USA Offshore (quietly)
After a pandemic pause last year the organisers at the Atlantic Cup are enthusiastic about the eighth edition of their late-May two-leg race from Charleston to Newport with a stopover before heading north again to Portland, Maine. There are US boats lying in wait on the hard in South Carolina, one heading to the Caribbean 600, and some Euro- pean entries in Antigua as well that have expressed interest this year. ‘The Atlantic Cup has always been a challenging race because of the great variety of conditions encountered on the east coast,’ said Hugh Piggin of organisers Manuka Sports. ‘We have the Gulf Stream, changing and often vigorous spring weather systems and the tidal effects approaching Newport. The leg to Portland will have similar challenges in getting around Cape Cod and into the coastal North Atlantic. Here the winning teams are not always the fastest, but those who can best manage the variable conditions.’ This is of course very different from the Anglo-French scene, with teams racing 4,000 miles or more every year and doing more oceanic courses with fewer short sprints – a different style of racing. Regard- less, Piggin says this year the second leg of the race will also include non-Class40 entries keen to try doublehanding the course. This is welcome news, along with a great offer by New York YC to host a DH race back from Bermuda for those who raced down from Newport or Annapolis in two other scheduled races to the Onion Patch. After an initial explosion of interest in 2019 and even 2020 the US two-handed scene fell off the pace a little in 2021, not helped by World Sailing’s loss of the Olympic medal for 2024 – though only a handful of teams ever ‘admitted’ their strong interest in this goal! This year is important if things are to get rolling again. Back to Class40s and two USA teams have been making progress on their intent to race around the planet in the postponed 2021 Globe40 Race: Joe Harris on his Akilaria2 Gryphonand Micah Davis and Brian Harris racing their Akilaria RC3 Amhas. Also sailing on the Amhas programme are Imoca Hugo Boss veteran Jesse Naimark-Rowse and mini-Transat alumnist Craig Horsfield. This race is regarded by some as something of a renegade event since it will not be found on the official Class 40 schedule, but these
teams still seem enthusiastic enough to wait for the rescheduled start in Tangier on 22 June.
Last October Joe Harris held what he called a ‘sailing camp’ at his preparation base at Main Yacht Center in Portland, Maine, sailing for five days with seven potential candidates interested in joining him for the Globe40. Out of this he recruited a new sailing partner in Roger Junet, who was raised in the Italian Alps with multi- lingual proficiency. Junet has extensive transatlantic crossing expe- riences, including on a Volvo 70, as well as many miles sailed in the Caribbean. Being based now in Portland, he’s also closely involved in Harris’s preparations before leaving for France in May. Along with a complete refit and refurb of all the onboard systems, a bigger task has been to bring Gryphon 2 up to current Class40 standards for buoyancy. These rules specify the need for an addi- tional 2m3 of foam buoyancy (in addition to the existing 3m3 of foam) to be installed in all boats racing under Class40 rules for 2022. After an incident when the Class40 Carac sank after being holed on the return leg to France after the last Route du Rhum, the class voted to increase foam buoyancy requirement to 5m3 to slightly exceed the boats’ displacement of approximately 4.5 tons. Another big task has been developing Harris’s sail inventory for the race. With help from Mark Washeim of OneSails North Atlantic, it became clear that more than a few upgrades were required since some sails remained from his original 2015/16 solo circum - navigation. ‘We had already added a new mainsail and solent jib and staysail last year,’ Joe said, ‘but this year the need for a new Code Zero and A5 fractional gennaker became apparent. ‘The final inventory for the race will be: mainsail, solent, staysail (on torsion cable with halyard lock), A2 kite (sock), A3 gennaker, Code Zero, A5 fractional furling gennaker, A6 fractional heavy air kite (sock), storm jib (also on torsion cable with halyard lock). Hope- fully this inventory will make it around the world, but I will also have a spare mainsail, solent and A2 in the event that a sail is damaged beyond repair.’
Having gone around once I’m confident my old shipmate and his new co-skipper will meet this challenge. Dobbs Davis
Yachting Malta Ya
SEAHORSE 33
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