After months in development Melges Performance Sailboats announced in June the launch of its all-new Melges Watersports Center, the country’s newest sailing development and training venue located in the heart of Florida’s Space Coast.

The Melges Watersports Center is committed to broadening the base of wind and human-powered water sports through dedicated community programs and providing support for the development of future champions and Olympians.

“Our goal is to create the premiere North American sailing venue,” said Andy Burdick, President of Melges.

Located on the Banana River at one of its widest points, the venue offers a large, protected body of water, ideal for small sailboats, windsurfers, foiling, and human-powered sports. The Center is also located close to ocean access, allowing for future planning of larger-scale events on the Atlantic.

The Melges Watersports Center is scheduled to open in October 2024 and begin hosting regattas, clinics, and camps. It will serve as a world-class venue, attracting an international audience to Brevard County.

As one of the most active one-design classes in the country, the Melges 15 will bring more than 100 teams to the area throughout its four-event Winter Series. In addition, the Center will kick off its inaugural year with the Melges 14 National Championship and a dozen more scow and dinghy events.

Not Just a Regatta Center

The Center is not just a regatta venue but a year-round hub for aquatic activities and education, catering to beginners and seasoned athletes. It will boast a wide range of services and programs to foster a love for the water while providing public access to the area’s largest natural resource through kayak and paddleboard rentals.

The Melges Team will facilitate access to the top coaches and athletes in the industry, offering unique training and development opportunities. Several clinics are already on the calendar, aimed at improving boat handling, performance, and racing tactics. These clinics are perfect for individuals eager to absorb expert knowledge within a casual, fun atmosphere.

The Center, backed by the professional team at Melges Performance Sailboats, aims to be a top sailing destination. The Melges Team has numerous world and national championship titles and decades of instructional experience. With a passion for the sport and a commitment to excellence, Melges consistently elevates the level of event management and educational clinics, fostering a vibrant community of sailors.

“The Melges experience doesn’t end with a purchase. We’re dedicated to providing a holistic

sailing experience through regattas, training, and education,” explained Burdick. “We have built a strong community through our boat designs, attracting enthusiasts from all walks of life. Through the opening of the Center, I see that community growing larger and more connected through year-round activities.”

The Melges Watersports Center is located at 2550 N. Banana River DR, Merritt Island, FL, within the 5-acre Brevard County park, Kelly Park East. The venue has been celebrated as one of the top locations for windsurfing due to its consistent breeze and easy access from nearby Orlando Airport.

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It’s a cool fall day with a brisk sea breeze bending the seagrass on the low-lying peninsula that is the northernmost tip of Rhode Island’s Aquidneck Island. A lonely figure, clad in waders, moseys across the beach, shale fragments and Lady Slipper shells crunching underfoot. He pauses at the water’s edge, tinkers with the sailboat in hand, and then rhythmically waves it through the air, back and forth, watching the boat’s sails with a critical eye. He then steps gingerly across the shallows and treads into deeper water before slipping the 39-inch craft into the bay, watching it heel onto its lines and sail away straight and true.

The waterfront residents here are used to fishermen who pass and cast, the shell collectors, and the dog walkers. But this guy is new, and now he’s a regular. Three times a week or more, he comes alone, launches his remote-controlled sailboat, and guides it back and forth and around mooring balls. After each run, he steers the little yacht back to shore, tinkers again, and repeats the pattern until the sun goes down or nature calls.

The neighborhood ­gawkers have no idea that this guy who comes and plays with what appears to be a simple toy sailboat is one Ken Read, the decorated yachtsman. And his little yacht is anything but simple. It’s a new International One-Metre and his latest fascination. It’s good for his soul, but it’s even better for his results in real boats.

“I am totally convinced I am looking at the water better, seeing the breeze, working on the importance of boat balance, and tactically thinking ahead,” says Read, president of North Sails and a recent convert to remote-control sailboat racing. “I like what radio sailing is doing for my big-boat sailing.”

Read got his start in the talent-­rich local DF95 one-­design fleet that his brother Brad started a few years ago, off Sail Newport’s docks, but the elder Read is now neck-deep in the International One-Meter world, the grand prix of model yachting, if you will. Whereas the DF95 is essentially a boat-in-the-box, the IOM is a box-rule class for serious tinkerers.

“The DF 95 has some little tuning tricks, and it’s easy to get into the class,” Read says. “The IOM is a different animal. It’s a lot heavier, mainly in the bulb, and has much more sail area. It’s a bigger boat, which makes it behave more like a real keelboat—it glides through tacks and jibes.”

The winches are faster, he adds, which makes boathandling a bit more challenging.

“There is a lot to play with on the boat, so you have to understand how tuning really works to sail an IOM well,” he says. “I love that aspect of sailing, but you have to be ready for playing in a custom class. For those of us who can’t afford a TP52, which is also a box rule, this is a pretty good option.”

Read, who regularly cleans up in the Newport DF95 fleet, got his first taste of IOM sailing a few years ago. A friend in Connecticut loaned him a BritPop design a few days before a local regatta. He finished fifth, and the hook was set. Afterward, he connected with Zvonko Jelacic, a world champion and IOM boatbuilder from Croatia (the company is called Sailboat RC). “Jelacic reached out and asked if I was interested in trying one of his boats, called a K2, and sailing the 2023 IOM North Americans [hosted at the Hobe Sound Radio Sailing Club’s model-yacht pond in Florida],” Read says. “My only condition was that I could get hold of the boat I was going to sail at least two months earlier so that I could start to learn what I was dealing with. When he ships a new boat, it’s rigged and ready to go, and then the tweaking starts.”

Remote-control sailboats are no different than real boats in that balance is the goal: neutral to no lee helm and the ability to take one’s thumbs off the controls and have the boat sail straight through gusts and lulls.

“The objective is to be higher and faster, and the boat kind of sails itself, so you can spend time looking for the next shift and don’t have to stare at the boat to stay on track,” Read says. “Nothing new here: Good start, first shift, go a little quicker than the competition.”

His IOM tuning matrix details the familiar adjustments that must be preset before sending the boat out to the racecourse unmanned: mainsheet, jib sheet, rake, jib-tack position, mast ram, backstay, shroud tension, spreader length and angle, jib and main cunningham, and outhauls for both the main and jib. The next step is memorizing settings for different conditions—every knot of windspeed and every type of sea state.

“There’s a lot to sort out, which proves the fact that the good sailors doing this for a while are really good at it,” Read says. “Currently there is a whole new method of setup that is trying to make the sails and mast much more dynamic. When a puff hits, there’s nobody on the boat to trim or ease or pull on the backstay, but imagine if that happened on its own? Stand by.”

The IOM Class calls itself the pinnacle of remote-­control sailing, so it’s natural for Read, who’s checked boxes at other pinnacles (America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race) to be lured into a realm that the class says demands “precision, tactical skill, and technological expertise.” It’s been around since the late 1950s, and as with most development classes, new shapes come and go, but today, there are a handful of go-to designs.

“Rigs, weights, sail area and hulls all have to fit into a box, and from there, it is a free-for-all,” Read says. “But what is remarkable is with all of these differences, how close everyone is in speed. K2s are rumored to be better in a breeze, and Venti may be a bit better in the light. The V12 that Ian Vickers makes is an all-around boat, and the BritPops are just fine.”

With the North Sails design team and their tools at his disposal, it’s not surprising that Read is keen to put some of his own skins in the game. “I am talking with Zvonko about throwing some science at his one-piece molded sails,” he says. “North Sails invented one-piece molded sails, so that seems like a good fit, but we shall see. The sails on all the boats, if set up right, are impressive, so there aren’t huge gains to be made here.”

This past December, Read left his waders at home and packed his shorts for the 75-boat North American Championship. The Hobe Sound boat park, nestled between the roaring Florida Turnpike and Route 95, was littered with RVs, a rainbow of hulls, coolers, toolboxes, and bins of spare parts. “The whole thing was surreal,” Read says. “People take it  very seriously.”

He knew a few of the big names, and while most of the thumb yachters knew of him, he was still a newbie among the many masters who embraced him and showed him the way. “Mark Golison and Peter Feldman (world champions in numerous RC classes) were very willing to tune pre-race,” Read says. “I was lucky that they would line up with me.”

Over five days, in ­abnormally wet and windy conditions, Read battled his way to the top of the fleet and remained there throughout, finishing third overall, but earning the IOM North American champion title because Jelacic and Vickers are internationals. “RC racing has this crazy scoring system where you go up and down flights depending on where you finished. The goal is to make it to A fleet and stay there,” Read says. “I think I was the only person who never got pushed down a level, which I was proud of. As the regatta went along, all of a sudden it was clear that I was in the hunt, which was both shocking and exciting.”

With a new trophy to add to his pile, Read returned home with a newfound enthusiasm for the class, and while staying true to his DF95 brethren of the north, he’s now also recruiting for Newport, Rhode Island’s first IOM fleet. There’s even talk of hosting the 2025 IOM North Americans. “We have a great group of folks here who love remote-control sailing and the camaraderie,” he says. “Bringing others along and helping them tune will only make me better nationally and internationally, so that is always part of the deal.”

While Read’s north-shore neighbors might see more of him in his waders this spring, honing his little boat, he assures his co-workers and bosses that it’s simply a hobby and a healthy obsession that keeps him sharp and connected to the sport for 30 minutes a day. “It would take a lot of IOM sails to make up for one jib for a 100-footer,” he says. “Believe me, I know where my bread is buttered.”

The post The Allure of the IOM appeared first on Sailing World.

When I was recently prompted about what I love about our sport, my first thought was to write about a few of the cooler sailing destinations I’ve experienced over the years: Bermuda, Hawaii, Antigua and Mexico come to mind. But I’ve also enjoyed my share of grassroots regattas, small inland regattas at places such as Indian Lake, Ohio; Lake Massapoag in Massachusetts; and Branched Oak Lake in Nebraska. This sport can be experienced on so many levels, in so many places and in so many different boats, and while it’s easy to find ourselves hankering for something bigger and better, I’ve come to accept that it’s perfectly fine to keep it small, or as you might say, “keep it real.”

I’m betting that a sizable number of people who race are quite content doing just that. Weekend after weekend, we keep coming back for more. I was recently reminded of this while rigging my new ILCA dinghy at Colorado’s Union Sailing Club, when the owner of the boat next to me arrives, Martin Holmgren, a Scandinavian transplant with racing experience at a number of venues around the world. As we rig, we swap thoughts about the mirrorlike surface of Union Reservoir, our home body of water—all 736 acres of it—just north of Boulder in the city of Longmont. As dinghy-park neighbors, it’s a conversation we seem to be having a lot lately. Predictably, our conversations segue into nostalgic talk about all the other places we’ve sailed, all of which we’d probably rank higher than Union Reservoir on our all-time ­favorite-places-to-sail list.

I slide off into a daydream about a bigger body of water, more-consistent winds, and while we’re at it, let’s throw in a real clubhouse, a better launching area, a lawn on which to spread out sails, and…well, you get the idea.

Martin interrupts my mental meanderings. “I’ve sailed in a lot of places way better than this,” he says, “but somehow, I still love coming here and sailing. If I want to live in Colorado and I want to sail, this is where I have to do it. And my friends are all here too.”

So, he keeps coming back.

He’s right, of course. The essence of it is that we’re on the water—any body of water—hanging out with friends and doing one of the things we love most: racing sailboats. While we sometimes fixate on big coastal events at amazing venues, as well as the latest and greatest in sailing technology, it’s easy to forget that there are plenty of us across the country, like Martin, who still look forward to each day of racing on whatever body of water is nearest in whatever class of boat being raced there, even if it’s a class that’s been around for more than 50 years. Sure, there are varying degrees of enjoyment affected by factors such as venue and wind ­velocity, but we’re still doing basically the same thing. And we keep ­coming back. 

I grew up on Lake Fenton, a similar-size body of water in southeast Michigan with a racing area just a bit smaller than what I’m currently sailing on in Colorado. At the time, the 1960s, we had active Lightning, C Scow and catamaran fleets that raced on Sunday mornings. It was a paper club, with no lakefront property, and a handful of C Scows and a small pontoon committee boat kept in front of someone’s house in one of the small bays. The rest of us were scattered around the lake, on hoists, or moored in front of our homes or someone else’s who sailed in the fleet.

Like most small inland lakes, summer winds there tended to be light. I recall waiting for winds that never came or ­chasing ­ripples on the water, hoping to get some races in before the powerboats started coming out and spreading wakes all across the lake. Still, everyone showed up every Sunday, we raced, and we had a great time. 

In the early 1970s, this paper club had the opportunity to buy a choice piece of lakefront property. They wisely grabbed it, built a clubhouse, and added docks and a hoist. Over the years, like at many clubs, their fleets have ebbed and flowed, and a few new ones have been added. They now race on Wednesday evenings as well as Sundays and have an active social program too.

Today, I’m sure the same type of conversations are happening on Lake Fenton Sailing Club’s docks that Martin and I regularly have: What else is out there beyond Fenton?

Still, they keep coming back. 

And, we keep participating even when we can’t race; there seems to be a spot for everyone. At Vermont’s Lake Champlain YC, where I was an active member until the Colorado mountains drew me away a few years ago, longtime member Dale Hyerstay is a case in point. Once he realized that he could no longer race, he began regularly helping out on the committee boat. And when getting around the committee boat became a challenge, he planted himself behind the RC boat’s helm and limited his role to driving the boat, letting others deal with flags, marks and horns. It allowed him to keep coming back. 

What’s great about our sport? There are so many little things: the joy of trying a completely new class of boat, the satisfaction of solving some rigging issue no matter how small, watching our crew perform a maneuver to perfection, the perfect start, that first win and then, just to keep our ego in check, that first DFL. And when we finally pull the cover over the boat at the end the season and cinch it tight, the realization that, come spring, we’ll be lucky enough to do it all over again.

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While in pre-flight training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, I had a classmate with sailing expertise that he’d gained at the US Naval Academy. He was always happy to share his passion for sailing with our cadet class, whether leading a hands-on lesson in a Penguin dinghy or aboard a Luders 44 wooden yawl. It didn’t take me long to be as hooked as a sailor as I was an aviator.

Upon returning to Michigan after serving in the Navy for many years, I found myself searching for a suitable sailing dinghy—something simple yet familiar. My search led me to a used wooden 16-foot Wayfarer dinghy, originally built from a kit. At the time, I was simply buying a boat, never thinking that I was also buying a lifetime of memories and friends. The dealer who sold me the boat promptly put me in touch with the local Wayfarer fleet, which welcomed my family of five. We soon joined this fun-loving group of sailors for their races, cruises and, of course, regular social gatherings in Michigan and Ontario. The events were usually held at state or local parks with water access and camping facilities. While my sailing partner and I raced, someone from the fleet family watched over our young ­minnows as they played with others left ashore.

After racing, the entire family would then pile into the boat and cruise around with the other boats, usually with an ­ice-cream reward somewhere along the shore. We had joined an extended family who freely shared their dinghy expertise in rigging, safety, reefing and racing techniques. When winter closed in and the water got hard, downhill and cross-country skiing were the ­wintertime sports for most of us, while others sharpened their ­iceboat runners as the ice thickened.

After a move to North Carolina, we sold our family Wayfarer to a graduate student who had raced against us in his father’s boat. At the time, I figured I’d never see the boat again, but today, some 40 years later, we still hear from him, and it brings me great joy to know that he continues to sail Wayfarer No. 611 in the waters of Maine and Massachusetts. The longevity of these old boats is incredible.

When we shifted to saltwater sailing on the North Carolina coast, my family took to a 16-foot catamaran and later a 36-foot ketch. Sailing was adventure for our boys, as well as for our grandchildren years later, who have all become proficient on our various watercraft. A cruise to Cape Lookout, chasing dolphins, or flying a hull on Bogue Sound have been highlights during the school years.

As is bound to happen, the boys grew up and scattered. In 2005, it was time for my wife, Linda, and me to find a dinghy suitable to our retirement age and sailing goals. A sad phone call pulled us back into the Wayfarer community when a Michigan fleet sailor notified me that two of our sailing friends had been seriously injured in a Florida boat-ramp accident. There was a regatta scheduled nearby, so I drove over and reconnected with many friends, sharing our best sailing stories, remembering lost fleet mates, and feeling again the tiller of a well-tuned small boat. So many years had passed, but the sensation of steering a Wayfarer came right back.

I evaluated all the ­various classes that were being raced on nearby lakes and ultimately decided the Wayfarer was still the right small craft for us. Fortunately, a Boy Scouts troop had taken on a project to rebuild a composite Wayfarer (with wooden decks and fiberglass hull), and we were able to acquire the boat. The wood was beautifully finished, and the hull sturdy enough to take the brunt of the occasional scrape on the oyster banks and sandbars prolific in our waters. Our Wayfarer tribe embraced us again, helping us renew our passion for the wind on our cheeks and to enjoy the camaraderie of those who dance on the water together.

Today, though, the experience is ever greater, sharing the helm and crew duties in a lively dinghy with grandchildren and watching them work to windward through the gusts with confidence and spunk—a metaphor for life.

Nonsailors often ask me about the scary moments “out there.” While there are frightening moments from time to time, the worst was a capsize with my featherweight granddaughter, Claire, who was crewing for me at a North American Championship on Lake Ontario. We went over quickly during a jibe, with winds pushing 20 knots and 4-foot seas. We’d handled similar jibes in earlier races, but at this moment, we were tired yet thrilled to be surfing toward the finish. At the time, I was thinking it would be wiser to chicken jibe, but we went for the jibe anyway. Claire slipped into the water, under the boom and sail, while I was falling across the boat. I lost sight of her, which was a terrifying moment, before her PFD brought her up smartly and into view as the boat turned turtle. Next time, we’ll chicken.

The Wayfarer class has matured to a point where international championships rotate among a few countries, providing us with an even larger extended family in the Netherlands, Denmark, England and Ireland. The locals usually find us loaner boats and interesting lodging, my favorite being a converted canal barge that once hauled wheat and aggregates throughout Friesland.

My favorite Wayfarer sailing now begins when I rig the sheets, set up the tiller tamer, set the board at half-depth, and slip away alone in a gentle breeze on a quiet inland sound. Mullet, stingrays and baitfish scurry away, believing that the Wayfarer is a predator looking for breakfast. An island with an active shorebird rookery is the destination to silently observe herons, egrets, pelicans and the elusive oyster-catchers. As the sea breeze ­strengthens and the tide ebbs, it is time to harden up, stay clear of the ­shallows, and return to the mooring buoy, where the boat will sit until the next race. My Wayfarer, like the old family wagon, is truly a vessel with many ­purposes.

The post Wanderers of the Wayfarer Dinghy appeared first on Sailing World.

On a crisp late-­November afternoon in swanky Greenwich, Connecticut, Teresa Laughlin hadn’t yet grasped the magnitude of her place in sailing history. Well, Riverside Dyer Dink ­history, that is.

Two hours earlier, out on the flat and swift-running waters of the shallow Cos Cob Harbor, Laughlin, a glamorous 65-year-old public relations professional from Larchmont, New York, was maneuvering her tippy 10-foot Dyer Dink in the same fashion she would her car in the rush-hour madness of nearby Interstate 95. She was fearless yet calculated as she steered her way into the pandemonium of 69 other Dinks trying to squeeze between an anchored race-­committee boat and an orange flag on a buoy 100 feet away. Buried in the pileup of white dinghies near the committee boat, she instinctively tacked to escape—into the lead and into the Riverside Dyer Dinghy Association’s annals as the sailor who won the first race of the biggest frostbite championship turnout in 62 years.

“It was the first time I sailed with my compass this season,” Laughlin shares with me on the porch of Riverside Yacht Club. Inside the clubhouse, the bar is boisterous with sailors regaling stories of woes and wins after four races of sheer shifty madness. “I’m trying to get better with a compass, so I had done some readings before racing and took note of what the wind was doing. But I had a very bad start, which ended up being a blessing because I saw the windshift while I was trying to figure out what to do next and quickly flopped over.”

Her gut was right. She was the first skipper to jump the shift and “just kept getting lifted all the way to the mark.”

She had clear air and left the maelstrom of white sails in her wake.

“I kept watching the other side, and I was like, Am I going to round first? And then I was like, No. And then I was like, Oh my God, I’m gonna round first.”

With a bunch of dinghy-sailing hotshots soon on her tail, Laughlin is pretty sure she spent the entire downwind leg talking herself out of a panic.

“I rounded the leeward mark first, which was beyond thrilling,” she says, “and I felt the pressure of not wanting to lose it, and then ­having this wall of boats coming at me, trying to navigate through them. It was very exciting, and I’m gonna put that in my brain forever.

“But it made a mess of me for the next race. I went to 59.”

That’s the thing about Riverside Dyer Dink frostbite racing—it’s as cruel and cold as it is strangely satisfying.

The remainder of Laughlin’s finishes in the day’s other races go out with the tide, while the perennial fleet champions, new and old, go tit for tat at the front of the fleet. We’re talking about 2022 season champ Jon Singsen, one of the young bloods of the Riverside Dink fleet. He’s exceptionally fast and smart, but he has a long way to go to strip 21-time frostbite fleet champion Ty Anderson of his GOAT status.

Anderson’s name first appears on the championship’s bronze trophy plaques as winner of the 1988-1999 season. After a few interruptions, he goes on a 12-season winning streak from 1995 to 2008, until a fella named Joby Breck breaks his stride. Anderson, the 66-year-old past commodore, accepts that he’s not as agile as Singsen and others, but he still makes them work for their wins. 

“It took me four years to get to the top,” Anderson tells me, “and that’s typical because no one has come here and won their first year. With the subtleties of the boat and the trickiness of the harbor, you don’t just step in and win the fleet. Jon sailed for five or six years before he broke through.”

The funny thing about Singsen is that he is one of the few sailors here who doesn’t actually own one of the 95 Dinks neatly arranged on Riverside YC’s winter docks. He’s a beneficiary of the association’s allowance for skipper substitutions on a weekly basis. The simple point is to leave no boat behind. “I’m fortunate that I get to sail a lot of the different boats because the fleet is so welcoming,” Singsen says. “That helps bring people like me into it and has helped the fleet grow.”

On this particular day, the fourth of the season, Singsen jumped into a boat named Hasta La Vista, Baby and knocked off an enviable string of results (7-2-15-1) that keeps him at the top of the monthslong championship scoreboard and well ahead of Anderson. The two sailors share an equal and healthy respect for each other on and off the water, with Singsen confessing that he’s learned the nuances of the Dink by watching the old master.

“Ty has been in the fleet a long time, and he keeps things pretty simple on his boat,” Singsen says. “My first couple of seasons, I watched what he did with his boathandling because I think, when it comes down to it, efficient boathandling makes a huge difference in these boats. It’s a half of a boatlength every time you maneuver, and Ty looks smooth all the time.”

Anderson, who is ninth overall for the day, is grateful of Singsen’s praise, but he dishes it right back: “Jon is now the best ­boathandler, and it really sets him out. The great thing about the fleet is the one-design aspect, and the fact that somebody like Jon can come in and sail a different boat every week and win the series is a ­wonderful endorsement of our fleet and the boats we sail.”

The Dyer Dink is still built by The Anchorage (previously Dyer Boats), three hours north in Warren, Rhode Island. The Dink is also referred to as the 10-foot Dyer, which Anderson says is distinguished from the more ubiquitous 9-foot Dyer. It was designed by Phil Rhodes in 1934 and, while they were originally wooden lapstrake hulls, fiberglass Dinks came online in the late 1940s.

The Dink, Anderson says, is the better of the Dyer dinghies because it has “both a bow and a stern. The 9 kind of has two sterns.” The closest comparison he can draw is the Interclub, another popular frostbiting dinghy of the East Coast winter-sailing establishment. “The Dink is sort of like a singlehanded Interclub—same basic kind of hull shape and setup.”

Originally intended as a yacht tender, the Dink once had a sleeved wooden mast and overhanging boom that could be stowed inside the boat. Rigs today are aluminum, and booms have been shortened to prevent them from snagging shrouds during close ducks. And while most of the Riverside Dinks once served as rowing ­tenders, most oarlocks have been relegated to basement parts bins. 

Before racing, Anderson shares a picture with me that he found in his basement, which he believes is from his first year in the Riverside fleet, circa 1984. When the fleet shortened the booms, it redesigned the sails with extra roach and a full-length batten. The most important change, however, was commissioning a new rudder design from renowned naval architect Bill Tripp. The original Dink rudder is more of a teardrop shape, similar to that of a Lightning rudder. The new fleet rudder is a longer high-aspect blade that now prevents a whole lot of capsizing. That is a big deal in winter sailing because despite air bags, Hippity Hop balls and other flotation aids, once a Dink is in the drink, there’s no coming back. It must be towed to the dock underwater and pumped dry.

They also now have two sail options for both ends of the wind range. “Back in the day, we still had actual reef points in the sail, so everybody would come into the clubhouse, roll up their sail, and tie it up before we went out,” Anderson says. “Now whenever we put in a fleet order of new sails, we take the old ones and cut them down so that everybody has two sails.”

Walking the docks once covers are removed reveals a lax approach to sail-control customization. It’s easy to overthink it, Anderson says. From his decades of experience, the most important customization for him is leading a double-ended vang tail to the rail, through cam cleats mounted on homemade carbon brackets—that’s his only exotic fitting, which is offset by the stainless-steel hose clamps holding his gooseneck firm to the mast.  

Anderson’s entree to the fleet long ago is similar to the day’s top-three skippers: Singsen, John Bainton and Will Graves were all dinghy and college sailors who settled in the area and found a welcoming and familiar scene at Riverside. “Frostbiting became my sailing outlet after college,” Anderson says, “which it does for a lot of people because frostbiting is so very similar to college sailing: It’s small boats, small bodies of water, shifty breeze, crowded marks, stuff like that. It’s the same, but there’s just less swearing.”

The true skill of a Dyer champ, he adds, is one’s nimbleness. “When the younger college-sailing types show up, they’re fighting it out of the pin, and they’re very good with stopping and starting, accelerating, and changing speed and direction.”

What’s also appealing is the short time commitment on any given Sunday. Because the boats are stored on the dock with masts up, it’s as simple as peeling back the cover, hoisting the sail, dropping the rudder into the pintels, and sailing to the racecourse 200 feet or so from the dock. With such a shallow race area, the tide dictates their sailing window; they start at either 10 a.m. or 2 p.m., and have a hard stop after two hours. 

“This is far and away the best sailing year-round,” says Graves, an investment officer in New York City and a two-time All-American at the US Naval Academy. He’s also one of Singsen’s weekly threats. His boat is dialed in, and yoga keeps him fit enough to endure two hours of careful footsteps and Crouching Tiger stances in the boat when it’s light.

“I’m amazed at how sore I feel on a Monday morning,” Graves says. “It’s the awkward sitting, the crouching, and the constant movement. There is a fair bit of physicality to it, and it is just superior college-style racing that sucks you right in. It’s two hours of total separation from life—really magical.”

Graves hunted for a good Dink for a while before scoring one a few years ago. They go pretty quickly, he says, but he was able to get his hands on a light five-year-old hull. “The boats are really simple, so it’s just a matter getting sail controls led to the skipper and close enough on weight, and with that the fleet does a great job with corrector weights.” 

One entourage in the fleet who don’t require corrector weights is a band of big fellas who call themselves The Slayers. They take great pride in being too big for the boat. “We’re a group of overweight, underskilled sailors, and when you’re in a big fleet like this, you ­actually need to have another competition; otherwise, it gets boring being at the back of the fleet,” Tom Jankovich says. “We have rules that only we know and no one at the top of the fleet knows. Those rules focus on how can the fat guys win and the fast guys not win.”

With a weekly gathering of such size, it does take a local army to pull off the racing. “It takes a ton of volunteers to make it happen every day,” fleet co-captain Bobby Pruett tells me. “We have about 18 race committee on crash boats, mark boats, whatever it may be, each and every Sunday between October through March, so it’s a big lift to make the opportunity to race with everyone happen.”

Pruett’s journey from New York City’s West Village to Riverside YC each weekend is epic unto itself: “It’s about an hour and a half commute. If it’s a 2 o’clock start, I’m hopping on the BDFM [New York Subway] to take the shuttle across, then to Grand Central, then Metro North, then to my sister’s house to pick up my moped to get to the club.”

But it’s absolutely worth the journey, he says. 

Pruett’s co-captain Kevin Kelley had not raced a dinghy until 10 years ago. When he moved to Riverside, he quickly discovered that Dink racing was where the offseason action was at. “We now have 95 boats on the dock, and when I was looking for a boat, there were more new members than there were new boats, so I had to buy a new one,” he says. “Two decades ago, I understand the biggest challenge was getting people to sign up. Now the biggest challenge is fitting them all on the dock space we have.”

Clearly, this crowd is into the Dink thing, and while the racing is over in a blink, the pace of derigging on the dock is as brisk as I’ve ever seen. It’s barely past noon, and in a rush, sails are rolled and covers zipped, and there’s a beeline to the bar where Pruett shares good news over chili, beer, and properly mixed Dark ‘n Stormy ­cocktails served in proper-size pint glasses.

He gathers the sailors in a small side room in the club, where the perpetual trophy hangs in a corner by the window.

“There were a total of 70 boats today,” he says once the crowd is hushed with whistles. “Initially, I was given wrong information that the record was 71. Well, it was 64, so we have the record. We got it done.”

The sailors cheer, finish their drinks, and slip away to domestic chores, afternoon football games, trains to the city, and naps. It’s been a proper day of frostbite Dink racing, and they’ll be back again next Sunday for their weekly fix.

The post Into the Dink appeared first on Sailing World.

As with most things in life, a necessity called for a solution, and for Lindsay and Alfredo Lopez, that need was a RIB for their home-port Hampton YC. That need then quickly transformed into a full-time family-run RIB-rental business, a fast-growing fleet, spiking demand and a dealership to tie it all together.

A couple of summers ago, Lindsay says, Hampton couldn’t raise the capital to buy a new RIB, so they considered chartering one at a daily rate for the entire summer. “The rate was astronomical,” Lopez says. “So, we said, ‘Why don’t we just buy a boat and charter it back to the club for way less.’ It was really about doing something to help out our program, and hey, we get another boat. So that’s a win-win. We very quickly realized that there are never enough boats for events, coaches, spectators and parents.”

Naturally, one became two, two became three, and their new company, Club Boat Charter Company, was formed. They’re now moving eight RIBs with an insane schedule of charters already lined up for youth sailing events in the ­mid-Atlantic summer and Florida regattas all winter long.

“When we looked at what was out in the industry, we realized it was a great opportunity,” Lindsay says, “but our model was to see if we could get boats at a lower cost and pass those savings along.”

They connected with Highfield Boats, which makes award-winning aluminum-hulled RIBs, and Alfredo says that’s where the business took off. “What they were trying to do with the brand and competitive sailing and what our goals were aligned really well.”

The intent with their ­charter business, Lindsay says, is not about getting rich off the sport, but rather to make it more affordable for parents and families in the youth space and be an asset resource for organizations, regattas, and wherever else there’s a need. “It’s about keeping it reasonable for host clubs, PROs and everyone who’s involved by lowering the market price to charter a RIB.”

So far, she says, they’ve ­managed to keep their rates below $400 per day, depending on the location. “I think keeping it as affordable as we can is important because sailing is already an inexpensive sport, and I hate seeing kids unable to do something they love or enjoy because they can’t afford it. That is unacceptable, so we want to keep it as affordable as we can in the spaces where we have control.”

And as they say, and the pun is intended, the charter experience is turn-the-key turnkey. “We provide what we call a white-glove service,” Alfredo says. “Bring your life jacket, and the boat is in the water when you get there. It’s clean, it’s gassed up, keys are in the ignition, and it’s ready for you to go.”

Same goes for the return. “It’s as simple as leaving it at the dock; we’ll recover it and take it to the next place,” he says. “We make it as painless as possible.”

Seems too easy to be true, but Alfredo says that’s the point. “It is logistically difficult in many ways, but personally, I saw this as an opportunity to be on a boat more, which I love. It is tough and it requires a lot of capital, but the market and the demand are growing. We will grow the fleet as much as demand allows and is ­appropriate for the market.”

There’s plenty of cleaning boats, as well, Lindsay adds. And driving, which they’ve been doing less of since onboarding their first operations manager, Brian Fox, a former college sailor and active coach. “He actually taught our daughters when they were Opti Green fleeters,” Alfredo says. “His perspective is good because he knows what coaches want.”

Now three years into the biz, things are humming along for the parents of two young daughters, and both Alfredo and Lindsay see the potential of more. Partnering with Highfield Boats was the critical relationship to jump-start the company, and Alfredo looks longingly at the fact that Highfield is the official RIB sponsor of the Paris Olympic regatta next summer, which means Los Angeles could fit perfectly into their long-term business plan (they both have MBAs, by the way). “I would love to do LA in 2028 and support that initiative,” Alfredo says. “But next year will be one of sustainability. I think that we’ve hit a pretty good number in our fleet. We’ll focus on turning it around and refreshing it, and then just continuing to break into new events however we can.”

The post RIB Charter Made Easy appeared first on Sailing World.

The five-minute horn sounds as the J/70 class flag goes up. It’s shake-and-bake time for the team on Brutus III. I deliver my signature bony-knuckle fist bumps to my teammates, a tradition I brought to them as the only American on board. We do it before every race to loosen up and get excited. It’s Day One of the 2023 J/70 World Championships in St. Petersburg, Florida, and “No Windersburg,” as we like to call it, is living up to its reputation. The forecast is set to improve as the day goes on, but we all know that this first light-air race will reveal who has what it takes to win the world title. 

We’ve been preparing for these conditions all year thanks to Mother Nature delivering light winds at several events at Davis Islands, Miami, the UK, and typically windy Lake Garda. All of our light-air training and racing has taught us several lessons: patience, clear communication, coordination moving around the boat, and important feedback loops. Most importantly, we’ve learned to trust in one another, and to do our jobs and do them well. While there might be literal stepping on toes on our boat as we sail five-up, there is no overstepping our individual roles. We own our positions and back up one another whenever necessary. We all bring different but complementary skills, and we use those to work as equals—a true team mentality.

As the final gun sounds for the first race, our focus is simple: sail normally, which is easier said than done in an 83-boat fleet full of talented teams. But nothing is ever normal in the first race of a big-fleet world championship. Thanks to our practice and preparation, we have a decent start and good boatspeed off the line. This was a major goal for our team, and we knew that good, clean starts would allow us to control our race. But even with our good start, we find ourselves hung out in an unfortunate windshift, which puts us in the chaotic midfleet scrum. It’s daunting and disheartening to see so many boats ahead of us, but it’s a place we’ve been before. We buckle down and get to work, crossing the finish line after what feels like a three-hour race; 53rd is not a Worlds-winning result to start with.

At this point, we know that something needs to change. We need to shake off the nerves, reset, and get after it again. I go below and pass up water bottles and the traditional Brutus-style energy bars: the best chocolate fudge brownies. The ­discussion while we scarf our sweet treats is to remain positive, and we joke about what a relief it is to have our drop race already out of the way. We all know that we have a long week ahead and anything can happen. We stick to the game plan: Sail normally, do our best, and keep the positive energy at full tilt. Small windshifts make a huge difference on long legs, so we know that we need to keep a ­particularly close eye on them.

We then go straight back into our normal prestart routine by going head-to-wind near the midline committee boat and determining the side of the line we want to start at. Then we go upwind on starboard and port tacks to get our bearings and check our rig settings. After one more wind check and a back-down to make sure we were free from all the little bits of seagrass we’ve seen on the course, we ping the ends of the line and time our runs to the line.

Again, we’re shaking-and-
baking at the five-minute signal. The breeze is building, the sugar is kicking in, and we are ready to redeem ourselves. And redeem we do, crossing the finish line with a third. We could attribute the brownies as the secret to success, but what really happened is we found our stride. 

For the remainder of the week, our best sailing is done when we find ourselves with room to play, and we constantly adjust our technique to even the smallest changes in wind strength. Our trust in one another to change modes easily provides us with opportunities to make big gains both upwind and downwind. Knowing this, our tactician, Ben Saxton, can make confident decisions about what our plan is and utilize the feedback loop of information we constantly have going in the boat.

Our driver, Thomas Mallendine, provides Saxton with how the helm is feeling and what he needs. Chris Grube constantly relays big-picture wind reports, what phase the breeze is in, and how far up and down we are from our mean compass numbers. Downwind, he keeps the communication flowing about how the spinnaker feels, helping Mallendine drive to the mode we need. Charles Thompson, Brutus’ fearless owner, provides feedback on relatives both upwind and downwind, and I call short-term puffs and lulls upwind and downwind. It might seem like a lot of chatter, but we have been able to fine-tune it with practice so that we can make the best decisions while racing without being on information overload.

As a team, we find that if we are overly dialed in, we’re too stiff and don’t execute the boathandling as well. Overcoming that is what makes this team so special. All of the technical information, boathandling, feedback and preparation make us a fast team, but our real magic is our banter. No one on the boat is safe from being lovingly picked on, and nothing diffuses tension faster than making fun of yourself. It’s not constant, but at many points during races, and always between races, we turn to laughter to set us straight. There’s no point in playing if we’re not having a good time.

Before the last race of the regatta, we have a decent overall lead in the standings, but we know we need to sail well to win. It’s still anyone’s game. I am nervous. We all are, but we’ve talked about it. Being nervous is OK—as long as we utilize those nerves and enjoy the privilege of being in a ­position to be nervous. 

Lo and behold, the start of the last race is our worst of the regatta. We’re deep in the third row and about to lose it all. But we harness our nerves differently than we did in the first race: We laugh and move on. We sail fast, make smart decisions, and keep our composure. We sail our way, the Brutus banter in full effect, and it works. This is what makes winning this world ­championship title so special.

It’s an amazing feeling to win my first world championship, and I am honored to be the first American woman to win the J/70 world title. But the satisfaction is far greater than that. It might sound cliche or sappy, but I’m proud that we won as a team, as best mates, laughing and smiling from start to finish.

The post How the Worlds Were Won appeared first on Sailing World.

When I tell people my ­husband and I race competitively together in a two-person dinghy, the usual response is something like, “No way! We’d be divorced,” or “That would be a marriage-ender for us.” While I completely understand this sentiment, for Jonathan and me, it’s been just the opposite—a marriage-builder. We came to sailing together as part of our courtship, and it’s a foundational piece of our life together. I sailed Lasers and 470s at the national and international levels in the 1980s and, of course, Jonathan was pretty accomplished himself. Our first regatta together was the US Tasar North Americans in 1988, which started a 35-year relationship with the class and racing as a team. Since then, in addition to many local regattas, we’ve sailed eight Tasar World Championships, winning four, and finishing second in three and fifth in one. In January, we’ll be heading to the 2024 Tasar Worlds in Melbourne, Australia. 

To state the obvious, sailboat racing is intense, especially dinghy sailing. It’s physically demanding and mentally challenging, and not every day goes as planned. On those days, things can get a bit strained, which can be tough on a relationship. Like any team, we each have our roles. Jonathan steers, trims the main and calls tactics. I manage the weight, hike, and adjust the forward controls while talking about the wind, compass, course and the other boats. On those days when things are not going well, my responsibility is also to stay positive, be forward-thinking, and convey confidence in him—and in us as a team. I work to feed him useful information so he can make the very best next decision and the one after that. 

At a regatta some time ago, we found ourselves in the bottom third of the fleet, rounding the leeward mark of the first downwind leg. Our spirits were already low when the mainsail clew shackle gave way. After a quick repair, and the fleet sailing away from us, Jonathan looked deflated and asked, “Now what?” I immediately responded, “We’re racing!” And off we went to rejoin the race as best we could. Racing every minute until the very end of every race is something I had learned from him in the past, so I gave it back at the right moment. 

Crews in doublehanded boats are often underappreciated. It’s assumed skippers do everything, with crews taking orders. At the top of the fleet, that simply doesn’t deliver winning results over time. But it’s hard to see what top crews are doing differently. Success begins with confidence in your skills as a sailor and as an equally important part of the team, even if you don’t have your hand on the helm. It also blends opposing concepts: equal partnership with a hierarchy of tactical decision-making; separate roles in the boat combined with synchronicity of movement and boathandling; being of service to one’s skipper but not subservient. Practicing these concepts in addition to the normal things like starting, speed tuning and maneuvers makes them second nature and accessible during the intensity of a race.

Some time ago, I realized I can communicate disappointment or doubt from the front of the boat without saying a word. Needless to say, this vibe is not great for skipper confidence, results or the dinner table. Since then, I consciously set an intention to emanate support and belief in Jonathan regardless of what’s happening in the race because I know he’s already putting in 110 percent for our success.

The 2022 Worlds was a real test for our partnership. Jonathan’s sister had died suddenly a month before the regatta, and during the lay day, his mom passed away after a long illness. Hearts broken, we leaned into our sailing community and the comfort of racing together for support and healing. The tone in the boat was different. We were still focused on competing with excellence, but it came with a halo of gentleness and an awareness that the friends and family who surround our lives and our sailing are what really matter.

Over the years, I have begun to see sailing with Jonathan as a way to increase our mental and emotional alignment, with the goal of bringing out the very best in each other. We don’t always live up to our ideals in this regard, but the number of race days spoiled due to one of us being in a bad mood or letting our egos get in the way are increasingly few. Foundational to all this is respect for what the other brings to the team and a deep faith in the team itself. This inspires investment in getting better and working out the issues that inevitably arise when you’re part of something meaningful—like a marriage.

The post Two Is Better Together appeared first on Sailing World.

Monica Morgan has come a long way from working at a Subway in Chicago as a teenager to raise money to join the racing team at the Chicago YC at Belmont Harbor. Now, at age 39, she has become a highly sought-after dinghy and keelboat crew. Her name is on a lengthy and growing list of championships, including four J/24 North American titles, two J/24 National Championships, the J/24 Midwinters, a pair of Lightning Masters Championships, a Lightning North American Championship and the Bacardi Cup in the VX One. And those are only the ones she can remember. 

When not racing, you can find her deep in fiberglass work at Morgan Marine, a Florida speed shop she runs with her husband, Chris. On any given day, you might find her recoring a deck, longboarding an Etchells or a Lightning hull, or doing repairs no one else wants to do. And that’s when she’s not taking care of her 9-year-old son, Oliver, diving to clean boat bottoms, or doing CrossFit workouts. 

At an inch or so over 5 feet tall, Morgan’s height might not be imposing, but her VX One skipper, Austin Powers, of North Sails, says: “Pound for pound, she’s probably the strongest sailor in the world.” As an example, he notes how she usually completes their spinnaker hoist well before any of her larger male counterparts. “She’s definitely a large part of the reason we won the 2022 Bacardi Cup.” 

Growing up, Morgan sailed with her father on a Rhodes 19. In a family on a tight budget with seven kids, she didn’t have access to much of what typical yacht-club kids enjoy. She and her brother cleaned boat bottoms and usually got a bag of fun-size Snickers as payment. At age 15, she started frostbiting in a Penguin with her friend David Stix.

“We sailed at this place called Skokie Lagoon, just outside Chicago,” Morgan says. “He must have seen something in me because he pushed me to learn more. After our first capsize, he called my mom and said, ‘Monica needs to buy some gear. She can’t keep sailing in sweatpants and a rain jacket.’”  

After high school, it was off to Florida State, where she did minimal collegiate racing. The sailing connection had not yet been fully realized. “After graduating, I became a social worker in Chicago for a homeless shelter run by the Salvation Army. One of my friends asked me to sail a Lightning regatta over the weekend in Chicago, and I asked for time off, which I didn’t do that often. No one else wanted to work on a weekend, so it got denied. At the time, I was also getting my masters in school social work. I suddenly had this moment. I realized I would be destined to work inside for the rest of my life and not sailing much.”  

So, she quit her job. “My parents were so mad at me. I did everything I was supposed to, but I realized, at age 25, I was not living up to my potential. I put a hard stop to everything, saved up money and put a plan together. I went on this couch-surfing regatta plan for the winter in Florida. I did all these things to keep going, like painting houses in Key West after Key West Race Week. I did regattas everywhere I could.”  

One of those opportunities was on a J/24. “I had never even seen one before, but I did the J/24 Midwinters with Kirk Reynolds, and that’s where I met Chris.” 

She kept traveling and sailing, and eventually heard from him again. He offered her a job helping him work on a J/35. “My first task was to vacuum the bilge. The boat was a mess, and he needed someone to clean up after him. At the end of the day, Chris said, ‘You didn’t complain much the whole day, and you did some pretty gross and tough work, so you can work for me. You passed the test.’ I never thought I’d be working on boats the way that Chris does, and that’s really cool.” 

In time, she learned to work on bottoms, keels and rudders, as well as to repair collisions. “I love wet sanding, and I love buffing the boat out because it’s like the finish. When you start the project, you’re really excited because it’s something new, and midway through you’re like, ‘Oh, this is never going to end.’ Then you start getting ready to prep for paint, and then you unmask everything and hit that window of where it’s really nice, smooth wet sanding. I play the song ‘Kodachrome’ when I do the final buffing because it’s the final picture where it all comes together.”  

One of those boats was the J/24 American Garage, which required a complete rebuild before winning the 2022 National Championship and the 2023 World Championship. Mike Marshall, of North Sails, who owns and skippers the boat, says: “That boat was out on the Cape, looking pretty shabby. They did the whole restoration project, the interior, the bottom stuff. Most of the time, it was her and Chris working on it. They recored the deck, rebuilt the interior; it was a huge amount of work. I can’t think of a more motivated person in sailing than Monica. She doesn’t back down from any challenge.”

Morgan commands the bow on most boats she sails, but that is not always evident. Powers says: “You don’t see her in any of the photos because she’s hiking so hard. She’s on a whole other level, usually hiking harder than anyone in the fleet.” 

In large part, that’s because she maintains a serious regimen in the gym, including CrossFit three to four days a week, which she’s been doing for years, with powerlifting on the side.

“I started CrossFit after a tough regatta four years ago and made a commitment to myself that I would never let my strength be a limiting factor in my sailing. I love being strong because it’s so empowering. The biggest thing I’ve learned through this whole process is that the amount of confidence you can create in yourself is so powerful. It doesn’t mean you’re cocky. It just means you know you can do things, that you’re sure of your abilities. It’s a great feeling.” 

She’s also meticulous about her diet. “When we go on the road,” Powers says, “she even brings her own food.” 

Then there’s her attitude while racing. “Every minute, she’s like, ‘How can I do that better, or how did that work out?’” Powers says. “She checks all the boxes that you look for when looking for someone to sail with.”

Her VX One skipper, Austin Powers, of North Sails, says: “Pound for pound, she’s probably the strongest sailor in the world.”

Morgan comments: “I’m fortunate because the people I’ve sailed with and have had the most success asked me to crew based on my abilities. It has never been a weight thing, never a gender thing. It was always, ‘I want you on my boat.’”

She had a great run on the J/24 with Will Welles, winning three North Americans, a Nationals and a Midwinters. “He could have sailed with somebody 20 pounds heavier than me to make weight, and I never thought about it until later, but he sailed based on people’s abilities as opposed to their size or gender. The same with Travis Odenbach and Ched Proctor. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been sailing with people based on my abilities.” 

Proctor recalls: “She’s very good at reacting to the unexpected. I remember going around a weather mark, we hoisted the spinnaker but didn’t get the guy back in time, and the spinnaker filled. Before it tipped us over, she had the presence of mind to let the spinnaker halyard go, and it saved us. After it was over, she asked me, ‘Do you think that was the right thing to do?’ I said, ‘Yes, otherwise we’d have been swimming.’”  

Her question reflects her modus operandi. “I allow myself to make a mistake once, learn from it, and prevent it from happening again so that I have room for new mistakes. Mistakes are part of the process, and learning from them helps me become better every day.” 

Along with Welles, Odenbach played a big role in helping her realize her potential. “He asked me to sail my first major regatta after having Oliver—the J/24 Worlds in 2014 in Newport. We finished fifth, and although it was a tough regatta, it was the biggest lesson for me of how I could perform better, physically, mentally and at the boat shop. He set an expectation for me that I thought was unreasonable at first, but then I realized that he truly believed I was capable of achieving those goals. He has become a great mentor for all of my current sailing. If it weren’t for him, I probably would have been a stay-at-home mom and sought a different career.” 

At the end of the day, she adds, her motivation is knowing she put in maximum effort—whether hiking, longboarding, or doing whatever it takes to win. “It’s exhausting sometimes, but it’s mostly just for myself,” she says. “I love sailing, and I love working on boats. It’s so cool to see what you can do with your hands, what you can create.”

The post The Secret Weapon appeared first on Sailing World.

Tom Mallindine and Charlie Thompson’s Brutus III, of Great Britain, with team Chris Grube, Ben Saxton and Elisabeth Whitener, won the J/70 World Championship in St. Petersburg after 10 races sailed in spectacular conditions. Brutus III started the regatta with a 53 (later discarded), but then never finished lower than 13 to demonstrate their determination to win and ending with 54 net points.

Thompson, owner of Brutus III, said St. Petersburg is “one of the most beautiful places to sail in the world. We feel incredibly privileged to be able to race in a fleet against the very best sailors. I’m one of the oldest bowmen in the fleet and now a World Champion.”

Bruce Golison’s Midlife Crisis (USA) withstood a UFD penalty in Race 2 to fulfill the runner-up position with 81 net points. Laura Grondin helmed Dark Energy to third place overall and earned her place as the regatta’s top female skipper.

Two-time US Corinthian National Champions Lee Sackett, Dave Kerr, Michael Booker and Erica Trejo, on USA 1516, won the battle for the Corinthian World Championship edging out the family team on Ducasse Sailing Team, of Chile, led by Andres Ducasse.

The experienced squad on Brian Keane’s Savasana, which had been the frontrunner team throughout the year leading up to the Worlds, finished fourth overall, with its discard being a 26, and Brazilian skipper Ralph Rosa led his team to fifth overall to round out the top-five.

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