Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2022 i Sailing World

It’s a Monday morning in late April, and students are pouring into Austin YC’s one-room schoolhouse, packed with banquet tables and folding chairs to seat about 100 sailors and coaches participating in the first longhorn edition of North U’s Performance Race Week, the immersive boot camp for keen amateur sailors. Bill Gladstone, the wizard of this whole operation, assembles his coaches for the first morning brief. I’m one of them, and we’ll each be paired with our charges in a few minutes, speed-dating style. For the 54 students, this week is all about getting better at sailboat racing. Attendees get Gladstone’s textbooks on boat-speed and tactics, as well as five days of 9-to-5 instruction, a season’s worth of starts, and a bunch of new and likeminded friends. They will be…

When Emirates Team New Zealand arrived in Bermuda in 2017 for the 35th America’s Cup, they spectacularly wrong-footed their rivals when they unveiled a mini peloton of four “cyclors” pumping away on a row of fixed bikes instead of a traditional grinding team. Using legs rather than arms to power the hydraulic systems aboard the AC50 catamaran turned out to be a game-changing move. With a steady supply of oil pressure, the New Zealand crew could execute any maneuver they chose and twist their wingsail into speed-enhancing configurations that other teams could not match. Cyclors were prohibited aboard the AC75s introduced by the New Zealanders for their defense at the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland, but they could be back on board for the 37th edition in Barcelona, Spain, in…

To meet one of the hardest-working hombres in the sailing industry, you’re going to want to head west on Texas Interstate 30 toward Rockwall and Lake Ray Hubbard. Just past Cavender’s Boot City, where cowboys and girls source their Western wear, is a place called Vela Sailing Supply, where yachtsmen and women now score their sailing gear. Inside this 4,000-squarefoot warehouse are racks and shelving to the ceiling packed with sailboat hardware, clothing and dinghies. There is a wall of cordage spools and, at the far end, a loft table for managing sails. In the office is a fast-talking Venezuelan, phone to the ear, laptop open, white-framed sunglasses nested on a tussle of jet-black hair. That’s Rod. Rod Favela. Mr. Vela. And if you’re a sailor in need, he’s a…

A 25-KNOT WIND STREAKS ACROSS IVANPAH DRY LAKE ON THIS COLD MARCH AFTERNOON IN CALIFORNIA, DUST WHIPPING ACROSS the racecourse ahead. I’m having trouble relaxing my breathing. Maybe it’s nerves. Maybe it’s the 30-pound sack of lead duct-taped to my chest for extra weight. I’m about to start my first dirt-sailing race at the 2022 America’s Landsailing Cup, and I’m hoping this extra weight will help keep my Manta TwinJammer—or rather my lawn chair with a sail—on all three wheels. Thirty of these 105-pound aluminum craft with bench seats crowd the starting line, which is a 100-yard piece of rope stretched perpendicular to the wind from the starboard side of the race-committee trailer. My competitors look like Mad Max dragoons, their identities masked by helmets and ski goggles. Their jeans are…

Sailing is a simple sport. It’s easy to get caught up overthinking it, but if you want to do well, just remember there’s a basic way to do everything, from starts to boathandling and straightline boatspeed. However, getting a good start is the first step to getting good results, so let’s get to the basics of getting off the line and then take it from there. First things first: Get out to the racecourse at least an hour early. In the halfhour or so before the start, do a number of headtowind checks. I do them in a timed sequence, not randomly, which is important. It could be every five minutes or every two minutes, but absolutely do your checks in the same time sequence so that what you record…

On the truck to Seattle, BO-PEEP II’s tender had suffered split planks in both bilge turns. The planks were also checked and had long gaps, rendering the tender unseaworthy. I made a uniform cut in each long split to clean out the damaged wood and inserted double overlapping graving pieces (sometimes called a Dutchman) with WEST SYSTEM 105 Resin®/205 Fast Hardener® thickened with 404 High-Density Filler. The original iron bolt in the oak stem had corroded and rotted the wood causing more small checks in the area. I carefully cut out the bad wood with a drill and chisel. Only a small amount of good wood remained, leaving the mortise in an irregular in shape. I used several small blocks of wood like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle to fill this…

I frequently use WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy to make exterior repairs on our very old house, which is part stone and part wood. The stone sections date from 1842 and the “newer” wooden parts from 1908. The fir thresholds at the south and east entrances to the elevated kitchen were easily damaged and heavily worn. One day, I had the bright idea to apply a lick of WEST SYSTEM Epoxy to seal the kitchen thresholds and protect them from further wear. I also put a thick coat of pigmented epoxy on the front door threshold when we installed a replica period door. The front door threshold, made of tougher wood and, with its epoxy coat, endures the passage of bicycles several times a day, as well as occasional suitcases, clumsy and/or…

It’s blowing 25 knots off the land from the northeast. Thick, dark clouds block the sun and bring the cold to the Trofeo Princesa Sofía regatta in Spain, the first European event of our 2022 Olympic calendar. My cheeks and hands are freezing, and my 4/3 wetsuit is soaked. I haven’t been in a wetsuit this thick in years, so moving around the boat is difficult. The wind is crazy puffy and shifty, and it feels like survival conditions at times. I have some nervous and excited butterflies in my stomach knowing that the racing is going to be intense. I have no idea what to expect from ourselves or the fleet. Welcome to Palma, I think to myself. Damn, it’s cold out here. My teammate, Maggie Shea, and I…

“There was a long oily swell and very little wind,” Harold Cudmore recalled more than 40 years later. “We realized there was bad weather coming. So, we had the last supper because we weren’t going to eat again. We headed into nightfall… We were going to get a beating. The glass was falling something like three millibars an hour.” It was mid-August 1979, and an unsuspecting fleet of more than 300 hundred boats was headed for the Fastnet Rock off the southern tip of Ireland. They were all racing in the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s biennial classic, the Fastnet Race. In the space of the next 24 hours, 24 crews would abandon ship, battered by 60-knot winds and 40-foot breaking waves. Eighteen lives were lost among those who were competing…

AS DAVID WELCH peels foil wrap from the neck of a Champagne bottle he’s just stepped off the stage with, he advises his teammates to step back. His crew, in matching blue T-shirts, fan out into the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd inside the regatta village at St. Barts’ Gustavia Port Marina. He wrestles the cork free, and with a muted pop, it soars into the star-filled sky above. Welch’s grin is ear-to-ear as he fills the plastic cups of his crew and toasts his team’s success at Les Voiles de St. Barth Richard Mille. Judging the enthusiasm of this impromptu celebration, you might think Welch and his teammates had won their five-boat offshore multihull division—but no, that honor goes to Kent Haeger’s team on the undefeated silver Gunboat 62 Mach Schnell. Still,…

“Sailboat racing is basically surrogate warfare from the 1700s and 1800s,” says Victor Wild, who has just stepped off the newest and arguably the hottest TP52 on the planet. “Only we don’t shoot at each other. But I love the combative component of it. And I love winning—and hate losing.” Wild’s metallic-blue race boat, Fox, is a carbon-fiber thoroughbred loaded with all sorts of cutting-edge stuff as well as a team of fully fledged professional sailors. Since the boat was commissioned by Wild and his wife, Andrea, in 2020, they’ve won the Great Lakes 52 Summer Series, set the course record for the Miami to Havana Race, and won the Worth Monroe Race (Miami to Palm Beach), the New York YC Annual Regatta, the St. Thomas International Race and the…

Adequate insurance coverage is an essential part of our lives. Boats, homes, automobiles, health, art collections and businesses should be properly covered, and the same is true for individuals who manage our sport, especially races officials, instructors and coaches training our youth sailors and adults on the water every day. For many years, US Sailing carried an insurance policy that provided coverage for race officials and sailing instructors, but recent accidents and subsequent settlements are prompting many of our institutions and race officials to look more carefully at their coverage and exposure. Previously, US Sailing’s basic policy provided up to $1 million in coverage per incident and up to $20 million in excess coverage. Insurance for a large portion of American yacht clubs has been provided by Chubb Limited and…

When you need to repair your fiberglass boat’s balsa core but don’t have any replacement core material on hand, what can you use as an alternative? I tested some different replacement core options to see how they’d perform in flexibility and strength alongside original balsa core in a fiberglass laminate. One popular core material is vertical grain balsa but, if it stays wet for too long, it can start to rot. This may make a soft or spongy spot you can feel if you step on it. If the softened balsa core is near or under a winch, stopper, cleat, or stantion base, you may not notice a problem until the object shifts position when it is under a load. It can be scary to see movement in a part…

As a homeowner, I like to apply my WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy skills and expertise to basic household repairs. There are always repairs and improvements needed around my house, and keeping WEST SYSTEM Epoxy on hand helps to solve many of my personal DIY challenges. Great resources for tackling home repairs can be found in back issues of Epoxyworks. I’ll list some of the home repair and improvement articles that I have found especially helpful. Fiberglass Tub and Shower Repair Retired Technical Advisor Tom Pawlak explains how to use WEST SYSTEM Epoxy to repair a fiberglass tub or shower. He offers two repair approaches, one for when the backside of the tub or shower is available and the other for when it is not. Tom also explains how to determine laminate…

I received a call from a friend of mine who owns a 2004 Farrier F33RX folding trimaran, the 33' Nelda Ray. This sailboat is a frequent competitor in regattas on the Great Lakes. The aluminum mast step was compressing the deck and causing laminate failure. I told my friend I’d figure out what went wrong and then fix it so it would never happen again. I’ll outline the process I used to make this successful repair. Before I started the repair, I covered the boat inside and out with a layer of 5-mil plastic sheeting in order to keep things clean. I left exposed only the areas that needed surface preparation. I used painter’s tape to seal the plastic film along the edges. Working as neatly and cleanly as possible…

For Bob Morton, a seasoned racing sailor based in Newport, Rhode Island, who has owned more yachts named Brigadoon than you have toes on your feet, there’s one definitive moment in time that crystallized and confirmed everything he knew and loved about offshore competition with a crew of trusted mates in brisk winds and deep-blue water. That moment is the third afternoon of the 1982 Newport Bermuda Race aboard his Sparkman & Stephens-designed 56-foot Brigadoon III. “It just all came together,” he says. “Just a beautiful sunny day. Whitecaps on every wave. Reaching along just great. The boat in perfect sync and trim.” And that single passage of time and miles was affirmed in unforgettable style several hours later when Brigadoon III charged across the finish line as the ’82…

Stan Joines has been racing in the St. Thomas International Regatta for almost three decades, winning the Performance Cruising class a number of times, most recently in his J/36, Paladin. But it’s not so much his participation or his wins that make his story interesting. Since the early 1990s, Joines has been bringing teenagers along with him from his native St. Croix, teaching them to sail, race and simply enjoy being on the water. By his count, he’s exposed 200 to 300 kids to sailing. That’s with no organization, no funding—just Joines giving the kids of Croix a slice of the good sailing life. “When I first arrived here 32 years ago from Georgia to teach music at St. Croix Central High School, I had never sailed before. But I…

THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY TO WIN A MILLION DOLLARS IN SAILING IN LESS THAN 10 MINUTES. Just ask Australian Tom Slingsby, CEO and driver of the Australia SailGP Team. He’s now hit this seven-figure payday twice, most recently on San Francisco Bay, where he led his team to a decisive win in SailGP’s Season 2 Grand Final. Checks, trophies and Champagne fountains aside, this 2-for-2 win is also a classic sports story involving friendly, respectful rivalries between three top SailGP skippers and teams that stretch back to the America’s Cup in 2013, when wingsail-powered multihulls first raced across San Francisco Bay. One marked difference, of course, is the ocean of data that’s available for anyone seeking to decipher the critical ones and zeros. While history suggested that the Australia SailGP…

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the top of the beat. Now it’s time to nail the first weather-mark rounding, which, when done well, will set you up for a good position on the run. For simplicity, let’s look at three useful weather-mark moves: the starboard-tack approach, the port-tack approach and the 80 percent approach. Starboard-Tack Approach We are doing well in the day’s first race, on starboard tack, and comfortably laying the windward mark. We are slightly overstood and threatened by a lineup of port-tackers coming in just below the three-length zone. They will be looking to tack to starboard, inside and to leeward of us. Our concern is that, if they do tack, they might gain mark room on us and control our positioning going into the offset. To…

The motor yacht Bo-Peep II is a 55' bridge deck cruiser designed by Hacker-Fermann Navel Architects Co. of Detroit, Michigan. In 2001, BO-PEEP underwent a major refit with extensive use of WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. Two decades later, the benefits of this approach are apparent in hull longevity and strength; dry bottom blanks, frames, and keel; a dry bilge; dry bronze thruhull fittings, hardware fasteners staying put; shorter shipyard haul-outs; and the propeller shaft remaining properly aligned. We no longer have rotted planks or loosened fasteners to replace, seams to caulk, or corrosions headaches. Built by Defoe Boat and Motor Works in Bay City, Michigan in 1926, Bo-Peep II has been in my wife Gene’s family since 1951. This mahogany boat was the second of four 55' motor yachts Defoe built…

My friend Chris bought a 33' fiberglass sailboat, a Cal 33, to use as his family cruiser. Because it was an older boat, he knew he had a few projects ahead—including drying out the rudder. Here in Michigan, we haul our boats out of the water for the winter and it gives us a chance to do repairs and inspect under the waterline. After hauling out the boat and storing it in the barn for the winter, Chris asked me to advise him on repairing the rudder. We found two smaller delaminated spots on one side of the rudder and a sizeable one on the other, along with a 6" crack near the rudder shaft. After drilling a few 3/8" drainage holes through the fiberglass skin and into the foam…

Every year we get questions regarding how to spray WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. Some people want to know how to thin epoxy so it comes out of a spray gun better while others want to know what Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is required for spraying epoxy safely. We give them all the same answer: Don’t do it! In short, epoxy is extremely hazardous when sprayed. Why You Shouldn’t Spray Epoxy To spray epoxy it must be atomized. This means the tiny epoxy molecules will be airborne. You might be saying to yourself, “Of course the particles of epoxy have to be small enough to be airborne Rachael, that’s the definition of spraying it.” Consider other materials you are used to spraying: hairspray, sunscreen, bug spray, just to name a few. Yet,…