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IN BRIEF
The radical new America’s Cup class design has just been revealed.
A 75ft monohull with no keel that is it’s claimed will be faster than the foiling cats of the last Cup. The World Sailing Show takes a closer look.
Sometimes an Olympic medal doesn’t get you a head start, especially if you’re embarking on a 7,000mile race offshore. We check in with some of the rookie Volvo Ocean Race crews as they head south to Cape Town.
And on the subject of offshore, we take a look at the two monster trimarans in the double-handed race from France to Brazil that set a blistering pace and smashed the course record.
Meanwhile inshore, a massive turnout for the J70 Worlds Championships in Sardinia started with controversy and ended with spectacular racing in one of the biggest one design sportsboat fleets ever seen.
We also take a trip to China to report on an impressive regatta that also played host to a distinguished guest, plus....
- Volvo Ocean Race Leg 1 & 2
- Rolex World Sailor of the Year
- J70 Worlds
- Transat Jacques Vabre
- New America’s Cup Class revealed
- China Cup
FEATURES
Volvo Ocean Race Leg 1 & 2 – The baptism of fire
There can be few occasions in sailing when an Olympic medal doesn’t get you a head start, but as crews set off on the 7,000mile leg from Lisbon to Cape Town it was a baptism of fire for many of the new wave of young Olympic and World champions as they headed into the unknown. We asked some them how they were feeling before they set off and caught up with them later mid Atlantic.
Rolex World Sailor of the Year
The most prestigious awards for individual sailors were announced, but when it came to accepting the trophies, while one was on stage in Mexico, the other was thousands of miles offshore. So who were they?
J70 Worlds – Massive turn out, superb racing
As the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup fleet left Porto Cervo, Sardinia after their spectacular event a record breaking fleet of small, high performance sportsboats arrived as the J70’s came into town.
For the 175 entrants, this was the big one, the World Championships and the stakes were high from the start
The event kicked off with controversy before the weather kicked in and caused delays. But when racing did get under way it was spectacular.
Transat Jacques Vabre – The 4,000+ mile match race
For northern hemisphere sailors, November is not the time to be heading offshore.
But, for the 39 teams that had entered the biennial Transat Jacques Vabre, the prospect of a battering from the weather as they exited the English Channel on their way south to Brazil was just one of the hurdles that the double handed crews had to face.
Among a fleet that included some of the world’s most advanced offshore machines sailed by the world’s top crews, there were two monster multihulls that stood out, Sodebo and Gitana 17. Theirs was to be a 4,000+ mile match race that would smash records in the process.
New America’s Cup class design is revealed – Wild, whacky and powerful
She’s a monohull, but not as we know it. At 7ft long and with no keel and a claimed performance that will be as fast if not faster than the foiling cats of the last Cup, it is clear that the design for the new America’s Cup boat is radical. Little surprise then that the early details have raised eyebrows around the world.
China Cup
In 2005 a group of ambitious but inexperienced Chinese sailors bought a boat on the west coast of France and sailed it home to China. Eager to share their newfound passion and develop the sport at home, they created The China Cup. Today, the event attracts over 250 boats and this year played host to a very special guest, the America’s Cup.
In Part 2 of our exclusive interview with Nathan Outteridge, the Artemis Racing skipper reveals where he things the big gains are likely to be made in the 2017 America's Cup.... "I think the big design battles are going to be in foil design, picking the area required for the foils based on when you want to take off and when you want top speed...." More from Nathan inside...
Even Sir Ben Ainslie couldn’t have dreamed that close to 100,000 spectators would turn out to watch him compete in the first official America’s Cup racing since that incredible finale almost two years ago in San Francisco. Here's what he had to say after racing...
Yachting World's Matt Sheahan interviews Paul Campbell-James, who does the wing trim on board Ben Ainslie's AC45F. These foilers are inherently unstable, making it a constant battle of foil and wing adjustment to keep the foiling catamaran on an even keel, so to speak! The meaty bit of the info starts about 1 min. into the video....
Justin has been racing on the 90ft canting keeler Genuine Risk in the Caribbean, and talking to Dean Barker about flipping grand prix catamarans like the VX40 and AC45. Andy says he'll eat his hat if the multihull doesn't make it in for the Rio 2016 Games, but not much else is certain in the build-up to next week's controversial ISAF mid-year meeting in Russia....
In this latest Sailing Talk Podcast, amongst other chat, Andy and Justin mull over the Kiwi run Camper Volvo Ocean Race entry, British Star Campaigners Iain Percy and Simpson's plans for the 2011 season, the proposed race area for the 34th America's Cup and the AC45 action taking place in New Zealand recently...
“If Oracle were Little Red Riding Hood and Alinghi were the bad wolf who is Little Red Riding Hood now - because I only see bad wolves?” So says America’s Cup outcast Vasco Vascotto. Justin and Andy discuss the latest in AC34, along with 18-footers, Bacardi Cuppers and much other stuff in grand prix sailing...
It was only last February, just a few days after BMW Oracle Racing won the America’s Cup when the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, handed the keys to the city to one of its most famous inhabitants, Larry Ellison. Ellison returned the favour by giving Newsom a team jacket. All seemed sweetness and light between the new holders of the America’s Cup and the city of San Francisco...
Suddenly multihulls are flavour of the month. With the next America’s Cup set to take place in 72-foot catamarans, the International Sailing Federation has now reinstated multihulls into the Olympic line-up for the Rio 2016 Games. And the boat that is now rejected from the Olympic Games? ...
The new vision for the America’s Cup laid out by Russell Coutts is certainly different. For some, it has proven too different. First casualty after the announcement of wing-masted 72-foot catamarans racing in 2013 (venue yet to be determined) was Team Origin. After spending millions simply navigating his team through the past three directionless years of America’s Cup limbo, Sir Keith Mills has pulled the plug on the campaign just as the fog starts to clear...
Russell Coutts has upset the applecart with his radical announcement that 72-foot catamarans will be the weapon of choice for the 34th America’s Cup. Not only that, but he’s talking about wing-masted catamarans. Sound familiar? It was a wing mast that powered BMW Oracle Racing’s trimaran to victory last February in Valencia...
BMW Oracle has been carrying out some extensive TV trials of monohulls and multihulls in Valencia. The aim, says the Defender, is to work out which kind of boat is going to offer the biggest bang for buck in Russell Coutts’s vision of a more media-friendly and commercially-attractive America’s Cup...
