Contents December 2025 FEATURES
4 Strong argument MARTINA ORSINI
37 Laissez-faire, less fair? Quick decision making followed by an early announcement. ROB WEILAND is impressed
Twilight Life may be returning to a more tranquil normality in St Tropez at season’s end but elsewhere in the sport things could not be busier… Including obvious strenuous efforts being made to move the 2027 America’s Cup out of its negative torpor, with the Defender and Challenger of Record driving moves to somehow keep the event affordable enough to get through one final AC75 cycle. The move to reuse hulls raced in Barcelona, in the America’s Cup, does smack of desperation. Try to imagine the response had Dennis Conner announced that immediately following his 1987 win he’d agreed with a pocket CoR to reuse the same 12 Metres as raced in Fremantle – with the reassurance (for him) of a similarly windy venue. No, it’s better to see current turbulence as a display of good intent by a Defender and CoR stuck with a fantastic but unsustainable class, but lacking enough cover to change in time. As we touched on last month, there is nothing to say the AC75 is not the ultimate America’s Cup class… look at the performance numbers achieved in Barcelona. Who would not want to keep them; however, it is not just the monster budgets some teams brought to Spain in 2024 that has raised the bar too high, it is the astounding level of technology, which at AC37 was already so high that newbies needed not apply. Now we are further down the route of software racing it is time to be open about current ‘challenges’, well-meant but impossible to keep going. Then let’s put all that incredible America’s Cup brain-power to work and begin a discussion about a type of boat more suitable for the next era of the event
COVER: Ian Roman INSET: Phil Uhl
46 When names were easy Twenty-five years before daggerboards – and later foils – became the high-performance norm, BRUCE KING was drawing winning designs to the same concept. JULIAN EVERITT is an admirer
50 Paying it forwards ‘By 25 I’d done a lot of sailing…’ CRAIG DAVIS meets the force of nature that we know simply as DAWN RILEY
54 National treasure Since 1995 TOBY MARRIS has been entrusted with one of our most famous sailing institutions. CLARE MCCOMB gets his side of the story
56 Underneath everything Chop it up, dice it, mash it, but when you reduce it down to the last… upwind performance is still principally all about drag. DAVE HOLLOM
REGULARS
6 Commodore’s letter DEB FISH
11 Editorial ANDREW HURST
12 Update JACK GRIFFIN asks if we can have the Cup back, TERRY HUTCHINSON enjoys a remarkable run of success for Quantum Racing (but stays shtum about the Cup) and DAVE HOLLOM and MARK MCCAFERTY debate the ‘correct’ costs of foiling
20World news ALEX LOISON finally breaks the Figaro duck, LE PROFESSEUR re-enters the Transat fray, the Ocean Fifty class is making up for lost time, as MICKY BECKETT argues to preserve some sport amid the Olympic mayhem and 10 years ahead of the (foiling) curve in New Zealand? Also STACEY JACKSON goes to Cowes (and later Cherbourg!) while GREG STEWART heads to Seawanhaka. BLUE ROBINSON, MAGNUS WHEATLEY, SIMON HULL, DOBBS DAVIS, PATRICE CARPENTIER, IVOR WILKINS
34 Rod Davis
– What happens next Why testing and racing are really not at all just two sides of the same coin
40 IRC – The customers Rating director JASON SMITHWICK matches
rating systems to clients… but in the end his long-held faith in simplicity remains unshaken
43 TP52 Super Series A new face in town and a fond farewell to the most successful team of them all. JAMES LYNE, ANDI ROBERTSON, JOAKIM SUNDBERG
59 TechStreet 64 Seahorse Regatta Calendar
70 Seahorsebuild table – Blowing the doors off SAM MANUARD & FRIENDS
76 RORC – Better every time! JEREMY WILTON
102 A sticky challenge ERIC GOETZ
103 Sailor of the Month
Sam Goodchild and 2025 co-skipper Loïs Berrehar celebrate adding the Défi Azimut Trophy to their growing pile; Berrehar is confirmed as the skipper of a new Imoca building for Banque Populaire. Shortly after Le Défi Goodchild too was named skipper of a new VG campaign for Macif, with Charlie Dalin as a design adviser until his health permits him to compete again – but Goodchild will skipper the new Macif in the 2028 Vendée Globe. Figaro runner-up (with Macif) Charlotte Yven will be Goodchild’s new co-skipper next season
PASCAL HUIT
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104
