If you’re over 40 and know anything about sailing, you probably know exactly who Bill Lee is. The image is clear: bushy brown hair escaping from a Gilligan-style bucket hat, oversized sunglasses and a wrinkled flower-print button-down shirt. We (I’m 43) can also picture the ...read more
Russell Coutts and Larry Ellison may have lost the America’s Cup back in Bermuda in 2017, but it appears they are intent on stealing a march on current Cup-holders Emirates Team New Zealand with the launch of what they are calling the SailGP sailing circuit. Announced in early ...read more
It was “Sonar month” at the Noroton Yacht Club in Darien, Connecticut, this past September, as it hosted not only the Sonar North American Championship regatta but the class’s team-racing Kirby Cup. Both events were also attended by famed Sonar creator Bruce Kirby, who is also a ...read more
No one ever said it was going to be easy, and this past fall a pair of competitors taking part in the ongoing Golden Globe Race 2018 were disabled in a major storm deep in the Indian Ocean, with one of them coming away seriously injured. The dismastings took place around 80 days ...read more
Rescue operations are currently underway for French Golden Globe Race 2018 competitor Loic Lepage, whose boat is dismasted and taking on the water some 600 miles southwest of Perth, Australia. According to race organizers, the rescue operation began after the Join Rescue ...read more
After spending months investigating the death of sailor Jon Santarelli, who went overboard from the TP52 Imedi shortly after the start of the 2018 Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac, the Chicago YC is now looking into the question of inflatable lifejacket safety with an eye ...read more
When I was 15, some of my sailing classmates kicked off the summer by sailing the Figawi, New England’s legendary season-opening race held every Memorial Day weekend. A winding course between Hyannis and Nantucket, it was a seemingly epic voyage to a bunch of kids who had never ...read more
This past summer Australian sailor, Wendy Tuck (inset), became the first woman to win a round-the-world yacht race when she and her crew aboard Sanya Serenity Coast claimed the overall victory in the 2017-18 Clipper Race. “I am just so happy,” Tuck said at the finish in ...read more
There are basically two kinds of offshore sailboat races out there: those that take place annually, like the Fastnet and Chicago-to-Mackinac races; and those that take place every other year, like the Transpac and Newport-Bermuda race, in part so the competitors have sufficient ...read more
Strange and often wonderful things can happen in the course of an offshore sailboat race, and one of the strangest and most wonderful things we’ve heard of recently took place during the 2,300-mile 2018 Vic-Maui race, from Victoria, British Columbia, to Lahaina, Hawaii. It ...read more
Sometimes Aeolus is kind. Sometimes he’s not. But rarely is the ancient Greek “keeper of the winds” as entirely absent as he was for much of this year’s Bell’s Beer Bayview Mackinac Race. How slow was the 2018 running of the 94-year-old distance race, which always starts on a ...read more
Over the course of its 80-year history, the overall win in the Edgartown Yacht Club’s ‘Round-the-Island Race has gone to any number of fully-crewed grand prix speed machines. This summer, however, the Verona Trophy for the boat logging the fastest correct time around Martha’s ...read more
Atlantic Cup 2018: Trailer This past spring, SAIL magazine was on-hand to document the 2018 Atlantic Cup, a two-week-long Class 40 regatta spanning the U.S. East Coast and one of the toughest events in all of North America. The preview above will give you a taste of the ...read more
The most recent edition of the Volvo Ocean Race ended with one of the most exciting finishes in the race’s long history. It all came down to the last few hours of the final leg of the race from Gothenburg, Sweden, to The Hague when the three leading teams—Spain’s Mapfre, China’s ...read more
Midway through the final race of the inshore portion of the 2018 Atlantic Cup, the three boats in the lead—Mike Dreese’s Toothface 2, Mike Hennessy’s Dragon and Oakcliff Racing, representing the Long Island Sound-based sailing school of the same name—suddenly broke free from the ...read more
“Want to check the keel?” North U Coach Geoff Becker calls to me from back by the transom. We’ve just suffered our worst finish in the regatta and are absolutely flying on our way back to shore, spinnaker up and heeling at an angle that feels like maybe we’re tempting fate. ...read more
The round-the-world ocean race formerly known as Volvo is in for a big change. The organizers of the yet-to-be-titled event, which is no longer managed by Volvo, have announced that foiling Open 60s have been invited to sail in the next event. The agreement means the ...read more
