SAIL.SailMagazine

For U.S. sailors with grand prix dreams, the time may have come to make those dreams a reality. Now in its third year, the Atlantic Cup, a pair of Class 40 double-handed offshore races and a fully crewed inshore series run off Newport, Rhode Island, is set to resume May 11-26.

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again! When Paul Larsen launched his first Sailrocket back in August 2004 with the goal of setting a new world sailing speed record, he never expected nine full speedsailing seasons would pass before a whole new boat finally succeeded.

It was the late 1960s, and Gig Harbor Yacht Club Commodore Dick Carlson and Ed Hoppen, a Pacific Northwest boatbuilder known for building Thunderbirds, were sitting around Ed’s kitchen table one night chewing the fat...

In 1993, it took a fully crewed maxi catamaran, Explorer, to break the 80-day barrier for a circumnavigation under sail. Since then, that record has not only been cut nearly in half, it has now been matched by a solo sailor.

Although numbers remain down from the event’s pre-recession heyday, Quantum Key West Race Week 2013 will undoubtedly go down as one of the strongest in the event’s long history.