’s very into the chess game on the water, but with sailing the boat, he doesn’t bother with all the adjustments—he’s more like hoist, play with the gooseneck, trim, keep it flat, clean starts, and off you go.”

Blouin’s polar opposite is the Master, Paul Foerster, a three-time Olympic medalist and consummate tweaker of the Sunfish’s quirky lateen rig. Foerster is “the walking evolution of sailing,” Favela says. “He’s never satisfied with the status quo and always trying to find a way to do something better.”

Naturally, that comes from Foerster’s illustrious career in highly tunable boats such as the Flying Dutchman and the 470, but how does he possibly find more speed in such an absurdly simple boat that’s been tinkered with by great sailors for more than 50 years? He’s big on fine-tuning the Jens rig, Favela says, which is essentially a nuanced way to tie the spars by adding a second halyard position to depower the sail, allowing lighter-weight sailors to hang with the big kids in strong winds.

There’s a big Jens, a little Jens, a control Jens, and gooseneck shifts fore and aft—Foerster uses them all. “He knows what he’s doing,” Favela says, “and while most of the adjustments on the Sunfish don’t give you a giant edge, Paul is extremely fast and knows how to use them.”

Foerster also crushes dreams downwind.

“He has such a crazy ability of developing the feel of what works,” Favela says. “I’ve learned from him that the boat really responds by sailing by the lee—until it starts to hate it. It’s proven that the boat does better if you jibe rather than pushing it by the lee. If you can surf the Sunfish, and at the same time you feel you’re going by the lee—jibe!”

Favela is fortunate to have Foerster as a training partner and mentor, and that leg up had him in good standing after the first day of racing. With a 15th in the first race, he was off to a good start, considering the stress and distractions he had to deal with before he even slipped his dolly into the water.

“I have a mental blessing in that I can switch off my brain from the land business once I hit the water and start racing,” he says. “I remember the feeling at the first gun, when Mark Foster (the PRO) put the class flag up. Seeing everybody lining up for the start, I had this big smile on my face. And then, as I’m going upwind after the start, it was like, ‘Holy sh-t, I’m racing, like, wow, OK, now I gotta really do it.’ Everything that had happened, everything that everyone at the club had done for a year and a half, was finally real.”

Feeding off the euphoria, Favela knocked off a third-place finish and then a sixth, and found himself fourth overall in the standings. The unpredictability and randomness of the day’s easterly wind was right up his alley, and that he somehow managed top-20 ­finishes in the super-competitive world-­caliber fleet was unexpected. That night, after cleaning gelcoat from his hands, his head hit the pillow hard, but his mind was still racing. “I was going over a story of myself, thinking that I cannot believe that for me to do well, it has to be chaos.”

The following morning, Favela was leading the day’s one and only race before losing it to Canadian Luke Ramsay, who would go on to finish second overall. Still, a second in this fleet was monumental, and he was still at the top of the fleet. All was good for the jovial Venezuelan-American spark plug.

But then the cold front arrived, and with it came a wind switch, a big breeze, and a tumble down the standings. Over the remaining days of the regatta, Favela piled on the points (38, 20, 23, UFD, 15, 19, 36). While he raises his hand and pleads guilty for taking big gambles and serving as mayor of Cornersville, Texas, perhaps the ­burden of work and play had finally taken its toll. Or maybe the youngsters and the wily masters of the fleet were getting sharper.

“In the Sunfish, the younger guys have the strength, maybe not the maturity,” Favela says. “But the sailors in their 20s and mid-30s, they have everything, the whole package, going for them. For those of us north of…not so much.”

There was also the sheer scale of the 100-boat fleet amassed on the lakeshore-bound racecourse, where clean air and open lanes didn’t come easily. “The fast guys go away very quickly in the conditions that benefit them for that race,” Favela says. “That group is the hardest in the Sunfish class because everybody is going at the same speed.

“So, a good start is more important when the conditions are more benevolent than on the extremes of the wind range because the whole mass is moving around the course at the same speed. The fastest Sunfish maybe goes 5.1 knots, and the slowest Sunfish sails at 4.9. So, horizon jobs happen based on geometry, not necessarily speed. So, if the conditions are not too variable, that mass remains together, like a big Roman army marching all together.”

While Blouin sailed away with the world title after sweeping the regatta’s final three races, Ramsay was a whopping 20 points in arrears, followed by six Latin American sailors and Foerster ninth as the top Grand Master (age 60 to 69). Fellow Grand Master Mike Ingham was 10th. Favela, at 14th, was the top Apprentice Master (40 to 49), a result that he’s certainly proud of.

“It makes me so happy that such an ­elementary boat can bring together so many countries to race at such a high level,” he says, “to see the team at the club, the family of Rush Creek working so hard to put together such a great event. It was a huge achievement to go hardcore racing with a great race committee, with a great crowd, and walk away thinking, Holy cow, if you finish top 10 of this thing, you are somebody. And kudos to those who did.”

The post The Texas Sunfish Invasion appeared first on Sailing World.

Spotting the starting line by eye is a practice that has remained unchanged for generations. For small fleets, a simple look down the line works well, but as the line gets stretched out to accommodate a big fleet, calling the line by sight is an impossible task for even the most seasoned and eagle-eyed spotter. And bigger fleets are usually more aggressive, which compounds the problem. General recalls are no fun, unless you like starting practice, and black flags are real buzz killers.

Rumor has it that the black flag was invented on the fly with a skull and crossbones flag back in the day out of a race committee’s frustration at a J/24 Midwinters in Miami. I once sailed a world championship that had 14 black-flag starts in 10 races, and besides the significant time squandered, I found the results to be unfair, with the regatta ultimately decided by who was best at staying hidden. This is frustrating to competitors, race committees and organizers
—nobody is happy in the end. Maybe we’ve become so accustomed to this punitive approach to managing our starts that we didn’t realize our sport had a starting problem and we couldn’t imagine a ­better solution.

That was until RaceSense by Vakaros showed us that there is a way forward. Using its GPS-position sensor-based technology, the Vakaros system “sees” all who are over and those who are covered, or not, and it is, as the cliche goes, a game-changer. Developed initially with the M32 catamaran fleet as a beta of sorts and then put to use with other one-design classes on a smaller scale, the recent J/70 Worlds in Spain was Vakaros’ biggest and most ambitious application yet. We’re talking about 95 boats, most of them with top-shelf pros who know how to push the line, get covered, and get away with it. Now we know, with RaceSense at least, there’s no arguing after the fact.

“If you’re over, there’s no one to complain to,” J/70 world champion Doug Newhouse recently told Sailing World. “There are no black flags, no U flags or general recalls. There’s none of that stuff.”

Mark Foster was helping sight the line at the J70 Worlds. He has eyeballed more than his share of big-fleet starts and echoes Newhouse’s experience from the race committee’s perspective. “Being able to automatically identify OCS boats takes that stress off the race committee,” he says. “Of the nine starts (eight races, one abandoned), they were all P-flag starts,” he says. “In one race, there were 23 boats over. They were all identified, and they all restarted within 15 seconds. With the old way, that would have been a ­general recall.” 

“I was amazed,” says Jeremy Wilmot, who won the worlds with Newhouse. “I’ve gone to a J/70 event where we had, I think, six ­generals before we got the first race off.”

At the heart of the RaceSense system is the Atlas 2 GPS-based sailing instrument. There is one Vakaros unit on each mark and on each competitor’s boats. They are connected wirelessly and individually to a tablet that the race committee uses to control the RaceSense race-management software. The Atlas 2 sensors boast a 25-centimeter accuracy. Considering that at 6 knots, by my math, we go 25 centimeters in less than one-tenth of a second, that’s likely far better than the traditional line spotter’s eye could possibly detect. And likely the start marks are bouncing around more than that each wave anyway. 

But specs are specs, and promises are promises. The only way that I would be convinced of RaceSense’s application was to try it myself and understand how accurate enough it is in real-world action.

Foster is the right guy to ask because he has more large events using the technology than anyone else. “I have used it so much now that I have 100 percent faith in the machine,” he tells me. Taken aback with his level of confidence in the Vakaros units and the companion app, I probed further, and he relayed the experience that made him a believer.

“Early on, I called the line using a hybrid of sighting and using RaceSense. Then I called three boats just barely OCS at the VX One North Americans, but RaceSense disagreed, calling them clear.”

To reconcile the discrepancy, he reviewed his video recording of the start, frame by frame. “It turns out, I got it wrong; they were safe by two frames. At 24 frames per second, that’s one-twelfth of a second.”

Foster says that he’s unable to quickly and accurately process the audio of the countdown and combine it with what he sees. He still sights the line—not to call boats, but to make sure that “the number of boats I estimate are over matches how many the machine calls. I have yet to have a recall because of any disagreement from what I see to what the machine calls, but I am prepared to,” he says.

The starting line is defined by GPS units located at each end and, naturally, these units move with the wind and waves. It is the same as a traditional line. This starting information is broadcast in real time to each boat’s Atlas 2 unit. To ensure an even playing field, each boat has the unit mounted in the same place on the boat, usually behind the mast, with a ­display facing aft.

RaceSense knows the outline of the boat onto which it is mounted, and combined with position data, delivers all the information to know if any part of your boat is over the line, precisely the same way a line spotter would call it. Whereas a line spotter’s sight is limited by distance, close calls and obstructed views, RaceSense knows where every boat is, no matter how well-hidden. And ­hidden boats are the problem; they are the root cause of all big-fleet ­starting issues.

 At “go,” any OCS boats are instantly notified via a red LED on their Atlas 2; non-OCS boats get a comforting green LED. Returning, the red LED turns green when clear. Meanwhile, the RaceSense software is in the loop and passes all OCS information to the race committee’s tablet. 

Classes have a choice in how they want to use the technology. Your class might already embrace pinging, so you will likely already have the equipment and are familiar with using the displayed time, distance, and speed information. For you, RaceSense will be only the incremental addition of automating the process. 

But your class might be more grassroots and not want any technology that helps you start your boat. Classes such as the Melges 15 and Etchells have been using it extensively with large fleets. They still want sailors to get line sights and judge their own line, but they also want the technology to improve the start-line experience with better OCS identification. I’m not advocating for either way; it’s a class-management question. Fortunately, your class can inject as much or as little of the technology as desired to match your starting culture.

My first experience using RaceSense at the recent J/24 Worlds in Seattle gave a feel and appreciation for how it works. First, I set up the Atlas 2 with its companion phone app. Because each class gets to choose which features it wants enabled, the app prompted me to input the boat I was racing. J/24 class rules allow full viewing and access to the essential functions: compass, distance to the line, time, and speed information, so it automatically enabled all that. It also uses the J/24 hull outline to know if any part of the boat is over. 

I configured the user interface through the app to display this data the way my brain wants to digest it. I chose to keep it simple, with time up top, distance in the middle, and speed at the bottom. I did that all at home. Then, once I got to Seattle, the last step was to register the device with RaceSense for the Worlds, and I was ready to go.

On race day, because the Atlas unit is more than just a starting device, as we sail out to the course, we collect tactical compass headings that are displayed on the Atlas 2. As we get in range of the RC, a “Joined the race” message on the screen automatically alerts us that we have checked in with the race committee, which ­eliminates coming within hail along with a bunch of other boats ­trying to do the same.

Later, while continuing our prerace homework, the countdown clock automatically starts, having been triggered by the race ­committee via RaceSense. For the first race of the day, the clock could be rolling as early as 40 minutes before the start, but between races, it typically started the countdown at 15 minutes. If there was a postponement during the sequence, the clock would stop, then restart when back in action. All this was extremely helpful because it took out all the guesswork and the stress of being near the boat waiting for signals. We always knew how much time we had to make a repair, change our rig, eat lunch, tune up, or whatever we had to do. And we never were off a few seconds, or worse, missed the first signal.

We considered it to be game time when the start clock reached 10 minutes; this is when the race committee hoisted its orange flag, signaling that the line was set. The line information was instantly available on our Atlas 2 unit, with no pinging required.

No one is a fan of ping parade, including Wilmot, who says: “When you’re pinging the line, you’re banging into boats. You’re not looking at the racecourse, and you’re worried about getting back to the end of the line that you want to get to.”

Occasionally at the J/24 worlds, there would be a significant ­windshift, and the race committee would hoist the AP flag, pausing the sequence to reset the line.

“I was able to move the pin and get back into sequence in eight minutes,” Foster says. “Your line was about 0.35 nautical miles long, and it would have been 30 minutes with repinging.” 

Besides being a hassle, pings have suspect accuracy. Sometimes it’s user error: approaching the start mark too fast or from too far away, which results in easily being a meter or so off.

But that error can be dwarfed by natural movements. Jake Keilman, co-founder of Vakaros, was on-site for the J/24 Worlds and tracked that movement. Puget Sound is 600-plus feet deep, and with thousands of feet of anchor line, Keilman reported that the race committee moved 30 meters or more, stretching downwind in the puffs and creeping back in the lulls.  He tells me that is ­normal for deepwater venues, which gave me greater insight into why line sights or pings seem off at times. With pinging, we know only where the line once was, but RaceSense tells us where it is right now. Because that’s how lines are called, that’s quite compelling.

Fortunately, I had no OCS starts at the Worlds, but I had two at the pre-Worlds as I got used to using the system. In each case, my Atlas 2’s red LED gave me instant notification, so I restarted right away. Ten seconds or so later, a green LED told me that I was clear, then I was on my way. It was perhaps just a little worse than a third-row start. It was not a good race, by any means, but it did not take me out of the regatta like the U or black flag would have. And it was a fair penalty—painful, yes—but I still got to sail the race and save points.

Whether I use line sights or a ping, I am never quite sure where the line really is. I often lose my line sight in the last moments, as sails converge and block my view. Even if I can see my line sight, or I have pinged, with the expectation that the line has likely moved since set, I don’t quite trust it all the time. With all that uncertainty, in the final moments of the start, I go with the fleet, ­desperately trying not to be second row. 

“If someone goes, you go with them” is Wilmot’s perspective of the old ways. Hence, boats are often over in clumps, with the inside boats hidden. Even one boat over near an end of the line eclipses the entire line. This leads to either a recall, or if the RC chooses to let it go, free passes for guilty parties. Recalls kill time; free passes are unfair. I’ll say it again: Hidden boats are the root cause of all the other big-fleet starting issues.

Nothing is perfect, and in asking around, the main concern I heard from my friends was cost. It’s all about choice, and your class or event will have to decide if all the benefits are worth the cost. Doug Wake, director of marketing at Vakaros, points out, “If your class already allows pinging, the cost to add RaceSense is relatively small.”

I agree, and for my J/24 Worlds experience, the amount spent on the system was far outweighed by the heightened starting experience. Still, I already owned a perfectly good Velocitek ProStart, but I could not use it because RaceSense is proprietary. I had to buy an Atlas 2. On top of that, there is an additional cost built into the entry fee to use RaceSense race-management software. The business model is evolving, and Vakaros is moving to a subscription-based model, which is a good option for those who use it often enough.

But I don’t think that some dinghy classes are ready to spend. Many don’t already have devices, so they would have to start from scratch. That said, I really look forward to this technology trickling down to the broader base. Some one-design classes likely won’t want all the full features of competitors seeing the line through a machine, but they can surely benefit from automatic and accurate line calling by the race committee. I was glad to hear that Keilman, as a dinghy sailor himself, envisions it going that way. “Our goal has been to try to make it as affordable as we can, and ultimately, as a company, we succeed by getting lots and lots of events and classes to use it.”

I heard a recurring theme of three technology-based concerns: technology creep, cheating, and reliability. Technology creep is fortunately easy to avoid if the adopting class does not allow a few vocal sailors to lead them astray. A class that does not already embrace pinging might be tempted to use all the features once they have the device on hand. I think that it is only a matter of time before less-expensive devices that have no display and show only OCS  information become available.

Besides being a hassle, pings have suspect accuracy. Sometimes it’s user error: approaching the start mark too fast or from too far away, which results in easily being a meter or so off. 

With regard to cheating, I have heard no signs of tampering, but what if someone played with the placement or hacked it? I would hope that our fellow sailors would not, and safeguards are built in to help ­prevent it, but still, it’s something to be wary of. 

The third concern, with regard to errors, is a valid one, Both the J/70 and J/24 world-­championship races went off without a hitch. Yet, we know that salt water is unkind to electronics. Any system component malfunction can be solved by having spares on hand. For bigger issues, such as a software bug or the satellite-provided GPS system going astray, the regatta’s SIs need to be written to enable the race committee to call the line the old-fashioned way.

Our focus has been on starting ­applications, but RaceSense really is a complete race-­management tool to track the fleet around the course, all the way to calling finishes. Its live tracking can be used for publicity, and the telemetry data it provides can be used for training analytics. For example, at the J/70 Worlds, Newhouse and Wilmot agreed to share their individual data through a shared coach who, Wilmot says, “analyzes all our races. I think we had 40-something boats participating.”

I think we will see it used as an aid to both ­sailors and the jury to make our sport more fair as well. “If you strip it back and look at the underlying cause, it’s a disagreement of when we enter the zone,” says Keilman about most mark-room conflicts, “so our thought is for classes that want to use it either as a learning tool or even instant zone notification while racing, to provide that information and let the sailors sort it out from there.

“And a jury might want it to straighten out the facts.”

I can see tracking information with boat outlines being quite revealing and will help make jury decisions quick, clear, and fair. And likely, upon seeing the facts on a screen onshore, many protests will be settled between competitors over a beer before they even reach the room.

Vakaros is the only automated start system on the market to date, but competition is coming. Announced with a planned mid-2025 launch date is Velocitek’s Wireless Race Management System. 

According to Velocitek’s Charles Swanson, Velocitek’s ­system “delivers synchronized start sequence, automatic line pinging (updated every second), OCS calls with RTK GPS accuracy (1.8 cm), auto-clearing detection, live tracking, and replays.”

Whereas the Atlas 2 is a single unit, Velocitek’s unit will be a split system. Its RTK Puck GPS sensor will be placed on the stern to get it away from the error-causing shielding of the mast, boom and rigging. And you will have a choice of devices and location for your display, from a full screen mounted anywhere you want to a simpler display on your wrist. For small classes with not much room and that want only OCS notification, the wristwatch idea is intriguing.  

With a compelling need, line-calling technology is destined to become integral with our sport. Unfortunately, so far they all appear to be proprietary. Your class will have to be on board with one manufacturer or another, and I see no sign of that changing. Worst case, if you race more than one boat, you might need to own more than one if your classes choose different technologies. Just a few months ago, I admit that I was skeptical of the viability and was a bit annoyed at having to pony up the cash, but my experience using it was all positive. I was surprised at how many advantages an automated start-line aid to the race committee brought to the table. And who knows—maybe without needing to blend in to avoid the line ­spotter’s eye, colorful boats will come back into fashion.

The post Starting Systems Are Changing the Game appeared first on Sailing World.

Moding involves three ways of sailing upwind: sailing in a VMG mode, which is the best angle and speed for your boat in the given conditions; sailing in a high mode, which means higher and slower; and sailing in a low mode, which means lower and faster. Why would you want to sail anything other than optimal VMG? Generally speaking, a high or low mode can help you with lane management and racecourse positioning. The overall idea is that you are always working to have a great lane and position yourself between your competition and the next mark, thus reducing risk.

Mode for Lane Management

We’ve all been there before—you come off the starting line, hoping to have a nice big lane, but the boat to leeward is a little bow-forward of you and could end up pinching you off. Rather than waiting for that to happen, you shift into a high mode to keep your lane. Of course, this assumes your bow is forward of the boat to windward of you, which is usually the case at the start if the pin is at all favored.

Shifting into high mode involves very subtle changes in steering and trimming. The ­difference between steering in VMG mode and high mode is only a degree or two. In VMG mode, you’re usually steering so that the inside jib telltales are streaming straight back in light air and slightly lifting in medium to heavy breeze. Go into high mode, and those telltales will now be lifting more. If it’s really windy, high mode might mean bubbling the front of the jib a bit. For trim, the main is usually brought in a couple of clicks, and the jib might come in one click of the ratchet. If you’re on a boat with inboard/outboard jib leads, moving the lead in a touch also helps get into high mode.

A common mistake when in high mode is to overdo how much you trim the sails. If you overtrim the main and jib to the point where they start stalling, nothing works, and you’ll end up losing on everybody.

Pay close attention to how your speed changes when you enter high mode, and learn how high you can go without losing speed, which will vary based on the type of boat you’re sailing. A while back, I was sailing in an FJ and was often using a high mode for big gains. We were in full hike, tight main, bubbling the jib, and the boat didn’t seem to slow at all. It was flat water, which helped, because pinching puts you on the verge of stalling. This is much riskier in any sort of chop.

I’ve used high mode with great success on the Etchells too. Some boats pinch ­better than others. Wind strength is also a big factor. The windier it is, the easier it is to do. The lighter the wind, the more careful you have to be. At some point, if you get comfortable with the amount of leeward gauge you have, put the bow back down, matching the boat to leeward in VMG mode, release, and go straight. When we bear away, we ease the main and jib just the small amount that we trimmed them when shifting to high mode.

Low mode can be a ­powerful tool in helping to maintain your lane as well. Suppose you come off the line strong on the boat to leeward of you, but the boat to windward is going fast, and the threat is that you might get rolled by that boat. The helm bears off a degree or two, and you sail “fat.” The telltales will still be streaming, and you might ease the sails a bit, but not necessarily. The key is not to let the boat heel over more when bearing away. If you anticipate the heel, ease the sails a bit, ease the traveler down, or put on a little more backstay. This scenario occurs a lot off the starting line, but it also frequently happens on the open course.

The effectiveness of sailing in a low mode is really boat-­specific. An Etchells, for example, doesn’t gain that much when you go low; it doesn’t accelerate a lot, and you just lose height. In that boat, it’s usually VMG mode or high mode—streaming the telltales or lifting 45 degrees. The slower the boat, the subtler the boatspeed change will be. An FJ likes to go high and doesn’t accelerate that much when you go low. On the other hand, a 420 accelerates more when you put the bow down. So, moding in a 420 compared with an FJ is slightly different, although it works with both boats. In catamarans and high-performance boats, the speed gain can be huge with a burst of low mode.

It’s important to have immediate communication from the rail about whether to shift modes. When you come off the starting line, assess the position you’re in relative to those around you and make the call: VMG mode, high mode or low mode. I might tell my skipper: “The threat is to leeward of us. We’re good high,” meaning, we can go into a high mode without the threat of being rolled by a boat to windward of us. We then come up a degree or two, trim in the sails a click or two, and sail slightly higher, trying to increase our gap on the boat to leeward. Meanwhile, we’ll probably end up pinching off the boat above us.

Or I might say: “The threat is high. We’re good low.” It’s really important to have good input from the rail about your height and speed, no matter where you are on the course. Always talk about your boat’s height and speed compared with another boat.

For example, you might say, “We’re faster but same height” or “We’re higher and slower.” In low mode, when I look under the boom, I want to see us moving forward on the fleet, and that’s another good piece of information that you’ll want to communicate. It’s an especially good technique if you don’t have a knotmeter.

Tacticians are always calculating gains and losses to make the best decisions possible. Moding to go the way you want is often the right call.

If you do have a knotmeter, communication can be a lot more specific. Suppose you’re sailing in VMG mode at 6 knots, and there’s a boat above that might roll you. You might say, “Let’s go 6.2 here,” which tells the helm to move into low mode, increasing your speed two-tenths. Or you come off the line and have a boat close below you, and to defend, you need to go into high mode. Then you might say, “Let’s go 5.8 here.” On a boat that has target speeds posted, as a tactician you would say, “Let’s go posted here” or “Let’s go four-tenths over posted,” meaning low and fast. Or you might say, “Two-tenths under posted,” which is bow up slightly, higher and slower. It’s all based on lane management or positioning. 

Say you’re on the open course and happy with the direction you’re heading, but other boats are threatening your lane. Time to choose a mode. Think of it as a time trial around the racetrack, and the other boats are simply in your way. In this scenario, you might pinch or foot to keep your lane and keep going the direction you want for big-picture strategy. This is very important because losing a little VMG in the short term but gaining on the next shift or a racecourse feature (favorable current) is totally worth it. Tacticians are always calculating gains and losses to make the best decisions possible. Moding to go the way you want is often the right call.

Mode for Course Positioning

Use the same moding techniques to maximize your time in the most wind on the racecourse and also to position yourself in the best possible place relative to the rest of the fleet. Tactical rule No. 1 is to sail in more wind. You can use moding to get to the stronger wind quicker. For example, you’re coming out of the left side of the first beat on a puffy day, and you see a puff coming from the left layline area, over your left shoulder. In this scenario, you could shift into a slightly high mode to connect with the puff sooner. Once you are in the puff, release, and sail VMG or fast forward if it’s a lift. Another scenario to maximize wind is when you see a nice puff straight ahead. Here you would sail slightly fast to reach the puff sooner. Once in the puff, you sail VMG, thereby increasing your time in the strongest wind. 

Tactical rule No. 2 is sail toward the mark, on the long tack. You can use moding to manage your lane as previously mentioned, and as the best sailors do, to reduce risk by positioning yourself between the fleet and the mark when exposed on a side of the racecourse. You essentially should use moding to reduce risk and put your boat in a favorable, strong position. For example, using the same scenario above, once you connect with that left shift and puff, release forward, and sail fast to reduce your leverage since you are already on the left side, especially if most of the fleet is to your right. 

One way to think of it is from a drone’s perspective. If you are to the left of the majority of the fleet coming out of the left corner but would rather be ahead of them, which is between them and the mark, when you get an advantaged shift and puff, mode forward to position yourself in the ideal spot.

Let’s explore a more detailed look at the above scenario: The left puff is a 10-degree lift, but instead of taking all of the 10-degree lift and staying on the same ladder rung and climbing away from the fleet laterally, you come up only 7 degrees, ease your sheets slightly, and go fast forward with the remaining 3 degrees. In doing so, you’re advancing forward on the boats to your right and moding toward the mark. Also, if it’s shifty and you’re in a left shift, the most likely next shift will be a right shift, and by getting bow-­forward on those boats to your right, you’ll be in a much stronger position when that happens.

Another time to mode: Traditional wisdom is that if you’re headed while sailing upwind, you should tack, but suppose you’re exiting a corner and you don’t have much real estate remaining the other way because you’re near layline. Here, when you get the header, you should shift into a high mode to sail as best as you can toward the mark and the next shift, which will probably be a lift. When the wind shifts back, return to a normal VMG mode sailing faster to the mark. And if it starts lifting you even more, bear away a degree or two and get into a low mode, sailing fast to the mark. Sail in VMG mode only if you’re on the long tack, feel you’re in a great position on the fleet, in the most wind, and everything is perfect.

Mode for a Tactical Play

Here’s another boat-on-boat time to mode: Tactically, a great tip is anytime you’re going to come together with another boat, increase your speed. They say in match racing that the faster boat wins in an interaction. So, if you’re on starboard sailing upwind, and a boat on port can almost cross but can’t and it’s clear they’re going to lee-bow you, go into a slight low mode, hike hard, crack the main a hair, and really ramp up the boatspeed. Then, when they’ve committed to their tack, shoot up into a high mode to gain separation. Once there, work to hold your lane. By going bow-down, you make them tack sooner; increase your speed and you can shift into a high mode easier, with a better chance of holding your lane. If you simply do nothing, the chance of holding your lane is reduced. 

In summary, if you get a header but don’t want to tack, go into high mode. If you get a lift but don’t need all of it, go into low mode for positioning. If you’re trying to secure a lane on those around you, moding will help you get there.

I’m always thinking that I’m racing the racecourse, and if I can go the way I want, it’s very powerful, so it’s incredibly important to be able to hold lanes. The wind doesn’t care about you. It’s doing its thing. If you can sail on the long tack and in more wind more often than your competitors, you’re going to do really well. If you can reduce risk by positioning yourself between the competition and the next mark, you will also secure top finishes. Moding helps you do all of the above, and if you incorporate it into your sailing game, you’ll be shocked at how much better you’ll do.

The post How to Mode For Upwind Speed appeared first on Sailing World.

Ohio might not be the first state that comes to mind when ­people think about competitive small-­sailboat racing, but perhaps a second look is in order, especially when you consider that the Buckeye State is blessed with hundreds of small lakes. There is a popular myth that, other than Lake Erie, there are no other natural lakes in Ohio, and be that as it may, there is an abundance of man-made lakes that date back almost 200 years.

Buckeye Lake, just east of Columbus, was built in the 1820s as a feeder lake for the expanding canal system, and much later boasted great Lightning, Highlander, Interlake and Raven racing fleets. More recently, many lakes were built by the state for recreational purposes, including Acton Lake, near my hometown of Oxford, which has become a hotbed of small-craft racing.

In 1956, the state built an earthen dam on the tiny Four-Mile Creek and formed Acton Lake in what is now Hueston Woods State Park. At 625 acres, it is just shy of 1 square mile—a puddle by any definition. In its wisdom, the state initially placed a low-horsepower restriction on powerboats, and this no-wake environment was perfect for canoeing, fishing and ­small-boat sailing.

At first, there was no organized sailboat racing, but eventually the Hueston Sailing Association was formed to encourage sailing and racing almost as soon as the lake filled. Because the lake is situated in a state park, the HSA had no property other than a small pontoon race-committee boat, and an even smaller crash boat. However, the park did give the HSA use of a bulletin board and let them set up a tent near the docks on race days for postrace scoring and protest hearings. Boats were kept in sturdy wood slips or on trailers and sailed out of dry sailing lots. Like most Midwest lakes, the water was silty, and unless you had a hoist or dry-sailed, hulls needed to be cleaned weekly to ­maintain a fast bottom.

I was 13 years old when Acton Lake opened to the public. I knew nothing about sailing, so I naturally lobbied my parents to buy a powerboat. Instead, my father got a friend to take me sailing on his 16-foot fiberglass Rebel-class one-design sloop, a Ray Greene design reputed to be the first fiberglass production sailboat class. The Rebel wasn’t exactly a speedster, but I caught the sailing bug, and the following summer, another friend loaned us a 14-foot sloop-rigged no-name scow that had been built out of plywood from plans in Popular Mechanics. It was heavy and slow but amazingly stable, and it fell apart at about the same rate that I learned how to repair it. I read a few how-to-sail books, learned the basics by trial and error, joined the HSA, and started racing it in their Sunday races.

By the late 1950s, the HSA had established fleets of Thistles, Rebels, s, Y-Flyers, Snipes, Rhodes Bantams, and a large handicap fleet of all manner of small sailboats, including Penguins, Sailfish, Windmills, and off-brand boats like my no-name scow. Sunday-afternoon racing was simple: a single start with all the boats starting at once and one long race, several times around a short course. These starts often had 25-plus boats of different sizes and speeds starting at the same time—great training for learning how to start in big fleets.

Courses could be a problem. The lake was longest on its north/south axis, but the wind was more often out of the west, and with a west wind, it was almost impossible to get long enough windward legs. The answer was a figure-eight-shaped course with two windward marks set far apart on the west shore—one taken to port and the other to starboard—and two ­corresponding leeward marks. The reaches had all the boats crossing at the center of the course in ­demolition-derby fashion, and we all had to learn right-of-way rules quickly to avoid collisions, like the time a Y-Flyer on a full plane T-boned a Thistle amidships.

The reaches had all the boats crossing at the center of the course in demolition-derby fashion, and we all had to learn right-of-way rules quickly to avoid collisions, like the time a Y-Flyer on a full plane T-boned a Thistle amidships.

To add to the challenge, the wind was often light and almost always shifty. Sailors had to concentrate on the shifts and learn how to maintain boatspeed and optimal track in the variable wind conditions. Because of the size of the lake, you never sailed very long on one leg, so crews got a lot of practice in tacking and jibing in close proximity with the other boats on the course. Every race was a learning opportunity, and if you paid attention, you could learn more in an afternoon on Acton Lake than a month of sailing on a larger lake with steadier winds.

After a few seasons of racing my no-name scow, I wanted to race a one-design and went halfsies with my family to buy Rhodes Bantam No. 836, a wood boat from the Gibbs Boat Company in Michigan. There were a couple of talented racers in the small fleet. I paid close attention to what they were doing, and in time, I started winning my share of races. In my first away Bantam regatta on Lake Erie, I marveled at how easy it was to sail in steady wind on a large body of water, but the skills I had learned on Acton Lake gave me a real edge when lake conditions turned light and shifty.

There was also another good Rhodes Bantam fleet on nearby Cowan Lake, a somewhat larger puddle near Wilmington, Ohio, and by the 1960s, we were having great home-and-home regattas—the Feather Duster and Arby Darby (get it? “R-B” Darby). The quality of the racing was impressive, and soon these regattas began to draw Bantams from all over the Midwest. The R-B Class even held its International Championship regatta on Acton Lake in 1971. I was in the US Air Force in nearby Dayton at the time, but the Air Force sent me to Texas for a four-month temporary-duty assignment and I missed the regatta. Years later, my son and I went on to win the Rhodes Bantam Internationals, and I credit years of puddle racing for helping me learn how to race in a variety of conditions.

 I wasn’t the only Acton Lake puddle racer who enjoyed some success. By my recollection, at least two other HSA one-design skippers went on to win national championships in the Y-Flyer and Rebel classes. Other Ohio puddles (Cowan Lake, Buckeye Lake and Hoover Reservoir, to name a few) also produced their share of small-boat champions. Buckeye had a world-class Lightning fleet in the 1960s and ’70s, and I crewed there often when I was in college. The Fisher family (George and sons Matt and Greg) were always hard to beat, and all of the Fishers went on to win an impressive number of regional and national championships.

To illustrate the level of passion that this tiny lake generated, one of the HSA racers, Dr. Jim Wagner, a Y-Flyer skipper, took the specs of the popular Y-Flyer scow and scaled it down to a three-quarter version that he dubbed the W-Scow. It could be sailed singlehanded or doublehanded, and several were built by HSA members just for fun and to help younger racers make the transition to the full-size one-designs. Another member built a beautiful wooden International 505 but added a full 4 feet to the length of the mast, with a dramatic increase in sail area. She was a handful in a breeze but almost unbeatable in light air.

Puddle racing is similar to frostbiting. The courses tend to be short, with lots of mark roundings and tactical situations. Beats are a challenge in the crowded and shifty conditions, and short reaches and runs place an emphasis on developing boatspeed quickly, quick spinnaker sets and douses, and good offwind tactics. Boats seldom get too spread out, and a good knowledge of the rules is crucial when sailing in the resulting traffic. Concentration and paying attention to windshifts and the competition are usually more important than flat-out boatspeed.

In my mind, “puddle” was never a pejorative descriptor. It just meant that you were yacht racing on a small patch of water with good friends, all of whom were hell bent on getting a good start and beating you to the first mark. Sometimes good things do come in small packages.

Editor’s Note: We all have our favorite hometown regatta, whether it’s the annual big-fleet jamboree or the locals-only intergalactic championship. Maybe it’s the season opener or the midsummer rally with a start and a finish at the grill. It could be our seasonal offshore passage, the club charity race, a sprint around some quirky geographical fixture, or simply the best harbor, pond or puddle regatta that no one else has ever heard of. We know that these local favorites are happening everywhere and every day around the sailing world, and we’d like to share them through this column series. If you have a favorite to share, drop me a tip at dave.reed@sailingworld.com.

The post Where We Sail Matters appeared first on Sailing World.

The warning gun fires, and the ­prestart dance begins in the Classics fleet at the Rolex Big Boat Series hosted by San Francisco’s St. Francis YC. We’ve got 19 knots of wind already, and it’s still early. It will blow. I can feel the building sea breeze that has whipped San Francisco Bay into frenzied whitecaps nearly every summer day for as long as I can remember. For this regatta, I’m not in my usual position as navigator. Today, I’m the tactician. That’s because Mayan is special, and I find that it gives me insight into the expectations of the great tacticians I normally sail with on other grand-prix programs.

“Time to burn to the boat?” I ask Lance Berc, a retired Silicon Valley technologist with an Albert Einstein hairstyle. Berc is holding the “box,” which is the affectionate term for the tablet, repeating the nav ­computer down below. 

“Burning 4 min 25 boat,” comes the answer instantly, just as I’d trained him. 

“Pin burn?”

“Burning 4 min pin,” he responds.

His numbers track because I know this patch of water in front of the club like my backyard. Even though the gun has just gone off, I prompt Lance to start giving me a data stream of info to paint the picture like other great tacticians have always encouraged me to do when roles are reversed. 

“Beau, tack to follow Hurrica,” I say. Beau Vrolyk is the skipper, driver and chief caretaker, aka owner of Mayan. His wife, Stacy, is handling the runners. We smoothly pull off a tack. 

“Lewwy, they are jibing,” Hall of Famer Bill Lee says. “Think they want to play with us.”

Lee, well-known as the “Wizard,” is the designer of the Santa Cruz line of race yachts and the legendary Transpac maxi Merlin, which is also racing in this year’s Big Boat Series. 

He’s right about Hurrica V, which jibes in behind us. 

“Bearing away to a jibe,” I call, and then quickly follow with, “Burn Pin?”

“Burning 3 min pin,” Berc responds as Hurrica and Mayan complete their first circle. 

“Lewwy, are we doing this?” Vrolyk asks. 

“Yeah, Beau, we’re doing this—12-Metre America’s Cup style.”

Vrolyk laughs heartily, and with a glance in his direction, I realize that I’ve never seen him so happy.

Mayan and Hurrica are now engaged, dancing in majestic circles. After completing our second circle, I ask, “Boatlength below line, burn pin?”

“Three boatlengths, burning 1 min 20 pin,” Berc says as I also hear the countdown to the gun from Paul Heineken.

“Beau, one more circle,” I say, sensing that nothing would make him happier.  

As we complete our third loop, Hurrica is directly in front of us, aimed at the popular Grille Room of St. Francis. I can see the spectators cheering from the club deck.

I ask the same question for tactical info. 

“Two boatlengths, burning 30 pin.”  

“We’ve got them; we are in the push ­position,” I say. “They can’t tack and bear away because we’d have them on starboard. Their only choice is to be over the line, ­especially with the ebb.”

We hold firm until Hurrica is over early.

“Holding…Beau, mow the lawn,” I shout. He understands the lingo and instantly bears away to kill time on starboard.   

With 20 seconds remaining to the gun and no more time to burn, I call for a tack onto port, seeing that we will have no traffic issues after the start. We cross the line on port tack close to the shallow pin end—not quite at full speed, but we’ll take it.

Vrolyk had wanted a port-tack start to save the time of a tack after the start to get out into the ebb in the center of the bay because it is strategically smart, never mind the risk. Normally, it’s the tactician who wants to port tack the fleet for glory and strategic advantage, while the owner typically focuses on the bills from a collision. But not on Mayan. Vrolyk is as competitive as sailors get after a lifetime of racing sailboats. 

So, port tack they want; port tack they get. We are just lucky that Hank Easom’s Yucca isn’t on the start line this year. He’d never let us get away with such a move, given how much more maneuverable his 8-Metre classic is than this schooner. 

The gun sounds, and Mayan is heading out with pace to the good water that is out in the middle of the bay. We know the flow, knowledge gleaned from a lifetime of experience, bog standard tide books, and the high-­resolution current models that are piped into our Expedition navigation software. 

The crew lets out a cheer as we win the start, and caught up in the excitement, I run forward toward the bow, which definitely surprises the bow team. I high-five all 25 people on board, including my two teenage daughters, Veronica and Verity. 

Jogging down the side deck, from bow to stern, the final high-five is reserved for Vrolyk, who yells over the sounds of the shrieking wind: “Good thing we added Casey Gray to grind this year. With all those circles, the mainsheet has never, ever gone in and out that much.”

Given the prestart jargon aboard Mayan on this day, you’d be forgiven to think that we are on an all-carbon TP52 rather than a stately 68,000-pound Alden Schooner built in 1947 in British Honduras. Mayan is the perfect marriage of vintage and modern technology. We’ve spent years refining the polars on Mayan, trying to get the box to give us reasonably accurate numbers. This year we spent extra effort on getting some of the advanced start models correct, which included dialing in the acceleration, rate of turn, and braking files.   

You might accuse me of being crazy, but the America’s Cup has given us some “inspo,” as the cool kids say. Watching the AC75s made me realize that they have a lot more in common with an old classic than one might think. Neither boat can accelerate quickly from a stop, and once rumbling, it is difficult to slow them. Even if you blow Mayan’s sheets, the boat’s speed doesn’t change, because of its mass and momentum. And lastly, we really, really don’t want any of these ­classic ­monsters to have a collision.

One America’s Cup-inspired start ­technique to burn time is not to go slower, but rather travel more distance. We named this tactic “mowing the lawn,” which is when we turn away from the line and sail deep downwind for a short distance, then turn back up—not even changing the sail trim as we are just killing time.

As soon as both Mayan and Hurrica V are berthed at St. Francis YC’s docks, a spontaneous and touching standing ovation takes place as the crews honor each other for the start-line fireworks. Later that same evening at one of the club’s parties, we spot Hurrica’s skipper, Mark Sanders, and his crew. Almost immediately, St Francis’ Vice Commodore Adam Gambel (who was the lucky Hurrica helmsperson for the day) runs over to us, full of smiles and enthusiasm, and says, “Those three circles at the start were the most fun and best racing we’ve ever done.”

To that, we all agree.

After a few drinks flow, the commodore leans in, and with a hushed voice, conspiratorially shares, “I want to let you in on Hurrica’s strategy,” he says. The competitor in me is all ears.  “We’ve obviously had quite a rivalry with Mayan over the years, and it’s fair to say that you’d definitely gotten the better of us. This year, we decided it is going to be different. On Day 1 of the Rolex Big Boat Series, our goal was: We are coming to your neighborhood. We accomplished that; the racing was tight.”

On Day 2, he says, the strategy was, “we want to play in your backyard, and we did that too. So, this morning, we were a little more aggressive and decided our strategy was: We are getting into your hot tub!”

Gambel roars with laughter and says, “That’s why we wanted to engage in all those circles with you. We were in your hot tub.” I laughed along with him, enjoying the camaraderie and sportsmanship that goes part and parcel with Corinthian classic sailing. 

I later realize that we still have one day of racing remaining. Noticing the obvious trend in Hurrica’s strategy, I wonder, If it’s hot tub already, what could possibly be in store for the final day of racing?

Pins drop as we listen for the intel. 

“Tomorrow, we’ll be in your single shower stall!” Gambel blurts out, and the crews of both yachts erupted with laughter, one unintentionally spitting out their drink. Moments like this is why I love the Rolex Big Boat Series and St. Francis, which is, of course, one of the oldest and most prestigious yacht clubs in the US. It’s known for its luxurious facilities, world-class sailing programs, and exclusive events, but under the guidance of race chair and Rear Commodore Susan Ruhne and Commodore Chris Perkins, the club sure knows how to host racing events and parties. 

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s get back to racing. First of all, there’s Mayan. Wherever the famous schooner goes, folks show up at the dock to see the sailboat once owned by musician David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame. Closing your eyes, you can imagine Crosby in his happy place, strumming a guitar, lost in a melody, with the wind carrying his voice across the water. His expression might be a mix of contemplation and contentment, reflecting on a life intertwined with music, creativity, and a deep connection to nature. It’s been said that “Wooden Ships” was written on board Mayan . 

During the Crosby era, Mayan hosted the rock star’s parties for decades and would have witnessed countless wild nights. The boat, like its former owner, would have lived life to the fullest, its stately elegance witnessing lives filled with music, laughter, and unforgettable moments such as possibly planning to use Mayan as a getaway boat to avoid extradition. If only the timber could talk. 

According to Mayan lore, Crosby was once asked by a curious offshore sailor, “Why doesn’t Mayan have a lee cloth on the main bed?”

To which Crosby, with his signature mustache and long, flowing hair, responded with an innocent smile, “Well, when you sleep on Mayan and have a woman on each side of you, I found that I haven’t needed lee cloths because I can’t roll off the bunk!”

Fast-forward to the modern era of Mayan. She is now cared for by the Vrolyk family. They are not rock stars, but they do share Crosby’s affection for the schooner. They have restored Mayan back to its original glory and to the timeless beauty.

Vrolyk regularly geeks out talking about Mayan’s sleek lines and graceful curves, sculpted by the hands of master craftsmen, which speak of a bygone era of maritime excellence. He and Stacy are also primarily responsible for assembling the diverse, talented crew of Mayan, which also represents a more modern mentality.  

For this edition of the Rolex Big Boat Series, the age span of the crew is 8 (Zephyr Gray) to the legendary 82-year-old wizard Lee. The Vrolyks view Mayan as a platform to give folks from all walks of life a chance to have a taste of adventure at sea and perform in a high-performing team. 

“If we didn’t work so hard on ­recruiting young folks on the boat, Mayan would be left with a bunch of old white guys, and Mayan wouldn’t win as much,” Beau says.

Under the watchful eyes of master rigger Mathew Coale, Tommy Lewin, Rob Franks and the Vrolyks, they teach things such as windward rail sheeting, weight movement fore-and-aft, dynamic sail trimming in puffs, and having at least one or two people calling puffs and current lines. Synthia Petroka and Liz Kroft are a female duo who have been flawlessly running the bow team for years. It means the world to me that my teenage girls have been given the chance to sail with me on this occasion, alongside the women and men of Mayan. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I never thought that racing classics would be so much fun, but I’m sold. I’ve sailed on a few other classics, such as the 183-foot Adela in the America’s Cup Superyacht Regatta and Zemphira at the “Woodstock” of wooden-­boat sailing, which is the Eggemoggin Reach in coastal Maine. 

Even Lee, who pioneered the phrase “fast is fun,” may have to come up with a corollary, like “majestic is fun.” There is just such a pure feeling in sailing the classics. The warm wooden hulls and towering masts, adorned with billowing sails, capture the power of the wind (with ridiculously named sails: the Gollywobbler, Flounder and Advance) to propel the vessel through the waves with a sense of elegance, freedom and grace. 

Stepping aboard one is like entering a time capsule, where rich nautical history and heritage come alive. Polished-brass fittings gleam in the sunlight and evoke a sense of nostalgia, a true testament to the enduring spirit of classic yachting that is a throwback to the 1800s when San Francisco Bay was filled with the fastest wooden boats eager to capitalize on the California Gold Rush. Racing one alongside go-fast moderns and ­one-­designs in big breeze and complex ­currents, with the Golden Gate Bridge looming in the distance, is an extraordinary experience.

The post Bringing Back the Classics in San Fran appeared first on Sailing World.

Doug Newhouse and his boat partner, Jeremy Wilmot, the 30-something Aussie-American pro sailor, won the J/70 World Championship title in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, this past September, in an effort that provides a compelling blueprint for any team with big-regatta aspirations. We sat down for an in-depth debrief in the library of the International Yacht Restoration School in Newport, Rhode Island, with a view over waters where Team Yonder trained and sail-tested for many days and more hours than Newhouse cares to remember, all of which led to a highly honed team and fast sails that propelled them to the top of the 98-boat fleet.

Where to begin…Doug?

Newhouse: The successes that I’ve had in my sailing career have all started with the crew, and I will say we had the best crew in the country, if not the world, with Jeremy, Ted Hackney and George Peet. When we started talking about going to Palma for the Worlds, I asked right away, “What is it going to take to have a shot at winning, and not just showing up as a participant?”

That meant ramping up the number of regattas that we were doing. It meant going to Europe and sailing. It meant coaching, doing summer training days with other top teams, and it meant more of a focus on all the different details and all the elements that had to be put together to actually go and win a major regatta like this. It meant having all of us consistently work together as a group. It meant having a focus and a specific goal.

And your coach, Evan Aras, had a hand in this win too.

Newhouse: We would not have won without Evan. He’s incredibly analytical, and I’m very analytical, so we can relate. He’s not a “rah, rah, guys, you’ve got this,” kind of coach. There’s none of that. It’s all fact-based. He has trained so many Olympians in Palma, so he knew the bay and the conditions there, which made an enormous impact. He knew, based on thousands of other people’s performances in Palma, where you want to be for certain weather conditions. We had three days of southerlies and five days of northerlies, and because of his knowledge of the venue, we understood exactly what was going on with the breeze and how that would impact pressure on the racecourse. He’s very cutting edge and very, very good.

Doug, as the elder and only amateur on a boat full of hot-shot pro sailors, what’s your takeaway from the experience?

Newhouse: One thing that always impresses me is the communication on board; it’s so honed. There’s no extraneous chatter. It’s all highly relevant and designed around getting one more place over another boat. If you do enough racing, you realize that over a five-day event, one or two boats in every race can make all the difference. It’s easy to say, “Well, sixth place is pretty good in a fleet of 95 boats.” But what if you get fourth? That’s better. And that’s what it’s like sailing with these guys—they never let up. We’d always be trying to gain another place.

There was an incredible singularity of focus that we had during the event. For example, measurement day is usually a day off from sailing so, in Palma, we went to play golf. We were scheduled to play 18 holes, but when I learned that the boat could go back into the water and we could actually go out sailing, I cut it to nine holes. I wasn’t happy with how our starting drills had been going and felt that we needed to start more, so we went back out.

Wilmot: We’re lucky to have Laura Grondin’s Dark Energy as our training partner, and we always line up with each other at regattas. When the race committee was having technical issues on the practice race day, we just went off and did moding practice with them—working on our high, low and fast modes. That was the best 90 minutes we had in the lead-up to the Worlds because we learned so much with them in that one session, and it all applied to the first day.

What makes a good lineup?

Wilmot: The common mistake that I see with a lot of other teams is they just go straight line testing, and they’ll start with one boat in a strong position or end the test when one boat is compromised. I prefer to line up as if we’re in a tough spot, like coming off the start and having to hold a high lane, because how are you ever going to find your high mode unless it’s absolutely forced upon you? So, I suggest to everyone, if you’re losing a lineup, don’t just reset. Just wait, because it’s a great ­opportunity to see if you can last in that mode or bad lane for 20 seconds. If you can extend that to 45 seconds during a race, there will be more options for you.

“Moding” is such a buzz phrase these days. What does that mean in a J/70?

Wilmot: In Palma, moding was our greatest strength because it was so shifty. It’s not that we were faster than everyone else in a straight line, because we weren’t, but we were a lot better than everyone else at ­switching modes. For ­example, if we needed to go to a high mode, we could do it straight away. Or if we needed to go to a fast mode, we could switch to it straight away. I can think of at least five lanes that saved our regatta, where we had to go fast mode or we had to go high mode, and that was our race. It comes down to how we warm up before the start: We find our modes, and if the conditions change between races, we go upwind and find them again.

I believe that the jib really sets the mode and what you’re trying to achieve, and especially on a J/70, where you can manipulate the clew position so much. With the inhauler and the sheet tension and the car position, you can change it so much. With just the smallest ease in the inhauler or the sheet, your power and your grip from the leech and the power down in the foot of the jib can change so dramatically. So, we start with the jib and work back from there to the mainsail.

What Doug was talking about with our communication, it got to the point where we didn’t need to say that we needed more grip, or that we needed more power, or to go to fast mode. Everyone was just so in tune with the situation, and I would just say, “Mode change,” and bang, everything moves. People get so caught up with hiking that they don’t want to switch gears because you’re taking weight off the rail. But the gear is the lane, and it’s how quickly you can switch those gears. Our approach to Palma was to do the most gear changes and more mode changes than any other boat out there. And we’re just going to do them faster.

You went out and won the first race and followed that with two sevenths. That’s impressive.

Wilmot: It was just one of those days where we never got forced off a shift by another boat, and we sailed to where we wanted to go. An interesting thing, though, was that we didn’t actually pass boats on the first two days. We actually lost boats on the first two days.

What we realized was that we were playing the shifts and being aggressive on the upwind legs, taking leverage on the pack when we thought it was appropriate, but on the downwinds, we were kind of just going wing-on-wing, and everyone was coming into us. We realized that we needed to be more aggressive with mode changes downwind.

I always try to sail ­downwind with the mentality that it’s where you can pass the most boats. So, I would say on the first two days, we were pretty bad downwind, and the last two were probably the best. We completely changed our mindset and found a way to switch modes faster than everyone else and attack the boats in front of us rather than just going to the wing, which was limiting us to what we could do.

We definitely got stuck in the mentality of just going 7 knots straight at the mark. On the short courses we normally sail at home, it’s doable—you just point out the mark because you’re not going to lose that much. The person who goes planing off to the side is going to need a pretty significant shift. But when the legs are 2 miles long, you’re almost sailing into a different weather system when you go planing off the side. You get different clouds, one side of the course is hot, the other side is cold.

The third day came with a bit of a slump—a 23 and a 17. What happened there?

Wilmot: Instead of focusing on getting better as the regatta went on, we went into that day thinking that what we’re doing was working, and we just got exposed. We took risks where we wouldn’t normally take risks. We just kept taking a little bit more leverage and a little bit more leverage, and that resulted in our 23rd. We also didn’t adjust our approach on the starting line in that we didn’t push for the favor end and we got lazy with our shifts. You know, we started looking for that big shift. Instead of taking a 5-degree shift that would take us across the course and link up with that next gust, we were like, “We’re only down 5.” Well, 5 degrees with 98 boats can be a lot. We lost a huge lead that day.

 
I imagine that required a bit of reset, which then got you back on track with a 10th and a second in the next two races.

Wilmot: We did get a bit of an ass kicking on the mental side of it. We could have just let the regatta run its course, or go out and do something about it. We’re definitely believers in there being no one big thing to change, but we’re open to changing 10 small things, and that’s what we did. We changed our lower-to-cap (shroud) ratio on the rig a tiny bit, we changed our jib car positions slightly, and we changed how we were trimming the jib a little bit—went away from vang sheeting and playing the traveler too much. On the third day, we were sailing the boat flatter than everyone, and the next day, we were more heeled than everyone. We went from like 12 to 14 degrees of heel to like 18 to 20.

You go into the final day—which was ultimately a one-race situation—with a 15-point lead and somehow stage an incredible comeback in the last race to finish 11th and win the whole thing. How’d you pull that off?

Wilmot: We did our normal thing where we start just up from the group and be confident about our acceleration. There was a 15- to 20-degree lefty, and it was like an auto attack for the entire fleet. I look over my shoulder, and the two boats we need to beat are 1-2 and we’re at least 40th. We sailed our worst leg of the regatta that first leg, but the last three legs were our best. I went back and looked at the race statistics, and I’m pretty sure we were the fastest on that first downwind, and gained the most distance on the leaders. And then we did it on the next upwind and took 45 seconds off the leaders, and then by the finish, we took another 30.

People get so caught up with hiking that they don’t want to switch gears because you’re taking weight off the rail. But the gear is the lane, and it’s how quickly you can switch those gears. Our approach was to do the most gear changes than any other boat out there. And we’re just going to do them faster.

For an owner looking to build a J/70 team from scratch, what are key skillsets to get right?

Wilmot: The front position is unique on a J/70 because you’ve got a person who’s sitting straight upright, and they’re looking straight at the wind, so if you don’t have someone up there who has a tactical and strategic mentality, you’re really wasting that position. The trimmer has the hardest job because they’re doing everything, and the crossovers for all those modes are tiny. The trimmers in this fleet are unbelievable, and the ones who can do it really well are in a league of their own. So, if you’re filling that position, you should be looking at the best sailor you can find and give them time to get used to the J/70.

 Newhouse: A number of owners have told me that they are both impressed with and jealous of our team chemistry. We do get along extremely well, and there is no fighting on the team. Everybody knows what they’re supposed to be doing at any given point in time. It’s having a team that’s in a groove. We had a great group for this regatta, and it all came together for us, but I think the chemistry thing is so important. I accept the fact that I brought on board the absolute best people I  could possibly find. I do this in businesses all the time. I rely implicitly on having the talent to drive results, and I know that we had the best talent in Palma.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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It has been blowing 30 to 40-plus knots all night, and we can finally see the sea state at first light. It was a wild night bombing down massive waves in the pitch-black under a full main and a heavy-air running spinnaker. Without instruments, our only guides were a flashlight taped to the backstay, so we could barely make out a masthead fly and the dim glow of the running lights. I vividly remember passing waves at such a velocity that we flew off the front of one wave and slammed violently into the back the next. This happened two or three times in succession.

An hour before the sunrise, the boom broke. We thought that the competitive part of the race was over for us, so we took the opportunity to rest and hobble down the racecourse. But we were still in contact with the leaders, so we decided to try inserting the reaching strut into the boom and “grinding” the boom back together. One rusty hacksaw blade and—voilà!—a short time later, we were back in the race with a reefed main.

This was Robert Plant’s (no, not that one) Hobie 33, then named Ballistic, and the year was 2001. Unfortunately, along with the sunrise came the realization that we could see daylight through the hull-to-deck joint most of the way around the boat, and after finishing the race, we thought that was the end of the Hobie 33.

Instead, Plant and my father, Jon Shampain, decided to rebuild the boat, stiffen it back to its previous glory, and add an open transom.

Plant, a longtime sailor and architect by trade, is well-versed in construction techniques and design. My father is a ­long-time boat captain, navigator, and delivery captain around Southern California who is well-versed in what makes a good sailboat. Between the two of them, and with my prowess for deck layouts and rigging systems, we were sure that we would have a great platform.

My father became a boat partner with Plant, and Still Crazy was born. Years later, another full retrofit was done, and I became a third partner.

By 2019, however, we were feeling like we had “been there, done that” with Still Crazy. We all were busy and didn’t have much time to sail it, so we let it go to another owner, who now races it shorthanded on the Great Lakes. By early 2023, Plant and my father got that itch again and started a dialog. “Maybe we should get a boat again.” These guys sure do like a project.

They preferred the 30-foot sportboat range but wanted a boat that was a bit easier to get around and easier to sail. They ended up with specific criteria: an inboard engine, non-overlapping jibs, no runners, fixed keel, and economical. And, of course, it had to be fast and fun to sail.

We considered a Farr30, a Flying Tiger, Melges 32, Columbia Sport 30, Henderson 30, and other similar boats. But when a local Melges 30 with an outboard engine came to them for a song, they couldn’t say no. I couldn’t even attempt to talk them out of it. It was a proven boat with a good track record but hadn’t been sailed in nearly 10 years. And it showed. They got their project boat, and it needed everything except for some seemingly decent unused sails that came in a questionably soggy box. 

First built in 1995, the Melges 30 started out as a supersize Melges 24. Piggybacking on America’s Cup technology at the time, the design was jazzed up and pushed to another level. The first boat actually had a trim tab on the keel, which was pretty cool and really fast but cost-prohibitive, Harry Melges III says. Later, they learned that the boat was too fast for the articulating bowsprit in most conditions. Eventually ­simplicity won out, and the Melges 32 One Design was born using the same molds. All in all, it was a short production run, with only 16 of them ever built.

While Plant and my father started stripping hardware, they found moisture and elongated holes just about everywhere in the deck and bulkheads. The decision was made to remove every piece of hardware, every fastener, and fill every single hole inside and out. Delaminating gelcoat also needed repair, then everything faired and prepped for paint.

Time was also taken to attempt to stiffen the boat close to its original build. Knees, which are basically mini bulkheads between the deck and the hull, were put under the stanchions. These are a great addition to older boats because, as a boat ages and gets softer, the deck starts flexing. Years of pushing and pulling loads have been applied to the tops of the stanchions, causing the deck to soften. Mast steps of these older boats can get soft and can sag into the boat. This can make it harder to keep proper rig and headstay tension, so to combat that, we applied carbon cloth around the mast step area to prevent any future sagging. Other questionable areas received extra layers of cloth as well.

It was also important to Plant and my father to be on the drier side when sailing, especially down below. And neither has much interest in nonstop bailing in windy conditions. The Melges 30 was designed with runners on a purchase system that lead below deck through openings in the cockpit floor. We structurally sealed these and will add an above-deck system with winches. It will add a little weight, but the added safety and peace of mind using winches to hold high loads, combined with less water intrusion into the interior, will be a net gain. The original design had the mainsheet fine-tune down below as well. We’ll move that above deck like the Melges 32 and seal up an additional hole. My father intends to lead the articulating pole control into the companionway, which will remove two or three more holes in the cockpit.

After countless hours of prepping, fixing, replacing, adding, and deleting structure and parts, the decision was made to take it to a local boatbuilder/boat painter to have the topsides and nonskid sprayed, along with an epoxy bottom. It was a hard decision because Plant and my father had a budget and wanted to do it on their own. But with hours of fairing required and a desire for a professional, finished look, they succumbed to outside assistance.

While the boat was away at the “spa,” they took the trailer to be refurbished and raised the bunks a few feet. This will allow the rudder to be left in the boat while dry-sailing locally, and will also add space for storage boxes on the trailer. Simultaneously, the stern pulpits were modified by Steve Harrison at Harrison Marine in San Diego. Legs added to the stern pulpits would prevent movement when hiking and ­pulling on them.

Once the boat was back in their hands, Dad and Plant finished the painting of the interior, and then the mast and boom and associated parts such as instrument brackets, tillers, hatch boards, etc. At this point, we had a completely blank canvas, allowing me to design an entirely new deck layout with the help of Harken.

Having eliminated all the below-deck systems, we’ll be going to winches for the runners. The mainsheet fine-tune will become external. The jib lead will become a floating lead system, with inhaulers for the jib and genoa staysail. Finally, because the boat will someday have a square top, we’ll get rid of the backstay and add top-mast backstays to the runners. They will be on new Harken winches so that handling will become easier. All this will be done with the help of a running-rigging package from Marlow Ropes and an instrument package from B&G and Navico.

In future articles, we will dive into what parts we chose and why, and what worked and what didn’t. Everything we do will be budget-minded but we’ll be sure to have the correct gear so that we can race successfully, all the while inspiring others to keep  aging race boats modern and competitive.

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