Regattas

The French dominate the world of shorthanded ocean sailing, and the man of the moment among French solo sailors is Francis Joyon.Last winter Joyon became the fastest person to sail single-handed around the world, setting a remarkable time of 57 days, 13 hours, knocking nearly two weeks off the previous record.Last weekend the 52-year-old Frenchman set another record aboard his 97’

The Vendee Globe is the real deal: A singlehanded sailor, a massively powerful, 60-foot canting-keel carbon-fiber racing shell with some of the fastest sails around, and Planet Earth. Solo. No assistance. Just the sailor, aboard his/her boat, taking on the world. What could be simpler?Obviously, “simple” is not a standard word used to describe the work list necessary to just arrive on the

“This thing is like a Volvo Open 70 except it doesn’t have a canting keel and its systems are more refined,” says veteran bowman Jerry Kirby as Numbers, Dan Meyers’s newly splashed Judel/Vrolijk 66, hits a big wave and jostles the crew, most of whom are stationed near the stern to keep the bow up. All around us are choppy seas; the true-wind instrument reads 18 to 21 knots, and our

We all want our boats to be more stable, but how can this be accomplished? The conventional solution is to hang more ballast off a deeper keel. Think more progressively, and you’re talking about water ballasting, which, while effective, also adds extra weight. Go sci-fi, and you’re canting your keel to windward—which is very effective, but is complicated, accident-prone, and still depends on

“You gotta be kidding me!” exclaims a muscle-bound member of the crew of Leopard, a brand-new Farr-designed, British-owned 100-foot Super-Maxi, from our observation post aboard her tender. “The RC’s set the finishing line just off that reef. Leopard’s doing 15 knots, easy. There’s not much time to gybe, get that kite down, and head up.” Seated around me are other

So, you want to campaign a Volvo Open 70. The 2008–09 Volvo Ocean Race (VOR), a fully crewed around-the-world marathon, started on October 4, 2008, in Alicante, Spain, so you’re out of luck unless your time frame is far downstream. As in, the next race. When the time comes, you could model yourself this way: You could start by buying the VO70 that holds the monohull 24-hour distance record

There is sadly little detail—and of course, everything waits for official ratification—but there is every reason to believe that we have a new sailing speed record of 49.84 knots set by an American, Rob Douglas, with a kite. Douglas is a windsurfer who took to kites only in June. There has been a lot of speculation that kiting development would overtake the lead of windsurfers in

Scott Young of the Austin Yacht Club, deep in the heart of Texas, scored an unprecedented sixth Mallory Cup win over the weekend on San Francisco Bay. With crew John Morran, Doug Kern, and Mike Haggerty, Young claimed the US Men’s Sailing Championship with solid finishes in the fleet of 11 borrowed J/24s. Second was the Mobile, Alabama team of Ken Kleinschrodt, David Bolyard, Michael Mark, and

September 15, 2008There’s a saying in sailboat racing that if there’s wind, then everyone is happy. It’s safe to say that the competitors in the Rolex Big Boat Series were ecstatic with today’s conditions of 8-10 knots in the morning, building to 15+ knots by early afternoon for the regatta’s final race – known as the Bay Tour. The St. Francis Yacht Club (StFYC) Race Committee sent the 10

Qingdao, ChinaAs released by US Sailing over the weekend: 2.4 mR sailor John Ruf (Pewaukee, Wis.) added a Bronze Medal to the U.S. Paralympic Team’s medal count today, joining Gold Medalists Nick Scandone (Newport Beach, Calif.) and Maureen McKinnon-Tucker (Marblehead, Mass.) on the podium at the 2008 Paralympic Regatta. Rick Doerr (Clifton, N.J.), Tim Angle