Sailing World Winter 2023

Tony Gonsalves’ thumbs caress the sail and rudder joy-sticks on his remote, making millimeter adjustments to his DragonFlite 95’s trim as he silently wills the 37-inch one-design through the leeward gate and toward the 12-foot-long finish line. When his boat’s blunt bow finally breaks the line, the Bajan radio sailing champion from Florida emerges from his flow state with a long and deep exhale. “Sometimes, I forget to breathe,” he says with a grin, his competitive juices draining from his broad and tensed shoulders. After thumbing 21 races, he’s finally bagged one on account of a good start, a lucky shift, and a clean getaway in a breeze barely strong enough to rustle the leaves of a nearby oak. These zephyr conditions, which would leave traditional sailboats at the dock,…

Maxi racing in the Med is hot. Call it a lesson in the value of getting your act together. The game has grown and changed dramatically—and deliberately—with fleets of 50 as the new normal. Ten years ago, none of this was ensured. The secretary general of the International Maxi Association, Andrew McIrvine, tells us, “Rapid change was needed, or it was going to just die.” How it didn’t “just die” is a story worth telling, and we lean on McIrvine for that. “The International Maxi Association was originally a social club for the owners of 80-footers. That generation was going out as I was invited in,” he says. “The racing had categories that were impossible to define, so people were always gaming it. What’s a racer-cruiser versus a cruiser-racer? And…

It’s just before 1 p.m. on a weekend afternoon in mid-August, and Snipe sailors are rigging their boats. There are eight of them, including one that my daughter, Meredith, and I have borrowed; it’s our first time racing together in years. The fleet ranges from 40-year-old boats to a pristine new model, and the plan is to get in three races before the afternoon thunderstorms roll in. We’re racing out of the Union Sailing Club on Union Reservoir, in Longmont, Colorado—not exactly what comes to mind when you think of sailing. But adhering to the “if you build it, they will come” model, a determined group of locals, along with a number of transplants from more known sailing venues, have been making it work since 2004. The Snipes, Union’s largest…

Ronnie Simpson—brimmed hat backward, eyes forward, a light touch on the tiller extension of his borrowed Open 50 Sparrow—is in his element. It’s a radiant September day with a pumping southwesterly raking Rhode Island Sound, and I’ve joined a pickup crew for a shake-down sail aboard the spartan 50-footer that he is just starting to get a feel for. “Learning,” he says repeatedly. “That’s what we’re doing here today. Learning.” Sparrow is the latest handle for the well-traveled 50-footer, which began life as Newcastle Australia when Aussie Alan Nebauer commissioned it for the 1994-95 BOC Challenge; it was rechristened Balance Bar after American Brad Van Liew took it for a second around-the-world spin in the Around Alone race four years later; it became Pegasus when tech mogul and sailing enthusiast…

With the 37th America’s Cup using the AC75 class rule for this second generation of high-tech foilers, all but one of five teams—newcomer Alinghi Red Bull Racing—have the design jump-start of servers full of historical data and real experience with the 75-footer from the last go. It was, therefore, no surprise when the Protocol sought to level the playing field and reduce costs by allowing one prototype per team in the lead up to building their one and only new-generation AC75. Teams are also required to buy a one-design AC40, which could be used as a prototype to design, test and troubleshoot mechatronic systems and foils. They could also leave the AC40 in its one-design configuration and instead design and build what’s called an LEQ12, which means “less than or…

I get bored easily, which is probably because my day job is primarily racing SailGP’s F50 foiling catamarans at 50-plus knots against eight other boats on impossibly short racecourses. My version of a family holiday has nothing to do with sitting on a beach sipping piña coladas or wasting away in Margaritaville, which is why when my family goes on vacation it can be a challenge to find something that keeps everyone entertained. My 6-year-old daughter wants friends to play with and ideally a lot of animals. My wife likes an adventure but also appreciates just relaxing in the sun. And me? Like I said, sitting around doing nothing is just not my thing, and that’s why a bareboat sailing vacation ticks all my boxes. A charter catamaran is, of…