After six days of competitive inshore and offshore racing within three classes, two new and one returning team have been crowned ORC World Champions at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court. These three teams demonstrated an exceptional level of preparation, practice and eventual execution to prevail after six days of intense inshore and offshore racing among the 43 entries with top-level sailors from throughout the United States and around the globe.

Two North American Champion titles have also been awarded among Maxi class yachts competing in their own series and the entries that were originally planning to compete in a Class C, but were folded into racing in Class B.

The final day of racing today was spectacular: 10 to 12 knots of northerly breeze in flat water and under sunny skies produced some of the closest inshore racing of the week, a fitting end to a highly competitive world championship regatta.

The new 2024 ORC Class 0 World Champions are those that raced on Victor Wild’s TP 52 Fox 2.0. This team dominated this new class—first introduced to the ORC Championships this year—by winning five of seven races, enough to build an insurmountable 9-point lead overall. The silver medal position went to Peter Askew’s Botin 52 Wizard, and bronze to Andrew Berdon’s TP52 Summer Storm.

The Fox 2.0 team included Andy Horton, Harry West, Chris Hosking, Cooper Dressler, Dean Curtis, Graham Post, Jareese Finch, Kelvin Harrap, Maciel Cicchetti, Ignacio Postigo, Orrin Starr, Santiago Lange, Scott Nixon, Aidan Naughton and Lucas Chapman.

“This is Victor’s third TP52,” said Horton, tactician for Fox 2.0. “This boat was specifically built for the ORC Worlds in 2020, then Covid happened, yet we’ve always kept this regatta on the long-term planning and just slowly chipped away at the details that we’d need during this event. The right crew members, and the guys working on the boat have been endlessly trying to improve it.

“This includes things like the sails, which were sized for this regatta, and the different types of sails, like some specialty reaching sails we’ve been developing for two years. The boat mods and doing all of these other regattas were training with this bigger picture in mind, to come to the ORC worlds and do well.”

Yet things were not always easy nor perfect for Fox, such as during the first race of the event, the Long Offshore Race.

“We didn’t have the greatest start, and we were chasing all the other boats down,” Horton said. “And then on the big long run one of our halyards slipped and the wind instruments got chucked, so all of a sudden we were blind going into the night. Our sails were too flat for the breeze: we expected it to be windier, so we had our heavy-air main and a J2 that were the only upwind sails on the boat to keep the boat light. So, I knew for about 10 hours that we were gonna have a tough night.

“And you know, the guys sailed the pants off the boat. I mean, it was amazing to see everyone work so hard without wind gear. All night long, we challenged. We got back up to the front, and it got really light, and we fell back, and then we fought all the way to the finish and picked up a couple boats on the last 30-mile beat and ended up second. This was an outstanding effort by this team.”

Similarly, the new ORC Class A World Champion dominated their class through a similar long road taken to the top. Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Botin 44 Interlodge IV managed to win all races but two among 19 rivals, the largest class in the event.

“Austin and I have been racing for about 20 years,” said Gwen Fragomen, “and I was on different positions on his boats, from foredeck on a J/24 to pit on a J/105 and then sewer on the Swan 42. Yet until recently I’d never been at the helm, and so this is really fabulous. It’s a bit daunting to be a world champion today.”

She explained this was a project that grew out of their TP52 program to give her an opportunity to drive her own boat.

“I think that we’re really fortunate because the team are super sailors,” she said. “I’m very passionate about ballet, and I think of them as being great choreographers. I mean, they execute brilliantly. So, I really give credit to the team and to Tony [Rey] as the tactician. It was really a great performance, better than Swan Lake.”

Besides Rey the other choreographers on board Interlodge were Kris Matthews, Nick Ford, Adam Minter, Carlos Robles, Tom O’Donnell, Christian Kamp, Norman Berge, Hartwell Jordan, Jay Davis, and Brad Marsh.

Second in Class A were Don Thinschmidt’s Ker 43 Abracadabra, and third was Henry Brauer’s Club Swan 42 Tio Loco.

 The road taken by the Class B ORC World Champions was literally the longest of any team at this event – from Poland to Baltimore by ship, then to Newport – but was also nearly three years in the planning and execution and had the experience taken from winning their class in two prior ORC World Championships in Sardinia in 2022 and last year in Germany.

Victory was only assured by Marcin Sutkowski on his Grand Soleil 44P Wind Whisper 44 after ensuring that their runner-up rival—John Brim’s Italia 11.98, Rima98—could not finish today’s final race with a score lower than the 2.5-point lead Wind Whisper had going into today. So, the two match-raced the course, which drove both back far enough to use their discards yet retaining their top two places in the final results. Third was Bill and Jackie Baxter’s J/111 Fireball.

“This was a fantastic event, I’m really glad we came to defend our title,” said Sutkowski. “We have a mix of pros and young sailors on this team, so we are building and learning all the time. We are looking at keeping the boat here in the U.S. this winter and doing some more ORC racing. Next year I hope to have a new Class A boat ready for next year’s championships.”

The remainder of the Wind Whisper 44 team included Joan Navarro, Aksel Magdahl, Hugo Rocha, Stanisław Bajerski, Kacper Gwóźdź, Mateusz Gwóźdź, and Piotr Przybylski.

Meanwhile the Maxis took advantage of great racing conditions today by having another two inshore races, with wins in each by Hap Fauth’s Maxi 72 Bella Mente and Jim Swartz’s Maxi 72 Vesper, which emerged victorious after nine races to win the ORC Maxi North American Championship title.

The ORC Class C North American title was won by Jeremy Alexis’s Melges 32 Fleetwood, and NEKA Sailing’s modified J/105 Sleeper won the Class B all-amateur Corinthian Trophy. The Class A Corinthian Trophy was won by Bob Manchester’s J/133 Vamoose.

“We congratulate all the winners and podium finishers at this World Championship,” said ORC Chairman Bruno Finzi. “The New York Yacht Club race managers working with our team did a fantastic job this week of providing fair and competitive race courses. The racing for everyone was always close, and we hope to see some of you join us for next year’s ORC World Championship in Tallinn, Estonia.”

The post ORC World Champions Crowned After Long Series appeared first on Sailing World.

As the sun dips below the ­horizon, casting a warm glow over the Caribbean waters, I can’t believe my eyes. The island of La Désirade looms on the horizon, a beacon of achievement after 4,050 grueling miles across the Atlantic alone. For 12 days of relentless sailing, my boat and my world—the 21-foot Classe Mini, Nicomatic—has soared over waves and chased schools of silver flying fish. The windward foil has unmercifully sent cascades of water over me, leaving my skin blistered and scarred. 

The distant sound of an engine pierces the air, growing louder as a tiny object on the horizon speeds toward me. Excited shouts and screams reach my ears, and soon, familiar faces emerge. Friends and family wave a poster that reads: “Welcome our northern star.” Emotions surge through me as I grasp my accomplishment. I am the first woman to cross the Atlantic on a fully foiling boat, and the first person to do so on a fully foiling monohull. This ­triumph is the culmination of two years of effort from a ­dedicated team.

My journey to the finish of La Boulangere Mini Transat 2023 began in October 2020 in Paris, after completing my master’s in Nuclear and Materials Science Engineering. Despite enrolling in a Physics doctorate program at Ecole Polytechnique, my passion for sailing led me to the challenging world of foiling boats. I invested all of my savings and half of my monthly salary into acquiring an International Moth and diving headfirst into the competitive realm of this prestigious foiling and development class.

Fueled by motivation, I took my commitment to the extreme. I rented out my flat for three months and lived in my car in my university’s parking lot, scraping together every penny to afford the fuel needed to transport my boat to various racing events. However, harsh reality set in, and I soon realized that maintaining this lifestyle was financially unsustainable. Undeterred, I began seeking sponsorship opportunities to keep my dream afloat. This pivotal moment led me to the Nicomatic Group, and my journey took a remarkable turn.

Nicomatic, an international technology company, sponsored my Moth sailing until the 2021 Moth Worlds in Malcesine, Italy. Together, we conceived the Mini Nicomatic, an innovative 6.5-meter boat designed by naval architect Sam Manuard and foiling specialist Benoit Marie (Mini Transat winner in 2013), who also became my coach and co-skipper, as well as life partner.

In less than five months, the boat took shape under the dedication of a team led by Kilian Goldbach and Malric Leborgne. Goldbach, a key figure in the team, worked tirelessly, dedicating 100 hours a week for several months to ensure that Nicomatic would hit the water on time. During the build, I realized the need to build experience in offshore sailing because I had sailed only dinghies before and was a complete offshore-sailing novice when I took up this challenge. I set out on a trans-Atlantic crossing in a Volvo 65, and it was on this boat, off the Canary Islands, with winds gusting well over 30 knots and water splashing all over the deck, that I spent my first night at sea.

We launched Nicomatic in May 2022, and within a week, I embarked on my first solo race, marking the beginning of a transformative journey. Ten minutes into the sail, I realized that I had never jibed a spinnaker solo before, so I had to make it all up as I went. The focus of this first year was qualification for the Mini Transat, involving 1,500 nautical miles of racing and a 1,000-nautical-mile qualifying course—which was a resounding success. At the end of the season, more than 100 people from Nicomatic joined me for a week of sailing to discover the amazing boat they had sponsored.

In December 2022, we installed and tested the foils, achieving notable success. The boat smoothly lifted off in 8 knots of wind on our first try. In the second year of my campaign (2023), our primary goal was to address potential issues with the boat before stepping off for the trans-Atlantic race in September. Despite many challenges, we not only secured victories in several races, but we also witnessed the boat’s incredible potential—up to 100 percent faster than our competitors. The focus then shifted to making Nicomatic more reliable, a crucial aspect for the impending journey. Personally, I needed to overcome my fear of the speed and brutality of the boat, and that transformation occurred only a month before the Mini Transat when I clinched victory in the first leg of a solo race from Port Bourgenay, France, to Getxo, Spain.

A major challenge I faced throughout the project, however, was securing additional sponsors. Despite Benoit’s efforts in bringing in those who funded his sailing career, I struggled to meet the budget requirements. This led me to borrow substantial amounts of money just to make it to the starting line.

The journey to the start was intense, marked by tireless efforts and the invaluable support of volunteers, ­especially a schoolboy named Elvis, who dedicated his entire summer holiday, working from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., for free, driven by a passion to learn and contribute to the boat’s preparation. Seeking assistance on Instagram yielded an overwhelming response, with numerous individuals, some unfamiliar to me, extending help in various capacities. However, multiple unexpected challenges emerged, such as the Classe Mini’s last-minute rule change regarding foils. A monumental effort from the team altered the foils in time for the race to make Nicomatic compliant.

On September 26, 2023, I set sail on the Mini Transat—solo, unassisted and without communication— toward the Canary Islands, where the first leg finished, and then in the direction of Guadeloupe. The initial stretch proved far more mentally challenging than I ­anticipated. My batteries struggled to charge, leaving me with insufficient energy on board. Consequently, I had to navigate the boat continuously for 10 days without respite, leading to exhaustion and minimal sleep. Sleep deprivation took its toll, causing disorientation, hallucinations, and numerous mistakes. Light winds, contrary to the forecast, added to the nerve-wracking conditions. Despite these difficulties, there were remarkable moments, such as a whale leaping in front of me and encountering dolphins and orcas. It was thrilling and unnerving.

The second leg presented a fresh set of challenges. Soon after the start, my autopilot stopped working, and despite my attempt to fix it, I had to make an unscheduled stop in El Hierro, the last island before the open Atlantic. There, I encountered amazing individuals who provided me with food, assistance and great company. After a 12-hour stopover, fueled by the music my newfound friends played on their instruments, I resumed the journey and embarked on a remarkable comeback, foiling my way to ninth position. I faced new technical hurdles, however, such as a broken spinnaker halyard that hampered me when the wind dropped for two days. Numerous electronic malfunctions added to the challenges, regretfully affecting what turned out to be the least-prepared part of my boat. The autopilot’s unreliable performance forced me to drive the boat a minimum of 12 hours a day. The remaining hours were spent studying the weather, making repairs, eating and sleeping.

The challenging reality of the crossing was the tough conditions. I dealt with issues in two sealing systems—one for the foils and one for the keel—which resulted in perpetual dampness for 12 days. The toll on my body was visible, evidenced by scars and partial skin loss. Maintaining my well-being became a daily struggle, managing with damp food, floating storage bins, and the constant task of draining 200 liters of water every two hours. Five days before the finish, I ran out of water and relied on the last sips of Coca-Cola for survival. It was an uncomfortable experience, enduring days of hardship with limited hydration.

The misery was soon forgotten as I sailed into Port Saint Francois in Guadeloupe, with my family and friends. Their support made this achievement possible. They were my driving force over every mile and every hour. I will be forever thankful for them. It was 8 p.m. when we coasted into the marina to cheers, to “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics, and the clapping from packed restaurants, which marked the end of one adventure and the beginning of the next.

The post Meet the First Woman to Foil Across the Atlantic appeared first on Sailing World.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you live coverage from the finish of the 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. We now take you to Hobart, Tasmania, where two of the race’s 100-foot supermaxis are ghosting toward the finish line, with underdogs LawConnect closing in on pre-race favorite, AndooComanche.

That’s about what is heard on television stations across Australia when, after nearly 628 nautical miles, the “Great Race” is coming down to an even greater finish. After 42 hours of hard sailing, there are mere boatlengths between the 100-foot rivals of LawConnect and Andoo Comanche. As the navigator, I’m now standing behind the twin wheels of LawConnect, but I can’t see the finish marks, so I dart to leeward to see what’s under the massive masthead zero headsail that obscures our view of the finish line and half of the city of Hobart. Releasing the tablet computer that’s tethered around my neck, I point with both arms outstretched, targeting each of the two yellow inflatable marks so that our sailing master and driver, Tony Mutter, and our tactician, Chris Nicholson, can visualize the finish line. I then glance back at Andoo Comanche, which is arguably the fastest conventional monohull in the world. The big black-and-red boat with its giant prod is aimed right at our transom.

They are behind us, which is where we need them to be, and they’re losing ­momentum. I shoot a look forward again toward the finish line, and a rush of elation hits me. Wow. We are about to win Rolex Sydney Hobart Race line honors. Moments later, as the finish cannon booms, most of us on the boat are genuinely stunned, as are livestream viewers around the world. LawConnect crosses the finish line, one single, beautiful boatlength ahead of Andoo Comanche. The underdogs have done it. David topples Goliath. Rocky puts Apollo Creed to the mat. This is our Miracle on Ice, our Super Bowl and our World Series all in one. A mere 51 ­seconds is the difference.

One of the greatest ­spectacles in yachting is the start of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, which has been contested for 77 years and counting. It’s relatively rare for an ocean race to field a single 100-foot supermaxi, let alone four, all gunning for line honors. This year’s race has LawConnect, Andoo Comanche, Scallywag and Wild Thing 100. There are also ­mini maxis, TP52s, and an armada of IRC-optimized race machines sailed by amateurs and pros alike, each striving to win the race’s coveted Tattersall Cup (ultimately claimed by the great sailors aboard Alive).

It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that it feels as if the entire population of the great city of Sydney turns out on Boxing Day for the start of the race. On the water, the harbor is madness. Thousands of spectator boats, helicopters and media boats add to the chaos. Plus, it’s midsummer Down Under, so the weather is normally gorgeous. Not so this year. While mostly sunny, a small, pre-race rain shower dampens the start and hints at the punishing and ­unforgiving weather to come. 

On board LawConnect, we take our starts seriously, and we have a well-earned ­reputation for being the best off the line because LawConnect owner Christian Beck loves to be first out of Sydney Heads. It’s great fun and great publicity for our sponsor. In contrast to the yelling and cursing that’s audible from some of our competitors in the live broadcasts, LawConnect’s afterguard has a low-key running dialogue. It’s an all-business and data-driven sort of conversation. There’s no onboard drama made for TV, and it’s ruthlessly effective. Nicholson, an Olympian and two-time Australian Yachtsman of the Year, is a tactical genius, and I’m confident that Mutter, a round-the-world legend, can drive this 100-footer through a 30-foot hole.

In preparing for the race, we’ve spent a lot of time on conference calls dissecting the start and analyzing archival race footage, which helps me build a Sydney Harbor starting model so that I can quickly and effectively answer any questions Nicholson might ask when the battle begins. This year’s start is what I’d term a “SailGP reaching start,” which plays right to Nicholson’s strength as a SailGP coach. We set up early in a strong position on starboard tack, patiently killing time to the boat end of the line, and then hit the afterburners by deploying the massive masthead zero, which slingshots us across the line with pace. Andoo Comanche and the others are in our wake, and we comfortably lead the drag race out to the first turning mark.

The early minutes of this race are always extra special to me, especially knowing that my family is in one of the team RIBs following us as we lead out past the Heads. My daughters once told me that sharing in the start was one of the most exciting moments of their lives. This year, we unintentionally make it extra exciting for ­everyone when our furling rope breaks. We can’t roll up the massive zero, which means we can’t tack, but our quick-thinking team instead executes a jibe right at the exclusion zone. Carlos Hernandez Robayna and Simbad Quiroga acrobatically lead the rigging of a backup, and off we go, securing the lead again as we fight through the choppy, light-air conditions.

In the pre-race ­coverage ­leading up to the start, the media has repeatedly reminded the team that it is “three times the bridesmaid.” It also mercilessly points out that LawConnect has yet to beat Andoo Comanche to Hobart, and that the other ­supermaxi juggernauts of Scallywag and Wild Thing 100 have undergone dramatic optimizations for the race. Regardless, we know from our pre-race forecast that there are a number of tricky sections of the racecourse where we might have the opportunity to remain tight with Comanche, the odds-on favorite. I remember going into the race saying, “The messier the forecast, the better.”

Andoo Comanche is an exceptionally well-sailed boat by top professionals, and is a faster boat than LawConnect in almost all conditions. Mutter, who knows both boats better than anyone, points out that Comanche had a decade’s worth of newer technology embedded in it when it was first built in 2014, and it is literally 4 tons lighter. If we are close, even or ahead, we know that we are in good shape, knowing that the Derwent River at the finish could give us a shot.

In the run-up to the race, we had spent a lot of time with our weather team and performance analysts, so before leaving the dock, we had an excellent idea of what to expect and a great game plan. This is important because we end up seeing wind from 3 knots to almost 40 knots, from every direction. It is also important that we know our polars and which sails to put up in every condition. The boat is sailing better than ever because of the optimization programs and the talented crew. But we’ve also been leveraging data analytics to squeeze as much performance as ­possible out of the boat.

After racing down Australia’s east coast and entering the notorious Bass Strait, our J-Zero headsail is the only casualty, shredded when the wind suddenly doubles to nearly 40 knots and shifts 180 degrees. Otherwise, we escape the lightning-filled and angry weather, and enjoy a hard and fast ride to Tasman Island, where the weather models and observations indicate that the breeze will shift massively yet again, this time from a downwind northeasterly to an upwind southwesterly, with a windless zone somewhere in between. Here we have our sights locked on Andoo Comanche and jump them by cutting the corner on a jibe.

When we sail into the light patch between the two different breezes, our trimmers smoothly shift gears, and suddenly Andoo Comanche is alongside us once again in this epic seesaw battle. Their 13-nautical-mile lead has evaporated. Now it’s a match race, but with one puff, they are faster again and slingshot ahead.

There’s not a whiff of despair on our boat though. We know that these final miles on the Derwent River are expected to be fickle, and this year we have the extra advantage of daylight. Oftentimes, the supermaxis reach the Derwent on the second night of the race, when it’s impossible to see the light puffs in the dark.

Just after passing John Garrow Light, we hunt down Comanche again for what is the 10th or so time in this marathon game of cat-and-mouse. We’re in a dead heat with only about 2 miles to work with. We want this win badly, more than anything. We are hungry, but they are too, and it’s in these moments where the subtleties of these giant programs reveal themselves. 

LawConnect’s crew work shines as we roll-jibe our 100-footer like a dinghy. Mutter, who is easily one of the best drivers and yachtsmen in the world, works the canting keel and the turning rate through the jibes to perfection, while trimmers Brad Jackson and Scott Beavis on the main and Lucas Chapman, Alex Gough, and Charlie Wyatt on the front sails are fully synchronized with Mutter’s turns. In the pit, Rodney Daniel, Dylan Clarke, and Mustafa Ingham keep the maneuvers sharp and orchestrated.

Our crew boss, Mitch White, ensures that everyone on the boat is all on the same page—from our experienced Spanish bow team to the ride-along LawConnect employees who won the office raffle to our water-ballast engineer Ryan Phillips and to our afterguard at the back of the boat.

Because all of our ­trimmers are also amazing drivers, the choreography is flawless. Everyone moves in sync, without the usual jerky starts and stops of maneuvers. But my teammates are far more than light-air specialists. Over each of the more than 600 nautical miles of this race, the afterguard has never once second-guessed a risky or complicated maneuver. They simply deliver whatever is asked of them.

The people are what make LawConnect a special team. And there are a couple in particular who make the program as competitive as it is. There’s Ty Oxley, our boat captain, a jack-of-all trades and master of all: electronics, rig loads, water-ballast systems, and sails. Oxley is also a gifted sailor, which is absolutely critical because LawConnect, a Juan K 100-footer first launched in 2008 as Speedboat, is a complicated boat and demands someone with Oxley’s skillsets. He also implemented key upgrades for this boat, including what might be the largest bowsprit on the planet, which extends more than 20 feet beyond the forestay pin.

Most importantly, there’s LawConnect’s owner, Christian Beck. He’s a passionate sailor and a tremendously charismatic individual. We are fortunate that he hired great leaders for the program in Oxley, Mutter and Nicholson. He doesn’t ­micromanage, and he truly brings out the best in the entire team. Without fail, every time he saw me during the race, he always asked the most important question: “Lewy, where is Comanche?”

He doesn’t need to ask the question again as we approach the river. We know exactly where they are, and we’re on the hunt. Andoo Comanche is parked in the expected windless zone ahead, and the breeze is stacking up along the Western shore of the Derwent. Nicholson asks me whether we can continue into the shallows to squeeze the most out of the breeze rather than having to jibe into the lighter air.

I spent a lot of time before the race analyzing the course’s depth constraints. Most people don’t realize how deep the keels are on these supermaxis. In 21 feet of water, LawConnect would be aground, and those who are more willing to push the depth envelope, especially when factoring in heel and canting keels (which can temporarily reduce draft), have more tactical options in the “shallows.” So, when Nicholson asks about the depth, I consult the chart and see my race notes drawn into Expedition. I’ve done my homework, and I know that tiptoeing along the shore in better pressure is possible. At one point, our resident Tasmanian (“Chaz from Taz”) on board nervously asks, “Hey Lewy, you see the rocks just over there?”

With confidence, I reply, “Yep, I got it.” And soon after a series of perfect maneuvers, a master class in light-wind tactical sailing, and a bit of luck, we can all say, “LawConnect wins the John H. Illingworth Challenge Cup for Line Honors in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.”

The post How the Hobart Was Won appeared first on Sailing World.

Seven minutes after the start of Chicago YC’s Race to Mackinac, I’m soaked to the bone, my heart is pounding, and I can’t believe I’m sailing this damn race again. This is my sixth Mac, and each has served up some new form of terror. But there’s a lot riding on this one.

On this same weekend 100 years ago, my great-grandfather John O’Rourke passed through what was then called the Van Buren Street breakwater gap, along with 16 other boats, to attempt the Race to Mackinac. Much of what I know about him and his little Q boat, Intruder, I learned from the Chicago Tribune archives. Headlines like, “Intruder Fights Waves, Rain to Capture Mackinac Race,” had conjured a legend. And here I am on the bow of Skye, a Nelson/Marek 46, ­making my own epic journey to the island a century later.  

The skies open the moment we cross the starting line east of Navy Pier on the afternoon of Saturday, July 22, 2023. I am tossed around on the bow during our first spinnaker hoist, white-knuckling the lifelines as rain stings my face. Throughout the day, we navigate storms rumbling off the Wisconsin shoreline bringing windshifts and cold air. During the occasional lull, my thoughts drift back to John Paul O’Rourke’s 100-year-old logs full of notes on Lake Michigan’s unpredictable weather patterns and his calculations using celestial navigation. In 1923, at the age of 30, he was a skilled sailor helming a small boat he had purchased for $1,800 earlier that spring in New Orleans. Despite his inexperience with the vessel, he was confident enough to bet on himself. John and his fellow Mac skippers were gamblers and had pooled a cash purse for the winner. First prize for that year’s Mac was $600—one-third of the cost of Intruder. The Mac race committee has since banned this practice as a result of controversies surrounding the contested outcome of the 1923 race.

Today, while no cash is on the table, we have a little gentlemen’s wager tradition aboard Skye. Before we leave the dock, each crewmember bets on the number of sail changes it will take us to reach the island. As we cast off from Columbia YC’s dock, the predictions range from 12 to 35 sail changes, with the optimistic afterguard at the lower end and the pragmatic foredeck crew submitting the ­highest guesses. 

By 17:27 Saturday evening, four hours and seven minutes into our 331-nautical-mile race, we are at 13 sail changes and making 7 knots on a run due north. I see 1,000-yard stares on the faces of our trimmers, Alex Loch and Tom Grant, as we notice a long cloud forming that looks like a gnarled finger pointing at us from the southern sky. Last year, similar clouds formed just before our anemometer spiked and a squall hammered the boat. Skye’s co-owner Jeff Hoswell expertly manned the helm while Loch, Grant, and I suddenly had to wrestle the jib to the deck in 38 knots and 8-foot waves. Low-side heroics from our pit, Dan Gardiner, are the sole reason we didn’t end up in the drink. In 2022, two nights of intense squalls left us beaten up and exhausted. While this night is not as sporty, it feels as though Lake Michigan might test us again at any moment. 

The Skye crew was haunted by our last Mac. And 100 years ago, my great-grandfather was likewise haunted by his. The only other Mac he had participated in was in 1921. The race had taken a hiatus during World War I, and the size of the fleet dwindled. Chicago YC members launched a campaign to encourage younger sailors, often with smaller boats, to enter the Mac Race.

John O’Rourke and his brother James were among the newly invited ­competitors, on their boat, Chaperon. Their log from that 1921 race ends dripping with frustration: “Monday. 2:00 P.M. jibed spinnaker and also tore it. 2:54:49 P.M. Finished. Virginia finished 1:42:28. Chaperon’s allowance 1:10:14. Lost race by 2 minutes, 7 seconds.”

John didn’t celebrate earning second place in his first Mac attempt. “Lost race” offers a glimpse into his competitive fervor. He entered the race again in 1923, this time with a better boat, more experience, and a vow to beat Virginia.

Today on the deck of Skye, we use the waning daylight to check the positions of our own section rivals. At nightfall, the fleet is tightly packed on the rhumb line as stars appear over silhouettes of spinnakers. The crew trade in red caps and sunglasses for headlamps and tethers. At 20:00, we are tracking a menacing storm cell ­coming from the west between Racine and Milwaukee. Skye’s co-owner and navigator, Jane Hoswell, ­estimates that we will be in the cell within 90 minutes. As the clock ticks down, we organize our headsails, flake and bag the used jibs, and prepare dinner. We flirt with the edges of storms all evening, until a fresh wind line slams the boat at 2 a.m. I spring to the deck to drop the staysail, hoist the No. 3 jib, and pull in the kite. 

The storms finally dissipate, and Sunday delivers a gorgeous afternoon of downwind sailing. At 15:09, we are making a steady 9 knots of boatspeed. As I take a break from bow duties to make sandwiches, the annual debate on whether to go over or under the Manitou Islands takes over the cabin. Various crew are huddled around iPads and laptops trying to grab one bar of cell service off the Michigan dunes to update forecasts and routings. The decision is made. We’ll go over. With 21 sail changes thus far, we’re moving along nicely, and I trim the spinnaker as we pass Point Betsie.

After sunset, our luck runs out. We’re becalmed. I scratched the mast to bring wind, a sailing superstition I’ve learned from reading the logs of the 1923 Mac racers. My scratch eventually produces a couple of knots. One hundred years ago, the bowman’s mast scratch supposedly brought “the great hurricane of 1923.” John O’Rourke vividly describes it in his log: “With strong puffs of wind off Sleeping Bear, our lee side was entirely awash, and it was a question of how long we could weather the blow before our canvas or mast should carry away…. Though we had been on starboard tack for over 36 hours, the barometer continued to fall and it seemed certain that the storm center was approaching. We therefore reefed two down as there was no sign of wind or sea diminishing and there was water ahead that was dangerously shallow.”

By Sunday evening, we are navigating these same shallow shoals and reefs that my great-grandfather had fretted about a century ago. The night is pitch-black. Low clouds block the stars and shroud the sliver of moon. Our horizon line vanishes, and we are floating along in the void pointed directly at South Fox Shoals. Alan Cichon, our ace of light-air driving, is at the helm. As each crewmember wakes for their watch and glances at our current position on the chart, they warn him that we are dangerously close to a reef. “We know!” the on-watch crew shouts back. Grant is the third person to pop his head out of the companionway and caution that we are approaching a rock. Luckily for him, raucous laughter from the crew breaks the tension. Cichon and our tactician, Scott Pattullo, keep the boat gliding safely through the darkness. 

The morning my great-grandfather finished the 1923 Mac, he wrote in his log: “With the first streak of dawn came the biggest surprise of any Mackinac race. Instead of having two of our class competitors astern, we had two of the big P boats, Intrepid and Mauvoreen, winners of previous Mac Races. Before we crossed the finish line, they both extended congratulations. We crossed the ­finishing line [Tuesday] at 4:31AM.”

Dawn on our final day also has a surprise in store. Monday at 6:40 a.m., with 29 nautical miles to go, we pass Grays Reef lighthouse and spot Hot Lips, a Farr 40 in our section. It is a competitive boat with an excellent spinnaker trimmer—my sister, Meghan. We owe Hot Lips time, so barring a major error, we know they have us beat, but we decide the fight for line honors between us is worth it. With Marc Bernstein at Skye’s helm, we overtake them, and I hail Meg by screaming the chorus to “South Side Irish,” our family’s musical sigil. But they catch a shore breeze that carries them across the finish line ahead of us.

Soon we can see the Grand Hotel’s gleaming white columns. Our Mac rookie, Nathan Benya, trims the spinnaker as we pass under the Mackinac Bridge. With the finish line in sight, he hands the sheet to Jane Hoswell, who is celebrating her 25th Mac. This milestone is commemorated by her induction into the Island Goats Sailing Society, a coveted honor among Great Lakes sailors. Our ­helmsman, Robert Libcke, steers us over the finish line at 14:05:38 on Monday, July 24.

In 1923, one observer wrote: “Mackinac Island was a busy place on Tuesday morning, July 24. The boats came in fast and bunched. And the celebrations on shore were numerous and noisy.”

In this regard, a century has changed nothing. On Skye, Benya gets his Mac baptism: a stealthy bucket of water dumped over his unsuspecting head. Jane Hoswell is properly feted for becoming a Goat. Hundreds of temporary “Jane” tattoos are inked on every sailor the Skye crew can find, from the Pink Pony to the Rum Party. And once again, our team is up to the usual island shenanigans. 

But not all stories end neatly at the rowdy sailing parties on Mackinac Island. Four months after John O’Rourke won his 1923 Mac Race, he was disqualified on a technicality related to Intruder’s measurement certificate, giving way to Virginia to once again claim the Mackinac Cup. The club’s decision has been hotly debated for a century and become the stuff of Chicago sailing lore. For the rest of his life, he maintained that he was wrongfully stripped of his 1923 victory. While he went on to win many races, he never won another Mac. 

My great-grandfather’s story ignited my curiosity and pushed me to the docks of Columbia YC and onto the course that takes us annually to the island at the top of the lake. While John O’Rourke was the fabled sailor who drew me to the sport, I’ve now met many legends forged by the waters of Lake Michigan. On the deck of Skye, I have witnessed grand acts of courage, medical emergencies calmly handled, and countless moments of selfless compassion. That is the great thing about amateur offshore sailing. The sport makes heroes out of ordinary people.

The post A Tale of Two Macs appeared first on Sailing World.

Compared with previous generations of round the world racers and adventurers, the six skippers ready to take on the Arkéa Ultim Challenge – Brest on January 7 are a new, different breed. Physically most are fitter and stronger than those who preceded them. Bear in mind each manoeuver is usually nearly 45 minutes of hard, physical work, not least requiring long periods at max effort on the pedestal winch.  


The “coffee grinder” is what Armel Le Cléac’h (Maxi Banque Populaire XI) calls “the hand bike.” The heart rate climbs, the arms, shoulders, chest and lower back are fully engaged and the beads of sweat very quickly become rivers of perspiration.

“I keep up a level of exercise so that we prepare all throughout the year, to just be able to maintain that level of sustained power output endurance and a good recovery,” says Le Cléac’h, skipper of Banque Populaire.

“It’s not really about all out power, max work rate like on an inshore grand prix boat, but it requires really excellent cardio, and core strength too.” He says

“In fact, it’s more like a trail run rather than a sprint,” adds Charles Caudrelier (Edmond de Rothschild). He ensures he does at least three physical preparation sessions per week and among them enjoys boxing, climbing, board sports, running and cycling. And in his build up Armel Le Cléac’h says he has worked out almost every day with swimming sessions, time in the weights gym or out on the bike.

Anthony Marchand (Actual Ultim 3) is mainly happy to just ensure he does a lot of water sports, regularly going kiting, winging, and surfing. “These allow you to work your cardio,” he says. “All your muscles and I like that it’s always in the same watery environment!”

At the same time everyone has also really focused on working on mental strength.

“If we have to deal well with the many different types of physical challenge that this race will bring, the mental dimension is almost more important,” says Tom Laperche (SVR-Lazartigue). “We just can’t overlook the mental demands of these boats and the impact that this stress can have over time.”

“The mental aspect is undoubtedly actually more valuable than the physical tests on this race,” agrees Charles Caudrelier.

“It’s not a race, it’s an expedition,” says Thomas Coville, skipper of Sodebo Ultim 3. Coville is the skipper who has completed the most round-the-world passages on a multihull—competing in five, completed the loop three times and was once the record holder around the world (49 days and 3 hours in 2016).

“We need to find the right approach to sustain the right level on this unique and singular challenge,” he says. “There is a very big psychological dimension. We are constantly seeking to work at or near our limits, to go beyond normal effort levels despite the accumulated lack of sleep, the risk, the frustrations, the anxiety, the ice.”

For Coville, the Arkea Ultim Challenge goes far beyond the scope of a sporting competition. “I like to tell myself that we are not racing but that we are on a tough expedition. There are days when you burst into tears, days when you scream, days when you go crazy. You end up being a mix between euphoria, exhaustion and elation.”

“What I’m looking for is a good level of balance” says Le Cléac’h. Yet all the skippers have their methods. Charles Caudrelier and Tom Laperche work with mental coaches. Caudrelier, the Edmond de Rothschild skipper, says, “with my physical trainer, I am very Cartesian, very numbers driven. We talk about fatigue, recovery, nutrition. And, of course, there are the times when you are exhausted without realizing that you are in the red zone.”

Laperche adds: “We know that there will be moments of euphoria, moments that are really challenging on the morale, so we work out how to manage this and to smooth out these emotions as much as possible to create the best possible performance.”

There are also those who do not have a mental trainer. This is the case with Anthony Marchand and Armel Le Cléac’h. Marchand says, “If you’re doing your second round the world you’ve seen the problems, you know what to focus on. Me, I’m a rookie: I go in ready to fight and obviously I ask myself fewer questions.” And blessed with so much experience, Armel Le Cléac’h prefers to focus on preparation. He wants to enjoy a level of confidence because he has mastered everything that makes up the pre-race preparations. “I try to tick all the boxes before the start,” he admits. “Above all what I am looking for is a balance in physical and technical preparations, in terms of recovery as well.”

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Alive, owned by Phillip Turner and skippered by Duncan Hine, is the 2023 overall winner of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. The Reichel/Pugh 66 arrived in Hobart to become only the second Tasmanian boat to have their name inscribed on the legendary Tattersall Cup not once, but twice.

“We’ve proved it wasn’t a fluke by winning it twice, so going into the history books I suppose is quite an honor,” commented Hine on his second overall win on this boat in five years, in typical understated fashion.

Preparation, experience and local knowledge proved to be invaluable for the winning crew, as conditions along the 628-nautical mile course pushed the smaller boats in particular to their limit.

Alive chose the same strategy as the maxis at the front of the fleet and headed east out of the Sydney heads, aiming to get around the worst of the storm fronts and harness the best of the easterly wind, a decision not without its concerns for skipper Hine.

“It was tricky, when you’re more than 100 miles east of the rhumb line and still going away from land and you’re going through the transition and thinking ‘is it ever going to come back to the way it was forecast’ – well, on one of the models.”

Like many of the 103 boats facing this arduous adventure, Alive had its share of breakages to contend with. “We were one sail down and it was the best sail for this race, we blew it out on the first day, but we hung on to URM. If we’d had that jib top we might have actually been in front of her.”

After 48 hours of battling the elements and shadowing their closest rivals on URM Group, as has often been the case in the near 80-year history of the event, the final 10 miles up Hobart’s Derwent River would decide the ultimate winner of this offshore epic.

“We didn’t realize URM was in the river, we actually thought she’d finished, and we saw her and thought, there it is. I knew what was going on and that the westerly weather pattern would replace the southerly that they had coming down the river. So, the hole that they fell into is well-known to any Hobartian sailor.”

Illustrating the importance of impeccable preparation and a wealth of experience, Alive’s navigator Adrienne Cahalan, a former Australian yachtswoman of the year and now on her 31st Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, had a plan from the start, and it was a good one.

“We stuck to our strategy. You try to make as many decisions as you can before you leave the dock. But in this race particularly, there were a lot of challenging scenarios, things were changing out there. But I was lucky to work with Stu Bannatyne and Gavin Brady, who’d done many around the world races. And we’d talked about it beforehand and we went and executed it, and it paid off.”

The post Alive Sails to Another Sydney Hobart Race Win appeared first on Sailing World.

Hailing from Geneva, where she started sailing with her parents as a child, 36-year-old Justine Mettraux is something of an enigma. You won’t find her talking herself up or striking a pose for the cameras. She’s an athlete who manages—in this era of sponsor-driven exposure and social media—to maintain a relatively low profile.

But her record speaks for itself. Mettraux was the first female sailor to finish on the podium in the series class in the Mini Transat, when finishing second in 2013. She was part of the Team SCA crew in the Volvo Ocean Race in 2014-15, then part of the winning Dongfeng Race Team in 2017-18. Most recently, she has been a key member of the victorious 11th Hour Racing Team in the first IMOCA Ocean Race.

Mettraux has also achieved impressive results in the Solitaire du Figaro solo championship—she was seventh in 2017—and is now a force in the upper reaches of the IMOCA fleet at the helm of Jérémie Beyou’s former Charal 1. Now rebranded in the colors of her longtime sponsor TeamWork, Mettraux finished seventh in the 2018-vintage VPLP-designed foiler in the 2022 Route du Rhum. The next big challenge is the 2024 Vendée Globe, in which a top-five finish is by no means out of the question.

So, who is Mettraux? What is making her the most competitive female sailor in this area of the sport? And what attributes does she have that make her so effective? Simon Fisher, the veteran British navigator with the 11th Hour Racing Team who sailed doublehanded with Mettraux during the 2021 season and again as part of the crew in The Ocean Race, knows her as well as anyone.

He says the woman he refers to as “Juju the Machine” is deceptive. “When you first meet Juju, she is quite shy, but underneath that exterior is actually a fierce and determined competitor, and I’ve certainly seen that sailing with her both crewed and doublehanded,” he says.

Fisher reckons there are few in the sport who are more committed to their chosen calling than Mettraux. “We call her ‘the Machine’ because we are pretty sure she thinks about sailing almost 24 hours a day,” he says. “And certainly, when everyone else is thinking about a day off, she will be the one thinking about getting back out there. She’s got an incredible appetite for our sport. She’s incredibly focused on it and, based on her level of commitment, I am sure she will put together a great Vendée Globe campaign.”

All who have sailed or trained with her mention Mettraux’s methodical and thorough approach to learning and racing. She is famous for taking notes throughout her races and training camps, notes that she stores away and uses in race debriefs and to remind her of settings and techniques that otherwise would be forgotten.

Her rival female IMOCA skipper, Pip Hare, remembers being on a training course with Mettraux in Brittany in the buildup to the Mini in 2012. She paints a picture of a hard-­working athlete determined not to miss a thing. “From the first moment of meeting her, you could see that Justine is a really serious person,” Hare recalls. “There was no question at all, she was there to absorb everything. In everything that we did, she was meticulous. She asked questions in the debriefs, and it was always Justine leading the questioning. I remember her taking heaps and heaps of notes. Her attention to detail was unbelievable. And on the water, I really rate her—she is a phenomenal sailor.”

Tenacity, stamina and determination are all qualities that get mentioned when people talk about Mettraux. Fisher says her capacity for hard work on a boat is endless. “I always tease her because she loves stacking—she’ll take any opportunity to move a few hundred kilos of kit around the boat if she thinks it’s going to improve performance, for however brief a period of time. She’s incredibly hard-working,” he says.

Mettraux is also noted for keeping her emotions in check, and she rarely, if ever, gives much away. Friends say that should not be mistaken for a coldness in her personality and talk of a warm and caring character. Mettraux herself says keeping a level emotional state is part of the winning game. “As a solo sailor, when you do offshore races, you go through highs and lows,” she says. “You have to keep a steady mood all the time. For sure there are tough moments or there are good moments, but it is all about consistency, and managing my emotions helps me to focus more on performance.”

Tenacity, stamina and determination are all qualities that get mentioned when people talk about Justine Mettraux. 

Mettraux comes from a remarkable family. She has four siblings, all of whom are top-class professionals in the sport. Her brother Bryan sails on the Alinghi America’s Cup boat, her sister Elodie-Jane has sailed in two Ocean Races, and sister Laurane is on the Swiss SailGP team. They owe their passion for the sport to their parents—her father is a retired policeman; her mother worked in the Swiss post office—who bought a cruising boat that they enjoyed on Lake Geneva as kids.

There was no racing. “They never pushed us,” Mettraux says, speaking in fluent English, a language she delivers in a rapid-fire staccato. “They were really not into competition. So that’s maybe why we all do that because it was a personal choice for each of us. Although they didn’t plan it, they are happy to see we can enjoy our passion and that we are in good shape and enjoy what we do.”

Mettraux started sailing on her own at 16, inspired by Ellen MacArthur, whose first book she bought and devoured. For almost 10 years she served her apprenticeship, training with Swiss sailing camps, learning to be a skipper and how to manage a boat. In 2009, she joined Donna Bertarelli’s D35 Ladycat Racing on Lake Geneva, and the visibility gained from that led to her Mini Transat campaign.

When talking about motivation, Mettraux, who trained as a school teacher, always mentions performance. The level of it is what obsesses her, and improving it is a constant goal. “I put a lot of energy into my projects, always trying to keep improving, to improve my performance,” she says. “That’s what motivates me.”

These days, the big goal is the Vendée Globe, and Mettraux is approaching it with modest ambitions. “My goal is to finish it, for sure,” she says. “I don’t have a new boat, but I have a good second-generation one, so yes, I have the opportunity to do well. It is hard to look for a certain result in the Vendée Globe; you have to give it your best, try to sail a good track, keep the boat in one piece, and try to be happy with the way you sailed. If you do all that, then I think you will have a good result.”

A striking feature of her career has been the long relationship with her sponsor, which started with the Mini campaign and has continued ever since. TeamWork is a Swiss management consulting and data analysis company whose CEO, Philippe Rey-Gorrez, and his wife have become close friends of Mettraux. She is not the only sailor or athlete the company sponsors, but the way TeamWork has stayed with her and backed her successively through Figaro sailing, then Class40s and now the top echelon in IMOCA tells you all you need to know about her qualities as an individual.

“It is really a relationship based on trust,” Mettraux says. “I was 25 when I started with them, so I was a lot younger. But they always thought I was doing my best in my projects, trying to work seriously. It has always been transparent in terms of how the budgets are managed and where the money is going. And over the years, it has become a really friendly relationship, or a family relationship, and that is how they manage their projects in general.”

Mettraux says she is the sort of person who finds it hard to sit still. When not sailing, she enjoys the outdoors, wingfoiling, surfing or biking. Indoors, she takes refuge in novels on the rare occasions when she finds time away from the sea. But the dream now is all about the Vendée. “That’s the big goal for me, for sure,” she says.

A lot of people will be watching to see how she gets on, not only on the course around the world, but also in the big IMOCA races that lead up to it, including this fall’s doublehanded Transat Jacques Vabre. One person who has full confidence in Mettraux is another of her crewmates from the 11th Hour Racing Team, the impressive Italian sailor Francesca Clapcich, who has trained with Mettraux and raced in The Ocean Race in-port series alongside her.

She says the Swiss sailor has the mental and physical toughness to do well on the global course. “I think her work ethic got her to where she is now,” Clapcich says. “In a few months, she will go around the world by herself, and she has absolutely 100 percent got the capacity to do it and do it really well. And that doesn’t come for free. It comes with a lot of work and a lot of perseverance.”

The post Justine The Machine appeared first on Sailing World.

My current project is a ­partnership in a Sunfast 3300, a 33-foot doublehanded offshore boat. Our intention is to sail the best races in Europe over the next few years, and while there are clusters of similar doublehanded boats in England, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia, the cream of the crop is racing in France. 

The French have been playing this game for a long time, so we decided to enter the springtime Spi Ouest Regatta in La Trinite sur Mer. This is one of the biggest regattas in the world, with over 460 boats. The format is short coastal races in the Bay of Quiberon, a perfect opportunity for my doubles partner, Alyosha Strum-Palerm, and I to test our skills. Using this regatta, we figured we can see where we need to improve in advance of our big test this summer, the IRC Doublehanded European Championship in July.

Our goals for the regatta were to work on boatspeed, refine our sail crossovers, work on communication and division of responsibility, solidify our boathandling, and enjoy racing in an incredible event in France.

Starting

We did not practice starting, and during the event, that was our weakest area. We had three mediocre starts, one of which we were barely OCS, and one decent start. In retrospect, we should’ve practiced more, and started more in the center of the line. In tight inshore racing, with 58 ­similar-speed boats, the start is critical. With better starts, we could have won the regatta.

Upwind tactics

Our play calling was below average, especially early in each of the beats. The correct side was not obvious, and we would typically go the wrong way, then figure it out and gain some back at the top of each beat. But this is an area for improvement. In some instances, a little more current research could have informed us; in other cases, we should have taken a smaller early loss to stay in touch with the leaders. It was another good lesson.

Upwind speed

Our pace was decent in over 10 knots, but not so good in lighter air. We made some small changes to the rig tune before the event, which I think were positive. We learned to use the J1.5 jib higher into the range than we thought we could, say 14 knots true windspeed, with more halyard and lead pushed outboard for the upper range. We also had good success with the J2 in 15 to 20 TWS and learned the boat likes a pretty powerful jib. A heel angle of 18 to 20 degrees seemed to be a good target upwind and reaching. In light air, it’s hard to induce enough heel in this boat, so I learned to trim the main tighter in less than 10 TWS, which resulted in more heel and power.

Boathandling

Our ­handling was good, among the best in the fleet, which means our training back home in Seattle paid off. It was also an advantage at times to have an asymmetric spinnaker, while many boats had a symmetric. Alyosha also did a good job of predicting the correct sail for the next leg, which is not always easy with the random legs and strong current.

One area we need to improve is tacking. In stronger wind, we lost a lot versus the ­single-backstay boats because it took us a long time to get to full backstay tension. I started to dump the main fine-tune out of the tack instead of the traveler only, and I think that was an improvement. The challenge for us is that the jib sheet and the runner use the same winch, so now we want to try a slightly different jib-tacking technique: Cast off all wraps as the boat is turning, tail to hand tight through the self-tailer, then immediately go runner-up, then jib final trim.

Reaching and downwind tactics

This was a real strength for us. We picked the right side on the runs and played the shifts well, and we got clear air and stuck to the rhumbline on the reaches. It’s important for the helm to know the leg compass angle because you often could not see the next mark.

Reaching and downwind speed

We always passed boats reaching and running. It’s partly because our kites are bigger and our hull form is good for downwind sailing, but I think we have fast downwind sails, and we have a good feel for the right angles and trim.

Sail crossovers

We used the masthead code zero exclusively, using no tweaker most of the time. The A1.5 is good for 3 to 12 knots, and the A2 for 8 to 25 knots. The A2 was surprisingly good for tight reaching in moderate air, up to 105 TWA. We used the spinnaker staysail in 10-plus knots when running and 8-plus knots when reaching.

Weight placement

We went max forward with the sails and gear in less than 10 knots, then centered until about 15 knots, and put more in the stern above 15, especially reaching. In light air, if one tack is favored, it might be worth putting the weight to leeward rather than max forward to try to induce heel.

We ended up 14th of 58 with an OCS, 3, 4, 3. We would have been fourth in the first race, which would have been 4, 3, 4, 3, or 14 points. The winner had 12 points, so we are definitely in the game. The main areas to improve from this event are starting, early leg tactics and light air upwind. The areas we don’t know about yet are big-picture tactics and endurance and energy management.

It’s rewarding to look back on how many goals we were able to focus on with measured success. We raced bow to bow with good teams in a large competitive fleet of boats, made French friends, and soaked up the atmosphere of the largest multi­class regatta in France. We had a lot of fun, and we are excited about our future. It was definitely worth it, and we hope to return next year. Voila!

The post Prepping For the Big Regatta appeared first on Sailing World.

Three hours after the start of the Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race, Cole Brauer decides to switch up the game plan. “We can’t race the same way as everyone else because we don’t have a full crew,” she vents. “I have to remind myself of that.”

For the past 20 miles, Brauer and her teammate, Cat Chimney, have been short-tacking the Class40 First Light down the Miami coast to avoid the Gulf Stream, which travels north at 4 knots. With a southeasterly breeze building offshore, they must balance current relief with stronger wind offshore, choosing when to tack toward the beach and when to head out for fresh breeze. But with every tack, the competition increases their lead. Class40s aren’t known for stellar upwind speed, and the fact that Brauer and Chimney are doublehanding only makes the maneuvers slower.

“The conditions aren’t the same for everyone all the time,” Chimney responds. “I’m happy for a split here if that’s what you want to do.”

This is the duo’s first race together, and they are still getting a feel for their roles on the boat. Before today, the two had cultivated a strong professional friendship racing against each other in Class40s, often helping each other fix things before the starts of big races. A few weeks before the Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race, the Magenta Project sent them to a training session on the Canadian Ocean Racing Team’s IMOCA 60, and they instantly hit it off as teammates, deciding then and there to do more doublehanded racing together.

“All right, let’s go for a tack,” Brauer says. “We’re not going to gain by following.”

They set up at the back of the boat, with Brauer breaking the jib from her seat at the helm and Chimney trimming the new sheet on the other side.

“OK, autopilot is off,” Brauer says, ­clicking the remote-control puck strung around her neck.

“Copy.”

“Three, two, one, tacking.”

The boat’s bow swings through the breeze, and soon enough they’re headed out to sea. “Nice tack, Cat,” Brauer says, settling the boat onto its new heading.

For Brauer, this race is the latest development in a relatively short career in pro sailing. At 100 pounds and 5-foot-nothing, Brauer is a small person with big aspirations, yet what she lacks in size she makes up for in grit. Beginning as a boat captain, the 28-year-old has become a fixture on various sailing circuits, from distance racing to Etchells, J/70s and Melges 24s. In some ways, she’s a ­typical sailing bum, living in a built-out van so she can go where the wind and the gigs take her. Her career has already had many twists and turns, and she has big plans.

Brauer came late to the sport as a walk-on crew at the University of Hawaii. “I remember when I got to that first practice, people were surprised I was a girl because of my first name,” she says. “By then I was used to it, though. People still think I’m a boy if they haven’t met me in person. It’s common in this business.”

After graduating as a three-time scholar athlete with a degree in food science with a focus in medicine, medical school seemed like a logical next step. But the 2018 Pacific Cup sent her down a different path. “It was my first big offshore race,” Brauer says, “and when we got within 25 miles of shore, I got a blip of cell service, called my mom, and told her I wasn’t going to med school. I was going to go sailing instead.”

Her parents were less than stoked about their daughter abandoning a medical career to bum around on boats, but Brauer stuck to her decision, spending the year after graduation as a detailer, scrubbing teak with toothbrushes and making little money for it. “I was kind of on the struggle bus,” she says. “I could barely pay rent.”

She moved back to her home port in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, to search for sailing jobs. She was coaching to get by when she met a boat captain named Tim Fetsch, who initially wanted nothing to do with her when she asked for an apprenticeship.

“I convinced him by telling him I was small. I fit into tiny spaces, and I’d do absolutely anything to get a job,” she says. After a few weeks of steady badgering, Fetsch relented and gave her a job working on a Swan 42, her first bit of real nipper work. She took up every task thrown her way, cleaning bilges so well you could eat off them, whatever she had to do to make sure she was going to have a job the next day.

Fetsch worked for the US Merchant Marine Academy Sailing Foundation, where he managed about a dozen boats for charters and racing. Brauer started going up and down the East Coast doing deliveries on random boats, from Melges 32s to 80-foot racer-cruisers. “Usually when you’re a nipper, you’re only working on one boat under one captain,” Brauer says. “And now I was working under one boat captain, but we had a bunch of boats that we were working on.”

Fetsch taught her everything she knows, from engines to electrical. He made her install her first 110-volt outlet on a Swan 66. He taught her to see every day as a tryout and to never get too comfortable in her position. “He was brutal,” Brauer says. “But he made sure I stayed honest, made sure I worked hard and never got cocky. Looking back, Tim is the best thing that’s happened to my career. I still use those lessons today.”

Brauer worked for Fetsch for a year and a half. One day, they were walking through New England Boatworks in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, when Brauer spotted a sorry-­looking Classe Mini 6.50 sitting on a trailer beneath a tarp in the boatyard. By then she’d been itching to get into singlehanded racing. She’d done some doublehanded offshore sailing in Hawaii, and she’d been doing doublehanded deliveries with Fetsch, but she wanted to take things to the next level. The Mini turned out to be a Foundation-owned boat, so she asked Fetsch if she could fix it up and campaign it.

Once again, he brushed her off, but Brauer remained persistent. Eventually, she finagled a deal with Warrior Sailing, also run through the USMMA Sailing Foundation, to refit the boat to take veterans out to learn the ropes of offshore sailing. “I don’t know if [the people at the foundation] completely believed I could do it,” Brauer says. “But they were like, ‘We’ll give her this boat and see how she does. She’ll probably give up eventually.’”

But Brauer didn’t give up. By then she’d started to have this insane idea. No American woman has ever raced singlehanded around the world, and she began to think she could be the first. “I get into a rhythm when I’m singlehanding,” Brauer says. “Everything just flows, and it works. I feel the boat, and the boat feels me. We kind of work as one, so I’m never really alone because I have the boat there.”

Eventually, she got the Mini completely refit and ready to do some serious offshore racing. But two weeks before the 2019 Bermuda 1-2, the foundation pulled its support, even though Brauer had paid the registration. “That absolutely crushed me,” she says. “I ended up stepping away from the boat after that.”

As fate would have it, she’d met Mike Hennessey on the dock earlier that season. Hennessey owned a Class40, Dragon, and Brauer started doing deliveries for him when his boat captain quit. Straight away, she badgered him for the job. “I could tell that Mike didn’t want me to take the job at first. I was 24, and I was a girl, and I was small. All these boat captains were big, 250-pound dudes in their 30s.”

Like others before him, Hennessy relented, and the two have been working together ever since. That isn’t to say it’s been an easy ride, however.

There’s a special kind of romance attached to shorthanded ocean racers, often viewed as brawny lone-wolf cowboy types who, for whatever reason, choose to battle their demons alone on the ocean rather than face them on land like the rest of us. Brauer doesn’t fit this mold. She’s good with people, even though she’s better with boats. She isn’t brawny by any means, and in cases where some men might force a repair or rigging job with brute strength, Brauer makes better use of her brain.

“You’re always going to have a tool, even if it’s the wrong tool,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll use a winch handle instead of a screwdriver if I have to.”

She plans her day to the minute, not the hour, and every task she does has a procedure, usually sketched out in long and detailed lists. Her life is not about gazing at sunsets or counting shooting stars, but about engines and electrical, and hauling sails around with halyards because she isn’t physically strong enough to do it by hand. It’s about climbing into the rudder compartment when the autopilot jams and pressing her back against the bulkhead to wriggle loose the ram from the tiller bar while the boat lays over with the kite still up, then having to go back on deck and wrangle in the pieces of a freshly broken tack clutch without getting her teeth knocked in. It’s about sitting in a harness with her legs falling asleep because she has a job to do up the mast, fighting the urge to let herself off the hook and go back down because there’s no shot she’s climbing back up to do it later, not when it’s blowing 20 knots with zero-degree temperatures. It’s about knowing that whatever comes her way, no one is there to save her if she fails.

All these lessons came into use when Brauer and Hennessy lost their rig in the 2022 Caribbean 600. They’d installed brand-new rigging before completing the eight-day delivery to Antigua, but “the ­problem with brand-new equipment is you’re going to have teething pains,” Brauer says. “It’s the same with a brand-new engine. You have to stop every few miles and make sure everything is working properly. You trust but verify, and in this case, I didn’t verify.”

After rounding St. Barts during the race, Brauer went below to rest before she planned to hoist the Code 5. She thought they’d hit a weird wave when Hennessy began yelling, “Rig down, rig down!” Before going below, the sun was behind the mainsail, but when she glanced topside, the shade had completely vanished. When she came up, the rig had toppled over to one side. They lashed the boom to the boat and tried to get the main down, but Class40 mains have luff cars and full-length ­battens. The only way they could have taken it off would have been to get in the water and unwind the battens. Jumping into the ocean was not an option, and the sound of carbon and fiberglass crunching became debilitating. Brauer had never heard anything like it, and to this day, it is the worst sound she’s ever heard. When one of the winches they were using to keep the mast in the boat started pulling off the deck, they knew they were running low on options.

“Mike and I made the quick decision that we were going to lose the rig,” Brauer says.

The two began cutting halyards and unpinning side stays, trying to save anything they could salvage. “I had gone over my safety procedures for so long,” Brauer says, “so I knew where the bolt cutters were. I knew where the knives were.”

Brauer had to hit the last turnbuckle with a hammer when it got to the final thread, and after cutting more lines, they picked everything up and threw it overboard.

They’ve rebounded in a big way, however. Hennessy ended up replacing everything and getting Dragon race-ready before deciding to build a brand-new Class40 to race in France this summer. He sold Dragon to Frederick K.W. Day, owner of the Class40 Longbow, who renamed the boat First Light. Day still allows Brauer to race it as their sparring partner, with the Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race serving as their first outing together.

By the time Brauer and Chimney reach the finish, the sun has been up for two hours. The two didn’t end up finishing as strong as they’d hoped, but the main goal for this race was to arrive in one piece and see how they vibe as a team. In that sense, the test was successful, and morale is high as they tie First Light to the dock.

“What Cole is doing is really unique for her age,” says Chimney, who is eight years her senior. “She’s come into this at a really important time for women in sailing, and she deserves a lot of respect for leveraging it the way she has. These opportunities weren’t available or the culture wasn’t right when I was her age doing similar things.

“Everybody navigates pro sailing in ­different ways,” Chimney continues. “There’s no science behind it. It’s not like you go to college for four years and come out with a career-track job. It’s all about putting yourself in the right place with the right people and doing the best you can, and I think Cole is crushing it in that sense.”

Although she’s got some sweet gigs for the time being, Brauer has her mind set on a solo circumnavigation. She has a designer in mind to one day build an IMOCA 60 to fit her size, and in the meantime, she’ll use the Class40to rack up miles. She will continue to ignore those who doubt her because deep down, only she knows what she’s capable of. She could have taken a different path, could have gone to medical school and worked a nine-to-five, could have lived in a house instead of a van. But there’s a moment she is constantly pursuing, a moment she relishes. It’s those first few seconds after making the correct decision to do a sail change, when the wind does what it’s supposed to and the boat picks up speed, when the sail fills and the autopilot catches and the hull surfs down a wave. This is the feeling she’s chasing. This is the place she calls home, and home is wherever the wind and determination will take her.

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For sailing fans visiting from ­outside France, the Route du Rhum is a cultural shock, barely to be believed even once seen. It is France’s oldest singlehanded race, first held in 1978, and run every four years from St. Malo in northern France 3,500 miles across the North Atlantic to Guadeloupe. The fleet of 138 boats that assembled for the start in November 2022 was incredible, with an estimated value of 260 million euros—from the implausible 100-foot Ultime trimarans to a record fleet of 38 IMOCA 60s and a similarly impressive fleet of 55 Class40s. Dock sides are crammed with spectators, many hoping to catch a glimpse of the top skippers—some are genuine sports stars. Had the 2022 start not been delayed, French President Emmanuel Macron was to have attended. It’s that much of a big deal.

In the days and hours before the Route du Rhum started, more than 1 million people passed through its race village in St. Malo. In this environment, even non-French amateurs, such as the two US Class40 skippers, Alex Mehran and Greg Leonard, gained celebrity status with relentless autograph signing, selfies with fans and press interviews. Usually outshone by the bigger, higher-profile boats, the Class40 is the most successful 40-footer of all time. While the Farr 40 never topped more than 40 boats at a world championship, this is the second Route du Rhum in which more than 50 participated. To date, 192 Class40 hull numbers have been allocated.

While “Open 40s” once competed in the OSTAR and Around Alone, the Class40 came about independently. Born in France in the early 2000s, two designs defined the class: the Pogo 40 and the Jumbo 40. But the success and longevity of the Class40 is due to its highly constrictive box rule, drafted by a group that includes wise French sailor and journalist Patrice Carpentier, which remains robust 18 years on.

The box rule’s basic parameters are a maximum length overall of 39 feet, 11 inches; max beam of 14 feet, 9 inches; draft of 9 feet, 10 inches; average freeboard of 3 feet, 6 inches; max mast height of 62 feet, 4 inches; max working sail area of 1,238 square feet; minimum displacement at 10,097 pounds; and max water ballast of 1,653 pounds per side. Most brutal are the materials limitations: Carbon fiber, aramid, honeycomb cores and pre-preg resin are forbidden from the construction of the hull, deck, interior structure and fittings; go down below on one and, joyously, thanks to the GRP construction, it is not coffin black.

Carbon fiber is permitted for the mast, boom and ­bowsprit, while standing rigging must be steel rod. Sails are limited to eight, and all but two and the heavy-weather jib must be polyester and nylon. A single fixed keel and as many as two rudders are permitted, but daggerboards and foils are banned, as are canting, rotating masts, mast jacks, and adjustable or removable forestays. However, complex kick-up rudders are permitted. (Although their effectiveness to kick up in a collision is allegedly dubious.) Over the years, displacement and average freeboard have slightly reduced, but the biggest rule amendment has limited “how scow” Class40 hull shapes can be. While the latest foiling Protos in the Classe Mini (the “flying bathtubs”) are fully flat-bowed, Class40 has two max beam limits just short of the bow to prevent this. Naturally, costs have risen, but the rule has successfully limited them; today, a top Class40 costs 700,000 to 800,000 euros.

Those sailing the Class40s in the early days were a mix of pros and amateurs. Today professionals on sponsored boats are the majority. As for aspirant French pro sailors, the Class40 has become a significant stepping stone between from the Classe Mini and Figaro circuits to the IMOCA.

As skipper of Groupe SNEF, leading Mini and Figaro skipper Xavier Macaire says: “The transatlantic races like this [Route du Rhum] are very interesting to us, and the boat is not very expensive. The Class40 is easy to maintain and prepare, and is not a complicated boat like an IMOCA where you need 12 guys. With this, you need two or three, not full time. It is an easy, fast boat.”

With more top pros like Macaire joining, 30 new Class40s have been launched in the last four-year cycle. The most recent Route du Rhum podium, for example, comprised two-time Solitaire du Figaro winner Yoann Richomme (Paprec Arkea) and Mini Transat winners Corentin Douguet (Queguiner-Innoveo) and Ambrogio Beccaria (Allagrande Pirelli) of Italy.

Of the French classes, the Class40 and the Mini remain the most cosmopolitan, with entries from other European countries, notably Italy at present, while the United States, Australia and South Africa were also represented in the Route du Rhum. Far from being put off by the pro element, Americans Alex Mehran and Greg Leonard were thrilled to be on the same starting line. “It is such a privilege to race against some of the top offshore sailors in the world,” says Leonard, who hails from Florida. “It is like playing football against a first team in the NFL—it is that level of quality. There are not that many sports you can do that in.”

Both American skippers came to the Route du Rhum from similar paths. With his Mach 40.3 Kite, Leonard is a professional economist originally from Texas. He campaigned a J/120 for many years with his remarkable son Hannes, who raced his first doublehanded overnighter with his father at age 13. Now 18 and with thousands of race miles under his belt, both in the US and Europe, he is a Class40 expert. For his father, the Route du Rhum was his first singlehanded race.

Over the years, several top shorthanded sailors, notably British Vendée Globe skippers Mike Golding and Miranda Merron, have raced with him, also coaching him. He is very enthusiastic about the Class40: “They are beautiful boats, such fun to sail. When we delivered her to St. Malo, we had 28 to 40 knots just aft of the beam, and we just hung in the low 20s boatspeed, and it was finger-light steering.”

Mehran skippers Polka Dot, which has the perfect pedigree, being Yoann Richomme’s 2018 Route du Rhum winner—a Lift V1 design. Growing up as part of the St. Francis YC Laser squad and subsequently a Brown collegiate sailor, he met Welsh Class40 designer Merfyn Owen in 2009 and raced one of his designs. Remarkably, he won his first major singlehanded race, the 2009 Bermuda 1-2. He subsequently graduated to an Owen Clarke-designed Open 50, in which he set a record in 2012’s singlehanded Transpac. He then went off, had four kids, and developed his commercial real estate business before getting the itch once more last year. He competed ­doublehanded with Owen in the 2021 Transat Jacques Vabre on an old Class40, but as Mehran puts it, “We needed to get ­something scow.”

He too has been receiving coaching from Merron and Golding, among others. According to Mehran, one of the most difficult things to explain to those back home is less the offshore-racing fever that afflicts French fans, but that their skippers are not multimillionaires. Instead, they come from a wide age group and all have commercial backing to either buy a secondhand boat or—if they are higher-­profile, more accomplished or just plain lucky—build a new one. So, returning to the Route du Rhum podium, Paprec’s business is waste disposal (admittedly, its owner races his own Wally 107), Arkea is banking and insurance, Queguiner is building materials, Innoveo is an app-­development platform, and Pirelli makes tires (its CEO has a Wally 145).

Over the last two decades, the Class40s themselves have evolved, despite Draconian design limitations. What started as cruiser-racers with fitted-out interiors became racer-cruisers and are now refined pure racers. They may not be black inside, but the build quality of the latest-generation designs is of the highest ­standard, and it seems no longer possible to buy a cruiser-racer.

A delight of the Class40 is that no one designer is dominant; eight different designs make up the 30 boats built over the last four years. Pogo Structures, last of the original builders, is on its fourth version of its Pogo 40, the S4, designed by Emirates Team New Zealand’s naval architect, Guillaume Verdier (who also designed Structures’ scow-bowed flying Proto Mini).

The man who developed the first blunt-fronted scow Mini, David Raison, produced the Max40, built by JPS in La Trinité-sur-Mer. Also built by JPS are Sam Manuard designs—the Mach 40.4, such as the 2021 Transat Jacques Vabre winner Redman, skippered by Antoine Carpentier (nephew of the original rule’s writer), and now its evolution, the Mach 40.5, of which two competed in the Route du Rhum.

In 2020, VPLP made its first foray into the class with the Clak 40, built by Multiplast, of which four raced in the Route du Rhum, the top finisher being Martin le Pape’s Fondation Stargardt. Etienne Bertrand, another successful Mini designer, had two Cape Racing Scow 40s in the race, while Allagrande Pirelli, believed to be the most expensive of the latest crop and campaigned by last year’s Mini Transat winner, Ambrogio Beccaria, is an all-Italian affair designed by Gianluca Guelfi and built by Sangiorgio Marine Shipyard in Genoa.

However, after the recent Route du Rhum, ­nosing in front in the design race is Marc Lombard with his Lift V2s, of which seven were racing, including Yoann Richomme’s winner, Paprec Arkea. Lombard is one of the longest continuous players in the Class40, and has worked with Tunisian manufacturer Akilaria on its RC1, RC2 and RC3 models since 2006, of which 38 were built. His latest designs have been the Lift, introduced in 2016; Veedol-AIC, one example, took Richomme to his first Route du Rhum victory. The Lifts were custom-built with a hull and deck made by Gepeto in Lorient, but finished off by the V1D2 yard in Caen, and were more precisely engineered and built than the Akilarias. They were superseded this cycle by the Lift V2, the most popular of the new Class40s, with seven competing.

For Richomme, the Route du Rhum was a small distraction from having a new IMOCA built. He entered the Route du Rhum to defend his title and stay race-fit. If the first Lift was an early scow, the present one is at the limit, to the extent that it has a bump in the hull 2 meters aft from the bow at the limit of where the Class40 rule restricts the max beam to prevent such extreme scowness.

The scow bow provides more righting moment, but it also does interesting things to the boat’s hydrodynamics. “With a pointy bow, the keel is more angled and creates more drag,” explains Richomme, who is also a trained naval architect. “When a scow heels, the hull is almost parallel to the keel, so sometimes when we go over the waves, we can feel the keel shudder when it is producing lift. The chine is low and therefore very powerful, and when we heel, it makes for a very long waterline length. Also, we have very little rocker, whereas other [new] boats have a lot, which creates a lot of drag so they don’t accelerate so well when they heel.”

The Lift V2 “is a weapon reaching,” Richomme says. “We can hold the gennaker higher than we used to. Last time, I didn’t even take one. But with the power going up, so have the loads, and we are having problems with the hardware. I have broken two winches already.”

A downside of the big bow and straight chine is downwind, where the technique seems to be preventing the bow from immersing. Paprec Arkea is typically trimmed far aft, including the stack and the positioning of the 1,653 pounds of water ballast (most new boats have three tanks each side), while its engine is 19 inches farther aft, and the mast and keel 11 inches farther aft than they were on his previous boat. They are 77 pounds below the minimum weight, which Richomme admits may be too extreme—during training they broke a bulkhead.

Otherwise, their increased cockpit protection is most noticeable on all the new designs (although not to IMOCA degrees), while most have a central pit area with halyards fed aft from the mast down a tunnel running through the cabin. On Paprec Arkea, a pit winch is mounted just off the cockpit sole. With the main sheet and traveler lead there as well, Richomme can trim from inside the cabin.

Most extraordinary about the scows is how fast they are. Anglo-Frenchman Luke Berry, skipper of Lamotte-Module Création, graduated from a Manuard Mach 40.3 to a 40.5 this year and says: “It is a massive improvement both in speed and comfort. Reaching and downwind, we are 2 knots faster, which is extraordinary.”

The top speeds he has seen are 27 to 28 knots. “Most incredible are the average speeds—higher than 20.”

This effectively turns yacht-design theory on its head, with ­waterline length and hull speed having less effect upon defining the speed of a boat that spends so much time planing. On the Mach 40.5, the waterline is just 32 feet, with a length overall of 39 feet. Compared to the Lift V2, it has more rocker, supposedly making it better able to deal with waves.

Nowhere is the speed of the latest Class40s more apparent than where they finished in the Route du Rhum in comparison to the IMOCA fleet. Paprec Arkea arrived in Guadeloupe ahead of 13 IMOCAs, or one-third of the way up the IMOCA fleet. Richomme says he used to sail on a Lombard-designed IMOCA 20 years ago, when they would make 10.5 knots upwind. “On a reach, I reckon we are faster than them now. We can do 20 to 22 knots average speed.”

Ugly seems to be quick, but when it comes to the Class40, beauty is in the eye of the beholder of the trophy.

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