Inhaltsverzeichnis für March/April 2017 in Sailing World

In my teens, some 30 years ago, my sailing life was far simpler than it is for youth sailors today. As we raced to the top of our regional regattas, we aspired to reach a major junior championship, and beyond that, high school nationals, and then on to college sailing. Those who wanted to dream big had the Olympics. Professional sailing was hardly a consideration; the America’s Cup and Whitbread Race were for old guys, and beyond that, there really was nothing else. For young sailors of my generation, the path forward was straight and narrow. That’s not so today, right? The sport’s evolution from simple dinghies and big keelboats to smaller athletic sportboats and foilers has created more opportunities for younger sailors to get in on the grand-prix action…

Smith Mountain Lake, tucked away in the Appalachian mountains of southwest Virginia, boasts 500 miles of shoreline and opportunities aplenty for inland sailing. A power company built the lake 50 years ago, and to celebrate the anniversary the Blackwater Yacht Racing Association and Pelican Point Yacht Club teamed up with local businesses to sponsor a 50-kilometer “Around the Lake” Yacht Race in May 2016. It wasn’t enough to hold a simple pointto- point competition, though. Organizers wanted to do some good for the community while celebrating the milestone. They set up a handicap system for the regatta based on fundraising: For every $1 raised, a team would have 30 seconds subtracted from their finish time. All proceeds were donated to the National Kidney Foundation, a close-to-home cause for many Smith…

01 She’s Competitive Winning the Hydrofoil Pro Tour title was a goal from her first days of kiting. “I come from a competitive family,” she says. “I focus on what I want to do, and I do it.” She’ll arrive a few days early at an event to suss out the venue and socialize, but once the competition starts, she says, it’s all about the racing. 02 She’s Not Sponsored Yet Moroz’s family and the St. Francis Sailing Foundation fund her travel and expenses, though she does get discounts on equipment. “Now that I have a world title, I’m working on getting some more financial help,” she says. “It’d make things much easier. I could do so many more events.” 03 She Started Early Both her parents are avid windsurfers,…

The University of Connecticut Sailing Team has rebanded over the past few years, and the sailors are working toward creating a sustainable team model to ensure their program’s longevity. “UConn sailing was around in the 1970s and in the 1990s, and then the enthusiasm fizzled out,” says Brian Pracon, an alumnus of the team who also just stepped down as head coach; Gary Hendrickson will step into the head-coach role next season. “We didn’t want that anymore — around 2004 the team restarted, with one boat and sailed its first event in 2006 with four or five kids on the team,” says Pracon. When the team reformed, they relocated practices to Lake Wangumbaug at Lisicke Park in Coventry, Connecticut, only 12 minutes from campus. Previously, the team was sailing out…

A blow-through-jibe in 20 knots, going into the bottom mark, requires sharp coordination among everyone, from bow to stern. Here, once tactician Andy Horton makes the call, Ian Walker confidently carves the boat into the turn. In a split-second, the boom whips across and fills with a shudder. Facing aft and not missing a beat is runner caddy, Mal Parker, who intuitively knows when it’s time to release the new leeward runner. The noise is deafening as thousands of pounds of pressure bear down on winches and blocks. The whole maneuver happens, from start to finish, in less than 15 seconds. After rounding the weather mark, tearing downwind at 20 knots, Ian Walker is hunting waves, throwing the boat around like it’s a dinghy, looking for the next speed burst.…

In this, the fourth in a series of articles on the changes in new rules, the focus is on penalties. There are changes that increase the times during which boats may be penalized for breaking certain rules, changes in the penalty given, and new rules that permit penalizing “support persons,” including coaches and parents. WHEN PENALTIES MAY BE GIVEN Let’s start with a hypothetical scenario: Six minutes before the start of the first race of a series for a big fleet of large keelboats, you are in the racing area, intending to race, and on starboard tack reaching below the starting line well clear of Reckless, which is on port tack on a course to pass to leeward of you. Without warning, Reckless luffs up and T-bones you amidships, causing…

Surrounded by an armada of spectator boats and helicopters overhead, thousands of fans enduring frigid temperatures to cheer from the shoreline, with countless more watching an online live stream, skipper Armel Le Cléac’h completed the final few miles into Les Sables d’Olonne harbor, culminating a record-breaking singlehanded round-the-world Vendée Globe race. Usually a steely-faced professional, Le Cléac’h dropped his guard, choked with emotion at the huge reception and the successful culmination of 10 years spent chasing Vendée victory. The Banque Populaire skipper finished runner-up in both the 2008-09 and 2012-13 editions, the win eluding him last time by 3 hours and 17 minutes. “I am somewhere between wanting to jump for joy and crying,” he says of the finish. “I’ve had two good second places, but only winning is beautiful.”…

The explosive popularity of keelboat onedesigns in the past two decades has been a tremendous boost for sailing. A quick look at the scratch sheets of major U.S. regattas shows several one-design classes populating the majority of entries. Yet what happens when there are not enough entries of a onedesign type to form a class for local races? Is it too compromised to race under handicap? It appears so, which is why industry veterans worry that too many boats remain on their trailers or at the dock. “One-design racing has been great for sailing and great for the industry,” says Vince Brun, of North Sails. “We have been able to develop our sail products and our tuning guides to allow our customers and others to better enjoy the close competition…

• Any outdoor activity on a cold winter day is good for the soul. Frigid air sharpens the senses and rewards the enthusiast with a sense of accomplishment. While frostbite sailing sounds daunting, it is one of the great winter pleasures in cold climates. It’s the only time of year where sailing harbors provide open yet sheltered waters, empty mooring fields, and no annoying powerboat wakes. The sailors have it all to themselves. Even ashore, everything is different. Bare trees allow wind to blow across the racecourse more naturally. The low, soft light of a winter sky illuminates boats in unique tones. It’s no accident that great photographers use this winter light during a sunrise or sunset to record their best images. The feeling I get when racing in winter…

Under immense pressure to return Team USA to the Olympic podium in sailing, Caleb Paine prevailed in an epic medal race to earn a bronze medal in the Finn class, the Men’s Heavyweight Dinghy at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. In his first career Olympic Games, Paine led the medal race at every mark. He passed Croatia’s Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic in the overall standings to earn a place on the podium. “It was a tough battle for me, and I feel fortunate to come up with a medal in the end,” said Paine. “I didn’t get off to the best start, but I kept my eyes open and saw an opportunity to make a gain on the right side, and it was go all the way or nothing at all, so…

The Governor’s Cup is the beating heart of the Balboa Yacht Club, and the pride of a volunteer force that wouldn’t miss being part of it. As the oldest event in youth match racing, the Governor’s Cup is revered as the most prestigious international youth match-racing regatta. It’s also the beating heart of Balboa YC, and the pride of a volunteer force that wouldn’t miss being part of it. From its location on the eastern reach of California’s Newport Harbor, Balboa YC values the “Gov Cup” as its banner in the wind. “This is the week that we live the vision,” says commodore Doug West. Since its humble beginnings as a regional regatta — with ambitions to go national — in borrowed Cal 25s, the Governor’s Cup has become much…

The Day Sailer really moves on the race course. It has all the right sails and strings, and it’s comfortable and it’s responsive. What I cherish even more than George O’Day and Uffa Fox’s timeless design, however, is the experience of stepping on board and instantly feeling connected to other chapters of my life. I realize this recently at the annual Day Sailer Crab Pot Regatta at the Severn Sailing Association in Annapolis, Maryland, in October 2016. This non-club-sanctioned tradition has taken different formats through the years, but it always includes something adventurous late in the season, an opportunity to switch boats and crews, and a bowl of chili afterward. On this occasion, our generous fleet captain Robin Richards has rigged Kanaka and Bail Out so we can do a…

In the ’70s and ’80s, if you were keen to race your cruising boat, PHRF was the handicap rule of choice. For furniture-laden production boats saddled with performance compromises, PHRF was an easy gateway into competitive sailing. There were also designers and custom builders devising faster and leaner boats for owners wanting to compete at a higher level. IOR was their racing fleet. It was a technical rule, used internationally, which allowed owners to compete on the world stage. In the heydays, top IOR teams had global respect. This two-tiered rating rule hierarchy essentially remains the model in most countries today: There’s a gateway rule and a technical rule. Not so in the United States. While PHRF serves the vast majority of local handicap racers, American owners now have a…

It’s early morning in Key West — golden and warm as the RV encampment known as Tiger Town stirs from its slumber. Roosters crow in the distance, barely audible over the diesel generator chugging away behind a half-dozen motorhomes from Cruise America. Soon, electric skillets in the outdoor galley will sizzle with bacon and eggs, luring bleary-eyed sailors and coaches out of their bunks. Dave Smith, the unofficial mayor of Tiger Town, is pacing the compound with a cup of coffee his neighbor just brewed. “He’s always up first,” says Smith, flashing a broad smile, “so his is now the coffee camper. Want a cup?” Smith is here representing the National One Design Sailing Academy, an upstart sailing school based in Toronto, Canada, and this village is essentially his doing.…

I t’s a sunny, light-breeze afternoon with gentle rolling swells, we’re a few miles off Miami, and Wiley Rogers and crew Jack Parkin, two of the country’s most promising young dinghy sailors, are working with Olympic coach Dave Ullman. They’re fresh off a crushing win in 420s at the Youth World championship and now, at the ripe ages of 17 and 18, respectively, they’re ratcheting up to the next level — a 470 campaign that, with wide-eyed, youthful optimism, might lead to Tokyo in 2020. The afternoon eventually winds down, and the boys lower their sails in preparation for the tow back to the Miami Yacht Club, host for the first US Sailing Team camp of the new quad. As they’re rolling sails, another 470 materializes out of the haze.…

Once upon a time, my teammates and I would start pre-race conversations with something like, “Let’s talk about weather conditions, geography and current, and come up with a plan.” But that’s a mouthful. Then, one day, someone simply asked, “What kind of day is it?” The question stuck, and since then, whether coaching or in my own racing, a pre-race discussion always starts with this very question. The answer, I’ve found, is essential to forming a strategy because, by categorizing the “kind of day,” we can be better prepared for the conditions we’re mostly to encounter. It’s a light-wind day: Think observation and patience. Here, the overriding strategy is to sail toward wind velocity. When it’s blowing 4 knots, your boat might move at 2 knots, which is well below…