Regattas

Last October, the nation’s top Olympic-class sailors put years of training and sacrifice on the line during the two-week U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Team Trials – Sailing. The cream rose to the top during this marathon event, in which winner takes all and earns a position on the U.S. Olympic Sailing Team and the U.S. Paralympic Sailing Team.A young team of mostly first-time Olympians

In sailing, numbers are ephemeral. One second, VMG is up; the next it’s down. Crews battle for gains that are won and lost in heartbeats: The New York Stock Exchange can be more stable (now) than the parade of numbers dancing across “the truth display” situated under the boom. But it’s these cycles of feast or famine that make sailing an intellectual game, and that’s why so many

By David SchmidtGetting here isn’t easy. For some, it involves a multi-leg prop-job hop from a major airport to a local airport to the tiny airstrip known as Key West. For me, it involved a hair-raising journey on a jet-powered CRJ that managed to land on a very short runway, one rear wheel in contact with Planet Earth before the side winds relented, full contact was made,

Volvo Ocean Race makes confirmed stopover in Indian city of KochiBy David SchmidtRickshaws, chai, incense, street vendors, sacred cows, sardhu’s, ashrams, and Volvo Open 70’s? Indeed, the world’s highest-tech monohulls might seem oddly juxtaposed with India’s more iconic symbols, but it is confirmed: The Indian city of Kochi (in the state of Kerala) will host the second

If you race sailboats in the U.S., you have no doubt witnessed a parade of rating-rule acronyms in the past decade: IMS, Americap, PHRF. Now there’s a new contender in the alphabet-soup rating-rule game. IRC has been used widely in the U.K. and Europe for years, but it was introduced in the U.S. only a couple of years ago. So far the transition has been fairly smooth, with almost 600 IRC

Watch video of the Avanti ripping it up at 19+ knots in Block Island Sound.(May take several minutes to download.) Clip 1 | Clip 2“Hey David, do you have a life-insurance policy?” Ken Read asks, poking his head through the companionway of the Volvo Open 70 Puma Avanti as we pound

The Portimo Global Ocean Race—the world’s first “Solo-Double” Race—has officially published their Notice of Race, the official document that governs next year’s solo/doublehanded round-the-world ocean race. “Publishing our Notice of Race is a defining moment for us and for our competitors who can now move their campaigns forward with the utmost confidence,” said Race Director Josh Hall. “The NOR

If you’ve ever tried to sail a beam-reach course with a kite up on standard spinnaker-pole rigged boat, you have undoubtedly had to deal with the difficulty of tight sheeting angles on the guy when the pole is eased forward to the forestay. Traditionally, this is alleviated with reaching struts. While these work well, they represent another spar that must be clipped in place (usually to either

Singapore has been named as the first official Southeast Asian stopover in the Volvo Ocean Race’s history. The fleet of Volvo Open 70’s is expected to reach Singapore in mid-December of 2008, and will tie up at the new, state-of-the-art One Degree 15 Marina Club, located on the resort island of Sentosa. Says Glenn Burke, the CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race: “Singapore is vastly experienced in

ISAF on November 12 announced its officiating team for the 2008 Olympic Games at Qingdao, China, noting that the emphasis on the final-day medal races places extra pressure on the quality of the judging. No doubt sailors and the sailing public will pay close attention when the time comes, because creating that “medal round” is the only conspicuous move made toward meeting a conspicuous need for