In Auckland, New Zealand, the 75-foot foilers will be wedged into small, inshore boundary-constrained racetracks where wind shifts still matter, but given the speed of the boats and the dimensions of the racecourse, it’s about a minute of sailing between ­boundaries. Tack on shifts? Maybe not. Given the cost of maneuvers, it could very well be worth the distance loss of sailing a header for a short period in order to earn a longer board on the other tack. Change is ­ubiquitous in the America’s Cup, and when the boat type changes, so too does the role of the weather team, an important component of every serious Cup syndicate. In the early days of a campaign, the weather team plays a crucial role in boat design. I can still remember my first Cup campaign, when design-team manager Robert Hopkins explained how the team had commissioned a huge weather study of the winds off Fremantle, Australia, and how the winds change during the racing period from October to February. The study helped the designers come up with dozens of candidate designs that were then “virtually” raced against each other in a digital regatta with the same qualification rounds with ­escalating point value, just like the real thing. Employing a ­science called “game theory,” the Stars & Stripes design team then determined which boat of the many candidate designs would survive the lighter, early springtime rounds of the trials, thrive in the heavy air of the later trial rounds, and still have the speed to win the Cup in the moderating sea breezes of the later summer. It all sounded pretty Buck Rogers-esque to me, but clearly they got it right, because we won the Cup in four straight races after surviving the trial’s early rounds and thriving in the heavy air of the later rounds.

The science of historical weather analysis has greatly improved since those days, and today, Cup weather teams’ early historical research continues to provide an important foundation for the design team. Historical data used includes the “re-analysis products” of weather models plus archived observation data. And because the Cup was held in Auckland in 2000 and 2003, there is a lot of high-quality local historical buoy and sensor data to pull from. At this important stage, teams also benefit from the experience of their weather gurus.

Roger Badham, whose local knowledge of Auckland weather started out in the early days of the 18-Foot Skiffs, has been working with Team New Zealand since the Cup was last in Auckland. American Magic’s Chris Bedford is on his 10th Cup campaign (we were rookies together on Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes team in Australia). Whether it’s historical analysis or interpreting today’s weather in Auckland, experience counts, and these veterans add incredible value to the raw science and data they are working with. Logistics is another early-stage subject that Cup weather teams are asked to contribute to. American Magic’s choice of training grounds in Pensacola, Florida, for example, was due in large part to its similarity to the AC racecourses in Auckland. But helping pick the training bases isn’t the end of the weather team’s role in logistics and operations. Juan Vila, a veteran Cup sailor, Volvo Ocean Race-winning navigator and meteorologist for INEOS Team UK, says that at some point in the campaign, pretty much everyone on the team will come to him for his input. And that includes crane operators tasked with safely launching and hauling these flying machines. On a daily and weekly basis, the meteorologist’s input helps the team plan everything, from when and where to sail on a particular day to achieve a particular goal (e.g., light-air transition to foiling) to when to schedule those crucial workdays for the boatbuilding team. Every Cup weather team will utilize a variety of weather models, some of which will be familiar to any sailor and others who are customized for the race area. To keep the “arms race” at bay, Cup rules limit data collection, so no lidar and other “science projects” that have been used in past Cups.

“Valencia (2007) was the height of craziness in ‘weather world,’” Bedford says. “The cold war of weather ­information had gotten out of hand. We’d gone from a Cup campaign with one weather boat to a dozen weather boats, several dozen weather buoys, drones —extremely expensive.”

For this Cup, a communally funded weather-buoy network, managed by PredictWind, has been created, and all teams have access to this live and historical data, as well as instrument data coming off their sailboat and chase boats (allowed only when the team’s sailboat is on the water). Once the race committee gets into action, their wind data (including wind direction and speed on the race marks) will be added to the communal network. Bedford is a fan of the communal concept, as is Badham, who once managed a seven-­person weather team for Emirates Team New Zealand.

“The ‘met’ role changed hugely with the change from slow boat to fast boat” after Valencia 2007. Bedford continues, “With the slow boat, you were a ­critical decision-maker—what side to protect, how to start, how to play the first half of the beat—that was the weather game.” Now, he says, with the speeds of the AC75, there’s a different emphasis, and the role of the met team has become incrementally less when it comes to real-time racecourse management. Once the racing gets closer, however, the weather team will be intimately involved in foil configuration and setup decisions.

American Magic’s testing manager, Anderson Reggio, says, “The rules require us to commit to our boat configuration a few days before the start of each round,” which is three days before the round robins and five days for Prada Cup Finals and the Cup. “With rounds varying in length from seven to 15 days, the uncertainties of a long-range weather forecast make it hard to get too fancy with your choice of foils.”

But there are other mode changes that can be legally made, and like the Cup days before wingsails, sail-selection decisions are back in the mix. “The rule allows you to carry a Code Zero and a headsail, but with 25-minute races, sail changes just aren’t happening. So it will come down to picking the headsail and the mainsail,” Reggio says. “Sail-limitation rules limit teams to a quiver of 10 mains and 29 headsails (including Code Zeros) to choose from for any race.” Clearly there will be other wind-speed-related mode changes and boat tweaks that teams will be striving to learn about throughout the final work-up to the Trials and the during the racing.

“Setting up the boat for race day is important, but with the new configuration rules, my role in this has changed even since Bermuda,” Badham notes. “There I had a huge role; we had a mode change for every knot and a half of wind speed—­different rudders, elevators and such. I would give a preliminary forecast at 0530, and by 0700, the tips were bogged onto the foil, and they were headed to the autoclave. That’s been ­curtailed this time.”

Bedford says that the dynamic of the racing is different with the short courses and constricted dimensions, which doesn’t allow for much separation between the boats. “The classic ‘left or right’ call is no longer that important, but there is a necessity for the race team to understand the wind field, and I’m on hand to update and interpret what’s happening in real time with the passing of a cloud, or whether the west-coast sea breeze makes it through to the racetrack,” Bedford says. Understanding the wind field during the race remains ultra-important to the sailors. Along with the basic general rules of sailing in pressure and maximizing progress up and down the ladder rungs, we’ve already discussed the importance of understanding shifts and how the skew of the racetrack could affect the tactics of sailors trying to minimize maneuvers. Another wind-related consideration is prestart patterns. For this Cup, we are back to upwind starts, and these foiling boats present new challenges, especially given the geographic constraints of the starting box.

Teams may have certain favored prestart patterns based on the wind speed, so that might be the final of many important calls that the weather team provides before communications are cut off before racing. There are five potential course areas the race committee may choose for the America’s Cup Match and Prada Cup challenger elimination series, all of which will be influenced by land effects. The infamous west-coast southwest sea breeze will have a much better chance of displacing the east-coast northeasterly sea breeze by race times later in the day. This double sea-breeze situation is thanks to geographic features—especially the fact that New Zealand’s North Island is very narrow at Auckland’s latitude. Along with predicting which sea breeze will win, geographic effects on the wind flow and strong tidal currents are key features that the weather team is charged with deciphering on the 2021 Cup racetrack. As Reggio points out, most, if not all, of the raceboats will have no speed sensor other than a high-accuracy GPS. To solve the wind triangle and derive true-wind speed and direction on the boat’s instruments, one must add in values for current set and drift. Reggio oversees American Magic’s proprietary current model based on public data, which is loaded into the raceboat’s instrument system to resolve the wind triangle. This method was first employed by Cup teams in 2013 in the racing on current-infested San Francisco Bay. Another “opposites day” type twist to Cup racing in boats that can VMG faster than the wind is that adverse current on ­downwind legs is advantageous!

Though the America’s Cup game keeps changing, one thing that has not is that a ­sailor’s world revolves around the wind, and a Cup weather team remains a crucial element to success. The job begins early each day, with study of the local weather’s big picture—what Bedford calls the “forecast funnel”—before focusing down to the local scale and the bevy of weather models, observations, radar and satellite imagery that all help provide the “guidance” that gets turned into the morning forecast. Communication continues throughout the day with the various briefings, in some form or another, to help the different departments plan. The fun part comes when all the observations have come in, all the model runs have been crunched, and the meteorologists can look up at the sky to try to add even more value to the continuous and dynamic job of forecasting the weather.

“I was probably the first meteorologist on a chase boat doing the weather (in 1983), but with these fast boats, I prefer to be on a good spot overlooking the course,” Badham says. “Before the race, I’ll ride my bike there with my two laptops and a mobile phone. There are days you look at the laptop more than the sky and vice versa, but if you really understand weather, you look at both. No question the weather-team game has changed over my career. I’ve gone from being the one person on the weather team to the arms race that peaked in Valencia, and now I’m back to being a one-man team in what well might be my last Cup.” To put a Cup weather team’s “reduced role” in perspective, consider that during a 30-minute Zoom call with Badham to research this story, he got two calls from Emirates Team New Zealand veteran sailor and coach Ray Davies, who was out on the water with the team’s new AC boat, conferring about passing rain cells and their effect on the wind. And Badham wasn’t even on-site yet. He was still holed up in his quarantine accommodations. Suffice it to say, he expects exponentially more calls as ­racing approaches. Everyone needs their weatherman.

The post The Role of the Modern America’s Cup Weatherman appeared first on Sailing World.

Andrew Campbell is huddled in the front of the starboard cockpit of American Magic’s Patriot as the dark-blue beast of a boat hits takeoff speed on New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf. As the fantastical-looking Patriot rises up on its foils and skims over the tops of the waves, Campbell is flying the 75-foot monohull.

Yes, flying it. He is, after all, the flight controller. Welcome to the whiz-bang world of the 36th America’s Cup, which is jam-packed with both technology and a sense of the unknown.

Campbell has one of the most unique jobs in the America’s Cup, aboard perhaps the most complex class of boat on the planet, the AC75. Working in concert with helmsman Dean Barker and mainsail ­trimmer Paul Goodison, Campbell’s ability to fly Patriot will go a long way in determining whether American Magic can return the Auld Mug to the New York YC, which once enjoyed a 132-year ­winning streak in sailing’s marquee event.

“Yeah, essentially that’s my job,” 36-year-old Campbell says from Auckland. “It does take some coordination between the three guys: Paul Goodison trimming the mainsail, Dean driving, and then our jib trimmers. All the surfaces need to be all sorted out and in line, and the boatspeed has to be right for us to take off and get out of the water. But essentially it’s my job to decide when we’re going to take off and then to actually execute that. My actions make the boat take off.”

This America’s Cup will be nothing if not visual. The AC75 uses twin canting T-foils to help lift the hull completely out of the water in order to increase speed. In the normal sailing mode, the AC75 skims above the waves, riding only on the leeward foil and rudder, with the windward foil raised out of the water to reduce drag.

When the boat tacks or jibes, the arm that had been in the water is raised and the other one is lowered into the water, making it look like a giant nautical creature skittering above the water.

“My 5-year-old said, ‘Hey, that looks like the whale shark from the aquarium.’ I couldn’t disagree with him,” Campbell says. “The boats are very strange-looking. The fact that each of the teams has put out such a different version of how the hull is shaped and all of the wings are different and the foils, it’s just a super-exciting time for the sport.”

Both foils can be lowered in prestarts and through other ­maneuvers to provide extra lift and roll control, which also will be useful in rougher sea conditions.

“My job on board is to control the surfaces that are underwater: the two foils, their cant angles, which is the up and down motion of the arms, their flap positions,” says Campbell, an Olympian whose father, Bill, sailed in three America’s Cup campaigns. “The trailing edge of the foil moves like an aileron flap. We also have control of the rudder rake like the previous catamarans did. Between the three surfaces that are underwater, my job is to make sure we can run them in a way that keeps the boat up in the air.”

In a simpler sense, “the sensation is closer to an aircraft during takeoff,” Campbell says. “You rumble along building speed, adjusting and trimming to heel and boatspeed like any normal boat, but when you pass through the critical boatspeed and know you have enough lift, the equilibrium loads up and adds the third dimension, and up she goes.

“The Moth or smaller foiling platforms are more sensitive in terms of the boatspeed being much lower and top speed limited by the righting moment. That’s what separates these boats. They are big, powerful, and they carry momentum that the little boats don’t have. Definitely fun times.”

Terry Hutchinson, American Magic’s skipper and executive ­director, echoes that thought.

“It’s no more complicated than in the same manner you would fly an airplane,” Hutchinson says. “At a certain boatspeed, at a certain flap angle and at a certain rudder rake angle, the boat will come out of the water.

“I look at Andrew’s job, and I think it’s the hardest job on the boat,” Hutchinson adds. “He has the responsibility of making sure the boat is flying and performing in a manner the designers have designed the boat to sail. Andrew’s job takes an incredible amount of concentration. He has to be very disciplined in how he approaches his job because ultimately he’s carrying the responsibility of 10 other people, on top of himself, on the boat. And at the pace the boat is traveling and the environment we’re operating in, it’s not an easy job to do it. He’s completely earned unending respect from the entire team because of the level he’s operating at. It’s exciting to watch.”

Campbell says he doesn’t feel pressure because he’s been doing the job since day one of the program.

When American Magic began sailing its half-size test boat, the Mule, two years ago, it had a crew of only five. Campbell ­volunteered to be the flight controller.

“Having done the tactician role and driving out of the jibes and all that stuff with Oracle last time, I had a fair amount of experience doing it, and so I felt confident I could do it,” Campbell says. “And then all of a sudden, you look around the room, and no one else is that confident that they can do it, so it’s like, OK, here we are. You’re the tall poppy all of a sudden. That’s the one that’s easy to cut and say, ‘OK, you’re going to go out and do this.’ It didn’t fall into my lap, but it was something I was happy to pick up the responsibility for and run with it, and it’s turned into an interesting job. The learning curve is definitely steep. It’s been really interesting.

“I don’t come from an engineering background ­necessarily,’’ continues Campbell, the College Sailor of the Year in 2006. “My education is in diplomacy. I have a foreign-service degree from Georgetown. It’s not doing me a lot of good, yet. It helps me ­politically get through some of the meetings.”

The foil arms are one-design for all teams, but the American Magic’s flight system and software were developed in-house, with help from innovation partner Airbus.

“This is the third platform,” Campbell says. “We’ve gone through a lot of foils, and every foil is different and has its own little nuances, and they’ll bite you in the ass if you get it wrong every once in a while. It’s a fun game to play because it’s so dynamic.”

These are high-risk/high-reward boats that will sail faster than 50 knots. Nail the maneuvers, and the results can be sensational. Miss, and there will be trouble.

Patriot went for its first sail in mid-October. On its first jibe, the boat began to rise into the air and then nosedived into the pristine waters. Hutchinson said that was due to the rudder cavitating.

Trouble can be just an instant away.

“It’s easy to get out of sync, and when you do, they bite pretty hard, because it’s a lot of momentum and the boats are big,” Campbell says. “The 50-foot catamarans were kind of rough-and-tumble because they were smaller. It was a bit more like a sports-car feel. This is more like crashing a bus. If you come off wrong and you put the thing in, the momentum shift of the piece of equipment is staggering because it’s so much bigger.

“We’ve already been close a couple of times with this new ­platform. It’s an animal. If you’ve got it kind of calm and working and in range, you’re happy. It’s like a riding a horse out of the gate at a rodeo. If you don’t quite have it right, you’ve got to be able to recognize really quickly how to get it back in the range, otherwise you’re going to get bit.”

Not surprisingly, American Magic is tight-lipped about how Campbell controls the foils.

“He waves his magic wand, and up she comes,” Hutchinson jokes. “We’re just going to call it a control center.”

“I wish I could,” Campbell says when asked if he could describe the controls. “It’d be easy for you to see in a spy boat for sure what I’ve got going. It’s essentially a tool that allows me to pretty accurately put the foils in a position where I know where they are and where I don’t have to look at the controller in order to do it. It’s an electronic box. My actions are kind of directly put into the foils and the rudder. I have absolute control over the flap and the rams that are running the rudder rake. It’s all at my fingertips, and it’s just a question of being patient and calm enough to make sure I don’t overbake it.”

Campbell has an America’s Cup pedigree. His father, Bill, sailed with three campaigns from 1983-1995, an era that spanned the 12 Metres and the IACC sloops. He was a navigator on Courageous during the 1983 Defender Trials in Newport, Rhode Island, helmed the B boat and was sailing team manager with America’s Cup champion America3 in 1992, and served as tactician, navigator and B-boat helmsman with Nippon Challenge in 1995.

“From my standpoint, it’s so much fun having him so involved in sailing and so involved at this level. I can relate to how important it must be for him,” Bill Campbell says, from the family’s home in San Diego.

Getting used to his son’s job title has been another thing.

“No kidding. Who’d have thought, right? He keeps the boat in the air, up off the water,” he says, with a chuckle.

It’s been an interesting America’s Cup evolution for the Campbell family, from the relatively plodding sloops Bill sailed on to the flying machine Andrew helps sail.

Bill says he’s never sailed on a foiling boat. “I don’t have that ­feeling for what it’s like,” he says. “Andrew has told us it’s like all of a sudden you get up off the water and the boat just takes off, and it’s incredible acceleration up to the top speed it gets to.”

Twelve years ago, Andrew Campbell was sailing a Laser in the Beijing Olympics. Today, he’s at the controls of a boat that is like nothing any of the crew has ever sailed.

“It’s a completely different world, completely different sensation,” Campbell says. “You have to be so focused on what’s happening. It so quickly gets out of balance that you can’t afford to lose track of where you are.

“I come in off the water not having done any physical exertion, basically, and I’m exhausted because I’m trying to be so focused on keeping the platform in such a narrow groove all day,” he says. “That, at the end of the day, is kind of the beauty of our sport. You have to be completely present and completely focused on what’s happening in that moment. Otherwise, things go wrong. We’re really lucky to be able to do that and not be distracted by other stuff for a few hours every day.”

The post Meet American Magic’s Flight Controller appeared first on Sailing World.

The 2020 ORC/IRC World Championship will bring top sailing teams from around the globe to battle on Rhode Island Sound and Narragansett Bay for one of three coveted world titles. It’s the first time in two decades this regatta, which will be held out of the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court from September 25 to October 3, 2020, has been held in North America. Entries will open on Friday, October 25.

“We’re extremely excited for next year’s ORC/IRC World Championship,” said Patricia Young, the event chair and a passionate sailor who is often found racing on her Tripp 41 Entropy. “We recognize that it’s a big commitment to ship a boat from Europe, or further abroad, for this regatta. But Newport and the New York Yacht Club will reward anyone who puts in the effort with one of the best regatta experiences of their lives.”

Because each of the three divisions is limited to 50 boats, there is a strong incentive to sign up early. The first 30 boats that register for each class will be guaranteed a spot in the regatta. Beyond that initial group, a selection process may be required if there are more than 50 total entries for any class. The division of classes is determined by CDL (Class Division Length) limits defined in the Notice of Race.

Class A will have the fastest boats in the fleet, from about 45 to 55 feet in length, with TP52s being among the fastest boats allowed to enter. Already there are preparation plans amongst boats in this fleet to optimize for the 2020 Worlds, and at least one new boat is being built now to compete in this class.

Class B is typically composed of mid-sized boats from 39 to 44 feet in length. A ClubSwan 42, a class created by the New York Yacht Club in 2006, won Class B at the D-Marin ORC World Championship in Croatia in June.

Class C has been the most popular and competitive class at world championship events held in Europe the past few years. Boat types that compete in this class are typically production racer/cruisers, such as the J/112E from the Netherlands that won Class B at the 2018 ORC/IRC World Championship in The Hague and Class 3 at the IRC Europeans in Cowes, U.K. Small fast sportboats, such as GP26s, C&C 30s and other nimble designs, may also enter this class.

Besides 2020 world champion titles, the event will also award for each class trophies for the top Corinthian team and the top team competing in a boat designed before 2010.

The 2020 ORC/IRC World Championship will include a mix of buoy racing and offshore courses, and use two of the world’s most popular systems for rating boats, IRC and ORC. The exact scoring methodology will be confirmed shortly, but both rating systems will play a significant role.

“We’re very excited to return to the U.S. with a World Championship after such a long absence,” says Bruno Finzi, Chairman of the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC). “Newport and the New York Yacht Club are the perfect venues, and the interest we have had from teams here in Europe who wish to attend has been strong. We look forward to seeing the best of the U.S. and the best of the rest of the world come to race in Newport.”

“Newport and the New York Yacht Club will provide a tremendous backdrop for the second combined World Championship of IRC and ORC,” said Michael Boyd, IRC Congress Chairman. “Moving the championships around the world, from Europe in 2018 to now the United States in 2020, shows the truly international reach of our rating systems. We can’t wait to see the broad range of sailing talent from around the world compete for this prestigious event at this esteemed venue.”

Purchased by the New York Yacht Club in 1988, Harbour Court has become one of the preeminent regatta hosts in the United States. Recent events hosted by the Club include the historic J Class World Championship in 2017 along with world championship regattas for the Etchells, J/70s and Farr 40s. A 2020 summer schedule that includes the 166th Annual Regatta and the 2020 Race Week at Newport presented by Rolex will provide plenty of opportunity for visiting teams to become familiar with the local conditions and enjoy a full summer of sailing in Newport.

The stunning grounds of this 115-year-old clubhouse are perfect for entertaining regatta guests and VIPs after racing and provide one of the most spectacular views of Newport Harbor. The Club’s location in Brenton Cove is in close proximity to a full suite of maritime services and diverse lodging options, and provides sailors with quick access to the racecourse.

The Notice of Race for the 2020 ORC/IRC World Championship can be found on the event website. Entries will open on Friday, October 25.

IRC is a rating system developed and managed for the past 33 years by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) and its French counterpart, Union Nationale pour Course au Large (UNCL), and is used in over 40 countries for events ranging from local club regattas to continental championships and many of the world’s premier ocean races. For 50 years, ORC has managed and developed the IOR, IMS and now ORC rating systems also used in ocean races, and for the past 20 years has organized annual world and European championship events, as well as hundreds of local and regional races and regattas in 40 countries around the world.

The post Combined ORC/IRC World Championships On Tap for 2020 appeared first on Sailing World.

The 2019 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup came down to the final race, as it should. Two teams of accomplished and motivated amateur sailors from opposite corners of the globe battling on a lumpy, windy Narragansett Bay for one of Corinthian sailing’s most-prized trophies.

Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and San Diego Yacht Club started the 12th and final race separated by 6 points, which was anything but a safe margin in this competitive 20-boat fleet. The Australian team had the edge in the overall standings, but skipper Guido Belgiorno-Nettis and his team put the regatta title right in play with a sub-par start while San Diego bolted to the head of the fleet and was, for a while, back in the virtual regatta lead.

Using the superior boatspeed and sterling tactical acumen that had gotten them out of trouble all regatta, Royal Sydney ground back into the top 10 and then into the top five, leaving San Diego hoping for a miracle that wouldn’t come. The RSYS team was simply too polished. After 12 races in a full range of conditions, they sailed through the final finish line in fourth place to become the first Southern Hemisphere club to win the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Belgiorno-Nettis shortly after a dockside celebration with his team. “You can’t describe the feeling of coming all the way from Australia, to be able to put a team together who I love dearly, every one of them, starting with my wife, to actually win a championship like this. The New York Yacht Club Invitational is one of great regattas in the world.”

The Invitational Cup is a biennial regatta hosted by the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court in Newport, R.I. Since the event was first run in 2009, it has attracted top amateur sailors from 43 of the world’s most prestigious yacht clubs from 21 countries. After five editions in the Swan 42 class, the 2019 event was sailed in the IC37 by Melges, designed by Mark Mills and built by Westerly Marine in Santa Ana, Calif., and FIBRE Mechanics in the United Kingdom. The strict one-design nature of this new, purpose-built class combined with the fact that all 20 boats are owned and maintained by the New York Yacht Club, ensures a level playing field unique to amateur big-boat sailing.

Save for one bad race on the regatta’s third day, the San Diego YC team had sailed a nearly flawless regatta through nine races. Even though they carried a 1-point lead into the final day, it was hard to bet against the youthful West Coast squad. But then came the second windward mark rounding of the final day’s first race. With Royal Sydney rounding ahead, in third place, San Diego tried to squeeze just too much out of a thin layline and ended up pasted to the windward mark while the bulk of the fleet sailed past. A certain top-10 finish became an 18th.

Now trailing first place by 13 points, SDYC skipper Tyler Sinks and crew showed remarkable resilience with a win in the second race while Belgiorno-Nettis and crew (at left) struggled to an eighth. That brought the title back into reach for the final race. With the pressure on, the Australians rose to the occasion.

“Luckily for us, we’re good in the [stronger winds] and there was quite a lot of wind in that last race, and we were able to get the boat rumbling,” said Belgiorno-Nettis. “Mike Dunstan, my main trimmer, and my other trimmer on jib, David Edwards, they just set up the boat so it was easy for me to sail. I could just punch the numbers out. It’s all about being consistent. So we were able to chip our way up from quite deep. We were in 12th at the start and ended up in fourth. That was pretty good. Occasionally I’d look around and see where people are…think to myself ‘oh how did that happen?’”

While most of the attention was focused on the battle for first, there were a number of developments deeper in the standings. Anthony O’Leary and the Royal Cork Yacht Club team once again showed they love to sail in heavy air. They went 5-2-1, won the day, and took advantage of a couple of tough races by the Royal Canadian Yacht Club to claim Royal Cork’s first Invitational Cup podium.

“We’re absolutely thrilled. This is our sixth visit, first time to make the podium, so it makes it very special,” said O’Leary. “We were eight points behind Canada [starting the day] which is a lot in one respect, but with three races anything is possible. We had one dreadful result on Thursday. You just got to wait and see how the cards fall. We had a five [in the first race today] and you’re thinking, ‘They’re may be two more races, maybe one.’ Things seemed to go better and better for us. We’re delighted.”

Another team that spent the day on the up escalator was the crew representing the host New York YC, led by co-skippers Andy Fisher and Ray Wulff. After an inconsistent regatta, the team found its groove on the final day. With three solid races, including a wire-to-wire win in the day’s first race, Fisher, Wulff and Co. moved from 10th to sixth in the overall standings.

“As a team we just came together, and each day we were getting stronger and stronger,” said Wulff. “Today we just felt, ‘You know what, we’ve just got to go out there and sail as strong as we can.’ Representing the Club, we wanted to make sure we finished on a strong note.”

The post Every Race Counts at New York Invitational appeared first on Sailing World.

The seabreeze builds to 15 knots across Rhode Island Sound as Tom Rich watches his son-in-law stumble through a tack on his way to grinding in the jib. Thwack, thwack, thwack. The jib flogs in the wind. It’s the first day of racing at the 165th New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta, and with stiff competition in the IRC 2 fleet, there is no margin for error.

“Get that thing in,” says Rich as loud as he can. Rich is by no means a screamer, and for a man of large stature, he is soft spoken and patient on the helm of his Tripp 43, Settler. Though he always races to win and could recruit plenty of pros, Rich makes a point to sail with his two daughters and a growing list of in-laws, so for the crew of Settler, sailing has been, and always will be a family matter.

Rich, of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, says his father started the Settler program when he was in high school. Over the years, the family fleet included a C&C 33, a New York 36, and a Peterson 42, all called Settler. The boat’s name is a nod to the family’s heritage. “My dad always said our family was related to the original founders of the town of Southold on Long Island, one of the first English settlements in New York in 1640. So we thought the name was appropriate, particularly because settlers are typically the first ones there, so for a race boat, it makes sense.”

As former co-owner of New England Boatworks, Rich has worked on or built countless raceboats around the Rhode Island area. NEB built Settler in 1996, and Rich bought it in 2013. “It was important to have a boat that we built,” he says. “Since then, we’ve monkeyed with it a lot. We put a TP52 keel on it. We modified the rig for mast head chutes. At the end of the day, it’s a fun boat, but it’s not all that competitive.”

For the Annual Regatta, Rich brings on new recruits for two days of racing in the ocean off Newport, filling gaps between his regular crew: daughters Abby and Lori, as well as his son-in-law, Alex. I am assigned to the mainsail, and as I watch the wind increase to 20 knots, I remind Lori, who manages the pit, to have a hand on the vang for mark roundings and bearaways. She turns around, raises an eyebrow and gives me an “are you seriously telling me this” kind-of-look.

“Don’t worry,” she reassures me. “I’m well-trained.”

Lori and her older sister Abby have been sailing on some rendition of Settler ever since they could walk. “There’s photos of my sister and I on the back of the last boat with our grandfather, who used to trim main when we were kids,” Lori says. “As we’ve grown up, we’ve been promoted up the ranks. By now, most of the crew work is automatic for us.”

On an older boat like Settler, with a symmetric spinnaker and a long carbon pole, the pit is a critical position and Lori performs true to her word. Throughout the weekend, not a single line is fouled or a single maneuver mistimed. Abby, is equally skilled as a spinnaker trimmer. Between races, she sponges out the bilge, provides sustenance to the crew, and double-checks the spinnaker gear—all habits of a veteran. During the races themselves, Abby’s communication is clear, her mechanics are sound, and the boat itself makes it through the day without any hangups.

And then there’s Alex, Lori’s husband of two years, who’s one job it is to hammer away on the winch as the headsail pulls into place after every tack. “For the first year, he was trying to stay on the boat more than anything,” Lori later admits. “It’s been a steep learning curve for him, but he knows it means a lot to the family.”

Alex went from never having stepped foot on a boat four years ago to being a full-time Settler crewmember. Though he’s still a bit green, he has a great attitude. He isn’t afraid to ask questions, and is always quick with a joke when things get too drab.

As we finish out the day and make our way back for a drink at New York Yacht Club’s Harbour Court, Rich’s original assumption about how the boat would perform comes true. We’ve had a fun time, but ultimately, there’s no sense in looking at the score sheet too closely.

“It’s tough because dad really likes to win,” Lori says. “There was one year with the old boat that we won every race. It was the year the [New England] Patriots went undefeated. And then when they lost the Superbowl, the joke on board was that we were better than the Patriots that year.”

The Patriots have their dynasty, as does the Rich family, but for today’s Settler crew, the goal is simply to do well, race hard, and have fun. With grandchildren entering the picture, Tom, the patriarch, anticipates another generation of settlers destined to take up a winch handle or sheet one day, and the tradition continues.

The post The Patriarch and His Posse appeared first on Sailing World.

For the early years of the New York YC’s Invitational Cup, its biennial Corinthian battle of the burgees, the club relied on privately owned Club Swan 42s. Once the 42s began scattering around the world as owners sold them off, however, the club had to seek an alternative. Committee meeting after meeting eventually led flag officers to agree to bite the bullet and build a fleet from scratch.

Requests for proposals went out to a select field of designers and builders, and the committee ultimately chose a utilitarian Mark Mills design to be built by Westerly Marine in Santa Ana, California. Stakeholders were keen for an American builder and industry partnerships to keep costs in check. North Sails would build and service the three-sail class inventory, Harken got the hardware, and Melges Performance Sailboats was brought on board to sell and commission the boat and then manage the class and its promotion. Because the IC37 is designed to be raced and chartered by all-amateur crews, cost, simplicity and easy upkeep were three driving mandates. “The boat is not built to be extreme,” says Melges’ Andy Burdick. “It’s built to be fun.”

In 10 knots, the boat really gets up and goes, and is exciting to sail, he adds. “We toned down the boat for efficient crew work and sailhandling across a range of conditions.”

The IC37’s construction is your routine epoxy layup, nothing too high-tech, but certainly solid and well built, Tom Rich says. A slow start and a tight schedule to get the boats on the water and tuned for its September 2019 Invitational Cup forced the club to implement a second production line at Fibre Mechanics in England. Each builder is on the books for 10 boats apiece, with the first 20 boats going to the club. Melges’ quality-control team is monitoring weights and tolerances, and Burdick says they’ve all been close. Everything is weighed — from hull to deck and every bulkhead in between — and one-design certificates are issued at the factory.

The New York YC’s full-time fleet manager ensures the boats stay true and work with boat captains for hire. They’ll be in and out of the water a lot, and on the road as well, so there’s a single-point lift, and the keel installation requires simple tools and a bead of Sikaflex. Trailers will eventually carry boats south for a Florida winter circuit. At 7,500 pounds, a boat captain or delivery driver can simply hook it to the dually diesel and go.

The boat is beamy (12 feet), and the cockpit is big, clean and clutter-free until sheet tails start flying. Pit upkeep will be essential for clean maneuvers because foot cleats are everywhere. “It’s something they’ll have to stay on top of,” Allen says. “Someone will definitely have to be on top of cleanup between maneuvers.”

The foredeck’s job is relatively easy. With class rules mandating only one kite, one jib and one main, there will be no headsail changes, but there will be a need to master a new skill of zippering a reef into the jib in the prestart when the breeze reaches the upper end of the range. The boat’s broad-shouldered asymmetric spinnaker exits and enters from the offset foredeck hatch, with very little assistance from the bow team. That’s the beauty of its string takedown system when done right. The kite can be carried right into the mark, unloaded and out of sight in seconds. It’s a great tactical weapon. Beneath the hatch is a big roller bar and purchase to pull the kite swiftly into the bowels of the boat. No need to send anyone below to run the tapes; all bodies stay on the rail.

An experienced and strong pit person will be an asset to any team, Stewart says, because there’s plenty going on in the middle of the boat and loads are considerable. Cross-sheeting isn’t allowed under class rules, so the jib will always be trimmed at the leeward winch. Crew composition is a big consideration here, the judges note, because the boat is sensitive to weight placement, and it will certainly be faster with the trimmer included in the weather-rail stack. “You could sail with six or seven crew, but weight on the rail is good, so probably eight is ideal,” Burdick says.

At the back of the bus, the speed loop would include the main trimmer, helmsman and, ideally, a lightweight working the backstays. “Crew weight movement fore and aft and in and out is a big deal,” Chuck Allen says. “It’s a big boat, but you have to sail it like a little boat.”

And that’s how it will most likely be handled when eventually used for interclub team racing and match racing at the Canada’s Cup in 2020, the premier biennial match-race event of the Great Lakes.

Cost was a major consideration as well, especially given the financial undertaking of the club. The quoted price for the boat, with sails and basic GPS-based electronics, tops out at $340,000.

“It’s a fun boat, especially in breeze because it’s really stable. Once the teams get some time in the boats, the racing will be really close,” Allen says. “It’s pretty cool because there’s not a lot of big-boat one-design sailing in this country. There isn’t anything out there like this right now.”

Built and designed as a Corinthian-friendly one-design racer, don’t expect it to rule any handicap fleets. “This is stripped-down, big-boat one-design racing for anyone,” Burdick says. That’s what the draw to the class will be: a boat that’s about the sailing, not what you do to the boat when you’re not sailing.

The post IC37 by Melges: 2019 Corinthian appeared first on Sailing World.

Helly Hansen, the Norway-based global leader in sailing, today announced its partnership with New York Yacht Club American Magic, the U.S. Challenger for the 36th America’s Cup, the highest prize in international sailing. With more than 140 years of innovation and performance-driven apparel trusted by professionals around the world, Helly Hansen will create sailing apparel for American Magic, sharing the goal of winning back the America’s Cup and bringing the “Auld Mug,” the oldest trophy in international sport, home to the United States.

“A warm, dry and comfortable sailing team is one that can perform at its best,” said Terry Hutchinson, Executive Director and Skipper of American Magic. “Having a partner that has been innovating in marine apparel for well over a century gives us a lot of confidence. The America’s Cup is all about pushing the limits of technology, and we’re excited to wear such well-engineered Helly Hansen products both on and off the water.”

Since 1877, Helly Hansen’s commitment to innovation and producing professional-grade apparel for the harshest conditions on the planet, has resulted in lasting partnerships with some of the top athletes and maritime teams competing today. New York Yacht Club is already a partner of Helly Hansen, having recognized Helly Hansen’s expertise in 2014 when they joined forces for the Resolute Cup. After winning the first America’s Cup in 1851, the New York Yacht Club, supporting American Magic’s new challenge for the Cup, held the Cup until 1983; recognized as the longest winning streak in sports history. As the successors of the historic New York Yacht Club sailors that defended the cup 24 times over 126 years, American Magic brings renewed passion and spirit to the upcoming events.

Skipper Terry Hutchinson will lead the charge with a crew of 11 on a foiling AC75 monohull, a new design created for the next America’s Cup. American Magic will compete during several America’s Cup World Series regatta over the next three years, which will culminate in the Prada Cup, (the Challenger finals) in early 2021. The winner of the Prada Cup will face the Defender, Emirates Team New Zealand, in the America’s Cup match, to be held in Auckland, New Zealand, in March 2021.

By combining award-winning apparel and technologies from Helly Hansen with experience and insight from one of the world’s top sailing teams, American Magic plans to challenge the Defender and bring the America’s Cup back to the U.S. Helly Hansen and American Magic will work together to create sailing apparel with maximum performance in mind, while supporting the US-based team’s identity.

“Helly Hansen’s history in creating performance apparel for the world’s sailing professionals is second to none,” said Paul Stoneham, CEO, Helly Hansen. “Every fabric, seam, panel and zipper makes a difference in enabling crews to execute their responsibilities to perfection on deck in such a fast-paced environment. It’s an honor for our brand to work with the American Magic team to help them achieve their dream to bring the cup home.”

To stay updated on the partnership between Helly Hansen and the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic, visit hellyhansen.com and americanmagic.com. A supporter apparel collection will be available through the Helly Hansen website starting in 2019.

The post Helly Hansen & American Magic to Take on the America’s Cup appeared first on Sailing World.

America’s sailing capital saved the best for last, and so did San Diego YC, which won the 2018 Resolute Cup with error-free sailing when it counted most. With three strong results in the double-points medal round, the team representing the SDYC, skipper Tyler Sinks with crew Nick Martin, Nick Kaschack and Max Hutchinson, moved up the scoreboard from fourth, after the preliminary round of 12 races, to win the fifth edition of the Corinthian championship for U.S. yacht clubs.

“I don’t think we were winning the regatta at any point until this afternoon,” said Sinks (right), moments after stepping ashore. “It’s all about peaking at the right time. The team really held it together when the pressure was on and rose to the occasion.”

The Resolute Cup was first run in 2010 as the U.S. Qualifying Series for the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup. The biennial regatta, which is sailed out of the New York Yacht Club Harbor Court, has since developed an identity of its own as yacht clubs from around the United States send their best amateur sailors to Newport, R.I., to compete for national bragging rights in addition to a potential trip to the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup, sailing’s premiere international Corinthian big-boat regatta. The 2018 Resolute Cup will be sailed in the New York Yacht Club’s fleet of 23-foot Sonars. With provided sails, equalized rig tune and a regular boat rotation, it’s a true one-design event.

The race committee’s goal at the beginning of the final day was to run four full-fleet races and then move into the double-points medal round for the top half of the 28-boat fleet. But the weather, as it had for much of the four-day regatta, had other ideas. The northerly breeze evaporated after one lap of the first race and the sea breeze didn’t fill in until after noon. At that point, it was too late to start any full-fleet races so the organizing authority moved straight into the medal round, sending the bottom 14 teams to the docks and doubling the stakes.

The sea breeze finally filled in early afternoon, rewarding the 14 remaining teams with the best conditions of the week. In Race 1 of the medal round, when regatta leader Austin (Texas) Yacht Club was called over the starting line early, it immediately opened the door for the handful of teams waiting in the wings. San Diego was the first to pounce, taking a second in the opening medal round race behind Shelter Island YC (Shelter Island Heights, N.Y.), which started the medal round in 12th and wasn’t likely to factor into the final podium standings. Scott Young and Austin Yacht Club bounced back with a hard-fought second of their own in the second race, ensuring San Diego would have to be on their game in the deciding race of the regatta.

As in the first race, however, Austin Yacht Club hit the accelerator a second or two early in Race 3 and was forced to restart, giving San Diego Yacht Club and the rest of the fleet a huge lead.

“We heard that [Austin Yacht Club] was over early,” said Sinks. “But ultimately we sail best when we focus on ourselves. Nick Martin did a great job keeping us in the pressure and on the lifted tack. Nick Kaschak was doing a beautiful job trimming. And really when you focus on yourself everything else kind of works itself out. We weren’t too concerned with the other boats, but we knew what they were doing and where they were.”

Young and his crew, John Morran and 1992 Olympic silver medalist Doug Kern, did their best to make a match of it, pulling back into the middle of the pack by the final leg to the finish. But getting past a San Diego Yacht Club crew that was now content to play defense, and putting the necessary four boats in between them, was a bridge too far. Austin, in its second turn at the Resolute Cup, had to settle for second, with Eastern right behind in third. Storm Trysail Club (Larchmont, N.Y.), Larchmont (N.Y.) Yacht Club and Coral Reef Yacht Club (Coconut Grove, Fla.) rounded out the top six.

Eastern skipper Bill Lynn is both the first champion of the Resolute Cup, and the only person to have sailed in all five editions. He’s seen firsthand how the competition has evolved from its original purpose, which was solely to qualify a team for the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup.

“Initially it was focused on the Invitational Cup and you tended to have teams that had that goal in mind,” says Lynn. “There’s a lot of great yacht clubs around this country—with really, really good sailors—that don’t necessarily have the resources and the depth of talent to sign up for the Invitational Cup and they stayed away [from the Resolute Cup]. Now that it’s turned into a standalone event it seems like it’s attracting a really good depth of talent from clubs that we haven’t seen before.”

San Diego, one of three U.S. yacht clubs to have successfully defended the America’s Cup, is no stranger to big regattas. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the club on the line for the Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup next year, nor would be it shocking to see the club mirror Southern Yacht Club (New Orleans), which followed up its win in the 2016 Resolute Cup with a win in the 2017 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to put together some money and make it back here next September,” said Sinks.

The post San Diego YC Sinks the Competition at 2018 Resolute Cup appeared first on Sailing World.

Collegiate champions from five different decades, including five winners of college sailing’s top individual prize, are among the 110 sailors that will compete in the fifth edition of the Resolute Cup, a Corinthian championship for U.S. yacht clubs held at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court in Newport, R.I., Sept. 10 to 15.

As sailing is a lifelong sport, most accomplished collegiate sailors continue to compete long after their academic careers end. Not surprisingly, winners of the Everett Morris Memorial Trophy, annually awarded to the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association’s sailor of the year, often achieve even greater success in their post-collegiate sailing. A case in point is that of Coral Reef Yacht Club skipper Augie Diaz, who won the Morris Trophy in 1974 while a student at Tulane University, and has since won multiple world championships in addition to medals in the 1971, 2011 and 2015 Pan Am Games.

But the idiosyncrasies of the Resolute Cup—supplied boats and sails, short courses, high number of races and a rotation system that will have teams sitting out every fourth race—mean the event has a lot more in common with a typical college regatta than the traditional world championship. When looking to establish a form guide for this event, past collegiate success may be as good a barometer as anything else.

“Like in college sailing, I think consistency will be the big differentiator in this regatta,” says Diaz, who was US Sailing’s Rolex Sailor of the Year in 2003. “Also, not fading at the end of the day when everyone is tired will be important. This is why I am coming with three young guys that are really good sailors on their own.”

The presence of Diaz will bolster Coral Reef’s chances to break into the top half of this ultra-competitive regatta, a feat which eluded the CRYC team in the previous two editions. But, in the search for a true favorite, it’s hard to look past Larchmont YC.

The storied Western Long Island Sound yacht club won this regatta in 2012. Two members of that team, Clay Bischoff and Cardwell Potts, will lead the 2018 entry. Bischoff, who will skipper at the Resolute Cup, and Potts each won the Morris Trophy, in 2003 and 2004, respectively, while sailing for Harvard. To tune up for this regatta, Bischoff, who is also a member of the New York YC, won the NYYC Members Fleet Racing Championship and finished second in the Morgan Cup. Both of those regattas were sailed in the same Sonars that will be used for the Resolute Cup and on the same body of water.

Two other teams will have college sailors of the year on board. Tim Wadlow, who will skipper the entry representing Corinthian YC from Marblehead, Mass, won the award in 1997 while sailing for Boston University. Wadlow sailed for the United States in the 49er class at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games.

Seattle YC has twice finished on the podium in the Resolute Cup, with a second in 2012 and a third in 2014. Jay Renehan, the 1985 sailor of the year while at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, was part of the latter effort. He’ll call tactics for skipper Andrew Loe, who was himself a college All-American selection.

Removing the boat preparation element shifts more emphasis onto execution,” says Loe. “Ultimately, it’s still a fleet racing regatta. Teams need to manage risk well, develop and execute solid strategies, and get a bit lucky to win. There are many races, and each team will make many mistakes, staying focused for four long days on the water will be a major test for this desk jockey.”

Racing for the 2018 Resolute Cup start at 1100 EDT on Wednesday, September 12. The schedule calls for three full rotations (six races on, two races off) before the top 14 teams will sail a double-points medal round of up to three races on Saturday. The final two days of the regatta will be live streamed via Facebook with tracking and commentary from America’s Cup commentators Tucker Thompson and Andy Green.

The post Ringers at the Resolute Cup appeared first on Sailing World.

The morning may have dawned with dense fog and little breeze on Narragansett Bay, but by mid-afternoon the sky had cleared and the same could be said of any ambiguity regarding which was the best team at the 2017 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup. In today’s single race, the Southern Yacht Club was as sharp as they had been in the previous 11 races, starting strongly and never wavering. SYC eventually finished second to Royal Thames in the race, and four places ahead of their only remaining competition for the overall trophy, Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron from Australia. In 12 races, the Southern Yacht Club team accumulated just 34 points, the lowest winning total for a Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup by 10 points.

The 2017 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup took place September 9 to 16 at the New York Yacht Club Harbour Court, in Newport, R.I. Amateur sailors representing 14 yacht clubs from around the globe converged on Newport to race in the ultimate one-design, big-boat competition. The boats and sails are provided and the rig tune is standardized across the fleet. The Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup is sponsored by Rolex, Porsche, Nautor’s Swan, AIG and Helly Hansen.

“It can’t get any better than this,” said skipper Marcus Eagan, surrounded by a large group of club members who traveled to Newport to cheer on their crew. “It’s great to celebrate with friends and members and longtime sailors.”

With a margin of 8 points over second-placed Royal Sydney to start the day, and only one race remaining, Southern Yacht Club was in a comfortable position. But light air and fog can dampen the confidence of even the most credentialed sailor. A long delay only added to the anxiety.

“It was nerve wracking this morning waiting for the breeze,” said SYC tactician John Lovell, who waited out plenty of wind delays during his 12-plus-year Olympic sailing career. “At one point we thought they might call it, but the breeze filled in, and we had to go to the whip and sail our best. I had a knot in my stomach the whole time. We were lucky enough to get ahead of [Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron] and then we just tacked on them as much as we could. We split away when we thought we were maybe second and third and wanted to stay in the top group. We wanted to stay ahead of them, that was the whole goal.”

Southern Yacht Club was the first rookie competitor to win the Rolex NYYC Invitational Cup since the host New York Yacht Club won the inaugural competition in 2009. But the team, which was composed of veteran sailors with many significant campaigns under their collective belt, approached the regatta with the appropriate commitment. Buoyed by the membership, and especially crew member Stephen Murray Jr., the team was able to purchase a boat to train on all summer and sail in regatta.

“It all started back at the Resolute Cup when we qualified for this big event,” said jib trimmer Andrew Eagan. “We were super excited about it and put our heads together to try and figure out who would be the best team. This event really takes a lot of hours, a lot of days.”

Throughout the regatta, the Southern team was pressed hard by Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. The final margin of 12 points between first and second doesn’t reflect how even the top two teams were. Were it not for one bad race, Royal Sydney and Southern might’ve been all but tied going into the final race.

“Hats off to Royal Sydney, they sailed super well,” said Andrew Eagan. “They hadn’t really been in the boat as much, and they really got better every race.”

Eastern Yacht Club’s firm grip on third place going into the final race quickly became a lot more tenuous when they were called OCS and had to return to restart while New York Yacht Club, which started the day in fourth place and carrying a tremendous amount of momentum, punched across the line and was quickly into the top group. John Hele and the New York Yacht Club team would hold on for third place—closing the regatta with six straight top-5 finishes—but Eastern was able to grind back during the five-leg race and finish fifth, plenty close enough to the top to ensure they held onto the final podium position.

Royal Thames Yacht Club, the defending champions, rounded out the top five with Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in sixth, the club’s best finish in this event.

Yacht Club Argentino, a three-time competitor in the regatta, was in position for a top-five finish midway through the regatta. A few penalty turns and an over-early start in the final four races knocked them down the standings a bit. However the team didn’t go home empty-handed. Based on a poll of all competing teams, the jovial Southern Hemisphere team was awarded the Corinthian Spirit Award.

The fifth edition of the 2017 Rolex New York Yacht Club Invitational Cup closed with the Rolex Awards Dinner on the grounds of Harbour Court. This event also brings to a close the involvement of the Swan 42 one-design, which was instrumental in getting the regatta off the ground eight years ago. The great foundation laid by the Swan 42 class will be carried forward in 2019 with the IC37. The Club has committed to purchase a fleet of 20 identical keel boats built by Westerly Marine to a design by Mark Mills, which will ensure that the world’s premiere Corinthian one-design keelboat regatta remains a must-do event for sailors around the world. More information on the 2019 edition will be released before the end of 2017.

The post Southern Yacht Club Wins NYYC Invitational appeared first on Sailing World.