When Marty Kullman finally got home after orchestrating his weeklong Southernmost Regatta in Key West, his phone was lighting up. Texts, emails and phone messages, he says, poured in from people thanking him for pulling off the regatta. “It was off the charts how many people actually took the time to reach out and thank me for bringing us back to the best sailing we’ve done in a long time,” Kullman says. “That and the conditions we had were the highlights for me.”

The Southernmost got its start in 2021 as a getaway regatta for a small band of J/111 class owners. “That was a bit of a test run,” Kullman says. “There was a lot of connecting with city officials, the Navy, the Coast Guard and all sorts of people. Developing relationships with the right people was critical.”

Key to executing the regatta was keeping costs in check, Kullman adds. A big country music festival at the same time presented a pile of challenges with boat launching and housing, but in the end, 48 boats registered, spread across fleets of GL52s, J/111s, Melges 24s and J/70s, as well as a five-boat ORC division. Kullman was adamant the regatta should have a grassroots feel and only two races per day.

Basing operations and the nightly socials at the Galleon Marina, Kullman and his volunteer army delivered with the bare essentials. With the Omicron variant spiking (although you’d never know it on Duval, he says), there was no need to host big parties and secure city permits as in the past. “The socials started right away after sailing at the Galleon with Mount Gay Rum, there was a short awards thing outside at the Tiki Bar with the sunset, and then everyone could go on their way to team dinners or whatever. It worked out great.”

His edict for the racing itself was that it be fun, and he drove that point home numerous times to the many hard-charging professionals in attendance to keep the racing clean and easy. “We had one protest the entire week,” Kullman says. “That was between a couple of the GL52s, and they eventually worked it out between them. So, technically, no protests were heard.”

The list of naysayers is long, Kullman says, but after a week of what owners and crews agree was a classic Key West experience—proven by the explosion of in-your-face, look-at-what-you-missed social media posts—he’s ­committed to doing it again. And again.

With one running of the Southernmost under his belt, Kullman is unsure how he can continue to grow it, scale it and keep it on the down low, but “what we did is sustainable,” he says. “This is what sailing needs. If it’s the same next year, I’m sure everyone will be happy because it will be as successful, but we know already that there is strong interest from a lot of other classes. We will cap it for sure next year if we need to.”

He’ll do whatever it takes to get people excited about sailing, he says. And he’ll get back to it just as soon as his phone stops dinging. In the meantime, here’s what the winners have to say about their week of fun in the sun.

It had been about 20 years since David Team set foot in Key West with his sailing gear, but he fondly and easily recalls the glory days of Race Week, racing with his brother in the gigantic Melges 24 fleet of the time. Doing 20 knots in a dinghylike sportboat was a much different experience than the sleepy, light breezes of Newport Beach—an experience he says is seared into his memory.

But that was then and this is now, and this year Team showed up with his GL52, Vesper, which he’s been campaigning since 2018. He’s taken the program on the road over the last few years, competing on the Great Lakes and the East Coast, and when his fellow 52 owners all pushed to put the Southernmost on the calendar, how could he possibly say no?

With most of Vesper’s regular crew, led by all-star tactician Morgan Larson, they won five of 12 races in the five-boat fleet—not an easy task given the caliber of those in attendance. Team Vesper excelled in the big breeze of the first four days, even though conditions didn’t ­necessarily suit their boat.

“With our particular hull form, we ­actually do OK in the waves with the others, so we don’t mind it,” Team says. “Even though Vesper is a light-air boat, we were fast for the first couple of days, especially downwind.”

Good starts contributed to good ­finishes, he adds, and a lot of that was Larson’s guidance in the box. “Starting in these boats is a lot of work, and in some cases, it can almost be easier when it’s windy because the boats tend to separate a bit more,” Team says. “You have to stay a bit closer to your boatspeed so you don’t get yourself in trouble. The thing with this fleet is that no one holds back, so you can’t be late either.”

Perfect sailing conditions aside, Team’s personal highlight of the week was a bit of piracy on the final day: “The crew snuck beers on board,” he says. “That was a good way to end it.”

Bobby Julien, of Delray Beach, Florida, declares himself a “total newbie” to sailboat racing, but by the looks of his team’s scores at the Southernmost Regatta, you’d say he’s pulling your leg. But no, it’s true, he says. The last time he skippered a boat with a tiller, he was 13 years old. Julien can thank his three young’uns for his latest obsession. “My kids started racing six years ago, and after watching them and thinking about it for a few years, I finally decided to do it myself,” he says.

But how? And what boat?

He asked around, and all recommendations pointed to the J/70. He eventually found one in Houston, and Dingbat’s first team hire was Alec Anderson, who solidified a squad with Chris Waters upfront and pro trimmer Will Felder on the sheets. One day of practice is all Julien got before being thrown into the J/70 madness in Miami in early January. Then it was straight to Key West for outing No. 2, a much smaller fleet and an opportunity to work on his boathandling. After two days of practice, he was in the thick of it, rifling off wins in six of 10 races. Beginner’s luck, Julien says. But for a guy who had never raced in the big breeze and waves of Key West, he may be underselling his undiscovered talent.

“It was shifty and definitely not easy to steer in the first races,” Julien says. “It takes a lot of concentration, but it was so much fun. I’m so happy I’m back into sailing.”

With less traffic to contend with, they could focus on developing boatspeed and mechanics, and his confidence skyrocketed over five days. “As a new skipper, I was very tense and stressed on the tiller on the first day, and by the end of the week I was relaxing way more,” Julien says, “more confident through the tacks and jibes. It was ugly at the beginning, but that’s what I’m learning—the art of the turn.”

The relaxing vibe of Key West was also an opportunity for the 54-year-old real estate developer to take his mind off work and put it to something else. “Everyone was there to have a good time,” is the first-­timer’s takeaway. “It was awesome. In terms of location of a regatta, it was first-class. Great atmosphere—no complaints at all. The venue itself, I now know, is beautiful. The sailing is amazing.”

ORC Interlodge IV – Gwen Fragomen

Austin and Gwen Fragomen’s Interlodge sailing team rolled into Key West with not one, but two slick grand-prix boats: the GL52 for Austin and the Botin 44 for Gwen. The squad of top-shelf pros and their state-of-the-art hardware were no match for the rest of the smaller and much older ORC boats. Interlodge IV won nine of 10 races, losing the one by a mere 3 seconds on corrected time. Some would say it wasn’t fair, but for Olympic 49erFX sailor Stephanie Roble, the results didn’t really matter. It was the experience of a lifetime being part of a big program.

Roble drove the 44-footer for the first day, and for the rest of the week she helmed the starts, passing the wheel to Gwen for the remainder of the race. On the last day, Gwen helmed from start to finish, which Roble says was the team’s goal for the week. “She picked up everything so quickly,” Roble says, “so everyone was really stoked on that.”

But about that first windy day: “It was an amazing experience,” Roble says. “It was an absolute blast, and I really had to pinch myself that I was driving this beautiful boat with this incredible team around me. It was a super-cool moment.”

Differences between the tiller of a 49erFX and the carbon wheel of the big speed machine were many, Roble says, especially upwind: “There isn’t much feel to it with such a small rudder. Plus, I’m so used to feeling the wind on my face, and on the trapeze, you can feel everything. Plus, this boat wants to sail upwind at 25 degrees of heel angle—I’m more used to 1 to 2 degrees of windward or leeward heel—so that took some getting used to.”

Eventually, Roble ignored the instruments and sailed the boat as if it were a skiff. “The times when we weren’t going well was when I was looking at the instruments too much,” she says. “When I focused more on the heel—feeling things, looking at the water and listening for the puff calls—is when we started going better.”

The boat is an apparent-wind machine, just like her 49erFX, so there wasn’t too much adaptation once the big kite was set. “The technique is similar,” Roble says. Turn it up, load up the rudder and send it. But don’t get greedy. “Everything is about trying to find the edge, loading the boat and then releasing it,” she says. “And when you release it, you can really feel the acceleration. It’s sensational. I remember just trying to visualize myself in the 49er, being aggressive on the wheel to keep it trucking the whole time. It was so much fun. I was honored and grateful to be part of the program.”

Raza Mixta tactician Victor Diaz de Leon wasn’t doing his teammates any favors on the starting line of the talent-packed 17-boat Melges 24 fleet at the Southernmost. Too much time in the J/70 was messing with his timing. “I was setting us up too early on starboard,” says the J/70 world-­champion tactician (with Peter Duncan’s Relative Obscurity). “On the 70, you can sail those slow speeds because of the really fat keel, but the cord length on the 24’s keel is short, so when you set up too early, you slide sideways a lot. And then you’re at the mercy of others coming in from behind with speed.”

With average starts and decent pace upwind, Duncan, Diaz de Leon, Matt Pistay and Greiner Hobbs made their advances on the runs.

“It was so fun and dynamic with the waves downwind,” Diaz de Leon says. “With Erik’s trimming and Peter’s driving—that was a lot of our success because we made our money downwind with really kinetic and aggressive sailing.”

They opened their 10-race series with a third and second, but the next day they put up two wins, banking valuable points that would later come into play. “It was very shifty that day,” Diaz de Leon says. “I was able to pretty much nail the shifts with a bit of luck. I often find myself being too conservative on how much leverage I take. For the last two years I’ve consistently finished second or third, so I started thinking that I have to start trusting my gut a little bit more. That day, I thought there was more breeze on the left, and so I said, ‘Screw it, there’s more wind out left, and I’m not going to tack until we’re into it.’ I finally got it right.”

After being runner-up in Key West ­several times, Diaz de Leon was stoked with the win for his team. “This was one of my favorite regattas ever. The sailing was amazing; the water color, the wind, the conditions were money. When it stopped a few years ago, it was such a bummer, so I was so super-excited to be back.”

Every Sunday through the New England winter, Andrew Ward plunges into the Atlantic near his home on Shelter Island, New York. “My buddy from Sweden says it’s good for me,” he says. Invigorating as the cold shock may be, Ward is no fool. He knows the better place to take a dip in January is Key West, and that’s where he and his teammates on the J/111 Bravo found themselves scraping for every inch in the final race to win their division.

With Bill Hardesty calling tactics, Bravo won the regatta’s first two races, but then fell into a daily pattern of scoring one good race and one stinker. The
second-to-last race of the regatta was their worst—a DFL—which left them facing a complex scenario going into the final one-race day. In order to beat Ian Hill’s Sitella, they had to finish ahead, with one boat between them.

“We went out early—Bill ­suggested it because our worst races were in light air,” Ward says. “So, we went out and messed around with the rig for a bit, and loosened it to power it up a little better.”

As the helmsman, Ward doesn’t remember much of the final race. He was doing his job keeping his eyes glued to the telltales. Only on the final beat, with the course shortened to an upwind finish, did he take a look around. He could see it was going down to the wire. Approaching the finish, Fireball was close behind them on starboard, but Sitella was on port, so it was hard to judge which boat was ahead. “We beat Sitella, but we had to watch it play out,” Ward says. “We were cheering on the Fireball guys, and only after they finished did my whole body just relax.”

Ward’s 90-year-old father, Sedgwick, who owns and races the boat in Shelter Island, watched it all play out from the sidelines, which made the win all the sweeter. “We’ve been racing this boat for 10 years, with a lot of seconds and thirds, so winning one was really nice, especially in Key West and especially with him watching,” Ward says. “All the firsts we got were awesome, but to go from eighth to winning in the last race—that’s my best Key West moment.”

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Ernesto Bertarelli is back. It’s been more than a decade since the Swiss billionaire’s Alinghi sailing team was whitewashed by Larry Ellison’s gigantic trimaran of BMW Oracle Racing in the two-race 33rd America’s Cup (Deed of Gift) Match in 2010. Having often teased his interest in returning to Cup competition over the past few years, Bertarelli and his core sailing team have instead watched from the sidelines while remaining active in the high-performance foiling scene in Europe. But this time, Alinghi isn’t going it alone—they’ve got a powerful and technical ­partner in Red Bull Racing.

While the modern-day Cup has been regularly compared with the high-stakes and high-tech world of Formula 1, which is now more popular than ever, the merging of these two formidable sporting teams finally makes the connection real. The sailing team will be led by Olympic medalist Hans Peter Steinacher and will sail under the burgee of the Société Nautique de Genève.

“While keeping the winning spirit that has always animated Alinghi, we want for this challenge to do something totally different, totally new, totally fresh,” Bertarelli said at the official team launch in late December 2021. “With Red Bull, we are equal partners in this venture. They will bring their competence, energy and strength in creating performing teams, and we bring our experience in sailing and winning the America’s Cup. Alinghi Red Bull Racing will shine a new light on the event.”

The Alinghi and Red Bull sailing teams have long been competitors in the GC32 Racing Tour and the Extreme Sailing Series, and Red Bull itself was involved in the early days of the Youth America’s Cup ­racing in AC45s in San Francisco, and again in Bermuda with the Foiling Generation, which Steinacher and Roman Hagara founded in 2015.

“The America’s Cup is—and by volumes—the most important sailing event in the world,” Steinacher said at the team’s announcement. “Alinghi’s experience and team spirit are unique in the sport of sailing. All of Red Bull is behind this project, and I doubt it could have been done with another team.”

In partnering with Alinghi, Red Bull also brings to the table the expertise of the Red Bull Advanced Technologies unit, which has helped Red Bull Racing tally five Formula 1 Drivers’ Championships. Team principal Christian Horner, who is now recognized globally thanks to Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive documentary series, has managed much higher and complex programs, as well as a few big egos. He’s intimate with the Red Bull juggernaut, which brings a next-level approach to every sporting endeavor it backs.

“We welcome Alinghi Red Bull Racing to the World of Red Bull, and our F1 team is looking forward to helping this new member of our family to succeed,” Horner says. “We will share our experiences, engineering tips, etc. It is a two-way cooperation. Formula 1 DNA will be in the boat.”

The America’s Cup is a technology race, which is won on the water with race strategy and tactics. Red Bull has demonstrated that time and time again in F1 and in many of the other sports it ­competes in.

Brad Butterworth, four‑time America’s Cup winner and Bertarelli’s tactician on board the Alinghi catamaran in 2010, says: “I have been with Alinghi for 20 years now, and getting into this new challenge with Red Bull is very exciting. The America’s Cup is a technology race, which is won on the water with race strategy and tactics. Red Bull has demonstrated that time and time again in F1 and in many of the other sports it ­competes in.”

Alinghi Red Bull Racing will also field teams in both the Women’s America’s Cup regatta as well as the Youth America’s Cup. “Growing the sport and its sailors has always been an important focus for both Red Bull and Alinghi,” Steinacher says. “So, Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s commitment to these regattas is strong, and I think it’s going to be inspiring to see these talents in action.”

The team will be based in Switzerland, with the core sailing team led by Alinghi’s GC32 co-skipper Arnaud Psarofaghis and mainsail trimmer Bryan Mettraux. According to the team announcement, the crew will be 100 percent nationals.

The addition of Alinghi Red Bull Racing brings the field of challengers to three, joining Ineos Britannia, the Challenger of Record, as well as American Magic, which in January announced that its challenge had been accepted by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. American Magic will once again sail for the New York YC.

“It is great to be back in the America’s Cup for AC37, and our pursuit of bringing the trophy home remains the same,” says Terry Hutchinson, president of sailing operations. “We’ve been preparing for AC37 from the moment our time came to an end at AC36, and are a deeply motivated group—all hands on deck—ready to compete and ready to win.”

In a team statement, American Magic’s principals, Doug DeVos and Hap Fauth, said they were committed to investing in technology, design, innovation and talent to build a winning team and franchise for the long haul.

“Doug and I are thrilled that our challenge was accepted,” Fauth says. “We have unfinished business and a hunger to get back on the water and compete. Our dedicated team partners, supporters and fans have become invested in our mission, and we are excited to represent them and the USA once again.”

Luna Rossa, the ­returning challenger from Italy, has been relatively quiet, with only a simple announcement in late December 2021 that said: “The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron has formally accepted Circolo della Vela Sicilia and Luna Rossa Team Notice of Challenge lodged on December 1, 2021. Stay tuned…”

While challengers assemble their design teams and sailing squads, production of the AC40s is well underway in New Zealand and China. The AC40s will be used for the lead-up America’s Cup regattas and eventually made available to private owners in the development of an international one-design class.

Emirates Team New Zealand will take ownership of the first AC40 this summer, and according to the builder, each successive boat will be rolled out in five-week ­increments thereafter. In light winds, the AC40 is expected to sail at up to 26 knots and 30 knots downwind. At the upper ­limits of 20-knot true windspeed, boatspeeds are expected to increase to 39 knots upwind and 44 knots downwind.

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What makes a great tack? It’s simple: whatever technique allows you to maintain the optimal combination of the best VMG during the tack and the fastest acceleration out of the tack. That’s easy to say but tough to do well. In my Interclub dinghy days, in light air, we often looked for opportunities to start a tacking duel with nearby competitors. It didn’t matter which way each boat was going; all we wanted to do was grind them down—keep tacking, gaining on every tack. Eventually, someone prevailed. That’s the power of being able to tack really well, and although you may seldom be in that type of tacking combat, tacking better than nearby boats can give you that extra couple of boat lengths that make the difference between rounding just ahead of a pack or rounding in the middle of it.

There always needs to be a reason to tack. It can be for a windshift, to find more wind, to head toward an advantaged side of the racecourse, to avoid a starboard tacker, being at or near the layline, for a navigational hazard such as a shoreline, shoal or oncoming freighter, to cover the fleet, to consolidate on a gain or minimize a loss, and even to take a flyer if in poor position. When in doubt, don’t tack. Many racers, including myself, tack too much—it’s a fatal flaw.

A few of my rules: Don’t tack in lulls or anytime tacking will put you into bad air. It’s better to tack in puffs, unless in heavy air and you’re worried about wiping out. When the windspeed is variable with gusts and lulls, you will lose much less by tacking in a gust rather than trying to accelerate in the light air of a lull after the tack. In oscillating winds, with several shifts per beat, generally tack anytime you are headed below your mean (average) compass heading for the tack you are on. There will be times when you should “eat a header” to get a bit deeper into the new shift, and there will be other times when you may tack off a small lift to find a larger shift or more wind.

For any given beat, study and ­understand the optimal number of tacks that leg requires to be sailed perfectly in the absence of other boats. Only one person should decide exactly where to tack—either the helmsperson or the tactician. And once that decision has been made, ­communication with the crew and the selection of the time and place to tack is critical, especially in a seaway. A well-trained crew is always ready to tack, which means sheets are always cleared, winches loaded, etc. I train the crew not to move until the countdown commences, “3, 2, 1, helm’s over.”

In a seaway, the tack must be done in harmony with the wave pattern. Choose an area or sequence of smaller waves. Done right, the wave pattern will assist the tack. Get the bow of the boat past head to wind as the next wave approaches so that the new wave helps push the bow down to course, requiring less rudder movement. When Tucker Edmondson and I were learning to sail 505s in our first big event—the 1979 World Championships in Durban, South Africa—we developed a technique for tacking in huge ocean waves that worked well: We’d finish the tack and accelerate on the top of the wave crest, filling the sails there instead of in the trough of the wave, where there was less wind.

Steering well through a tack is a bit like the Goldilocks story—you need to turn not too quickly, not too slowly, but just right. Of course, the million-dollar question is, what’s just right? The speed of the turn differs with every type of boat, every wind velocity and, as was the case for us at the 505 Worlds, every sea condition. Those are a lot of variables.

A great tack involves picking up as much VMG as possible during the first segment of the tack, and landing on the ideal exit angle for maximum acceleration as the tack is completed. This all requires good steering, crew coordination and sail trim. Broadly stated, a large, heavy keelboat should be tacked slower, and a light, planing dinghy should be tacked quickly. The fastest turn should be made in medium air and choppy seas, while the slower turn is good for flat water, lighter winds, and when overpowered in heavy winds. In overpowered conditions, the boat’s exit from the turn must be done slowly so as not to end up heeling excessively once on the new tack. No matter what, be sure not to overturn and end up on a course too low of your desired exit angle.

RELATED: Sailboat Racing Tips: Rules at the Start

Because most boats carry some windward helm or rudder angle, begin the tack by slowly moving the tiller or wheel to centerline and gliding the boat up toward head to wind. It’s through this first segment of the tack that you gain maximum VMG, so the longer you can maintain the boat’s momentum, the more VMG you’ll gain. However, that VMG gain comes with an associated loss of speed, which can be measured by the minimum boatspeed reached at the end of the tack as the acceleration segment begins. Have your crew watch the speedo or use a recording instrument, and you’ll get a good sense for that. How do you know when to end the glide and turn the boat through head to wind? Practice, experience, measurement and analysis, of course. I use an increasing rate of turn until just past head to wind and as the sails begin to fill on the new tack.

How you steer the next ­segment of the tack, from just past head to wind until you get to your acceleration angle, a few degrees below close-hauled, is critical. Just after passing head to wind, the speed of the tack, and therefore the degree of rudder angle, gradually increases—more ­rudder angle and a faster turn. From there, the next step is to land right on the exit angle. The location of that angle varies depending on the type of boat. You’re looking for the point where you most rapidly accelerate to the speed you were sailing before tacking. Finding the exit angle for your boat will take a lot of practice tacks. As you do them, note your target and actual speeds, the bottom (or slowest speed) during the tack, and how long it takes to accelerate back to full speed once on the new tack. As you approach the exit angle, the speed of the tack should slow, which means you’ll gradually reduce rudder angle. With an overlapping genoa, you might even want to pause the tack once the genoa is past the leeward shrouds. That allows the crew to trim on the genoa before it really loads up.

Trimming nonoverlapping jibs through a tack requires more finesse, and I’ve found that only the best trimmers do it right. As the boat turns up into the wind, the old leeward sheet is readied to ease. That might involve reducing the number of wraps on the winch, or uncleating the sheet so it is ready to ease freely. Don’t allow the old sheet to ease. During the tack, the jib is backed just a tiny amount, which accomplishes two things. First, it helps turn the boat through the wind and down onto the new tack. And second, it helps blow the jib around. Without backing, the tack will be slow. However, too much backing and the jib will reduce the forward speed of the boat like a brake. The moment it backs, immediately let the old sheet go. There are exceptions to this, such as when approaching the windward mark on the port tack layline. Then, allowing the jib to back for a couple of seconds helps pull the bow down to the new reaching course to the offset mark, requiring less ­rudder angle.

Next—and this is super-important—the trimmer of the new sheet must ­overtrim the new sheet as quickly as possible so that the jib fills on the new tack before the boat reaches its optimal course on the new tack. Once filled on the new tack, the jib provides acceleration and adds lee helm, thus reducing the amount of rudder angle needed to steer the boat down to the exit angle. The overtrim should be as hard as possible. That’s followed by an immediate ease until the boat reaches the exit angle. That ease must be done in harmony with the helms­person. So, as the boat ­continues its turn down to the exit angle, the trimmer eases the jib sheet until, as the boat accelerates to its optimal VMG angle and speed, the jib is then trimmed back in to its optimal tension and shape. A big indicator is the telltales will all be flowing. The process sounds easy, but it takes a lot of coordination between the offside trimmer, who eases the old sheet and backs the sail, the new trimmer and the helms­person. When done correctly, the jib fills on the new tack and literally pulls the bow of the boat down to the desired course, thereby reducing the amount of helm required to turn the boat. Less rudder means less braking, less drag—and greater speed. And that’s what we’re always after.

The post Progress to Perfect Tacks appeared first on Sailing World.

American sailors excelled at the Youth Sailing World Championships this past December in Mussanah, Oman. The impressive performances inspired me to revisit our Jobson Junior All-Star ­recognitions, which we introduced in 2001. Our roster of 141 All-Star ­candidates (ranging from 13 to 18 years of age) reads like a Who’s Who of top sailors over the past two decades. In 2001, Andrew Campbell, Molly Carapiet, Clay Johnson, Paige Railey and her brother Zach were on the list. Since that first year, many others continued on to amazing careers, including Olympic sailors Caleb Paine, Charlie Buckingham, Stephanie Roble, Thomas Barrows, Joe Morris, Annie Haeger, Briana Provancha and Graham Biehl.

Others have won national championships, including Harry Melges IV, Vincent Porter and Taylor Canfield. Two-thirds of the sailors were selected as All-Americans in college. In 1921, the Sears Cup was created specifically for young sailors. Once upon a time, there were few high-level events for American youth sailors, but today there are dozens of major events across the country, which only makes our final selection all the more challenging. My quest to embrace a cross section of talented American sailors started with a list of more than 400, and here we present the finalists. Like those who came before them, I fully expect we’ll be reading about this year’s All‑Stars in the coming years, so let’s get to it.

Kay Brunsvold, 18, of Sarasota, Florida, and Cooper Delbridge, 18, of Englewood, Florida, finished second in the Mixed Nacra 15 class at the Youth Sailing World Championships in Oman. Brunsvold, who has been racing for eight years, recently explained her routine leading to the Worlds: “I practiced four days per week. This was two days in the Club 420 and two days in the multihull. It was about 20 hours per week.”

Brunsvold credits her improvement to her coach of the past four years, Nicholas Lovisa. “He has kept my passion for sailing alive,” she says. “He became my Club 420 coach and inspired me to take my sailing to the next level. He made the practices serious and yet fun.”

Brunsvold teamed up with crew Cooper Delbridge a few months before the Worlds. “We worked hard developing our skills in the short time,” she says. “I love high-­performance catamarans like the F18s and F16s. The more I sail, the more meditative it becomes to me.”

Brunsvold has been accepted to the University of South Florida and plans to race with the team and continue sailing after college. Delbridge also plans to race in college but says, “The ‘where’ is still up in the air.” Remarking on the ­second-place finish at the Worlds, Delbridge says: “Kay and I never had any experience at any international events before. Our training squad here in the States and the progress we were able to make through our own self-­motivation helped our performance.”

Delbridge is philosophical about racing sailboats and says: “The best feeling in sailing is when a race ends up as close to perfect as possible. I know that hitting every wave, shift and maneuver just right is nearly impossible, but there is nothing better than feeling the edge of that threshold.”

Vanessa Lahrkamp, 18, and Katherine McNamara, 18, grew up sailing out of American YC. They have been racing for 10 years and started in Optimist dinghies. Last fall, they were the first American sailors to win the International 420 Women’s World Championship.

Lahrkamp and McNamara placed third at the Europeans and second in the 420 class at the Youth Sailing Worlds in Oman. The pair have had a rigorous schedule that includes sailing on Long Island Sound in the fall and spring, training in Miami in the winter, and competing in Europe in the summer. It’s a full-time ­schedule of racing and training, and their dedication has made a difference.

McNamara explains her philosophy: “Winning is always the primary motivator,” she says. “Every day on the water is different. I’ve met some of my best friends along the way, and despite the fact that we are competitors on the water, we always manage to have a good time off the water.” 

Lahrkamp credits her coach for her improvement: “Steve [Keen] taught me how to deal with nerves and pressure.” In the fall, she will attend and sail for Stanford University. “I want to compete at the highest level of college sailing,” she adds. “I would also like to sail the Newport to Bermuda Race with my father.”

McNamara will attend Brown University this year, and looking ahead, both sailors aspire to compete in the Olympic Games after college—the 49erFX intrigues them both.

Charlotte Leigh, 19, of Miami and Sophie Fisher, 17, of Newport, Rhode Island, raced together in the female 29er Youth Sailing World Championship and placed second. Both sailors talk about the importance of practice.

“Leading up to the Youth Worlds, we were actually pretty limited when we could train,” Leigh says. “We made the best of the time we did have, though. The amount of time I think about sailing has to count for something too!”

Fisher says she sails the 420 about six days per week for her high school sailing team throughout the spring and fall terms. In the summer, she spends most of the time in the 29er. When asked about her feelings after winning the silver medal at the Worlds, Leigh says, “Our teamwork and friendship will be far more memorable than the medal.”

Fisher will attend Stanford in the fall and plans to race with the sailing team. When asked about any funny moments on the water, Fisher tells the story of one particular rescue. “I, unfortunately, flipped in the channel [anchorage] during the Newport Folk Festival. We were unable to right the boat because we were too light. A woman passing by with her family saw the situation and jumped in fully clothed to help!”

Leigh plans to continue racing in college, and her motivation is clear: “There’s always room for improvement, and the learning is ceaseless.”

Brothers Noah Nyenhuis, 17, and Ian Nyenhuis, 15, are from San Diego and got off to a slow start in sailing. “It started simply with a picture and a desire to stop sailing Sabots,” Noah says. “Our uncle found an old boat that needed a lot of work, but with the help of our family we were able to get the boat ­sailable. The first time Ian and I tried to sail by ourselves, we capsized and couldn’t get back into the boat. So, we took it to our backyard, laid out a tarp and ‘sailed’ it in our backyard. After that, we just sailed every day after school and put in hours and hours in the boat, and everything just took off from there.”

Looking ahead, the ­brothers hope to compete in the Olympics when they are hosted off Long Beach in 2028. Noah credits his mother for his rise in sailing: “She has done nearly everything in the sailing world and showed us how goals can be reached if we work hard enough and put in the time and concentrate.”

“Every time we have dinner as a whole family, my uncles Brian and Alex Camet are always giving me tips and little pieces of knowledge,” Ian says.

The Nyenhuis brothers placed third in the 29er division at the Youth Sailing Worlds in Oman, and Ian, who is the skipper, says, “It has been a long time since a male 29er team from the United States has medaled.” He credits his relationship with his brother for their success. “We do everything together, from sailing to biking or surfing. I think it is the bond we created that allows us to compete at a high level. We share the same dreams.”

Chapman Petersen, 18, is from Fontana, Wisconsin, and has been inspired by a long list of star sailors from Lake Geneva. Petersen also represents the Lauderdale YC in the ILCA class. He has been at the top of the leaderboard in many classes, including ILCA 6, Club 420, Flying Juniors, Melges 15, C Scow, E Scow, Moth and iceboats. Petersen has been very competitive of late in the ILCA 6, winning the US National Singlehanded Championship and the US Youth Championship, and finishing seventh at the 2021 Youth Sailing Worlds. Unfortunately, a black-flag disqualification marred his chance of reaching the podium, but he says it was a valuable regatta. “Just a couple of mistakes throughout a nine-race series can put you out of the running,” he says. “The experience of a Youth Worlds was the most memorable, passion-filled and fun event I’ve ever sailed.”

Petersen attends the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, and is a member of the sailing team, but his sailing in 2020 was mostly on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. In 2021, he was able to travel and race on Italy’s Lake Garda, on Alamitos Bay in California, and in the Midwest before flying to Oman. At the ILCA 6 World Championship on Lake Garda, he finished second overall. Even though he is very active in the ILCA, he explains his boat preferences lean toward the Moth and “any type of iceboat.”

Petersen says his successes in sailing all stem from a ­combination of many mentors and coaches. “My coach and friend, Erik Bowers, has had the greatest impact on my success in the Laser,” he says. He will be joining the Stanford University sailing team this fall with some ambitious goals: “I want to win the Laser World Championship, College Nationals and the Olympics.”

Kyle Pfrang, 17, of Suffolk, Virginia, won the 100th edition of the Sears Cup in August 2021, representing the Hampton YC. His Sears Cup crew included Parker Moore, Pierce Brindley and Dingkun Li. They had six top-three finishes out of eight races in the 11-boat field. Pfrang adds his name to a long list of distinguished skippers who’ve won the Sears Cup. Like other All-Star sailors, Pfrang is always practicing, but the Sears Cup was not always smooth sailing.

In the fifth race of the series, the Hampton crew finished last. “We tied up the motor instead of using an unreliable cam cleat,” Pfrang says. “We dragged the motor the whole race. Once we fixed it, we were back in the game.” (They were able to drop their worst race.) Pfrang still practices, even in the winter. “When the weather is not pleasant, I convince my closest sailing buddies to go out in subfreezing weather and practice every weekend,” he says.

The Sears Cup was hosted by the Macatawa Bay YC in Michigan in VX One boats.

Pfrang says his favorite boat to race is the ILCA 6. “The maneuverability of the hull and the fast speeds of the boat in all conditions are what draw me to it,” he says. He does admit that sailing a Laser can be painful, but says, “The pain goes away with glory.”

Looking ahead, Pfrang plans to race in college, but he’s a year away from deciding where to attend. “I want to become an All-American in college,” he says. “I want to become a better sailor all around and sail other boats, like the (foiling singlehanded) WASZP, the 505 and keelboats. The first time I foiled, all I could think about was not crashing, but the joy of controlling a flying boat makes it worth all the failures when I do crash.”

Anton Schmid, 14, of San Diego, has been racing for the past six years. He won the Sabot National Championship in 2019, and won the Sabot II Championship in 2017 and 2018 as an 11-year-old sailor.

Schmid teamed up with Peter Joslin in the 29er class, won the Orange Bowl in 2021, and finished second to their San Diego YC colleagues, Noah and Ian Nyenhuis, in the US Sailing Youth Championship. Schmid and Joslin have a goal of qualifying for the Youth Worlds in the next year or two. On his relationship with Joslin, Schmid says, “He has taught me a lot about the sport and helped me break through so many barriers.”

They finished eighth at the 29er Worlds in Valencia, Spain, last summer, but one of the things that intrigues Schmid is boat tuning. “The best part about racing sailboats is being able to change your boat slightly in order to make it go a little faster,” he says.

Noah Zittrer, 18, of Seabrook, Texas, has raced a variety of boats, including Formula kites, Snipes, Vipers, Optimist dinghies and 29ers. He sails out of the Lakewood YC, and the varied experiences have helped him become a private Optimist coach and a kiteboard instructor.

The first time I foiled, all I could think about was not crashing, but the joy of controlling a flying boat makes it worth all the failures when I do crash.

His priority over the past few years has been representing his high school, traveling to Snipe regattas, and racing Formula kites. He says his long-term goal is to qualify for the Olympics in kites but admits his favorite boat to race is the Snipe. Zittrer tells a horrifying story about what happened when he first sailed a kite: “I started kite foiling in Long Beach, [California], at the CISA Clinic. It was my first day on the water.

“I was just trying to get my maneuvers down, and I looked down to see a very large and unavoidable shark. I slammed into it at high speed and fell into the water on top of it. My instincts kicked in, and I flew out of there. The incident was scary, but the worst part was having the rest of the clinic to still do.”

When asked what is the best thing about sailing, his answer was succinct: “Winning.”

Honorable Mentions: Tom Sitzman, Luke Woodworth, Fred Parkin, Thomas Whidden, Robby Meek, Kathleen Doble, Morgan Pinckney, Kennedy Leehealy, Mitchell Callahan, Hamilton Barclay and James Algeier.

The post Rising Stars of American Sailing appeared first on Sailing World.

Across the entire Gulf Yachting Association—Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida—there is one be-all, end-all bragging-rights regatta, and that is the Gulf Yachting Association’s Lipton Cup, born in the first roar of the Roaring Twenties. When a 21st century centennial approached, tradition dictated a schedule of three race days, which were good to go on Labor Day weekend in 2020. How perfect is that? Then came 2020. Strike one. Rescheduling for Labor Day 2021 was a natural, even if the ups and downs of reacting to a ­pandemic left doubt hanging in the air. Then Hurricane Ida, not COVID-19, blew away Labor Day 2021. Strike two. Will the third time be lucky?

Late last fall, the sailors assembled in New Orleans on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, with the full body of a Lipton Cup century (and a year to grow on) ready for action. There were plank-on-frame Fish class boats representing the fleet that launched the game way back when. They were there to complete the circle, along with a sampling of the Flying Scots that replaced the Fish in 1968. Meanwhile, the Lipton Cup spotlight fell on the Viper 640s, adopted in 2018. The Fish would race a “reenactment” of the 1920 inaugural, but it’s only fair to report that the grand old man of the GYA, 89-year-old Harry Chapman, stepped ashore from Fish class sailing and declared, “What reenactment? I was racing.”

It’s also fair to report that after more than a year’s worth of lockdowns and travel restrictions, this was a reunion and a half, and it had to happen here. There is something in the softened air of this city, an ethos: Laissez les bons temps rouler. That’s Cajun French, not the French of Versailles, and you gotta rouler, but don’t go looking for a streetcar named Desire. That went ages ago, when residents on the line objected to the modernity. No fooling. Regarding their latticed verandahs and aging lanes in the French Quarter, locals today say, “The magical thing about New Orleans is that it’s real.” On the other side of town, Southern YC presides over a lake that reaches beyond the horizon. Southern was not in line to host the Centennial Lipton, but it was Southern that talked a trophy out of Sir Thomas in the first place and hosted the inaugural. A hundred years on, the Big Easy, yes, it had to be.

Around the world there are numerous other Lipton Cups—Sir Thomas is often credited with inventing public relations—but the GYA’s Lipton Cup is a thing apart. Think club versus club in a format that corners the team captain in a conundrum. Picture a baseball manager in the clutch, pondering whether to send in his lefty reliever with the fastball or his righty with the wicked curve. A Lipton Cup is four races. No discards. The skipper pool is declared ahead of time, and no one may skipper more than one race. The crew pool is declared ahead as well, and no one may crew more than two races. A skipper may not crew.

So, the question is, how deep is your bench?

Having one ringer, even two, isn’t enough. Also, what will the breeze do, and should you go heavy or light in the next race? Who will the current leader send out, and should you counter with your best bet or keep that in your pocket? If you’re leading, how do you hold?

Fourteen clubs are here to race the Centennial, each with its own mindset. St. Andrews Bay YC isn’t here to win, given present realities, but it means the world to be here at all. When Hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle in 2018, Andy Wolford remembers too well, saying: “Michael cut us off at the roots. We had to grow back from nothing.”

Keep the man talking, and you learn that St. Andrews Bay drifted toward becoming a social club rather than a sailing club. Alarmed sailors rallied, and now, duly mustered, they make their statement by racing annually in at least five of 12 events in the GYA’s defining season races, the Capdevielle Series, and they stage their own annual Capdevielle regatta, which qualifies them for GYA ­membership. To be a Gulf Coast racer without that? Maybe you have a clubhouse, but honey, you don’t exist. St. Andrews Bay in the before times had multiple Lipton wins, but the last came in 1967, the final edition for the Fish class. Supporting the Centennial in 2021 had the added value of honoring Southern YC, which helped St. Andrews Bay pay its employees to tide them over in the months after the 2018 storm. In turn, that gesture honored what New York YC had done for Southern after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. What goes around keeps going ’round.

Southern, founded in 1849, has a claim on being America’s second-oldest yacht club after New York. The roots run deep, even if the post-Katrina ­clubhouse is number four. Katrina wiped out all the clubhouses in Louisiana and Mississippi, paying off what Ivan had already done farther east. It was a measure of resilience and a big deal that Pensacola YC—winner of the 1920 inaugural Lipton—trucked six Fish class boats to the Centennial. Lake Pontchartrain had not seen Fish on the water in many a year, but Pensacola is Fish-rich. As to Fish boats, think 20 feet, with a shallow keel. In their day, they were fast. Designer Rathbone deBuys chose a gaff rig over Marconi and declared, “It is my sincere hope that the Marconi will never be adopted for the Fish, since the gaff takes more skill.” On that point, he won.

Given an overabundance of breeze on Friday, racing is postponed to Saturday, and along with that went the Fish class reenactment. GYA committee chair Ewell “Corky” Potts says: “I kept telling people, the Fish races are a reenactment. Pensacola has to win. Nobody paid any attention.” When they finally got going, as Potts relates, “Southern sent out Harry Chapman, Dwight LeBlanc and Tommy Meric [the junior in the group at 70-something], and in spite of themselves they lost to Pensacola by a single point, so I didn’t have to finesse the result.”

Pensacola’s win is sealed, with past commodore Alan McMillan on the helm and Brandon Addison and Hal Smith pulling strings. Flying Scot racing is another Pensacola win, skippered by John Domagala, a Flying Scot stalwart.

Over his four years of planning, along with regatta chair Cherrie Felder, one of Potts’ missions was to drum up sponsorship to make this regatta free for participants: breakfast, lunch, dinner and even a bar—and it works. Considering the pressure at the bar, however, there is never a good time to ask for a classic Sazerac, a three-minute prep. But that’s as bad as it gets. The bounty includes Saturday morning hickory coffee and beignets from Café du Monde, releasing the inevitable, delectable storm of ­powdered sugar, and then releasing a pack of heavily caffeinated sailors onto the lake at last.

So, we come to the main act, the 2021 faceoff in Vipers to win the Centennial Lipton (plus one). We come also to the fact that, in the early 2020s, there are a few main contenders. Let’s start with Southern, already introduced. Then add Pass Christian YC and Bay Waveland YC, located in Mississippi towns that serve as favored suburbs of the city. The main players at Pass Christian (“the Pass”) and Bay Waveland (“Bay”) are members of Southern, but they race for their home clubs instead of the institution in the city. Returning to the family theme, and at a risk to Potts for naming names and no doubt missing a few, he tells us: “Families are our tapestry. At Southern, I might think first of Le Blancs, Lovells, Gambels. At the Pass, it’s the Danes. At Bay, Chapman, Eagans, Fanbergs. At Buccaneer in Mobile, you think of the Kleinschrodts.”

Those names resonate, and their histories intertwine. North sailmaker Jackson Benvenutti, a Southern member who raced for Bay in the Lipton, observes: “The GYA builds community, but it also builds rivalries. There is a high level of sailing here but not a lot of interaction with the rest of the country. We tend to be our own island.”

Which is true enough, but not so true as to keep Southern from winning the last two editions of the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup.

Once upon a time, Southern dominated the Lipton Cup competition. Lately, its members who race for Bay have come on strong. Founded in 1896, Bay did not enter Lipton Cup racing until 1950. They blame hurricanes for the delay. A full-page ad in the 2021 Lipton program, sponsored by the Commodore Society of Bay Waveland YC—“All opinions expressed or implied are solely the responsibility of the Society”—cheekily lists the eight clubs that have won a Lipton since 1950. For the top three, it lists: Bay Waveland, 15; Southern, 12; Pass Christian, 10. So, it’s time to start talking about Centennial results and update Bay’s ­winning number to 16—by a hair.

First-race winner Zak Fanberg is a transplant from Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, but he comes to this scene honestly—he married into it. Fanberg met wife Sarah while both were sailing for the College of Charleston. Later, they settled in Mississippi in her native Bay St. Louis. The way Fanberg remembers it, he says: “The first thing I heard was that I had to join Bay Waveland and sail for Bay. I took to the Lipton format from the start. It’s about being part of a team in a way I had never experienced before, and I’ve done probably 15 of these now.”

In a healthy, sub-whitecap breeze on Saturday, Fanberg skippers his race-one win with team captain Andrew Eagan and Sarah crewing. But the Bay team has its challenges. Two of their skippers—20-year-old Ricky Welch, for example—are not available for all the races. After finishing 15th of 109 at the 50th Sunfish Worlds in Sarasota, Florida, Welch has to haul himself out of a warm bed at 2 a.m. on Saturday to catch a pre-dawn flight, then push the yellow at a few stoplights inbound from the Gulfport-Biloxi airport to arrive just barely in time to sail and skipper a win in race two. His simple assessment: “It’s an honor to sail in the Lipton.”

Bay now has a lead to protect, but Southern is within striking distance, and its four-time Olympian, Johnny (“I’ve been doing this since I was 15”) Lovell, is sure to skipper one of two wrap-up races on Sunday.

Eagan, Bay’s team captain, is betting heavily on crew experience. He began in the Lipton in the Flying Scots at age 7, but more to the point, as he relates: “I crewed along with Jackson Benvenutti when my brother Marcus skippered a win at the Viper Worlds a few years ago. There’s confidence baked into that, so the plan was to assign me to crew twice and Jackson to crew twice.”

A win in race three, with Andrew Eagan double­handing with Eugene Schmitt (who was 12th at the Sunfish Worlds), set the table. But going into the final race, Southern still has its Lovell card to play.

Coming to that fourth and final race, the breeze drops to killer-light. In the Flying Scots days, it wouldn’t have been worth trying. But 6 knots or so settles in from the north. Bay and Southern are each more than 10 points ahead of the tight pack of Buccaneer, Mobile, Gulfport, New Orleans and Pontchartrain YCs, so it’s going to be a two-boat bout.

Against the GYA’s minimum crew weight of 390 pounds, Lovell and crew Gavin Rudolph are complete as a twosome. Their job is to put at least two boats between themselves and Bay, and they start hot. “Halfway through, we had it done,” Lovell says. Bay was buried for most of the race, but there were other cards in play. In the aftermath, Fanberg would ruminate: “I wouldn’t always want to put my son Connor up against a four-time Olympian. That’s a lot of pressure on a kid.”

But with the wind so light, being able to send in a seasoned, skinny 14-year-old driver is a godsend for team captain Eagan.

Wait, did we say seasoned? Two years ago—yes, at 12—Connor Fanberg became the youngest skipper ever to win a Lipton Cup race. He’s still built light—the ­mission called for light—and in Bay’s case, it will take three in the boat to meet the minimum weight.

As young Connor saw things: “There was hardly any breeze. I didn’t think we’d have a race at all, but when we did, I was super-­nervous. I didn’t want to mess up what my teammates had done, and then we had a pretty bad start. We were fifth or seventh through most of the race. Southern was going well. I guess I already said I was nervous. Then the final leg was downwind, and we went off by ourselves, just hoping for something. We jibed late, super-late, so we could come in hot and…”

It works. The race looking their way, with the longest over-water bridge in the world behind them, crews reaching to the finish from the opposite side of the course can see the Bay team “making Causeway,” as the locals say. But it’s nip-and-tuck, hold-your-breath close, and then in the last anxious length to the line, Bay nips a couple of boats and tucks away the win. Connor can breathe again.

Now, if you’ve read this far, you may have noticed I’ve gone on a bit about GYA clubs and family, and the way, as Benvenutti says, “Friends become family because we sail together so much.” On this point, we need to address the ­matter of Connor Fanberg’s crew.

Who ran the bow for Connor? His mom, Sarah. College of Charleston, ­remember. Who was riding beside Connor, trimming, eyeballing the course and whispering in his ear? Connor’s sailing mentor, Benvenutti. Viper Worlds ­winner, remember. We’ll figure there’s talent there.

And hey, Jackson, what can you tell us about sailing with your 14-year-old protégé and his mom?

“When I was a little kid, Sarah taught me how to sail.”

The post The Great Southern Cup appeared first on Sailing World.

Headstay Tension

Let’s start with headstay sag, which creates power in the headsail. In light air, a softer headstay powers up the sail by making it fuller. When it’s windy, a tighter headstay reduces power as it pulls draft out of the sail. And then there’s everything between those extremes. There are three primary ways to affect headstay sag—backstay, rig tension and mainsheet tension. The backstay is the most effective and often easiest to adjust of the three. An added bonus is the backstay also bends the mast, flattening the main. This helps keep the boat well-balanced. As puffs and lulls affect the sail plan, the backstay keeps both sails powered or depowered together.

The second option, for boats with aft-swept spreaders, is rig tension. By tightening the shrouds, you increase ­tension on the forestay. Generally speaking, given a fixed amount of backstay tension, tightening the shrouds creates more headstay tension. This is helpful if the mainsail is already flat and you don’t want to add more backstay, which might invert the main. Definitely check with your spar manufacturer or one-design guide about maximum shroud tension because it can add a lot of compression and load to the mast. Loosening the shrouds has the opposite effect, adding headstay sag.

The third option, mainly for smaller boats, is mainsheet tension. While its effect is different from boat to boat, mainsheet tension tightens or loosens the leech of the main, which in turn acts like a backstay—more mainsheet tension, more leech tension, less headstay sag.

As the headstay sags, draft gets deeper and moves forward because the sagging headstay puts shape in the front of the jib first. While a slightly deeper jib or genoa is often faster in light air, extreme forward draft is often not the solution when you need power. Enter halyard tension. As you sag the ­headstay, ease halyard tension, and the draft will shift aft. As you tension the headstay, pull the draft forward by ­tightening the halyard.

Until the boat is under­powered, headstay sag helps the boat point higher. That is in part due to the angle of attack. Imagine a straight line drawn halfway up the sail from luff to leech. As you sail upwind with a tight headstay, that line is, for example, 20 degrees off centerline to your boat. The wind flows over the boat and the sails are happy at this hypothetical position. As you sag the forestay, the front of the sail moves to leeward. That same imaginary line is now 15 degrees off centerline. Without factoring in other variables, your boat can now head up 5 degrees to keep the sail at the same angle to the wind.

While different boats seem to handle headstay sag differently, there are some common ways to determine if it is too much or too little. When it is windy and the boat is overpowered, too much sag can result in a lack of pointing. The jib is full because of the sag, and that pulls the bow to leeward. To make matters worse, if overpowered, the mainsail trimmer has likely depowered the mainsail. This compounds the problem of the sideways pull on the sail plan. A great coach of mine would often refer to this as “front loading” (or “back loading”) the sail plan. If you are front-loaded (powerful jib and depowered main), the boat will sail a little sideways upwind, resulting in lack of pointing. Lee helm is a sign of this.

Another key visual of ­excessive headstay sag is when the leech of the jib or genoa “returns,” or angles to windward, up into the mainsail. Trimming the leech close to parallel to the boat’s centerline is often fastest until it is very windy. If the leech returns into the back of the mainsail, it could be a sign that the headstay needs to be tightened. If the leech still returns into the back of the main after the headstay is visually tight, ease the sheet or move the lead aft. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if you’re too tight on the forestay, the boat will feel underpowered or lack pointing ability in light air, which takes us back to the earlier discussion about angle of attack.

When the boat is too flat and underpowered, and crew hiking isn’t needed, I carry as much headstay sag as I can without feeling that the jib leech is returning into the main, the headstay is becoming unstable due to chop or sea state, or the headsail’s draft is too far forward. In light air with a lot of headstay sag, often I ease the sheet slightly so that the leech doesn’t return into the main.

As the wind builds and the crew start hiking, I slowly reduce headstay sag. When everyone is fully hiking and the trimmers are looking to depower to reduce heel, I’ll be near maximum headstay tightness. From the trimmer’s position, the headstay will look nearly straight to the eye. What is maximum tightness? That’s when the backstay tightens to the point where the headstay is firm and the mainsail is too flat and starts to look like it is inside out. Sensors that measure headstay load can be helpful in knowing the load you are at and to confirm you aren’t loading above a manufacturer’s recommended safe working load.

Jib Halyard Tension

Halyard tension primarily ­controls the draft position of your headsail. A tighter halyard pulls the draft forward, while a looser halyard lets the draft aft. In general, most boats like the draft between 29 and 34 percent through the middle of the sail. Imagine a straight line from the leading edge of the draft stripe to the trailing edge of the draft stripe. A point on the draft stripe (think deepest part of the curve) is farthest from that imaginary line. This is your draft location. When we say draft at 30 percent, we’re saying that the deepest part of the draft stripe is 30 percent back from the luff to the leech on the sail. While we don’t see it often, marks on the draft stripe at 25, 30 and 35 percent can be helpful.

Two primary factors affect draft position, and thus how much halyard is needed to correct it. First and most important is headstay sag, discussed previously. As a headstay sags, it pushes depth into the front of the sail. Ease the halyard and you can get the draft back to the desired location. Inversely, if the headstay is tight and the shape in the front of the sail is pulled out, a tight halyard pulls the draft forward to the desired location. That’s why having good reference marks on halyards is so important. At a leeward mark, if the pit person puts the halyard back where it was at the weather mark, your draft location should be the same.

The second factor is the age of the sail. As a sail ages, the draft naturally goes aft. New sails have the draft quite forward, and thus require less halyard tension to achieve the desired draft location. The opposite is also true. As a sail ages and the draft slides aft, more and more halyard tension is required to pull the draft forward.

Once you understand how the halyard changes draft position, you can fine-tune the sail shape. What’s cool is as you pull halyard tension on and pull the draft forward in the sail, the aft part of the sail gets flatter. That causes less drag when overpowered. Likewise, when underpowered, less halyard tension makes the back part of the sail slightly fuller, which powers the boat up—great for light air and flat water. Now you can point high without fear of hitting a wave and slowing. It’s trickier in choppy conditions. Then, when powered up, a draft-forward sail helps drive the boat through the chop. In underpowered, choppy conditions, the sheet is likely eased a little to keep the boat going, and thus a softer halyard keeps the boat powered up, pulling it through the chop.

Jib Lead Position

Now let’s talk about lead ­position, which controls the overall camber of your headsail. While it does have an effect on the entire sail, it is most noticeable in the bottom 50 percent. Lead forward creates a fuller, more powerful headsail while lead aft flattens the headsail.

As a general rule, most boats prefer the camber between 11 and 15 percent through the middle and lower middle of the sail. Imagine a straight line from the leading edge of your draft stripe to the trailing edge of your draft stripe. A point on the draft stripe (think deepest part of the curve) is farthest from the imaginary line. This, like your draft location, is also your camber. We divide the length of the imaginary line connecting the front and back of the draft stripe by the length of the imaginary line connecting the deepest part of the sail to the closest spot on the imaginary line. When we say camber at 15 percent, we’re saying that the deepest part of the draft stripe is 15 percent of the overall length of the imaginary line connecting the front of the stripe to the back of the stripe.

While other factors affect the camber of a headsail, such as headstay sag, halyard tension, battens and the age of the sail, the lead has the greatest effect over the bottom of the sail. As you push the lead forward, the bottom of the sail becomes more powerful but also ­creates drag because the wind has to bend around the sail as it passes by. As you pull the lead aft, the bottom of the sail ­flattens, reducing drag but also decreasing power.

A large part of the ­headsail’s lead position is balancing the overall camber of the sail while keeping the telltales breaking close to even. Why do I say close? I believe it is a bit of a myth that they should break evenly. Aboard every fast boat I sail on, the top telltales break just a hair sooner than the lower ones. This is especially true when the boat is fully ­powered up with crew hiking. A slightly twisted open sail ­promotes full flow on the leech telltales while depowering the top of the sail first, which helps righting moment.

As I mentioned before, the age of the sail can result in an overly full sail. As a sail ages, it often requires a flatter foot to maintain a consistent camber. And, as with most things in life, balance is required. If a sagging forestay creates too much camber, lead aft can help. I find that balancing all of these controls is the key to fast sail shapes. Too much of one thing resulting in not enough of another can be slow.

Let’s look at when you want a full versus a flat-footed sail. Because it is a major control of overall power, is it safe to say that the more overpowered you are, the flatter you want your jib. When looking for power, a fuller jib is generally better to a point. If it is choppy and the driver must steer lower to keep the boat moving, a fuller jib will generally help keep the bow down and the boat powerful. In flat water, when powered up without fear that the boat will hit chop and slow down, the foot can be relatively flat and the jib sheeted hard to decrease drag and help ­pointing ability.

Jib Sheet Tension

While sheet tension might seem like the easiest part to understand when trimming a headsail, it can be the hardest to master. And while it has minimal effect on draft location, it can have a great effect on overall camber, balance of the boat and helm, and pointing ability.

Taking away other factors, when you ease a headsail sheet, the bottom of the sail gets fuller, while the top of the sail twists open and naturally gets flatter. As with lead position, a significant part of good headsail sheet tension is balancing the overall camber of the entire sail while keeping the telltales breaking close to even.

One factor when ­determining how hard to sheet the jib is backwind in the mainsail. In general, backwinding the mainsail is bad when it can be helped, and easing the sheet a little can really help settle down a luffing mainsail. As a headsail trimmer, I look for a bubble developing at the leading edge of the main, generally around a third up from the bottom of the sail. A slight bubble is often fine, but when the bubble starts “pumping” or the mainsail full-on luffs from front to back, I ease the sheet a little or let the jib lead aft to open up the leech.

Airflow across the sail is just as important, and the go-to indicator on nonoverlapping jibs is leech telltales. While we generally don’t see leech telltales on larger overlapping headsails, perhaps it would be a good thing to start doing. Leech telltale flow is critical for smaller boats because we generally try to sheet as hard as we can without stalling them. By sheeting the headsail tight, we allow the boat to point as high into the wind as it can. I watch the upper leech telltales like a hawk. While mainsails seem to be OK with a little stall in the top telltale, I find that headsails enjoy 100 percent flow. I will often test my sheet tension by sheeting harder until the ­telltales start to stall behind the leech, and then ease it slightly until they fly again. When we’re in a tactical situation that requires sailing a little higher and slower, I will occasionally sheet hard enough that the top leech telltale stalls 10 percent of the time, but never more. These changes are always subtle. On a boat like an Etchells, I’ll move the clew through a range of 3 to 5 millimeters. On a larger boat such as a 50-footer, 8 to 12 millimeters would be a decent range.

We’ve got headstay sag, halyard tension, lead position and sheet tension. None of these functions in isolation. Adjust one and it affects something else.

Finally, with so many ­variables and adjustments, the jib leech tension changes a lot through puffs and lulls. In a lull, often the leech will get tighter because there is less wind stretching it out. This often requires a little ease. Of course, the opposite is true in a puff, and then I’ll bring the sail in a little. It’s vital to communicate with the tactician and driver. Within your final headsail settings, you have the capability to help the boat sail in three ­different modes: slightly higher and slower, slightly lower and faster, and normal velocity made good (VMG). For tactical reasons, the tactician or helms­person might want one of these modes.

OK, let’s put it all together now. We’ve got headstay sag, halyard tension, lead position and sheet tension. None of these functions in isolation. Adjust one and it affects something else. It’s a bit like juggling four balls—the only way you’ll keep them in the air is if you keep them in sync. Let’s sail a hypothetical windward leg, one where we encounter puffs and lulls, and have to account for the occasional tactical situation. Hopefully, by seeing how I manage those elements of jib control, you’ll have a better idea of how you can keep all the balls in the air and work toward perfect jib trim. For this windward leg, I’m ­sailing with the tactician, Steve, the helmsperson, Jim, and our wind caller, Serena.

First, we did our homework. We spent some time sailing upwind before the start, which gave me time to set up the jib as I liked for the conditions, around 8 knots and flat water. With that trim as my normal upwind VMG, we now have a baseline for everything else I’ll do with the jib.

At the start, I’m at 95 percent trim from my baseline. This means I’m close to maximum sheet tension. It’s good for accelerating at a start or out of a tack, or reaccelerating after hitting chop.

At the start, I’m at 95 percent trim from my baseline. This means I’m close to maximum sheet tension. It’s good for accelerating at a start or out of a tack, or reaccelerating after hitting chop. The boat’s moving well and we’re accelerating, as are the boats around us. After a boatlength or two, I feel the boat moving at full speed, so I pull in the sheet just a few more clicks and say, “Max trim” or “100 percent trim.” That tells Steve and Jim that we are trimmed for our best upwind VMG. How do I know this? The leech ­telltales are flowing 100 percent, but just barely. They are on the verge of stalling because they seem jittery rather than fully streaming. As it is only blowing 8 knots, I have set up the jib powerfully, with 3 to 4 inches of headstay sag, the lead set forward to allow a fair amount of power down low, and slight wrinkles in the luff, allowing the draft to slide back to around 30 percent.

Steve starts talking about seeing more wind on the top left side of the course and says we should go fast forward to the left. As the headsail trimmer, I can help make that happen. It’s all simple, subtle changes. I ease the sheet a few millimeters to let the top leech telltales stream with force. If it was windier, I would pull the draft forward with more halyard. This would flatten the back and reduce drag, helping the boat go forward. However, because it is light and we are still looking for maximum power, I will leave the halyard soft. Combined with efforts from the main trimmer and driver, we shift to a low and fast mode.

As we get out to the left side, the wind starts building, as predicted, to 12 to 13 knots. We are fully powered up and hiking hard, but we’re heeling too much. It’s time to depower the headsail. Because the water is so flat, I ask for more backstay to pull out some forestay sag, and then slide the lead aft a hair. As the backstay tensions, I see the leech open slightly, so I pull on some sheet to get the leech right back where it was, with the top leech telltale flowing as before. I have also pulled on more halyard to get the draft forward to the 29 percent range.

We’re now solidly in the ­pressure, and Steve says we should go back to normal VMG. On comes the jib sheet to get the top leech telltales just on the verge of stalling. “Max trim,” I say. A minute or two shy of the layline, we tack onto port and work our way back into the ­middle of the course.

As we come out of the tack, I say “90 percent trim.” Just a few seconds later I say, “95 ­percent.” Seconds later I say, “99 percent.” I really want to make sure we are at full speed before getting to 100 percent, or max trim. As we get back to the center of the course, the wind becomes a little puffy. I’m constantly watching the leech to see if I need to sheet on or off as the leech changes slightly with the puffs. I’m moving the sheet through a range of just 5 to 10 millimeters. Serena calls that this next lull will last at least a minute or longer, so I power the jib up a little with a softer halyard.

As we get closer to the mark, a competitor tacks in front of us and slightly to leeward. Steve says he would prefer not to tack. To keep our air clear for as long as possible, it’s time for a high mode. We’re still in that lull and not overpowered, so I call for a slight backstay ease. That sags the headstay a ­little, ­helping the sail’s angle of attack to the wind—all great for pointing. As the headstay sags a little, the leech telltales want to stall sooner, so I am vigilant about not overtrimming the sail. I know—it’s ­counterintuitive to have the sheet out a little when trying to sail in a high mode, but it’s important not to stall the jib. If the boat slows too much, the keel does less work, and we will start sliding to leeward. After the changes, we are higher and slower, and able to hold our lane.

The wind builds again, and Serena calls out that there is a chop ahead of us, mostly caused by competitors’ wakes, which are crisscrossing everywhere. A little draft forward in the jib will help us punch through the chop in the stronger wind, so I tighten the halyard a little, and the draft moves from 32 to 30 percent. As an unwanted side effect, the leech gets tighter because the halyard is pulling against the sheet. I can tell this because the leech telltales start stalling. I must either ease the sheet a little or let the lead move aft. If we’re looking for power to get through the waves but not to be overpowered, I generally just ease the sheet, which not only opens the leech but also powers up the bottom of the sail. However, right now we are fully powered up, so a little lead aft opens the top of the leech back up, depowering the sail a little. We’re now just boatlengths from the weather mark.

We don’t always run into that many different conditions, but for our purposes, I threw them in so you could see the range of my trimming routine. I try to remember that headsail shape always needs to change based on changing conditions and tactical decisions. I imagine a perfect shape—how I want the jib to look in each condition—and then use the four controls to achieve that. And I’m always anticipating, constantly asking myself what my next change will be if this happened or that happens. I listen to our crew calling puffs and stay ready with a change before the boat slows or heels too much.

One change often affects another part of this hypothetical shape and, as I emphasized earlier, multiple changes often go together. If you can manage that while staying on the same page as the rest of the crew about what mode you need to be in, you’ll go a long way toward keeping the jib optimally trimmed the entire weather leg.

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In the fall of 2020, two-time Rolex Yachtsman of the Year Jud Smith looked over the horizon and didn’t like what he saw. Almost all sailing activities had been canceled for the previous summer due to COVID-19. The upcoming frostbiting season in Sonars looked iffy because it was hard to get crew, and the boats were not suited to close-quarters racing in Marblehead Harbor in the winter.

Smith started looking for a singlehanded option that would be warmer and less exposed to the elements than a Laser. That’s when he saw an ad that Franny Charles, the MIT sailing master, had placed. Seventeen identical Tech dinghies were for sale at $1,250 each. Designed by professor George Owen for the opening of the MIT Sailing Pavilion back in 1935, the boats were the sixth generation of the design and self-rescuing.

“The boats were 10 years old. These were built by Whitecap Composites with a carbon-fiber inside skin with a core, then a fiberglass outside skin,” Charles says. “They were 160 pounds lighter than the prior boat. We teach between 2,300 and 2,500 students every year how to sail at MIT. They run into each other, run into the granite wall, sail under the bridges, and occasionally beach the boats on the Esplanade. We certainly know how to specify a robust construction.”

Smith believed the boats had some good life left in them, so he reached out to his colleague Tomás Hornos, also a sailmaker at Doyle, to gauge his interest. Hornos asked Charles if he could give the Marblehead crowd a week to see if he could find people who would commit to the fleet. Charles said yes.

So, Hornos started cold-calling people and leaning into his recruitment scheme. One of the folks he reached was Tom Dailey, the pied piper of Marblehead’s Laser fleet. Dailey chuckled. “Tomás said this is a one-call deal,” Dailey says. “I’m looking for people to buy Tech dinghies for $1,250. If you want one, I need you to say so right now.”

Dailey’s one-word answer to the one-call deal was, “Yes.”

So, it went. Enough yeses came in via phone and text to fill the order for 17 boats. After those 17 boats were purchased, the group discovered a parks and recreation program in western Massachusetts that owned four Generation 6 Techs. A deal was made to trade the four Gen 6 Techs for three new boats more suitable to the program. That brought the fleet to 21 boats.

Marblehead’s frostbiting DNA goes back for generations. In fact, Smith’s dad was part of the Marblehead frostbite scene in Fireflies at Boston Yacht Club back in 1957, the year he was born. The fleet transitioned to Interclub dinghies in 1963, then moved across the harbor to Eastern Yacht Club. The IC dinghy fleet relocated from Eastern in Marblehead to Cottage Park in Boston decades ago. So, the Laser fleet, which takes a break during the coldest months of the winter, carried on the frostbite tradition.

But memories don’t build a fleet. For this to work, the fleet would need a home. Boston YC in Marblehead is poor in terms of tennis courts, pools, hot tubs, and other amenities available at other nearby clubs, but it is rich as far as a parking lot, dual hoists, and a protected location to launch Tech dinghies in the winter. Rear commodore Jay Watt asked the club’s board if it would sign on to host the fleet. The response was positive.

“Boston Yacht Club is very, very inclusive,” Watt says. “The club opened their doors to winter members for a nominal fee of $100, and in the space of a few weeks figured out how to store boats, launch boats, run races, all the while abiding by COVID-safe protocols.”

When the Tech dinghies arrived, the hulls were in good shape, but the sails had seen better days. The Doyle brain trust kicked into gear: Robby Doyle, Smith and Hornos set out to come up with a better sail. Watt notes: “Redesigning a sail for a boat that has a theoretical sales limit of 21 boats is a project of passion. The new square top sail has more power, which results in better competition.”

The team at Doyle also made covers for the boats, available for $350 each. Smith, the former J/70 world champion, notes: “We did it at cost. You are not going to make a career out of making Tech dinghy sails or covers.”

In the same two-week period, Watt drafted the bylaws of the Marblehead Tech dinghy fleet, which span five pages. Article IX summarizes the vibe of the fleet. “It is the intent of the MTDA to maintain a truly one-design fleet and discourage the typical ‘arms races’ that can occur. No modifications are allowed unless explicitly allowed in the fleet rules.”

Tomás Hornos started cold-calling people and leaning into his recruitment scheme. One of the folks he reached was Tom Dailey, the pied piper of Marblehead’s Laser fleet.

As Watt looked for support at BYC, he turned to the race committee chair, Karen Tenenbaum, who was thrilled to see the Tech dinghies. “We had a flagging frostbite program using club-owned Sonars,” she says. “We were getting somewhere between three and five boats a day. Generally, people were ­losing interest.”

The Tech dinghy fleet has reignited frostbiting at the club, Tenenbaum says. “The camaraderie and sportsmanship of the fleet are amazing. I think it’s because these guys are so good, they don’t have to resort to bush league. They just let their sailing do the talking. That was something in the Sonar fleet that was lacking, to be honest.”

Tenenbaum, who runs good, fair, square races, believes no club could sustain a competitive sailing program with just members. She is eager to open doors to nonmembers, and the frostbiting season is a time of year when there is not a lot of competition for parking spaces. “Part of the reason for the decline of racing these days was the exclusivity,” she says. “You really need to turn to inclusivity.”

On a Sunday in January 2022, Tenenbaum is running races. Three crash boats assist her with mark placement, and 17 Tech dinghies vie for glory. Hornos competes in his boat named Officer Sean Collier. Tufts University sailing coach Ken Legler skippers River Rat. Young Grafton Hamilton hones his skills in Quigley. The names of the boats were chosen by the donors to the MIT Sailing Pavilion. One of the only stipulations Charles made when he sold the boats was that the fleet would keep the names to honor the intent of the donors.

“It’s wonderful to see a second life for these boats, even after they have taught thousands of MIT students how to sail in their first life,” Charles says. “Many donors have written and commented that they are pleased the boats are still going strong in Marblehead.”

One of the unwritten rules of the fleet is that if you can’t sail your boat on Sunday, find someone who can. The matchmaking of skippers to boats is arranged by Hornos, and WhatsApp enables group texts so that communication can flow in all directions. On Thursday, a fleet roll call is sent out, which can include fleet news, calls for RC assistance, and other vital communications.

The value is in the camaraderie, the gathering after sailing and the storytelling, taking pride in that fact that we went sailing today. The sailing itself is only two hours, but it’s a beacon of light at the end of
the week.

From the time when the Marblehead Tech dinghy fleet was just a twinkle in Smith’s eye, he has believed it is important for individuals to own the boats rather than a club. “I’ve always had a problem with institutional fleets,” he says. “Sailors who don’t have skin in the game aren’t going to be as careful as if they own the boat. The three main clubs in Marblehead have struggled to keep the Sonar fleet (which is club-owned) up to snuff. It’s not unusual to have collisions and the mast come down, or the boats collide and it’s not inexpensive to repair them.”

With all of the accolades he has earned, Smith is quick to credit the circumstances and others for the success of the fleet. It was a combination of COVID-19 and people having a lot of free time, and the fact that the boats were available. In his mind, it wasn’t all that different from how the local J/70 fleet got started.

“The economic downturn was the reason the J/70 took off,” he says. “It takes more than a great boat to get traction. There has to be an underlying need or want. If we were trying to build the Marblehead Tech dinghy fleet without COVID-19, it would have been more difficult. The shutdown made it so everyone was sitting at home looking for something to do. We were competing with just sitting there watching TV. To some degree, the stars aligned. Jay and Tomás do all the heavy lifting. All I can do is provide some historical perspective.”

Dailey, who sees himself as “fodder for the middle of the fleet,” views the success of the Marblehead Tech dinghy fleet as a cause for hope for sailing. “The summertime stuff with people taking a week off for Marblehead Race Week, it’s going away,” he says. “I love that stuff, but it’s in secular decline. When I look ahead, I think something like the Marblehead Tech dinghy fleet can work. It’s a smaller time constraint, you’re sailing right off the dock, it’s a time of year when nothing else is going on, the social is right there under the crane.”

Hornos believes frostbiting offers great bang for the buck. “The value is high. It’s not just the sailing that people get value out of,” he says. “The group is very friendly, very inclusive. There is not a lot of ego in the boats. The value is in the camaraderie, the gathering after sailing and the storytelling, taking pride in that fact that we went sailing today. The sailing itself is only two hours, but it’s a beacon of light at the end of the week. It provides some energy for the weekend. There’s a lot to be said for having a routine like that.”

As of this writing, the ­purchase price of Generation 6 Tech dinghies in the Marblehead fleet has inched above the initial buy in price. You don’t have to be smart enough to get into MIT to figure out why.

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Philippe Kahn started late, but in a few short years of going hard he won more races than most people manage in a lifetime. Then he declared, “I have to learn how to sail before I die.”

If someone told you the man now sails only small boats—after 15 big-boat races from California to Hawaii, three of them doublehanded, two with doublehanded records—you might wonder if a spark had burned out. The way Kahn sees it, no. A light flashed on.

But before we get to that, let’s make sure we know who we’re talking about. The short course on Kahn is that he invented the camera phone—and it wasn’t his only score in tech—and it’s been a journey, and now he does his sailing out of the tiny harbor at Santa Cruz, an hour’s drive south of San Francisco. Solid and fully fit, but heavy-set, and lately with a COVID beard, these days he’s focused on biosensing. “I don’t need to work anymore,” he says, “but I love what I do. I can’t help it.” And even the biosensing has ties to sailing. So, how did Philippe Kahn become 

Philippe Kahn?

It started with being French, and that should tell us a lot. His single mother was an Auschwitz survivor, a concert violinist and, at one time, an officer in the French Resistance. There is nothing one-dimensional in that, and Kahn’s education included a master’s in mathematics and a master’s in musicology and flute performance. By that time, he was already dreaming of crossing oceans under blue skies. “Growing up,” he says, “I had no idea what a sailboat was, but like all the French, I was in awe of Tabarly and the other sailing legends. Everybody in France follows their stories. So, when my first company went public, I went out and talked to a friendly salesman and wound up building a Baltic 43. That was 1986, a long time ago. He taught me how to get it off the dock, and every weekend I would reach across Monterey Bay and back. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I always made it. My friendly salesman was Chris Boome, one of those guys who grew up but never grew out of racing Lasers, and Chris ­convinced me to do a Mexico race on the boat and to bring along a 14-year-old kid. That’s how I met Morgan Larson. Morgan is now 50, which is a scary fact, but it matters how in this game you meet these characters, and they’re all connected, and then it’s ‘we’ who are all connected.”

Kahn is ever-ready to tell ­anyone who will listen about the beauty of the sailing life and the relationships it builds, and it’s not hard to get him going on Santa Cruz either. He says: “All the best people like to come to Santa Cruz. Mark Reynolds, Olympic gold medalist in the Star. Mike Martin, five-time 505 world champion, and I want to say right here that I love the 505. I don’t know how many Worlds I’ve done in that class, and I can never be competitive because I’m not 180 pounds and 6-foot-3. I’m 250 pounds at 6 feet. But I love the boat. I love racing a 505 because it gives me a reason to go sailing.”

And that brings us back to what makes Philippe Kahn tick.

Of his 15 Pacific crossings, he says: “I was most interested in the doublehanded races, and the last one I did with Crusty Christensen, where we crushed the record, that was exciting—much more exciting than ’01 or ’03 when we beat Pyewacket twice with full crew [in the Reichel-Pugh Pegasus 77]. All good, but how many times would I want to do that? Doublehanding added adventure rather than logistics. I do plenty of logistics management at my company, Fullpower-AI. In sailing, I’m not interested anymore in assembling a crew, booking plane tickets, booking hotel rooms, setting shipping dates, juggling changes, managing personalities. That’s a lot of logistics for very little sailing. Here in Santa Cruz, we’ve built a house next to the yacht club, across from the dinghy ramp. With two dinghies sitting in my yard, I can roll out either boat and be on the water in five minutes. The beauty of Santa Cruz is that nearshore you get 8 knots of breeze, and out at Mile Buoy you get 25 knots and rollers. More days than not, you can pick your conditions. It was after we built this house that I began to ask myself, why would I want to travel, maybe change planes twice and go through a checklist of logistics, to sail maybe seven races when I can stay here and sail every day with no hassles? I tell people, if you love sailing, you’ll love Santa Cruz.

“I can sail for an hour or two on an interesting boat and improve my skills and go head-to-head against the kids. It can happen on a foiling catamaran, a Laser, a Moore 24, just about anything. I’m too heavy for some of the boats, but that doesn’t matter because I love doing it.” And it’s not as though Kahn’s ambitious Pegasus Racing program is mothballed. He reports: “We have a warehouse where we build our own sails and our own carbon parts, but now we leverage Pegasus Racing by sailing every day as opposed to chasing an arms race around the world. We also have a slip and a couple of ­keelboats, and when there’s a big event in Moore 24s, it attracts the likes of Steve Bourdow and Morgan. The Moore racing is a lot of fun and more competitive in many ways than the big-boat stuff.”

The Moore 24, produced from 1974 to 1982, rests on the altar of a regional cult of downwind flyers, and Larson has been a thread in Kahn’s sailing life since his race to Mexico as a 14-year-old. Larson crewed often for Kahn in the big-boat days, Pacific crossings included. In the spring of 2021 in Santa Cruz, Larson finished second in the Moore 24 Nationals to Kahn, whose thoughts came in a rush as he spoke to your reporter. Picture the man asking himself: “Would I do another doublehanded Transpac, but with a foiling boat? Maybe we’re considering that. Because that would be extreme. That would be new. But there’s another thing I want to talk about. When my son, Samuel, was growing up, I looked for something we could do together, and I said, ‘Let’s do a two-boat program in Melges 24s rather than an ego-stroking big boat, and let’s train together and get a father-son thing going.’ The first year [that] Shark came to Key West, he was, I think, 11 or 12, and I asked Kevin Burnham, ‘Can he drive?’ Kevin said, ‘Let him drive.’ And he did amazingly well.”

For the Melges campaign, Kahn brought in professional crew for both boats (to go against other pro crews), so team building was not an issue. Kahn remembers: “When we went on the Melges circuit, in training, I always beat Shark. In racing, he always beat me. He won the 2003 Worlds at 15, and he drove every bit of it. When he went off to college, I realized I didn’t want to do the Melges circuit on my own. We had lived through a fantastic time together, but you can’t bring that back. Shark took a master’s degree in data science, and now he lives in Mammoth Lakes because he’s all about mountain climbing. When he comes down here, he’s mostly interested in kiting or windsurf foiling. That told me it was time to ask, what do I really want to do for myself? And that’s what we’ve been talking about.”

Santa Cruz is a surfing town. A laid-back attitude is built in, and Kahn surfs, but he lives his own high-energy ­version of laid back. Only a narrow stretch of coastal mountains separates Santa Cruz from the hustling pace of Silicon Valley, and only winding, nerve-challenging Highway 17 carries traffic through the gap between the Sierra Morena and Sierra Azul to Freewayville, a place that Kahn no longer needs to visit often. His doublehanded racing partner, Christensen, is also a business partner but no longer lives in Santa Cruz. As COVID-19 came on, biosensing work was shut down in the US, but not in New Zealand. Christensen moved his family in December 2020 to set up operations there and keep the enterprise moving at full power.

It’s now been a decade since these two were studying the demands of doublehanding big boats across an ocean and looking to optimize power naps. They created prototype sleep trackers using biosensors and triple-axis accelerometers to detect micromovements that would offer clues, and you can’t argue with the race results. Their 2009 Transpac lopped two days off the doublehanded record.

Ultimately, Kahn is all about the enthusiasms that he rides like half-broken broncos—for sailing, for technology. And then there is love of family. Daughter Sophie is all grown up today and living in New York, a good sailor but focused elsewhere. In 1997, her approaching birth set Kahn on fire to complete a project more than a year in the making. He had already built a photo-messaging infrastructure in his home, and with wife Sonia in labor, he jury-rigged a live connection between a digital camera and a mobile phone—still experimenting, mind you—and succeeded in sending out photos of his newborn. With that, a worldwide picture-sharing culture was also born. In 2016, Time included Sophie’s birth photo in its list of the 100 most influential photos of all time. And speaking of time, let’s end this on Kahn’s widely quoted observation about inventing the camera phone, applicable to so much of life: “Without the last minute, ­nothing would ever get done.”

In case you’re wondering when you’ll be ready for that next big race.

The post For Tech Pioneer, Sailing Is Simplified appeared first on Sailing World.

On a Friday afternoon in late January, Taylor Canfield is fried after another day on Biscayne Bay. The year is still new, and he’s already put in a couple of weeks in Key West. He’ll be hitting the racecourse hard, as he always does. There’s the M32 catamaran winter series on tap and a bunch more ahead with Laura Grondin’s two-boat Dark Energy program, which he manages. Before he knows it, he’ll be planning past his previous year’s tally of sailing days, which he guesstimates to be north of 200, maybe 250. It’s a good living as one of American sailing’s best young pros—he is the reigning five-time Congressional Cup winner, the M32 world champion tactician, and a top-tier talent in the one-design classes where he plies his trade. His win list is certainly worthy of his spot on the Rolex Yachtsman of the Year shortlist, but today he’s not looking back or worrying about any list.

He’s got bigger and better plans: a couple of world championships, and there’s that America’s Cup thing, especially. He and Stars+Stripes co-founder Mike Buckley are hustling to build a war chest. The urgency, however, is weighing on his mind, just like the day of Melges 24 racing he’s endured when we connect by phone on his walk home from the boat in Miami.

How’s it going down there?

Ha. You caught me on my worst day of sailing in a while.

Really? You’re racing in Miami in January; how bad could that be?

It was a normal day. I got up, got on the bike and got my legs moving, which energizes me. Then [I checked] in with Buckley, who’s always got things to talk about in the morning. Got to the boat—I don’t have to worry because it’s always perfect and ready to go sailing. We did our pre-race and felt we were going well, as we have been for the past couple [of] months. All three starts were good, we had boatspeed, got on the lifted tack as fast as we could and then—I don’t know. It was tricky. In the first race, I got in the middle and was bouncing between two breezes. Next race, we were doing fine, and then just got unlucky with a gigantic shift that we were on the wrong side of.

When you say the boat was going well, what does that mean?

For me, it’s a feel thing. Laura is an incredible driver. She’s super- focused and always keeping the boat fast and the heel angle locked. That’s the most important thing in keelboats or dinghies like these—it’s all heel angle. One thing we’ve changed in this [Melges 24] class as a team is that I am more proactive with trimming the main, so I sit more legs in more than most other teams. This lets Laura really focus more on the driving. When I’m legs in, I can adjust everything more; there are so many controls on this boat. To transition quickly is how we can make the most gains.

Or are you just trying to get out of hiking?

There are times where I’m sure my teammates are wishing I was hiking more, but we’re working on the balance of when I should be hiking and when I should be trimming.

What’s it like to sail with you?

I’m a complete pain in the ass. I’m the most meticulous, demanding and hyper-focused 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. I can be hard on the team, but it helps us grow and get better. They know everything I’m saying—good or bad—is in the interest of the team.

What sets you off?

Ill preparation—the little things, like getting off the dock late, water bottles not filled, someone cutting their gloves as we’re trying to dock off. I believe in having a plan, sticking to it and being ready to go. If that happens, I’m usually pretty happy for the rest of the day.

Is that your personality or something you’ve picked up as a pro?

I definitely picked it up from other programs, but for me, if I can eliminate those things that will bother someone, it will make the day that much better. As a kid, I had some OCD tendencies. Growing up, our boats were always stored on the beach, and there was never a speck of sand in my boat.

As a tactician, what are your bad habits? Kind of like sending yourself back to the middle too many times today?

(Laughs) I was apologizing to the team all day. The best way to lead is by example, and if I put my hand up first, then the rest of the team will as well. I am hard on myself, and I get upset when I don’t sail as well as I know I can. I don’t let it drag me down, though. A bad shift is a bad shift, so keeping positive, driving the boat well is key. I’ll vent a bit, get it out of my system, and then I’m pretty much refocused. Or at least I try to be. It’s just my competitive nature that I’m always pushing to gain any boats we can.

What’s your pre-race routine?

Making sure the boat is ready to go, especially the rig. One of my biggest pet peeves is someone turning the shrouds the wrong way—there’s no excuse for that. We go out early, figure out what’s happening with the conditions. I’ll do 10 or more wind shots in the last 20 minutes before the race, check line bias, and make sure our pings are spot on. I also drive the boat around in the prestart just to feel the pressure and what the boat feels like. We do our upwind work for compass headings on both tacks and figure out our moding downwind.

Given what you’ve accomplished so far in so many classes, what’s preventing you from getting recruited by the big-boat programs?

I don’t know, to be honest. A lot of the big teams have been together for years. It’s just the same group of guys chipping away and doing the same jobs. They started doing it when they were 30 years old, and they’re still doing it at 60. I don’t know if it’s just the generation I’ve grown up in that is part of the issue, but it’s been unfortunate. It does feel like I deserve an opportunity to go sail on a TP52 or something of that nature. It sometimes feels that being an American holds me back a bit, which I hate to say, and that’s what Mike and I are working to change. It’s a priority that the sport grows in this country so the next generation has a better opportunity to get to the top of the sport.

A lot of the big teams have been together for years. It’s just the same group of guys chipping away and doing the same jobs.

The little things we’ve done, like having the Stars+Stripes Development Team, getting some young match racers out to train with us for the Congressional Cup—that’s why we started Stars+Stripes. It will be an American team, 100 percent. It’s frustrating because we are in this lost generation where the previous generations have not passed down the torch. We need to do a better job of that in the future.

I’ve done some Farr40 stuff and have had some other opportunities that, for the most part, went pretty well, but that’s one tier below the next step. I don’t think you get noticed for that. You have to go and win a J/70 or Melges 24 world championship to get noticed. Maybe it’s on me to reach out to more teams and say I’m available.

What’s the key skillset or experience you think you’re lacking and want to have?

Running a big team. I’ve worked with a lot of small teams, but going in and being the tactician and manager would be a cool opportunity. To make the calls, run the meetings and be the guy that’s coming up with the plan for the day, making the schedule for the year and putting all the pieces together. I’m at a good point in my career where I want to focus on sailing, but I’m looking for an opportunity to be part of a bigger program. Mike and I are doing it with Stars+Stripes: the fundraising, building a business plan.

Speaking of the America’s Cup, how do you get there?

We’re in a decent place, but it’s a constant battle. We have a good group of private and corporate partners coming together with a huge focus on technology. We’ve started what we’re calling “The Founding Foilers” to give passionate individuals an opportunity to get involved in our team at a very basic grassroots level that will help provide the resources needed to keep moving toward the finish line.

So, you’ve got a Cup team to build and fund, and two demanding world championships to work for; what else do you have time for?

In the winter, I try to hang in Newport [Rhode Island] and get up to the mountains and snowboard. That wasn’t part of my life growing up in the islands, so I’m trying to take that on. I love cycling, and I have a road bike that I want to get on more days this year. I didn’t get many last year with all the sailing. I also love playing squash.

Are you into the whole psychology part of the game? Like, have you studied it?

Absolutely not. I just love how the hard work pays off—when the heart rate is up and just not giving up. If you give it that little extra to get to that one ball—it’s super-rewarding to make that nice shot after working your ass off. And it’s a good sweat. I fight to the death—every point.

The post Taylor Canfield Comes to Grips appeared first on Sailing World.

With St. Barts’ Gustavia Harbor disappearing behind us and the island’s mountainous terrain towering to our right, it feels so good to be sailing into the beautiful Caribbean Sea with a gusty 15-knot breeze and calm seas. Wind and spray rid us of three days of the sweaty boatwork we’ve put in to get our Formula 18 catamaran out of the shipping container, to the beach and meticulously rigged for the St. Barth Cata Cup.

We cruise the coast for a few miles and take in the sights, and suddenly find ourselves in the hard-hitting Atlantic Ocean. We’ve never sailed an F18 in anything like this, with 15-foot whitecapped rollers all around us. Launching off the crest and back down into the troughs of these giants is thrilling, but in the back of my mind, I’m starting to wonder how competitive we’ll be in these crazy conditions. As first-timers to this Cata Cup thing, we might just be out of our league.

The time comes for our first tack. My crew Matt Keenan, who I had pulled back into catamaran sailing after a hiatus, was rediscovering his trapeze skills when he swings into the boat, catches his foot in the hiking strap and tears it right off the trampoline. After a deep breath, I say aloud, “Well, we are going to have to do better than that.”

Keenan agrees, and a few heart-racing miles later we turn it into St. Jean Bay, point our bows toward the white, sandy strip, and run it up like a real beach-cat landing. We’ve arrived in the epicenter of the Cata Cup. It’s 2012, and I’m about to begin a 10-year run of participating in the best catamaran regatta in the world.

A truly one-of-a-kind event, the St. Barth Cata Cup began as a competition between Caribbean-based ­catamaran teams, but was reborn in 2008 as an open catamaran regatta. The switch to Formula 18s came a year later. This “modern version,” as sailors and organizers call it, is the brainchild of a group of locals who formed St. Barth Multihulls. This was the group with a vision to bring professional and amateur cat sailors from around the world to their island. But they didn’t just create another buoy-racing regatta. Their idea of fun is four days of exhilarating distance races, or “raids,” in big winds and big waves matched onshore by world-class social activities.

Competitive racing in a legit, high-caliber international class—in an exotic location and for an absurdly low entry fee—is too good to be true. For the roughly $1,200 entry fee, organizers house us, feed us, provide a rental car, and even ship our boat from Miami.

The hype surrounding the event is noticeable everywhere on the island: Local sponsors go all in, and the community ensures everyone has an amazing time, welcoming the sailors as if they were family. It’s been this way right on up to the 2021 edition, which hosted 62 teams, myself included for the fifth time since 2012. In 2017, only two months after a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, which destroyed buildings and stripped nearly every tree bare of its leaves, organizers made the event happen without missing a beat. Every year, they come back with surprises and changes—from the parties to the racecourses. The event is never exactly the same, and every competitor leaves wanting to come back for more. And it’s also why entry is a lottery, which opens seven months out from the regatta, with many teams not making the cut.

On the morning of my first Cata Cup race back in 2012, I recall the regatta’s principal race officer sounding a horn to gather the competitors around an easel with a big chart and an outline of the course explained in French. Our interpretation of the course is a bit confused, but given our rough delivery sail the day before, we agree to approach the first race conservatively. We have no expectations of actually leading, so our strategy is to follow the boats ahead of us. The only thing we’re certain of is that the windward mark will be set off La Tortue, an aptly named turtle-shaped rock. We’ll just sail in that general direction.

At the start, the wind peaks at 15 knots, and the waves are down to 10 feet. These are new conditions for us, and after sailing upwind for 20 minutes, we stare at a giant pile of rocks awash in the big waves. We realize then that there is no mark. The rocks are the mark. There is no one in front of us.

So much for following the boats ahead of us.

We forge on between La Tortue and the rock pile, oblivious to how close we can go before we have to tack. In this harried moment of uncertainty, Olympian and Volvo Ocean Race veteran Carolijn Brouwer is closing in fast. I’m pretty sure she’s telling us to tack, and I respond, “You first!”

It was a great lesson to learn the adrenaline and skill it takes to navigate the courses at this event, and that you can sail quite close to most of the rocks.

The local sponsorship works by partnering with a team and putting signage on the boats. As luck would have it, we scored the famous and posh Nikki Beach Club, which is right next door to the regatta headquarters, where the majority of the boats sail from. With one or two raids per day, all the competitors return to shore in between races for a satisfying supplied lunch, some beach recovery, and even a nap if needed.

It’s all very civilized, but well-deserved after beating up our bodies every race. Each year, the round-the-island race serves as the pinnacle of the event. Weaving in and out of bays and tearing out into the big seas, there’s a magical mixture of upwind crashing through waves, blast jib reaching, and cruising through pristine waters on the south side of the island. While an opportunity to take in the beautiful scenery, the competitive spirit remains tense to keep racing until the end. On this particular race around, we enjoy a tight battle with Olympian and catamaran legend Enrique Figueroa. Trust me, we’re more than ecstatic to place second to “Quique.” And to top it off, as soon as our bows tap the powder-soft sand, hostesses from our boat sponsor Nikki Beach serve us chilled Champagne. It’s all a bit surreal and unexpected, the overall theme of this event that you must learn to embrace.

While many regattas have a party, the Cata Cup sets a new bar after each day of sailing, with dinner served and followed by a concert from top entertainers. Daily winners are called on stage and given a bottle of fine local rum. And after the prizes are doled out, the band that’s been jetted in for the night ignites the dance floor. During their set break, a slick, professionally edited video projects onto an oversize inflatable screen on the beach. It’s a visual feast of tropical high-
performance cat sailing—as if we need to be reminded how lucky we are.

Every time I go and as soon as I step on the island, the smile on my face is permanent for days—no, weeks—afterward. All of us have regatta memories, but this has become a dream I want to relive every year. Thankfully, there are plenty of event videos to hold me over until next year.

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