Andy Rice spoke to David Askew (right) just after he and his brother, Peter, won the Rolex Fastnet Race with their VO70 Wizard. It's the latest in a growing list of major offshore victories, which must make the Askews about the most successful offshore racers of the moment...
In July 2018, just two days after her 25th birthday Nikki Henderson became the youngest skipper ever to complete an around the world race when she finished second in the 2017/18 edition of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. According to Nikki, good leadership is not about barking orders, it’s about fostering an atmosphere of shared responsibility and finding out what really motivates the individuals on your team....
How is that some of us sail and race all our lives, yet the results barely change throughout our racing careers? While others can breeze into the sport and learn the ropes so quickly? In just five years, Tom Kneen has gone from absolute beginner in offshore racing to potential Fastnet winner. We spoke to the owner of JPK 11.80 Sunrise to find out what makes Tom tick....
Stu Bithell is looking to win a 49er Olympic medal to go with the 470 silver he won at London 2012, and he's also spending time on Slough Industrial Estate, learning how to sail at 45 knots....
Things have been mighty quiet with the America's Cup since Bermuda 2017. It's almost exactly the halfway point between the last Cup and the next edition in Auckland 2021, so where are things up to? With the teams staying mostly tight lipped about progress, Andy Rice turns to Jack Griffin, self-professed geek about all things related to the Cup. Who are the latest challengers to join the circus, and do they stand a a cat-in-hell's chance of taking on the big boys, what Jack refers to as the 'Super Teams'?
In our second podcast about the RYA Dinghy Show, Andy Rice and Mark Jardine discuss some of the boats that caught their eye. From top-end speedsters like the Lithium International Moth and the foiler for beginners - Flying Mantis - to boats for complete newcomers to the sport like the Maverick. Andy also explains why he has just bought a famous old 470 for peanuts and how it might fit in with his plans for the Great British Sailing Challenge....
The RYA Dinghy Show... is there anything else like it? Andy Rice and Mark Jardine don't think so. If you sail small boats in the UK, chances are you've been to this incredible geekfest a few times. If you live somewhere else, this Show will have you drooling for the boats and the sheer enthusiasm and passion that oozes out of Alexandra Palace every March. Andy and Mark pick out their highlights from this year's Dinghy Show...
Andy Rice previews the first ever SailGP event in Sydney with Sail-World.com publisher Mark Jardine, and they pick out different winners for round one. Who will be buying the beers for who, after this first weekend of SailGP action?
Santiago Lange became one of the stories of the whole Olympic Games in Rio 2016. The Argentinean won a last-gasp gold in the Nacra 17 Medal Race less than a year after conquering cancer. Much as he hated being the centre of attention for beating the C word, he learned to embrace his new celebrity. Yet he remains as quietly unassuming as ever, as this interview from the Sailing World Cup in Marseille reveals. Call him greedy, but Santi is after his fourth Olympic medal at Tokyo 2020, by which time he will be 58 years old. The ever-youthful Lange still doesn't see his age as a barrier. More the challenge is all the other projects he has going on, including racing on the TP52 circuit and as a sports consultant to one of Argentina's top-performing professional polo teams...
It’s been a lean patch in recent years for Philipp Buhl, Germany’s leading light in the Laser class. After a disappointing Olympic result of 14th place for a sailor who was considered among the favourites for a medal at Rio 2016, Buhl has ploughed on with his campaign for Tokyo 2020 and now seems to be rediscovering some of the old magic that brought him podium places at Laser World Championships back in 2013 and 2015. A gold medal in June’s Sailing World Cup Finals in Marseille was a welcome return to form. “I think it's the first gold medal after my World Cup win in 2016.... When you look at the different regattas and the different winners, it shows how intense the racing is. And I think the more intense the races, the more important are the little things such as mental strength, how long are you able to maintain your highest level of ability?”
World Sailing’s Mid Year Meeting was crunch time for deciding the future of the Olympic Regatta. Emotions and opinions were running high during the meeting in London. World Sailing got it in the neck from all sides, but one sailor who came to the organisation’s defence was Roy Dunster from South Africa....
Ben Nicholls was sitting on his commuter train chatting to a fellow sailor about an article he'd just seen published in Seahorse magazine. A number of Olympic medallists had clubbed together to voice their concern about the discussions going on in advance of World Sailing's Mid Year Meeting in London. It appears that a number of wholesale changes are on the table for discussion, some of them never trialled in major competition. Ben asked his friend what he should do. "Put up a petition on Change.org!" And so that's what Ben did. More than 18,000 signatures later, Sailjuice.com decided it might be interesting to find out more from the man himself....
