2015, it looked as if the Olympia High School Sailing Team was history. Its numbers had dwindled to three active team members, and if that wasn’t enough, its longtime volunteer coach had recently passed away.

Orion Bird, a sailor in the program of that era, recalls, “It really felt like the program was on the verge of dying.” Enter Sarah Hanavan, recently out of collegiate sailing at Western Washington University. She had moved to Olympia, Washington, and started volunteering with the team in the spring of 2015. That coming summer, she had planned to travel.

“Before I left, one of the three team members, Elena Gonick, a junior, invited me to coffee,” Hanavan says. “She told me she had watched kids from other teams who, at the start, were just as good as her, get better. She was frustrated that she had not. And she knew largely why. She said, ‘We’ve had this revolving door of coaches, and I am afraid you’re going to leave, just like the other coaches.’ The fact that she expected I wouldn’t be back for the fall season really pulled at my heartstrings.”

So, before Hanavan left, she got the parents of the three students involved. “I gave them sort of a road map—here’s what you need to do to make the program more viable, because I wasn’t interested in being a perpetual volunteer.”

From there, it went to a committee at the Olympia YC, which had been hosting and supporting the program. And then came a momentous decision. Rather than simply pulling the plug, the yacht club, which at the time was housing the program and managing it, followed Hanavan’s advice and went high-risk, high-reward, shocking the program back to life by creating a full-time paid coaching position that they offered to her when she returned that fall.

To say the club made the right move would be a dramatic understatement. In only five years, the Olympia race team numbers, which include Opti sailors, Laser sailors and the high school team, skyrocketed to 70.

The high school team, which now has around 45 team members, has won the Pacific Northwest district fleet championship three times, the district championship twice, and qualified for the Interscholastic Sailing Association national championships five years in a row. While not a powerhouse on the national level, they have had success there, breaking into the top 10 twice. But their real success is “off the field,” and the Olympia program has become a model for success at the high school sailing level by a metric other than just stellar regatta results.

Given that history, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as I climbed the exterior steps to the main room at Olympia YC. An office to one side with “Olympia Community Sailing Executive Director” stenciled on the door? Perhaps a sign pointing to another building that housed the organization? The door was locked, but I knocked, and a kindly, older woman opened the door a bit and inquired as to what I wanted.

“I’m looking for Sarah.”

“Oh,” she said, opening the door all the way. “She’s over there,” pointing toward two women on the far side of the room. They were at a single round table. One, Hanavan, was seated and on her cellphone, while the other, Niki Alden, the program’s director of education and outreach, was standing to one side. While I waited for her to finish her call, I introduced myself to Alden.

“The whole northwest district seems to come to Sarah for advice,” she said, nodding toward Hanavan, who acknowledges my arrival with a fleeting smile. “We’ll say, ‘We’ve really got to plan the regatta,’ or something like that, and then she’ll get a call from another coach. She eventually hangs up, we start to work, and five minutes later, a different coach calls.”

It’s clear why. Watching her work with kids from seventh grade up through seniors is like watching a master class in teaching. Example: It’s JV practice day. In the ­boathouse—a small, nondescript, single-car garage-size floating building at the junction of a couple of the Olympia YC docks—a sophomore girl approaches her and with little hesitation says, “I’d really like to skipper in the team race this weekend.”

I can see the wheels grinding in Hanavan’s head, and without even knowing the young sailor and seeing Hanavan’s pause, I’m guessing this will be a big reach for the girl. But rather than flat-out telling her, “No, you don’t have enough experience,” she briefly explains how team racing is quite different from fleet racing and then asks, “Do you think it might be better to skipper some more fleet races first?”

With no disappointment, the girl smiles, nods her head and says: “OK. That makes sense. I’ll do that.”

Everyone is happy. Class dismissed.

More JV sailors arrive, and they are ­changing and rigging their boats at a glacial pace. Rudders are casually removed from their racks and carried over to the boats, then a return trip for the sails. A few are engaged in conversation, and only a couple are actively gearing up for today’s practice. None of it escapes Hanavan’s watchful eyes.

“The varsity does this in about 12 minutes,” she quietly tells me in a tone teetering between embarrassment and frustration. It gets dark early in October. Practice time is burning. Finally, she’s had enough and calls the team together in the boathouse. “I know we need to get out on the water, but we have something more important to talk about,” she says. “Why is it taking so long to change and rig the boats?”

Cue a pregnant pause. Then, “What do you think we should do?”

Note: “We,” not “you.”

Hands quickly go up, and ideas are offered. One suggests they need a greater sense of urgency. Clearly, the strongest answer, and she jumps right on it. “What would a greater sense of urgency mean?” And a discussion ensues until everyone appears to be on the same page.

It’s all part of what junior Liam O’Connell says is their team DNA. “What Sarah preaches is that every year is like a new cell in the body, yet the body is the same because we always pass down this mantra of being a team, not a bunch of ­individuals. We’re all in this together.”

That idea is instilled in the first week of practice. “We don’t sail for the first four or five days of the season,” Hanavan tells me. “We spend those days working on the boats, cleaning, repairing sails, etc. They’re taking care of the boats, even if it’s beautifully sunny and there’s a great wind. Sometimes, they get a little frustrated doing that, but it’s teaching them about ownership of equipment, taking care of the things they use every day that they don’t personally own.”

This sense of ownership is long-term. At regattas, teams bring their own boats, and with a round-robin format, each team ends up sailing other teams’ boats. “As the boats come into the dock for rotation, you always see the Olympia kids rushing down the docks ahead of everyone else to catch the boats,” Alden says. “They want to be sure nothing happens to them.”

OK, the boats are ready. Is it time to get on the water yet? Not quite.

“We then spend a couple of days setting goals and values as a team,” Hanavan says. “Kids break into small groups and talk about what’s important as student athletes and teammates, and what would benefit the team. Then we come together as a complete group, which the coaches facilitate, and do the same thing.”

Out of this often comes a poster that is typically hung in the boathouse, summarizing their conclusions. “It takes on different forms from year to year,” she explains, but the basic themes are similar: time management; respect for oneself, competitors, parents and coaches; how do we treat teammates from different backgrounds; and, since it’s a coed sport, how do we respect female competitors?

“Then we have a template we can point to for the rest of the season, saying these are your values, this is what you told us. It’s our job to facilitate and provide the consistency to enable them to live by those values. It’s always a really powerful conversation to have with either a team or individual. You end up saying: ‘It doesn’t really seem like we’re adhering to our values here. What’s going on?’ It’s a situation where they created the values themselves, now they have to own it.”

The Olympia YC program operates four to five high school teams that practice together. The largest numbers come from Olympia HS, which has over 20 members, and Capitol HS, which are the two closest schools. Three or four other schools ­participate, but with only a few sailors. However, in terms of programming, they’re all part of the same squad. And that’s encouraged in the Northwest.

“The national high school sailing organization allows regions to set up their own systems to promote growth,” Hanavan explains. “There are regions where you must have a full roster from any one school to compete, but here, we have lower-key, nonranking events for kids, which allows kids from different schools to sail on the same team.”

Without that, those from smaller schools who can’t field complete teams wouldn’t be able to compete. And everyone seems to be out there wanting to do just that. As I hang out in the coach boat with Hanavan, who is working with the JV team, a group of Laser sailors are also practicing, as are some beginning Opti sailors under Alden’s tutelage—not officially part of the team but clearly destined for that a few years down the road.

Yet what stands out about the Olympia sailing team is how they view competition. “We did a survey of our sailors a while back, and do you know what the No. 1 reason they gave for being on the team?” Hanavan asks. “The car rides, traveling to and from regattas, hanging out with friends between races (a product of the boat-­rotation ­format), which allows them to socialize a lot more than being on the water all day. Kids don’t care so much about sailing a fast boat. What they care about is the camaraderie, the friendships. We have kids who do the 420 or Laser Nationals, but they all come back to high school sailing. They crave that traditional high school experience.”

She’s right. In speaking to a handful of team members, both JV and varsity, about what draws them to the team and what keeps them coming back, competition is only mentioned when I prompt them about it. Varsity sailor Sophia Hubbard is a junior who has been sailing since around age 9. She says: “Sarah has focused more on the relationships and people in the boat, rather than going out and trying to win. If winning is a side effect, that’s fine.”

North Berebitsky, a freshman on the JV team, says: “When I started sailing, which was just this season, I thought I had to do my best to get a high place—that was the goal. Now I know it’s more about the experience.”

Alyssa Leong agrees. “When I went to my first regatta, I quickly realized that I’m not there to win. I’m there to be with my team.”

And that’s led to a close-knit group of sailors—friends, really. O’Connell, who is one of the team captains, says, “The reason I keep coming back here season after season is it just feels like another family.”

“I think our program is doing something similar to a lot of other programs,” Hanavan says, “but that’s not what makes the headlines. It’s race results and performance in big events in complicated classes, not having a robust, 70-kid high school program. You don’t make headlines just because you have a bunch of happy high schoolers, many from families who have never sailed. It’s kind of like this sleeper entity that’s happening and growing. Where else can you bring kids with diverse social, economic and racial backgrounds into our sport?”

Like most community sailing programs, Olympia maintains a strong scholarship program, providing support to families who find the $400 cost for a two-month racing period out of reach. “I was one of those kids who couldn’t fully afford the cost of sailing while in middle school,” Orion Bird says, “but I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship that allowed me to sail and afford the gear you need to sail.”

Now, several years out of high school, Bird is on the docks during my visit, coaching the beginning Opti sailors. If sailing programs exist to create lifelong sailors, he’s the poster child.

“I’m not going to lie—I’m an extremely ­competitive person,” Hanavan says. “Winning is a component of what we want to happen, but it’s a byproduct. It’s a good byproduct. It’s not that we don’t want to be competitive or produce athletes who can win and go to championships. But at the end of the day, that’s not as important as them being quality people. If we had to pick one or the other, we’d always pick quality people first. If ­winning is a product of that, great.”

So, how do you do both? “I’ve been a part of programs that fixate so much on exposure and experiences, there’s no structure for pursuing that grand goal of competitive success, and I see kids lose interest. Competition can provide you with that if you do it in a good way. As a coach, I can say that our success as a team has been every championship won, regionally. I’ll never forget those, and going to nationals has been wonderful, and as a coach, you feel ­accomplished. But the best moments I’ve ever had as a coach are going to lunch with kids who graduated and hearing about their adult lives and how happy and well-adjusted they are. That feels better than any trophy our team has won. As a coach, I can genuinely tell the team, ‘I don’t care about you guys winning. That’s great and awesome, and let’s pursue that, but I’d rather just meet up with you when you’re 21 years old and talk about your life and how you’re a happy person, rather than someone who is so fixated on winning that they’re burnt out.”

Such an approach is no doubt part of the reason why the Olympia race program is where it is today. The program has grown large enough that, recently, the host Olympia YC has reluctantly had to cap the amount of space available to the team. And as part of that growth, the Olympia Community High School program became a 501(c)(3) three years ago, taking the management weight off the shoulders of the yacht club.

And while the club’s facilities have space limitations, the program has access to a second site on the other side of a nearby peninsula and often sails Lasers out of there. But the real long-term solution, as with any community sailing center, is to find a chunk of land and build its own facility. In the coach boat with Hanavan, watching the varsity team practice on my final day there, she points across the bay to an unused piece of property with dilapidated buildings on it, about a half-mile away. “I’d love to find a way to get that piece of land,” she says, “but that means a lot of time and some generous benefactors, both of which are in short supply.”

Since the real priority is water access, which they have, that white plastic table in the Olympia YC clubhouse will have to suffice for now. With the continuity of a coach who’s been entrenched for eight years, and a program that seems to have struck the perfect balance between competition and social interaction, they’re in a fine place. And that sailor who helped convince Hanavan to stay, Elena Gonick? She went on to sail at Tufts and graduated in 2020. Just one of a number of Olympia sailing ­success stories to come.

The post Olympia Sailing’s Scholastic Boom appeared first on Sailing World.

20 seconds after the start, I look over my shoulder and can tell we’re going to have a rough one. We’ve started near the pin in the first race of the 2022 E Scow National Championship on my home Lake Minnetonka. With a half-mile-long starting line set to accommodate 69 boats, the righty I’m now seeing sends a parade of sails marching up inside us, and our only option is to keep going left.

With patience, situations like this can often work in one’s favor. On inland lakes, it’s common for both sides to be advantaged at some point during a beat. “Win your side” is the adage. I glance up toward Brackett’s Point on the lake’s western shoreline, where I’ve seen countless lefties roll through from this direction in the past. But when the next puff hits, we lift higher and higher.

Yup, we’re going to have a rough one.

I’ve sailed on Lake Minnetonka my entire life, but I’ve never seen the wind do this before. A few hours before racing, a cold front rolled through from the bottom of Canada, littering the upper Midwest with storm cells. The result: a ­blustery breeze between 8 and 18 knots with up to 40-degree windshifts—an absolute nightmare for the race committee, who spent most of the day hoisting postponement and general recall flags before finally getting a race off at 3 p.m. Now that we’re underway, I find myself somewhere in the back of the midfleet, praying for a shift that will never come.

The E Scow midfleet is a scary place. First beats in this class are absolute bloodbaths, and since the boats are 28 feet long with 6-foot beams, the lanes, like the hulls, are long and narrow. With sails blanketing your vision every way you look, it’s easy to get disoriented. When packs of boats meet, skippers make split-­second decisions that can either salvage a race or send them drifting into the netherworld. As we make our way up the beat, I’m finding that most of the rules of midfleet sailing do not apply to today’s racing.

Across the lake, I see boats knocking into each other on opposite tacks. Other boats find mystery puffs in the middle of the course that somehow point them up to the mark, while teams on the edges get absolutely thrashed. As a skipper, I try not to let my mind wander, but as we claw our way through this ball-buster of a beat, I can’t help having one of those “How did I get here?” moments.

My journey into this situation started at age 8 when my ­parents signed me up for lessons at the Lake Minnetonka Sailing School, which shares a property with the Minnetonka YC on a small island on the eastern shore of the lake. This island setup is a relic of the 19th century, when most sailing families lived on the lake and could dock their boats at their houses. Needless to say, socioeconomics has changed a lot since 1882 when MYC was founded, but the geography of an island yacht club remains a novelty for out-of-towners and a logistical nightmare for local regatta committees trying to run a big event like the E Scow Nationals.

None of this was obvious to me when I first started sailing. In fact, riding a pontoon boat to the island every day in summer felt adventurous. After a few years of Opti sailing, my coach, Gordy Bowers, gave me my first ride on an E Scow as his fourth crew. Bowers is known nationally for ­coaching the 1988 US Olympic Team. On Lake Minnetonka, he was a feared competitor in his prime and has since become a scow guru in old age. He won back-to-back E Scow Nationals in the ’70s, along with a dozen other national and ILYA championships in A, C and MC scows ­throughout the years.

Bowers grew up at MYC and came from one of the big, almost aristocratic sailing families on the lake, many whose names are inscribed on every scow sailing trophy in the country. But he didn’t care what my last name was. He picked me because I could hike hard, and when we shoved off for that first day of E boating, he taught me what to do as we went along. He was always patient and articulate, which made him the perfect teacher for a first‑time E boater.

The wind was blowing hard out of the east, and since E boats still had symmetric spinnakers, I remember how precise he was with adjustments to the spinnaker pole tip—an inch or two of guy here, a ­micrometer of topping lift there. I even remember fouling someone and having to do a penalty turn in the middle of a club race, which is something our current MYC E fleet seems to have forgotten how to do in recent years.

For Many in the E fleet, it doesn’t matter how many championships you’ve won in other classes. This is the ­proving ground.

The next time I raced an E Scow was with Bill Allen, who won an Olympic gold medal with Buddy Melges and Bill Bentsen in the Soling in 1972. Allen is regarded as one of the finest E Scow helmsmen of all time, having won six national championships, seven ILYA championships, and no fewer than 10 E Blue Chips. He took me and his son, Brian, out for a Wednesday club race, and I remember how excited I was to sail with a gold medalist.

I figured Allen would be a lot like Bowers, taking the time to teach me the finer points of crew work, realizing that I’m a beginner and letting me learn at my own pace. He had me doing bow while Brian did middle. By then I was crewing regularly on an X-boat, which uses a whisker pole downwind. When we rounded the weather mark in first, our lead quickly disappeared when I attempted to jibe the pole the way you would in an X-boat, leaving the end clipped in and trying to push the clew of the kite to the opposite side of the boat. “What the hell are you doing?” Allen screamed at me from the helm. “Get that goddamn spinnaker flying you little son of a bitch!” I must have been 13 at the time.

Over the years, I’ve sailed against a lot of great sailors in a lot of great venues, but there’s nothing like coming back to “Golden Pond,” what locals call Lake Minnetonka, and duking it out in one of the best one-design fleets in the country. When I talk to people on the coasts about scows, they often view them as exotic and strange—missile-shaped boats with fin-shaped rudders, bilge boards in place of keels, planing hulls that skim atop the water instead of ­pushing through it. But what seems exotic to some is a way of life in the northland, where we play hockey in the winter and race scows in the summer, the intensity of one sport never letting up in the other. Up here, a weekly championship race is more of a communal bloodletting ­ritual than a friendly competition among neighbors. When you sail against the same people your entire life, you tend to develop long memories. Although Minnesotans are known to hide their emotions behind modest Midwest demeanors, when it comes to racing E Scows on Lake Minnetonka, it gets personal.

For many in the E fleet, it doesn’t matter how many championships you’ve won in other classes. This is the proving ground. These are the boats where legends are made, and if you haven’t dropped the gloves in this fleet, you simply aren’t worthy of respect. It’s a part of the culture I’m not always fond of. The intensity of competition can be difficult for people trying to break in, which is a shame because there are so many great sailors in the area who don’t race scows. Yet the quality of racing cannot be denied, and the truth is that on Lake Minnetonka, respect isn’t something you ask for. It’s something you earn by winning races.

Because paid hands are banned in E Scows, the teams, like the rivalries, remain homegrown. Locally, Sam Rogers has been the guy to beat for some time. Rogers has two national championships under his belt, and as a former pro sailor, he raises the bar of competition exponentially. Known for his fiery temper on the racecourse, everyone on the lake has a “Sam story,” which makes beating him that much sweeter.

Another top gun is Tom Burton, who has been racing E Scows on Lake Minnetonka since the 1970s. Burton has also won two national championships, and his family has been a fixture at MYC since his great-grandfather, Hazen Burton, served as a charter member.

I grew up watching Burton race A and E scows, and we’ve gotten to know each other better since I became a substitute main trimmer for him on the A boat a few years ago. Unfortunately, he tore his Achilles tendon slipping off his powerboat a few weeks before the E Scow Nationals, effectively ending his sailing season in mid-July. When the Burton family called to ask if I’d like to steer their boat for the regatta, I immediately cleared my schedule and booked a flight home to Minnesota.

On Lake Minnetonka, respect isn’t something you ask for. It’s something you earn by winning races.

So, here I find myself buried in the fleet in race one at the Nationals, where boats drift in and out of my periphery like circling sharks. One thing I know about midfleet racing is that you have to take your medicine when it comes, so instead of sending it into the corner, I stay on the lifted tack and try to find clear air when possible. These are the two things I focus on most—staying on the lifted tack and finding clean breeze—and boat by boat, we begin to work our way through the fleet. Being a new member to this squad, I wonder what my teammates think of my disastrous start.

Over the years, Burton has developed this rock-star crew with his son Charlie on jib trim and his good friend Bruce Martinson in the middle. On weekdays, Martinson runs a dentist practice, but when he’s away from work, he’s either racing Lasers, J/22s or E Scows on Lake Minnetonka. He’s also an international sailing judge, and when he’s not racing, he’s somewhere around the world throwing top-level sailors out of the protest room. In fact, throughout the years, Martinson has chucked me from more ­protests than I would like to admit, and sailing with him now is kind of like racing with a lawyer on board. More importantly, he has a great feel for boatspeed and an even better ability to feed me information without trying to influence my decision-making. He gives me compass headings in a sober, almost lifeless voice, sometimes calling out 20-degree headers as we forgo the lifted tack in a ­scramble for fresh breeze.

The fourth member of our team is Parker Laing, a junior at Minnetonka High School, who we plucked off the Lake Minnetonka Sailing School bench. This is her first day racing E Scows, and I can’t help remembering my first time with Bowers. Now that I have the tiller in my hands, I hope to emulate his patience and professionalism. As a team, we cut our way through the 69-boat fleet to finish 25th.

This will become the theme of our regatta. Over the following four races, we only have one good first beat, spending most of our time clawing through midfleet traffic. At one point, we tack inside the zone at a weather mark and have to do a penalty spin before hoisting. Another time, we accelerate late at a start and watch the boats on both sides of us shoot into the top five at the top. But little by little, we dig ourselves out and avoid the deep finishes that many of the top teams incur. We finish the regatta with a pair of top-10 results, which lifts us to fifth overall.

A top-five at the E Scow Nationals with this team—in front of a home crowd—means the world to me. But most important is the ability to race with friends, mentors and current students on the waters that I love. Lake Minnetonka will always be my favorite place to race sailboats, and the community we have is world-class. Yes, it can be tribal at times, but the racing is second to none, as are the friendships we’ve all made. Growing up here, I’ve had many mentors to look up to. With a fresh crop of young guns coming out of the sailing school and getting into scows, the future looks equally bright. With the E Scow class celebrating its centennial next year at the Nationals in Madison, Wisconsin, next summer can’t come soon enough.

The post Allure of the E Scow appeared first on Sailing World.

As the sailing coach at Point Loma High School, I spend a lot of time talking to the team about crewing. I also crew almost exclusively in my role as a professional sailor, so between those two experiences, plus sharing information about crewing with other pro sailors, I’ve been able to boil down the essence of a great crew into three manageable parts. Keep in mind that these are “big ­picture” characteristics.

Let’s first start with mindset. In the morning, before you even get to the boat, you should be thinking: “I’m going to help out today in any way I can to help the boat and the team be as successful as possible. I’m going to work really hard; I’m going to have a great attitude; I’m going to show up early, stay late, and figure out how I can contribute all day long.” To do so, research what your job is going to be before you go sailing. Find out who’s in charge of the boat. Ask them what you’re going to be doing, when you’re going to be doing it, and the steps it takes, whether it’s trimming the sails, doing the bow, calling the time or whatever. And ask what you can bring—food, water, etc.

Next, show up early to help rig the boat. Showing up early allows you to check out the boat and see how everything works. And when the rest of the team shows up, you will feel more confident and in the know. Then work hard—help rig the sheets (or at the least offer to help), pull out the sails, and do whatever is necessary to help get the boat ready to leave the dock. While rigging, you can earn bonus points by being safety-conscious, looking around to make sure there’s no chafe on lines, missing ring dings, or anything that looks like it may break.

When it’s time to get the sails up, take great care in handling them. Gently flaking them out or unrolling them before attaching them to the boat is key and takes coordinated teamwork by two or more people. Taking great care with the main and jib is not only fast, preventing wrinkles and encouraging longevity, but it also shows the boat owner that you understand sails are expensive, like to win, and are grateful for the ­opportunity to be on the boat.

If you’re not sure what you’re doing while prepping the boat and putting it away at the end of the day, ask someone in charge or watch the veterans on the boat. Learn what they’re doing so you can offer to help them next time. Eager and attentive crewmembers are hard to find and always asked back.

The positive mindset used when preparing the boat for the day is even more important once on the water. I’ll never forget sailing in an alumni regatta with one of the best high school crew I’ve coached. I had noticed that anyone she sailed with did better at practice, and in that event, I found out why. She was always happy and positive, even after a tough race. At that event, we started with two great races, but the third wasn’t so special. But we passed a few boats before the finish. After the ­finish, it would be easy to be a little bummed out, but instead with a smile she said: “Great race, Steve! Way to pass four boats on the final downwind leg! That was awesome.” She kept the vibe in the boat so happy and positive that we went on to have some good races and won the regatta.

Sometimes a good mindset means keeping the mood light. An example of doing that at just the right time was when sailing with my buddy Erik Shampain. After I made a bad tactical call, and then we had a poor leeward mark rounding, the skipper and I digressed into a nonproductive discussion about past events. Although we didn’t notice it, that discussion was distracting us from sailing well. After a couple of minutes of this conversation, Erik, having had enough, interrupted us by saying, “Hey guys, hold on, I have a goldfish.” We both paused and with curiosity asked, “What?” He said, “Oh, I thought we were talking about stuff that doesn’t matter!” We quickly got his point, and we all started laughing.

With the mood lightened and our focus back on racing well in the moment, we went on to pass 20 boats and finished the race on a positive note.

Here’s another way to think of maintaining the mindset of helping out and contributing: The skipper often has the most pressure and typically has invested the most time and money into making everything happen. Their reputation is on the line, and they feel it. So, when I show up as a crew, I think, How can I help the skipper do really well? How can I help ease their stress and help them succeed? That’s my main focus. I use all the skills I have to do that: sailing skills, but also people skills by being positive and a psychologist, saying the right thing at the right time, and keeping the mood light. If you can do the same, you’ll be asked to come back—probably forever.

Now, let’s talk about skills. In small, two-person boats, your job may be pretty straightforward: trimming the jib and using your weight to keep the boat at the proper heel angle. On bigger boats, like Lightnings, J/24s and PHRF boats, you may be trimming, have other jobs, or a combo of both. You may be doing bow or simply calling the time in the pre-start. But regardless of what you’re sailing, knowing what you’re supposed to do and when to do it. By doing those jobs skillfully, you can add value to the team.

One skill that everyone needs to be aware of, and probably one of the most important, is weight placement. Moving your weight around to keep the boat at the proper heel angle is everyone’s job, and it’s critical for boatspeed. If you grew up racing dinghies, you’re probably tuned in to this already, but if not, be sure to ask the skipper or whoever is in charge on the boat where your weight should be at different points of sail.

Terry Hutchinson likes to remind his crew to “mind the boat.” In other words, pay attention to what the boat’s doing—its heel, its speed though the water, and how it feels. Tune in and let the boat tell you what it needs. At the end of the day, as Buddy Melges always says, we are presenting the boat to the wind, from the time the sails go up until they come down. Our job as crew is to affect its heel angle for optimal performance and trim the sails well while the skipper controls the angle the boat is to the wind. These three attributes determine our speed. Therefore, always be thinking about the boat, minding and paying attention to it, and feeling and listening to how it moves through the water. Try to get to the point where no one has to tell you to move.

An easy way to think of weight placement and how much you should be moving is to break it down into two conditions: telltale sailing, which is in light to medium air, and hiking conditions, which is when the boat is overpowered. When telltale sailing, the skipper mainly drives to the telltales, and it’s up to the crew to move around and keep the proper heel angle, hiking in puffs and scooting in during lulls. Once the wind is up, hike hard and let the skipper drive to the heel angle while the trimmers ease and trim sails. Knowing the difference between the two modes makes it easy to define your weight-movement goals. You’re basically asking, “Should I be moving around and paying attention to the wind and heel angle now, or should I just hike really hard?” Knowing the right time to do each is super important.

Another consideration while moving your weight is the view of the skipper. Top skipper Greg Fisher tells his crew: “Don’t sit in front of the TV.” For him, the TV is the telltales, the forestay and the waves. The skipper wants to see what’s coming, and they want to watch the telltales, so as you move in and out, don’t get in their way. When you scoot in, especially on a dinghy, you should slide in with your hips first, keeping your shoulders out and down so you don’t sit right in the skipper’s view. On keelboats, when you scoot in, you might lie backward to keep the skipper’s view open.

When you’re part of a well-oiled machine—maybe you’ve been sailing with the same ­people a while—you can get to the point where weight placement rarely has to be communicated; everyone understands what you’re searching for most of the time. With that said, it’s also something the skipper should talk about based on the feel of the tiller. If the skipper’s not doing it, ask: “Hey, how does the boat feel? Tell me what feels good, and I will try to keep it in the sweet spot for you.” And if you do that, the skipper will love you for it because you’re helping them make the boat feel right—and go fast. On larger boats with more crew, it’s best to have a skilled sailor call weight movements for the group so the whole team can move as one unit.

About that communication: Once you feel your skills are pretty good and you are doing your jobs on the boat well and at the right time, you can start to add more value by communicating. There is a lot you can say and, just as important, should not say at any given time. On ­bigger boats, it should be defined who should be talking and who should not. On smaller boats, the communication may fall on you, so knowing what to say and when is very important. If your job requires communication, follow this basic rule: Communicate what is important based on the current situation, and realize that the situation often changes.

For example, on the way out to the racecourse, the discussion might center on what sails you’re putting up. Then, while warming up on the course, the discussion is on boat setup and racecourse features. In the pre-start, it’s calling time and communicating threats coming during your final approach to the line. Once the race is underway and you’ve had a good start, the focus will likely be on boatspeed; if you’ve had a tough start, it will probably center on escape routes.

Let’s say we just started the race, had a clean start, and we’re going to sail straight for a while. Communication might focus on puffs and lulls, or our speed in relation to others. Then, later, after tacking onto port, the best communication may be ­identifying right-of-way starboard-tack boats. Once there are no more starboard threats and your lane opens up, the attention shifts back to the most important thing, which is simply to go fast for a while. Later in the beat, as you get close to the top mark, you may ask the skipper the downwind-leg plan, then shift into calling traffic to help get around the top mark clean, with no drama or fouls. That’s what I mean by communicating what’s most important at any given moment.

You may have heard that a fast boat is a quiet boat. Jimmy Spithill spoke to our high school sailors recently, and they asked him about communication. He said, “You want to be as concise as possible and convey ideas with as few words as possible at the right time.”

So, your job may be to be quiet in the pre‑start, or it may be to call the time, and you should do that really well. You should focus on being great at it. Ask the skipper or tactician, “How would you like me to call the time?” Is it every 15 seconds down to two minutes, then every 10 seconds down to one minute, and every five seconds down to 30 seconds, and then every second down to zero? Again, you’re communicating what’s important at that one moment in the race and working to be as concise as possible. Not overcommunicating during a race helps the skipper and tactician concentrate on making the boat go fast and making good decisions. And in Jimmy’s world, when you are foiling at 40 knots, things are happening so fast, there’s ­literally no time for long communications.

I heard one of the coolest tips for short and sweet comms while on a US Sailing team call. Tim Wadlow, a two-time 49er Olympian, mentioned his team had a communication for going straight. They just say “happy.” It comes from one of their favorite movies, Happy Gilmore. “If we’re ever in a situation where we’re in a big lane, sailing toward the mark, and we’re not thinking about tacking, our goal is just to go fast for a while. So, basically, we’re in our happy place,” Wadlow said. “So, we say ‘happy,’ which communicates that we’re going to focus on speed and heel angle, and simply go straight for a while.”

Knowing this, the crew can get low on the wire and fully focus on heel angle and sail trim—concise and in the moment. He also gave an example where they’ve just rounded the bottom mark, the lane’s kind of thin, and they’re pinching. “I’m thinking about tacking, but I’m not sure I need to yet, so I just say ‘looking.’ That one word lets the crew know not to get super low on the wire and be ready to tack because I’m looking around and considering bailing out.”

These two words convey a lot of meaning, and they mean something to the people on the boat. Come up with your own words for short and sweet comms, and have some fun with it.

In sum, know each step of your job and have a repeatable process that you follow every single time. If you do your job at the right time in harmony with everyone else, the sails will go up and down well, the heel angle will stay consistent, and the boat will go fast. Olympian Dave Hughes, who is one of the best crew in the world, says: “Be a student of the game. Ask questions, be curious, work hard, and you’ll always be invited back.”

The post Three Steps to Becoming a Great Crew appeared first on Sailing World.

After two years of ­campaigning the Olympic 49erFX, I recently returned to the Laser Radial (now known as the ILCA 6), and my enthusiasm for speed was ripe on one day of training in Fort Lauderdale. With the breeze pumping at 18 knots, I trimmed the sail for the first lineup of the day, feeling the load in the deck and the power in my quads. Then, with a big smile on my face, I eased the mainsheet 5 feet or so and let the boat rip. It felt awesome until I heard my coach, Erik Bowers, yell at me from the RIB, “Erika, it’s not a skiff! The boat’s not going to take off. Bring it back up!”

As much as I was enjoying essentially reaching around, Bower’s reality check was a good reminder for me to recalibrate what we all call moding, which is sailing the best angle for the given wind strength. The top sailors know how and when to shift between three different modes: high mode, velocity made good (VMG) and low mode. Each mode has its unique features and applications on the racecourse, but the key to speed is to select the correct one at the right time, so let’s explore how.

On an upwind leg, consider your high mode as the closest angle you can sail to the wind without the luff of the sail starting to break. Your best indicators in this mode are the windward telltales dropping slightly and the leeward ones streaming straight back. This mode sacrifices some forward speed and is similar to walking a tightrope; you have to balance speed versus height, and the sea state is especially critical because one small error in sheeting or steering will make you “fall off the rope” immediately.

The VMG mode is defined as the quickest way to make distance toward the mark. In other words, this can also be thought of as the best average speed toward the mark. This mode is a bit more forgiving because its boundaries are somewhere between the high and low modes. Oftentimes, true VMG touches both modes as you sail upwind.

The low mode is just below your VMG angle and somewhere above tight reaching. Placing the boat in this mode increases the load in your sail(s) and hull appendages, thus increasing your overall boatspeed. However, if there’s too much force over the sails and the underwater foils, drag increases and your boatspeed drops. Finding a low-mode sweet spot is important because having the same speed but sailing a lower angle than another competitor on an upwind beat never ­produces a good outcome.

Understanding the ­limitations of each mode is critical, but knowing when to exploit specific modes in different wind strengths is how the best sailors win the boatspeed race. For example, in light air, a high mode always trumps a low mode because sailing a lower angle doesn’t create fast-forward speed toward the mark. Thus, in underpowered conditions, the objective is to go the same speed and higher than other boats. When the wind increases in velocity, the challenge becomes finding the shifting point from forward speed in a low mode to optimal VMG. How to get to this point is different for every boat in different wind strengths and sea states. In the ILCA 6, for example, the transition to a low mode becomes favorable at about 13 knots. At this wind strength, the boat is able to pick up enough speed to overcome the benefits of a high mode. In the 49erFX, this crossover happens much lower in the wind range. At around 8 knots, or when both skipper and crew are fully trapping, the skiff wants to take off and tap into apparent wind sailing. During 49erFX races, it’s easy to identify boats stuck in a high mode off the starting line as they immediately drop back because the speed difference between high and low modes is colossal. In this case, the low mode produces the optimal height toward the mark without sacrificing speed.

Races are most often sailed in transitional wind strengths. On a single upwind beat, there can be moments where the high mode is the dominant VMG, and then a 1- to 2-knot puff causes the low mode to take command. The skill is realizing the subtle change in wind strength and instantly adjusting your mode while considering your tactics. A good rule of thumb is that your high mode will be your best VMG until your low mode becomes significant enough to be a real boatspeed weapon. For example, if you’re able to put the bow down to then promptly tack and get a cross in, the low mode becomes the best VMG to the weather mark.

Using relatives from other boats to check in with your mode selection during a race is extremely helpful for deciding which mode to maintain. The sailors on top of the results page have their mode selection dialed in. Though practicing these nuances before an event is great, the best VMG angle for a race can easily be determined during the pre-start. Going upwind and teasing the extremes of each mode only takes a few minutes, and testing what you find against another boat will confirm or deny your hunch. No matter what, establish a feel for the limitations of each mode. Once you have a good feel for them, find your room to play.

The post How to Find Your Speed Mode appeared first on Sailing World.

When I recently spoke at a junior sailing regatta, I thought I’d have plenty of stories to regale and inspire these young sailors about the heroes of our sport and the lessons we can learn from their examples. But early into my presentation, I looked across the audience and noticed blank stares when I mentioned a few household sailing names that readers of this magazine would instantly ­recognize. Sensing something wasn’t resonating, I paused and asked them a few questions about a handful of sailing’s legendary and now Hall of Fame sailors.

Crickets.

Not a single one of them had ever heard of Ted Turner or Buddy Melges. It was the same with Dennis Conner and Ted Hood, so I tried my luck with a few more contemporary greats. Mark Reynolds and Paul Foerster? Nope. How about Betsy Alison or Anna Tunnicliffe?

Surely, they would know of Anna. Nope. Blank stares.

I was stunned, and afterward I wondered why, or how, these young sailors didn’t identify with any of these modern-day ­champions. And the more I thought about it, I realized it’s not just our youth sailors that struggle to identify the greats of recent years. It’s adult sailors too. When prompted, my peers will most likely call out the likes of Conner and Paul Cayard or Dawn Riley.

How is that so? Conner’s peak of notoriety was more than three decades ago when he lost and won the America’s Cup and paraded through the streets of New York. But so many other outstanding American sailors since then have had great and inspiring successes, earning their Rolex Yachtsman and Yachtswoman recognitions.

This is a problem. Who are the modern-day greats that these junior sailors will identify with 20 years from now? And why are our present-day champions not resonating with the rest of us in the same way the greats once did?

I can only begin to ­speculate, but let’s consider public visibility. In 1962, at the age of 12, I received a new magazine called One Design Yachtsman (Sailing World’s founding title). And at the time, I read all about the great sailors of the day: Briggs Cunningham, Bus Mosbacher, Ted Hood, George O’Day, Lowell North and Buddy Melges, to name only a few. Since then, the number of journalists who follow sailing for major newspapers and periodicals has declined dramatically. Prominent papers like The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Detroit News, Boston Globe and San Diego Union-Tribune once employed writers to follow sailing. Today, only The New York Times gives our sport any attention, and even that is sparse.

Sailing occasionally appears on our TV sets and computers, but the commentators and producers are employed by the events they cover, which means there is not the same independent coverage as there was in the day when networks like ESPN dispatched production teams to certain events. Viewership ratings have been low for the few sailing shows that do make it to air. (SailGP, however, recently reported that it averaged 1.6 million viewers for its CBS coverage of the 2022 event in Spain, “making that the most watched sailing race since 1992.” —Ed.) There is no shortage of short sailing videos with music and quick-cut edits on YouTube and social media channels, but there’s rarely a storyline. No hero. No protagonist. No continuity. Perhaps our future idols are simply drowning in bytes.

Too often, what we do hear from top sailors is scripted by public relations agents. Absent are the raw and honest musings that made sailors like Tom Blackaller, Turner and Conner so famous. They had color and enthusiasm and, at times, could be outrageous. Their remarks were fun and interesting, and the sport benefitted from their notoriety. By contrast, today’s ­professionals—and this is true across many other professional sports—are far more calculated with their interviews. Once the best-of-the-best reach the podium of the America’s Cup stage, they’re groomed and media-trained to say a lot without actually saying much at all.

“Yeah, tough racing out there… The boys put in a good effort… We made a few mistakes…”

Sound familiar?

Historically, there had been a culture of sailors “giving back” to the sport by serving on sailing committees, raising funds for charity events, speaking to junior sailing groups, helping less experienced sailors improve their skills, and serving as ambassadors. Lending a hand does not seem to be in the DNA of many professional sailors these days. The sport relies on volunteer support at all levels, and every sailing organization would benefit from recruiting experienced sailors to serve in some meaningful capacities.

Another contributing factor has to be the proliferation of professional sailing and day-rate champions. The most prominent pro sailors of recent times rarely own their boats and don’t volunteer their time often enough to speak at sailing clubs or promote the sport beyond their self-interest, next gig or Olympic campaign. The pro sailor helps win the title and collects the check, while the owner gets the trophy and all the recognition. But ­owners come and go.

Turner was named Rolex Yachtsman of the Year four times in the 1970s because of his ocean-racing victories and America’s Cup successes. He was the skipper and owner of his boats. Buddy Melges was named Yachtsman of the Year three times for winning on his own boats in diverse classes, including the Flying Dutchman, E Scows, Solings and Stars. Both Turner and Melges were frequent speakers at yacht clubs and always available for interviews. We don’t hear enough from today’s top sailors, but writing articles and public speaking are good vehicles for promoting the sport—and themselves.

Does the loss of strict nationality requirements in the America’s Cup have something to do with the lack of American sailing icons as well? You bet. When the Golden Gate YC (Oracle Team USA) defended the America’s Cup in 2013, there was a lot of excitement generated by the miraculous come-from-behind victory, but the achievement was tempered when people realized there was only one American sailor on the winning boat. There’s a reason why sports fans follow specific teams, which usually revolves around geography. World Cup soccer and Olympic competition are built on national pride. Sailing is no different. Everyone wants the home team to do well. We need the Cup to get back to it and stick to it.

Our Olympic performance has been well below the gold standard set over many decades, and that’s not helping create future idols either. The US Sailing Team has earned one bronze medal in the last three Games. With the constant reshuffling of Olympic disciplines and classes, as well as a revolving door of underfunded young athletes, we don’t get to get to know them enough before they move on to careers outside the sport. The athletes also need to be better at ­promoting themselves beyond their social media followers and Olympic sailing circles. There are not many Olympic class fleets broadly raced in the United States, so building back and supporting Olympic classes would be a helpful start to get our American athletes on the podium and our minds.

Heroes in sports are admired for their athletic ability and victories. We seem to have lost a generation of sailing superstars. It would be helpful if race organizers, yacht clubs, racing classes and the few journalists still covering sailing focused on the individuals who are winning on the water and inspiring others. Top sailors have a responsibility to promote the sport by helping others. While it takes effort at many levels to celebrate our champions, it’s important we work together to do so because the sport of sailing needs a boost and it needs its legends.

The post Sailing’s Next Greatest Generation appeared first on Sailing World.

When approaching the ­leeward gate, there are a lot of possibilities to consider: Which mark to round? How to best round it? What’s the exit and the next windward leg plan? All of this needs to be discussed on the run so your overall game plan is clear well in advance. It’s much easier with a single leeward mark, in which case you can jump ahead to the next ­section—the approach—and focus on techniques used for rounding the left-hand gate, which is likely what you’re doing when there is only one leeward mark. But when there are gate marks, things get complicated, and the tactician has a number of factors to consider. Let’s start by defining your choices.

Closest and most windward mark: If the gate marks are in place before the start, it is usually possible to sight them with a hand-bearing compass and then determine the wind direction that would make them square (add or subtract 90 degrees depending on which way you sighted). The mark that is farther upwind should be closer, similar to the favored end of the starting line.

Most favored from where you are: The mark that is farthest upwind (or highest ladder rung) might not be the most favored from where you are in the moment. In other words, if you approach from one side of the course or the other, the mark which you can round soonest is probably favored for you.

Least crowded: This is important, especially if you’re stuck in a pack of boats.

Cleanest air: With the approach and the exit looking upwind, consider where the ­fewest obstructions and the best wind will be. One good test of the favored-gate mark is when two boats round opposite marks simultaneously and continue on opposite tacks. After the fleet is cleared, if both boats tack, the boat that is ahead probably had cleaner air and perhaps rounded the favored or closest mark.

Most advantageous current: Rounding the down-current mark will usually make an easier and faster turn. However, there may be tactical or strategic advantages to the up-current mark. When the current is running across the course—i.e., from one gate mark toward the other—it’s usually best to round the down-current gate (the mark toward which the current is running) because the rounding will be easier and the boat will get there faster due to the movement of the current.

The Final Approach

The goal here is to work hard to be the inside or farthest ahead boat. One way to do so is to stay out of the “no-go zone” in the middle. Approach one of the gate marks from outside the funnel and maintain boatspeed while avoiding bad air.

We learned about the no-go zone the hard way at an Etchells Worlds. We were caught back in the pack (50ish in a 90-boat fleet) and stuck smack in the middle of the funnel, with boats pouring in from both sides. The race committee had set the marks so close that there were less than six boatlengths between them, which meant the three-boatlength zones for each mark overlapped. We intended to round the left mark, but boats to the left of us were telling us to turn right for the right-gate mark while boats to the right of us, who also wanted the left mark, were telling us to turn left for the left mark. Eventually, the funnel overfilled and the whole group converged, locked rail to rail with no one able to turn. The lesson here is to prioritize being inside—with rights, of course.

Approach the three-boatlength zone with the most speed possible to obtain or break later overlaps. It’s imperative to be vocal if you have rights, or if another boat does not have rights and is trying to take inside room. The observation moment for whether an inside boat obtains an overlap and therefore has rights to room inside is when the leading boat of your group that is overlapped and rounding together reaches the three-boatlength zone. If you have been overlapped or not overlapped with another boat for a minute or more as you approach the leeward gate marks, and it suddenly changes, be sure to let the other boat know you have either broken the overlap or established it as soon as that occurs. And remember, Rule 18.2(e) (Giving Mark-Room) says: “If there is reasonable doubt that a boat obtained or broke an overlap in time, it shall be presumed that she did not” (obtain or break the overlap before the first of the two boats reached the zone).

If a boat tries to establish a late overlap to windward of you, your best defense is to luff them above the three-boat-length zone, and then bear off sharply to break the overlap and get your bow into the zone. This defense works well on both port jibe to the left gate and ­starboard jibe to the right gate.

A common ­mistake is getting pinned beyond the laylines when both boats are outside the zone. Rule 18 (Mark-Room) does not apply until one of the boats is in the zone, so it’s important to understand the nuances of the rules in this situation.

And here’s a quick tip on spinnaker handling when approaching the zone: Count down the drop for the crew to hear. Usually, the tactician will provide a 30-second warning and then a 10-second countdown. Once the count is established, the pit, crew boss or bow person should also voice the countdown. For boats with string takedown systems, the sheet is released (slacked) sometimes as late as 2 on the countdown.

The Strategic Rounding

Once we’ve decided which gate mark we want and where we want to go on the second beat, we have to manage and optimize the rounding strategically. Let’s first tackle the standard reaching approach, which is by far the most common and generally regarded as the easiest method.

Some types of boats may require a brief bear away to unload pressure on the spinnaker and facilitate its drop. So, we need to reach into the mark a little high of the layline, allowing the time we need to finish the bear away, and then head up to a fast reaching course.

Another approach is to jibe around the left-gate mark (aka the “Mexican”). Here, we come in, usually at a hot angle, on starboard with rights until reaching the protection of the three-boatlength zone, where the mark-room rule begins to apply. The spinnaker is usually coming down on the left side of the boat, and a wide jibe rounding makes the douse easy for the crew. The douse is ideally left so late that the boat is already jibed and on port jibe, so the spinnaker falls on the new windward (port) deck.

We perfected Mexican drops on the TP52 Spookie using a string takedown system. The crew trained me to pause the turn, nearly dead downwind, as soon as the boom jibed. At that moment, the chute was dropped onto the port (and now windward) deck. It was ­counterintuitive at first, but it worked so well, I readily adopted the technique. We proceeded to mimic the maneuver with a new name for the right-gate mark called the “Rodeo” drop. That way, the crew always knew exactly what type of drop and rounding to expect. The Rodeo goes like this: We’re on port jibe and want to go around the right-gate mark. We stay wide outside the funnel to ensure an inside overlap at the zone and jibe onto starboard around the mark. The spinnaker is still coming down on the left side of the boat. The Rodeo differs from the Mexican in that the spinnaker will end up to leeward.

A third approach—the “Flop”—is a specialty maneuver for certain asymmetric-rigged boats that is used when you can’t quite lay the mark without jibing, but don’t really want to complete a full jibe. A similar technique can be used on symmetric spinnaker boats, possibly by removing the pole and trimming the sheet and guy outboard by hand or foot. The Flop should only be attempted in moderate winds, flat water and clean air. It does not work in light or heavy winds. In light air, there simply is not enough wind pressure to keep the spinnaker full; in heavy air, it can become unstable and hard to handle, and lead to a ­spectacular wipeout.

When flopping, the boat goes wing-on-wing, meaning the main and asymmetric sails are flying on opposite sides. Ease the tack line by 15 percent of the boatlength as you bear away to by the lee to encourage the asymmetric to fill, and then return to slightly above a dead-downwind course. A successfully performed Flop is a very sharp arrow for your quiver and should be practiced to perfection. There are several variations of the Flop, and it is possible to jibe either the asymmetric or the mainsail. We have even tried a “Double Butterfly” by jibing both the main and asymmetric at the same time. I have never seen it attempted before—or since—and I wouldn’t recommend it again, but it did work.

Executing the Rounding

With approach determined, the next focus is the execution of the rounding. Here’s where we need to address the term “seamanlike.” When the inside boat does not have right of way, it is only allowed enough room to make a seamanlike rounding of the mark (see the definition of “room”), which is a smooth, curved rounding that maintains speed and stays within a boatlength or so from the mark.

The next term to remember is “tactical.” When the inside boat has the right of way, it can make a tactical rounding, which basically means “swing wide and cut close,” all the while keeping maximum speed.

One of our options during our rounding is to intentionally slow down once we reach the zone. A brief slowdown can pay big dividends if it improves your rounding, especially if you would have been forced to the outside of the boat ahead had you maintained your speed. You always want to round behind boats you are giving room to and round close to the mark. The slowdown can be achieved by taking the spinnaker down early, overtrimming the mainsail, or weaving with the helm (using your rudder as a sort of brake). When and how much to slow the boat is an art form ­practiced by team racers.

On rare occasions, we might plan to tack around a leeward gate mark. This is usually a bad idea because it sends us straight back into the funnel, with its attendant bad air and confused sea state. The main reason to tack around a leeward gate mark is to take advantage of a windshift, especially if you have just made a big gain and are unsure it will continue (and may perhaps oscillate back the other direction, thereby ­negating or reducing your gain).

In special circumstances, it’s better to round outside of an inside boat we are giving room to; this we call “Round the Outside” (or “Buffalo Girl”). This move helps ensure we can punch out, getting our bow forward of the inside windward boat. This approach works only if we have our bow well forward of the inside boat as we approach the mark and are ­confident we can maintain a safe leeward position. The technique is simple: Keep speed up by making a more gradual rounding than the inside boat, which might have to do a sharp head-up, causing it to slow. If the inside boat sails over and blankets you, it’s game over. It’s a high-risk move, and if it goes bad, it usually results in losing several more boats rather than the one you tried to get around.

The Exit Is Equally Important

The goals coming out of the gate include the following modes: fast, maximum VMG and boatspeed, with sails always correctly trimmed. As you round, the main must be trimmed ahead of the jib to add helm, thus reducing the amount of rudder angle needed for the turn.

Clear wind: Use your approach with reaching speed to coast slightly high of closehauled in order to hold a lane for as long as necessary while the tactician executes the exit plan. The tactician might want to hold high of the bad air from the boat(s) ahead by pinching in order to keep clear air to either maintain a lifted tack or continue toward the favored side of the course. Or the plan could be to tack as soon as the downwind traffic clears out. It’s rarely advantageous to foot through to leeward of the bad air from the boat(s) ahead.

Advantaged: If the gate you chose is favored (more upwind), then you should be able to tack and cross a boat that rounded the other gate. But just being ahead is not enough reason to tack. You need to continue on the lifted tack, heading toward the favored side of the course, and with clear air.

The ideal exit is all about ­flexibility, having the ability to tack when and if we want to, or just go as fast as possible and execute your strategy like you’d planned it on the run.

Rules at the Leeward Gate

Let’s now have Dave Perry, author of Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing, take us through the roundings:

When two boats are overlapped as they enter the zone of a leeward gate mark, the inside boat will either be the “keep-clear boat” (windward or port-tack boat) or the “right-of-way boat” (leeward or starboard-tack boat).

An inside keep-clear boat is entitled to “mark-room” from the outside boat under Rule 18.2(b) (Giving Mark-Room), which is room to sail to and around the mark in a “seamanlike way” (see definition of “room”). If it stays within a seamanlike course, it is exonerated by Rule 43.1(b) (Exoneration) if it breaks Rule 10 (Port/Starboard) or Rule 11 (Windward/Leeward). Typically, that means the inside boat needs to stay closer than a boatlength away from the mark throughout its rounding. It is not entitled to room to make a “tactical” swing-wide or cut-close rounding.

On the other hand, an inside right-of-way boat can sail wherever it wants to, subject to a couple of limitations. Because it is a right-of-way boat, it does not need the protection of mark-room. Furthermore, Rule 18.4 (Jibing), which requires inside right-of-way boats to jibe around single leeward marks, does not apply at leeward gate marks (see the second sentence of Rule 18.4). Typically, inside right-of-way boats sail a tactical swing-wide or cut-close rounding. But with no Rule 18.4 at a gate mark, an inside right-of-way boat can sail farther from the mark than its proper course and delay or attack ­outside keep-clear boats during their roundings.

However, there are two ­limitations on how aggressive an inside right-of-way boat can be at a leeward gate mark:

1) If it became the leeward boat from clear astern, Rule 17 (On the Same Tack; Proper Course) applies and requires it to sail no higher than its proper course. Typically, but not always, when a boat enters the zone of a gate mark, it is fastest to round that mark. In that case, the leeward boat would need to jibe when its proper course was to jibe to round the mark.

2) Anytime a right-of-way boat changes course, it has to give the keep-clear boat room to keep clear under Rule 16.1 (Changing Course). If the right-of-way boat is changing course away from the mark, it is not sailing within the mark-room to which it is entitled, and so it is not exonerated by Rule 43.1(b) if it breaks Rule 16.1.

The post Guide to Tactical Gate Roundings appeared first on Sailing World.

I get bored easily, which is probably because my day job is primarily racing SailGP’s F50 foiling catamaransg at 50-plus knots against eight other boats on impossibly short racecourses. My version of a family holiday has nothing to do with sitting on a beach sipping piña coladas or wasting away in Margaritaville, which is why when my family goes on vacation it can be a challenge to find something that keeps everyone entertained. My 6-year-old daughter wants friends to play with and ideally a lot of animals. My wife likes an adventure but also appreciates just relaxing in the sun. And me? Like I said, sitting around doing nothing is just not my thing, and that’s why a bareboat sailing vacation ticks all my boxes.

A charter catamaran is, of course, nothing like any of the America’s Cup or grand-prix boats I’ve played on for many hours over the years. When the sails go up, I’ll be lucky to get the boatspeed into double figures, but there’s always fine-tuning to do—you know I can’t be seen sailing around with a bad leech profile or creases coming out of mainsail batten pockets. If there’s another boat with sails nearby, there’s no rest until I’m higher and faster. When the sails are stowed, there’s elaborate fishing contraptions to build, wrecks to snorkel and lobsters to catch. Throw in a wing and a foil board, and the holiday is pretty ideal for me.

But a vacation is not all about me. For my daughter, it is great to invite another family so she has friends to adventure with. For my wife, short passages afford her stretches of sun-soaked relaxation on the bow, local restaurants and, most importantly, quality family time, which is more valuable than you can imagine for pro sailors like me.

Last year, we took on our first family bareboat charter in the British Virgin Islands and had an amazing trip. This year, I pitched something more adventurous and somewhere none of us had been before. A certain Sailing World editor friend told me about the Abacos in the Bahamas, where Sunsail had reopened its base after Hurricane Dorian leveled the area in 2019. He promised the kids would love it, the sailing is easy, and the islands are all unique. Upon his recommendation, we booked a charter without knowing anything about the place, and so our adventure began.

Flying into the Abacos today showcases the destruction still present. Acres of palm trees that used to stand lush remain barren as far as we can see through the plane’s small oval windows. On the taxi ride to the hotel, our driver describes how the storm surge went above the first floor of every building in town. But a massive rebuild is happening, and beautiful pastel Caribbean-style buildings are popping up between the older weather-beaten structures.

The Sunsail and Moorings Marsh Harbour base is at the Abaco Beach Resort on the main island of Great Abaco, so we check into the hotel a couple of days early to get ourselves sorted. The kids, of course, find immediate entertainment at the pool while I rig my wing-foil gear on the beach right outside our room, a proper start to the vacation.

Our boat is a Sunsail 454 catamaran, a couple of years old but set up well. The kids get the forward cabins, and the parents claim the aft, all with comfy berths and hatches for sleepy stargazing. The hand­over process is simple, and Sienna, the base manager, gives me a full rundown of cool stuff to do in the Abacos—and what to avoid. So efficient is the checkout that we slip our lines early on the first day of our charter and go on our merry way.

For the first few days, we motorsail northwest, stopping at pristine beaches, anchoring on the calm south side of small cays, taking the tender to the beach, and crossing overland to play in the Atlantic surf on the north side. The kids love the big waves and the excitement of getting swept up and down the beach. They return to the boat covered head to toe in sand, and the benefit of energetic water play is obvious to the parental units: The kids are excited to climb into their berths, making the usual laborious process of bedtime a dream. As soon as they are tucked in, the music, card games and drinks come out.

Scotland Cay is the highlight of our first few days. Knowing next to nothing about it and only discovering it on Google Earth, we anchor outside a big bay surrounded by calm white-sand beaches, except a small cut-through at each end. Here, the kids collect shells and swim while the dads follow two eagle rays gliding in the cut. This alone is one of the most phenomenal things I’ve ever seen in the wild. While following them, we come across a four-by-four ­resting on the bottom, teeming with fish. It is close enough to the surface that we can dive down and touch it. We also discover that we’re anchored right above eight lobster pots, which are full of fish and a couple of small lobsters. After wrestling them to the ­surface—and checking for a while that nobody was coming to claim them—I call my fisherman friend, Alex Sinclair, my teammate and grinder on the US SailGP Team. He informs us we have a hogfish, which will make an awesome dinner.

The next morning, we head for one of the advertised attractions of the Abacos—the swimming pigs. When we do get to them on “No Name Cay,” the mix of reactions among the kids is hilarious. Some love their snouty faces and others run in fear, but it doesn’t take us long to work out they are just smelly hogs that don’t really want to go in the water.

Nunjack Cay is the farthest north we go. Armed with a couple of frankfurters, we head to the beach, where we were told is a good spot to feed stingrays and sharks. There are no sharks, but my wife manages to get the stingrays to eat sausages right out of her hand. The kids are ecstatic when a loggerhead turtle swims past while we’re paddleboarding—­passing by close enough that we can touch its shell. When dolphins leap between the bows as we leave, our interaction with the wildlife proves to be a magical experience for all.

At this point, five days into our charter, we’ve barely used the sails, managing to plan every leg of our trip heading directly into the wind, so we turn south, kill the engines and set sail. In 12 knots of wind, the catamaran cruises easily at 7 knots—no flight controls, no wing to twist, no grinders hammering away. It’s all very relaxing.

As much as I enjoy sailing, it’s not often that I can run a fishing line out the back of the boat, so I spend hours setting up an elaborate system of hooks, lines and bungees and a Red Bull-can alarm system, which turns out to be successful. At times, we have to reduce from two trolls to one, as we are unable to retrieve the fish quick enough. Each time we land a fish, though, I speed-dial Sinclair for a consult. Most of them we release, but we do score one beautiful big snapper, which feeds us royally. Working out how to fillet and cook these things is a challenge none of us had ever faced, but one we all find entertaining.

We connect beach stops on our way south and do a bit of turtle watching in the mangroves from the tender before we pull into Great Guana Cay, where the kids find local children to play with and take full advantage of the restaurant’s bar-side pool. Up to this point, of the 10-plus beaches we’d been to and the 50 or so nautical miles we’d covered, we hadn’t seen another person, unbelievable considering they are some of the nicest beaches we’ve ever visited.

Next up is Hope Town to see the famous lighthouse, refuel, top up the water tanks and lunch at the Hope Town Inn, which gives us a true sense of how friendly the locals are. We are welcomed everywhere with open arms, with one guy even walking us to the supermarket rather than ­directing us.

Tahiti Beach is our next destination, and we’re excited because we’ve seen a lot of pictures. But when we arrive at high tide, there is barely any beach at all. Patience pays off as the tide drops and rewards us with an expansive and deserted white-sand haven loaded with conch shells, starfish and hermit crabs, a few of which would become onboard pets. The Thirsty Cuda Bar and Grill motors up, deploys its floating dining platforms, and serves up frozen drinks, much to everyone’s delight. I use this time to launch the wing-foil gear off the back of the yacht and have a rip across 3 feet of gin-clear water and pearl-white sand below.

A long downwind sail in 20 knots the ­following morning means we’re too fast for fishing, but we cover good distance. We pause at Pelican Cay to give the kids a chance to play in the waves on the beach in this beautiful nature reserve, finding a safe little area where the waves break through the rocks and push eddies and swirls. This amuses the kids—and me—for hours. In the late-afternoon sun, we continue to Little Harbor for the night and find a beautiful small anchorage full of beach bars not yet open for the season.

At first light, we exit the Abaco Sea and make our way to the Abaco Club on Winding Bay, an exclusive club surrounded by beautiful holiday houses, a links golf course, tennis courts and high-end ­restaurants that is kind enough to let us use its facilities for the day. It’s a super-­shallow swimming spot, and here the children master kayaking independently, one of the highlights of their holiday. It gives them that little bit of independence to go off and spot turtles by themselves and leave the mums and dads enjoying warm water, soft sand and tranquility.

By the 10th day, we should be heading back to the base, but we’re having too much fun and extend the trip for two more nights. We take one more sail south into Cherokee Sound to discover the clearest water we have ever seen. At 14 meters deep, it looks as if it is only two.

We have a couple more things we want to tick off the bucket list up north, so we head back to Hope Town for breakfast before returning to our favorite spot in Scotland Cay and to the infamous Nippers Beach Bar and Grill for dinner. This place is super cool, with pastel-colored chairs looking down over Atlantic swells crashing onto empty white-sand beaches for miles. Here we have our first experience with sharks while diving to video a large starfish when four very calm 8-foot bull sharks come to say hello.

We return to Marsh Harbour in a big storm, welcomed with smiles by the soaking-­wet base staff. After searching for our shoes, which we hadn’t seen for 12 days, we transfer to the hotel for one last pool and sleep session.

Since returning to the UK, I’ve had a lot of friends message me about the trip, curious about how much experience they need to charter a boat in the Abacos. It is so straightforward. With two engines positioned far apart, the catamarans are easy to maneuver under power, and the base staff are always reachable should anything need servicing during the charter. The handover process at the base at the beginning and end of the charter is comprehensive, and there is a thorough user manual on board if you forget anything from the briefing. They’ll even take the boat off the dock for you and bring it back at the end if you’d like. One bit of advice is to download the Navionics app on a phone or tablet. The app is useful for finding the shallow spots, researching the locations, and locating a few awesome wrecks just below the surface loaded with fish. A personal favorite is a sunken landing craft with a golf cart on the stern just off Sandy Cay, which you can swim down to and pretend to drive.

For anyone looking for an idyllic ­family holiday, I would absolutely recommend doing a bareboat charter. With sailing experience and basic boat handling know-how, you can explore one of the most picturesque locations in the world, seeing beaches and wildlife accessible only by boat. The Abacos are just getting up and running again, so word to the wise to my sailing friends: Head there now to experience stunning and almost deserted locations. And do it with a bareboat.

The post Shifting Gears in the Abacos appeared first on Sailing World.

The first time I went to a bush regatta was the 1986 Tasar British Columbia Championship at Lake Cultus. The scene was new to me: camping, bonfires, barbecues, lake racing. I was hooked.

When my team went to Australia to race 18-foot skiffs the following year, it was obvious we were way behind the other teams. We needed more practice racing to be competitive and came up with an idea to host informal racing every Tuesday night. We borrowed a 12-foot “tinny” and made marks with plastic milk bottles lashed together. We sailed in the small confines of Balmoral Bay in Sydney, primarily for boathandling practice, but also because our anchor lines were not very long.

At first, only one team joined us, but a month later we had the top boats racing around our little makeshift course. We started calling it the Balmoral Cup. Everyone had a great time, learned a thing or two, and enjoyed the casual camaraderie. In the years since, we have created regattas around the Pacific Northwest using the same principle of simplified infrastructure.

How do we run a quality event with minimal infrastructure? I have some ideas based on our experience in the northwest Tasar class. First, bush regattas work best with only one class, or two at the most. You want to maximize the racing and minimize the waiting. Having the right race committee is important. We find someone within our fleet who cannot sail or an alum. Having a spouse or second person on the committee boat is ideal.

Communication has to be simple and direct. We use our fleet’s email Listserv to post an informal “notice of race” that includes the location, time and camping details. Give the event a cool name to make it more unique. We use a whiteboard to explain the course and have a short briefing before the first race. The race committee can make updates by hail on the water.

Use a simplified flag system for the start. For example, at five minutes, a red flag goes up on one end of a 6-foot pole (or batten). At four minutes, the pole is reversed, and the blue flag is displayed. At one minute, the blue flag comes down, and the red flag goes back up at the start.

There are two primary racecourse considerations dictated by depth. If the water is shallow, say less than 100 feet, we anchor the marks and committee boat in the traditional fashion. If the water is deep, as is often true in the Pacific Northwest, you can use drifting marks. We attach a laundry basket or milk crate to the mark instead of an anchor. The mark will drift a little, but the course geometry will remain constant. We have found this does not detract from the fairness of the race. It is as if there was a little upwind current. Likewise, the race-committee boat can motor to maintain position on the start and finish lines, keeping a steady bearing on the mark.

The committee boat can be small. Ideally, it should safely hold two people plus three buoys. We have used aluminum fishing boats, RIBs and small trailerable fishing boats as small as 11 feet. The marks can be inflatable, but round orange balls also work fine and have less windage. The only other RC gear required is a flag, a ­notepad and a horn.

Keep the courses simple. We normally use all three buoys, allowing for either windward-leewards or triangles, with the finish either to windward or leeward. If you are using the deepwater setup, finish upwind because the course slowly drifts to leeward and you can recenter the location.

A post-race debrief is always part or our events. We hand out casual repurposed or handmade trophies, then we have a debrief where the fast boats share tips and everyone learns something for next time. We are especially conscious of improving the boats at the back of the fleet to keep them coming back. If it is a two-day regatta, we have a debrief after each day.

Our preference is for a two-day event, mostly because this allows us to have a great social event on Saturday night. If the venue involves camping, as many of ours do, this is especially true. However, a one-day event can also be satisfying, especially if it is a short drive from home. This also keeps costs down because racers don’t need accommodations or restaurant meals. At some venues where there’s wind all day and easy launching, it is nice to have a lunch break. In this case, a good program is two morning races, then lunch, then two more afternoon races. If the location is a long drive from home, we normally have a later start on the first day to allow Saturday morning travel, then an earlier start the second day.

Race length is at the group’s discretion. We sometimes have a lot of short aces, especially if the lake is small. We prefer slightly longer courses, say 30 to 40 minutes per race. Sometimes the venue is conducive to a long-distance race. This doesn’t have to be a marathon, but a one-hour race—maybe going to a different part of the lake—can be a nice change of pace.

The best thing about a DIY regatta is that by venturing out to a new lake or a new bay, you might be surprised by how much fun you can have and how easy it is. There are a lot of neat mountain lakes and saltwater inlets with decent wind where we live, but there are never regattas there because there is no infrastructure. I always learn new things and have a good time at a new place. There is a sense of discovery, especially at a location that has never held a regatta. The change will do you good.

The post A Plan For Regatta Simplification appeared first on Sailing World.

With the 37th America’s Cup using the AC75 class rule for this second generation of high-tech foilers, all but one of five teams—newcomer Alinghi Red Bull Racing—have the design jump-start of servers full of historical data and real experience with the 75-footer from the last go. It was, therefore, no surprise when the Protocol sought to level the playing field and reduce costs by allowing one prototype per team in the lead up to building their one and only new-generation AC75.

Teams are also required to buy a one-design AC40, which could be used as a prototype to design, test and troubleshoot mechatronic systems and foils. They could also leave the AC40 in its one-design configuration and instead design and build what’s called an LEQ12, which means “less than or equal to 12 meters.” Each team has chosen a different path, and only the outcome of the Cup itself in late 2024 will tell which was the right one.

Defender Emirates Team New Zealand chose to use its in-house-designed AC40 as a development platform, as will Alinghi Red Bull Racing (in addition to training on the former AC75 of Emirates Team New Zealand) and American Magic, which has reportedly purchased two of the 40s, but INEOS Britannia and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli have struck out on their own with custom-built LEQ12s, each notably different in many ways. Luna Rossa’s LEQ, with a radical graphics wrap either intended to distract the eye or maintain an Italian flair, is said to mirror the AC75 of Emirates Team New Zealand from the last Cup. INEOS Britannia’s T6, on the other hand, is an unworldly shape that can only be properly “sailed” when on its foils.

Luna Rossa was first to launch its LEQ12, at its base in Cagliari, Italy, in October, and thus was first to undergo tow testing to ensure the reliability of its sophisticated electronic foil and ­hydraulic-control ­systems. But days later, the rig and sails were on the boat and it was flying. The red-and-black-checkered specimen was described by observers as skittish at times but fast, and the sailors, seated in opposite cockpits, were promptly foiling through maneuvers until their first capsize brought their session to a halt.

Co-skipper Jimmy Spithill, the master of spin, shrugged off the capsize as no big deal. “Capsizes happen when you get caught slow,” he said to America’s Cup Recon afterward. “We just got caught downspeed.”

Indeed, the boat was righted and sailing again the next day, but ultimately, the purpose of the prototype is less about boathandling practice for the sailing team than it is data collection for those crunching numbers back at the base. There are said to be roughly 14 departments between the design and build teams, led by veteran Cup sailor Horacio Carabelli, who says the LEQ12 is “the most important tool we have, and the only tool the rule allows you to have.”

Rather than going down a somewhat predetermined development path with the AC40, or even sailing their previous AC75, as American Magic has been doing for months in Pensacola, Florida, the Italian and British challengers rationalized a custom LEQ12 gives them greater latitude by starting with a clean sheet to develop their own systems and “play with what you have,” Carabelli says. “It’s important to design your own boat because you can control what you are doing. In the background, we have what we learned from the last Cup and wanted to implement that into the prototype.”

For INEOS Britannia, starting with a prototype was a natural way to flex the muscle of their partnership with Mercedes Formula 1. “This is the start of a long journey of testing,” said skipper Ben Ainslie at the boat’s commissioning in November.

What does the unique design of T6 say about the team’s AC75 design to come? “Absolutely nothing,” Ainslie says. “It’s a test boat. It’s not built or designed to be the ­fastest 40-foot foiling monohull around. It will give us valuable insight into our performance tools and help us validate those tools. We were strong on the LEQ12 option because we wanted to optimize the design, and build the hull and the components that go with it. This is the first true boat that Mercedes could say they designed and built.”

Observers and the America’s Cup Recon Unit assigned to the team immediately seized upon protuberances on the front of the foil bulbs as something of interest, about which Ainslie confirmed are simply sensors that “will give us much more accurate data in terms of what’s going on under the water with the foils. It’s an incredibly well-sensored boat.”

The Italian and British challengers rationalized a custom LEQ12 gives them greater latitude by starting with a clean sheet to develop their own systems.

Sensors and proprietary ­simulators, which are now heavily used and enhanced with artificial intelligence, are pay dirt in these early stages, painting a critical picture of the engineering complexities of the mechatronics, structures, sail designs and foils, all of which ultimately feeds into the boatbuilding, where reliability is paramount. Emirates Team New Zealand demonstrated the importance of this in late October when it crashed its AC40-turned-LEQ12 in a high-speed pitchpole and brought its testing to a screeching halt.

“The structural part is very important,” Carabelli says. “The AC75s are a very light boat with a fair amount of loads in some areas. You need a boat that meets [the rule’s] displacement limits, which is not an easy task.”

While making good use of its LEQ12, Luna Rossa eventually suffered its own setback when the team damaged its mast in early November while the boat was being prepped for launch. The accident wiped away nearly three weeks of sailing. But by late November, they were back on the water and pushing their LEQ12 hard once again, rotating sailors through the boat and validating modifications that were fast-tracked during the mast repair, another clear benefit of dealing with a LEQ12 versus an AC75.

“It’s easier to deal with,” Carabelli says. “If you want to implement a new system, it’s easier because it’s not as complicated; we’re quite flexible to do modifications, and not a single day goes by where we don’t change a small detail.”

Meanwhile, over in Palma, Spain, where the INEOS Britannia squad set up its winter base, the sailing team was taking its time before going full-package, instead focusing on tow testing without the rig, beaming data straight back to engineers at Mercedes F1 headquarters in England.

“There are a lot of areas to check,” Giles Scott told America’s Cup Recon after the team’s first joyride, “a lot of debugging with hydraulic and electronic systems. The tow testing is a focal part of the early session with T6; the designers want nice steady data.”

In the modern America’s Cup era, there’s no denying data is gold, and mining for it requires chipping away at everything else. The LEQ12 is simply a cart sent down the shaft to find the mother lode.

The post Development Platforms for the 37th America’s Cup appeared first on Sailing World.

Ronnie Simpson—brimmed hat ­backward, eyes forward, a light touch on the tiller extension of his borrowed Open 50 Sparrow—is in his element. It’s a radiant September day with a pumping south­westerly raking Rhode Island Sound, and I’ve joined a pickup crew for a shakedown sail aboard the spartan 50-footer that he is just starting to get a feel for. “Learning,” he says repeatedly. “That’s what we’re doing here today. Learning.”

Sparrow is the latest handle for the well-traveled 50-footer, which began life as Newcastle Australia when Aussie Alan Nebauer commissioned it for the 1994‑95 BOC Challenge; it was rechristened Balance Bar after American Brad Van Liew took it for a second around-the-world spin in the Around Alone race four years later; it became Pegasus when tech mogul and sailing enthusiast Philippe Kahn took command shortly thereafter; and, ultimately, it was dubbed Sparrow after Simpson’s friend Whitall Stokes acquired it. Stokes still owns it, but he has basically given the keys to Simpson; the pair met while competing in the 2012 edition of the Singlehanded Transpac Race from San Francisco to Hawaii.

With Stokes’ blessing, Simpson has launched a bid to race Sparrow in the upcoming Global Solo Challenge, an eclectic, nonstop, singlehanded around-the-world contest scheduled to begin from A Coruña, Spain, in September 2023. For Simpson, however, racing in the GSC is hardly the point of the exercise—far from it. No, he is very clear this is a steppingstone to a much larger goal: to fulfill his longtime dream of nailing significant sponsorship for a full-on Vendée Globe campaign on a competitive IMOCA 60.

“If I’m being honest, I’m in way over my head financially,” Simpson tells me before we set sail. “I’m rolling the dice in a really huge manner. If doing (the GSC) on an Open 50 was the endgame, I probably wouldn’t be here. I consider this my shot for the Vendée. I don’t know why I’m so driven to do that race, but I wake up every day and I want to do it, and I go to sleep every night and I want to do it.”

Sparrow has a long and well-traveled history, but it pales to Simpson’s personal odyssey. Now 37, he has sailed more than 130,000 nautical miles and worked professionally as a racing sailor, delivery captain, charter captain, sailboat rigger and race-boat preparateur. Which is saying something, since he admits, “I never sailed a boat a day in my life until I was 23.” Which may never have happened had he not joined the Marine Corps and been nearly blown to bits in the Iraq War.

Which, indirectly, is how and why I met the man. A talented writer, long after his service he began submitting sailing articles to the magazine I was then working for, Cruising World, and I became his editor. His early submissions were pretty straightforward voyaging yarns, but his first major feature was a blockbuster, flagged on the publication’s November 2015 cover with this title: “From Fallujah to Fiji: An Iraq Veteran’s Odyssey of Redemption.”

A summary: Caught up in the patriotic fervor following 9/11, nine days after graduating from high school in Atlanta, Georgia, Simpson enlisted in the Corps, and on June 30, 2004, he was riding in a Humvee outside Fallujah when it came under heavy fire and a rocket-propelled grenade detonated just yards away. Simpson sustained major impact injuries to his body, brain and eyes, and inhaled enough of the explosion’s rapidly expanding gas to shred his left lung. He was put into a medically induced coma and woke up 18 days later—in San Antonio, Texas. He spent the next three years there, more or less recovering, but also feeling aimless and “unfulfilled.”

“I was rolling the dice in ways they should not be rolled,” he wrote. “Then one night, I discovered sailing on the internet. Within 90 days, I’d dropped out of college, quit my job, sold my house and, for $30,000, bought a 41-foot bluewater cruising boat in San Diego and moved aboard. I’d never before set foot on a sailboat, but I was resolved to sail around the world.”

In October 2008, he set forth by ­himself, bound for Hawaii. A little over a week later, he was rolled by Hurricane Norbert. He abandoned the boat and was picked up by a freighter that deposited him in the Chinese port of Shanghai. (“Twenty-one days across the Pacific!” he said.) He was out a boat, but he was also outward-bound on a cleansing adventure, which continued over the next seven months on a 9,000-mile bike trip through nine countries in Southeast Asia. For much of it, all he thought about was the Vendée Globe.

In August 2009, he flew back to California with $500 in his pocket and a single obsession in his mind: to race across oceans alone.

For $1,000, Simpson found a Cal 25 for the 2010 Singlehanded Transpac. Fatefully, a Vietnam veteran named Don Gray, who ran a nonprofit for wounded vets called Hope for the Warriors, offered him the use of his Mount Gay 30 for the race, which Simpson gratefully accepted. A repeat arrangement on a second boat called Warrior’s Wish, this time a Moore 24, was procured for the 2012 race (where he met Sparrow’s Stokes, then sailing a Tartan 10), aboard which Simpson won his class by a mere 90 minutes.

Next, he wrangled a writing assignment to cover that year’s start of the Vendée, and afterward traveled to Switzerland in hopes of making contacts to at least score a used Open 60 for the event’s next running. But he realized for the time being that raising the funds was a bridge too far, and he was itching to keep sailing. Returning to Hawaii, he landed a gig delivering a cruising boat back to the mainland, and then plonked down four of the five grand for a Cal 2-27 he found in Seattle that he named Mongo. He slapped on a solar panel and wind vane, and pointed the engineless 27-footer into the Pacific.

On his approach to Fiji in that summer of 2014, he notched an important anniversary. Precisely 10 years earlier, he had nearly lost his life in the desert. From Fallujah to Fiji indeed.

For the next several years, Simpson used both Fiji and Hawaii as bases of operation, surfing as much as possible. He upgraded his ride to a Peterson 34 called Quiver and continued to cruise the Pacific. Using the GI Bill, he earned his undergraduate degree in multimedia from Hawaii Pacific University. He handled press duties for events like the Pacific Cup and Transpac, and continued delivering yachts and racing offshore. Most importantly, he launched a business in Fiji running day charters and offering other watersports for the tourist set, which looked like a long-term plan for funding a Vendée campaign.

Until COVID-19 hit, and that scheme came to a sudden, crashing halt.

Simpson’s one tangible asset was Quiver, which he described as “all my eggs in one basket.” There was, however, no possible way to sell it in Fiji during a pandemic, so he hopped aboard, sheeted everything home, and spent 29 days hard on the trade winds to reach Honolulu, where he sold the 34-footer for $30,000. After yet another delivery to the mainland and a stint back in Hawaii running charters and earning his captain’s ticket, he flew to Los Angeles. There, he purchased a Peterson-designed Serendipity 43 cruising boat and signed up for the Baja Ha-Ha Cruisers Rally from San Diego to Mexico. His new plan was ultimately to return to Fiji and employ his new boat to relaunch his charter business.

And then he got that fateful call from his old mate, Whitall Stokes, and everything flew out the window.

Stokes had spent a good stretch of the COVID-19 years on his own excellent solo adventure, sailing Sparrow from the Pacific to the Atlantic via Cape Horn, a 17,000-­nautical mile voyage that concluded in Portland, Maine, at the Maine Yacht Center, a boatyard well-known in shorthanded circles for its exceptional refits and maintenance work. Stokes then put the boat up for sale. But finding scant interest, he decided to see if one of his mates might be interested in campaigning it. His first call was to Ryan Finn, fresh off a record-setting trip from New York to San Francisco on his proa, but he was already involved in another project. The second call was to Simpson, who did not need to be asked twice. “I immediately just said, ‘Yeah, I’m into it,’” he said.

Hasta la vista, Ha-Ha.

Right off the bat, Simpson sold the Serendipity 43 and launched a GoFundMe page that raised nearly $15,000 in a matter of hours, money that went directly into promotion and a website (ronnie​simpson​racing.com). He sailed to Newport, where we spent that epic afternoon putting Sparrow through the ringer, and then on to Annapolis, Maryland, for the US Sailboat Show, where he again put the boat on display. He scored some important sponsorships with New England Ropes, Ronstan and Wichard. He caught a plane to Amsterdam for the gigantic Marine Equipment Trade Show, the necessary hustle now in full flight.

What’s next? On to the Caribbean for a fully crewed entry in the Caribbean 600, then a qualifying Transatlantic sail to France, and the GSC in September, a unique event with a rolling start over 11 weeks for singlehanded boats from 32 to 55 feet. Hopefully, a tremendous race result attracts the notice of a deep-pocketed sponsor wishing to back a tenacious American competitor.

“I’m going to really try making this into a professional campaign,” he tells me. “I want to take everything I’ve learned from the French professionals and try to emulate that. I’m so incredibly grateful to Whitall for giving me this opportunity. Sometimes I curse him because it’s so stressful, but I’m just joking around. I’m so grateful.”

You could certainly say, in this latest chapter of what’s already a remarkable life story, Ronnie Simpson has hit the ground running. But the truth of the matter is, from the moment he landed at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune as a raw teenage recruit, he’s never, ever stopped pounding the pavement. That is a good thing because he has now stepped off on the ultramarathon of his life.

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