Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2022 i Sailing World

Real change takes time, that much we know. Yet the rate at which the sport of competitive sailing has advanced over the past two decades is truly mind-blowing. In a blink, we’ve gone from displacement sailing to sportboat planing and now foiling crafts of all types and sizes. While our equipment evolves rapidly, however, our social initiatives seem to crawl at an agonizingly slow pace. What I’m referring to here is diversity, equity and inclusion in sailboat racing, and this is especially true in professional sailing. Yes, there are more and greater opportunities for women at the Olympic level as new disciplines like kiting and coed classes continue to shift the gender balance. Never before have there been so many inspirational and talented female skippers and crew in the shorthanded…

In Sydney, Australia, it’s called a southerly change, and it does what it says on the tin. It’s a shift from a northeasterly summer sea breeze to a southerly wind, often driven by the arrival of a cold front and an associated low-pressure system sweeping up from the Southern Ocean. The waves meet the shallowing floor of the Bass Strait, and the southerly wind meets the East Australian Current, flowing south at around 2 knots along Australia’s east coast. The combination can make the ocean off the southeastern tip of Australia one of the roughest pieces of water in the world. And as it’s about halfway between Sydney and Hobart, the words “southerly change” can have an ominous ring for sailors preparing for the start of the annual Sydney Hobart…

SKEPTICS BE WARNED: The Happy Cat Hurricane is legit. This is the unanimous assessment from our Boat of the Year judging squad after sailing the surprisingly quick and nimble 16-foot inflatable catamaran in 10 knots of breeze. While it delivers exhilarating sailing, it’s much more than a recreational rubber dinghy—it’s an adventure craft, a portable sailboat, a pontoon motorboat, a lazy-river drifter, or anything you want it to be once it’s pumped and splashed. Grabner is an Austrian manufacturer of all types of inflatable watercraft, which the company has been building since the mid-1980s. The Happy Cat Hurricane came online in 2017, and a carbonmast version was added in 2019. The Hurricane Carbon, which the judges tested, is the company’s flagship go-fun craft, and apparently, it can’t make them fast…

For a couple of years, I’d been watching the results for Club 420 racing, and two names always kept appearing at the top: Cordelia Burn and crew Sarah Moeder, from Bay Head YC in New Jersey. I really wanted to know how they managed to win almost every Club 420 event they entered, some by wide margins. Since they were an East Coast team and I coach on the West Coast, I’d never seen them race. But this past July, at the 2021 Club 420 Nationals in New Jersey, I got my chance. There, I observed and got a few great videos of Burn and Moeder implementing their winning strategy, and as luck would have it, I got to coach our group of West Coast sailors along with coach Sarah…

To prevent future issues, it was important to investigate why the wood in the transom had rotted. The water intrusion appeared to be coming from the screws holding the rub rail onto the boat. To evaluate the extent of the damage to the transom, we needed to remove the inner fiberglass laminate. We pulled out the motor and removed the transom assembly to gain access to the inner laminate. This way, enough of the structure was left intact so the hull maintained its shape. The trailer was supporting the hull so additional blocking was not needed and we only worked on the transom. Our plan was to repair the plywood in the transom from the inside so we wouldn’t need to perform cosmetic repairs to the outside fiberglass laminate; it’s…

When I retired three years ago, I had plans to do a lot of camping. We have a small travel trailer that we love, yet there are times when camping alone that I prefer to keep things simple by leaving the trailer at home. Sleeping in the back of my small SUV works fine for me. There is even room to bring my canine pal along. One of the challenges with car camping is getting fresh air without allowing mosquitoes in for their blood-letting endeavors. I decided to devise a simple window screen that can be easily attached and removed. The screen panels that I came up with can be made in a weekend. The thing I like most about them (besides the fact that they keep the mosquitoes out)…

I’ve always wondered if LuLu wasn’t the largest trailerable sailboat on record. I’ve been sailing this 35', selfdesigned and homebuilt motor sailor since launching her out of Morro Bay, California in 2010. I laid the keel in 1993 after three years of testing on a half-scale model I’d built. Her construction consists of ¾" planks bent over bulkheads on strongback and closely fitted, layered joints held together with a lot of West System® Epoxy. I also used West System® when I sheathed her with fiberglass. Because LuLu is water-ballasted, she’s easily towed with my ¾-ton 2015 GMC pickup. We now sail her exclusively out of Marina Del Rey, California and will cruise to Catalina. Lulu’s flood hatches total 3'2" of bottom area, allowing her to morph into a 14,800 lb.…

On the first morning of October, 19-year-old Melwin Fink was south of Spain’s Cape Finisterre when an alert came from organizers of the Mini Transat Euro Chef, warning competitors of incoming heavy weather and advising them to seek shelter. Most competitors followed the race committee’s advice and turned to ports along the Iberian coast, but Fink weighed his options and pressed on, racing the weather to get farther south before the storm arrived. As a result of his decision to stay at sea and tough out the conditions, the young German sailor went on to win the first leg and establish a commanding lead going into the race’s second leg from the Canary Islands to Guadeloupe. In doing so, Fink sailed himself out of obscurity and onto the podium of…

Kathleen Tocke is curled up in the bottom of the Snipe, thinking she might die, fearful she might not. The supercrew had a bad reaction to seafood, and to say she is not at her best is to put it kindly. While Tocke rides out her problema estomacal during a fortunate postponement at the Snipe Western Hemispheres, her skipper Ernesto Rodriguez relaxes in the cockpit, hiking boots off, bare feet up, ghosting around the starting area. He has no doubt Tocke will rally when the time comes. After an hour delay, the breeze fills, the AP comes down, and Tocke rises from her death bed. Soon enough, she’s hiking off her toes and executing roll tacks, roll jibes and pole sets with explosive power punctuated by her flying ponytail. The…

The past two years have been strange ones, on land and on the water. Big-boat racing essentially stopped on Puget Sound in March 2020, stranding any racing ambitions for my teammates and me on the 44-foot Paul Bieker-designed Dark Star. Gradually, I figured out a way to race the boat doublehanded, and a few local events opened to allowing shorthanded crews. It turned out to be a really fun period, but during this time my regular teammates moved on to other boats. I couldn’t blame them as I had nothing to offer. One of the first fully crewed events on Puget Sound was the Seattle YC’s Grand Prix Regatta in October, and for this important local event I decided to resume Dark Star’s full-team race program, which meant I had…

SO, YOU’RE IN SEARCH of a sharp-looking yacht you can do the big annual race with and then comfortably take the spouse and family over the horizon for a getaway? Yes, you are, and there are plenty of boats new and old that check both boxes just fine, but how many of those quasicruisers would you seriously show up in at a big-boat world championship and confidently go to battle? Not many. With the Grand Soleil 44, however, you can, and you will. Grand Soleil’s current chief designer, Matteo Polli, of Italy, earned a reputation early on in his career as one of the best young rule optimizers in the business, taking good designs and making them better. He’s been retained by both Italia Yachts and Grand Soleil, a reputable brand…

LIFE, LIKE SAILING, is all about balance, says Phil Berman, who, as a teenage Hobie class champion, wrote the authoritative book on catamaran racing. That was way back in the 1980s, but for our Boat of the Year tests, he’s on board the tropical-sunset-wrapped Balance 482 performance catamaran. This South African-built 48-footer is a sabbatical cruiser for sure, but it’s just the sort of cruiser a competitive sailor like Berman would just as well take across a starting line and go for the hardware. His story may sound familiar, but it’s also the story of this boat. He started a multihull brokerage long ago, and after surveying and selling so many boats, he came to the inevitable conclusion: “I said, ‘You know, I think I can design a better production…

The day was perfect for racing. With the wind out of the south at 15 knots, there was a spirited group of sailors striving to get their yachts to the finish line without leaving a second to spare on the racecourse. The course was a standard windward-leeward configuration, with 1.6-mile legs. After a below-average finish in the first race, our crew refocused and sailed exceptionally well for the next five races, achieving great starts, sailing on every favorable wind shift, and executing our boat handling with deft precision. We were doing everything we possibly could to ensure a corrected-time win. But then, to our dismay, we watched our rivals round the final weather mark from well behind, set their spinnakers and jump on plane, cruising through our lee and sailing…

I GET IT. The whole “don’t give up the ship” ethos is deeply ingrained in the psyche of every yachtie. It’s only natural, therefore, that even when all seems lost and we’ve surpassed the point of no return, we sailors find it impossible to simply let it go and surrender to the forces of inertia and inevitability. In the rarified and glorious theater of skittish skiff sailing, mastering the flair of one’s ejection is an essential skill—as is the ability to stick the landing.…

Scarfing wood together dates back ages. Scarfing is the process of cutting corresponding angles (or sometimes shapes) on two similar pieces of wood and gluing them together to create a larger piece of lumber or plywood. The most common place scarfing is used is in building a stitch-and-glue canoe or kayak. I had plans to build two kayaks over the winter, with five scarfs on each hull. I’d only done a few scarf joints over the years, so this was an excellent opportunity to learn the pros and cons of the West System® 875 Scarffer. There are several different ways to join plywood but for stitch-and-glue construction, scarfing allows more of a natural bend to the wood that you can’t achieve with a butt block or a half lap joint.…

In 1947, my parents took me to Gatlinburg, Tennessee for my first vacation. I was fascinated by a wood turner and resolved that I would one day learn the craft. In the early 1970s, I found an ancient used lathe in a flea market. I bought a box set of chisels at Sears and set out to learn the craft. I didn’t have a teacher and I made a lot of mistakes. During my first 20 years of turning wood, I finished my work with Danish oil, lacquer, varnish, tung oil or polyurethane. In 2003, I switched to West System® Epoxy, and I have never looked back. I keep a careful record of my work: to date I have finished over 600 pieces with West System Epoxy. Here again, I…

I guess I’m one of those guys who finds retirement much busier than work. In fact, I wonder how I ever found time to work. One of the first projects I started after retiring was helping my brother Nelson build two Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC) stand-up paddleboards (SUPs). We were building them for the best kind of friend—the paying kind. Choosing a Model CLC offers various options to fit their customer’s pocket book, ambition, and skill level. (1) You can simply order the plans and cut all the parts from plywood in your own shop. I doubt many take that option because of the inner grid work. (2) The next option is ordering the kit with all the parts delivered pre-cut by CLC. This is the best option, in my…

At the first weather mark of the final race of the 2021 ILYA Senior Fleet X Boat Championship on Pewaukee Lake, Wisconsin, hometown heroes Kamron Kaiser and Peter Goggins round some-where in the midteens. They’re second overall in the standings, but regatta leader Henry Ackley, of Pine Lake, is having a shocker. “Can you see him?” Kaiser asks his crew after the whisker pole is set. “Not sure,” Goggins says. “Wait, there he is. He’s still going upwind.” Halfway down the run, it’s clear Ackley is racing his throwout, which means Goggins and Kaiser need to finish in the top four to win the regatta. With 47 boats clogging the Senior Fleet racecourse, and another 64 in Junior Fleet, Pewaukee Lake is a mess of mains and jibs, but for…

What would the America’s Cup be without its legendary Deed of Gift, the armies of lawyers, the backroom dealings, international intrigue and highstakes innovation? It would be, of course, just another sailboat race. But the Cup, we know, is anything but ordinary. It was, therefore, not surprising when the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Team New Zealand and its Challenger of Record, Royal Yacht Squadron Ltd. and their representative Team INEOS Britannia finally revealed the 37th America’s Cup Protocol in November, leaving more questions than answers—the biggest among them being where exactly the show would go on. Auckland again? Maybe, but the New Zealanders are crying poor and shopping elsewhere for someone to foot the bill for their regatta in 2024. The small inner circle of teams continuing from the…

BOAT OF THE YEAR Melges 15 BEST CROSSOVER Grand Soleil 44 BEST DINGHY Happy Cat Hurricane BEST MULTIHULL Balance 482 BEST OFFSHORE RACER Dehler 30 One Design…

IF a formula exists for supercharging activity in a one‑design fleet, Ned Goss appears to have discovered it. Though he’s only been active in the Y‑Flyer Class for a few years, his efforts to bolster turnout at a local regatta in Charleston, South Carolina, 18 months ago sparked a movement. Since then, local participation has trebled, and a new class builder has come forward with six boats on order and more to come. So, how does a former pro sailor and speed merchant—Goss documented 36.5 knots aboard his Mach 2 Moth one afternoon in 2014 on Charleston Harbor, making him the fastest Moth sailor in the world—suddenly become the spark plug for an 80‑year‑old one‑design class? As unlikely as that progression seems, it’s a morality tale for the sport—all about…

I purchased my 1953 Chevrolet 3100 pickup truck in 1975 from my best friend’s older brother. Years earlier, it had been the first vehicle I’d ever driven. For the next 29 years, it was stored outside and used sporadically. In 2004, I half-heartedly began restoring it and finally got serious about the project when I retired in 2018. After being exposed to Minnesota weather for many years, most of the truck’s wooden bed was rotten or missing. With a few sections that survived and the help of YouTube, I was able to reproduce the eight wooden boards close to the original ones. I used some black walnut that my dad—a woodworker for many years at a local grandfather clock company—obtained that wasn’t up to their standards. However, the truck’s original…

The Club 420 is a seaworthy and stable boat design that’s popular in youth sail training. It features a durable, reinforced hull, is simple to sail, and popular in North American youth sailing competitions. The “420” indicates the boat’s length in centimeters. Prep Crew to the Rescue Last September, we made a social media post requesting the donation of a Club 420 dinghy. This led to a road trip to Milwaukee Community Sailing Center (MCSC) to rescue two Club 420s whose next tack was towards the dumpster. We brought along three kids from the program’s prep crew. The mutual feeling of excitement for the boats’ future from our crew and MCSC was palpable. If boats have feelings, this pair of Club 420s were as excited for their next adventure as…

Begin with the Right Tool for the Job The application tool used to apply the epoxy coat will have a significant bearing on the outcome. I prefer our West System® 800 Roller Covers. Their 1/8"-thick foam provides excellent control over film thickness. They are less likely than thicker (paint) rollers to make the epoxy overheat, and they leave less stipple on the coated surface. The 800 Roller Covers are easy to cut into smaller sections for tipping off uncured epoxy coatings. After applying the epoxy coating with a foam roller, tip it off by dragging a cut section of foam roller over the surface. This smooths the coat of epoxy and lets you control how much epoxy stays on the surface. As an experiment, I decided to roll coats of…

The project, while simple in scope, posed a few complications: • The two original thru-hulls were quite close together• These thru-hulls were close to the centerline of the bow• From the inside, the thru-hulls were near some laminated stiffening for the bow as well as some tabbing to the inside liner We reached out to Gougeon Brothers, Inc. and were connected with Technical Advisor Don Gutzmer. We sent some pictures over and he assessed our situation. This was truly the best thing we could have done. Don’s technical expertise was evident throughout our discussions. He recommended we start by reinforcing the inside area with two layers of biaxial fiberglass cloth before making the repair from the outside. On the outside, to eliminate the obsolete thru-hull, we needed to taper the…