Rolex Fastnet Race – one day to go
Like a trial run for tomorrow’s start of the Rolex Fastnet Race, today the Solent has been in a blustery mood with an overcast sky, rain and perpetual gusty winds – and the forecast for the start of the 49th…
Offshore
News, race results plus editorial coverage from the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, Vendée Globe, The Ocean Race, ARC, Fastnet, Transpac, Ocean Globe Race, Global Solo Challenge and Offshore Yachting from around the world.
Rolex Fastnet Race: A big or small boat race?
The start of the Rolex Fastnet Race will take place from the Royal Yacht Squadron line off Cowes on Sunday, with the first Warning Signal for the multihull classes at 1100, followed at 15-minute intervals by the IMOCAs/Class40s, and then…
Watch the 49th Fastnet Race start live
The Rolex Fastnet Race starts on Sunday 8th August, 2021 from the Royal Yacht Squadron line, Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK. The first warning signal of the 49th edition of the race is at 1100 (first start 1110) and the…
Racing trimaran is dismasted
The Arch, competing on the Pro Sailing Tour’s Final Rush, the offshore race between Toulon and Brest, dismasted this morning at 01:23 while leading the race. “We were sailing under full mainsail in 14-18 knots of wind, I was at…
Austrian sailor’s world record attempt
Austrian adventurer and sailor Norbert Sedlacek is set to become the first sailor to ever complete a single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation without assistance through all of the world’s oceans. Sedlacek will depart on board his Open60AAL Innovation Yacht on the 15th of August from Les Sables d’Olonne, France, the home of…
Rolex Fastnet Race countdown
The 355 entrants in the world’s biggest offshore yacht race, the Rolex Fastnet Race in its 49th year, will be gearing up for the start this Sunday, August 8. This year, for the first time since the race was first…
Fastnet Race: The ultimate racer cruisers
The Ultimes, the world’s fastest offshore racing yachts, may be the pace-setters in next month’s Rolex Fastnet Race with the potential to get around even the new elongated course in less than a day – but not far behind them…
Pro Sailing Tour fleet al set in Toulon
The French town of Toulon is hosting six Ocean Fifty yachts that will compete for the final round of the Pro Sailing Tour, a 1600-mile sprint between the French Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts which will decide the championship. Today the…
Sydney Hobart Yacht Race surpasses 50th entry milestone
The 2021 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race has reached its first major milestone, with more than 50 boats already part of a growing fleet for the return of the Great Race. Among them is the 2017 and 2019 Overall winner Ichi…
2021 Transpac comes to an end
Mark Ashmore’s Cal 40 Nalu V may not have had the fastest ride to Hawaii in the 51st edition of the Transpac, having broken their spinnaker a few days in, but they did raise $31K USD for ALS research (a rare neurological disease) in…
Transpac Trophy Haul for Warrior Won
Transpacific Yacht Club recognised more than just the top sailors at the Transpac award ceremonies (there were several), but the unsung heroes of the race, including the navigators and most valued crew members. TPYC acknowledges the historic importance of navigators in…
Cape to cape
The three great capes that mark a non-stop circumnavigation include the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Lleeuwin and the most legendary and feared of all three capes – Cape Horn. Starting from Europe, the first to round is precisely the…
Transpac: Father-son sailing
Honolulu, Hawaii: Several entries in this year’s Transpac, even class winners whose crew lists were peppered with pro sailors, had father-son pairs on board; seeing many father’s passing on the lessons learned in offshore racing to their offspring, including how…
Teams continue to finish strongly at 51st Transpac
More than half of the fleet of 41 entries of the 51st edition of the Los Angeles-Honolulu Transpac are expected to be in to their berths before another large wave of 18 finishers are expected tomorrow night. Having start dates staggered…
Pyewacket takes Transpac line honours
Honolulu, Hawaii : Five days, 16 hours, 53 minutes and 20 seconds since starting off San Pedro in Los Angeles last Saturday, the team on Roy Disney’s turbo Volvo 70 Pyewacket crossed Diamond Head finish line at 2:53am, first to…
Transpac Race: First finishers on final approach
Honolulu, Hawaii: All eyes are on the trackers to anticipate the arrival of the first finishers in the 2021 Transpac, as the favorable weather in this year’s 2225-mile race, from Los Angeles to Honolulu, has resulted in shorter distances and…
Fastnet Race: Division 4 dares to dream
The 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race is a labour of love for the 500 sailors spread across the 70 plus strong fleet racing in IRC Division Four; especially seeing that many of these yachts consist of amateur sailors competing in boats…
GSC: Frenchman turns dream into a reality
Frenchman Pierre-Etienne Rault is set to turn his childhood dream of sailing around the world into a reality, after becoming the 27th person to enter the 2023 Global Solo Challenge Race. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the…
Transpac 2021: the home stretch
The predictions of this year’s 51st edition of the biennial Transpac race from LA to Honolulu as being a fast race appear to be holding true: all teams that left the mainland starting about a week ago through the end…
Transpac: Ho’okolohe passes halfway
July 19, 2021, Los Angeles, CA: With less than 1000 miles to go at 0800 Hawaii Standard Time today, Cecil and Alyson Rossi’s Farr 57 Ho’okolohe is the first in the 40-boat fleet to pass the halfway point in this year’s 2225-mile Transpac race from…
Italian architect enters Global Solo Challenge
Italian architect and the 26th entrant of the 2023 Global Solo Challenge Race, Alessandro Tosetti from Turin, has been sailing since childhood and when he does so he dedicates his attention to the search for harmony between himself, the people,…
Diversity in Fastnet Race
With less than a month before the start of the 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race, IRC division three boasts the largest class competing with 88 teams entered from at least 10 different countries. IRC division three has a cornucopia of boat…
Transpac: third and final wave is off
Los Angeles, California: Powered by the best breeze of the week – 10-15 knots at the start off Point Fermin – today’s final 19 entries in four divisions vaulted off the start line towards Honolulu, 2225-miles away in the 2021…
Friends and family from every corner of Europe in for Rolex Fastnet Race
Among many hot boats in IRC Two will be the JPK 1180, big brother to the JPK 10.10 Night and Day and 10.80 Courrier Du Leon, which won the Rolex Fastnet Races in 2013 and 2015 respectively. This year, five…
Welsh sailor seeks sponsors for solo yacht race
A Welsh sailor from Ceredigion (located on the western coast of Wales) is preparing for a round the world yacht race after reading about it online and thinking “I have to do this”. Dafydd Hughes, of Talybont, is taking on…
Aussie sailor takes on world record attempt
Not satisfied with three world records, Australia’s own Lisa Blair is set to depart Western Australia later this year, with the aim of beating Russian explorer Fedor Konyukhov’s 2008 solo and unassisted record sail around Antarctica of 102 days 56…
Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race update
Yesterday’s announcement by the NSW Government of an extended COVID-19 lockdown in Greater Sydney until Friday 30 July has now confirmed the need for the changes to our racing calendar foreshadowed in Monday’s communications. The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia…
51st Transpac: First wave heads to Hawaii
Los Angeles, California – After over a year of careful planning, tremendous uncertainty, yet dogged determination to run this race, the Transpacific Yacht Club today unleashed the first wave of entries on their long westward journey to Honolulu in the…
Vendée Globe sailor’s next project
Considered one of the standouts of the ninth edition of the Vendée Globe aboard his old generation IMOCA, and recent winner of The Ocean Race Europe with Offshore Team Germany, the young Vendée Globe sailor Benjamin Dutreux is on the…
Transpac: Locals take on first big ocean race since COVID
Unsurprisingly due to a year of uncertainty and pandemic impact, this year’s Transpacific Yacht Race entries are down to some 40 boats following a record high of 85 in the race’s 50th anniversary edition in 2019. But that is not…
Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Race update
The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) has been closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation in NSW, particularly Sydney. The situation is fluid, and planning for our races, particularly the upcoming Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race (SGCYR) and Audi Centre…
Texan Colin Bastable enters 2023 Global Solo Challenge
Colin Bastable from Cedar Park, Texas, USA, bought his boat after his father died and renamed her to Frank in his memory. He had bought the his Sadler 35 in the UK and then sailed all the way to his…
Aegean600: Atalanta II first to finish
Lavrio, Greece: At 14:10 local time on the 7th of July, Carlo Alessandro Puri Egri’s Atalanta II from Italy were crowned champions of the 2021 Aegean 600 after crossing the finish line at Cape Sounio six minutes short of exactly…
Marina Militare Nastro Rosa regatta starts August
World Sailing and the European Sailing Federation (EUROSAF) have confirmed that the 2021 Hempel Offshore World Championship and the EUROSAF Mixed Offshore European Championship will be held alongside the 2021 Marina Militare Nastro Rosa regatta in Italy. In addition to…
First ever single-handed multihull race confirmed
The first ever single-handed race around the world in the giant Ultim multihulls will take place in 2023, 15 years after the vision was originally conceived. An incredible test of both man and machine awaits the skippers, in a race…
One week to go until Transpac
Los Angeles, California – After a long winter and spring that made planning even more difficult due to Covid uncertainty, the fleet for this year’s Transpacific Yacht Race (aka, the Transpac) is at last in their final days of preparation….
AEGEAN 600: Speeding up at halfway mark
Lavrio, Greece: In the last 24 hours, the Greek Meltemi winds finally arrived on the AEGEAN 600 race course to speed up all members of the fleet as they start to pass through the halfway point in the race. This halfway point is…
Nautor’s Swan debuts 125 foot yacht at this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race
The designers, engineers, boatbuilders and the sailors at Nautor’s Swan in Finland have really upped the ante with the launch of their newest, largest and no doubt, the fastest sailing yacht they’ve ever built – Skorpios. In fact, their new ClubSwan125 looks powerful enough to break…
Rolex Fastnet Race’s historic battle for line honours
A major clash of the titans will take place between two of the world’s fastest maxi-monohulls at August’s Rolex Fastnet Race. While the most sought-after victory is, of course, the overall win under IRC, for the monohull that is first…
Aegean 600: A new international sailing race unfurls its sails
Lavrio, Greece: At Cape Sounion under the gaze of the temple of Poseidon, Greek god of the Sea, the fleet of the first edition of the Aegean 600 set off today for the start of their 605-mile odyssey throughout the…
