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Edit Harken has written a piece for us this month that really could save your life… and that’s not something we get to say all that often
Patrice Carpentier Carlos Pich Tim Jeffery
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Torbjörn Linderson Andy Rice
Giuliano Luzzatto Jocelyn Blériot
Frederic Augendre
USA & CARIBBEAN Dobbs Davis
Peter Holmberg Cam Lewis
Chris Museler
Eric Hall found plenty to celebrate as a Bristolian once he got inside the New York Yacht Club’s latest America’s Cup challenge
Terry Hutchinson JAPAN
Yoichi Yabe
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE Ivor Wilkins
Blue Robinson Rob Brown Rob Kothe Rob Mundle
Julian Bethwaite
COLUMNISTS Paul Cayard Rod Davis Ken Read
Charlie Barr would keep Pete Burling busy in a modern Cup start (but is there time for a brush-up on flight control please?)
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TECHNICAL BRIEFINGS Kieren Flatt & Lizzie Ward
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Tina Plattner appeared on the 52 Super Series last year and only just missed winning a race at her first event. Must be in the genes
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Randy Smyth has a fast CV including two Tornado medals and winner of the Worrell 1,000. Aah… and the America’s Cup victory
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Commodore’s letter
at the front of the fleet. The continued rise in the popularity of double-handed offshore
T
racing has been apparent in the RORC race entry figures for several years. All our races have a two-handed division for which we award the Psipsina Season’s Points Championship trophy. More recently my predecessor introduced the Boyd Trophy for Mixed Two-Handed. A no-brainer then for the club to team up with the RYA to encourage potential competitors for the World Sailing mixed double-handed Offshore World Championship in Malta in 2020 and the Mixed Two Person Offshore Keelboat event for the 2024 Paris (read Marseilles) Olympics. Both of these events are work in progress for World Sailing
and so our focus is on the discipline rather than the equipment with the immediate opportunity for competitors to join the RORC two-handed series within the existing IRC fleet.
his summer’s Rolex Fastnet Race includes a record entry of over 90 boats sailing two-handed. The entrants are perhaps encouraged by Pascal and Alexis Loison’s overall win in 2013 racing double- handed on their JPK10.10 Night & Day; proof if it were needed that two-handed boats are competitive
Alain Gautier concentrates hard in the 2003 Figaro – Gautier has already won the Vendée Globe by now but like many of his peers kept returning to this supreme test of solo sailing. And, yes, Gautier is back again this year in his new Figaro 3
We should not perhaps split hairs but the Malta event might
more appropriately be called a Mixed Two-Handed Offshore World Championship. The title of an event is important in that it should not undermine other world-class events, run by the RORC or others, and it should fairly describe the event itself. While supported by the RORC we are I think a little concerned that the ‘Offshore World Championship’ based on a single race in a mixed double-handed boat (that might not even be required to sail the full Middle Sea Race course) is not doing quite what it says on the tin. Two-handed sailing is popular for many reasons, the chal-
lenge and not having to organise and rely on a large crew being two significant factors. Momentum to provide for shorthanded (in addition to two-handed) offshore racing is also gathering. There is a sizeable part of the racing fleet that does not
want to take part in two-handed racing but would prefer to sail with less than a full crew. The advantages are obvious in terms of organisation and the deeper involvement of all of the team onboard. I hope that this will develop further so that those boats can take part competitively. Central to this is of course the use of autopilots.
Looking into the future, autopilot technology will almost certainly advance to a point where it is better than a human in many conditions. That genie is out of the bottle and it is difficult to see how their use can be excluded in the long term. That too is a work in progress… for the RORC!
Steven Anderson Commodore
q
BENOIT STICHELBAUT/DPPI
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