a-solitary-sea-rover: vaylence: a-solitary-sea-rover: vaylence: So I’m trying to get into…
So I’m trying to get into competitive sailing and it’s the World Championships right now, and some of the races are being livestreamed for free on YouTube (which is crazy to me just how accessible the races are?? You can follow along legally if you have an internet connection what a concept). I finally had the time to sit down and check out the livestream today, only for the races to get postponed, and after a few false starts they were canceled :’( ugh
Joinnnn usssss…
Oh myyyy I would love to! But I also feel utterly clueless, I’ve been following mostly in-shore/Olympic sailing and even then I can’t keep up with all 10 classes haha. And I’m also really curious about the big offshore races…
There’s no big secret, just follow whatever interests you and bookmark Sailing Scuttlebutt to visit every day! Research the things that catch your curiosity and you’ll be surprised how much you learn how quickly.
In a nutshell, the events that I post the most about are…
The America’s Cup:
- Basically: It’s been kind of crazy ever since
2010200319951988198319561851.- Inshore racing, one-on-one, has a very long and complicated history since 1851 that I summarized some of here. The official rules allow the current champion to set a lot of the rules for the next competition, which has historically led to a TON of changes, controversies, and drama in the High School sense.
- The last competition (the 35th or AC 35) was held in Bermuda in 2017, using the foiling AC 50 catamarans, and was won by Emirates Team New Zealand. The next competition (the 36th or AC 36) is set to take place in Auckland, New Zealand in 2021 and use a new foiling monohull design called the AC 75. So far, four teams have registered– Emirates Team New Zealand, Luna Rossa from Italy, American Magic from the USA, and INEOS Team UK from… well, guess.
- Official website
- Wikipedia
- CupInfo.com (Twitter)
- tagged/America’s-Cup, AC 35, AC 36
- Recommended reading: Take your pick from here, there have been more than 800 books written about the AC over the past century-and-a-half. Most of my knowledge about the past few decades is from Julian Guthrie’s “The Billionaire and the Mechanic” and Bruno Troublé’s “The Louis Vuitton Cup: Yacht Racing and the Pursuit of the America’s Cup”.
The Golden Globe Race:
- Basically: Nine entered, one died, one finished.
- In 1968, nine sailors set out to win a prize offered by the London Sunday Times by becoming the first person to circumnavigate the world solo and nonstop. Five retired due to accidents, Bernard Moitessier chose to resign out of personal convictions, Nigel Tetley nearly became the first to circumnavigate in a trimaran but was wrecked in the North Atlantic on the way back, Donald Crowhurst never left the Atlantic at all but sent false radio positions back and slowly lost his grip on reality, and Robin Knox-Johnston made history as the only one to make it back to England, record set. Earlier this year, the race was the subject of a British drama film, “The Mercy”, staring Colin Firth as Crowhurst.
- Currently, a fiftieth-year anniversary race is underway in which the entrants must circumnavigate using 1960s technology. Most of them are already ahead of where Knox-Johnston was at the same point in 1968!
- Official website (Tracker)
- Wikipedia
- Outside Magazine
- tagged/Golden-Globe-Race, 1968, 2018
- Recommended reading: Peter Nichols’ “A Voyage for Madmen”
- Recommended watching: “Deep Water” (2006)
World Records:
- Basically: One of the best reasons to learn French.
- There’s something inherently cool about something being the biggest/fastest/longest/smallest/MOST of its kind in the world, that’s why we all spent lunch in the school library reading the Guinness Book of World Records when we were 11-year-old nerds, right?
Or did only I do that?- In transoceanic sailing, most of the records for fastest passages are held by giant trimarans like the Ultim/Ultime class.
- The Jules Verne Trophy is awarded (generally, it’s a little complicated) to the crew that make the fastest nonstop circumnavigation of the Earth. When it started in the 80s, the goal was just to see if it was possible to beat Jules Verne’s fictional character Phileas Fogg and go around the world in less than 80 days, but today the record is down to 40!
- Other high-profile records include the west-east transatlantic route (New York City to Lizard Point in Cornwall), and several courses that follow the paths of historic ocean voyages– the Discovery Route (the course of Christopher Columbus’s voyage, from Cadiz in Spain to San Salvador in the Bahamas), the Golden Route (from New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn, like during the Gold Rush of 1849), and the Tea Route (Hong Kong to London).
- Offshore sailing is really popular in France, like crazy popular. The Vendée Globe and Transat Jacques Vabre were in the top ten most-watched sporting events in France in 2017. Most of the sailors, sponsors, and fanbase for attempts to break offshore records are all French, and most of the media coverage is, in French too. But Scuttlebutt is pretty good about posting updates during attempts and if you know your way around Google Translate you can usually do okay.
- Jules Verne Trophy official site
- Ultime class
- tagged/Jules-Verne-Trophy, Ultime, world record, circumnavigation
The Vendée Globe and the IMOCA Class:
- Basically: “Stopovers are for the weak (or the hungry, or the tired, or the person who has to potty and doesn’t want to do it in the ocean).”
- A modern nonstop, solo, unassisted race that starts and ends in the French town of Les Sables d’Olonne every four years. The most recent race was in 2016-17 and the next will be in 2020-21. During the 2016 race I created this informative PowerPoint, “The Vendée Globe Is Awesome and You Should Be Following It”, which explains it in more detail than I can here.
- In the years in-between, the sailors train in other races that involve the IMOCA 60 boats (they’re monohulls, some of them have hydrofoils and some don’t), mostly transoceanic. Although the boat is designed so it can be managed by only one person, in these events the crew sizes vary– some are for one sailor, some for two, others for more. The next edition of the Volvo Ocean Race (see below) will also include IMOCA 60s adapted for “a full crew”.
- Everything said about French-language media above also applies to following IMOCA events. But the official sites usually have English translations of at least news stories.
- Do we just like it ‘cause it’s French? Maybe…
- Official Site
- IMOCA Class
- Wikipedia
- tagged/Vendée-Globe, VG2016, IMOCA 60
- Recommended reading: Derek Lundy’s “Godforsaken Sea”.
- Recommended watching: The official YouTube channel, and this trailer in particular
The Volvo Ocean Race and the Whitbread ‘Round the World Race:
- Basically: It’s still life at the extreme, but this time you can bring some friends and you get to sight-see.
- A crewed race around the world with organized stopovers, in monohulls of varying types. From 1973 to 1997 it was called the Whitbread ‘Round the World Race, since 2001 it’s been called the Volvo Ocean Race, but it’s being reorganized at the moment and the next edition in 2021 may have a new main sponsor and name.
- To catch up on everything that happened in the 2017-18 edition that just wrapped up, watch this video or scroll through @lies’ #vor tag.
- “Why the Volvo Ocean Race is the best ‘Big Four’ event to watch first”
- Official site (Twitter)
- Wikipedia
- tagged/Volvo-Ocean-Race, VOR, VOR 2017, Whitbread ‘Round the World Race
- Recommended watching: The official YouTube channel, especially the vintage documentaries of past races for when you have two hours free.
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/177040351916.
