On June 19, 2022, Colin Golder, owner and skipper of the Centurion 42 Morgan of Marietta, drowned while participating in the Newport to Bermuda race. Death in high-profile sailing events provides an opportunity for the sport to reassess itself and the race hosts asked US Sailing to review the incident and make recommendations aimed at enhancing the safety of offshore racing. In October 2022, the US Sailing panel released its report. The panel started with outlining the facts of the Golder’s death. At the start on June 17 winds were 15 to 20 knots predicted to increase to 20 to…
The 21st running of the Pacific Cup (co-sponsored by Ocean Navigator) from San Francisco Bay to Kaneohe, Hawaii is in the books, with 56 boats finishing out of a fleet of 60 starters. Overall winner and first to finish was Roy P. Disney’s Pyewacket 70. It also recorded the fastest elapsed time, and first in Alaska Airlines Division A. Just behind Pyewacket was Stu Dahlgren’s Santa Cruz 70 Westerly, which claimed second place in the division and also second place overall. Westerly also won the Bill Lee award for the fastest of the Bill Lee-designed yachts. Amazingly, Westerly suffered keel…
In early June one ship crossed half the Pacific Ocean and one ship crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean while not under command of a human captain. The success of these two very different artificial intelligence (AI) voyages has the potential to change not only the future of global shipping, but also the playing field for ocean-going recreational boats. On June 5 after a 40-day passage from Plymouth, UK, Mayflower Autonomous Ship entered Halifax Harbor in Nova Scotia. Named after the original Mayflower to commemorate the 1620 pilgrim crossing, the new ship is powered by twin 20 kilowatt permanent-magnet electric motors…
At the request of the Newport/Bermuda Race organizing committee, U.S. Sailing convened a panel in early July to investigate the death of Newport Bermuda racer Colin Golder of New Providence, New Jersey. Golder, who was skippering the boat Morgan of Marietta, a 42-foot sloop, died on June 19 when he fell overboard 325 miles from Bermuda in strong winds. Following an extensive search, the crew of Morgan of Marietta was able to recover Golder’s body. According to a post on the Newport/Bermuda Race web site: “The panel looks to fact-find on contributing factors including, weather conditions, crew experience, safety regulations…
When cruising, my husband Tom and I usually spend nights at anchor, with only an occasional sojourn at a marina slip. This past summer we sailed our Sabre 30 Ora Kali from New Jersey to Maine and found harbors so packed with moorings that anchoring was virtually impossible. Luckily, these days there are ways to book slips and moorings using a smartphone. To compensate for the lack of anchoring areas, towns maintain guest moorings and most marinas rent them and I liked the ease of picking up a mooring pennant on a long haul with multiple stops. Our recent Maptech…
Australian sailor Lisa Blair crossed her outbound track on May 19, 2022, to complete a solo unassisted non-stop circumnavigation of Antarctica, going into the history books for sailing it all below 45 degrees south latitude. Her circumnavigation took 87 days but Lisa is still racing on the Antarctica Cup Ocean Race track and if she arrives back in Albany, Western Australia, by June 2 she will have defeated Fedor Konyukhov’s 2008 time of 102 days port to port to set a new speed record. Lisa’s boat, Climate Action Now, is a Hick 50, designed by Robert Hick and built by…
In May 2022 the Royal Western Yacht Club in the UK announced a new ocean racing competition, the Round Iceland Race, which is set to start from Plymouth in the U.K. on May 14, 2023. This will be a serious ocean race, more than 2,600 miles of sailing, with the potential of facing challenging weather around Iceland. The race will take competitors westward out the English Channel, into the Atlantic to sail north to the Denmark Strait, rounding Iceland clockwise before heading back to Plymouth. From the RWYC press release: “This Category 1 race will be open to solo, double…
The 36th running of the Puerto Vallarta Race finished in March with 29 boats crossing the finish line out of fleet of 30, with one boat retiring. Ocean Navigator was one of the PV 2022 race sponsors. In terms of fastest overall, Roy P. Disney’s sled Pyewacket 70, set a new monohull course record with a time of 03:04:38:02. The overall winner on corrected time was John Raymont and crew aboard his Ker 51 Fast Exit II. Raymont wrote on the race website, “The goals for the Ker 51 Fast Exit II full-on racer are the same as they were…
North Sails is calling it the world’s largest sail. It’s a 28,029-square-foot (2,604-square-meter) A2 spinnaker built by North for the 192-foot (58.6-meter) superyacht Perseus^3. Building the sail was a major effort that required a custom order from Contender Sailcloth, and a team of 10 sailmakers and two graphic installers. The sailmakers labored for more than 15 days to construct the chute, which is roughly the size of 10 tennis courts. North sail designer Glenn Cook explained that the sail was designed with the size of the boat in mind. “Because Perseus^3 is a huge boat… you can’t turn very quickly, and trimming…
When the Newport-Bermuda Race starts on June 17 (photo above shows 2018 start), it will have the second largest fleet of competitors in its history. More than 214 boats have signed up for what will be the 52nd running of the 635-mile race from the mouth of Narragansett Bay to the finish off St. David’s Lighthouse. Only the 2006 centennial race, which saw 265 boats signed on, had a larger fleet than this year’s edition. Co-hosted by the Cruising Club of America and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, the contest features eight divisions: Double-Handed (22 entries), Finisterre for cruisers (38),…