What’s happening to offshore racing?
Yacht Racing Performance Coach Stuart Greenfield launches into the first part of a three part series about what’s happening to offshore racing:
The idea for this series began, as many useful offshore conversations do, in the dark.
This year I was skippering a Sun Fast 3600 in the RORC Myth of Malham with a crew of mixed experience. Some were good sailors, some were still finding their way, and most were new to the particular rhythm of offshore racing: the watches, the damp kit, the strange meals, the long quiet spells, the sudden urgency, and the way a boat becomes its own small moving world once the land has disappeared astern.
By the first night, once the boat had settled, the sails were trimmed, the watch system was working and the first nervousness had gone, the conversation moved beyond the race itself.
How did this sport begin?
Why did anyone think it was a good idea to race yachts offshore, through tide, darkness, poor weather and all the uncertainty of the sea?
And, perhaps most honestly, was offshore racing always just a rich person’s ego sport, and is it still one now?
It is a fair question. – Full report