SAIL.SailMagazine

Although flush-deck sliding foredeck hatches are great for quickly launching and retrieving kites, they have typically been prone to leak because of the difficulty in creating proper seals around them—until now. Among the many innovative features aboard the new McConaghy 38 one-design sloop is a pneumatic seal for the offset (port side) sliding hatch that has an inflatable “bladder” encircling the hatch aperture to keep the wet out. 

Organizers for the third annual Atlantic Cup have decided it’s time to get the public into the act. With this in mind, the 2013 regatta—which comprises both double-handed offshore and fully crewed inshore racing aboard Class 40s—will include a number of features both afloat and ashore to allow fans to get as close to the action as possible. 

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. First the Kiwis and then the three other America’s Cup teams have all hit the water with daggerboards we might as well call hydrofoils, which lift their boats’ hulls clean out of the water on downwind legs, dramatically lowering resistance and increasing speed. But the AC72 rule was specifically intended to prevent that. Read my lips: No trimmable winglets. 

One reason I like sailing is that it is one of the few endeavors in which the concept of individual responsibility still has meaning. It is much easier to blame someone or something else for the consequences of your decisions than to admit any fault on your own part—it goes back as far as Eve and the serpent—but on a small boat you soon run out of things to point your finger at. 

Leg 1 of the Atlantic Cup came to a close an hour after midnight on May 15. The last of the Class 40s arrived in New York Harbor throughout the night on May 14, three days after leaving Charleston, South Carolina.