Olympic Sailing

Olympic Sailing, Sailing World Cup

Russell Coutts the Yachting legend with no remaining ambitions of America’s Cup is engaging himself at the grassroots level, writes to Michael Brown of Yachting New Zealand for the New Zealand Herald.


The Manly Sailing Club (MSC) is like many others in the New Zealand. The club has a small clubhouse made up of wood perched on the edge of the water with a bunker underneath and full of coach boats and a container of the ship out, back to keep a lot of the equipment used for other activities.

However, the Manly Sailing Club (MSC) is like no other, listed as commodore is R. Coutts. That is Sir Russell Coutts, five-times winner of the America’s Cup, two-time World Sailor of the Year, (WSOY) and three-time winner of world match racing champion and also the gold medalist of  1984 Olympic.

He has gone from running into the America’s Cup to running one of the smallest YC the region of Auckland and he loves it. It is one of the numbers of projects he is involved with but does not seem like he will be involved any more event. Continue Reading

Olympic Sailing, Sailing World Cup

The upcoming edition of the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race has six teams signed up so far for the possible eight spots.

The latest entry into the Ocean Race mix is the British sailor Dee Caffari. She will be leading the ‘Turn the Tide on Plastic’ team during the race. She will be carrying out a strong sustainability message during the event. She has the backing of the Ocean Family Foundation and the Mirpuri Foundation; both of them are concerned about the health of the ocean.

She is looking to amplify the United Nations fight for cleaner seas and oceans and is a staunch supporter of their ‘Clean Seas: Turn the Tide on Plastic’ campaign. She will be supporting this campaign through the entire 8 months of the ocean race. The 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race will be covering 45,000 nautical miles all over the world and will have 12 host cities from 6 continents. Continue Reading

Olympic Sailing

If you have been following the Vendee Globe race round the world, there has been considerable excitement in the progress made over 88 days of racing.


Indeed, many have suffered misfortunes and challenges that characterize this race, which is of solo skippers who brave it out on the waters around the globe.

As the seventh skipper finished on 1ist of February the remaining others still battle the water and weather conditions as well as each other. For instance, Costa and Romain are close to each other, being about 45 miles apart from each other in similar positions. Both have similar boats and hence experience similar speeds in the current weather conditions. As Costa reported, the last few days have seen unstable winds that have been calm and shifty. Many squalls had come by, which made sailing a challenge. Continue Reading

Olympic Sailing

It was time to celebrate the success of Scotland in the sailing events in 2016.


The Scottish Boating Community from all over Scotland gathered at the Glasgow Science Centre on 28 January 2017 evening to acknowledge the contributions and the achievements made by Scotland’s coaches, volunteers, clubs, sailors, instructors, and officials. They were recognized by RYA Scotland with annual awards.

The main award of the evening was the Performance of the Year RYA Scotland award and this went to Daniel Smith from West Kilbride. He was given this award for the stupendous showing that he had put up during the Clipper round of the World race. He led his crew to achieve the 2nd position. The 2nd position was on the back to back wins in the Pacific and the team was seen on the podium 7 times out of the 14 races during the World Race. Continue Reading

Olympic Sailing

The San Diego Yacht Club hosted a national level sailing match at college level last weekend.


In the 2016 College Sailing Match Racing Nationals there were ten teams that participated and the racing events were held at the San Diego Bay. The teams that raced had J/22s as their boats and were fighting for the Cornelius Shields Sr. Trophy. The competition was a format akin to round robin. As on 18th when the races commenced, there was a semi final planned for the weekend depending on the breeze conditions.

In 18th the racing started around eleven in the morning. When the AP flag was hoisted the wind was light and it remained under 6 knots during the afternoon while it dropped to a level below 4 knots towards day’s end. Four flights were packed in the day agenda before the races were wrapped up by four in the evening. The temperature was low, though the skies were clear. With the wind being lighter on the second day, most boats focused on maintaining speed as the breeze helped them build on the acceleration. Among the racers were some who were experiencing, such as Christopher Killian from College of Charleston who has gained the number one title in the US Youth Match Racing World Championship. Continue Reading

Olympic Sailing

From the first day when the Rio games started, the weather has been a decisive and fluctuating factor that has affected the schedule of the sailing races. From the first day of light breeze to the rains and stormy weather conditions that threatened to put a stop to the races for good, the authorities have had to toggle around and manage the races in varying wind and rain conditions.

The first two weeks of the initial races were concluded well at the end. This week, as the races reached their final stage, there was a let down by the wind on 17th August. Continue Reading

Olympic Sailing

Caleb Paine owns a Finn boat where the adage can be found, stating that there is no pain without gain, with a pun on the word “Paine”. This sums up the attitude that the sailor has at the moment as he gears up to represent his country in the Olympic Games coming up in the month ahead.

Paine thinks that there might be times when you are training and times are tough but you need to keep pushing. You might not be able to win in every drill or be able to achieve the fastest speed in downwind but the important thing is to keep working. The main thing is to keep working so that the one winner spot can be yours. Even if it is not achieved you will surely be an athlete or a better sailor at the end. Continue Reading