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The spirit of the Whitbread Round the World Race is back with the announcement of the 2023 OCEAN GLOBE RACE, a retro event starting from a European port on 10 September 2023 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this major milestone in adventure sailing. In a world now dominated by professional sailors, foiling yachts and eye-watering budgets. This retro Race reopens once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for ordinary sailors and adventurous yacht owners to follow in the wake of Tabarly, Blake, van Rietschoten, …

by Liesl King Alex and Benji sadly did not get another day of sailing in since the last report. The AP flag was up well before their scheduled 15h00 start and with the wind dropping to 2 knots, racing was cancelled at 18h00. Alex: “It has been a tough week for us as we didn’t quite get the results we were hoping for. We learnt a lot though. We were okay in strong wind conditions, but in the light stuff …

by Liesl King Kiel week went by in a blur for our local competitors, especially for Benji Daniel and Alex Burger on the 49er as light winds prevented any races in the closing days. Kai Leslie was more fortunate. Kai aced the first start so well that he was BFD and spent the race bobbing about waiting for race 2 so that he could compete again. But in all fairness he was BFD together with the sailors currently in silver …

A series of great races were contested on the final day thanks to a well-established westerly wind of between 6 and 8 knots, enabling the competitors to round off the week of competition in style after what has been a very varied set of conditions. The 293 sailors linked together multiple courses, as one might expect, with the leader board really being shaken up between the first day’s competition and yesterday’s races. The Italians sweep the board. Among the girls, …

by Richard Crockett Yesterday was not a good day for the RSA teams as they had to wait for many hours to get onto the water due to the very light winds. Kai Leslie summed it up well when he messaged me the following: “After 8 hours of waiting we got 1 race in. The race was such a blur I don’t quite know what I did wrong, but at the top mark every boat rounded bow to stern and …

The conditions on the open Atlantic Ocean are far from white knuckle, but the tactics playing out in the Transatlantic Race 2019 are never more interesting. It’s perhaps due to the lack of screaming conditions that the action is so compelling. Rather than dodging waves and squalls, the fleet is scampering around light patches while setting up for the effects of the Gulf Stream. At the head of the fleet the supermaxi ‘SHK Scallywag’, skippered by Australian David Witt, seems …

by Richard Crockett Today looks as if it may be a long day for competitors and followers of the RSA sailors at home as the forecast is not looking good for wind. Kai Leslie sent me a pic of the flags hanging limply from the mast. Liesl King told me that Alex Burger and Benji Daniel have made the silver fleet in the 49ers, but as there is not a breath of wind, racing is on an indefinite hold, while …

by Richard Crockett Sailing in an event with 293 competitors means that anything is possible at any time on the race course, especially with individual results. Yesterday I mentioned that Sean Kavanagh was doing well, but yesterday his luck deserted him somewhat as he dropped from his 44th place down to 58 with a BFD penalty, a 60 which is his discard so far and a 56. When one takes into account that there are 176 boys competing, he is …

by Richard Crockett Yesterday Kai Leslie said that he could have been 10 places better off “if only…” – and today he put his money where his mouth is and proved that he had the ability to really be those 10 places better. Yesterday he scored a 34 & 45 – today a 24; 19 & 36 – leaving him 33rd overall and as close as dammit to mid-way in the fleet. But again he was forced out of the …

Few things are straightforward when racing across the Atlantic Ocean. There are safety concerns at every turn, from storms and lightning threatening everything above water to unseen floating objects (“UFOs”) threatening the parts underwater. Contrary to that theory, the 13 yachts participating in the Transatlantic Race 2019 have had surprisingly straightforward conditions in their first 24 hours at sea. “The first night was fairly easy,” said David Askew, co-owner of the VO70 ‘Wizard’. “We’ve been close reaching in 18 to …

by Sophie Thompson Eager sailors will be following this year’s MSC Week’s slogan of “Live, Love, Sail” to the letter as they take to the water offshore of Durban from 1 – 5 July, hosted by Point Yacht Club. The week long regatta will have the aquatic athletes competing in a variety of competitive classes, namely the L26 Nationals, J22 and ORC Regionals and an Open Class for Keelers and Multihulls. Each day, Race Officer Dave Rushton will set a …

The final two days of this event start today after the fleet assignment series were completed yesterday. Just 2 RSA sailors are competing in the 176 boat boys fleet, being Sean Kavanagh and Rohan Chidley. After a first day of qualification rounds contested in light airs, the competitors enjoyed much more favourable conditions the following day. The Optimists headed out to the start zone at around lunchtime with the girls kicking off hostilities in a well-established north westerly wind of …

by Richard Crockett & Liesl King Day 1 is done and dusted for the RSA sailors who are upbeat and anything but fazed by what happened out on the water. Alex Burger said that they had a good first race, then struggled a bit in the other two, indicating that all-in-all they are happy and keen to improve their results tomorrow. Racing today were 3 49er fleets which will ultimately determine where each team will sail in the fleet racing. …

by Richard Crockett The Kieler Wocher regatta is better known to English speakers as Kiel Week, but whatever you call it, it’s a massive event that runs over a few weeks and incorporates many different dinghy classes. It’s one of those events that dinghy sailors the world over simply have to do once. Experiencing it this year are two RSA teams, Benji Daniel and Alex Burger in the 49er, and Kai Leslie in the Standard Laser for men. For these …

It would be nice to imagine that the 3,000-nautical-mile route for the west-to-east Transatlantic Race 2019 has changed little since pioneers from the New York Yacht Club braved the route from New York to Cowes via the Lizard back in 1866. By modern standards, their voyage was reckless, leaving in December on boats designed to be raced inshore. In addition, today we have more contemporary problems such as the Greenland ice sheet melting at an alarming rate, increasing the ice …