Sailing World May - June 2015

I NEVER THOUGH I’D THANK my four-yearold for her middle-of-the-night stirrings. Yet, on behalf of the skipper, the watch captain, the navigator, and the bow team of Team Sailing World in the Virtual Volvo Ocean Race, I thank you for kicking your covers off and waking me in the freezing dead of winter so I can launch the App and check my true-wind angle and boatspeed as I careen, bleary eyed, across the virtual Southern Ocean at 25.4 knots. It’s true. I’m addicted to The Game. With my Laser buried in two feet of snow and the harbor frozen across, it’s been my competitive sailing outlet. My biological clock is now in rhythm with its 12-hour wind updates—at 2 p.m. and 2 a.m. While I’m standing in line, and often…

THE SUPERYACHTS in the recent Loro Piana Caribbean Superyacht Regatta in Virgin Gorda and the St. Barths Bucket Regatta were a site to behold: dozens of magnificent luxury yachts, full sail and racing hard, in two of the most picturesque venues in the world. The scale, power, and beauty of these vessels, spanning 85 to 200 feet in length, are staggering. None of them are remotely alike, but under their new rating rule, the racing is now practically boat on boat. Racing yachts this large requires special skills, not only for the crews that wrestle thousands of square feet of sail area, but also for the tacticians and helmsmen, who have specific right-of-way rules to avoid collisions among these unwieldy craft The boats are manned by the new and old…

IN 1853, THE 235-foot clipper ship, Flying Cloud, sailed from New York to San Francisco, around Cape Horn in 89 days and 13 hours—a record for a sailing vessel that held until 1989. In 2008, the 110-foot French racing catamaran Gitana 13, with a crew of 10 traversed the 13,000-mile-plus journey in 43 days and 38 minutes. It’s a record that stands today. There is no record for sailing non-stop on the old American clipper ship trade route singlehanded, but Ryan Finn wants to set one with his throwback 32-foot Polynesian style proa. “It’s not a very yachty type of thing that I’m doing here,” says Finn. “This is more of an American adventure. An American exploration of what is possible. This is an adventure, first and foremost. Finn first…

IN THIS MOMENT they were no longer the young ones. Technically, yes, Team Alvimedica were the Volvo Ocean Race’s youngest eightman squad, even with the Leg 5 guest appearance of 43-year-old six-timer Stu Bannatyne skewing the average. It was this moment, as they reached past Cape Horn at 20 knots, that they were no longer the young hot shots. They were Southern Ocean champs, and they finally were hitting their stride. Plus, the team’s boyish-looking skipper, Charlie Enright had matured a few years himself in those brutal, beautiful, and harrowing miles between Auckland and the big rock. As Enright, 30, crouched under the coach roof of the Volvo 65, ducking sheets of water and answering questions from a live stream interview with race headquarters, in the background, his teammates high-fived,…

HALFWAY THROUGH the first of two laps of which the new fleet of one-design Volvo Ocean 65s were designed to sail, there has thus far been a single dismasting. Keels have remained attached, and there are no incidences major structural failures. Compared with the previous edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, in which only three of six boats finished the first leg, it’s clear the reliability of the one-design platform has worked. Streamlining maintenance of the fleet with a shared “Boat Yard” servicing in the stopovers has helped, but hat’s not to say the fleet has enjoyed an entirely clean bill of health since the start. The first common failures were deck-mounted pad eyes. On Leg 1, Dongfeng Race Team had the first pad eye casualty, which resulted in a…

FOR TWO WEEKS in May, little ‘ol Newport, R.I., once home to the America’s Cup, will be overrun with an entirely different experience: the Volvo Ocean Race. There will sailors, sponsors, VIPs, and race fans pouring in across the bridges and onto Aquidneck Island, and that’s fine as far as local organizers and state officials are concerned. They’ve been planning and building for the better part of two years, and they’re ready for the arrival of the biggest international sailing event outside of the Cup. With hotel rooms at capacity throughout the state as of late April, they’re counting on day-trippers to tip the attendance scale. The more the merrier for the round-the-world race’s only North American stopover. There will be one massive family festival, there will be concerts and…