When the wind gets light and weird, a different approach to the racecourse is required says Racing Editor Mike Ingham. Priority No. 1 is to seek the breeze and from there, play the long game.

The post Sailboat Racing Tips: Light-Wind Lake Racing appeared first on Sailing World.

It may never happen again.

What we’re talking about is The Ocean Race’s monster of a stage through the southern Indian and Pacific. What was originally a solution to the impossible challenge of trying to organize a round-the-world race with stops through Asia in the time of COVID-19 may have manifested itself as a new classic course—the new Everest peak for fully crewed ocean-racing teams, starting in Africa and ending in South America.

It was always going to be one hell of a ­challenge, this great distorting marathon sitting among six other standard-size Atlantic-based stages in the 50th anniversary edition of The Ocean Race, formerly the Volvo Ocean Race and the Whitbread. And it looked to have disaster written all over it because there were so many unknowns: Would the foil-assisted IMOCA 60s, with their delicate appendages and lightweight hulls, be able to cope with the violence of being pushed full-pelt for 35 days through the most inhospitable seas on the planet? How would their four-strong sailing crews survive in their spaceship-size capsules, on a platform with a ride quality ranging from uncomfortable to unbearable? And how would the race’s credibility survive this challenge, with only five boats on the starting line under Cape Town’s Table Mountain? What if three—or worse, none of them—failed to complete the course? This later concern weighed heavily on race organizers and fans alike.

In the end, we were treated to an epic sporting story too deep and expansive for this space. And it was one that proved that even if there were only four boats on the racecourse (Guyot Environnement-Team Europe dropped out with structural issues), if they are good boats, then it can be a compelling watch. And these were good boats sailed by some of the world’s best solo and fully crewed yachtsmen and -women.

Leg 3 had everything: big downwind racing in towering seas and storm-force winds, and long periods of atypical calm for the Southern Ocean, even in summer, and remarkably close racing. How close? While passing the most remote spot in the world’s oceans at Point Nemo, all four boats were within hailing range of each other. And there was some serious record-breaking pace at times, with the IMOCA 24-hour distance record smashed, jumping from 539 miles to 595 miles, courtesy of Kevin Escoffier and his crew on the Swiss-flagged Holcim-PRB.

The leg captivated a ­hungry social media audience with compelling stories of resilience, determination and resourcefulness by each and every crew as they battled rig and sail damage, hull and appendage structural failure, and personal injury in one case to keep their race on course. And all of it was vividly recorded and shared by the onboard reporters (OBRs) forbidden from taking part in crew work. What the OBRs gave us was a fascinating Big Brother’s-eye view of everything that went on for over more than a month at sea, plus compiling some of the most spectacular drone footage of foiling yachts in the Big South, the likes of which had never been captured in such high definition.

Of all the subplots that played out over 36 days, the most compelling was that of the eventual leg winner—and a surprise winner at that: Team Malizia, skippered by the charismatic German Boris Herrmann. Alongside him was the young British sailor Will Harris, the experienced French navigator Nico Lunven and the Dutch sailor Rosalin Kuiper. The team’s 2020-vintage VPLP-designed boat was tipped by many to come last in this race because it is big, heavy, and slow to get up on its foils in marginal conditions. Indeed, in Leg 2, from the Cape Verde islands to Cape Town, Malizia lost 200 miles to the fleet in just three days.

On Leg 3’s long eastbound highway, however, the hope for Herrmann and his crew was that their beast of an IMOCA would show its true pedigree in the South, and so it proved. But long before it could do that, their race almost came to an end after three days when the Code Zero halyard lock failed and the halyard carved a 30-centimeter trench in the front of the mast, 90 feet above deck.

At this point, the temptation to return to Cape Town was almost overwhelming, but the crew decided to try to repair it. “We thought about going back to Cape Town. That would be an easy reaction. But now we have all agreed to try and continue—it takes even more mental strength to do this than such an endeavor takes anyhow. The day we stand on the dockside in Itajai, I will be super proud,” Herrmann said at the time.

Little did he know.

With Harris and Kuiper taking turns at the top of the rig, they managed to complete a decent patch-up of the spar during a light spot in the weather and got their race back on track, albeit more than 300 miles behind the early leader, Holcim-PRB. The Swiss boat would extend its advantage to more than 600 miles before being reined back in—such is the nature of ocean racing, where being too far ahead can be a curse.

Alongside the US entry and pre-race favorite, 11th Hour Racing Team Mãlama skippered by Charlie Enright, and the French-flagged Biotherm skippered by Paul Meilhat, the game was now all about hunting Holcim down by diving south toward the ice exclusion zone, looking for stronger winds.

If times were tough on Malizia, they were arguably even worse on Mãlama, where Enright and his team, which included veteran British navigator Simon Fisher, British-Australian sailor Jack Bouttell and Swiss soloist Justine Mettraux, were contending with cracks in both their rudders. They repaired one and swapped the other for the spare and crossed their fingers.

The first goal for everyone was the midleg scoring gate under southeastern Australia, where Holcim added to its wins in Legs 1 and 2 by taking maximum points. But it was behind them that Malizia first started to show its qualities in this part of the world. On the way to the imaginary gate—situated at longitude 143 degrees east—Malizia simply sailed past Mãlama in sight of her, as Amory Ross, the OBR on the American yacht, memorably described.

“They seem to be able to carry more sail and keep their bow up, and while we struggled in the waves to keep from nosediving, they were able to sail at the same speed but lower,” he wrote.

In an interview after the finish, Enright was a bit less diplomatic. “It was kind of at that point in the race that everybody realized that Malizia was this Southern Ocean downwind machine—right before the scoring gate—and we were like, ‘Oh f—,’ you know…”

While the first half of this Southern Ocean drama was dominated by Escoffier’s boat, the second act in the Pacific saw a restart at Point Nemo and then a dogfight at the front between Holcim and Malizia in the run down to Cape Horn in big weather. It was a battle that continued up the South American coast, when three depressions produced the roughest weather, with the breeze topping 50 knots on three successive days.

And it was on the run to the Horn in big breaking seas that Malizia crewmember Kuiper was thrown out of her bunk when the boat spun off a breaking wave. She landed on her head, inflicting a concussion and a nasty wound, an incident that only underlined just how dangerous these platforms are in heavy weather. But the tough 27-year-old Dutchwoman, who was one of the brightest stars of the OBR show on this leg, just laughed it off, comparing herself to a pirate with an eye patch.

The weather pattern after the Horn was a gift for Malizia and just what this band needed to hold Holcim off all the way to the finish. Herrmann and his jovial squad crossed the line in the early hours of the morning after 35 days at sea, having sailed 14,714 miles and with Holcim still 80 miles out.

“It’s taking a few days, to be honest, to really realize what we’ve achieved because the last few days were really intense, trying to make sure we stayed ahead of Holcim and just really guaranteeing that we were really going to win this one,” Harris said after the finish. The 29-year-old Englishman couldn’t help but look back to the mast damage early on and marvel at how they turned things around.

“It was such a big comeback,” he says. “If we think back to week two of the leg, it didn’t seem like winning was even possible, so I am very happy that we’ve managed to get there, and we’re all slowly realizing it.”

Harris was candid about Malizia’s performance woes in light air, but he reckoned the crew had mastered its weakest link: marginal foiling conditions in winds of 10 to 16 knots, when the boat is sluggish and won’t get up and fly. The secret, he explained, is to sail with as much heel as possible and load the leeward quarter with all the movable weight to take advantage of a flat spot in the hull. “For the first minute or two, the boat will feel very slow, and then suddenly, it builds apparent and it starts taking off,” he says. “We call it semi-foiling.”

Malizia’s performance in this leg moved them one point ahead of Mãlama into second place overall, five points behind runway leader Holcim. It was a bitter pill to swallow for Enright and his crew, who held off Biotherm all the way from before the Horn to the finish to secure the final podium position. They managed to do so despite trashing their mainsail when the autopilot dropped out, causing a violent crash jibe off the Argentinian coast. Biotherm was also wounded, having hit a submerged object and damaging a foil, and the Americans kept their mainsail damage secret while they effected a Herculean repair.

“We knew it was going to be tight with Biotherm at the finish by virtue of them being in the same weather system as us, so anything we could do to gain an advantage and get a jump on them we had to do,” Enright said in Itajai. “We knew that they were facing adversity too, and if there was a chance that by them not knowing the news of our mainsail damage, they would be complacent, even for just a few hours, they were hours that we desperately needed.”

Fisher, on his sixth circumnavigation, has experienced his share of challenges, but the bleary-eyed and unshaven faces of him and his teammates were all one needed to see to understand the toll this leg had taken on them, as well as their spares and tools.

“We always said it was going to be tough, but I don’t think we ever imagined it was going to be as challenging as it was,” Fisher said in a team statement after finishing. “As much as we would have liked to finish in first place, the fact that we’ve managed to get through this in spite of all the issues we have been dealing with over nearly 38 days is a great achievement.

“Jack has done a fantastic job as boat captain keeping the boat together, but there came a point in the leg that it wasn’t about winning, it was about getting to the finish line. We knew it would be difficult and long, but we all agreed that we should make the most of it. It was about setting the mindset and enjoying it; you can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to it.”

Arriving in Brazil, Enright knew the pressure was on, but he was feeling confident the scales would turn back in his team’s favor now that the race had returned to the (supposedly) calmer waters of the Atlantic. For his sake, one would hope Harris’ new-found confidence about Malizia’s performance in medium conditions would prove misplaced.

“We definitely have a boat that is more comfortable, shall we say, in the Atlantic, and we are happy to have turned the corner,” Enright said. “If you could pick a boat for [Leg 3], you probably wouldn’t have picked our boat, but I’m happy with where we are at for the rest of the race.”

Enright placed a lot of emphasis on competitiveness at the end of an Ocean Race, not its early or middle stages, and he certainly wasn’t ruling out winning this edition with four legs still to go, including a transatlantic from Newport, Rhode Island, to Aarhus, Denmark, in late May.

“We’ve always maintained that we want to be the team that is sailing best at the end of the race and improve the most from day one until the finish, and we still have that opportunity,” he said. “No one here is ­worried; we’re just going to keep chipping away, and when you chip, you get chunks.”

Enright, 38, has been around the block in fully crewed ocean racing—this being his third Ocean Race—but he says he has not experienced anything like Leg 3 before.

“It’s by and away the most difficult thing I’ve done,” he says. “That’s not even from a conditions standpoint; it’s from a duration standpoint, but also the platform. There are people that have sailed in the South and people that have sailed IMOCAs in the South, and we are now in that category, and it’s no mystery to me why this class moves in four-year cycles.

“I tell you what,” he adds. “If I was doing the Vendée Globe, man, I’d want to do The Ocean Race. I’d want to get down there two years in advance and know exactly what we are dealing with, with the newest kind of design innovations in the boats and what have you.”

Harris, meanwhile, was hoping to get himself fit and healthy for the next stage from Itajai to Newport in late April. And the young Englishman was daring to dream that Malizia’s performance in Leg 3 could yet herald something even more magical for him and his team. “We’ve proved that we are a really strong team in terms of development, and that’s what this race is about,” he says. “If we can keep developing and learning faster than the others, we can certainly start winning toward the end.”

The post The Ocean Race’s Most Punishing Leg appeared first on Sailing World.

It’s early April on Miami’s Biscayne Bay, with an 18-knot easterly, gnarly chop and ribbons of sargassum seaweed—tough fare for racing any boat. We’re at the 2023 Don Q Snipe Regatta, heading uphill and racing against competitors with decades of experience in the class, as well as a slew of young hotshots and some first-­timers—40 teams in all. It’s baptism by fire, my first real experience racing a Snipe. And like many who jump into the boat for the first time, I’m being served heaps of humble pie. About the only time my crew, Danielle Wiletsky, and I see the top of the fleet is when we cross paths on opposite legs of the course.

The upside is that we have a ringside seat to their techniques. At one point, we watch as the eventual regatta-winning team of Ernesto Rodriguez and Kathleen Tocke round the weather mark. He hands her the tiller extension and mainsheet, slides back to clear weeds off the rudder, then takes over again. Blink and we’ll miss it.

“It’s something we’ve practiced,” Rodriguez tells me afterward.

Then it’s back to the business of riding waves, Tocke at times with her face almost at the headstay when going down waves, then rapidly sliding aft as the ride nears its end. It’s the product of years of muscle memory, and Tocke and Rodriguez are clearly in sync. Tocke, who first sailed the Snipe in 2008, says they don’t talk much on their boat. “Occasionally, he’ll tell me to hike harder,” she adds, “not because I’m not, but more as encouragement.”

Soon they’re a speck on the horizon as we plod our way upwind to the mark.

We’re not alone at the humble-pie buffet. Here at the Don Q, scores of top-notch sailors, ex-collegiate and otherwise, come with high expectations only to leave with egos battered and bruised by class veterans, many old enough to be their parents. Rodriguez has been at this for more than two decades. Plus, he regularly trains with the likes of Hall of Famer Augie Diaz, who has been in the class for 56 years and won more Snipe championships than space allows here, and Peter Commette, 36 years in the class, a former Olympian, a Laser world champion, and keeper of his share of big-time Snipe titles as well. “They taught me a lot,” Rodriguez says. “I’m still part of that group, and we always go back and forth with information, sharing a lot about tuning and ways to best sail the boat.”

The Don Q was started by class icon Gonzalo Diaz in 1966 and named after its rum sponsor. It’s been held every year since, even during the pandemic. As boats set up at the host Coconut Grove Sailing Club, with the overflow at the US Sailing Center to the north, it’s impossible not to notice the number of 30-somethings—not only as crew, but also skippers.

At a gathering at a recent Snipe event, Augie Diaz asked, “How many here are under 30?” Over half raised their hands.

So, how is it that a 1931 design is still going strong? With its 380-pound hull, unstylishly high boom, and an off-wind setup requiring a whisker pole, it’s a quirky boat that doesn’t align with modern metrics for success. Cue the Snipe class promotional video and enter Gonzalo Diaz, affectionately known as “Old Man.” Born in 1930, his Snipe career began in Havana at age 15. He left Cuba in 1965, settled in Miami, joined the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, and began working his magic in the local Snipe fleet.

“He was the kind of fleet-builder who spent a lot of his private time helping people get into Snipes,” says his son, Augie. About 30 years ago, he started a rent-to-own program. “He’d get a boat and pretty much let a prospective owner say how much they wanted to rent the boat for. The rental fee went toward the boat’s purchase. If it took them five years to pay the boat off, that was fine with him. If it took 10 years, that was fine too.” Augie admits that it’s tough to tell just how many boats his father ran through this program, but he ­estimates it’s well over 30.

“It’s a great way to promote the boat,” says Alex Pline, of Annapolis, “because those renting boats have skin in the game. The longer they rent the boat, the more they have invested in it and the less likely they are to give that all up.”

There are rumors about a Miami-area warehouse full of an ­unsubstantiated number of Snipes—usually in the double digits—and it’s clear who the supplier is.

Pline’s fleet adopted a version of the Old Man’s program in 2021. His wife, Lisa, says: “I love stealing good ideas. We’re on our third boat and our fourth person, who just got busy with other stuff. But we were able to turn that boat over pretty quickly.”

Rodriguez, also from Cuba, was a Laser sailor who met Old Man shortly after arriving in the States. “He gave me a boat to use for free and helped me out in a bunch of ways, including getting me in ­regattas when I couldn’t afford it.”

Greg Saldana, another Old Man recruit, had never sailed a Snipe but showed enough interest to catch Diaz’s attention. “We met at the US Sailing Center when there were just trailers and a bunch of boats. Here comes this little guy in a van. He gets out, and he’s carrying a briefcase, pen and a piece of paper, ready for me to sign. I said, ‘Wait a minute. Before I sign, can we first go sailing?’ He really didn’t want to because it was really hot out, but we went. We didn’t even get out of the channel when he said, ‘You’re going to do fine. Let’s go back.’ And I signed.”

The list goes on, and although Old Man passed away in early March 2023, Augie carries on his father’s legacy. “He had a love for the class that was infectious. I don’t know how many people I’ve brought into the class,” he says, “but I’ll always be behind the number my father brought in. I keep trying to catch up to him. I don’t keep count. I’m just going to keep doing what’s good for the class.”

There are rumors about a Miami-area warehouse full of an ­unsubstantiated number of Snipes—usually in the double digits—and it’s clear who the supplier is. As my crew observed, “It seems almost every boat here was either owned by Augie or is being ­borrowed from him for this event.”

That includes us. We quickly get a taste of another component of the Snipe’s continued success as Pline comes over while we are setting up the boat. He helps us get the rig base settings correct, and Andrew Pimental, the US Snipe builder who is right next to us in the parking area, jumps in as well.

“Everyone’s always helping each other,” says Charlie Bess, who crewed with Enrique Quintero to take second in the Don Q. “It doesn’t matter if it’s someone’s first time in the class or someone who’s been around for decades. You can ask them anything.”

The assistance doesn’t end in the boat park. Just after the start of the first race, our hiking stick universal breaks, and as we are approaching the club dock, two people rush to see what had happened. It’s Saldana and his crew, Grace Fang. “We got out to the end of the channel and decided we didn’t want to deal with those conditions,” Fang tells us. They quickly offer up the tiller and hiking stick from their boat, and we make it out for the second race. With a no-throw-out series, it was a tough way to start a regatta, but the hospitality put it all into perspective.

Later that evening, I was about to deal with our universal repair when I find our original tiller and hiking stick back in our boat, repaired and ready for the next day, no doubt the work of Saldana and Fang. We discover later that Saldana was Old Man’s regular crew and close friend for many years. Saldana and Fang are not here just for the racing either.

“We couldn’t attend the memorial for Old Man,” Fang says, “but we thought just being here for this event would be a good way to honor him. I think there are others here for the same reason.”

On the water, top Snipe sailor Jato Ocariz serves as the fleet coach, coming alongside boats between races to offer advice. On the second day, with the wind now around 15 but still a strong chop, he has us sail upwind so he can check our setup. “Put two more turns on your shrouds and move your jib leads back,” he says. And just like that, we are able to point better and log our best finish, just about midfleet.

One of the class’s most successful endeavors is recruiting younger sailors. Bess is a self-confessed poster child for the effort. “When I was 15, Augie sent me an email, along with around 10 other juniors in our program. He got us a boat, provided coaching and helped us out. That’s how I got into the class,” Bess says. Now she’s the Miami Snipe fleet captain and on the class’s “next gen” committee, which focuses on attracting 30-somethings. “The idea behind it is that a lot of people do junior sailing, then college sailing, graduate and discover they have no place to go. We try to make the point that we are that next step.”

What is it about the Snipe that appeals to that demographic? For starters, there’s a practical component. Commette says: “Over the last 20 years, people have won Snipe world championships in boats that were 10 to 15 years old. I just sold a 1998 boat I wasn’t racing anymore. It’s one of the best boats I’ve ever sailed, and it could win a world championship easy. That’s the great thing about the Snipe. You can get an old boat and be competitive. You can get a used Jibe Tech or Persson for $5K, put some time into it, a couple of hundred dollars to update lines and things, and win a Worlds with it. That’s what makes it so fantastic for young kids.”

The boat is also a technical step up from junior and college sailing boats, but not so much that it’s intimidating. The spreaders can be adjusted to accommodate a range of crew weights, the mast can be moved fore and aft at deck level with a lever or block-and-tackle system, and there are the usual jib and main controls. Class veterans Carol Cronin and crew Kim Couranz are at the lighter end of the weight spectrum, which, according to Diaz, is optimally around 315 to 320 pounds, making it well within reach for mixed-gender teams and smaller teams. “There are enough controls that you can customize the boat to how heavy you are and how tall you are,” Cronin says. “Like the Star, the bendy mast keeps the boat exciting to sail. It takes a little more technique, but it also means you can tune the mast to fit a wider variety of weights.” Despite a breezy first two days, Cronin and Couranz finish ninth overall.

Then there’s the class motto: “Serious sailing, serious fun.” That appeals to the younger crowd. “I’ve always thought it sounds a little cheesy,” Bess says, but it’s entirely accurate. Taylor Schuermann, who crews for Diaz, says: “There’s a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, now more than ever, from that group. We have a WhatsApp group, and on Monday and Tuesday people are already asking, ‘Who’s going out this weekend?’ People are chomping at the bit to practice, sail together, and really put in that effort. Then when you show up to a regatta, no matter how long you’ve been in the class, it feels like a family reunion.”

And like a reunion, there are always those moments when you remember who is absent. Fittingly, the regatta’s Saturday night Cuban dinner includes a celebration of Old Man’s life, with photos, videos and a lot of storytelling.

“It’s all about peer groups,” Lisa Pline says, “and keeping it fun and competitive.”

Carter Cameron got into the lease-to-own program in Annapolis, says Evan Hoffman, the current Snipe class secretary. “All of a sudden, he started inviting all of his friends and became sort of a lightning rod for the fleet. Now he’s in San Diego, working for Quantum, and he’s doing the same kind of thing there.”

There is a downside, however, to the youth recruiting scheme, Pline says. “Every time we bring a new kid into the class, I think, ‘Oh, great, another kid who’s going to kick my ass.’”

The class also hosts under-30 regattas. “We found that if you can get a younger person interested in a Snipe, they’ll get other people their own age interested as well,” Pline says. “The U30 events really help with that. The idea is that it’s a regatta for younger people—it’s the older generation, if you will, reaching out to younger sailors, loaning boats for the event, doing whatever we can to make it successful.”

Over the years, the Snipe has withstood a lot of competition from startup classes that have the mentality of keeping it simple and easy.

Over the years, the Snipe has withstood a lot of competition from startup classes that have the mentality of keeping it simple, easy, and all the things that would make it a Laser-like doublehanded boat. “But the problem is,” Commette says, “that’s a dumbed-down type of sailing. While the Laser has excelled for what it is, it doesn’t teach you how to do so many other things necessary to become a really good all-around sailor. With the Snipe, you learn so much more, which is why so many America’s Cup champions, so many Olympians, so many other world champions have had significant Snipe experience.”

“One of the things that’s always appealed to me,” Cronin says, “is that, if you look at Old Man and Augie, you realize, ‘I can keep doing this for a long time, if I stay fit and stay interested.’”

I can relate. As a late adopter to the Snipe myself—let’s just say a few years past my retirement—I now know firsthand from the Don Q that I’ve got a long way to go to get to the front of the Snipe fleet. Thankfully, I’m guided by Old Man’s legacy and the efforts of many others in the class. Keep at it, ask the right questions, and someday I might be within shouting distance of Rodriguez. I’m sure many of the new kids in the class hope for the same.

The post The Endurance of the Snipe appeared first on Sailing World.

Superlatives about winging and wing foiling today are flying off the shelves, just like the inflatable wings, boards and foils themselves. It’s “the hottest watersport of a generation,” says Surfing. And that’s no hype say the wing makers. The latest wind-powered craze has taken off for obvious reasons: the upfront gear investment is reasonable, it’s easier to learn than kiteboarding and session spots are now practically unlimited—especially, as we see it, when you can launch straight from the deck of your anchored yacht.

Rig it, launch it and soar across the balmy wave tops of the Caribbean with your friends; that’s the plan of our inaugural wing foiling charter flotilla, the first immersion experience of the Sailing World Expeditions series. We’re calling it “Winging Through the BVI,” because those who join us on this space-available charter cruise in November will enjoy equal parts island hopping, freestyle sessions and learning from expert coaches on hand to upskill your winging to new heights.

Interested? Click here to start your immersion.

The British Virgin Islands is the ultimate sailing destination, with as many as 60 islands and cays, all with easy passages between them and enough protected anchorages to accommodate the many yachts and sailors who come to experience what the locals call “nature’s little secrets.” With abundant tropical sunshine, vibrant blue waters, reliable trade winds and friendly locals, this easy-access Caribbean destination guarantees a relaxing and adventure-filled sailing immersion. 

So yes, we’re talking six days of inter-island sailing in the spectacular and cruisy British Virgin Island chain onboard four captained 43-foot Sunsail catamarans. The itinerary features morning, afternoon and sunset sessions with a few races and downwinders thrown in for extra stoke. With your capable captain to tend to the yacht, all you have to worry about is your daily routine. Wing, rinse, eat, rest and repeat with a cadre of like-minded and frothy wingers.

Secure your spot for $5,400 per person, double-occupancy cabin, before September 14, 2023. Pricing after September 14 is $6,000 per person, double occupancy. What’s included is a roomy cabin and private bathroom, experienced yacht captain, one-on-one coaching blocks, a few beach parties, a Sailing World subscription, and heaps of videos and photos to show off to your friends back home.

Not included in the pricing is food and beverage provisioning (but Sunsail has a convenient online provisioning store), or transportation and airport transfers. Bring your own wing foiling gear, because you know it best.   

Sound too good to miss? It is, indeed. With only four Sunsail 43-foot charter catamarans available for this unique flotilla, this promises to be an intimate group excursion. There are only three cabins available per yacht, so with a maximum of six passengers per catamaran there’s a generous allotment of personal space. Charter the entire cat with friends and family, or score a double-occupancy cabin and make new friends through this unique adventure, led by your Sailing World hosts and our expert wing foiling coaches, on hand to teach from departure to return. With stops at the BVI’s iconic anchorages and playgrounds and an exciting and curated itinerary, we guarantee your skills and spirits will soar.

Have a question or need more? Hit us up sailingworldexpeditions@bonniercorp.com

The post Wing With Us in the BVI appeared first on Sailing World.

The importance of comparing your performance to another competitor during a race is an underrated part of sailing a boat competitively. We hear a lot about having good onboard communication about what’s happening on the boat. While that’s true, it’s also important to communicate what’s happening outside the boat and what’s happening relative to your nearest competitors. So, let’s cover some techniques to improve this aspect of your next race. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on calling upwind relatives.

It’s best to start calling ­relatives as soon as possible after the start. This first few minutes is a critical boatspeed part of the race, and the sooner your team can get locked in, the better. Oftentimes, the teams that get their performance going the soonest after the start are the teams that emerge from the fray in the best position.

Once you start calling ­relatives, do so with confidence, announce that you are calling relatives, and identify who or which boat you are calling relatives against. For example, “I have us with (name of boat).” Knowing who you are gauging performance against is important.

On a boat with true wind direction displayed somewhere, announce that number. For example, I might say, “Starting wind direction is one-eight-five.” If the wind direction changes during the lineup, this will be valuable information to provide accurate comparisons.

If there’s no TWD displayed on your boat, or you don’t have instruments, you can use your compass heading instead and say something like, “Starting heading is one-four-six.” It’s not quite as accurate as TWD, but it’s better than nothing.

Always refer to your boat first. For example, I might say, “Higher, same speed.” To avoid any confusion, don’t refer to them first. If they are higher than you, state, “We are lower.” Be consistent and always use the same process, no mumbling. Remember, the goal is to let your teammates know how you’re doing.

Some examples of ­describing clear-cut VMG differences are “higher, faster,” “lower, slower,” and “same angle, same speed.” However, if the speed and angle are split, you will need to judge which VMG is superior. For example, I might say, “Higher, slower, VMG them,” or “lower, faster, VMG us,” or “higher, slower, VMG even.”

Accurately and confidently judging performance and VMG differences takes time and experience, so if you’re new to it, there is no time like the present to start practicing. And speaking of practice: A great opportunity to get in the rhythm of calling relatives is during your pre-race tuning-partner ­lineups. (Of course, you do that already, right?)

At the beginning of an upwind lineup, try this technique: Imagine you were to tack. Where would you end up? Would you be behind them? Would you cross them? Would you hit them at their mainsheet winch? Their front hatch? Start every relative performance call with this information. For example, I might say, “If we tacked right now, we would miss them by 6 meters.” One minute into the lineup, I might say, “If we tacked right now, we would hit them on their transom; we have gained 6 meters since the beginning of the test.” Another minute later, I might say, “If we tacked right now, we would hit them at their mast; we have gained one boatlength since the start of the test.”

If you are clearly outperforming a competitor above you, or if they are in a compromised position, make the announcement that you are switching relatives to another boat. For example, I might say, “(Name of boat) won’t live there for long, switching to (name of new boat or sail number).”

If there are no boats above you to call relatives with, announce you are going to hike instead. This lets your team know why you’ve gone silent. For example, I say, “No gauges above us; I am hiking.” Or take it a step further and challenge your teammates to hike even harder. I say, “No good gauges above; showing the young guys how to hike.”

Having been a pro sailor and coach for a long time, I’ve experienced my share of situations where a lack of calling relatives or poor calling in general leads to unwanted outcomes. To prevent this from ever ­happening on your boats, let’s run through a few common scenarios.

Silence is deadly

What happens: We start the race and nobody says anything.

The result: We come off the line in a low mode that is not optimal VMG. The boats above us are able to live in an otherwise compromised position all the way to the layline, which costs us a lot of places.

The fix: Identify immediately who you’re calling relatives against and make it clear how your team is going against them.

Head in the clouds

What happens: We don’t take note of the TWD or heading when we start the relative calls. We state we are losing a lot to the boat above us, oblivious to the fact that the wind has lifted us 15 degrees.

The result: We start changing settings, away from what we know, to try to improve based on the feedback, but we only perform worse and lose a lot.

The fix: Announce the TWD or heading when you start the relative calls. Then you can allow for TWD/heading changes in your analysis of performance. For example, “We are doing well against the boats above considering we’re in a 15-degree lift.”

Comms breakdown

What happens: We say, “They are lower.” The helmsman puts the bow up to sail a higher mode because he only hears the words “are lower” (the other words err out in the wind), and the helmsman and trimmers assume we are the lower boat.

The result: We sail too high and slow, and get rolled by the boat above us.

The fix: Always talk about your boat first, not the other. In this case, we were already higher and should have said, “We are higher.” Instead, by switching between us and them, we ­create confusion.

Stay on task

What happens: We aren’t going well, so we stop calling relatives.

The result: At a time when we need to be honest and identify there is an issue with our performance, we go quiet. Nothing is done to address our performance issue, and we go backward because of it.

The fix: No one wants to be the bearer of bad news or a Negative Nancy, but this is an important part of the race. Be consistent. Be honest. Keep the process the same, rain or shine.

Lost in translation

What happens: We say, “Higher, slower.”

The result: Our skipper responds, “Is that good or bad? Are we gaining or not?”

The fix: If the speed and angle are split, finish your call with whether that mode is a gain or a loss.

Attention deficit

What happens: After a very long lineup, you are unsure as to whether it has been a gain or a loss over all the changes that have come and gone.

The result: You don’t really know how you have gone over the long term and just make something up.

The fix: From the beginning of the lineup, announce where you would be if you tacked. Five minutes later, you will know how you have gone by checking in using the same method. Maybe you haven’t gone well in the last 30 seconds, but overall you have moved forward by two boatlengths.

Hang up and dial again

What happens: The boat above you has a poor start, and now they are in your quarter waves going even worse. You keep calling relatives on them because they are closest to you.

The result: Your team thinks they are going very well based off your calls. But the boat you are calling is compromised. The next boat up is outperforming you, and you have not identified that your team needs to change modes to match.

The fix: As soon as the boat you are calling relatives against is compromised or going really badly, look for the next boat above them to keep improving your mode.

Lost in space

What happens: All the boats above you tack away. There are no other nearby boats to call ­relatives against, so you go silent.

The result: Your skipper yells, “Please keep calling relatives!” and loses focus in the rage.

The fix: As soon as there are no boats above you to call relatives against, announce that fact. And hike your butt off.

The takeaway from all these scenarios should be that it’s critical to continuously call your relative performance against your competitors, and when you do so, be clear, confident, accurate and consistent. Doing all of the above will help relieve tension on the boat and improve performance. If there is no one left to call relatives against, hike hard and do the rest of your tasks well. Enjoy yourself. And don’t forget to call your mom or dad after racing to tell them how well you went. If anything, it’ll be the most important call of the day.

The post How to Communicate Relatives appeared first on Sailing World.

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

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

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

Starting

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

Upwind tactics

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

Upwind speed

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

Boathandling

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

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

Reaching and downwind tactics

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

Reaching and downwind speed

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

Sail crossovers

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

Weight placement

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

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

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

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

Victor Diaz de Leon often rides his road bike for a couple of hours before and after a day of racing. In the saddle, he doesn’t listen to music. Instead, he’s simulating racecourse scenarios: what was happening on the boat, what the tactical play would be or could have been. “It’s a time of meditation; a place where I get ideas,” says the Etchells world champion tactician, who calculated a brilliant final-race win in Miami in April, a race executed alongside his teammates on John Sommi’s Veracity.

To earn the title on that light and shifty last day of the Aon Etchells World Championship, Veracity had to beat series leader and past world champ Steve Benjamin and his all-star crew on Tons of Steel, but there was a lot to it. Hedging a one-race day, Diaz de Leon hatched a plan: “I knew it would be hard to make nine points on Benji with only one race, especially if they had a good race themselves. So, I’m thinking we just have to have a good start, assess where ­others are in the race and take it from there.”

The others were Jim Cunningham’s Lifted, tied with Veracity, and Luke Lawrence’s Cruel Jane 2.0, sitting mere points behind in third.

“We started near the favored pin end in a tight lane, but held on long enough that when we tacked to port, we were strong on the fleet. When we tacked, Benji was a few lengths below us, slightly bow forward, and it turned into a real speed thing to get strong on him and get ahead of him. When we finally recognized Jim and Luke’s teams were deep, it was us and Benji, and it was on.”

Problem was they were 1-2 at that moment and both were “launched.” “If we won and they got second, that wouldn’t work,” Diaz de Leon says, “so we decided to start playing down on them.”

Veracity slowed its rival as much as they could on the starboard layline, allowing a few boats to get ahead and between them. Veracity was fourth to the mark and Steel was ninth. Still not enough.

“Playing backward downwind is very risky,” Diaz de Leon says, “because it’s easy to get passed. So, I was comfortable just doing it all upwind.”

On the second beat, Veracity herded Steel deeper into the fleet, always from a controlling position. “It was important to do it as early as we could,” Diaz de Leon says. “We were conscious about not getting too close or ever slower than them, but there was less tacking than I anticipated. They were content sailing in our bad air, which made it a bit easier. They were also reaching a lot to try to get clear air, and I was happy with that too as we were sailing into the fleet. The magic number for us was they had to finish 22nd or worse.”

A jibing duel down the next run continued the skirmish, ­pushing Steel ever deeper to beat them around the course with points to spare. They celebrated their win with Champagne and plunges, but once ashore there was the business of two protests lodged by Benjamin’s tactician Mike Buckley, who invoked rules 11 and 17. To the protest room Veracity dispatched its trimmer, Will Ryan, a two-time Olympic medalist and national judge. The situation involved an attempted luff on a windward leg, and the way the veteran judges saw it, Benjamin overstuffed his luff and was ultimately disqualified.

Veracity’s owner and skipper, 65-year-old John Sommi, from Darien, Connecticut, got his first sailing world title, and as is always the case, this win was a high-caliber team effort. On the bow was Beccy Anderson, who is also Veracity’s boat captain. It was Anderson who deftly identified Lifted and Cruel Jane in the lineup of identical boats and white sails during that last race, empowering Diaz de Leon to promptly ­execute Plan A.

Ryan, who won his Olympic 470 gold medal in Tokyo and his silver in Rio, is the team’s speed maestro, and Sommi is, of course, on the helm. They’d been sailing for more than a year, a syndicate that formed when Sommi, a successful Wall Street executive and father of four young adults, found himself with an empty nest and a desire to get back to sailing. Sommi campaigned a J/88 and a Melges 20 before diving into the deep end of the high-stakes Etchells class. “The goal was to go sailing and play at a high level,” says Diaz de Leon, “and I remember John saying that he just wanted to sail well and be respected—or something like that.”

They won both the National and North American championships last year. “We were sailing really well,” Diaz de Leon says. “And then one day, Will said, ‘Someone has to win the Worlds, so why couldn’t it be us?’”

With a supporting cast of top-shelf coaches that included Veracity teammate Tom Dietrich, sailmaker Chris Larson, Etchells whisperer Jud Smith and pro-sailing legend Morgan Trubovich, Veracity established itself as the team to beat by winning the first of three Miami Winter Series events that were each essentially pre-Worlds regattas. As a result of a collision before the second event, Veracity’s mast was toast, and that’s a big deal in Etchells sailing because rig tune on this tweakable old one-design is everything.

“All the tuning numbers and the characteristics of the rig that suited our style were gone, and the next rig we got didn’t suit our style,” Diaz de Leon says. “That was difficult, and we did the second event with the new mast and we struggled.”

They then dispatched Larson to the Selden Mast factory in Charleston, South Carolina, on a forensic search for the perfect spar. Larson bend-tested several spars and picked the best two he could find. “We weren’t as fast as we were [with the old mast] initially, but we got better and better,” Diaz de Leon says.

Veracity’s results at the Miami Worlds speak for themselves, from the development of their sails with Smith to their many tuning and training sessions of the past year. They were never slow and, aside from the match-race discard with Steel, 12th was their highest finish over eight races in the fleet of 65. A review of Veracity’s tracker replays paints a picture of their consistent approach to the congested Biscayne Bay racecourse. They never once started at an end, they worked the middle left on the first beat, middle right on the second, and worked the center of the course on every downwind leg, which is easier to accomplish with good starts.

“Most of the time when I start a race, I don’t know where I want to go,” Diaz de Leon admits. “I like to leave my options open and decipher during the race. By starting toward the middle [of the line], there’s lower density, and it’s harder for the race committee to call the boats there. Working with Truby (Trubovich) in our debriefs, we got a sense of the race committee’s style during the general recalls. The race committee [on the signal boat] was more aggressive calling boats than the pin boat, so I figured I might as well move a bit left.”

They were also geared up for every start, and Diaz de Leon says that was all thanks to Trubovich, who deployed his own buoys in the starting area in the morning, which Veracity would use for three practice starts as part of their pre-race routine. Trubovich, a 16-time world champion from New Zealand who has enjoyed a fruitful career in the grand-prix world, is also representative of the level of coaching in the Etchells class today that makes winning impossible for mere mortals. He brings all the tools to the table, as well as an attention to technical detail and a sense of humor that Diaz de Leon says was magic to the team.

“He just brings such a great positive energy, and his debriefs are incredible with the technology. Let me give you an example: For the Worlds, he sent me out to Best Buy to get a bigger TV for the hotel room because the one we had was too small. He told me the model we needed, and I came back with this huge cinema TV, and it really did help see the footage better from the GoPros we have on the boat, his stuff from outside the boat, all the data, speed, heading, and we have microphones on so he could hear how we interacted with each other.”

In these debriefs, Diaz de Leon says he realized how hard he was on Sommi at times and thought maybe he should dial down his intensity. “But John never once complained, he just grinds away and is completely focused, and works his ass off to correct any weakness. He’s been so successful in life, has a beautiful family and, as a young guy, I very much look up to him as a role model. I remember him telling me once that in his 30 years on Wall Street he never once missed a day of work, and that’s the same commitment he brings to the team. After our practices, he was always the one asking for 10 more tacks, or jibes or more starts, or whatever. His dedication is amazing.”

Veracity established itself as the team to beat by winning the first of three Miami Winter Series events that were each essentially pre-Worlds regattas.

Sommi’s focus on the helm, Diaz de Leon says, is what allowed them to be so strong in the first few minutes off the start, surviving and climbing off competitors in lanes so thin and seemingly impossible to hold. But it wasn’t just Sommi that made Veracity’s tactician look smart all the time—full credit, Diaz de Leon says, goes to Ryan.

“He’s the best sailor I’ve ever sailed with,” Diaz de Leon says of the Australian medalist and decorated world champion. “He’s insane and has a feel for the boat like no other. I sometimes think I can feel the boat better than most—and I’m not being cocky here—but the first time I sailed with him I thought, ‘Man, this guy is feeling things that I don’t even feel at all.’ He’s an animal and has a crazy ability to focus under pressure in the thick of it.

“He said something to me once that I thought was really cool: He said, ‘We’ve earned this privilege to race under pressure, so let’s enjoy it.’ He’s just positive, so polite and fun to sail with. To be honest, I have a man crush on him, and he has one on me too.”

Ryan is a disciple of the 470, and Diaz de Leon says: “His understanding of how the rig works, how all the jib controls work—it’s all amazing, and he knows what control to touch to achieve whatever mode we want to sail. He and John are now so good at moding the boat that I can look out of the boat all the time.”

In the 7 to 18 knots of “Champagne sailing conditions” for the Worlds, Veracity—the boat and the team that massaged it around the racecourse—was collectively true to its namesake. They were honestly fast and sharp under pressure, and there’s a parallel to be drawn between Diaz de Leon’s obsession with bike racing and the experience of winning one the most difficult world championships in one-design sailing, especially the calculated handling of Steel in that final race. “In bike racing, when you’re in a breakaway, you’re suffering with everyone. You want to keep up, and you might want to quit, but you tell yourself, ‘Hang on a little longer because they’re eventually going to give up.’ You need to be patient. It’s said that everyone has a limited number of matches, and whoever finishes the race with the most matches left will win the race.”

Such is the mentality of Etchells sailing’s breakaway specialists. It is the same in sailing as it is on the bike. The fight for every advantage, every inch and every point is fueled by determination, discipline and a willingness to suffer. As it was for team Veracity, it’s about getting out front and setting the pace until the title is firmly in hand.

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

Lincoln, Nebraska, is not exactly known as an American sailing epicenter, but after attending a recent Snipe regatta in this unique location, perhaps we should reconsider.  Just northwest of Lincoln is Branched Oak Lake, a manmade, crescent-shaped lake of 1,800 acres.  And on the shores of that lake, smack in the middle of the land enveloped by the crescent, is the Lincoln Sailing Club.  Like so many clubs across the country, these folks really know how to do a lot with just a little.

Yes, the facilities are basic: one long dock, a single-room clubhouse with garage doors at either end and a covered patio, a ramp and enough space for rows of small centerboarders and catamarans. Their biggest fleet is Snipes, and in late June, their annual Fire and Water Snipe Regatta, which has been running for decades, draws boats from Kansas, Texas and Colorado. This year, they had one of their biggest fleets ever–31 boats.

How is it that while some clubs struggle to get good turnouts, this one is–if you’ll pardon a Nebraskan farming metaphor–really making hay? Perhaps it’s because the lake has plenty of room for a course and then some, with unobstructed shorelines and the facilities have all the essentials. The college town of Lincoln, home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, is close enough that hotels are not far away. If that’s not convenient, or is too expensive, plenty of sailors camp at the club. A small village of tents is fully populated the night before the regatta.  

But it doesn’t end there, and perhaps this is what really tips the scales. For the Fire and Water, the good folks at the Lincoln SC brought in San Diego sailor Doug Hart, a top Snipe sailor, who ran a clinic the Friday before the regatta, which included on-the-water coaching. Then, recognizing a wide range of abilities for the event, Hart coached boats at the back of the fleet during racing.  There’s also the work of locals Mary and John Buckley. A former Snipe district secretary, Mary took care of a lion’s share of the event logistics, and husband John cooked up more than 40 pounds of pork and beef that provided two dinners’ worth of food. Talk about a team effort.

And there’s a civilized pace.  Nine juniors raced Saturday morning (and were coached by Hart during the race). The regatta began after lunch, getting in four races in 8-15 knots of breeze.  Sunday’s schedule was for racing from 10 to noon, providing plenty of time for visitors to get home, although high winds that day forced abandonment before boats could even be rigged.  Too much wind?  No problem. Lunches were brought out, Doug cued up videos he had taken the day before, and those who could stick around jumped into another clinic. Another great event and another great club in middle America.   

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The Rhodes Bantam sloop is an open racing dinghy designed by renowned naval architect Philip Rhodes in the mid-1940s. At 14 feet, 325 pounds, and with 130 square feet of working sail (including a large genoa jib and a large spinnaker set on a 7-foot-long spinnaker pole), it was a hot boat in its day. The first wood Bantams were produced by the Skaneateles Boat Company in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and were an instant hit after World War II. Eventually, nearly 2,000 boats were produced, first in wood but later in fiberglass. Fleet racing was active in upward of 30 fleets, and the Rhodes Bantam Class Association held an International Regatta every summer at venues as widespread as New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Mississippi.

At age 15—63 years ago—I fell in love with the Bantam and ­persuaded my father to share in the purchase of a new Gibbs Boat Company wood boat, Hull No. 836. I sailed and raced that boat through high school on Acton Lake near Oxford, Ohio, and then traded it for a new wooden Baycraft-built hull, No. 1257, when I was in college.

After college, graduate school and a five-year hitch in the Air Force, I settled in upstate New York, sold No. 1257, and bought No. 1775 Spirit from legendary dinghy racer and builder Dick Besse in nearby Skaneateles, New York. My late son and I won the Rhodes Bantam International Regatta with this boat in 1981 and 1983. She was a joy to sail in a fresh breeze.

Like many two-person racing dinghy classes, the Rhodes Bantam class fell on hard times in the late 1970s as new classes came on the scene and younger sailors gravitated to Lasers and crewing on larger one-designs. By the end of the 1980s, only a few fleets remained, and the class no longer held its annual International Regatta. A few reunion regattas were held in conjunction with other regattas in upstate New York, but the class simply faded away for all practical purposes.

Fast-forward to 2009. The Skaneateles Historical Society operates a lovely museum called the Creamery in the Village of Skaneateles. The museum has displays that chronicle the history, culture and industry of the region, with an impressive collection of small craft built and sailed in Skaneateles. A few years ago, the society acquired Skaneateles-built Lightning No. 1 on a long-term loan from the Mystic Seaport Collection, and it is now on display in a new wing of the museum.

The family of the late Dick Besse also donated his last Bantam build to the museum, R-B No. 1823 Woodwins, an all-wood creation right down to the Sitka spruce spars. This boat is a real beauty and was displayed next to Lightning No.1.

The Skaneateles Historical Society, however, had an interest in acquiring a much older, historical Rhodes Bantam for its collection. Knowing of my interest in the class, one of the society board members approached me to see if I was interested in finding a suitable candidate. I readily agreed, but little did I know the search would take the better part of six years.

I immediately started my quest to find the oldest surviving Bantam in existence. A quick internet search turned up Lawrence Fortunato’s excellent Rhodes Bantam website and photo gallery, which also featured a bulletin board where visitors to the site could post comments. Sure enough, a gentleman named Charles Jannace posted that he had owned Rhodes Bantam No. 1 from 1954 to ’55 and had sailed it on Little Neck Bay on Long Island. Then came another post from a gentleman named Alexander Scott, who said his family had owned and raced Bantam No. 2. Scott also stated that No. 1 was no longer in existence, and his father, Fred Scott, who had worked for the Skaneateles Boat Company, had redesigned the interior. No. 2, he said, was the actual production prototype for all the subsequent Skaneateles-built wood Bantams. Fred Scott went on to design several popular small sailboats, most notably the Force 5 and the Puffer. Alexander Scott left a telephone number on the ­website, and the hunt for No. 2 was on.

I called him and explained my interest in finding the boat. The call also reminded me that I had actually sailed on No. 2 with Alexander’s brother, Rick Scott, one summer afternoon in 1963 when I was on vacation in Skaneateles. (I was 19 at the time.) I also learned that No. 2, named Cockerel, had quite the racing pedigree, having won the R-B International Regatta in 1949 and again in 1953. Alexander explained that his family had sold it to an attorney named Larry Hale, who lived somewhere in Massachusetts.

After a little more internet sleuthing, I found a website for Lawrence Hale, Esq. in Carver, Massachusetts. Using the firm’s website, I emailed Hale, and he confirmed that he had purchased No. 2 in 1981, did some work on it, and even took it on his honeymoon in Maine in 1984. He also explained that he had given the boat to Reverend Cuthburt Mandell, the rector of the Aquia Episcopal Church in Stafford, Virginia. Naturally, I found an email address for the reverend, wrote to him, and found that he had owned No. 2 but ended up giving it to somebody who lived on Cape Cod. That’s where the trail went cold; he had no name, address or telephone number.

Then, somewhat out of the blue, Mandell contacted me again and said he learned that the name of the last known owner of No. 2 was Mark Sherwin, an artist on Cape Cod. I now had a name but no other contact information.

Anyone familiar with Cape Cod knows there are a lot of artists who live there. It’s also known to be a bit of a graveyard for boats of all types and sizes. A cursory web search yielded no match, but I persisted and did numerous web searches with different search words in my spare time. Finally, I found a post on an obscure artists website where—ta-da—one Mark Sherwin had posted and left—ta-da again—a cellphone number.

I immediately called and, after leaving a few messages, finally had a live telephone conversation with Sherwin. He confirmed he was indeed the current owner of R-B No. 2 and might be interested in selling or donating it for my museum project. He stated that he would contact me in a few months, and we could work something out. I was elated, but my elation was premature.

Months passed, and I did not hear from him. I tried to reach him again, but calls and emails went unanswered. I suddenly had this image of the hulk of R-B No. 2 sitting on the bank of a salt marsh somewhere on the Cape, slowly but surely rotting away.

But I had one other lead. A neighbor in Cazenovia, New York, where I live, had spent a lot of time on Cape Cod and knew the Sherwin family. He made a few inquiries, and low and behold, Sherwin emailed him at the end of August 2015, referenced my ­earlier contact, and expressed an interest in selling the boat.

Apparently, Sherwin had been dealing with serious health problems that might have accounted for some of our earlier miscommunications. But I now had a valid email address, home address and telephone number for him. I wrote and called him right away.

Over the following few weeks, we corresponded regularly. I learned that his son, a sailmaker in Seattle, had removed the 1/4‑inch plywood bottom from the hull and replaced several damaged mahogany frames aft of the centerboard trunk. It was also missing a mast and a tiller handle. Sherwin emailed me several good photos. We agreed on a fair price that would cover his storage costs over the years and restoration efforts to date, and settled on a pickup date.

On October 14, 2015, I pulled up to Sherwin’s house in Sandwich and saw No. 2 for the first time in 52 years. As advertised, the bottom was missing, but his son had done a fine job of replacing several damaged mahogany frames. There were only pieces of the mast left, no tiller handle, and the rudder was a kick-up design not original to the boat. As is, the boat was not going to win any beauty contests, but she had “good bones,” as they say, and could be restored to display condition with a new plywood bottom, a lot of sanding, paint, varnish and some new period-correct components. Sherwin could not have been more gracious. I am sure he had some regrets about parting with this boat, but I sensed that he shared my vision of where it should spend the rest of its days. We closed the deal, and I was off to brave the hazards of the infamous Bourne Bridge rotary and the Mass Pike back to my home in Cazenovia.

I suddenly had this image of the hulk of R-B No. 2 sitting on the bank of a salt marsh somewhere on the Cape, slowly but surely rotting away.

The boat and gear spent the winter in my barn, but I trailed the hull over to Skaneateles the following spring and formally donated it to the Historical Society. Dave Miller and John Barnes, two of the active society members, agreed to work on the hull, and I agreed to find the missing parts (mast, rigging, and the rudder/tiller assembly) and restore them and some other parts to display condition. Luckily, I found an almost-free 200 series Bantam barn-find derelict in nearby Tully, New York, that yielded all the period-correct missing parts and gear. Miller and Barnes cleaned the hull, fitted a new plywood bottom, and were well on the way when COVID-19 hit and everything came to a halt for the better part of two years.

The museum staff and I finally elected to do a fundraiser focused on former Bantam sailors and then contracted out the rest of the restoration to Todd Kallusch in Sodus, New York. His family used to build beautiful wood Bantams, and he did an inspired job of ­finishing the restoration.

Miller did the final work of displaying the boat at the museum, and we rounded up vintage photos, and even found and displayed the first-, second- and third-place International Championship Regatta perpetual trophies. The display has been a popular exhibit since it opened in 2022.

There are really two stories here. The first is about the birth, life and eventual demise of a fine sailboat class. The second is about how to find a 70-year-old relic so people can see it and reflect on just what a great little boat it was. I am happy to have been part of both stories, and while I have mixed feelings about the internet, I would have gotten nowhere in my nautical treasure hunt without it. If you are ever in Skaneateles on a Friday afternoon when the museum is open, gaze at the beautiful lake, have a beer at the Sherwood Inn on Genesee Street, then take the short walk to the Creamery on Hannum Street and enjoy being in the presence of its collection of wonderful old boats and associated displays. And give No. 2 a good look. She’s worth it, as was the hunt to find her.

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Final Results

The 2023 edition of the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series at Marblehead Race Week will be remembered for its challenging light wind but more so for the time local skipper Carolyn Corbet and her teammates outsmarted and outsailed the venerable champions of Bill Widnall’s International One Design Javelin. On the fourth and final day of Marblehead Race Week, Corbet’s team on Elektra won two come-from-behind races to win the regatta and then its Overall Championship title.

“We started the day only 1 point out of first and we’d been going back and forth with Bill—who’s won this regatta for who knows how long,” Corbet says.

In Sunday’s first of two races, Elektra rounded the first mark third, and with the quick sail-handling skills and sharp execution of this team of twenty-somethings, Corbet quickly  jibed, “jumped the fleet,” and at the next mark Elektra took control of the race.

“Ten boat lengths out from the leeward mark we were able to jibe on to starboard, and then we were able to get them [Widnall’s Javelin] on starboard,” Corbet says. “So, we were able to send them off the layline. I have an amazing crew that can pull off that kind of jibing, get the spinnaker down, and then jibe around the mark. We barely missed a beat and that right there probably won us the regatta.”

Corbet, of Marblehead, has been sailing the loaner International One Design for three summers and her team has proven to be a quick study of a boat that can take a lifetime to master, but Corbet says she’s had plenty of help from Widnall and others, and their success this weekend truly comedowns to the collective talent of her teammates.

As winners of their class, but Corbet, Rob Brower, Becker Ewing, Elizabeth Lonergan and Sandra Nygren were selected to represent Marblehead at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Caribbean Championship in the British Virgin Islands in October, where they will race against other overall winners from previous stops of the Regatta Series, as well as the 2022 regatta’s champion.

On the same circle as the IODs, a similar battle was playing out in the J/105 class where Charlie Garrard’s Merlin and Rick Dexter’s Brouhaha set off from their respective moorings in Marblehead Harbor with only 1 point between them. The goal of the day was a simple one for Garrard and his experienced crew: keep Brouhaha close and use their boatspeed to finish the job.

When the seabreeze finally filled after a long morning postponement, the two teams got right to work, tailing each other in the prestart and striking the starting line overlapped. Merlin had the advantage and Brouhaha tacked away. The race from there was all Merlin’s to lose.

“We just had to keep them close and we had to finish ahead of them,” Garrard says. “Even though they tacked away, we felt comfortable going left where there was more wind.”

The pair finished 2-4 and Merlin’s lead grew to 3 points, but in the final race, after leading off the start again, Garrard says they were on the downwind leg and crash jibed to avoid another boat, which lost them one place in the race, but fortunately nothing more—the final winning margin was 2 point and Merlin’s winning streak remains intact.

“I think we got off the line clean every day and the boat is going great upwind,” Garrard says. “As always, it helps to have a great crew.”

The return of the Lightning fleet was marked as another notable moment in Race Week history. According to class leader Bob Shapiro, it has been nearly 40 years since the International Lightning Class has competed at Race Week, and fittingly it was the two “old-timers” of the fleet that took second and first places after five races. At the top of the standings with two race wins was local legend Charles “CH” Ritt with Shapiro as runner up and winner of the weekend’s final race.

The Rhodes 19 Class sailed another competitive regatta with 22 boats providing plenty of action-packed mark roundings, and always ahead of the melee were Matt Hooks and teammate Rob Pascal, who won four of eight races to close with an impressive 25-point winning margin, earning Hooks the coveted Norm Cressy Trophy, which has been awarded to the regatta’s best-performing skipper since 1998.

On the same race circle, the Town Class sailed its New England Championship and after five races, Nick Cann and Andrea Dodgeon on Tonic emerged as the winners, scoring two race wins to finish 10 points ahead of Bill Heffernan and Larry Brown on Sweep.

ILCA sailors were particularly challenged with their first races canceled on Saturday due to weather. The race committee started them early on Sunday and completed one shortened race before the wind died. Once they got going again, it was strong current that caused numerous general recall starts, but at the end of the day, three races were sailed with Bill Rothwell winning the ILCA 7 division and Jeremiah McCarthy winning the ILCA 6 fleet.

Marblehead’s re-emerging Etchells class featured the area’s top sailors as well as experienced teams from outside the region, but none were as fast as Tomas Hornos and his teammates on Bob, which won two of six races and ended the series with a comfortable 10-point win. As the top fleet champion, Hornos also earned the Dave Curtis Perpetual Trophy, awarded by the Sailing Hall of Famer himself.

Henry and Barb Amthor, along with teammate Parker Moore, were the top Viper 640 team after winning the regatta’s final race for a 2-point New England Championship win over Marek Zaleski’s Team Z. Brian Keane and his teammates on the J/70 Savasana eked out a hard-fought win to secure the class’s New England Championship, another title for the team as they head toward the World Championship later this year.

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