Sailing World

to each his own

At our recent Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta at Marblehead Race Week, I’m wandering the parking lot of the Boston YC searching for a guy named Ted Green. He’s agreed to an interview about the 2.4 Metre class, which is new to the regatta and the next candidate in our continuing web series about the one-design classes, new and old, that define what the NOOD is all about: club racers sailing the boats they love. Near the host, a few 2.4 Metres sit in their wheeled cradles, their skippers fiddling with them as they await their turns to launch. They’re such odd-looking boats, I think to myself, so small and narrow with such deep keels. The skippers of these 2.4 Metres face forward in their cockpits, in a hard seat surrounded by…

sailing world

EDITOR DAVE REED Creative Director Dave Weaver Managing Editor Stephanie Pancratz Copy Editor T.L. Favors Editors at Large Peter Isler, Gary Jobson, Dave Powlison Racing Editors Ed Baird, Andy Horton, Steve Hunt, Terry Hutchinson, Mike Ingham, Jonathan McKee, Tony Rey Contributing Editors Kimball Livingston, Angus Phillips, Dick Rose, David Schmidt SAILING WORLD EDITORIAL OFFICE 76 Hammarlund Way, Ste. 200B, Middletown, RI 02842 401-845-5100; fax 401-845-5180 sailingworld.com, editor@sailingworld.com REPRINTS: Email reprints@bonniercorp.com WRITER/PHOTOGRAPHER GUIDELINES: Send stories and photos to Sailing World (address above) or via email (editor@sailingworld.com). FREE EMAIL NEWSLETTER: Sign up to receive our weekly SW e-newsletter at sailingworld.com. BONNIER MEDIA Vice President, Managing Director Glenn Sandridge Editorial Director Shawn Bean Creative Director Dave Weaver Editorial Operations Director Stephanie Pancratz Copy Chief Cindy Martin Group Marketing Director Haley Bischof Digital Content Production and Presentation Director Michellina Jones Digital Producer Jeff Williams Chairman Lars Dahmén Chief Executive Officer Eric Zinczenko Chief Financial Officer Joachim Jaginder Executive Vice President,…

the wide world of windfoiling

Steve Allen had been in this situation before. It was the last race of a grueling 21-race world championship for the muscular 45-year-old Aussie. Hot. Poland in July. And windy. But it was a new challenge for the 25-year veteran of the Professional Windsurfing Association tour. He was trying to close the deal on the first Formula Windsurfing Foil World Championships after enduring 18 to 25 knots, each day, flying above the waves at 20-plus knots. “I was a little frustrated with the weed in the water,” Allen says, recalling the last race of the worlds in Puck, Poland. “I had to change my tactics.” He’d been leading from the beginning of the event and was always fighting off someone different and was now tied on points with Maciek Rutkowski: “I was…

exit stage right

It’s 8:30 a.m. on July 13, and I’m already three coffees deep. The Argo squad has just wrapped up its final weather briefing with Commanders’ Weather before the 2019 Transpacific Yacht Race, and the team looks to me for a simple summary. “Well, we have three MOD70s doing this race, and I can tell you that tomorrow morning one boat is going to have an 80-mile lead and one boat’s race will be over.” The reply from the boss is simple and summarizes the situation well: “Thank God I’m not the navigator!” The exit off the coast of California looks daunting to say the least. From the start off San Pedro, California, to Santa Catalina Island, things look soft. From Catalina to the northwesterly gradient farther offshore, things look even softer. The…

adrift in the apostles

Four hours into the Around the Islands Race in Bayfield, Wisconsin, the wind shuts off completely for the second time. The words of the sailing instructions rattle around in my brain: “The course shall not be shortened or changed after the warning signal.” We watch our main competition, a Mumm 36 called Wahine, pull away from us. Our crew is focused, yet the crew aboard Wahine are guzzling beer as reggae music pours out of their stereo system and across a glassy Lake Superior. They don’t even have their sails fully trimmed as they scoot away from us in zero breeze. As they glide past, every Bob Marley lyric is a gut punch. No, Bob. Everything is not going to be all right. We’re getting smoked. For the next two hours, as…

a performance toolbox

The start line is set, so we ping the ends using the Tactiqs application that’s loaded onto our iPad, simply tapping a button for each line end on the screen. In my line of sight—on the inside surface of the augmented reality sunglasses I’m wearing—the Tactiqs software tells me the pin is favored by 8 degrees. The app uses the boat’s wind instruments to calculate this bias, but if we didn’t have wind instruments, the app would show us a “wind-shot” icon when we go head-to-wind. As we look up the course, we agree it looks as if there’s more wind on the left side of the course, so we formulate our strategy: start near the pin and go straight. But what if the wind goes right and we get pinned…