Since the ILCA 6’s (formerly the Laser Radial) addition to the Olympic Games in 2008, the class has remained the crucible of elite women’s singlehanded racing. Anna Tunnicliffe-Tobias, who won the first Radial gold medal in 2008, remains the only US Sailing Team athlete to reach the ILCA podium. With three-time Olympian Paige Railey bowing out of international ILCA competition after Tokyo, a strong squad of understudies has emerged from her shadow, including the talented 22-year-old Charlotte Rose, who has positioned herself as an heir apparent and a true contender for this summer’s Olympic Regatta. First, however, she must battle for the berth at the US team’s ­winner-goes trials in February. 

Despite being one of the youngest top performers in the ILCA 6 class, Rose is no newcomer to championship sailing. Having campaigned full time for less than two years, Rose has made her presence known—qualifying the US for the 2024 Games by finishing fifth at the 2023 Allianz Sailing World Championships in August and recently posting a personal best with a silver medal at the ILCA 6 Women’s World Championship in January.

Growing up in Houston, Rose has held Olympic aspirations since childhood, fueled by an unquenchable ambition. “Even before I started sailing, I was always a competitive kid,” Rose says. “I remember watching the 2012 Olympics and seeing ­athletes like Michael Phelps and saying, ‘I want to be one of them one day.’”

A product of the ­learn-to-sail camp at Houston YC, Rose began racing the ILCA at age 13, joined the US Olympic Development Program at 15, and quickly ascended the ranks of the youth sailing circuit. After competing in international events during her high school years, Rose made her big break when she won back-to-back gold medals at the Youth Sailing World Championships in 2017 and 2018.

“Before 2017, I was never winning national or North American titles, so I had no expectation of being selected for the Youth Worlds,” Rose says. “Winning in 2017 and again closer to home in 2018 are definitely the two events I am most proud of.”

While continuing to campaign, Rose also sailed at Jacksonville University, where Head Coach Jon Faudree says that she displayed incredible levels of talent and dedication. “Charlotte has an ­elite-athlete drive that goes above and beyond the average person, whether that be in the gym, studying, or just being able to sail the number of days she does,” Faudree says. “Her drive to just get up and do it over and over again was very impressive. The vast majority of us burn out after spending that much time on the water, so I think that her ability to maintain a high level of competitiveness is what makes her an elite athlete. And it shows in her results in heavy air. If it gets above 12 knots, she’s unbeatable.”

While Rose’s work ethic and ambitions make her a force to be reckoned with on the water, overcoming the expectations she places on herself as she competes in an incredibly unforgiving fleet has been one of her greatest challenges.

“When I first started campaigning, my outlook was very results-based, and I put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect,” Rose says. “I’ve been working with my coach, Alex Saldanha, on how we communicate with each other on the water, figuring out what type of information I like and not picking apart too much about what happened [when debriefing on the water between races].”

Breaking out of an all-or-nothing mentality during racing has allowed her to further dial in her renowned skills in heavy air. “I think that a lot of people, in heavy air, think that they need to hike at 100 percent all the time. Then they go down to 50 percent when they get tired,” Rose says. “I’ve been working on conditioning myself to stay at a certain percent a lot of the time, maybe 80 percent, so I can keep moving. Having consistency in the heavy wind really helps me maintain energy for a longer period.”

While some experts believe that modern-day Olympic athletes are better served deferring college, Rose utilized her time at Jacksonville to further develop a championship mentality and a better understanding of the variables she can control on the racecourse. “We talked a lot about failure and how to accept it, learn from it, and move on more quickly,” Faudree says. “In this sport, there are so many variables that are out of your control, so we focused on how to move on when something like that happens. Putting bad situations behind you is really difficult for elite sailors to do; you work so much more than everybody else, so when things go wrong, it is tough to handle when you have that much drive.”

Beyond refining her ­mental game, Rose says that her ­experience sailing in collegiate venues has served her well. “At the Worlds in August, we had a bunch of current, and I sailed on a river that had a bunch of current in college, so I had that in my toolbox going,” Rose says. “Even though it’s a completely different type of sailing, I knew how current worked and where to put myself on the course. That’s something Coach Faudree taught me well.”

As the Olympic Trials draw closer, Rose has stepped up her game on the racecourse—and has the results to prove it. After finishing second at the ILCA Worlds, just over a month before the trials, she now feels that she has the skillset required to qualify for the Games.

US Sailing Team Laser Radial/ILCA Olympic Past Results

• Tokyo 2020: Paige Railey (37)
• Rio 2016: Paige Railey (10)
• London 2012: Paige Railey (8)
• Beijing 2008: Anna Tunnicliffe (Gold)

“I didn’t feel a lot of ­pressure going into this year’s world championship because we’d already qualified the country for the Games, so I just wanted to practice my routine and practice how I’m going to go into the trials,” Rose says. “I was focusing on controlling what I can control and thinking about my performance race by race. I felt really good in my fitness and my sailing. It doesn’t feel real that I finished second at a world championship. I feel super ­motivated and very confident.”

With the opportunity to achieve her lifelong Olympic dream within reach, Rose says that the feeling is surreal. “I’m definitely feeling nerves and think that this is going to be the hardest regatta of my life,” Rose says. “It’s crazy to think that this is the pinnacle of my career, but I’m just going back to focusing on myself and knowing that this is what I need to do.”

Facing off against 21 of America’s top ILCA 6 sailors in a nine-day competition is a far departure from the normal format of big-fleet international ILCA racing, and will require Rose and all others to be able to put it all on the table throughout a brutal marathon regatta. 

“The smaller fleet will mean that getting good starts and keeping speed up will be very important,” Rose says. “It’s going to be a really long week, and that will definitely get to everyone’s head. I think my mindset for the trials is that whoever is able to keep their head on straight for the longest and keep it cool will probably win.”

A ticket to Paris is the ultimate goal, of course, but Rose, 22, has plenty more years to hone her power and poise. Should she come up short in Miami in February, there’s Los Angeles in 2028—a tidy two decades removed from Tunnicliffe’s podium glory.

The post The Rise of Charlotte Rose appeared first on Sailing World.

It’s 2 a.m., and I’m not having much luck sleeping. The wailing of Argo’s T-foil rudders cuts right through my earplugs, and I’ve become a bit too ­familiar with how the underside of the deck feels as the boat falls off wave after wave. Suddenly, it’s quiet as the central hull lifts entirely out of the water. I know what’s next—a violent deceleration as the boat touches down and noses into the wave in front. I do a reflexive deep knee bend as the boat stops, and my body keeps going. Without a word, the off watch piles out and heads on deck. It’s clearly time for the second reef. It’s a battle scene on deck as off-axis waves merge and explode around us; the rain stings like needles. OK, Reef 2 in, staysail furled; let’s hope that this is the worst of it.

Attempting the Honolulu-to-Yokohama record was a neat solution to a logistics problem. After the 2023 Transpacific Yacht Race, with our next race half a world away in the Canary Islands, we decided that the path of least resistance was to keep following the trade winds west and catch a ship in Japan. Memories of the 10-day upwind trip back to California from Hawaii in 2019 reinforced this thinking. We could also focus the voyage around chasing one of Steve Fossett’s oldest speed records along this route, set on his ORMA 60, Lakota, in 1995.

This was our fourth attempt to break one of the World Sailing Speed Record Council’s records. Previously, we had a COVID-busting trip across the Atlantic to set a new Bermuda-to-Plymouth record in 2021, and a stormy but fast trip to set a new mark from Antigua to Newport in 2022. Our sailing master, Brian Thompson, joked that he was racing himself because he had skippered the MOD 70 Phaedo for both records. Thompson was also aboard Lakota when they beat the Honolulu-to-Yokohama record in 1995, though he would miss this trip with us. We also had one miss when we stood by for an attempt on the extremely fast Newport-to-Bermuda record in 2022, but the unicorn weather that would allow it (pre-frontal westerly, calm winds before) never came to pass.  

Once through the hoops of registering with the WSSRC, coordinating with starting and finishing commissioners, and wiring in the black-box tracker, we were ready to “stand by” for a good weather window for the 3,350-mile course. Frustratingly, once we assembled in Hawaii for our first attempt, one low after another formed in the South Pacific and spun into typhoons that menaced the Japanese coast. After waiting a week, we had to call time and regroup for another try a bit later, knowing that risk was increasing as we got further into typhoon season. After a few weeks, a good window presented itself, and we went to “code green,” with the team piling onto airplanes worldwide and heading to Hawaii. Argo regulars Westy Barlow, myself, and Pete Cumming were aboard, along with Paul Larsen (the world’s fastest person aboard Sailrocket), Paul Allen, and James Dodd. Most arrived on the day of departure; we would eventually cross the start line off Diamond Head just after dark, at 8:30 p.m. on August 20.

We stormed out of the barn, knocking 500 miles off the trip in the first 24 hours in strong easterly winds, which were great for morale. But the Pacific soon lived up to its name when we sailed up to a 1,600-nautical-­mile oblong area of high pressure parked directly on the rhumb line—time to head south, way south, to stay in the trades. The jibe fest began. Sailing on starboard brought us up to the light winds on the southern edge of the high, and jibing to the south brought us into more wind but yielded very little VMG. We jibed endlessly and on the slightest shifts, anxious to spend as little time sailing to the south as possible. The jibing and our southern routing would add more than 1,200 miles to the trip, which didn’t necessarily help with morale.

A Groundhog Day vibe overcame the boat as we bounced along the southern edge of the high for four days. Nothing changed. Air temp was 92 degrees F, with water temp at 87, a few high clouds, fierce sun, a 1-meter swell, and true-wind stuck on 15 knots. The distance to go seemed to tick down at a glacial pace. Days blended.

The chart plotter, usually alive with AIS targets and land, was blank; even depth contours were gone, with the bottom miles away. We had to pan way out to pick up even the smallest (­uninhabited) atoll. We didn’t see or pick up a ship on AIS until the last 100 miles; the Pacific was empty. Empty but pristine, with no trash and no debris, just miles of orderly swells going on ­seemingly forever. Wildlife was limited to flying fish and the frigate birds that wanted to eat them—both were ubiquitous the entire trip.

Though it was pretty outside the window, living conditions were harsh on board in the unrelenting heat. Down below was an oven during the day, easily exceeding 100 degrees F, making sleep impossible. We withered away with little appetite and pined for the nights, which were just cool enough to sleep and be comfortable on deck. The night sky’s clarity was incredible, with shooting stars and the pearl necklace of Starlink satellites occasionally lighting up, making the whole scene a moving work of art.

The idyllic conditions ended as we intersected with a robust low-pressure system toward the end of the trip. This was meant to be good news because it would boost the notoriously light winds near the Japanese coast, which had slowed Lakota dramatically in 1995. It became more of a mixed blessing as the low deepened and showed signs of rotation. Eventually, it would develop into Typhoon Damrey, with sustained winds of 75 knots and gusts to 95. Very warm water made for rapid ­development and intensification—and the rapid development of ­concern on board.  

The storm lay about 175 miles northwest of us, leaving its messy tail for us to cross behind. Our first move was to slow the boat to let the storm advance away from us. We then tried to cross its path by jibing to the west to get across the strong winds and sea state as quickly as possible. It was too windy and rough when we initially gave it a go, leading us to bail and sail in the more-benign conditions near the high for another 100 miles before trying again. The second attempt stuck, but we had a very unpleasant 24 hours of it, with winds far over forecast (which occurs frustratingly often in these scenarios) and up to 40 knots. The sea state was disorganized, with the storm waves on the beam and the ­prevailing swell coming from behind. We were still sailing downwind and trying hard to slow down. We kept in reasonable control most of the time. The sea state was our biggest issue: The storm waves and swell would merge and then break; at the bottom of many of these, the boat would almost completely disappear beneath us. A unique head space was required—a Bruce Lee “total concentration” mindset—to helm the boat in these conditions. An ­hourlong stint at the helm seemed like an eternity. The MODs are famously tough boats; ours passed this stern test with ­flying colors. The ­sailors had a more challenging time; the stress and physicality of the sailing drained relatively low energy reserves to near zero.

After one last line of squalls, we finally broke back into clear weather and started our long port jibe into the finish. Though we had cursed the sun through the beginning of the trip, it was most welcome to see it again and to begin drying out. Marine life increased, we saw ships, and our reentry into civilization began. One last challenge was negotiating the Kuroshiro Current, similar to the Gulf Stream. As we approached the coast, this and the shoaling water produced spectacularly sized waves around 6 meters high. These were benign because they were well-spaced, but being in the trough gave us one last sensation of the ­indifferent power of the ocean.

A smudge on the ­horizon soon revealed itself to be Mount Fuji, with the rest of the ­striking Japanese coast ­following. We had one last ­satisfying rip through Yokohama Bay and streaked by Jogashima Lighthouse, stopping the clock at 7 days, 18 hours, 25 minutes. After finishing, we gave a quiet chapeau to Steve Fossett, a ­pioneer in our sport who ­circled the world in search of new records and adventure. He was a noble adversary, and it was a true honor to “race” him on this  beautiful and challenging course.

The post Team Argo’s Yokohama Record appeared first on Sailing World.

It never changes—that ­sinking feeling when you cross the line first but don’t get the horn. Dang, I guess we were over early. I knew it was close….

This is my reality after the second race of the 2024 Tasar Australian Nationals. All the pre-regatta anxieties came to the fore. Did I prepare enough? Am I good enough? Am I fit enough? Am I too old? Or was it just an error of execution that could be easily corrected? Going into a major event, it is normal to wonder how it is going to go. There’s always more preparation we could have done, and the fear that maybe we are not that good after all is never far away. I have found that one of the keys to calming these doubting voices is to build a playbook that suggests specific ways to prepare and sail for the venue. Some of these rules are derived from the venue itself, some from the nature of the competition, and some from our state of mind.

That OCS ends our first day of Tasar competition in Melbourne, Australia. My partner, Libby, and I had a bad first race going, but we managed a good comeback to finish eighth. It was a little shaky, but we dodged a bullet. Now we add an OCS to the score line. But luckily for Libby and me, this is only the pre-regatta and not the World Championship. As this reality sinks in while sailing back to the beach, I see more clearly that we can use the next few days of racing and training to get to Worlds form, and that’s exactly what we do.

In the first race of the Nationals, we had started toward the (favored) right side of the fleet, then tacked right toward what I thought was more wind. This was a disastrous strategy, and we were in the 30s approaching the top mark. This was Golden Rule No. 1: Understand the venue. In this case, the shore is to the left, causing the wind to bend and often increase. So, it pays to go left upwind unless the wind is definitely going right. This also means avoiding the temptation to tack back early. We used this basic approach for the rest of our time in Melbourne. It didn’t work every time, but it formed an effective tactical framework.

Being way behind in Race 1 of the Nationals (which I am calling the pre-regatta), at the start of the run, I am somewhat desperate. I jibe onto port shortly after the mark, find a clear lane, and carry on all the way to the port layline, plus a little bit more. We then jibe and come in fast to the left gate, passing 20 boats. Golden Rule No. 2: The run is where we can make huge gains, so find space and go fast, and approach the gate from an edge.

In the second race, we ­execute a risky start toward the favored left side and sail a good beat to round in the lead. We then sail defensively to hold on for the win, until the non-horn. But we’ve learned another great lesson, which brings us to Golden Rule No. 3: The starts are pivotal. With more than 100 boats and an 800-meter line, we can’t do well without good starts. And we can’t afford to be Black Flag or OCS.

At this point in the regatta, we have raced for only one day, and we already have three powerful lessons that can set the groundwork for our regatta strategy. Even though our score line looks erratic, I can start to feel a plan coming together.

The second day of the Pre-Worlds (Australian Nationals) brings good breeze and three great races. We have decent scores, but we have two key breakthroughs. First, we get very systematic with our pre-start routine, including regularly checking the wind direction, doing multiple practice starts, and moving to different parts of the start box. Enter Golden Rule No. 4: Win with superior preparation and rigor before the start.

On this day, we have mixed success downwind, both passing and getting passed, but we figure out a fairly reliable way to position ourselves downwind relative to boats around. Building on Rule No. 2, we sail in clear air downwind and try to find space to rip but defend on the tighter reaches.

Day 3 of Nationals is canceled because it’s blowing 25 and the waves are steep and huge. It’s a bit of a disappointment, but it’s clearly the right call to preserve the fleet for the upcoming Worlds. But we have not sailed in those conditions for a long time (maybe never?), so we (I) decide to go for a brief sail after racing is called for the day. A couple of other US boats venture out on Port Phillip Bay as well. We have a little session, and it is indeed pretty exciting. We make it back to shore without mishap, so we achieve our goal of becoming familiar with extreme conditions. If we have similar conditions during the Worlds, I feel as if we could at least get around the track, which brings us to Golden Rule No. 5: Be mentally prepared for any condition.

We ended the pre-regatta in fifth place overall. Not bad for a warm-up regatta, but there were clearly other teams that were going to be hard to beat, including the three Aussies and one American team that had beaten us, as well as a few others who didn’t beat us but were fast. The stage is now set. Can we eliminate unforced errors and apply the golden rules we’ve ­developed during the Nationals?

In the three days between the Nationals and the Worlds, we mostly rest. But we also spend a day trying to get a little faster upwind because we all know that a little upwind speed can make the whole race a lot easier. Because of the rough sea state, we try adjusting our diamond shrouds a little tighter than normal. We also try using a bit of vang upwind to improve our footing in overpowered conditions. In the end, we are consistently among the fastest boats upwind, measurably improving during the week. That gets us to Golden Rule No. 6: Never stop trying to get faster.

As the regatta unfolds, it looks as if our little rule book is working. There are lots of Black Flags, OCS penalties, and other high scores in the first three days of racing. The conditions are mostly medium air, but the beats are tricky, with both sides sometimes paying off huge. Somehow, we manage to get good starts and pick the right way most of the time, and we benefit from a couple of good comebacks. This gives us top-eight scores going into the lay day, with five more races scheduled. We have a slight lead and a good discard, but a few good boats are still well within range. Can we keep our composure? Would the rules keep working?

The lay day promises a late leisurely breakfast but also a change in the weather. It gets rainy, cold and windy, which means no beach day for us, but the next day is also too windy to sail. The suspense is really building now—in my head, at least. But I’m trying to stay relaxed….

Three races are scheduled for the final day of the regatta, with an early start and 10 to 16 knots in the forecast. With the second discard coming into play after nine races, the math gets somewhat dizzying. I try to tell myself, Just go out and sail well. It’s not a golden rule, but it’s a good thing to do anyway.

For the first start, we line up just to weather of the midline boat, have a killer acceleration, and tack after a minute when we get a little header, easily crossing the fleet. This is going really well, I tell myself. But a few minutes later, the wind keeps shifting left. Now we’re on the outside of a left shift. We round the first mark in the 30s, get back to around 20th at the gate, and finished 13th. It’s a good comeback, but we’ve also eaten a discard with two races still to be sailed. The pressure is mounting. We need two more error-free races.

With the second discard coming into play after nine races, the math gets somewhat dizzying. I try to tell myself, Just go out and sail well.

In the next race, we again get a really good start, and we are fast. We are near the top, but we cover the wrong boat for a while. In the end, we get through to third, with our closest competitor just ahead of us. If my math is correct, we are 1 point ahead of Chris Dance and Peter Hackett going into the last race, losing the tie-breaker. So, it’s now who-beats-who. I think we have locked second overall, but I’m not 100 percent sure about that. Anyway, we are playing for first!

OK, so what’s the plan for the last race? “Oh yeah, stick to the rules.” Do the practice starts, check the wind, confirm the ­settings, remember to breathe.

Again, we get a good start in the middle and hold on starboard. Near the layline, Libby sees Dance and Hackett coming across on port, three lengths behind. We cover them once. They tack, so we tack, then we tack onto their air a second time, and that was it for their race. We round the first mark sixth and finish third, which is good enough for the win—earning a big sigh of relief.

Sometimes we prepare well, we get lucky breaks, and it all just happens. But for the Tasar World Championship, having our Golden Rules keeps our heads clear and free from the mental clutter of all the things that can go wrong. The rules give Libby and me a positive mental framework that promotes good sailing and, most importantly, clear heads.

The post McKee’s Six Golden Rules appeared first on Sailing World.

The top-three teams in the standings had traded places in the top 10 on the world stage for three years. They had trained together and qualified the US for the Games this past summer in the Netherlands. And all three pairs had swallowed the bitter pill of missing country qualification in the 49er for the Tokyo Olympics. Now, having been nearly tied on points for a week, they had only one goal—to beat one another.

By this point in the regatta, Ian Barrows and Hans Henken, ­teammates since summer 2020, had virtually secured the berth. But on the sail out to the racecourse, they followed their usual routine of hoisting the spinnaker and testing how far they could put the pedal down while running downwind in a big breeze, a difficult point of sail in the for 49er no matter how talented the crew.

“We were 100 percent comfortable on starboard, no problem,” Henken recalls of their assessment that morning. “When we jibed to port, I had to flog the kite three times in a row. I told Ian, ‘Somebody is going to capsize today.’”

They knew right then that, tactically, port jibe would not be ideal to attack or try to outmaneuver another boat. It was a subtle observation, a slightly different shape of the murky blue-green chop heading in one direction. Their boathandling was flawless all week, and with a 2-2-3 score line on the last day, they won the 21-race trials by only 3 points.

Twenty-plus knots is the limit of 49er sailing. And they were right up against it on the final day of the US Olympic Team 49er selection ­trials on Miami’s Biscayne Bay, with eight teams and only a handful of races remaining to decide who would be racing next summer in Marseille, France, the Olympic venue.

“It’s expert-level; it’s strategic how hard to push,” says Charlie McKee, their regatta coach and a multiple Olympic medalist who, with his brother Jonathan, earned a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympics, the year the 49er was introduced to the Games. “It’s not a fear of capsizing. The fact that Hans does the risk/reward that easily in his head, that says something about him. They can be analytical, but they also have so much confidence in each other. It’s not false like, ‘I got this.’ It’s from all the systematic training they have done with their squad coach, Mark Asquith.”

What transpired during that tedious series in Miami was the culmination of nearly a decade of dedication by three teams collectively aspiring to reach their peak abilities and one day make it to the Olympics. The photos on land after the final races in Miami revealed a depleted group of sailors, friends and competitors who represent the first true medal hopes for the US in the 49er since the early 2000s.

This squad, which shuffled partners after Tokyo, produced Barrows and Henken. And despite Henken’s near-career-ending injury months before the trials, the pair, winners of the 2023 Pan American Games, are now poised to achieve the seemingly impossible task of medaling at their first Olympic appearance. Citing a host of unique attributes and experiences, McKee and others say that they are ready.

Selecting sailors for the games varies by country. The United States once favored domestic selection trials, pitting sailors against each other to produce the best representative. This approach resulted in one of the most successful Olympic sailing programs of all time, but as domestic Olympic fleets shrank, the value of international competition grew. By the 2000s, to win a medal at the Games, it wasn’t good enough to be the best in the US anymore. The proving grounds were overseas. With only a handful of US medals won over the past few quads, however, a domestic trials format was reinstated for five classes.

The 2023 49er World Championship in the Netherlands saw Barrows and Henken and teammates Andrew Mollerus and Ian MacDiarmid finish in the top 10 (ninth and fifth respectively), which earned the US a 49er berth. All that remained was a one-regatta showdown between these two teams, and other favorites, Nevin Snow and Mac Agnese, to fill that berth.

This battle was a long time coming, particularly for Henken, who had raced in the domestic trials in the 49er class in 2007, and Barrows, who watched his brother Thomas win selection for the Rio Games. “Hans was a kid, got a boat, and sailed in his first trials,” McKee says. “It’s no coincidence that he got Olympic fever.”

Failing to qualify the US for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was a massive blow to the American 49er program—and to the sailors themselves—but after a few crew switches, much of the squad was back to training within a few months.

“I made it clear to Ian a year before the 2021 World Championship [in Oman] that I wanted to be a contender in that fleet,” Henken says. If the pair had a mediocre finish, he would have called it quits. “This was a turning point, and we came away finishing fourth. This was the green light to say, ‘We have what it takes.’”

Barrows, from the US Virgin Islands, is predictably laid-back, a counterpoint to Henken’s fastidiousness. Henken is an engineer who would be designing rocket engines if he hadn’t committed to Olympic campaigning. He lives by the numbers. “We’ve logged every day together in an Excel spreadsheet,” he says. Since June 2020, they’ve sailed 1,300 days together.

“We’re still a young team,” Henken says. “A podium finish in Palma 2022 gave us confidence that we are players.” Finishing top 10 in two of the last three world championships, he adds, boosted their confidence going into the trials. “We knew that we were capable of winning; also, we beat the other two US teams at the last three small events.”

A defining moment of their campaign leading up to the trials was neither the epiphany at the Oman worlds nor their podium finishes. It was the frightening moment when Henken was injured in the cockpit of a foiling SailGP F50 in Taranto, Italy, this past September. What could have easily ended his career and his Olympic destiny turned out to be a test that Henken and Barrows saw as an opportunity to grow as a team.

Henken says that he was unconscious for five minutes and severely concussed, his sternum was broken in half, and four ribs were broken. The prospect of competing in the Pan American Games in October, which is perfect preparation for the Olympics, as well as the January trials were off the table.

“When I woke up in the hospital, I wasn’t sure I could walk,” Henken says. A patient recovery followed. “That’s kind of who I am. Any big goal, I plan to make step-wise goals. As unfortunate as it was. It fell into my wheelhouse. I told myself, It’s going to happen.”

Henken drew on his own determination and the experience of his wife, Helena Scutt, who recovered from a traumatic accident to compete in the 2016 Rio Games in the 49erFX, alongside Henken’s sister, Paris.

“Healing from my accident was a long process mentally in terms of PTSD,” Scutt says. “Just because someone looks fine, they can be a long way from feeling fine. It’s important for teammates, coaches and friends to recognize. I’ll be looking out for Hans.”

For 49er crews, there’s a constant balancing act between training on the water and time in the gym, and when the decision was made to try to sail the Pan Am games, Barrows and Henken knew that their training efforts would be quite compromised.

“Hans likes to have everything perfectly in place. The boat, his body. The good part of this situation was that it took Hans out of his comfort zone,” McKee says. “But if there’s ever a partner to have who wouldn’t be phased, it’s Ian. Hans knew that Ian was fine with everything. It’s a hugely positive character trait. That’s not going to knock him off his game. He can perform well in ­less-than-ideal circumstances.”

“Honestly, Hans is a pretty freak athlete,” Barrows says. He had to steer more gingerly through maneuvers during the Pan Am games to allow Hans to find his footwork. They estimate that Henken was at 60 percent ability at the Pan Am games and 80 percent by the trials. “At the Games, he was a little beat up, but at the trials, I didn’t notice anything.”

“We’re both incredibly hard workers,” Henken adds. “We’re always uncovering that ‘next thing.’ And when things don’t go our way, we say, ‘OK, this is part of the plan,’ and we start working for the next solution.”

“We were next to the boat that we had to beat the entire time,” Barrows says about his trials experience. “The adrenaline was always pumping.” They had the confidence of their Pan Am win and Henken’s remarkable recovery to push them through the marathon regatta. “We had no dip in focus,” Henken says. “The whole event, we stayed positive.”

During training blocks, Asquith would run the 49er squad around a weather mark “tip to tail,” with each team taking their turn at the back of the lineup. They’d race a course, dozens of times, keeping track of scores. The average placing for the winner was always a 2. “Because of this, at the trials, we used this idea that when you’re behind, don’t panic,” Henken says. “Not having that panic, ever, and this idea that this was going to work played a big role in our win.”

McKee says that the reason they never lost faith is because “they knew the trials was going to be that way. They fully expected it, and were mentally prepared for it.”

Going into the last day of the trials, Barrows and Henken had a slight lead, with three races remaining. “They knew the scenario where they could clinch the regatta in the second race of the day, if things went their way,” McKee says. 

The pair knew that the right side of the racecourse was favored; they were in third place as they sailed up the second beat and needed a second to secure the regatta win with one race to spare. With the second place doing a bear-away set, Barrows and Henken  did a perfect jibe set. They nailed the layline for the finish, got the second they needed, and their ticket was in hand.

“They had been sailing contained and controlled,” McKee says. “But because the analytics justified the maneuver, and they matched Ian’s tactical instincts and Hans trusted him, it worked. It never entered their minds that they could flip in a jibe set.”

True to the lessons learned from Asquith’s repetitive drill, the ­winning team had a pile of second-place finishes in their score line: 10 of 21 races, to be precise. “It was such a marathon of a regatta,” Barrows says. “On the way in, Hans started to do his normal boat check. And I said: ‘What are you doing? We’re done!’”

The final score had Barrows and Henken 3 points ahead of Mollerus and MacDiarmid, with Snow and Agnes a mere point behind. The differences were tiny over the course of such a grueling series. “They are very good at boathandling,” McKee says. “Ian has these skills where he knows what the boat can do. There were no boathandling mistakes. It’s amazing, after 21 races, 84 legs.”

Because this will be the first Olympic appearance for Barrows and Henken, the statistics for medal success are not in their favor, but the Games are famous for producing miracles. “When you go to your first Olympics, even if you’re good, you don’t usually do well,” McKee says. “The second time is usually when you win a medal.”

However, he sees something different in Barrows and Henken. “Some people cope [with the Olympic experience] by saying, ‘It’s just another regatta.’ We as coaches don’t think that’s realistic,” he says. “There’s no way to pretend. Ian and Hans are in a position to face that. They’re not going to be mentally taken out by that. That’s just not who they are.”

The pair are fortunate to have two significant experiences simulating the Olympic experience: They sailed in the 2022 Olympic Test Event in Marseille and won the Pan Am games in Chile, which certainly count for something. “I knew that [Pan Am games] experience was going to pay dividends,” Barrows says about the regatta. “We took a lot of notes about what we can control and what we can’t.”

As they now settle into a new rhythm in sync with the Olympic countdown, Barrows says that understanding each other’s needs is most important, as is recognizing when to relax and knowing when they’ve done enough. The trials are over. The berth is theirs. They earned it. And while it was mentally and physically draining, they are now brimming with determination.

The post Skiff Brothers To the Games appeared first on Sailing World.

As boat-ownership costs and accessibility continue to stymie the sport, many American sailors and newcomers now depend on yacht clubs, community sailing centers, and sailing schools to get on the water and racing. As a result, institutions that can afford to do so are now looking into club-owned fleets that can be used for adult racing and instruction. Their options are limited, but the founders of Storm Marine, a new company, say that they have the “ideal” offering.

Several East Coast clubs with deeper pockets and team-­racing programs have recently invested in Sonars, the utilitarian design of the late Bruce Kirby, but these boats are now imported from England and are either cost-prohibitive or too large for most organizations. Storm Marine’s offering instead is a utilitarian keelboat that they say is designed to serve and built to last.

“Sailing is in a bit of a decline,” says Karl Ziegler, a world champion of multiple disciplines and co-founder of Storm Marine, “and yacht clubs are struggling to maintain their membership, particularly young members. A lot of the new members are coming from a couple of different demographics who are not in a position to buy boats to sail. They just want to join a club and be able to sail boats at that club.”

What’s now used at most clubs, Ziegler says, are boats that are either outdated in their design and construction, no longer in production, and difficult to maintain and source parts. “That means an increased burden on the maintenance staff, and quite honestly, they don’t provide that ‘wow’ experience for the new member who is sailing for the first time.”

The solution that Ziegler and his cohorts in New England have come up with is called the Storm 18, which will be built by David Clark’s Fulcrum Speedworks, creator of the UFO, a pint-size foiling ­catamaran, and the Rocket, a redo of the Howmar Phantom, a 14-foot dinghy of the 1970s.

One of Ziegler’s ­partners in the venture is William Craine, who’s been in the boatbuilding industry for decades, most recently with LaserPerformance. Craine’s yacht club on Long Island Sound is looking to replace its ancient fleet of Ideal 18s, another Bruce Kirby design. Certain traits of the Ideal 18 and the Sonar are carried into the Storm 18, which is designed by naval architect Bob Ames.

“We looked at a lot of things Bruce did, particularly the cockpit, and then we tried to make it more contemporary,” Craine says. “This is an evolutionary boat. It’s pretty hard not to be these days, unless you’re foiling or doing something crazy. [The Storm 18] is reminiscent of an Ideal 18 on purpose—because it works.”

Craine, Ziegler and Storm’s third co-founder, Chris Daley, did their due diligence before pushing ahead with a new boat, and that included a deep analysis of other designs, canvassing clubs and sailing schools, and picking the brains of experienced program directors and industry experts the likes of Hall of Famer and sailmaker Robbie Doyle. The common demand across all institutions was durability. “That means fewer parts, an infusion build, and a rub rail all the way around,” Craine says. “Clubs that do a lot of team racing and learn-to-sail programs want bow and stern bumpers, so those are standard.”

Stability and safety were next, Ziegler says, so the rudder is oversize. The cockpit is deep and has the option for ­newbies to sit inside the gunwale or racers on the rail. The conceptual sail plan—with a square-top main, a small hanked-on jib, and ­asymmetric spinnaker (symmetric is an option for match- or team-­racing programs)—is designed with light-air venues and ­beginners in mind. “It’s a pretty generic design,” Craine admits, “but all together, it is something different.”

For institutions with limited storage space and infrastructure, there’s a retractable keel, a custom cradle in design, and a swing-up rudder to allow ramp launching where hoists are not available. The target price, Craine says, is $40,000, but larger fleet purchases always garner a better deal.

As of early 2024, tooling was underway at Fulcrum’s facility in East Providence, Rhode Island, and Storm Marine’s plan is to sail the prototype through late spring before stepping off into full production over late summer or early fall, a moment that for Ziegler, can’t come soon enough.

“This entire project has been a labor of love,” he says. “It’s an opportunity to fill a space that we’ve seen open for a number of years. It’s not a sexy space, but it’s a space of utility and a space where we see an opportunity to impact the overall growth of the sport. We’ve all been the beneficiaries of institutional sailboats, and we just wanted to be part of a project where we could give that experience to the next generation of sailors.”

The post The Storm 18 is Brewing appeared first on Sailing World.

Jimmy’s out. Taylor’s in. This is the all-­American team you’ve been waiting for. Or not. Either way, this fresh new squad has plans to make you care about them and SailGP, the five-year-old professional sailing league that’s halfway through its fourth season. And when they say “care,” they mean follow, watch, click, like, react, share, come to the sidelines, and stay for the party. Real and lasting fandom is all about reach these days, and if the new honchos of the US SailGP Team deliver on their promise, they’re going to reach right through your chest cavity, grab your heart, and make you a believer.

Until late last year, the F50 catamaran with Lady Liberty on its towering blue wing was all Jimmy Spithill and Co., and while no one in their right mind would refute the GOAT-ness of the Australian helmsman and CEO, back-to-back seasons with mixed results was an opportunity to start anew. Spithill, plenty busy with the final ramp-up of the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli America’s Cup challenge, finally cashed out, opening the door for a couple of hungry homies.

Through that door sauntered the team’s new co-owner and CEO, Mike Buckley, a professional sailor and New Yorker with big-city connections, and a pit bull of a salesman with a burning desire to forge a new and more diverse era of American sailing. Buckley and his franchise skipper, Taylor Canfield, once tried to crack into the America’s Cup club with their scrappy Stars & Stripes campaign but came up short. That’s now ancient history, and Buckley persists. Opportunity knocks: the American team, a turnkey global circuit with 13 events, legit waterside hospitality in nine different countries, and $7 million in prize money by the time the season champs pop corks in San Francisco in July.

Buckley, 41, announced the team’s entry to the league in December, comparing it to an opportunity to buy the New York Yankees of sailing. The pickup—said to be well above a $40 million evaluation—is backed by a portfolio of celebrities, professional athletes, tech moguls and private investors. Ryan McKillen and his wife, Margaret, the team’s co-owners, are both keen racing sailors based in Miami and Newport, Rhode Island. They have sailed against or alongside Buckley and Canfield over the past few years, primarily in the tightknit top of the J/70 and M32 Catamaran classes.

A longtime pro sailor himself, Buckley is an unabashed professional-sports fanatic and a self-made businessman who was destined for his role leading the team from the owners’ box and making sure celebrity guests and team partners are enjoying their VIP regatta experience. And how could they not? Free-roaming the team base, hanging with the sailors, an afternoon of teetotaling, and big foiling catamarans hurtling toward each other at 50 knots is cool. Plus, SailGP does put on a proper sailing spectacle for the curious masses and the broadcast ­subscribers who watch in high numbers.

Buckley genuinely believes what he’s selling. “There’s great value in owning these teams, and they see the potential of enormous growth with an emerging league,” he said in December. “Over the past 20 years, sports [properties] have become one of the most sought-after asset classes out there. SailGP is now on the map to be one of those vehicles.”

The majority of his celebrities and ­athletes have never gone upwind on a ­sailboat before, but Buckley says that it doesn’t matter. What’s important to him is getting them excited and growing a fan base beyond the traditional and minuscule sailing bubble. “Athletes are looking to own things,” he says. “So this is an opportunity for them—they’re all competitors—to invest in a sports team. We were very passionate about going outside the sailing community to bring new eyeballs, new ideas, new minds and new ways of doing things to tie this to the mainstream audience.

“The pitch is quite simple,” he adds. “If you’re looking to invest in a media and entertainment platform that is also a professional sports team, we have a really cool option. It’s a professional sports team that happens to race sailboats at 50 to 60 miles an hour at events around the world. I want to deliver three things: Enterprise value to all of us; I want to change the sport off the water, to make it more accessible; and I want to win. I want to win the championship.”

During a meeting in Los Angeles earlier in the year, league founder Russel Coutts’ advice to Buckley was simple: A team that finishes at the back of the fleet will not be commercially viable.

“Fair enough,” Buckley countered. Deal inked. And in a blink, his startup sailing team hastily assembled days before its first event, in Dubai, in mid-December, with Canfield leading on the water and in the locker room. Raised in the balmy breezes of the US Virgin Islands, Canfield, 35, has long been one of American sailing’s best and most underappreciated competitors. Ashore, he’s a man of few words, keeper of a low profile, an ace tactician-for-hire, and a transient resident of Miami and Newport, the seasonal sailing capitals of the East Coast. On the water, especially at higher speeds, he’s tenacious, calculated and aggressive—all traits that have ascended him to the top of the match-racing world many times over. “Elbows out” is one of his favorite phrases. Always followed with a smirk.

Canfield and Buckley go back a ways, and when they’re together, they yin to yang. Canfield is reserved with his words. Buckley, much less so. Both are confident and persuasive.

“On the boat, I’m a complete pain in the ass,” Canfield once told me. “I’m the most meticulous, demanding and hyperfocused person you could sail with. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or my downfall, but I try to let nothing go by.”

Positioned immediately forward of Canfield in the cockpit of the team’s F50 in Dubai on practice day was Victor Diaz de Leon, a Venezuela-born professional sailor now living in Miami. He’s also a top-shelf tactician for hire, a fast learner, and great on camera. Before arriving in the UAE, Diaz de Leon, 32, had never trimmed an F50 wing or touched any of the many buttons in the cockpits that manipulate the sail in a million different ways. Flight control (adjustment of the foils) and grinding responsibilities were put into the rotating hands of SailGP alumni Leo Takahashi, Scott Ewing, Peter Kinney, Alex Sinclair and Mac Agnese. Sara Stone, strong and well-versed in foiling boats, rounded out the team in Dubai, as its strategist and grinder.

Dubai was event No. 6 of the season, so the US team picked up where Spithill left off (third overall in the season standings), but with only three practice runs on the F50, they fumbled around the racecourse and battled at the back of the fleet. To be expected. But still, on their first day, they were in the hunt early, and were never once last across the finish line. That alone would be an ­accomplishment for mere mortals.

Visible improvements were noted on the second day of the regatta, but similar results followed, and there was scant air time on the broadcast. It was pretty dismal until, in the final fleet race, Canfield famously blocked out the British team at the start, forcing them out of the race completely, irking the great Sir Ben Ainslie and denying the Brits a spot in the winner-takes-all final race. The seemingly aggressive move by the rookies sent the broadcast commentators and social media into a tizzy.

“There was no intention of shutting them out,” Canfield shared afterward. “Our goal was to start off the line and not be over early, which is extremely difficult to do in these boats. Not having used any of the starting software, it was a challenge to get it perfect. We got a lot of criticism for it, but we were less than a second behind the line, so we pushed hard.”

Elbows out, indeed, and good on Canfield. Racing is racing, and the video doesn’t lie: It was his start to win. The umpires agreed.

By all accounts, Dubai was a wonderful trial by fire for the rookies, survivors of surprises from every direction on land and on the water as they acclimated to the SailGP circus life and came to grips with a complex boat and two different wing sails.

“The first day felt as if we were really ­hurting on the jibes relative to the fleet,” Diaz de Leon says, “and afterward, when we reviewed the data, we could see that we were doing something completely different with our boards at the exit of the jibes. We started to match the fleet, and the second day felt much better in the maneuvers. Two days before, we couldn’t tack without having a massive crash, so it felt like we were ­making gains quickly.”

Diaz de Leon even called his father at the end of the first day and told him to expect them to finish last in every race, maybe by a leg or two: “I said, ‘I don’t know how I’m gonna figure this out in three days. I have my hands full, and I’m completely over my head.’ But every day we got a little bit better, we reviewed the data, and we looked at other teams; we worked together and ended up making it happen around the course.”

Four weeks later, the US team was back on the tools, this time in Abu Dhabi. Buckley’s fashion-statement “walk-in” (like the pro ­athletes do it) on the red carpet leading into the race village had a hint of swagger. Deep-dive debriefs with Coach Mark Ivey confirmed that with a better handle on the F50, they were capable of mixing it up with the dominant teams of New Zealand and Australia, the three-time season champion.  

A light-wind forecast welcomed the American team into its wheelhouse. Canfield has spent most of his pro-sailing lifetime racing M32 catamarans, and when the wind goes soft and weird and the F50s big foils are useless, the racing is very similar to that of the M32s. “H1” is the league’s jargon for flying a hull. “H2” is full-displacement sailing. The skill is sailing the right mode at the right time and not reaching all over the course.

“From having done a lot of starts in ­displacement mode, similar to the M32, the kind of elbows-out leading back into the start-line mentality was what we were trying to go for,” Canfield says. “It works well for us. The goal is to not necessarily need to lead at the first mark, but to leave ourselves in a decent position to either defend or have the opportunity to push forward into the race.”

Watch enough SailGP starts, especially those in subfoiling conditions and impossibly small starting areas, it’s obvious that the final 10 seconds are crucial. It’s either front row or shot out the back, and when you’re in the back, good luck pushing forward. “These starting lines are set up so that there’s just enough room for all the boats to be side-by-side going toward Mark 1,” Canfield says. “But when it’s light and all the boats are paralleling the starting line, you can really fit only half of them on the line.”

The US team pulled off three keeper starts on the opening day and put up a ninth-place finish in the first race, but then posted a second in the next and a third in the race that followed. With a fourth and a third in similar conditions the following day—to their own surprise—they conquered the fleet-race portion of the regatta and earned the top seed in the one-race finale.

“The fact that we were able to get our heads out of the boat and be comfortable enough to start looking around the racecourse was huge,” Canfield says. “That was a big step for us, being comfortable enough in our roles on board to then start putting the racecourse together a little bit more.”

They also benefited from the keen eye of Ivey, who can communicate directly to them from the onshore coach’s box, a new ­addition for the season, a la Formula One with a twist, which allows each team’s coach to view real-time performance data from across the entire fleet, and to communicate observations directly to the team during the race.

“Utilizing that better with Mark was a huge jump for us,” Canfield says. “He can look at all the wind on the racecourse in real time, but he can also look at data from other boats and tell us if we’re out on our target wing-camber numbers or twist numbers or whatever. They have all the metrics, and they can get us information immediately, which is huge, so we worked hard to refine the communication between us during the racing.”

It’s early days yet, but Canfield says that he could feel the essentials starting to click in Abu Dhabi. “Everything on board is a little bit more second-nature, but that’s not to say we’re ready to just push our buttons without looking at them. I think we’ve done a great job focusing on certain areas that we think we need to improve and areas that we know will take us a big step forward rather than a small step forward.”

The experience of the first events was “super overwhelming” at first, he says, with so many unknowns. “But now, after only two events, we’re starting to home in on what we think are the big things that are going to make that big jump in the results.”

Canfield’s a realist and accepts that the team’s first two events were essentially drifters. The blazing speeds, the crashes and the capsizes will come soon enough. “We’ll have our work cut out for us,” Canfield admits. “We have a lot to come when we get up on the foils.”

Fast approaching is the eighth event in Sydney, Australia, at the end of February; then Christchurch, New Zealand; Bermuda in May; Halifax in June; and then the big home event in New York City in late June.

The team’s fan base is growing, says Diaz de Leon: “I feel it. People are excited to finally have sailors who they feel close to. I can feel the support, and it’s motivating us to do well by them.” It’s all on the up.

The post The Rebirth of SailGP’s US Squad appeared first on Sailing World.

After a week of blustery cold-front tails whipping through Miami, this final morning is back to normal. The basin is glassy and the sun is balmy again. As my skipper, Stu McNay, and I rig our International 470, a nearby cruise ship’s PA system breaks the boat-park silence. Welcome passengers…enjoy your day at sea. I think to myself how different their day will be than that of Stu and me. The cruisers are salivating for their buffets, but we’re hungry for an Olympic berth.

Once we complete our team warmup onshore, we are the first pair to launch from the beach, primed to execute. Over the previous six days of racing, we’ve enjoyed the sightseeing tour of our 30-minute tow to the racecourse, past multimillion-dollar mansions and through Government Cut. We use this time to acclimate to the day’s conditions. Right away, we see that the wind is increasing and beautiful waves are cresting over the shallows off South Beach. When I see this, I sense that it’s going to be a good day.

Our priority is to stay in the moment and allow our technique to shine. We’ve put in the work, and it’s payday. The anticipated ­scenario is a must-go-right racetrack off the starting line, so today is about being a precision team. We also know that we have to practice our final approach to the starting line because the committee boat is a long motoryacht with the start flag positioned at the bow. The race-committee yacht also swings wildly, which makes boat-end starts even more dangerous. So we agree to a modified approach. We will approach the boat at 20 seconds. Any sooner, and it will be difficult to tack up to the boat and defend the inside position.

We execute the start as planned, but at 30 seconds, there is a pile of boats with the same idea, and there’s nowhere to go. We wait confidently, pull the trigger at 20 seconds, and are the first boat to tack out from the melee.

As we reach the top mark, we have a small lead. In races like this, all of my senses are firing, and I tune in to friends on our support boat cheering for us. It’s the motivation we need to finish off this qualification regatta once and for all. There isn’t a moment of silence in our boat for the next 35 minutes of racing. We treat every wave as important as the next while keeping each other in check. Our tacks are excellent, and before each maneuver I think to myself, Make this one the best one yet. It’s working. We extend downwind, port jibe is fast and fun on the waves. Starboard requires accuracy and discipline to surf. This final race is a thing of beauty. We are worthy of the berth.

Allow me to rewind this story to a moment now long ago. I’ve finished the last race at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and immediately after we cross the line, out of medal contention, I know that I need another campaign. I have unfinished business, which is not a good feeling. My skipper, Nikki Barnes, and I have had a beautiful campaign together, but because the Olympic committee changed the International 470 to a mixed discipline, we can no longer sail as a team. I need a new partner.

Back home in Minnesota, I ask ­anyone and everyone in my circles to skipper for me. My body type is one that can work into several Olympic classes, but the most important aspect is my teammate. I commit to a yearlong campaign in the foiling Nacra 17, the Olympic catamaran class, and during this time, Stu, a four-time Olympian, calls me to say, “Hey, Lara, I am 99 percent sure I’m going to retire, but if things don’t work out in the Nacra, keep me in the back of your mind.”

But I feel that I need to grow in other ways and leave the 470 on the back burner. I’m happy being back in the beginner’s ­mindset and loving anything to do with foiling. I also have my eye on the Women’s America’s Cup team that’s forming. A path forward is coming into focus, but after the 2022 Nacra 17 Worlds, my teammate joins the New York YC’s American Magic team full time. Once again, I’m in the same space I was in after Tokyo—searching for a teammate and a campaign to light my fire. My best friend suggests that I give Stu a call and reopen the conversation. It’s a short and exciting phone call, and we both show strong interest. Over the next month, I sit by my phone waiting.

The phone rings. Stu’s in. It’s a go.

I remember two things about our first sail together: He is ­incredibly stubborn about not letting the main ease when I have more leverage to give, and he can tune our boat in five minutes. My mind is blown, and I am so excited to tap his wealth of experience.

We win our first two domestic regattas and earn the right to represent the US at the Olympic Test Event in Marseille in summer 2023. We then finish eighth at the Princess Sofia Regatta, our first international measure. The campaign is off to a great start, but when we arrive at the European Championship and are met with giant ocean swells and a big breeze, we quickly discover our weakness.

Beyond learning a new way of sailing the boat (our bodies and techniques are very different from each of our previous partners), we will need to order and test entirely new equipment from what either of us has used before. Discovering weaknesses is always a fun challenge; it’s part of the life we lead. This part I can handle, but what’s dragging me down is our fundraising—or lack thereof. It’s an area in which I usually excel, but I’m now sinking into the deepest debt I’ve ever had. Donations are hard to come by. Then, right before our first world championship, I receive the most powerful blow to my world: My dad has lymphoma, and together my parents are about to fight this awful disease. I approach this news the way I do any major obstacle in our training. I dive into the research to learn what I can. I keep a positive mindset. My parents are my biggest heroes, and thinking of Dad and what he is about to attack doesn’t allow for me to have a single complaint on or off the water.

I have to avoid the family for the holidays to keep foreign germs to myself and focus on the task at hand. This is gutting because I want nothing but to hug my parents, to sit with Dad, and physically be there to support him. In these moments of hurt, however, we grow and become the greatest versions of ourselves.

It is mid-October 2023 when I start to mentally prepare for the trials, set aside the variables I can’t control, and focus on being my best athlete. If we are going to win, it will take all I have. I accept my debt, so it isn’t a nagging worry. I immerse myself in books and documentaries about athletes conquering their dreams and work closely with my mental coach. I also add boxing to my routine, and I love the quickness it gives me, the explosive power, and memorizing steps.

Stu and I then make the most important decision of our ­campaign: to relocate to the Canary Islands to train with the ­international fleet. To achieve anything great, we will have to ­struggle together, and the regular racing season doesn’t allow for much growth in this way. What really makes this happen is being in an environment where our competitors hold us to our highest standards every day. The days are long, there are no regatta distractions, and we say whatever is on our mind. This is what will give us solid ground to stand on in the heat of battle and a shared ownership of our accomplishments.

During our first training block in Lanzarote, things on the boat are becoming familiar as a team. Stu and I are creating our language on board. We have now experienced a variety of sea states and dialed in a few specific terms that connect us to certain techniques. This is where the fun happens because our days are spent seeking small performance gains. Our Lanzarote training gives us the gift of preparation and chemistry. Stu is humble, he always wants to learn and grow, and he’s a supportive teammate. There is nothing more I can ask for. He has such a natural feel for a perfectly balanced 470, and his range of controls is very narrow, quick and accurate. He is a legend for good reason. 

It’s the eve of our final day of racing at the ­trials in Miami. Our team gathers for dinner, and Coach Robby Bisi ­delivers an inspiring speech. The kind of speech that puts a team on track for winning the next race. And that we do, with confidence. After we cross the finish line, my mind is still racing. It’s impossible to grasp the magnitude of what has happened. The mix of emotion and exhaustion is such a wild experience. There is a sense of accomplishment with the race that we’ve sailed and won, but it brings uncertainty because nothing in our sport is final until the protest time limit is over. I recognize that this is not just our win; it’s a milestone to share with our friends and family who take this emotional ride with us and our competitors and squad mates who put their hearts on the line alongside us.

On our tow back to Miami YC, I ask Stu to share his high and low of the day. “My high was taking the main down,” he says. He’s kidding, of course, but it’s true. This regatta has taken its toll on all of us. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, mentally and physically. It’s been a long road to get here, from watching peers compete at the 2012 and 2016 Games and wanting so badly for the chance to be in their shoes to being told that I will never have the looks or ­talent to make it in the sailing world—but this gal is now 2-for-2 on the trials card.

The post From Trials to Games appeared first on Sailing World.

Charlotte Rose, a ­two-time youth world champion and US Sailing Team athlete, has boathandling skills that are off the charts, which gives her the ability to quickly shift left or right on the starting line to get into an optimal position. While observing her at a recent clinic, I learned that she has four key starting moves: high build, double-­tack, half-tack and reverse. After watching her execute these moves with ease, I wondered how effective they’d be in boats other than ILCAs, so I brought them to the 2023 J/70 Worlds. My teammates and I spent a few days practicing them, and discovered that they worked well, even in a J/70. These four approaches can be used in almost any small boat—and in bigger boats, to a degree.

The High-Build Start

The high-build approach is powerful in medium to strong winds, when you’re on your final approach and you want to crowd the boat above you to create space to leeward. The setup starts by positioning your boat close to the boat above you and, with sails fully trimmed, steering just above ­closehauled. Be careful to keep the boat moving slowly through the water to prevent stalling. After sailing high and slow and creating space to leeward, just before the start, rotate the bow down and leave the sails fully trimmed. The boat instantly heels over and feels powerful. Then bear away 5 degrees or so, and ease the sails a bit to go for full acceleration. If it’s windy, you need only to turn down to a closehauled course. The boat will get up to speed quickly because there’s plenty of power in the sails. Because you’ve maintained flow across your blades and sails throughout, acceleration will happen fast and require less of a bear away. If you bear away less than those around you, the space to leeward will be bigger and the boats to windward will be unable to bear away to full speed.  

There are a few ­important subtleties. Keep both sails trimmed, and use the jib as your guide. Head up until the front of the jib starts to backwind—usually one-third to halfway back—and the boat will flatten. The key is to keep the boat flat. To maintain the high and slow sailing, trim the sails in and out. For example, if the skipper is having to push too hard on the tiller because the boat wants to bear away, ease the jib and trim the main. This helps the boat continue to track forward. If the boat wants to head up, trim the jib and ease the main. 

At the J/70 Worlds, the wind was mostly 12 to 18 knots—perfect conditions for high-build starts. It doesn’t work well in light air, because in these conditions, you need to keep the speed on and also bear away a fair amount to properly accelerate. Also, if you try to sail too high and slow in light air, the boat nearly stops, and it takes forever to get moving again. But in 8 to 9 knots or more, the high-build is a ­must-have in your tool box.   

Double-Tack Reset

The double-tack is another powerful move that’s underutilized. It allows you to create a ­massive amount of space to your left while filling space to your right. Basically, it’s two quick tacks, first to port and then to starboard, but there’s more to it than that. International 470 gold medalists Matthew Belcher and Will Ryan were masters of the double tack. They got it down so well that they could do it in the final 10 seconds and, in their second tack, would come out racing. Doing it in the final few seconds and with perfect timing also meant that if the boat to their left tried to match them, that boat would be late to start.

Use a double-tack whenever there’s space to your right and someone comes from behind and hooks or overlaps their bow just to leeward of you, or if a boat comes in on port tack and sets up in a lee-bow position. It’s a quick way to get separation and reclaim a hole on the line. On the J/70 or the Etchells, my teammate, Erik Shampain, audibles if the double-tack is an option. Whenever things are getting tight and we need an escape route, Shampain says to me, “Double-tack open,” and we roll into a tack, sail for as long as we need to, and then tack back. 

Most people feel as if they have to have a lot of space to do a double-tack without fouling the boat to their right, the windward boat. In the clinic, however, Rose could double-tack in the tightest space I’d ever seen. When I asked her how she did so, she said that the key is a normal first tack, such as a roll tack in a Laser, and then an instant tack back onto port with no roll. Doing the second tack as a roll tack is OK if you are feeling late, but a flat tack allows you to turn in a tighter space, and you don’t advance on the starting line.  

You need a bit of speed to begin a double-tack. Don’t try it from a stopped position. If you have room and want to sail for a length or two before tacking to starboard, you can. A subtlety to the double-tack is that when you complete that first tack, come out deep, aiming behind the boat to your right, which might make them think that you’re going to go behind them. Then, when you tack back, you’ll end up overlapped with them, with bows even. They’re now “locked” so that their bow is not free to hook you, and you’ve secured a nice hole to your left. 

Another basic rule of thumb is that if the boat to your right double-tacks, match them. When they tack back, lee-bow them. You’ll have created a huge hole, and they won’t have one. 

There are other purposes for a double-tack and considerations, other than just closing the gap between yourself and the boat to your right or separating from the boat to your left. If you sense that you’re early, tack, dip really deep to burn off time, and then tack back. If you’re late, tack and sail upwind, then tack back again, fully racing upwind. If the pin is favored and you need to close distance on the line, for example in a last-minute left shift, the port-tack part of the double-­tack will help you close distance on the line because that tack is more than 90 degrees to the line. If the boat is favored, when many general recalls happen as closing speeds are high, and you need to kill time, spend more time on port tack when doubling because it’s closer to paralleling the line, and you will kill time. For those scenarios, it comes down to being confident with your time on distance and your closing speed on the line.  

Half-Tack Reset

A half-tack is used when there’s not enough space to your right to do a double-tack. It works best in light and medium winds when you have speed.

Let’s say there’s a port-tack boat coming your way, and they’re likely to lee-bow you, and there’s a boat just to windward of you. Rotate your bow down, aiming just above the port tacker’s bow, and sail at them, which increases your speed. As you anticipated, they tack just to leeward of you. If you do nothing, they’ve stolen any space you’ve created to leeward, and you’ll be out of luck for this start. But, with your increased speed, do a half-tack, heading up and trimming your sails in, and sail about head to wind or maybe a touch past. Leave the jib in to the point where it backwinds. On an ILCA, the skipper can put their hand or left shoulder against the boom, pushing out a foot or so to backwind the main for just a few seconds. The backwinded sail pushes your bow to the right, opening up space between you and the boat that just tacked to leeward of you and sliding you closer to the boat to your right. Again, be sure you have speed going into this. In small boats like ILCAs, it helps to pull up the daggerboard to help the boat slide. In keelboats, we obviously leave the keel alone, but backing the jib really pulls the boat to the right, helping it slide or track toward the boat to your right. Be careful with this move, however, because you are considered a “tacking” boat. As long as you do not hit the boat to your right, you are fine. Once you’re close to the boat to the right, cut/release the jib, and rotate the boat back down to starboard closehauled to avoid a rules infringement.

To prevent tacking, the skipper must fight the helm, pulling the tiller toward them, keeping the boat gliding at either head to wind or slightly past head to wind. A more common move in the start is to shoot head to wind to get space to leeward. That’s fine, but this backing of the sails adds the slide to the right. While doing a half-tack, or as the ILCA sailors call it, a “slide,” keep the boat flat. The crew might even have to hike on the port side, the jib side, while the jib is backing, especially in medium winds. As the boat slides to windward, you can open up about a half-boatlength on the boat that just tacked beneath you. Now you have a hole to accelerate into. As your speed diminishes, uncleat the jib. We use the command “Cut!” The jib luffs, the skipper rotates the bow down to closehauled or slightly below, and we’re off. 

The half-tack doesn’t work well in big breeze, because it’s so windy, you might not be able to keep the boat from tacking with a backed jib. And if it’s really choppy, you risk losing your speed if you smash into a wave during your slide.    

Drop it into Reverse

Let’s say you have boats close to leeward of you, and you realize that they’re going to prevent you from accelerating because there’s no hole for you to drive off into. Nor is there room for a double-tack or half-tack. The solution is to reverse out of there, backing up until your bow can clear the transoms of the boats around you, and then reach off and find a better place to start. It’s a great move when you really have no other options. Because the leeward boat is probably luffing you, you’re pretty much head to wind anyway, so you’re in a good position to start the reverse.

The most important part of this is to recognize early enough that you’re in a tough spot and need to get out of it. Otherwise, you won’t have enough time for the reverse. In a J/70, it might be with 60 to 90 seconds left; in an ILCA, it’s probably around 45 seconds. The technique starts with pushing the boom out just until the boat starts to reverse, then release the boom and let the sail luff. This point is where a lot of people run into trouble. Rose taught me not to hold the boom out very long. If you hold it out too long, it might cause the boat to tack, and you could lose control of the bow. Also, briefly holding the boom out keeps the boat from going too fast in reverse, which will make it difficult to stop. Again, your goal is to start the reverse to get your bow free, then sail somewhere else.

Steering backward takes time to learn. The tiller loads up, wanting to slam to one side or the other, and the boat will be more responsive to helm movements, so keep the tiller as close to centered as possible, and keep weight adjustments subtle. It will help to hold the tiller or hiking stick firmly in both hands. Once your bow becomes free of the boats to leeward of you, turn the boat down, away from the wind, and you’re now free to reach to the next open spot on the line. Remember, the whole line is open to you; you can exit to starboard or port.  

The “bail out and sail somewhere else” technique works well because it’s better to be going fast in the final minute than to have no good option for accelerating because someone’s close to leeward. That’s death. If you bail and start reaching, you have a much better chance of pulling off a good start than if you just sit there in a tough situation with 40 seconds left. Typically, everyone else is bow up, going half-speed, while you can be reaching down the line with pace, searching for your next spot. And when you do find your opening, you can shoot into it with more pace than the boats around you.

We did a couple of scramble starts like this at the 2023 J/70 European Championships, which we won. Both times, we found a gap in the final 20 seconds, sailed into it with pace, and were able to tack and cross the fleet within 30 seconds after the start because the pin was so favored. You might call that lucky, but we were following a basic rule: When you feel like you’re in trouble, bail and go as fast as you can.

The beautiful thing about these four moves is that they not only help you create a gap, but they also give you more of a lateral game that you might not have otherwise. Practice these moves so that you’re  good at them, and make sure you have the mindset of trying to find open space. A good practice drill is to try to sail a full lap around a stationary mark ­without tacking. We tried it in an Etchells once, and we actually pulled it off. Start by sailing by a mark on starboard tack, leaving it to port, with speed. Shoot head to wind, and do a half-tack. Let the half-tack glide you above and to the right of the mark. Then release the jib, let the boat slow down, and go into a reverse. Once you’ve reversed past the mark, kick the stern out so that you’re now on a starboard reach, and sail back around to the port side of the mark. You’ve now done a full lap around the mark without tacking. It’s also a great drill to practice slow-speed maneuvers. Try it first in 5 to 12 knots. 

With these four starting-line moves, the next time you’re in a crowded spot in the final minute and half and don’t feel like you’re going to get a good start, you now have the option of positioning your boat somewhere else. As my high school students say, “Make your momma proud; don’t start in a crowd.”

As a multiple class champion and longtime coach, Steve Hunt has now expanded his ­coaching services to include virtual coaching at stevehuntsailing.com, a site created for the racing sailor to take their skills to the next level. With video tutorials and in-depth insight, Hunt and other top-level sailors aim to help ­sailors improve their speed, sail smarter, and improve regatta results—one race at a time.

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One of the greatest attributes about racing sailboats is the opportunity to learn and relearn techniques that help us perform better on the racecourse. When I was invited to participate in San Diego YC’s most recent International Masters Regatta, I was excited to give it another try. In my first attempt, I finished fourth. I was fourth again the next time, and then fifth in my third go at it. Suffice to say, masters racing is tough, especially considering the collective wisdom shared across each of the teams. I was the second-­youngest skipper when I first raced this regatta in 2014, but at the most recent edition, I was the second oldest. Let’s just say that my goal this time around was to finish on the podium, because I am, of course, not getting any younger.

The first step I took when accepting the invitation was to recruit a strong crew. The roster of my celebrity squad included former National E Scow Champion Bill Campbell; last year’s Lightning Class World Champion, David Starck; Sailing Scuttlebutt editor and Etchells World Champion crew, Craig Leweck; retired three-star admiral and one-time All-American at the US Naval Academy, Dixon Smith; and San Diego-based J/105 veteran Sam Paterson. It was an all-star crew, and I quietly hoped that I would be worthy of sailing with such an experienced group. To qualify as a master, each ­crewmember must be at least 45 years old. The helmsman must be no younger than 60. I easily qualified at 73. Twelve skippers are invited each year, and the races are run in donated J/105s, which are tuned to be as equal as possible. Still, some boats were clearly different in speed. I know…excuses, excuses. 

I had spent the summer of 2023 racing as a tactician aboard a 50-footer and occasionally with the Harbor 20 fleet in Annapolis. My only regatta at the helm was aboard an 8-Metre on the New York YC Cruise and at Nantucket Race Week. All of that didn’t quite prepare me for the masters. I’ve been a longtime advocate that practice is important, but unfortunately, we had a only few hours to tune up the day before the first race. No one was allowed to use any electronic instruments, which for me was a refreshing change from racing on boats with endless streams of data that tend to overwhelm the art of decision-making.

In the regatta’s opening race, we got off to a fast start on the right side of the line and took the lead, but the wind shifted, and the race committee abandoned the race. We used the same tactic for the restart, only to watch the wind shift 30 degrees to the left. Positioning ourselves way out on the right side of the racecourse was doom. It was simply humiliating to round the first mark in last place. Race No. 2 was better with a fourth-place finish. I learned many years ago that the key to winning regattas is to maintain a good, consistent average. To achieve this, I had to discipline myself to concentrate on sailing fast and to avoid looking around. From that point on, Campbell and Starck kept their heads out of the boat while I dutifully listened to their wise counsel.

In Race No. 3, however, we finished a dismal 10th. After three races, we were in last place. Now what? I asked myself.

The strength of a veteran crew is the ability to promptly identify weaknesses and immediately apply solutions. Happily, no one got upset, and there was no finger pointing when we returned to the dock. We simply needed to sail better. The first idea was to keep things simple. Don’t try to win the start; just get off the line with a clear lane, and head for the favored side of the course. The second priority was to reduce the number of tacks and jibes. Third was to be more aware of keeping our air clear. In the tight 12-boat fleet, it was easy to get into match-race-style skirmishes with other boats. We had to avoid that as best we could.

The racecourse on the second day of racing had two windward legs. Campbell and Starck carefully watched the wind trends, and with each race, we consistently improved our position on the second windward leg. We religiously stayed clear of packs of boats, so our finishes improved dramatically
—we even won a race and posted two third-place finishes. At the end of day, with three races remaining in the series, we had worked our way up to third overall in the standings. The podium was in reach. 

Over nine races, nine different teams had won a race, and everyone had also finished ninth and often worse, which is to be expected given the impressive résumés of my fellow skippers. Among them were Olympians, America’s Cup sailors and world champions. As competitive as the racing was on the water, the atmosphere was collegial around the waterfront. There was considerable mutual respect among all the competitors. In a good way, the International Masters keeps veteran sailors relevant when so much emphasis these days centers on high-level racing for younger people. 

The San Diego YC has run this regatta since 2012. It was first held in 1979 on San Francisco Bay, organized by great Laser sailor Don Trask. He sailed in the masters in 2019 at the age of 86, which gives me hope for the rest of us, although we are aging faster than anyone might admit. On Saturday evening of the regatta, each skipper gave a short speech that ranged from good-natured barbs to soaring admiration for everyone on the water. I sat there listening and feeling good about being a part of this elite group of elders.

In a good way, the International Masters keeps veteran sailors relevant when so much emphasis these days centers on ­high-level racing for younger people. 

The race committee operation for this regatta is impressive too. The committee anchors a set of floating docks near the starting area for boat rotations that take place with great efficiency after every race. There is no wasted time as everyone hustles to pack spinnakers, straighten lines, swallow a sandwich, and get ready for the next warning signal. 

On-the-water umpires kept us honest. It seemed that Green Flag (no foul) calls prevailed most of the time, while the boats that fouled (including us) ­completed penalty turns immediately after an incident. There was very little yelling on the water because I think that everyone was conserving their energy but, as with any major regatta, controlling emotions is part of a winning mindset. It takes work to recover from a bad race and get ready to restart within a few minutes, and it always makes me realize how hard it must be for professional athletes to shake off a bad play and keep going. Emotions use energy too. Once I realized that every boat was having its share of good and bad races, my emotions leveled out and our scores improved. It reminded me, once again, that a positive attitude usually nets positive results.

The effort by the San Diego YC and its many volunteers serves as an example of how to host a signature regatta of this caliber. There were many logistical challenges, which included inviting the ­skippers and crews, arranging for a fleet of matched boats, providing insurance, ­running the race committee, and orchestrating the boat rotation. A busy repair crew worked diligently to keep the races rolling; club members sourced ­housing for out-of-town competitors and race officials, and hosted social events, all while working with a modest budget. The reward for the club is having top sailors become ambassadors for the event and giving local sailors an opportunity to race against top sailors from afar. 

The San Diego YC hosted a similar regatta one week later called the Lipton Cup, which has no age restrictions. And, as you might expect, it is a mighty competitive regatta. Interestingly, Scott Harris, who won the masters with a ­4.5-point average, finished fourth in the Lipton Cup with a 5.5-point average. Based on Harris’ performance, I surmise that the masters fleet was not too far off the pace of the younger sailors in the Lipton Cup. Tad Lacey, from San Francisco, was the ­runner-up master, and both he and Harris have raced in the masters many times over the years. Cory Sertl was third, and we finished…fourth. I guess I’ll have to give it another shot.

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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.”

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