NORTH SAILS BLOG

SWEDISH BLUE CROWNED 2022 ETCHELLS WORLD CHAMPIONS Noel Drennan Talks Through the Team’s Winning Strategy 📸 PKC Media / Etchells Class The 2022 Etchells World Championships came down to the final race day of tricky sailing conditions, where North Sails Etchells Class Leader, Noel “Nitro” Drennan crewed on Ante Razmilovic’s Swedish Blue with Brian Hammersley to win overall victory. North Sails teams claimed a clean sweep of the podium as Anatole Masfen’s New Order finished in second place, and Lawrie Smith’s Mila in third, all competing with full North Sails inventories. “We raced in northerly breezes, so it was always going to be pretty shifty and difficult days,” commented Nitro. “We had a compressed schedule after no racing on the first day with the Queen’s funeral holiday, as well as a few light air days to start. And before you know it we’re way behind schedule and having three races a day, which isn’t very common in the Etchells. So, we just had to get it together for long days on the water.” There were some testing situations for the 42-boat fleet, where patience and the ability to reset between races made the difference for the leaders. “In terms of our philosophy, we knew that it might be a bit of a random and variable regatta, and going into it we probably weren’t the favorites, but we were in the second rank of teams who could do it.” “Unfortunately we had a bad first day, and we definitely had to work past that and get on with the rest of the regatta. After that bad first race with a 35th, we had to regroup and make sure we weren’t out on one of the edges again. So we probably worked better together after having our bad race and kept it all together from there.” 📸 PKC Media / Etchells Class 📸 PKC Media / Etchells Class Swedish Blue’s resilient mentality wasn’t their only team strength, with a wealth of experience sailing on the Solent among the crew, and all-round easy speed setup from their North Sails sail package shining through when it mattered most. “As a team, we’ve sailed quite a bit together over the years, and last year we actually did a few regattas together in Cowes, including the pre-worlds and we were going well for the majority of the regatta. Brian and I also sailed together in the 2016 worlds and did quite well there.” said Nitro of his third place in that world championship. “Now when I look back at it I’ve done a fair bit of sailing in Cowes.” “We had a pretty good week and it all started coming together for us. We’ve been using the North Sails standard Etchells inventory, using our tuning guide, which is quite pleasing for me. Our upwind package includes the MAL M jib and the GT M jib, so we use all the molded sails, and these two jibs were very easy to trim and user-friendly throughout the week.” “The jib is such a critical part in the Etchells setup for trimming. So it was nice having easy-to-trim sails that were right the majority of the time. There was plenty to think about wind-wise and current-wise all the time, so the user-friendly sails made it very easy for us to look around on the race course.” As North Sails Etchells Class Leader, Nitro has been heavily involved with the development of the current range of sails, which he says started back in 2019, with refinements and developments made since then, moving towards using molded sails. “There’s a lot of input from around the world that goes into our Etchells sails to make the current race models their best, and currently there’s quite a few different teams trying different things. Having easy boat speed was crucial for this event, so it was quite pleasing for me to win with the standard sails, and so did second and third!” A full list of results can be found here: FULL RESULTS If you’re looking for more information on the North Sails Etchells setup, have a read of the Q&A our North Sails Experts had about the current inventory: ETCHELLS Q+A 📸 PKC Media / Etchells Class READ MORE

SEVENSTAR ROUND BRITAIN AND IRELAND WARRIORS North Sails Customers Dominate in the 2022 Round Britain and Ireland Race 📸 James Tomlinson / RORC The Sevenstar Round Britain & Ireland Race, organized every four years by the Royal Ocean Racing Club, is one of the most challenging offshore races in the world. The 1,805-mile course includes: the Celtic Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. The 2022 edition brought unusual challenges with a high pressure system dominating the weather for the race. This resulted in a challenging, changeable and complex weather scenario for the 30 teams that set out on the race. Of the thirty teams many of them were short handed and double handed with several of the double handed boats dominating under IRC. North Sails UK newly appointed General Manager, Ian Walker, and race start commentator remarked: "This race will have tested the crews patience and resilience to the full and we are delighted to see North Sails once again dominating the podium places. Well done to everyone who stuck it out and finished this tough race". First to cross the finish line was Medallia, IMOCA skippered by Pip Hare, who took Line Honours in an elapsed time of 10 days 13 hours 23 minutes and 22 seconds, with North expert Kevin George onboard. The IMOCA Class was expected to be four boats, but with two teams not making the start line and Oliver Heer Ocean Racing having to retire due to an injured crew member, Medallia was the only IMOCA to finish the race. Richard Palmer’s JPK 1010 Jangada, racing Two-Handed with Rupert Holmes, took the overall win of the 2022 Sevenstar Round Britain & Ireland Race, as well as winning IRC Three and IRC Double Handed. After time correction Jangada won by only seven minutes and nine seconds. In percentage terms, just 0.03% in a race of 1,805 nautical miles. The top six teams in IRC Two were all racing Two-Handed. Bellino, which narrowly missed winning overall, was the class winner. Sun Fast 3600 Bellino had a very close battle for the entire race with JPK 1080 Mzungu!. Raced by Sam White and Sam North, Mzungu! suffered from a broken autopilot for several days, but did not let that get them down and finished second in class and third overall. Third in IRC Two and first Sunfast 3300 was Daniel Jones & Jon Tyrrell racing Wild Pilgrim. “We knew from the start that there would be a strong competition with boat-on-boat racing and that was a big reason for entering the race,” said Bellino’s Deb Fish. “We could see Mzungu! for 95% of the race. In that situation, for every mile you are looking for that extra inch, you have to short tack to stay in pressure or out of bad tide. It was great racing but also stressful; an absolutely cracking race.” North Sails customers filled the top 9 places in the results. We’re incredibly proud of the North-powered results and all of the teams for their amazing performances. A true test of will power, endurance and stamina, both of the sailors and their sails. 📸 James Tomlinson / RORC READ MORE

Gratulálunk Fazekas Gábor -nak aki TANTÁL 8M OPEN hajójával megnyerte a 2022-es Szóló Balatonkerülő NAGYKÖR-t. Gábor kitartó, következetes munkáját a NORTH SAILS vitorlái segítették. 📸 Brigi Török @torokbrigiphotographer READ MORE

OG NU TIL NOGET SPORT! Claes Eliasson, chefdesigner Maurizio Cossutti og Bavaria Yacht teamet var alle enige om at nu er det tid til noget lidt andet… Med input fra et all-star team bestående af bl.a. Cossutti Yacht Design og North Sails Norge, er Claes Eliassons Bavaria C38 blevet optimeret til klubkapsejlads. De første resultater er imponerende og der forventes yderligere performance fremgang i løbet af sæsonen. Har du nogensinde sejlet en cruising yacht og spekuleret på, hvor meget hurtigere det kunne gå med et godt sæt racing sejl – og med noget af det tunge cruising udstyr fjernet? Claes Eliasson, en norsk forhandler for Bavaria Yachts og en ivrig klub kapsejladssejler, leder et hold med en mission om at finde ud af det. Cruisere er naturligvis designet til at have en høj lastbærende kapacitet, og de bedste af dem sejler ret godt, selv når de er tungt lastet med ekstraudstyr som bade platforme, bov propeller og cockpitborde. Men hvad nu, hvis det typiske grej i stedet blev brugt til at booste bådens ydeevne? Hvor stor en forskel ville det egentlig gøre? Til at starte med, skal du bruge den rigtige båd. Nogle cruisere har langt større muligheder for ydelsesoptimering end andre, og Eliasson vidste, at han havde en god kandidat til det projekt, han havde i tankerne, da bådarkitekten Maurizio Cossutti viste ham planerne for Bavaria C42. Båden vandt prisen European Yacht Of The Year på grund af sin sejlpræstation, men Eliasson endte med at bruge dens lillesøster, C38 – Cossuttis seneste design for Bavaria – som sin testbåd. C38 og C42 deler fem centrale designfunktioner, der definerer deres sejlegenskaber. "Det er sejl arealet, høj volume V-bow, de skarpe “chine” på hækken, kølformen," siger Cossuttis designpartner Alessandro Ganz. “En kombination af faktorer giver den gode ydeevne og håndtering.” "Skroget og båden som helhed har potentiale for gode resultater i klubkapsejlads," siger Eliasson. “Sammen med North Sails og Cossutti er vi interesserede i at finde ud af, om det er værd at tilbyde sportsversioner af Bavaria C38 og C42. Så vi bestilte en standardbåd fra værftet, uden badeplatform, cockpitbord eller bovpropel, hvilket sparede en del vægt. Vi lavede nogle mindre ændringer. Sejlene er specialfremstillede, og Cossutti har hjulpet os med design og udvikling.” Det ville være let (men dyrt) at demonstrere imponerende præstationsgevinster ved at rive interiør ud af en standard produktionsbåd, tilføje en dybere køl, montere vandballast og erstatte den almindelige rig med Carbon rigging. Men det ville stride imod etosen i Eliassons projekt, som har til formål at vise det fulde ydeevne potentiale af en normal Bavaria C38 med den slags optimering, som en gennemsnitlig ejer realistisk kunne opnå, i partnerskab med en lokal sejlmager, og samtidig bevare den sande essens af båden som en veludstyret og fuldt funktionel familiecruiser. Projektet startede i januar 2021. Båden blev leveret i maj, og holdet begyndte at tune og installere en beskeden række opgraderinger. "Vi var alle nysgerrige efter at se, hvor godt C38 kunne præstere mod en stærk klubkapsejladsflåde," siger Cossutti. “Den er ikke så stærk i let vind, fordi den ikke er designet til kapsejlads. Så vi arbejder sammen med sejldesignerne på at maksimere sejlarealet. Masten, bommen og bovsprydet er standard, nøjagtig det samme som enhver anden C38. Vi har arbejdet på storsejlets størrelse, optimeret fokkene og især arbejdet på gennakere. Målet er ikke at købe 20 sejl, men at opretholde et fornuftigt forhold mellem udgifter og ydelse.” Eliassons projektteam omfatter også Christen With fra North Sails Norge, der rådgiver om rating og strategi; hans kollega Pål Berntsen, rådgiver om sejl og udstyr; og freelance ekspert Pascal Kuhn, en tidligere Bavaria-produktchef, der har arbejdet tæt sammen med Cossutti og Ganz om at bringe anden generation af C-Line-yachter på markedet. Bådens præstation ser lovende ud. Eliasson har logget 14,8 knob dog med vind med en smule bølge assistance, og mens han sejlede solo, afsluttede han en 45-mil race en hel time foran en 46-fods med en stor besætning og en fuld sejlpakke. ''Vi har ikke vundet nogen kapsejladser endnu”' siger han. “Men vi har været på podiet tre gange, og sejlet mod stærke konkurrenter: JPK'er, X-Yachts, Arconas, de bedste både i Norge.” Det er værd at påpege, at de fleste af disse både koster tre gange så meget som C38’eren. "Som med alle både har det taget lidt tid at lære dens egenskaber at kende og finde det rigtige trim," siger Christen With. “Vi har fokuseret på mastetrim og testet, hvilket setup der er mest gunstigt under forskellige vindforhold. Efterhånden har vi fået båden til at gå bedre og bedre.” Det vejledende princip for udvikling af sejl er at skabe en pakke, som enhver C38-ejer, der ønsker at sejle kapsejlads, nemt kan købe, og som fungerer godt på bådens standardopsætning. Testbådens indledende sejlgarderobe omfattede et 47m2 storsejl, tre fokke fra 29m2 til 40m2, en 58m2 Code Zero, 125m2 og 111m2 gennakkere og en 36m2 windseeker. "Vi er forbløffede over, at vi kan bruge den 35m2 mellemstore fok op til 20 knob," siger With. “Vi har opdaget, at denne båd elsker at have stor kraft i forsejlet. Samtidig skal du være aktiv med at trimme storsejlet fladere og fladere efterhånden som vinden tiltager. Båden bliver da en sand fornøjelse at styre. Det er en klar fordel ved kapsejlads. Til cruising betyder det, at styringen let mestres, selv for en uerfaren sejler. Og autopiloten vil gøre et godt stykke arbejde, når du vil forlade roret." Sejl til side, den første sæsons opgraderinger inkluderede inhaulers til forsejlsskøderne, Seldén race blokke, et justerbart Dyneema backstay, Dyneema running rigging og et nyt storskøde setup, der giver flere mekaniske fordele. C38’erens cockpit er enormt sammenlignet med mange andre cruiseres, som plejer at være designet til shorthanded besætninger, og alt det albuerum er praktisk til kapsejlads. "Jeg har haft professionelle kapsejladshold på min båd, og de er meget imponerede, især over cockpittet," siger Eliasson. "Med en fuld besætning på seks til otte personer er der masser af plads til, at alle kan arbejde med båden effektivt og komfortabelt." Faste og aftagelige storskøde løjgange blev overvejet, men afvist. En fast løjgang ville kompromittere bådens dobbeltfunktionelle rolle som familiecruiser såvel som klubracer, og en aftagelig løjgang ville ikke være lang nok til at gøre den store forskel for sejltrimningen. I stedet føres skødet til en let aftagelig blok i midten af cockpittet. "Det er vigtigt at forstå, at selvom vi har lagt en del kræfter og penge i sejl og hardware, er vores mål at se, hvor langt vi kan nå uden at ødelægge bådens koncept," forklarer Eliasson. “Og det er også vigtigt, at performance-versionen af C38'eren meget nemt kan ændres tilbage til den fulde cruising-version.” Føler han sig ikke fristet til at fjerne nogle af de tungere genstande nedenunder, når han konkurrerer mod specialbyggede kapsejladsbåde? "Slet ikke”, siger han. "Jeg har aldrig fjernet noget fra interiøret. Og vi har sejlet denne båd med alt kategori 3 sikkerhedsudstyr ombord, hvilket tilføjer en masse vægt. Vi har ikke engang flyttet batteriet til ankerspillet, som er i stævnen. Vi har faktisk fundet ud af, at det kan betale sig at flytte vægten fremad i let vind." Bavarias produktionschef, Udo Erbe, følger projektet tæt for at sikre, at den opnåede viden kan føres tilbage til fremstillingsprocessen. "Selv en familiecruiser bør være en hurtig båd," siger han. "Og dette projekt viser, hvad der er muligt i forhold til optimering." "Ved at give Claes support, indsamler vi også data, der kan hjælpe os med at udvikle vores performance diagrammer til en række projekter," siger Cossutti. "Og en masse viden går tilbage til Udo på værftet. Det har været interessant at udfordre båden og sammenligne den med andre både i et kapsejladsmiljø. Dette har givet en klar indikation af, at båden virkelig er så god, som vi troede, den var i begyndelsen. Det er vigtigt for værftet og også for os. En af udfordringerne ved cruising yacht design er, at du skal overveje, hvordan båden klarer sig og håndterer under mange forskellige forhold mellem tom og lastet med vand, brændstof, mennesker, udstyr og så videre. Forskydningen kan ændre sig dramatisk. Det hjælper os, når vi ser, hvordan båden klarer sig ved klubkapsejlads." Projektet kører, og optimeringen fortsætter. "I år tilføjer vi en North Sails 3Di fok, som vil give os mere kraft i let vind," siger Eliasson. "Det er formentlig den første, der nogensinde er blevet monteret på sådan en type båd, og absolut den første med et Helix-forlig. Vi skifter også bommen ud med en lettere." Vi afventer sæsonens resultater med interesse. Klik her for mere information om Bavaria Yachts. Testbåden har en normal rig, men der er lagt mange kræfter i sejludvikling med fokus på fok, gennaker og storsejlets størrelse. READ MORE

A CLASSIC YACHTING WEEKEND Classic Performances Down East 📸 Carol Chu Photography A series of regattas along Maine’s rocky coast provide a showcase for vintage yachts powered by North Sails technology. Midcoast Maine is the place to be mid-summer, when fresh-picked corn and wild blueberries flood the farm stands, and classic yachts—modern and old, from daysailers to schooners—gather and joust for honors at five renowned regattas, spread out over the course of three weekends. The competition was brisk for the 2022 season, with 109 classic yachts signing up for the series of harbor parades, shoreside social events, and, of course, spirited racing. And a number of top finishers owed their podium appearances, in part at least, to North Sails. Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club Regatta and Shipyard Cup Classics Launched as a superyacht gathering over a decade ago by Hodgdon Yachts, and reprised in 2021 as a venue for Vintage, Spirit of Tradition and Modern Classic sailboats, the ranks just keep growing. It was the 48th running of the regatta, which featured numerous PHRF and one-design divisions, and the second season for the Shipyard Cup. After six races, The Hawk with full North inventory featuring 3Di technology nailed the first of what would turn out to be several top podium appearances in the various regattas, placing first among the six-boat Spirit of Tradition/Modern Classics class. The Vintage Classics 1 division was totally dominated by North Sails powered boats, starting with Black Watch took first, while Marilee, a restored New York 40, placed second with North Sails expert Jack Slattery onboard and powered with 3Di technology. 📸 Carol Chu Photography The Camden Classic The following weekend, racing action moved to the heart of Penobscot Bay for the two-day Camden Classic Cup. As in Boothbay, racing included a mix of PHRF, one design and classic divisions, with nearly 100 yachts participating. Shoreside festivities took place at the new Lyman Morse Boat Building facility on the Camden waterfront. Once again, The Hawk, with North Sails expert Tim Healy onboard, benefited from two solid days of racing, and finished first in the four-boat Modern Classic division. Two other North-powered boats also placed in that class, Vortex taking second, and Hound, a Aage Nielsen sloop, finished third. North Sails designer Glenn Cook, who sailed on Polly and competed in the Vintage 1 division, shares “Every year this event builds on the success of the previous year. This year the conditions were superb and the new waterfront facilities at Lyman Morse raised the level of the shoreside events. In contrast to the typical sea breeze in Penobscot Bay the wind had a strong west component and was quite variable making for interesting racing. The Ocean 370 3Di sails we had onboard the Nevins 56, Polly, were well suited for the conditions. Most importantly we were able to effectively depower the sailplan as the breeze built on Saturday afternoon. This is the advantage of the 3Di sail versus the woven sails that are more common in the classic fleet.” North clients prevailed in four other divisions where skippers took home hardware during the event. In the Vintage 1 class, New York 32 Siren took first with Black Watch finishing close behind in second. Marilee finished just out of the money in fourth place, followed by Polly, a 56-foot sloop finishing fifth. Swan 42 Tio Loco, owned by Henry Brauer, took first in the CRF Contemporary division while Restive secured third in the Spirit of Division class; both powered by North Sails. Meanwhile another boat sporting North Sails, Mermaid, a 45-foot ketch, took third in the Classic class. 📸 Carol Chu Photography Castine Classic Yacht Race Crews sailed deeper into Penobscot Bay, to Castine, for the August 4 Castine Classic Yacht Race, set along a 19.6-nautical-mile course to Camden. North Sails swept the podium with Siren taking first in the Classic A fleet, followed by Black Watch in second and Vortex in third. When the time came to hand out the hardware, the crew of Siren were called back and also awarded the Ames Cup as overall winner of the Classic A, B and C fleets, and to add to their winnings, they also took home the Sparkman & Stephens trophy as the top S&S yacht. North Sails was also front and center in The Spirit of Tradition class with Outlier, a 55-foot Botin design, taking first while Restive took third. Eggemoggin Reach (ERR) The ERR is an East Coast classic in its own right. The race, first sailed in 1985, was organized by Brooklin Boat Yard’s Steve White and Frank Hull as an event to bring wooden boat owners together for friendly competition on the water and spirited good times ashore. That year 13 yachts answered the call. And then, the word got out. In the following few summers, the fleet grew to more than 100 yachts as the Castine and Camden races turned a one-day party into a three-day festival of wood, varnish and sails. This year’s race featured 10 divisions, with 112 boats participating. The event is now sponsored by Brooklin Boat Yard and Rockport Marine. What hasn’t changed are the rules—boats must be 24 feet or longer and wooden—and the course: a 15 mile run down Eggemoggin Reach and back, which is followed by shoreside festivities at the home of Wooden Boat Magazine. 📸 Carol Chu Photography This year, boats fitted out with North Sails took firsts in three divisions: Mermaid in Classic C, Siren in Vintage B, and The Hawk in the Modern Classics class. Also doing well among the Moderns were Starry Night, third, and Vortex, fourth. Siren was also the winner of the S&S Best Corrected Time award, the S&S Best Elapsed Time award as well as the Joel White Award for best corrected time for a plank-on-frame boat. Other boats making podium appearances included Marilee, finishing third, in Vintage B, and Cheetah Cheetah, which took second place in the Vintage A division. In the Spirit of Tradition B class, yachts with North Sails took home honors in four of the top six finishes. Placements included second-place Lark,; third-place Outlier; and fourth-place Dreadnought,. Veteran ERR entry Wild Horses, a W-76 yacht placed sixth. Several of the classic yachts serving up standout performances at the Down East regattas – Marilee, Siren, Mermaid, and Polly – all sported 3Di Ocean 330 and 3Di Ocean 370 technology. When it comes to 3Di Ocean sails, North Sails designer Glenn Cook shares, “The 3D sails have more range, it is especially noticeable how stable the sail shapes remain as the wind increases. And conversely how easy it is to power up the sail plan with small adjustments. Vintage 1 Classic winner Peter Cassidy and his team on Siren with a new set of 3Di Ocean 330 said “I recommend putting this on your calendar for next year if it is not already. It is also the perfect warm up for the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta and the feeder races the following weekend.” 📸 Carol Chu Photography READ MORE

DENALI3: A Team Effort Reflecting On Double Class Wins for Denali3 Denali3 has had a good year, a very good year. “Just being on the water with the team again was a joy for sure,” said Bill McKinley, her owner. He was reflecting on returning to racing after suffering – along with many other teams – a couple of difficult seasons. “The last two years really kicked us in the butt,” he added, but they went into the 2022 season with a new sail inventory targeted at the classic Great Lakes events and, “a lot of freaking hope.” It turned out to be a well-founded hope. McKinley and his crew – mostly made up of his friends – have achieved a remarkable double; class wins in both the 2022 Bayview Mackinac and Chicago-Mackinac races. “We were fairly confident in the rig and sails as we had some solid practice days with the team, but actual race results take a lot of factors coming together at the same time,” he explained. “The Mac races couldn’t have been more different: The Bayview Mac was light air beating, reaching and running. The Chicago Mac was mid- to high- wind reaching and running mixed in with massive squalls. Winning our section in both races sailing against an incredible group of competitors and some of the best TP52 sailors in the world was epic… literally a dream come true… something you dream about but don’t expect to ever happen.” It was a dream built on some smart thinking and very sound preparation, all of which reflected McKinley’s long experience of the sport, and those two races. “Sailed my first Mackinac at age 11, have sailed in over 60 Mackinacs,” he explained. He’d previously owned a Nelson/Marek ULDB 70 and a Carkeek 40, hitting the podium in plenty of big races. So, McKinley was very clear right from the outset about what he wanted from his third boat, designed by Jason Ker and built by McConaghy’s in China in 2017-18. “My goals when I commissioned Denali3 were an all-around boat that was fully sorted for offshore sailing,” he said. “Aside from mode-ing the boat for Macs, I wanted to go back and run the TransPac, the Bermuda Race, as well as the Caribbean 600. Specifically, I wanted a boat that excelled in light air reaching as well as big breeze reaching and running.” “Obviously the ‘target’ races are pretty different and require different sail inventory approaches. The first goal was creating my vision of a ‘Mac boat’ for light wind reaching in 40 to 80 TWA and high AWAs due to the traditional light breezes. I was fortunate to hook up with Wade Morgan and Magnus Doole who had sailed and outfitted Alpha+ . They were super receptive to my vision of an upwind J-Zero.” Wade Morgan specializes in the management of custom yacht builds, and includes Mālama, 11th Hour Racing’s IMOCA 60 on his CV. Morgan had already worked with Magnus Doole on several projects, including the construction of two previous Ker designs. Doole has been a sail designer for North Sails since 2007 and has a strong background in the TP52 class and maxi boats, but this was a different challenge; because of the offshore and reaching emphasis that Bill was putting on the boat. “We went through the process of working with Southern Spars and with Ker Yacht Design to optimise the sail plan for what Bill wanted to do,” said Doole. They had an advantage with the sails and the mast all coming from within the North Technology Group, so a range of expertise could be drawn upon, and the integrated tools of the North Design Suite could be used to full advantage. “We also worked with Greg Stewart from Nelson/Marek Yacht Design to look at the rating side of it for the specific races,” added Doole. “The boat captain, Norman Berge is also part of that communication loop… he’s a Harbor Springs, Michigan native, who does a fantastic job of preparing the boat to a Super Series level of preparation.” Denali3 was launched during the 2018 season, competing on the Great Lakes her first couple of years. There were reservations about the rudder position, which seemed more optimized to upwind / downwind sailing, rather than reaching. “It was clear at the end of that, that the boat over performed in some conditions, and it was difficult to sail in others,” said Morgan. Bill McKinley picks up the tale, “After two years on the Lakes, collectively Wade, Magnus and myself determined that in order to really enhance our reaching capabilities we need to move the rudder aft and enlarge it… In late 2019, the boat was shipped to Newport to effect the rudder mods with the goal of racing the 2020 Newport to Bermuda Race… Needless to say, that race got cancelled due to Covid-19, so we lost a year in the program.” It was the first of two tough years. In 2021 they went to California for the TransPac but were forced to pull out early. “So 2021 was a bust.” McKinley had already sowed the seeds for a dramatic comeback. In 2019, during their planning for the Newport Bermuda Race, he had commissioned North Sails Design Services to produce a report on the optimum sail inventory for the (eventually abandoned) 2020 season. It was typical of his thoughtful approach, an approach that meant Doole was able to constantly innovate with the sail inventory. “You’re lucky when you have an owner like Bill who will invest in that kind of tech,” commented Doole. The study was done by Jeremy Elliot, who has been head of the Design Services team since its inception in the mid-2010s. “The bulk of our consultancy work is to help the naval architect, and the owner and their team, fully map out the performance and the loading of the boat, so that it can be fully engineered,” he explained. The Design Services investigation into the optimum sail plan for Denali3’s 2020 itinerary provided several important insights and, in particular, had this to say about McKinley’s vision of an upwind J-Zero. “The J-Zero provides a particular advantage not only upwind in light air to hit heel target, but this was maintained to a much wider apparent wind angle.” Design Services identified that for Denali3 the J-Zero was a weapon. The remaining concern was whether it would justify the additional rating it would attract. Fast forward two years, and the team were preparing for the 2022 campaign. The Design Services report was dusted off, and a new question was asked of the data that had been supplied by Elliot: now that the Mackinac Races were being run under ORC , how will the J-Zero stack up against the rating penalty? “For this year, again with Greg Stewart involved, we looked at how ORC would work for the two Mac races. It became quite evident that where the boat sat in the rating bands, we could sail with the J-Zero,” Doole explained. “Bill’s not afraid to be an outlier if you can justify the performance gain relative to the weather systems that you’re working with,” said Doole. “And that’s why we rated with the J-Zero for the two races this year. We figured that it would allow us to keep up with the faster boats… As the weather systems roll through the lakes, you invariably have a point where you’ll stop or there’s a significant wind shift. And having the sails to deal with the wind shifts, to get you through that transition was important. If we hadn’t had the J-Zero on in the second race (the Chicago-Mackinac), the win would have been harder to achieve.” Another important factor was the use of the new Helix technology to create a J-1.5 that could cover the rest of the wind range. The Helix Structured Luff is a development in the 3Di technology that allows the trimmers to get more wind range out of the sail. “We had a new Helix J-1.5, so that we could eliminate a jib off the boat,” said Doole. “In the first race we only sailed with the J-Zero and the J-1.5… it was punchy but we built a jib that could do from J-1 through to J-2 conditions.” “I’m thrilled to hear that eventually it worked out,” said Jeremy Elliot of Design Services. “I think the performance that we found with those sails was there. It just found a slightly different home, in a slightly different racetrack, and on a different day. But I think that does validate the exercise that he was smart enough to commission.” “We absolutely wouldn’t be where we are without North Sails and Magnus,” concluded McKinley. “The energy and creativity that was put into designing a ‘world beating’ inventory is incredible. We literally have an arrow in our quiver for anything we might encounter. Aside from Magnus and Brian Janney being incredible sailors, they are incredible people and just plain fun to sail with.” And for the future? “We are headed back out to Cali and the 2023 TransPac… redemption!” said McKinley. READ MORE

Quick Tuning Guides: N14-L18 Mainsail N13-L12 Mainsail N13-L16 Mainsail N12-L9B Mainsail N10-L5 main N10-L5(H) main N9-L5 main L5-N15 Mainsail See also: Tips for Adjusting the Bolt Rope on Your 470 Mainsail READ MORE

VINTEREFTERSYN AF ALLE DINE SEJL Vil du forlænge dine sejls levetid, så giv dem lidt kærlighed her til vinter Vi er klar til at se på dine sejl og hjælpe dig med at planlægge din næste sejlsæson. Derfor tilbyder vi eftersyn og vinteropbevaring af dine sejl på vores sejlloft (fra oktober 2022 til april 2023). Prisen for eftersyn og vinteropbevaring er 550kr inkl. moms. I tilfælde af at dit sejl har brug for mere end et eftersyn sender vi dig et tilbud på dette til vores faste service priser. Vores sejlmagere står altid til rådighed for dig. Uanset om du er til cruising eller kapsejlads, har vi den viden og dedikation, der gør North til verdens førende sejlmager. Du kan selv gøre meget for at passe på dine sejl. Se sejlmagernes gode råd her. BESTIL TID TIL VINTERSERVICE READ MORE

EASY FURLING GENNAKER CLAIMS THE ACCESSIBILITY AWARD IN NEWPORT North’s newest cruising sail is award-winning North Sails is proud to announce that the recently launched Easy Furling Gennaker has won the Accessibility Award in this year’s Newport for New Products program at the Newport International Boat Show. The North Sails team is equally honored to be the only sailmaker featured amongst the distinguished list of award winners. “The Accessibility Award is brand new, given this year for the first time,” commented Sally Helme, Group Publisher for Yachting, Cruising World, and Sailing World, who presents the awards on behalf of Newport for New Products. “We introduced this award to celebrate new products that open up sailing to more people, make it easier for sailors of all levels, or let them spend more time on the water. The new Easy Furling Gennaker makes a traditionally difficult task on a boat easier for short-handed crews. We think it’s a special award, and we hope that North Sails and the wider sailing communities agree.” “It’s an honor to receive this award because accessibility is the exact reason we introduced this sail,” said Tim Healy, North Sails Global Head of Sales. “Our entire product and design team worked incredibly hard to engineer a cruising sail with the reliability of top-down furling without sacrificing the ability to sail deep downwind. We launched the Easy Furling Gennaker just a few weeks ago, and it’s already proving to be our most in-demand downwind cruising sail.” To learn more about the Easy Furling Gennaker, browse product features and benefits on northsails.com, contact your local North Sails Expert, or visit the North Sails booth at Dock N-0 E during the Newport Boat Show. READ MORE

North Sails tilbyder professionelt vintereftersyn og opbevaring af dine sejl  Hvert sejl gennemgår en grundig inspektion, og hvis der er behov for reparationer, kontakter vi dig med et tilbud.   Servicearbejdet udføres kun efter aftale.   Dine sejl bliver opbevaret på vores sejlloft, hvor vi garanterer optimale forhold: Tørt, sikkert og selvfølgelig fuldt forsikret.  Prisen er 605 kr. pr. sejl. Prisen inkluderer eftersyn og vinteropbevaring samt afhentning og levering til vores indleveringssteder rundt om i landet. Se listen herunder.  Ønsker du den fulde pakke, hvilket inkluderer afmontering af sejl, afhentning, service, vinteropbevaring samt montering ved sæsonstart, kan vi også klare dette. Kontakt os her for et tilbud.   Vær opmærksom på at seneste indlevering er d. 8. november 2024 på et af indleveringsstederne herunder.   Sejlene kan derefter afhentes senest d. 7. marts 2025 på indleveringsstedet (medmindre andet er aftalt.)  Uanset sejltype eller mærke, kan du benytte vores tilbud, hvis du indleverer dine sejl hos North Sails.  *Ønsker du ikke opbevaring, tilbyder vi gerne et vintereftersyn og service alene, men kun ved indlevering/afhentning i Herlev.  Bemærk venligst: Indlevering af sejl efter d. 8. november kan kun ske hos North Sails, Lyskær 10 i Herlev eller efter aftale. Se her, hvor du kan indlevere dine sejl efter aftale: (Bemærk venligst de individuelle åbningstider)  JYLLAND v/Henning Sander Nielsen Boelsmindevej 8 9300 Sæby Tlf. +45 3054 1166 Email: modelsnedkeriet@outlook.dk og service.dk@northsails.com Indlevering efter aftale   Holstebro Clean Carpet A/S v/Søren Christiansen Sletten 51 7500 Holstebro Tlf. +45 40384844 Email: post@cleancarpet.dk og service.dk@northsails.com Mandag - Fredag: 08:00 - 16:00 Lørdag – Søndag: Lukket   Evergreen Sailing Havnevej 19 7600 StruerEmail: info@evergreensailing.com og service.dk@northsails.com  Mandag - Fredag: 08:00 - 16:00  Lørdag – Søndag: Lukket    Horsens Yachtværft Aps Gammel Havn 3 8700 Horsens Tlf: +45 25 57 87 81 Email: info@horsensvaerft.dk Mandag - torsdag: 08:00 - 16:00 Fredag: 09:00 - 15:00 Lørdag – Søndag: Lukket   Augustenborg Yachthavn Langdel 6 6440 Augustenborg Tlf. +4574471562 Email: INFO@AYH.DK og service.dk@northsails.com Mandag - torsdag: 08:00 - 16:00 Fredag: 09:00 - 15:00 Lørdag – Søndag: Lukket   FYN Walsteds Bådeværft Saugskærvej 21 5700 Svendborg Tlf: 6220 5168 Email: info@walsteds.dk og service.dk@northsails.com Mandag - torsdag: 07:00 - 16:00 Fredag: 07:00 - 15:00 Lørdag – Søndag: Lukket   Faaborg Båd og Motor ApS v/ Jørgen Pedersen Lillestrand 3 5600 Faaborg Email: salg@baad-motor.dk og service.dk@northsails.com Mandag - Fredag: 09:00 - 17:00 Lørdag: 09:00 - 12:00 Søndag: Lukket   SJÆLLAND North Sails A/S Lyskær 10 2730 Herlev Tlf. +45 3920 4090 E-mail: service.dk@northsails.com Venligst C.c. service.dk@northsails.com i alle e-mails.  READ MORE

INTERBOOT 2022 Sehen wir uns? North Sails Schweiz freut sich vom 17. – 25. September auf Ihren Besuch bei uns am gleichen Ort wie im vergangenen Jahr: Halle A3, Stand 200. Gerne können Sie auch schon einen Termin im Voraus buchen. READ MORE

WHO WE ARE: ANNA SAGULENKO Get To Know Your Local Sales Expert Anna joins the Toronto team of North Sails as an expert in our service division, specializing in windsurfing repairs. She has an extensive background in windsurfing, especially foiling windsurfing, taking first in the women's division at the 2019 IFCA Foil World Championships in Switzerland; the first ever event of its kind. Anna was also on the PWA World Windsurfing Tour for severely years and was one of the top internationally renowned windsurfers chosen to help test windsurfing gear for the 2024 Paris Olympics in Circolo Surf Torbole on Lake Garda, Italy back in the Fall of 2019. How did you get involved in windsurfing and foiling windsurfing? I started windsurfing at 13 after 4 years of sailing in the Optimist class; my father was a windsurfing coach. For foiling, it started for me in Vietnam in 2017 with the test event for Starboard. How long have you been involved in the sport? I used to be the member of Ukrainian team since 10 y.o.)) so actually, most of my life What’s your favourite thing about windsurfing? It’s light and simple but gives you freedom. If you had to pick a favourite spot to go windsurfing, where would it be? Tarifa, Spain or Lake Garda, Italy. Those are my favourite spots. What are you most looking forward to about joining North Sails? When it comes to joining North Sails, I am most looking forward to improving my skills as a sailmaker and becoming a member of a great North Sails team. As well, learning as much as I can about sailmaking technologies and design to become a real sail expert. © Bellande / CNPV Azores READ MORE

NORTH SAILS OPENS NEW SAILS AND SERVICE FACILITY IN PUERTO RICO Cristian Plaza Leading The Charge North Sails announces the opening of North Sails Puerto Rico, its new Puertorican sales and service facility headed by Cristian Plaza. Located in Ponce, Puerto Rico, the 7,000 square foot facility is expansive enough to accommodate everything from dinghy sails to keelboat sails while also offering regatta repair to keep you on the course and performing your best. Sales and service expert Cristian Plaza brings a lifetime of experience to the loft and is eager to help sailors with their sailcare needs. Born and Raised in Puerto Rico, Christian started sailing dinghies when he was very young, then climbing into the PHRF scene and sailing locally-built sport-boats. At 19, he began sailing the Caribbean in the local one design class IC-24 while simultaneously beginning his career in sail repair and canvas work. He hasn’t stopped since. Now his passion for the sport and the industry has led to the opening of his own canvas and repair facility and teaming up with North Sails. The North Sails loft is conveniently located in the harbor warehouse of Ponce, only 5-10 minutes from the Ponce Yacht & Fishing Club and other utilities, rigging, tools & parts stores. The Bay of Ponce is the “must go” for one design racing and also showcases various beautiful sites for the day-sailors and cruisers. It is known as one of the best venues on the island for racing because the wind mostly blows parallel to the coast line and creates a very challenging race course for sailors to test their skills. For cruisers, the coastal sightseeing is spectacular and there are little island cays to visit; such as the famous “Caja de Muerto Island” with beautiful bright beaches and the crystal clear warm waters of the Caribbean Sea. Focusing on custom sails for both cruisers and racers, Plaza and his team will assist all sailors across the whole island and US Virgin Islands in maximizing their performance on the water and ensuring confidence while cruising. In addition to creating new sails, Plaza’s team will also provide repair services, sail storage, measurement, custom canvas work and more for sailors in and around the Ponce area. Cristian's goal, in alignment with North Sails, is to impact the sailing community by offering only the best products and service possible; while also bringing more people into the sport. “Our staff is ready to go.” North Sails Puerto Rico is a great addition to the North global family of lofts. NORTH SAILS PUERTO RICO READ MORE

NÅR DET ER TID TIL AT LÆGGE SEJLENE VÆK FOR VINTEREN Vinteropbevaring og sejlpleje er nøglen til at forlænge dine sejls levetid Hos North Sails får du selvfølgelig gode råd om opbevaring af sejl. Vi deler vores bedste tip nedenfor for at sikre at dine sejl forbliver i topform til næste sæson. Med vinterens komme er det at sætte båden på land og pakke udstyret sammen efter endt sæson en del af at have båd her i Danmark. Og at gøre tingene rigtigt er meget afgørende for en god og ubesværet start på den nye sæson til foråret, når det varmere vejr vender tilbage. Her et par tips baseret på vores egne erfaringer, som du skal huske på, når du forbereder dig på at opbevare dine sejl over vinteren. Tørre Først og fremmest skal dine sejl være helt tørre, før du lægger dem væk. Det gælder også for kortvarig opbevaring og er meget vigtigt, når du opbevarer sejlene i længere tid. Fugt vil tilskynde vækst af skimmelsvamp og mug og forårsage at dine sejl bliver jordslåede. Soltørring fungerer rigtigt godt, men for meget sol kan give UV-skader. Læg ikke sejlene væk mens de er fugtige eller fulde af salt. Saltet tiltrækker og bevarer fugt. Ingen af disse ærgerlige forhold er dækket af producentens garantier for sejl eller sejldug. Efterfølgende rengøring fjerner sjældent alle pletterne fra skimmelsvamp, ligesom rengøring heller ikke kan fjerne afsmitning af farverne i en spiler. Skimmelsvamp (jordslag) og farveafsmitning er grimt, men det reducerer ikke sejlets performance. Langvarig eksponering af fugt vil dog skade dine sejl mere end blot på udseendet, såsom beskadigelse af limen, imprægneringer og coatingen på og i sejldugen. Fugt kan "hydrolysere" komponenterne i sejldug og kan over tid få sejlet til at gå fra hinanden. Rene Som alt andet holder sejl også længere, hvis man holder dem rene. Snavs beskadiger uden tvivl sejldugen - somme tider gennem kemisk interaktion og somme tider ved mekanisk slidtage. F.eks. fungerer tørre saltkrystaller indlejret i sejldugen som små file, der slider på fibre og film. Rene sejl holder længere og performer bedre, især når sejlet bliver ældre. Så hvordan rengøres sejlene korrekt og effektivt? Til den grundlæggende rengøring, kan de fleste sejl materialer klare en kombination af vand med lidt mild sæbe eller Rodalon, meget blid skrubning med hånden eller en blød børste og rigeligt ferskvand til at skylle med. Og som nævnt ovenfor er grundig tørring efter vask afgørende. Men er sejlet meget beskidt og jordslået, er mere aggressive foranstaltninger nødvendige for at fjerne pletter. Nogle typer fiber/film/resin er meget robuste og modstår eksponering for kemi og mere hårdhændet håndtering. Andre materialer er mere skrøbelige overfor specifikke eksponeringer. Og så bliver det kompliceret! At fjerne en fedtplet på et vævet dacron sejl er meget forskellig fra at fjerne en rustplet på et laminat sejldug eller skimmelsvamp i et materiale med høj tæthed. Vi anbefaler, at du får en professionel til at rense det du ikke selv kan klare med sæbevand. Hos North Sails samarbejder vi med forskellige firmaer som er specialister i at fjerne snavs og skimmelsvamp. Så lad os se på sejlet, hvis vand og sæbe ikke er nok... Et par hovedregler, der er vigtige at huske (men langt fra alt hvad du behøver at vide, før du fortsætter): Vær meget forsigtig med blegemiddel (klorin eller lignende). Nogle plastmaterialer har en høj tolerance overfor blegemiddel (polyester, aka dacron), mens andre straks går i opløsning ved kontakt med små mængder (blegemiddel er meget skadeligt overfor blandt andet Kevlar/Aramid fibre og nylon). Vær forsigtig med at bruge andre rengøringsmidler end et mildt rengøringsmiddel som opvaskemiddel. Nogle gange kan rustfjernere og lignende gøre det tilsigtede job pænt. Men når den type produkter ikke er egnede til det rensede materiale, kan katastrofen ramme hurtigt (og det kan blive dyrt!). Sejl til kapsejlads kan rengøres med en simpel skylning med vand og derefter tørre. Skyl aldrig en nylon spiler i en klorfyldt swimmingpool (ja, det sker desværre ofte). 📸 Michael Egan / Egan Images Reparation Et rent sejl er utvivlsomt rart at have - men det er ikke til meget glæde, hvis sejlet kræver reparation for at være fuldt funktionelt. At få foretaget nødvendige reparationer inden vinteropbevaring, er det rigtige at gøre. Det er lidt som "husk at bruge tandtråd hver dag" eller "undgå for meget sukker": det er lettere sagt end gjort. Men det vil betale sig (ligesom at bruge tandtråd og at begrænse indtaget af sukker, selvfølgelig). Sejlvask er en glimrende mulighed for at inspicere og identificere nødvendige reparationer, uanset om du selv foretager rengøringen eller får en sejlmager til det. Opbevaring Vi ser desværre mange eksempler på skader påført af mus, når sejl opbevares på loftet eller i udhuset. Så det er vigtigt at vurdere om stedet er sikkert og der ikke kan komme uventet besøg af mus eller andre gnavere, men en god måde at holde mus ude af dine sejlposer starter med rene og tørre sejl. Sørg for at der ikke er salt på dine sejl eller sejlposer (dette er også et godt tidspunkt at fjerne salt og snavs fra lynlåsene). Hvis du ruller og pakker dine sejl på din græsplæne, skal du sørge for, at der ikke er blade eller græs i de foldede sejl. Opbevar dine sejl et sted, hvor små dyr ikke kan nå dem. En spiler er særligt attraktivt for gnavere, da det både fungerer som et måltid og godt redemateriale. Hvis muligt kan man hænge sine (rene og tørre) spilere fra liner fastgjort til loftsbjælkerne i sin kælder eller garage i stedet for at lade dem ligge på en hylde eller på gulvet. Kontakt os, hvis du har spørgsmål om opbevaring af sejl! 📸 Urban Haglin READ MORE

VINTEROPBEVARING AF DINE SEJL Opbevaring af sejl i tre lette trin Følg disse 3 enkle trin for at sikre dine sejl for vinteren: Tør sejlene Fold sejlene Opbevar sikkert Tør sejlene Vær omhyggelig med at dine sejl er helt tørre, inden du pakker dem væk for vinteren. Dette forhindrer vækst af skimmelsvamp og mug samt forhindrer dem i at lugte muggent om foråret. Skulle uheldet være ude og dine sejl er blevet jordslåede, kan du bringe dem ind til vask. En professionel vask dræber skimmelsvamp og mug og fjerner alt, der ikke allerede er indlejret i sejlet, og stopper dermed fremtidig vækst af skimmelsvamp. Fold sejlene Fold forsigtigt dine sejl, inden du opbevarer dem og forsøg at undgå at folde sejlet i de “gamle” folder, for at forhindre at disse folder sidder hele vinteren. Hvis du har mulighed for det, anbefaler vi at du ruller dine sejl. Opbevar sikkert Hvor du opbevarer dine sejl, er lige så vigtigt som hvad du gør, inden du lægger dem væk. Overvej følgende, når du vælger din placering: Skadedyr: Små dyr elsker at bo i et sejl om vinteren. De vil heller ikke tøve med at tygge sig igennem dine sejl, for at gøre sig det endnu mere mageligt. Sørg for at opbevare dine sejl et sted, der ikke er tilgængeligt for gnavere og andre skadedyr. Fugtighed og temperatur: Opbevar sejlene på et tørt sted, så de ikke akkumulerer fugt hele vinteren. Et temperaturreguleret område er også en god idé. Efterlader du sejlene på din båd, anbefaler vi at du har en affugter kørende hele tiden. Sørg for at sejlene ikke ligger oven på hinanden da de kan få pressefolder som kan være svære at komme af med igen. READ MORE

HE SAILS SHIELDS BY THE SEASHORE Longtime North Sails Expert Mike Toppa Doing What He Loves What’s better than racing an immaculately prepared yacht in Sardinia? According to Mike Toppa, it might just be racing his 50 year old Shields on Wednesday night in his home town of Newport—especially this year, when the Nationals are on his home waters. “It’s the best racing!” he says. “We’ve got Narragansett Bay to ourselves; great sunsets, fantastic conditions… and really good competition, because the best sailors in Newport are out there. And the bonus for me is that I get to go out with my family and friends, which is a lot of fun.” The Nationals are a much different challenge than a few hours of midweek racing inside Narragansett Bay, he admits. “We’re racing outside in Rhode Island Sound, in more wind. The waves are bigger, and it’s three consecutive days. So both the gear and the people get tested.” Toppa signed on his regular Wednesday night crew for the regatta: daughters Holly and Alie, son-in-law Jeremy Wilmot, and Suzy Leech. Though he’s only had his current boat, Bomba Charger, for four years, he first sailed a Shields as a young teenager. He was a sophomore in college the only other time he sailed the Nationals however and that second place finish still hurts. “Jerry Kirby and I had a boat together. It was really windy, and we were sailing outside.” On the final day, they were winning the regatta on the last run down to the finish. “The boat was full of water, so we started bailing with two buckets. But luck was not on our side, first we lost one bucket over the side, and then quickly lost the second as well. At which point the boat behind us surfed right by and won the race. That win gave them the point then needed to beat us and win the whole event! Not gonna make that mistake again” Mike says laughing Leading up to the 2022 Nationals, Toppa has spent several days going over all of the boat’s equipment. “I wanted to make sure everything was rock solid, ready for 20 knots and big waves. We checked everything; running rigging, equipment, attachments—and I also made sure we’d be able to keep the water out. That last Nationals is an old memory—but still stings” North Sails is well-represented throughout the fleet, including Will Welles, Mike Marshall, Tim Dawson, Will Bomar, and Jeff Hayden. “Jeff won the Nationals last year, with Robin Monk,” Toppa says. “Seems like every boat he gets on goes faster.” And Mike Marshall has done a lot of work on the sail designs for the class, he adds. “We actually have a new test spinnaker that we built over the summer and will be looking at next week, which we’ll make available to the class for 2023. ” One reason the class is still around and thriving, Toppa insists, is that the national association does a really good job keeping down costs with the class rules. “You can only buy one sail a year, and every sail has to have at least 10 races on it prior to the Nationals. Most replace either a main or jib every year so spinnakers get tired. Hopefully this new design is a good one.” Asked to name a favorite to win this year’s Nationals, Toppa would only express hope that the winner will be from Fleet 9. “We honestly haven’t been sailing super consistently this summer. And there are lots of other previous National champions in our fleet.” As for that immaculately prepared yacht in Sardinia…Mike’s travels to the Rolex Swan Cup 2022 conflict with the final day of the Shields Nationals, so daughter Alie will take over as skipper. “She has a second and a fourth driving Wednesday nights so far this summer,” he says proudly. “So at some point, I’m sure I’m going to be holding a clipboard for her. I just love to race sailboats! Even though I am lucky enough to have done so many regattas in so many different types of boats— there is something super special about doing it in your own backyard with your family. It is hard to beat” 📸 Stephen Cloutier READ MORE

EUROSAF First 18 SE Europsko prvenstvo 📸 Ana Šutej - Seascape JK Piran iz Portoroža u suradnji s brodogradilištem Seascape organizirao je ovogodišnje Europsko prvenstvo za klase First 18 SE i Seascape 18. Bio je to povratak u akvatorij u kojem su zajedrile prve jedrilice iz ovog škvera, a ovo veliko natjecanje na Europskoj razini obilježilo je ukupno 28 posada. Prvenstvo je organizirano između 23. i 27. kolovoza, a posebnu draž dala je obiteljska grupa u kojoj su sudjelovale posade u kombinacijama otac i sin, otac i kćer, bračni partneri... a na kraju prvog dana i tri održana plova prve dvije pozicije držali su obiteljski timovi! Jedrenje u Piranskom zaljevu proteklo je po vrlo lijepom i sunčanom vremenu i umjerenim vjetrovima. 📸 Ana Šutej - Seascape Prva dva dana puhala je bura koja je osigurala da se svakodnevno odjedre po tri plova. Trećeg dana regate odjedrila su se još četiri plova po laganijem, ali znatno stabilnijem vjetru, dok su na kraju posljednjeg dana dodana još dva plova u finalni skor. Ono što posebno veseli dobri su rezultati North Sails klijenata koji su i ovog puta pokazali da je suradnja s North Sailsom izvrstan recept za maksimalan užitak na regatnom polju. 📸 Ana Šutej - Seascape Kompletne rezultate regate u Sloveniji možete pronaći na ovom linku. READ MORE

BETTER TOGETHER: NORTH SAILS & HYLAS YACHTS Pushing The Boundaries For Cruisers © Hylas Yachts Building a strong partnership in 2021, North Sails and Hylas Yachts are focused on delivering the best cruising experience for sailors both on and off the water. Through continued innovation, teamwork, and cutting edge technology, sailors can expect nothing but the best from both. Bob Meagher, North Sails expert out of the Ft. Lauderdale loft of North Sails, checks-in with Peggy Huang of Hylas Yachts on the latest happenings. The design philosophy and commercial success of Hylas Yachts has been transformed in the last few years. Can you tell us a little bit about this philosophy that’s governing the design of the boats in your business practice in general? Although the latest Hylas H57 design certainly appears to revolutionize what we do, that's not really the case. Our primary goal continues to be the same - to build luxurious, safe, performance cruisers capable of transoceanic voyages. It's really an industry-wide technological evolution that is allowing us to enhance every aspect of what we do. From the hull construction to some lifestyle game changers, the key is to be willing to make changes that are appropriate to meet the needs of our increasingly sophisticated and knowledgeable clients. In the same way, North has developed the 3Di range, sail construction with as many advantages for our cruising clients with furling systems as it does the America’s Cup. Why would we not want to share this development? It seems to be paying off! Most recently the Hylas 57 won Sail Magazine's "Yacht of the Year," on the heels of the Red Dot Award as Best Product Design 2022, “Best in Show“ Newport International Boat Show 2021, “Best Boat of the Year” Cruising World Magazine 2022, ”Best Systems” SAIL Magazine 2022. Did we miss any of them? Hylas has never been a stranger to winning industry awards and we would be remiss if we didn’t mention folks like Frers, Dixon and more recently Salthouse as designers. Another important part of the mix is our partners which include yourselves at North. We particularly benefit with the consultative style approach you guys take that has been developed over the years. Industry awards have to be objective and focus on comparisons. This certainly isn’t a bad thing and it helps us tremendously from a marketing point of view. What is far more important to us is client satisfaction. We don’t have huge production capability so word of mouth is where we really see the benefit. Can you tell us a little about why you chose North Sails to partner with? We look for partners that are not only aligned with our own core values of quality, consistency and service but also embrace cutting-edge technology as a way of ensuring continuous improvement. I don't believe there is a Hylas owner out there that doesn't know who Peter Grimm is, and if they don’t they should make an effort to get to know him. Peter and the team at North are a very important part of why we continue to be successful. I mentioned the importance of a "consultative approach" when dealing with our clients. We genuinely enjoy introducing prospective clients to our sail team as you will always stay focused on their best interests and not the need to "up sell." I think a lot of credit should go to someone at North that allows the largest sail manufacturer in the world to provide such a highly personalized service. To learn more about North Sails sail inventory options for Hylas Yachts or similar boats, connect with Peter Grimm Jr. or Bob Meagher of North Sails Ft. Lauderdale. © Hylas Yachts READ MORE

EVENT SPOTLIGHT: ENGLISH BAY SCRAMBLE Strong Current And Unpredictable Breeze The English Bay Scramble out of Tiddly Cove Yacht Club is an annual tradition where "tacticians have free-reign in how the marks are rounded, even which way to cross the start line." The race this year saw intense current with the river west of the Lion’s Gate bridge running hard and 7-8 knots of wind offshore at the start, slowly easing throughout the day and with some notable holes. Krikkit, an Abbott 36, shares their experience of the strategy based race. For us, the holes came early at the Kits Barge Buoy, which we did first, and then late at the back of Passage Island, which we did last. We spent a long time there, but got free entertainment from a live reggae band playing on someone’s deck for their 50th birthday. Going inside first then outside seemed to be the paying move, Diva won overall with the same course as us, although it sure didn’t look that way at first. Halfway through the race it looked liked we'd really pooched it, because the boats that had gone outside first had been able to keep moving much better than us, and were returning past the Bell Buoy before we’d even got out that far. That said, as the afternoon wore on the flood current built and the wind was easing starting from the east. So while we were able to come in from Passage with favourable current and still-reasonable breeze; the boats that had gone outside first were trying to buck back to the start/finish against about 2 knots of current in rapidly-diminishing breeze. As Krikkit approached the S/F about 300 yards out, we saw Jasmina coming the other way under spinnaker, and about the same distance from the S/F. While we got pushed over the line doing 4.5 kts SOG (2.5 kts boatspeed + 2 kts current), Jasmina was essentially running in place and started going backward as the wind fell off further. They didn’t actually get to finish until an hour after us, when an 8 kt breeze kicked back on for a bit. The steadily-diminishing breeze also meant that the faster boats had a definite overall advantage. Still, the weather was generally pretty splendid, and a good time was had by everyone. A big thank you to the North Sails team at the Vancouver loft for their support of our annual race. READ MORE

NORTH SAILS ADDS ROBERT HOOK TO THEIR DESIGN TEAM ROSTER Hooky Brings Decades Worth of Grand Prix Experience North Sails is excited to announce the addition of Robert “Hooky” Hook to our sail design team. Hooky, who started his career with North Sails and the America’s Cup in the 80s, brings a wealth of sail design experience and team-building leadership. Working closely with the North Sails design team worldwide, Hooky’s work is focused on Grand-Prix Inshore and Offshore sailing and supporting a handful of high-profile projects. A self-described hands-on designer, Hooky has a strong track record of helping programs get to the top of the podium. From his early days as a sail designer with Australian America’s Cup syndicate Kookaburra III, Hooky committed himself to win the Auld Mug and achieved this goal in 2010 as part of the BMW Oracle Racing team. Additionally, Hooky has also been involved in three ‘Round the World’ races. His resume boasts back-to-back victories with Paul Cayard’s EF Language campaign, followed by John Kostecki’s Illbruck program. “The America’s Cup and similar event-style campaigns are unique training grounds because an entire team, from sail designers to accountants, and all players in between, are committed to building the fastest thing on the water,” explains Hooky. “It’s a high-pressure, fast-moving team environment that pushes everyone to work to the best of their ability. Beyond the competition, these events are also a master class in teamwork and managing people while keeping everyone focused on the end goal. And this is something I look forward to continuing as part of the North design team.” “Adding Hooky to the team ensures North Sails can deliver the highest quality performance and best possible aerodynamic solutions,” explains JB Braun, North Sails Head of Design and Engineering. “The demand for talented and progressive sail designers continues to grow as boats get larger, foils become more common, and yacht designers get more aggressive in pushing the limits of what’s possible. Hooky will be instrumental in accelerating the development of our next generation of North sail designers. He knows what it takes to be a part of a successful team, and we’re excited he’s back in the game with North Sails.” “Whether we’re working with an RC44 program or a 100’ ocean racing machine, every client has different goals, and they each require a unique approach,” comments Paul Westlake, North Sails Executive Vice President, and Grand Prix Sales Leader. “As an organization, North Sails is designed to provide the resources and products for end-users to achieve their goals. Our design team sits at ground zero of that pipeline, both in the office and on the water.” Hooky is based in Queensland, Australia. In the coming months, he’ll assist big-name projects like Hamilton Island Wild Oats XI, and Blackjack as they gear up for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race 2022. He’ll then turn his attention to the RC44 circuit, a class where he already has a strong connection. He will support both the design office and on the water during the 2023 season. Hooky’s support of the RC44 class and the overall addition of such talent to the already strong design arsenal of North Sails cannot be overstated. Join us in welcoming Hooky to the North Sails team. READ MORE

EVENT SPOTLIGHT: RACE TO KINGSTON A New Tradition In its inaugural debut, Race to Kingston challenged racers’ determination and patience skills thanks to less than stellar winds, lots of sun and pockets of no breeze. That said, racers had fun, which was the main goal for this new race. Afterburn took line honours, finishing on Sunday evening just before 5pm, followed by Sea Yea and Sabotage. KYC members eagerly greeted boats and welcomed them to sunny Kingston after their 145 NM journey. The next group of boats started arriving late Sunday night and into Monday morning, with Ovation wrapping things up around 8am. With such light conditions, code zero’s were a favourite choice among many boats. The Sabotage crew, consisting of North Sails designer Phil Williamson and North Sails experts Doug Folsetter and Daniel Sheedy, say their two key sails were their Helix Code Zero and A1. Phil Williamson shares, “We sailed to the optimal angle of our sails. Keeping the boat moving as fast as possible was our primary goal even if it meant sailing away from our target course by 15 degrees. We had two workhorse sails. The first being our Helix Code Zero and the second being our A1. We used these sails for 95% of the race.” Let’s not forget, the crew saw 1 knot of wind as they crossed the finish line and could not be happier to see land; especially after numerous sail changes. Owner and North Sails expert Doug Folsetter details, “While the course seemed straight forward, there were plenty of challenges, not the least of which were the light air and navigating shoals and various obstructions in the harbour. Keeping the boat moving down the course was key. We made 17 sail changes in an effort to do so. If you missed out on attending, put the race on your calendar for next year. I hear they’re promising more wind and plenty of good times once you arrive!” North Sails expert Hugh Beaton onboard Afterburn shares, “Creating and maintaining apparent wind was critical to obtaining any significant boatspeed. Our Helix Code 75 would allow us to sail at 8 knots in 6-7 knots of wind with the apparent wind angle at 45-50. No other sail combination came close to offering the same sustained speeds and ease of staying at full speed. Of course we stopped a few times and waited until the SW breeze filled in around 3:00 am. Great effort by the two host clubs and we are looking forward to doing it again next year” Sea Ya took first overall for the entire race and first in their division on corrected time. Isley, a Saffier 37, double handed the race taking third in FS DH with North Sails expert Mike Wolfs alongside Stuart Bruce. Finishing just before them in second was the father and son duo aboard Rum Kist, well done Max! With his new 3Di raw sails, Peter Rowe of Restless, had another tremendous showing, taking first in his division of NFS CD. It was wonderful to see so many racers out supporting a new distance race and having fun in downtown Kingston. A special thanks to Mimico Cruising Club and Kingston Yacht Club for hosting the inaugural race; as well as all the volunteers who helped. We hope to see everyone out on the line again next year! READ MORE

BRIAN JANNEY: A MONTH IN THE LIFE OF A NORTH SAILS EXPERT Here, There and Everywhere Most offshore sailors consider it a successful summer if they fit in one major distance race—especially if they make it onto the podium. In July, Brian Janney, North Sails San Diego, managed to cram three major victories into one month—and all without losing his sense of humor. First, the sought-after trimmer and North Sails expert helped Pyewacket 70 win line honors in the Pacific Cup. Only a few days later, he was onboard Bill McKinley’s Denali3 when they won their class in the Bayview-Mackinac Race. Less than a week after that, Janney helped Denali3 win her class in the Chicago-Mackinac Race. “It all started with a week of training in San Francisco before the Pacific Cup,” Janney explains, shortly after returning home from his 30-day offshore trifecta. “I've been working with Pyewacket for a long time, and we did Transpac in five and a half days last year.” They also set a 24 hour record. “And Pac Cup is a shorter race than Transpac, mileage-wise...” Pacific Cup Line Honors Predicting their finish time in the Pac Cup became crucial when Bill McKinley asked Janney if he could make it to the Great Lakes in time for the two races to Mackinac. “I knew it was going to be tight, with only a two or three day window for travel. But I said yes. I was hoping I could maybe get 24-48 hours in Hawaii—maybe even get my feet wet. Turns out that was wishful thinking.” Instead, thanks to a “weird weather system in the Pacific,” Pyewacket’s line honors victory took a full six days shutting the door on any R&R in Hawaii. “The Denali3 team said they were watching the tracker like crazy.” he laughs. Only a few hours after the finish in Hawaii, Janney jumped a redeye back to San Diego. “I guess I was really tired, because I fell asleep before takeoff and didn’t wake up until we were actually landing. ” But he gathered his bags and headed home, where he had just enough time to repack. “I had to take all the Pyewacket gear out, put the Denali3 gear in, go back to the airport, fly all day to Detroit.” After an hour’s drive to Port Huron, he fell into a hotel bed at 2am. “And then we started the Port Huron to Mac race at 1pm that same day. My body didn't know what timezone it was in!” Bayview-Mac: Class Victory The Denali3 crew was obviously happy—and a little surprised— that he made it in time, Janney continues, adding that he felt a little bad about his lack of preparation. “I was one of the watch captains and helped with tactics, but I didn't have time to wrap my head around the weather and make a solid plan. Fortunately it was a light air race, so nothing too crazy. We never actually saw the wind speed drop to zero, but we sure did get close a couple times.” The 280 mile race took the Ker 46+ 48 hours to complete. “We were definitely the small boat, in the same class with all the TP52s and Great Lakes 70s. When we won, the owner was pretty happy.” But they had barely tied up to the Mackinac dock before it was time to head offshore once again. “I said I’d help deliver the boat down to Chicago” in time for the next weekend’s race, Janney explains, because there wasn’t enough time to fly back to San Diego. “And as soon as we got to the island, the boat captain says, ‘Hey, there's weather coming in. If we don't leave right now, we're gonna get our teeth kicked in’. So we didn’t even get a shower or a proper meal, just took off. By that point, I was pretty much eight days straight on a boat. And it's another two days down to Chicago.” Chicago Mac: Storm watch Janney did finally get two nights sleep in a Chicago hotel room, before starting the Chicago-Mackinac Race. “The boat captain for Denali3 does a really nice job, and the boat was totally sorted out,” so he focused on weather homework. “It was a pretty bad forecast,”he admits, “and it actually came true. Chris Bedford predicted hours of thunderstorms overnight, and he was very honest with us; the models had a hard time resolving how much wind there was going to be, or from what direction.” Based on what they knew, the team decided to head north as fast as they could after the start—even though the heading to Mackinac was northeast. “We basically went up the west coast of Lake Michigan.” Despite this plan, they couldn’t escape the bad weather that night. “The storm ended up being about 200 miles north to south, and Lake Michigan is 300 miles long, so it pretty much covered the entire race area. We got hit pretty hard. I saw the wind speed hit 38, and it may have been higher; there was so much rain and the drops hurt, making it hard to look at the instruments.” For more than two hours of constant thunderstorm cells, Denali’s navigator watched the radar and counted down to each one for the team. “There really wasn't an opportunity to dodge them,” Janney says. ”We had talked prerace about taking all our sails down - covered every scenario, just in case - because we knew it could be anything.” But they were able to keep up a reefed main and J4, while focusing on safety and trying to minimize the chance of damage. Less than a week after their previous win to Mackinac, they again saved their time on the bigger boats in their class and also finished second in their division. This time, Janney was able to stay a few days and enjoy the island and several nice crew dinners, before flying home for a well-deserved rest. Inventory Refinements Though he’s still trying to recover from jetlag and numerous freeze-dried meals, Janney’s really excited about the refinements they made to each boat’s race-winning sail inventory. Pyewacket has a triple-headsail setup, and on last year’s Transpac they’d discovered that the Helix A3 increased VMG by about seven percent compared to the A2, because it was flatter and more forgiving to steer to in ocean waves. This year, they rigged an aft outrigger near the steering wheel and used that to pole out a big masthead genoa they call the MH0, short for Mast Head Zero. An even flatter sail than the A3, it turned out to be another six percent faster. “There’s a negative hit on the rating for the outrigger, but we got credit for being non-spinnaker. I think if we were to do another Transpac, we would keep this setup.” Pyewacket only had one other new sail for the race, an offshore spinnaker staysail. “Putting that sail up allowed us to use our genoa staysail as the third sail,” Janney says, adding, “On these bigger boats, sails last a long time.” Denali3 has a new Helix J1 this year that was perfect for the light-air Bayview-Mac. “Bill keeps his inventory quite fresh,” Janney says, with many new Helix sails. “Using a Helix upwind sail helps it cover a higher wind range. We left the J2 on the dock.” For the heavier air Chicago-Mac, before and after the big storm, Denali3 carried what Janney calls an A2 plus. “We've learned that for offshore sprit boats, an A4 is too big and round and it gets hard to drive. The A2 plus is flatter in the head with a straighter luff curve, which makes the sail more twisty. When you're planing in bigger breeze, you can steer the boat and the kite doesn't want to collapse. It’s definitely a more forgiving sail, and we make it out of heavier cloth so it will carry up the wind range.” No trouble Back home again, Janney is settling back into “normal” life and already looking forward to some local racing—and this year’s Big Boat Series. He’s also been enjoying the compliments he’s received from both clients and fellow offshore experts. “I got a text message from Ken Read saying ‘nice work!’,” he says, before adding with a laugh, “So I don’t think I’m in too much trouble, even though I was away so long.” READ MORE

WHO WE ARE: KATIE SPITHILL Get to Know North Sails Sydney’s New Office Manager Katie 📸 James Whelen How long have you been sailing and what classes do you compete in? I was born into a sailing family, living in Elvina Bay on Pittwater in NSW, so with boat access only I was sailing from about 5 years old. I started out in the traditional centreboard classes of Manly Junior, Flying 11, 420 and then onto the 29er. I then joined the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club Youth Development Program and went on to have a strong Match Racing career as part of the Australian Women’s Match Racing Team. I was then introduced to offshore yacht racing, One Design racing and later multihulls alongside my now husband. The fastest boat I have raced on so far has to be the Orma 60 Trimaran 'Team Australia'. What boats/classes do you sail? Currently I race an F16 Viper with my husband, as well as MC38's and onboard the superyacht SW98, Ammonite. In my spare time I love to get out Wing Foiling, or squeezing back into the Manly Junior with my kids. What got you into the marine industry? I was destined to work in, around or near boats! When I finished school I started a traineeship with Australian Sailing (the national sailing body for Australia), before moving on to work for Harken, then Royal Prince Alfred Yacht and now, North Sails Australia. What’s your favourite thing about sailing? My favourite thing about sailing would have to be the diversity of age and gender across the sport, and the inclusive community that comes with it. While traveling the world for events, I have met lifelong friends in many countries. I also love the fact that I can race on the weekends with both my children and my parents. What are you most looking forward to with joining North Sails? I am excited for the opportunity to learn more about the science and design of sails. As well as meeting more fantastic people in the sailing community. What would you say is your career highlight? My career highlight is a tough one, but there are a few that are at the top of my favourites list. 1) Winning Match Cup Sweden which was a Women's Grade 1 Event 2) Reaching World #2 Ranking on the Women's Match Racing Circuit 3) Steering an Extreme 40 as part of the Extreme Sailing Series 4) Placing 2nd overall in the 2019 Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race onboard Wild Oats X as part of the all female Ocean Respect Racing Team. Anything else about you? I have two kids who are currently four and nine years old, and we spend most waking moments when not at kindy, school or work, either on, around, or in the water and enjoying the beautiful waterways we are lucky enough to live near! READ MORE

My passion for sailing grew and I was hungry for knowledge, so a friend suggested I look into being a sail maker. READ MORE

ZEKE’S J70 TIPS TO THE PODIUM Lessons Learned at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta – Marblehead 📸 Chris Howell As usual, the town of Marblehead pulled out all the stops for competitors to descend upon the quaint New England town for a weekend of racing in multiple one design classes. The J70 class showed up in full force with most of the top American teams including several class World Champions. At stake were two 2 qualification spots for the 2023 Worlds in St. Petersburg (1 open, 1 Corinthian) so the racing was as tight and competitive as ever. As crew for John Heaton on Empeiria, along with teammates Zach Mason and Will Felder, we were fortunate enough to come away with the Championship and a berth in next year’s Worlds. In addition, our North Sails teammates on Smokeshow, skippered by North Sails North American One Design Manager Allan Terhune with Paul Sevigni, North Sails Expert Chris Larson and Dave Hughes finished second, rounding out a weekend to celebrate for North Sails. Our team was successful at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series Marblehead by relying on lessons we’ve learned over the past couple of years. Admittedly part of our success is due to having sailed together for over 2 years and there is really no substitute for being comfortable with and confident in one another – trust that comes with time. However, aside from our team experience, there were past lessons we drew from during this event that helped us stay fast in the wide range of conditions presented. The J70, due to its rig and hull dimensions, is a boat that has a very fine line between being underpowered and overpowered. The conditions in Marblehead exaggerated this characteristic as the wind range was constantly hovering on either side of this fine line. So it was imperative to adjust your sail and body trim to accommodate for either the lack of power or abundance of power since it was rare to have the rig tuned perfectly. Following are some of our tips that should help keep you fast through the transitions in your next race. Outhaul The outhaul is one of the controls that’s easiest to ‘set and forget!’ But it’s actually an incredibly important adjustment for your power package. Due to the high aspect ratio (tall and skinny) of the J70 mainsail, the outhaul affects a larger area than it does on a sail with a lower aspect ratio. So a quick ease of the outhaul will put a boost of power into your sail plan to give you something to hike against. Our team has learned to be very diligent with this adjustment when we are transitioning from hiking to bodies in. Zach is our jib trimmer and we try to leave him in the boat the longest so he has a view of the jib as long as possible. If he is in the boat, we leave the outhaul quite loose to power up the main and try to get him hiking. We’re desperate to get him hiking as more righting moment = more speed! At this setting there is probably 6-8 inches between the boom and the foot of the main. As soon as he’s able to get on the rail and start hiking, we pull the outhaul back on to flatten the main and reduce drag. Any time Zach moves in or out of the boat, we make the appropriate outhaul adjustment. Jib Foot/ Inhaul How much to inhaul the jib can feel like quite the moving target… and it is. Its important to set the weather sheet in the cleat in a place where the jib trimmer can play it by “banjoing” it on when we need more power and then easing it back when we want to flatten the bottom of the jib and open the leech. When set correctly, this can be done without adjusting the weather sheet in the cleat. Think about your jib lead and inhaul setting similar to how we set the outhaul as described above. In light air or chop, you want more power in the bottom of the jib which means you want more depth in the foot compared to when it’s windy or flat water. A good rule of thumb is to try to get the foot of the jib to contact the cabin house as much as possible to prevent air from jumping through the gap under the foot. If it’s windy, you’ll need to pull the lead back a bit to depower the sail in order to inhaul enough to bring the foot to the cabin house. If it’s light air, you’ll need to push the lead forward a bit in order to provide enough depth in the foot (power) when the foot is along the cabin house. A good range on the jib lead is between 6 – 7.5 holes showing between the front of the car and the forward most factory bolt in the jib track. Cunningham The cunningham tends to be neglected just like the outhaul. Most of the time it’s not the most critical adjustment to make but there is a time when it becomes your very best friend. We saw this condition on the second day of racing in Marblehead when the breeze ranged from about 8 knots in the lulls to upwards of 16-18 knots in the puffs. We all know it’s best to set your rig tension for the lulls and do your best to survive the puffs and that’s where the cunningham comes in. For most, if you’re caught with your rig too loose, your first move is to whale on the backstay to depower and keep the headstay tight. But the problem is that without adequate rig tension, the tight backstay will quickly invert or wash out the main sail leaving you with huge overbend wrinkles and that ‘inside out’ look. But your headstay is still unstable making the boat hard to sail. This is when you want to really whale on the cunningham. To be clear, I don’t mean to just take those luff wrinkles out, I mean WHALE on it! Loads of cunningham tension pulls the draft of the main forward, putting some shape back into the sail (un-inverting it). This then allows you to pull even more backstay on to control the headstay. Your leeward shrouds will be doing basketball sized loops – blowing in the wind, but your headstay will be controlled and you’ll still have shape in your mainsail – albeit a flat shape. Will sits all the way forward going upwind and he keeps the cunningham in his hand. If we hit a light spot, he eases the cunningham as I ease the backstay to power up the rig and then as the next puff hits, he trims it on as I trim on the backstay. Keep your eye on the inversion wrinkle that comes out of the clew and goes up to the inboard end of the bottom batten. When overpowered, you want to see this wrinkle only and use the cunningham to eliminate the wrinkles below/forward of it. More cunningham = ability to pull more backstay = more controlled headstay = FAST! Weight Placement The J70 likes to have the crew weight forward going upwind. In fact, in light air it’s difficult to get forward enough. Some teams have experimented with sending their forward-most crew just in front of the shrouds and it seems to be pretty quick when the breeze is very soft. It’s also important to know that fore/aft weight placement can help the boat with moding. All other things equal, pushing weight forward tells the boat to point while moving weight aft helps with a bow down mode. In light air, it’s also important to think about body drag through the air. Try to hide the bodies from the wind as much as possible by tucking up to the cabin house or to your teammate in front of you. Also think about how you can position your body to be as aerodynamic and small as possible. Instead of facing forward with your shoulders square to the breeze, scoot forward and rotate your shoulders so they’re more in line with the wind direction. Sounds insignificant but reducing drag is the name of the game, It seems like no matter how much we learn in the J70, we’ve never learned enough. It’s important to always be thinking critically and creatively about how to get faster. Keep the learning curve steep and watch your results improve! For more in depth information or for any specific questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to your J70 class North experts. Contact your North Sails J70 North American Experts here: ZEKE HOROWITZ ALLAN TERHUNE ALEX CURTISS READ MORE

For cruisingsejlere handler trimning om at få en komfortabel sejlads med en glad båd i god balance. 📸 X-Yachts Download vores Trimguide til Cruisingsejlads her READ MORE

MIKEY AND THE GARAGE ROCKET North Sails Experts Claim 2022 J24 World Championship 📸 Emily Stokes There are plenty of clichés in sailboat racing, and perhaps one of the best is, “you’re only as good as your last race.” And what exactly does this mean? We’ll get to the answer eventually, but let’s begin our story with Mike Marshall and his teammates on American Garage—trimmer David Hughes, tactician Allan Terhune, pit Jeff Hayden and bowman Rod Favela—as they are pacing near the signal boat at the J/24 World Championships in Corpus Christi, Texas, having been dinged with a black flag on the fourth and critical penultimate day of racing. “It was self-inflicted,” Terhune says. “We didn’t manage our time and distance appropriately, plain and simple. We had a bit of pep in our step, we were still fourth and the discussion was we had to make something happen. Then we did the opposite of making it happen.” The mistake was nerves, the energy of the day, Marshall says. They set up too close and too early near the pin end of the starting line. “We didn’t need the risk,” he says, “and we would have been happy without it.” Lesser teams would have caved and thrown in the towel, but the opposite happened onboard American Garage. “Sailing back and forth for an hour and half waiting for every boat to finish, you might start thinking, ‘That’s it,’ but we said we can either pack it up now or just keep fighting. Part of that fight was that we knew we had to step on the gas, and that’s where our second in the next race came from.” Later that night, Marshall and his teammates rallied around the scoresheet, and the path forward was clear. “It was obvious that our results were improving in the back half of the regatta,” he says. “The numbers were saying that—mathematically—our results were getting better while others were not. We all agreed going into the last day that this was ours to give away.” They were confident—not cocky—Terhune says, because they knew they were hitting their stride. They had the right team and the right boat to get ‘er done. Which brings us to the boat, No. 3379, and its part in this incredible story. The boat has always been called American Garage as far as Marshall knows. It’s a 1982 vintage J/24 once co-campaigned by Soling Olympic Silver medalist Kevin Mahaney and Hall of Famer Dave Curtis. At some point, American Garage was put out to pasture on Cape Cod until it was discovered by North Sails’ Will Welles, himself a J/24 world champion. 📸 Emily Stokes Welles knew Marshall had been looking for a boat capable of winning the J/24 worlds, so he paid the owner a visit. “We went out and looked at it and it was a total disaster,” Marshall says. “It had been sitting under a tarp that was less of a tarp and more of a rain catcher.” The boat sat in Marshall’s yard, continuing to rot from the inside out while he contemplated what to do with it and whether he was willing to undergo and underwrite such an extensive refit. What soon followed was not a project born of boredom, but of motivation and calculation. The dilapidated vessel was towed to Chris and Monica Morgan’s speed shop in Florida with the goal of a six-month turnaround, which, of course, became a year and six months. “The only reason it happened was because of Chris and Monica,” Marshall says. “They did an amazing job on the boat and they worked hard to get it done.” The Morgans, masters of the longboard, replaced 70 percent of the deck and gutted the interior. “The only thing we didn’t do was change the keel,” Marshall says. “The hull, keel and rudder were media blasted, faired, and repainted. We put on new hardware, got a newer mast and all new lines. What was essentially left of the original American Garage was the hull, so it seemed fitting to keep the name.” Why go through such effort when a professional sail designer of his stature could have a much newer boat at his disposal? “I don’t know,” he says. “There are fast boats and there are some boats that are just never there. But at the end of the day, a boat that can win the J/24 Worlds is a no-excuses boat.” Marshall knew American Garage was fast back in its day, and clearly it still is today. “We sailed the whole event at the top of the genoa, and didn’t break anything,” he says. “Even when we were on the wrong side of the racecourse the boat was doing the work and still going fast. It comes down to all the little things adding up to one-tenth of a gain here and there. If it gives you a half boatlength at the first windward mark, that’s a huge deal.” When it comes to J/24s, having the right keel shape is important, he adds, as is a good mast and the right sails, but “having a boat that you didn’t lose anything because it didn’t break is 80 percent of it and having a boat that has all the boxes checked—it’s stiff, it’s fair, the keel is right, the rudder is right and everything is correct.” But we all know it’s not that simple. Fixing an old boat is half the battle. They still have to get the most from it in all conditions. Enter Dave Hughes, the three-time Olympic 470 sailor who brings to the program a level of detail bordering on obsessive-compulsive. “He was a big pusher of writing things down, which we all do, but he does it to the extreme,” Marshall says. As they became students of the boat in the months and miles leading up to the 2022 worlds, Hughes applied the meticulous processes required of an Olympic campaign. 📸 Emily Stokes “It wasn’t until Midwinters this year, in very light air, where we saw we were lacking a bit of power and started to mess around and write our settings down in anger,” Marshall says. “At that event, we began putting our mast-butt settings together. The tuning guide for the newer masts is basic rig tuning, so we had those settings from day one, so it was really about locking in the mast-butt locations for the boat and what the boat wanted in each condition. That’s been ongoing and it continued a lot during Worlds.” Terhune, who’s sailed with a lot of top programs in his decades as a professional sailor, was awestruck by Hughes’ obsession with measurements. “I’ve never seen two people work so hard to set up a boat so perfectly as Mike and Dave did,” Terhune says. “We made it a goal to be faster every day and we were. At Worlds, we had a good early part of the regatta, but I guarantee that the Day 5 American Garage team would have kicked the crap out of Day 1 team and that’s because Mike and Dave never stopped with the rig-tune development. I’ve never seen anyone write more things on a boat than Dave. It was a no-stone-unturned mentality and the level of detail they had was staggering.” At the end of each sailing day, Marshall and Hughes would transfer all the scribblings to a Google Sheet for the team to review, keeping track of fast and slow settings. “We equally kept track of the things that were good and bad,” Terhune says. “That was part of the process that Dave was insistent upon, making sure we didn’t just talk about the rainbows.” Even for Marshall, hyper-analytical himself, Hughes’ approach was next-level. “It was about getting rid of just changing the mast butt because it feels right, to having the data, having the measurement for the wind condition; getting rid of going by fingers on the headstay and actually having millimeter measurements. It was about documenting the good and the bad, but also how to move forward constructively from the bad stuff and then having it written and not guessing anymore. For example, before a race we’d say, “we want to go to 112 on the mast butt, we want to go plus-one, plus-two on the shrouds, and because we’re moving from 116 to 112 we need to add another half turn on the lowers. By looking at the wind conditions we know what it was—every time.” That’s the unlocking speed of right there, and as Terhune noted earlier, they were getting more out of American Garage every day, and the faster they got, the more confident they grew. On the opening day of the championship, Paul Foerster—Olympian, Hall of Famer, and one of the all-time greats of American sailing—and his team came out swinging on the same waters on which he won his J/22 World Championship title a year earlier, winning both races—by a Texan mile. The pecking order was established immediately. “We were all taken aback by how badly Paul crushed everyone.” Terhune says. “It was a thorough butt kicking, and everyone was scrambling after the first day.” It was also a wakeup call for Marshall and Co. on American Garage. In any other championship an 8-2 in a stacked 38-boat fleet would be a good start, but with Foerster on fire, good wasn’t going to be good enough. 📸 Emily Stokes “That was the moment where we said we have to search for more speed,” Marshall says. “We were not fast enough to get ourselves out of bad places. We were not quick enough and kept getting swallowed up in the fray. We needed to clean things up and be faster downwind.” The following day, the Corpus Christi wind machine turned on big time. Out came the blades, and these were not your normal blade conditions. It was, as Marshall says, easing-the-blade sailing: “Usually, when you step down from the genoa, you put the blade on and trim the thing in because it’s right at the crossover of the genoa. But this was blade-eased 6 to 12 inches kind of thing. It was at times so windy that we were just sailing off the leeches of both sails, where you step away from trying to sail fast with sails trimmed hard to trying to keep the boat flat and moving fast through the waves.” Foerster continued his streak, starting the second day with another race win, but American Garage finally posted one of their own. On the scoreboard they were fourth, but they were finding their groove. “We had good pace, but knew we had more to go,” Marshall says. “It was a big one for us when we won that race and Paul did not.” The following day, again with the blades, they won the first race and sailed home with a fifth. Everything was going in the right direction: “Another good set of scores kind of showed that Paul was beatable at that point,” Marshall says. “He was not going to run away with it and our job was to continue to chip away at the points and let the regatta come to us.” The improvements and speed gains were happening live, both upwind and downwind. They were changing for the conditions, adapting on the fly. In the steep waves kicked up by consecutive days of 20- to 30-knot winds, starboard tack was straight into the milky blue walls. Port tack presented its own challenges. Marshall explains in detail with some good lessons for J/24 sailors: “Starboard tack was all about putting the bow down and keeping the boat moving. This is where I think people would give up a lot of height. I was doing it early in the regatta, trying to put the bow down to get the boat to accelerate, but I didn’t really need to because I was already at the right angle. I needed to let the boat do more of the work. “Port was actually the harder one because as the wave rolled under us from the side it would roll the boat over and push it super heeled, but then as it went out from under the other side it would roll us back flat. Our initial thought there was that we didn’t need the power to get through the waves so we moved the jib car back a hole and didn’t think that was the right direction. 📸 Emily Stokes “On the third day, we moved the car forward to keep the upper leech of the jib engaged a bit more. As the wave rolls under the boat, the apparent wind on the jib changes massively because the boat is going sideways, and as it’s going down the other side of the wave, it’s going less sideways. So, keeping the cars forward to keep the upper leech a bit more engaged meant we weren’t giving away as much height on the backside of the waves. And I was super aggressive with the steering as the wave hit the bow to not let the wave push the bow downwind.” By Day 3, their downwind sailing was improving too, says Terhune, thanks to Hughes’ dynamic trimming, and the sharp sail handling by the bow team of Hayden and Favela. “If there was one story of our regatta, it would be about the early part of the week we were very weak downwind—subpar even—and by the last day of the regatta we were probably one of the best boats downwind. That’s a function of Dave talking about what he felt on the sheets and the four of us talking about how to move around the boat. It took us a couple of days to get it right, and part of it was that we all changed our mentality of it being a J/24 where you just pull the pole back and go dead downwind.” In a smaller fleet and on a smaller course you can kind of get way with sailing low and slow, Marshall says, but on a big course that’s not the case: “On a big course, where the leverage on each side is pretty unforgiving, you end up out on the edges and you have to be very quick on your side or you end up with big losses. The VMG has to be more important and that was our change—to not be too low and slow. That’s quite counter to what you would normally do on a J/24.” It was all good on the morning of Day 4, but then came the black flag. But there would be no quit in this squad. They were only 3 points shy of the title with three races to go and they had to believe in the longer mission at hand. Their second-place finish that day kept them in the hunt. “The morning’s discussion was that we were getting close, that today is the day,” Marshall says. “It wasn’t something of putting pressure on ourselves; it was just saying ‘now is the time to execute.’ We’d done our work and we were way faster than we were on Day 1. We were much more comfortable in the boat, so now was the time.” Back into genoa conditions, American Garage came alive, just as it had for Mehaney and Curtis back in its day. The squad led at the weather mark in the day’s first race and posted a third to Foerster’s second. With a bit of padding to those breathing down their necks, the final race was all about fleet management and letting the Garage do its thing. With no points to spare, those battling at the top of the fleet avoided direct skirmishes, leaving the team to sail its own race. In the first mark rounding they sailed right over the top of Foerster’s team as they struggled to get around the offset mark. “I think, maybe, they were finally feeling the heat and knew we were not going to stop,” Terhune says. “They had their unforced error at the worst time. It’s still a mystery as to what happened. They got tangled up somehow, but it was the first break we got all week and it was the break we needed.” And there is one key ingredient that can’t be ignored in this victory: “The sails we were using were the same as anyone else sailing with North Sails in the regatta,” Marshall says. “We’re not making ourselves a custom set of sails. Paul felt like he had a bit of an edge in speed with his other sails in light air, but eventually realized they were not all-purpose sails and they were a little off the pace at Nationals and pre-worlds. He initially had a cross-cut genoa, which is never going to be able to get through the full range. It might have an advantage in light air, but not in 18 knots.” Foerster, Marshall says tried a lot of changes to get faster in breeze, but had limited results, so his solution was the ultimate grenade: a new mast and different set of sails, which dropped into his lap only days before Worlds. “He changed to North Sails and won the first three races, which is a good example that not all sails are built the same, and the crux of it is how you get that last 1/10 out of your boatspeed.” The refinement of the American Garage’s inventory—the Newport Fathead Main and DDX7 Genoa (once called the Newport Genoa)—dates back to the early 1990s, the peak of the J/24 arms race. “Yes, there’s been updates and tweaks and finishing changes,” Marshall says, “but that main and the genoa combination remain the gold standard of J/24 sails.” What makes them particularly fast, he adds, is their ability to be quick throughout the wind range. “It’s such a wide range and they’re so easy to set the boat up to be going 95 percent speed 95 percent of the time. That’s the key—if you want that extra two-tenths, you can work hard to get it like we did, but essentially, you can set the boat up with two fingers on the headstay in 15 knots and sail around at 27/24 and you’ll be happy with that all day long. Being able to go 95 percent speed 95 percent of the time without putting in too much effort is what wins regattas.” American Garage now sits in Texas awaiting its next chapter, perhaps to never again be left to rot on Cape Cod, and onto the North Americans in Annapolis in October, where it will arrive, as the saying goes, as good as its last race. Shop the Winning Inventory and Contact an Expert today. 📸 Emily Stokes READ MORE

TRIUMPH ON THE EDGE John Bacon’s Recipe for Success at the New York Yacht Club Race Week 📸 Stuart Wemple There are lots of ways to attack a regatta, but if you want to win, here are a few things you might wish to avoid: 1) a brand-new owner who’d never laid eyes on the boat until mere days before the racing; 2) an international crew consisting mainly of somewhat laid-back Australians and rather intense Americans (with a strapping Dutch dude thrown in), most of whom had never sailed together before; 3) a largely untested boat with a strong pedigree and (perhaps?) plenty of untapped potential, but also saddled with several important, unanswered questions; and, finally 4) an inaugural event for the yacht and team in a ridiculously competitive, high-profile handicap series with at least two competitors that boasted a solid track record which suggested they might totally clean your clock. This approach could be summarized in myriad terms, one of which is certainly “recipe for disaster.” But these were also the ingredients that came together aboard the 44-footer, The Edge, during this summer’s edition of the New York Yacht Club’s Race Week in Newport. In an astounding collaboration between North Sails; Aussie owner John Bacon and his talented Down Under mates (with North’s Sydney-based sailmaker, Alby Pratt, playing a prominent role); and a posse of local Newport gunslingers led by North’s Ken Read (that also included North’s European one-design ace, Joost Houweling), The Edge made a statement in the initial event under Bacon’s stewardship by winning ORC Division C in emphatic, going-away fashion. And in doing so, The Edge’s crew also laid a framework for success that other teams, in similar circumstances, might be wise to consider and emulate. We’ll begin, naturally, at the beginning. Several months ago, Pratt received a call from Bacon’s right-hand sailing partner, David “Tower” Sampson, who said that his good mate was looking to switch gears from the one-design racing he’d concentrated on for the last decade to get back into handicap racing with something in the mid-40-foot range. Specifically, they were looking at The Edge, for sale in Newport, which had several things going for it. First, the Harry Dunning-design was from the board of the same naval architect responsible for Bacon’s last big boat, an MC 38, and were both built by McConaghy Boats, just a few miles down the road from his home in New South Wales. And it was equipped with a full set of little-used North Sails. “So I called Kenny in Newport,” Pratt said, “and told him I had a client who was interested in buying and campaigning it, and asked if it was any good.” “I’d sailed the boat with the previous owner, who’d commissioned it as the ultimate Grand Prix boat in that size range, with Interlodge as sort of the benchmark,” said Read. “We did a couple of events that culminated in a win at Block Island Race Week, and he was thrilled, but it was sort of a one-and-done thing for him. I have to give Mike Marshall, who designed the sails, a lot of credit. They were perfect. Anyway, I knew the boat was solid and had a good pedigree.” With Read’s positive endorsement, and feedback from his friend Dunning, Bacon decided to pull the trigger on the Dunning 44. “I thought, ‘Let’s go sail against some really good boats and that will give us a mark about where The Edge is,’” he said. “If we come last, we’ve got a dog and we’ll sell it. But if we do all right, we’ll know we’ve got something, a nice platform that we can invest in.” 📸 Stuart Wemple A week before the NYYC event, the 11-person team assembled in Newport. The Aussie contingent, led by Sampson and Pratt, also comprised Darren “Twirler” Jones on mainsheet, another trusted hand. The Newport squad, with Read as tactician, included his partner on the doublehanded circuit, navigator Suzy Leech, and bowman Sam Fitzgerald—a pro sailor, engineer and member of the American Magic team—who’d been largely responsible for putting The Edge together in the Australians’ absence. Bacon (who wants it to be known he’s a longstanding member of Missouri’s Weatherby Lake Yacht Club!), flew in from Europe, fresh from a fourth in the 5.5 Metre Class World Championships and overall champ in the Corinthian division; with him was North’s Houweling, who oversees Bacon’s European sailing programs. With that, they got to work. “We had five solid days before the regatta to get to know everyone and get our maneuvers down,” said Pratt. “That was invaluable. Once we started the regatta, we were actually racing, not trying to sort out the boat, and who did what, and where to sit on the rail. We had all that dialed in.” John also commissioned a new North Helix Light jib and a new A4 spinnaker. The new jib proved to be the go-to workhorse sail for the majority of the racing. For the first day of racing, the NYYC race committee sent the fleet outside into Rhode Island Sound. “It was really light, with leftover chop, the conditions don’t get much harder really,” said Bacon. “At first, we were never up there with the hot guys, Interlodge and Stark Raving Mad. I think I was probably sailing a bit hot and then Kenny got me driving a bit deeper. And all of a sudden we started coming at them.” “John’s a really good driver, but he doesn’t love the light stuff,” said Read. “And if the boat has an Achille’s heel, it’s the light stuff. But we ended up with a 2, 3, 1 that first day, just a couple points out of first. On the first day of racing as a team? I’ll take that.” On Day 2, the racing commenced up Narragansett Bay, more or less on the Read family’s home waters close to nearby Barrington, Rhode Island, his childhood sailing venue. “I wasn’t too upset at that,” he laughed. “The one unique thing about the week was that there was a super moon, and I’m not sure everyone understood how big a deal the current was going to be. It was pretty comfortable for me, like having your blankie when you’re a kid.” The results tell the story. The Edge scored bullets in the next three races. For all intents and purposes, it was game, set, match. And victory in ORC C. “I can’t say enough about how the crew came together,” said Bacon. “It was copybook. It takes some boats months and months to get a crew that coherent, these guys did it in a few days. There was a lot of respect among everyone. It was an incredible experience, I learned so much that week. How could you spend a week with Ken Read and not learn something? And Newport and the New York Yacht Club are very special to Australian sailors. To do well there, it will always be a special thing for me, for sure.” “Having John coming straight from the 5.5 Worlds was a huge advantage,” said Read. “One of the pitfalls of being an owner/driver is you probably have a job that takes up 98 percent of your time. So when all of a sudden you’ve kind of eased out of that day-to-day work grind and transitioned into the day-to-day rhythm of steering a sailboat fast, well, that was a huge advantage for us. And as a tactician, I’ll take that advantage every day of the week. “I don’t use the word ‘perfect’ very much, but The Edge was the perfect mix between the owner’s sailing friends and some industry pros that clicked as a team and made it fun for the owner,” he continued. “So if you have a combination of people that the owner likes onboard, with people who can get the boat around the race course, and a project manager like David Sampson who always thinks on behalf of the owner’s wishes, the program’s going to be successful. Because you can win every race, but if the owner’s not having fun, he’s not coming back.” Joost Houweling concurred on the matter of the importance of having a person like Sampson in charge of what’s happening not on the water, but off it. “When the owner comes on board, he’s absolutely in charge, but he’s comfortable because everything else in the program is taken care of,” he said. “What’s the handicap? Where do we eat and sleep? What has to happen with the sails? Who’s the crew? Where are their tickets? If all that’s arranged, as it was on The Edge, John could just concentrate on sailing. It’s very important to have a guy like that.” So, to recap the elements required to put together a winning program in short order on the fly: A good, potentially great boat with an excellent sail inventory. A committed and skillful owner/operator. Several days of practice beforehand, concentrating on starts and turns. A dedicated point person in charge or organization, details and logistics. A steadfast crew that learns from their mistakes and does not repeat them. Some local knowledge. And, of course, a bit of luck never hurts. And that is how you get The Edge. 📸 Stuart Wemple READ MORE

SORC x NORTH SAILS Optimize for ORC Racing As part of our continued partnership with Southern Ocean Racing Conference as the Official Performance Partner for the 2022-2023 edition, North Sails is offering measurement days across our South East lofts. These measurement days will provide participants with an opportunity to discuss their inventory with North Sails experts and how best to optimize their rating. Participants can also have their sails measured and drop them off for any necessary pre-race service. Mark your calendars and join our North Sails experts at the following locations: Annapolis, MD | August 26th, 1-4pm Charleston, SC | September 8-9, 2-5pm St. Pete, FL | September 16, 1-5pm Ft. Lauderdale, FL | September 30th, 1-5pm Miami, FL | October 21, 9-8pm | October 22, 9-7pm Our North Sails experts look forward to connecting with you and learning about your sailcare needs at the upcoming measurement days. The Southern Ocean Racing Conference series consists of four distance races that draw a fleet from across the country and includes a range of yachts from super maxis to corinthian cruisers. The series prides itself on accessibility for a wide variety of sailors and offers storied races from South Florida to destinations like Key West, Nassau, Palm Beach, and Cape Canaveral. READ MORE

ENTROPY WEARS THE CROWN Patience Pays Off For Local Club Swan 42 Crew 📸 Cate Brown Over the past decade, the husband and wife team of Patti Young and Paul Hamilton have gradually moved their young Entropy team up near the top of results at most of the big New England regattas. In mid-July, they scored their first victory at the prestigious Queen’s Cup on their Club Swan 42. And part of the credit for that win has to go to the ongoing support they’ve received from North Sails over the years, Patti says, “North has been very good to us.” In addition to advice about sails, boat modifications, and team building, Max Tringale joined their team even before he became a coveted sail designer, showing up for everything from the local evening summer series to the Bermuda Race. “His mother said to me early on that I’m like his second mom!” Patti laughs. “Max does everything; he’s definitely helped us improve the boat.” When they first started the race program, most of Entropy’s crew were still in their twenties. Now they’re almost all married, helmsman Paul explains, and some are starting families—but still using valuable vacation time to race. “Everybody's kind of stuck with us,” Patti says. “There’s never any yelling—it’s a good program. And these kids are amazing.” Both owners agree that the core group’s dedication and loyalty is their real key to success— though it’s not an all-pro crew, or even the same group from one regatta to the next. “We always bring a few new sailors on board for every race,” Patti says, adding that many are college-age with very little big-boat experience. As navigator, she also helps organize the crew. Over the winter, work parties are followed by pizza and suggestions on improvements for the next season. Though there was talk about replacing the Swan 42’s retractable sprit last year, it wasn’t until right before the Bermuda Race that they finally upgraded it to a fixed sprit designed to handle the loads of Helix headsails. Paul says it’s a good thing they made the change, “because it was a real blow.” After a ninth overall in Bermuda’s Gibbs Hill Division, Entropy returned to Narragansett Bay in time to line up for New York Yacht Club’s Race Week. Consecutive days of racing turned out to be the perfect warmup for the Queen's Cup, which took place the day after Race Week ended. The Queen’s Cup was first awarded in 1953, and it’s won by completing the course in the shortest elapsed time. The list of previous winners reads like a who’s who of each decade’s hot race boats, and includes several America’s Cup yachts as well as Bolero (1954), Running Tide (1970), Tenacious (1981), and Belle Mente (2020). All helms must be category 1 amateurs, and the course must contain reaching legs. 📸 Stuart Wemple But the race’s biggest twist is its two-minute starting window. “Everyone always wants to start right at the gun, like a hare to hounds,” says Paul. But with fresh memories of the crowded starts at Race Week—and her experience gleaned from previous Queen’s Cups—Patti decreed that they would wait at least a minute to cross the line. “We started with about 45 seconds left in the window,” she says, adding, “I just didn't want to be near anybody.” Though they initially had a little bad air from Fox, a Botin 52 that would eventually finish second, the bigger boat soon left them a clean lane. “After that, the team sailed the boat really well.” The only other Swan 42 racing was Paul Zabetakis’ Impetuous. Patti spotted them up ahead on the first leg, though she’d been too focused on timing Entropy’s start to be sure exactly when the other boat had crossed the line. When they finished ahead of Impetuous, she knew they must’ve done well overall. “That was the only boat we could measure ourselves against.” “I knew we’d sailed a really, really good race,” Paul adds, “but I still didn't think we could beat the TP52s.” Soon after they crossed the finish line, they checked the results—and Patti saw Entropy’s name at the very top. “I screamed! I just couldn’t believe it. I knew we’d sailed really well, but…” “We still thought Fox would get us,” Paul says. “They’re pretty hard to beat.” But it was official; on their eighth attempt, Entropy sailed the Queen’s Cup course in the fastest elapsed time, beating out 23 other boats—almost all of which were bigger than their 42 footer. Asked for the biggest changes to sail inventories in the past decade, Paul says that Helix has been a big step forward. “The structured luff sails are working really well. And nobody was even talking about that ten years ago.” Patti adds that they now frequently sail with a double- and even triple-headsail rig, which has meant adding new halyards—and that new bowsprit. They’ve also put a symmetrical spinnaker pole onboard, to help wing out their largest headsail for the non-spinnaker division of the upcoming NYYC Cruise. 📸 Stuart Wemple 📸 Stuart Wemple READ MORE

EVEN VOORSTELLEN: WOUTER KÖLLMANN North Sails Expert Wouter Köllmann (41) is van jongs af aan actief in de watersport. De rol van Sail Expert bij North Sails is hem dan ook op het lijf geschreven. Inmiddels is hij het vaste gezicht in de loft in Almere en deelt hij zijn passie voor het zeilen graag met klanten, vrienden en familie. Waarom wilde je zo graag bij North Sails werken? Ik ben zo goed als geboren op een boot. Hoewel ik relatief laat met wedstrijdzeilen ben begonnen – op m’n 13e pas – loopt zeilen als een rode draad door mijn leven. Het is mijn passie. Daarom wilde ik altijd al de zeilerij in. Na het bekende traject van Optimist, Laser en verschillende kajuitboten te hebben afgelegd, ben ik beroepsmatig gaan zeilen. Toen is het balletje gaan rollen. Sinds 2014 werk ik bij North Sails. Vanaf 2017 is de interne organisatiestructuur met onder andere de komst van Nic Bol gewijzigd en is de bereikbaarheid van North Sails uitgebreid met vestigingen in Almere, Rotterdam en Antwerpen. De essentie is echter niet veranderd. Wereldwijd zijn wij de benchmark. We blijven ontwikkelen en ook achter de schermen beschikken we over een professionele organisatie. Is het werk echt zo leuk als je vroeger dacht? Zeker! In principe is onze eerste taak om zeilen te verkopen, maar het gaat zoveel verder. We adviseren eigenaren en jachtwerven, optimaliseren zeilplannen, meten in, bespreken ontwerpen met de saildesigners en leveren de zeilen af. De ene dag voor een Optimist, een dag later voor een superjacht en alles daartussen. We hebben dan ook een uitzonderlijke baan. We zijn bevoorrecht dat we met mooie boten en het beste materiaal mogen varen tijdens unieke evenementen. En ondertussen helpen we mensen een stap verder met plezier maken. Wat zijn de mooiste momenten op het werk? Het afleveren van een nieuwe set zeilen. Eigenaren zien je graag komen en zijn blij met hun nieuwe aankoop. Onze visie is; iedere boot kan beter of comfortabeler, net waar de wensen liggen. Onze drive is dan ook om ervoor te zorgen dat er betere prestaties worden behaald. Natuurlijk zijn nieuwe zeilen geen garantie, voor een groot deel ligt het aan het team en de handling. En als North Sails zijn we er niet alleen voor de ‘diehard’ wedstrijdzeilers. Juist niet! Als een cruiser bijvoorbeeld teveel helling maakt, kijken we hoe we dat met de zeilen kunnen compenseren en daarmee meer comfort kunnen realiseren. Ook voor boten die af en toe aan een avondwedstrijd meedoen, kunnen we veel betekenen. Als je altijd 15e bent en met een goed zeilplan 8e of 9e kan worden, is dat net zo leuk! Op welke overwinning ben je het meeste trots? Heel stom, maar ik weet niet meer alle overwinningen. Dat klinkt gek, maar het is echt zo. Een leuk onderdeel van het werk is het verzorgen van bootmanagement. Zorgen dat de crew, de boot, de zeilen en het trainingsprogramma op orde zijn. Momenteel vaar ik op veel verschillende typen schepen, waaronder veel J-Boats zoals J/99, J/111, J/80 en J/109. Daarmee hebben we ook diverse nationale en internationale successen hebben behaald. Zo ook met de J/70, waarmee we onder andere tweemaal Nederlands Kampioen geworden, waarvan één keer samen met collega Jacco Huijgen. Dat was heel mooi. Maar heel eerlijk: tegenwoordig geniet ik ook enorm van het zeilen met mijn gezin. Lekker cruisen op onze toerboot! Je hebt twee dochters. Gaan die ook zeilen? Dat weet ik niet hoor! Mijn partner is ook een wedstrijdzeilster, maar of onze dochters dat pad ook inslaan is nog maar de vraag. De jongste van 1,5 jaar krijgt het nog niet zo mee en de oudste van vijf vaart op haar manier mee. Trekt weleens aan een lijntje en stuurt mee, maar vindt vooral het samenzijn aan boord heel leuk. We gaan het zien. Wel zie ik een hele nieuwe generatie zeilers klaarstaan. Gelukkig zijn er initiatieven als Team Heiner Talents en ROST van Gerd-Jan Poortman, welke we ook proberen te ondersteunen met North Sails. Zelf heb ik ook kansen gekregen, dus ben zeker een voorstander om de zeilsport te behouden voor de toekomst. Wat is het beste advies wat je ooit hebt gekregen? Doe wat je leuk vindt, anders ga je het niet volhouden. Als je iets kiest, doe je dat namelijk vaak je hele leven… Dat was het advies van mijn ouders. Desondanks stonden ze niet meteen te springen van blijdschap toen ik na mijn studie Werktuigbouwkunde en Commerciële Economie met hen overlegde en besloot om fulltime te gaan zeilen, maar ze hebben mij altijd gesteund. Gelukkig heb ik hun advies opgevolgd. Het heeft goed uitgepakt. READ MORE

#NSVICTORYLIST – 52 SUPER SERIES PODIUM SWEEP North Sails Onboard for Key Victories in Puerto Portals 📸 nicomartinezphoto On July 21, nine super-charged TP52s, representing six countries descended upon the Bay of Palma for the third event of the SUPER SERIES season. 2022 marked the event’s seventh visit to Puerto Portals, Spain. And, amidst a heatwave, the wind forecast was anything but certain in a venue already known for its varying conditions. North Sails powered the top three boats at the 52 SUPER SERIES Sailing Week in Puerto Portals. The Plattner family’s Phoenix claimed a long overdue regatta win, with 2021 season champion Sled placing second and Provezza making big moves on the final day of racing to round out the podium. Phoenix’s Tactician Tom Slingsby commented on the team’s win. “This feels amazing not just winning, but winning comfortably with this team. I have been saying for a long time that we are right on the edge and we have had a couple of podiums, thirds and fourths and just missed the regatta win. It feels great with such an amazing team we have here.” Their win in Puerto Portals moves Phoenix to the top of the season scoreboard, a position they’ll fight hard to protect throughout the remaining two events. As the sailmaker of choice to the majority of the fleet and a longtime sponsor of the SUPER SERIES, North Sails is committed to ensuring the teams we work with have the tools they need to win. Branded as the world’s leading monohull circuit, the SUPER SERIES is a test of teamwork, season-long perseverance, and for North Sails, continued product innovation. All North-supplied teams competing in the SUPER SERIES use 3Di. First introduced in 2010, these molded composite sails are an indispensable building block of championship projects. The latest refinement North designers have deployed for the TP52 inventory is the Helix Structured Luff. Structured luff sails are not limited to North Sails, but the pairing of Helix with 3Di uniquely maximizes the benefit of load sharing. Available for both offwind and upwind sails, Helix is a game changer that enables a new gear. Sail shapes are more dynamic and that means more power. Regatta winner Phoenix sailed with a complete Helix upwind inventory during the event in Puerto Portals, and second place Sled used a Helix jib. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 52 SUPER SERIES (@52superseries) North sail designer Burns Fallow is the designer of record for Phoenix. As the lead sail designer for America’s Cup Defender Emirates Team New Zealand, Fallow has been at ground-zero of Helix’s rapid development. One of the world’s leading aero-experts, Fallows, explains his work with Phoenix and their use of Helix sails. “I did my first Helix designs for the Phoenix team at the end of 2021. And while they did not card that sail, the team used it for practice and got a feel for Helix’s increased range. I collected great feedback from their trimmers, particularly Morgan Trubovich, which helped with future design iterations. The team quickly realized the potential benefits of the Helix path and fully committed to the concept for the 2022 season.” Follows continues, “Throughout the offseason, I worked on building simulations of Phoenix’s sails in Membrain, a program within the North Design Suite. With Membrain, I refined the range of tack loads and depths we were targeting based on the shapes the team was familiar with in their current inventory. North Sails delivered a full inventory to the team in April. The real-world results calibrated very, very close to what I had been seeing on my computer screen with the Membrain models a few months earlier.” The 52 Super Series will race again in Scarlino late September. The circuit then heads to Barcelona in October for the final event of the 2022 season and of the nine boats competing in the 2022 season, seven have chosen North as their sailmaker. This is a testament to North Sails’ industry-leading technology, tools and also to the North Sails team. In total, six sail designers support the Super Series program year-round. Learn more about the 52 Super Series and follow along with the 2021 season on https://www.52superseries.com/ 📸 nicomartinezphoto READ MORE

EXPERT PROFILE: MEET DANIELE CASSINARI, A Proven Leader Who’s Our Southern European Sales Manager and 2022 ClubSwan 50 World Champion. READ MORE

EVEN VOORSTELLEN: TOM VAN DER VECHT North Sails Expert 📸 M32 World / Kevin Rio Tom van der Vecht (36) is als Sail Expert verantwoordelijk voor de verkoop van zeilen. Samen met Wouter Köllmann runt hij de North Sails loft in Almere. Tom groeide op in Enkhuizen, omringd door inspirerende zeilers. Hoewel het racen hem niet meteen wist te bekoren, is hij nu een van de drijvende krachten achter Team LeeLoo, waarmee ze de lat steeds hoger leggen. Wat is jouw eerste zeilervaring? Mijn CWO 1, 2 en 3 heb ik behaald met mijn houten Optimist. Ook de clubwedstrijden in Enkhuizen gingen goed. Echter parkeerde ik het bootje bij de eerste Combi wedstrijd op de rotsen en riep heel hard dat ik dit nooit meer ging doen. Toch ben ik blijven zeilen, onder andere in de Splash, Laser en Hobie 18. Maar het wedstrijdzeilen heb ik pas later weer echt opgepakt met de boot van mijn ouders, een FF65. Hoe ben je bij North Sails terecht gekomen? Als student was ik zoekende. In eerste instantie dacht ik dat ik gymleraar wilde worden, maar na een jaar ALO ben ik hbo Leisure Management gaan doen. Ondertussen was ik gevraagd voor het talententeam van Team Heiner. Dat heb ik twee jaar gedaan, waarna ik voor Roy Heiner ben gaan werken. Onderhoud, schipperen en opleiden waren mijn kerntaken, op schepen zoals een Volvo 60 en J/109. Op een gegeven moment ben ik als zelfstandige wedstrijdteams gaan begeleiden, maar dat is heel intensief. Je bent veel van huis, dus toen er kinderen kwamen ben ik als verkoper/adviseur voor een vooraanstaande zeilmakerij gaan werken. Afgelopen oktober werd ik benaderd door North Sails en hebben ze mij gevraagd hun team te komen versterken. Waarom heb je voor North Sails gekozen? Iedereen kan in principe een zeil maken, maar in het ontwerp (de shape), afwerking en service, onderscheidt North Sails zich echt. Ik houd van ontwikkeling en innovatie. North Sails is het merk dat altijd vooruitloopt in de ontwikkeling en hierin anders durft te zijn dan de rest. Een voorbeeld voor mij is de stap van 3DL naar 3Di. We waren marktleider, maar kozen toch voor de uitdaging van een compleet nieuw product. Daarin zijn nu zoveel varianten zeildoek dat het niet alleen geschikt is voor wedstrijdzeilen, maar ook voor toerboten en superjachten. Wat is het leukste aan jouw baan als Sail Expert? In eerste instantie is het mijn taak om zeilen te verkopen, maar de meeste tijd besteed ik aan service, adviseren en meevaren met klanten. Het is leuk om samen met de klant tot een optimaal product te komen, wat precies past bij de wensen en eisen van de klant. Het komt voor dat dit compleet anders is dan wat ze vooraf verwachten. Uiteindelijk wil je dat een klant blij wordt zodra de zeilen worden gehesen. Als ze dan later zeggen ‘Dit is precies wat ik nodig had. Nu loop ik op deze rakken 8 knopen, waar dat voorheen maar 5,5 knoop was. Het IJsselmeer is daardoor kleiner geworden’, dan geeft dat veel voldoening. Waar ben je het meeste trots op? Als vader van drie ben ik het meeste trots op mijn gezin. Zeiltechnisch vind ik het knap wat we met Team LeeLoo hebben bereikt in acht jaar. We zijn (bij wijze van spreken) begonnen met; hoe hijs je een zeil. Inmiddels strijden we tegen America Cup toppers, Olympische zeilers en wereldkampioenen. En we winnen ook weleens een potje. Telkens als we zijn opgeklommen in een klasse, gaan we een stapje verder. Momenteel varen we met een M32 catamaran. Het gaat mij niet alleen om het winnen, want eigenlijk is het proces het leukste. Zeilen is de ultieme teamsport, dus het gaat om mensen. In de basis zijn we als Team LeeLoo nog steeds een vriendengroep. Wat is jouw advies aan ambitieuze zeilers? Doe wat je leuk vindt, dan word je er goed in en kom je ergens. Maar je wordt niet vanzelf ergens goed in, soms moet je er ook dingen voor laten. Ik had geen uitgestippeld carrièreplan, maar het zeilen is altijd belangrijk voor me geweest. Ik had zelfs een bijnaam; Tom ‘2 uur thuis’. Stappen was leuk, maar als ik de volgende dag moest zeilen, haakte ik toch op tijd af. Uiteindelijk ben ik blij dat ik het zo heb aangepakt, want ik ben toch maar mooi hier terecht gekomen! READ MORE

DRIE NEDERLANDSE ORC TOPPERS, ALLEMAAL NORTH SAILS ZEILERS De Nummers 1 Aan Het Woord Over de North Sea Regatta Team Van Uden - foto: Twirre Bogaard “Fantastisch om na de coronapandemie eindelijk weer zo’n groot evenement in Nederland te varen, met een grote diversiteit aan klasses en 800 man op het water,” blikt Nic Bol, Sales Manager North Sails Benelux, terug op de North Sea Regatta, welke van 4 tot en met 6 juni 2022 werd gevaren vanuit Scheveningen. De uitslag is er ook eentje om trots op te zijn; alle winnaars in de ORC klasses zijn North Sails klanten. Maar komt dat puur door de zeilen en de nieuwste technieken zoals 3Di, of is er meer nodig om te winnen? Deze vraag legden we voor aan de drie winnaars in de ORC 1, ORC 2 en ORC 3. Winnen begint bij goed onderhoud Voor de ORC 1 en ORC 2 was het Nederlands Kampioenschap een optelsom van de Vuurschepen Race, de North Sea Race en de inshore wedstrijden tijdens de North Sea Regatta (NSR). In de ORC 2 gingen alle overwinningen naar één team: de Extra Djinn van Michel Dorsman, een X-362 sport. “We werden wel iets te vaak naar het podium geroepen,” lacht de schipper. “Aan de andere kant is het wel een groot compliment voor het team, aangezien we al jaren hard werken om zo hoog mogelijk te eindigen. Meestal zitten we wel in de top 3, maar we zitten er ook weleens naast. Nu zat alles mee.” Tijdens de coronapandemie viel het niet mee om het team bij elkaar te houden, volgens Dorsman. “Toch is het team bijna helemaal intact gebleven, alleen missen we een tacticus. Daarom stapte Nic Bol op tijdens de North Sea Regatta. Ik ben al jaren North Sails klant. Inmiddels is onze hele set uitgevoerd in 3Di en naar alle tevredenheid.” Hoewel er soms wel gezocht moet worden naar de optimale setting. In zo’n geval staan de Sails Experts van North Sails klaar met advies, weet Dorsman. “Vorig jaar was ik aan het stoeien met het nieuwe grootzeil. We hadden veel roerdruk en kwamen niet goed in balans. Nic is toen aan boord geweest. Samen hebben we het nodige aangepast, waaronder de mastsetting, de neerhouderspanning en meer achterstag erin. Het is fijn dat Nic de puntjes op de ‘i’ weet te zetten.” En dat deed hij ook aan boord tijdens de NSR, vertelt Dorsman. “Natuurlijk is het belangrijk om de goede kant op te varen. Zeker met de stroming en de ondieptes voor de Noordzeekust is dat een kunst. Maar Nic is ook een aanjager richting het team. Hij weet iedereen te motiveren om net dat stapje extra te zetten, nog beter te ‘hiken’.” Hoewel de handling van het team sowieso top is. “Op maandag werd er niet gevaren vanwege te harde wind, maar als we wel hadden geracet, was dat voor ons geen probleem geweest. We zijn goed op elkaar ingespeeld en weten ook dat de boot het aankan. Dat zit ‘m vooral in goed onderhoud van het materiaal. En als er onverhoopt toch iets kapotgaat, zorgen we er met het team voor dat we snel weer verder kunnen. Dat hebben we vorig jaar bij de Breskens Sailing Weekend nog laten zien toen de voorstag brak.” Talenten leren van zeilontwerpers Goed omspringen met het materiaal is ook het Van Uden team, onder leiding van Gerd-Jan Poortman, niet vreemd. De drievoudig deelnemer aan de Ocean Race is coach en schipper aan boord van de KER 46, waarmee 13 veelbelovende young professionals hun eerste stappen in het grote boten circuit zetten. Poortman: “Dit initiatief is geïnitieerd door KR&ZV De Maas om succesvolle dinghy zeilers een springplank te bieden. Zij zijn immers de ambassadeurs van de toekomst. We worden enorm geholpen door de industrie. Zo is North Sails een van onze partners en daar zijn we erg blij mee. Vooral met het 3Di principe dat zij leveren. Dat is exceptioneel goed. Het is zo duurzaam dat je met één set de wereld rond kan. Voor ons als team een uitkomst, want we hebben een gelimiteerd budget.” Ondanks dat het pas de zesde keer was dat de jongeren deelnamen aan een ‘grote boten evenement’, ging het Van Uden team met de North Sea Regatta overwinning in de ORC 1 aan de haal. “Waanzinnig knap,” aldus hun coach. “We hebben iedere wedstrijd goed gepresteerd, zowel inshore als offshore laten zien dat we de disciplines beheersen en het opgenomen tegen zeer ervaren teams. Trainen en teamwork is echt key, maar ook kennis opdoen. North Sails is een bewezen voorloper op het gebied van ontwikkeling en design. We hebben veel contact met de ontwerper over het design van de zeilen. Er wordt echt de tijd genomen om alles uit te leggen aan het team. Deze ervaringen kan de jeugd meenemen. Dat ze dat ook doen, bewijst deze overwinning.” Vasthouden aan het plan, later evalueren Ondanks dat er op de maandag niet werd gevaren, waren de vijf gevaren races wel voldoende voor een geldig kampioenschap in de ORC 1 en ORC 2. In de ORC 3 was dat niet het geval vanwege te weinig deelnemers; drie in plaats van de benodigde tien boten. Hoewel winnaar Kees Keetels dat betreurt, is hij nog steeds regerend Nederlands Kampioen in de ORC 3, aangezien hij tijdens de laatste editie de titel in de wacht sleepte. Kees Keetels vaart op zijn A-31, de CSi Rakker, met een vast team van vrienden en familie. “We maken er een feestje van, maar proberen toch mee te doen met de top.” Hoewel dat heel ontspannen klinkt, zit er de nodige effort in het team. “Niemand uit ons team zeilt van jongs af aan. We zijn allemaal theoretische mensen en bespreken graag met de zeilmaker de range van de zeilen. Op die manier halen we kennis van buiten naar binnen. Bij de Van Uden Reco race konden we de nummer één niet bijhouden. Dat hebben we toen besproken met Jacco Huijgen van North Sails en hebben we geleerd van zijn commentaar.” Alle kennis noteert Keetels in ‘hun bijbel’. “Vooraf kijken we; wat hebben we genoteerd bij deze condities? En achteraf bespreken we hoe we alles nog verder kunnen verbeteren en leggen we dat vast. Daardoor weet iedereen precies wat ie moet doen tijdens de wedstrijd. Goede ideeën zijn altijd welkom, maar niet tijdens de race. Dat kunnen we volgende keer uittesten. Op die manier zijn we langzaam omhoog gekrabbeld, maar deze NSR was wel uitzonderlijk, aangezien we alle wedstrijden hebben gewonnen. Dat was ons nog nooit gelukt!” Team Extra Djinn - foto: Twirre Bogaard READ MORE

Three new North Sails World Champions, just one place short of a sweep for the nine podium positions and all achieved at one regatta, the Swan One Design Worlds in Valencia.  READ MORE

BLACK STAR WINS GC32 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP IN EXCITING FINALE Christian Zuerrer Improves Upon 2021 Performance to Top the Podium 📸 Sailing Energy The GC32 World Championship in Lagos, Portugal, July 13-17, saw ten teams on the line to battle it out for the title. Three new teams joined the GC32 Racing Tour for its top event of the year: two newSailGP teams, K-Challenge Team France and Team Canada, as well as a new Polish campaign: Piotr Harasimowicz’s HRM Racing Team that would boost the owner-driver competition. Additionally, due to America’s Cup commitments, stand-out GC32 skipper, Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s Arnaud Psarofaghis, was unavailable to race the Worlds, handing it over to 24-year-old Maxime Bachelin. This leveled the playing field – would the contenders to the Swiss throne be Team Rockwool Racing or top owner-driver Erik Maris and Zoulou, who had podiumed in the pre-Worlds three weeks earlier? Ultimately the field consisted of ten teams from seven nations competing at the GC32 Worlds, including Simon Delzoppo’s .film AUS Racing from Australia and USA’s Jason Carroll’s Argo, with Paul Goodison calling tactics. Despite predictions, on the opening day there was a surprise stand-out team: the GC32 newbies on K-Challenge Team France, skippered by Nacra 17 Olympian Quentin Delapierre. The team scored three bullets in five races, despite the mix of reaching and upwind starts, with conditions that started light but built to 20 knots. The increased winds enabled the nimble flying catamarans to reach speeds up to 30 knots. 📸 Sailing Energy In the five races held the following day, the French SailGP team was again the lowest scoring team, and at the halfway point held a solid 10 point lead. However at this point a new star was already on the ascent and it was Black. Christian Zuerrer’s Black Star Sailing Team is unique for being a privately-owned team with Zuerrer trimming main, leaving Kiwi match racer Chris Steele to helm. The team joined the GC32 Racing Tour in 2019 and stepped up to reach the podium in 2021. Day two of the GC32 World Championship saw this Swiss team win two races, however they struggled to find consistency, but this would not be the case for the final two days. The second half of the Worlds was held mostly in sub-10 knot conditions yet still provided top level competition. At this point the GC32 World Championship became a two horse race between the French and Swiss and even Alinghi Red Bull Racing was struggling to keep up. Over the next seven races, the two previously mentioned stand-out teams won every race save one which was taken by Team Tilt, skippered by Sebastien Schneiter. It wasn’t until the penultimate race that Black Star Sailing Team took the lead overall, sealing the deal by winning the final race as a technical issue caused the French leaders to plummet to ninth. Black Star Sailing Team became the fourth GC32 World Champions as Erik Maris’ Zoulou won the Owner-Driver trophy. “We are very proud of the association between the GC32 Racing Tour and North Sails, as its official supplier,” said Paul Westlake. “We are pleased to see this top level, high energy racing circuit for foiling catamarans continuing to thrive.” The GC32 Racing Tour will conclude with its final 2022 event in October. 📸 Sailing Energy READ MORE

North Sails and Sea Bags teamed up on a sustainability initiative to divert retired sails from the landfill and pave the way for the sailing community to collectively reduce waste. READ MORE

One Week to go to Cowes Week 2022 Photo Credit: James Tomlinson / Cape 31 UK Cowes Week, aptly named after its host town in the Isle of White, is one of the world's longest running and most successful sporting events. The regatta has been held in early August every year since 1826, except during the two World Wars and is a key highlight of the British sailing summer. It’s the range from classic and cruising yachts to the high performance designs of the moment that gives Cowes Week its uniqueness. The spectacle the racing provides along the foreshore of the town and the vibrant festival atmosphere attracts not only sailors from around the world but thousands of visitors to Cowes during the event. With over 300 boats entered in this year's Cowes Week, the event is on track to be the biggest in recent years; the XOD class has had the largest early entry with 35 teams. All 21 One Design classes are also starting to stack up including 18 Cape 31’s, 29 J70’s, as well as Performance Cruiser and Club Cruiser classes and seven IRC classes. The class to watch is the New Cape 31 class with over 20 boats on the start line. We’re proud to be supporting some of our local North Sails team members across the fleets including; Ben Saxton on Cape 31 Tokoloshe, the current UK 31 Race Circuit leader, Ronan Grealish and the Harrison Family sailing their new Cape 31 to match their TP52 Jolt and finally, Mike Henning competing for the Overall Cowes Week Cup on board HH42, INO XXX. North Sails newest team member Ian Walker will be christening his first week at North by joining North Sails expert Ruaridh Wright and long-standing North customer Ian Atkins on Dark n’ Stormy a GP42. The team will be following up on their Overall win at the Round the Island Race that took place at the end of June. One to also watch is Yes! (JPK1080), long standing North Sails customer Adam Gosling who has been racing at Cowes Week for over three decades. In various yachts, all called Yes!, Adam is one of the most successful skippers in the 192 year history of the regatta, winning his class on 15 occasions and Black Group overall on four occasions. He missed out on the class win by one point to fellow North Customer David Frank on J112e Leon last year... Will he get back on his winning streak this year? Our North Sails team will also be providing North Sails Certified Service during the regatta at the North Sails Cowes Loft in Cowes Yacht Haven. North Sails service expert James Hobson will be on site to assist with all your sail care needs during the regatta. The legacy of this long-standing regatta is based in world-class racing, but it’s also a wonderfully social week where friends old and new come together to support the sailors, discuss innovation and have fun in a great mix of social activities. Keep up to date with the North Sails Victory List to see how your favorite North Sails expert or team is fairing throughout the week. READ MORE

EVENT SPOTLIGHT: VYC REGATTA North Sails Smooths The Water For Annual Regatta The 2022 Vernon Yacht Club Regatta was a great success with 26 boats and well over 100 sailors participating from 4 clubs, including Penticton, Summerland, Kelowna, and Vernon. Some great winds picked up the racer’s spirits on Friday afternoon during the pre-regatta Rum Race from Whiskey Island to the Vernon Yacht Club. Budd Callis and crew on Controlled Skid (Penticton) took the prize. Regular regatta racing on Saturday and Sunday had more subdued winds and lots of liquid sunshine but spirits were high. Lyle Enns on Mystique (Vernon), with his brand new North Sails headsail took 1st place in the Santana fleet. Danny Foster on Shadowfax (Kelowna) took 1st in A fleet, and Harvey Ryll on Wildfire (Summerland) took 1st in C fleet. This year’s regatta committee encouraged more relaxed racers to join in a white sail fleet and Gerard Obbema on Quintessence (Summerland) took 1st in the fleet of 8. Congratulations to Harvey Ryll on Wildfire who won the overall award. No regatta is complete without the competitors feeling the thrill of a big win. Sometimes that win comes with a trophy for top notch racing, but for many it’s that anticipation that their winning ticket will let them head home with a goody that will come in handy for their next sailing adventure. During the awards ceremony most participants don’t walk to the podium to receive a 1st place finish, but they sure love taking part in the afternoon ceremony when the North Sails and Nautical Sailing Services swag is presented to lucky door prize winners. This year Drew Mitchell and the North Sails crew in Vancouver came up big by providing the Vernon Yacht Club Regatta with hats, belts, shirts, croakies and water bottles that will help keep these competitors coming back for future events. This years Vernon Regatta was not the windiest or the driest, but all the competitors had high praise for the camaraderie and also for the value they received for their entry fee. The extra value provided by the generosity of North Sails, Nautical Sailing Services and other fine community supporters helped make the VYC Regatta a big success. READ MORE

Nanushka Forestay Sailing Team 2022-es versenyszezonra a testek frissítése, újrafestésével párhuzamban tervezte lecserélni a teljes vitorlakészletét. Vitorlák beszerzésében a csapat komoly tapasztalata és a kompromisszum mentes hozzáállás volt a döntő. NORTH SAILS 3Di kompozit vitorlákra esett a választásuk. Csapat: Horváth Áron, Botos Bálint, Várady-Szabó János, Petheő Tamás, Lukáts Csaba, Jankovics Gábor. 📸NANUSHKA FORESTAY SAILING TEAM READ MORE

EVENT SPOTLIGHT: CATGURU RENDEZVOUS Weekend of Fun and Learning with North Sails Expert Bob Meagher After a two-year COVID hiatus, Stephen and Estelle Cockcroft of Catamaran Guru reinvigorated their Abacos catamaran Rendezvous and attracted 27 catamarans to rally to and through the northeastern Bahamas last month. Naturally, North Sails jumped in with North Sails multihull expert Bob Meagher arriving on a Monday evening when the party was just winding down. Tuesday morning featured a short distance race with a 10:00 start off of White Sound, with the fleet of 25 cats flying a variety of sails to catch the southwest breeze. Boats flew sails in the widest range of configurations, with winged genoas and mains, gull-winged genoas and screechers, asymmetrical spinnakers sheeted to either side off either bow, with mainsails doused, reefed, or full depending on how each crew thought they’d serve best. Meagher chased them all, offering trim tips to each competitor, guiding them through experimenting with different setups, commenting "rallies like this are about learning: by doing it and seeing what works, by watching others, and from outside advice." A dying breeze gave the race committee time to restock with ice before shortening the course to enable an on-time happy hour at Grabbers on Guana Cay. Continued light breezes forced a leisurely motor sail the next day to Green Turtle Cay, home of the Bluff House, as the evening's host. But first, there was more learning to be had! Half the fleet gathered aboard Zuri, the Cockcroft's own Bali 5.4, where Meagher led a hands-on class in setting, sailing, and dousing asymmetrical spinnakers. Almost two dozen people participated. “Our goal with this annual rendezvous is two-fold. We lead our group on our own cruising catamaran to the islands to help them gain confidence and to show our boat owners a good time. But more importantly, we invite our industry colleagues like Bob, to help educate the boat owners on how to operate certain components of their boats and therefore better enjoy their boats. Bob did not disappoint and we are very grateful to North Sails and Bob for generously donating his time and expertise.“ The fleet capped off the week with the awards party ashore at Bluff House. Rick Walker's Voyage 430 Endangered Species claimed first prize in the previous day’s races (using a rare thing on a cat - a spinnaker pole!), and other prizes were awarded for more… creative competitions when the sun went down. All-in-all, the Catamaran Guru Rendezvous highlighted the best about sailing: fun with friends, and learning to improve. North Sails was happy to help with both. READ MORE

NORTH SAILS & SORC CONTINUE PARTNERSHIP North Sails Chosen As Official Performance Partner of 2022-2023 Edition North Sails is pleased to announce its continued partnership with Southern Ocean Racing Conference for the 2022-2023 edition. The series consists of four distance races that draw a fleet from across the country and includes a range of yachts from super maxis to corinthian cruisers. The series prides itself on accessibility for a wide variety of sailors and offers storied races from South Florida to destinations like Key West, Nassau, Palm Beach, and Cape Canaveral. North Sails will continue to work with participants to help them prepare and plan for the series of four races. As the Official Performance Partner, North Sails experts will be offering measurement days across the South East lofts and an educational webinar on ORC Ratings. The measurement days will provide participants an opportunity to discuss their inventory with North Sails experts and how to optimize their rating, have their sails measured and drop them off for any necessary pre-race service. Stay tuned for dates and timing. “SORC is a fabled brand that continues to challenge sailors of all skill levels today. This initiative helps teams plan for first class winter sailing and get the most out of their sails,” shares North Sails expert Bob Meagher. As the industry leader, North Sails is committed to helping clients achieve success whether it’s their first race or thirtieth. We look forward to supporting SORC participants in their journey throughout the 2022- 2023 SORC series. READ MORE

BLUEBOTTLE – THE QUEEN’S DRAGON Racing Royalty: 74-Year Old Classic Races 2022 Dragon World Championships 📸 Tom Körber “Take the measurement certificate, for example, it says the owner, and it’s… well, Her Majesty the Queen. So, when you go to the regatta office to register and they’re looking at it… they’re taking photographs and they can’t believe it.” The speaker was Graham Bailey, and we were talking about Bluebottle, the 74-year old classic that he had just helped Ruairidh (Rory) Scott – a leading designer with North One Design – sail to a fifth place at the 2022 Dragon Worlds in Germany. Bluebottle was a wedding gift from the Island Sailing Club to the-then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip in 1948. She was raced by the Royal couple, and others – winning bronze at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne in the hands of Graham Mann – before being retired from racing in 1961. Bluebottle spent the next forty years at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. “I’m told that no cadet dare use her for fear of pranging her,” said Bailey. “So, she was sort of a precious, unusable item… until she was taken in by the National Maritime Museum in Cornwall.” It was Bob Downie, the far-sighted CEO of The Royal Yacht Britannia Trust that rescued her and brought her back to the racetrack. Downie was already responsible for the remarkable second life of the Royal Yacht Britannia, now a superb tourist attraction in Edinburgh, and home to two other royal yachts, the ocean racer Bloodhound, and the Flying Fifteen, Coweslip. Downie was given custodianship of Bluebottle, and this is where Bailey – a long-time Dragon devotee – came into the picture. “He was seeking guidance on who best to restore her,” said Bailey. It was David Heritage Racing Yachts of Cowes that got the job. The question was, how complete a restoration should be undertaken? “They kept on referring to the Duke,” explained Bailey, “and he kept on saying, ‘Well, yes, if we’re going to restore her, we might as well restore her properly, not just to be on display again in another museum… Let’s put her into sailing condition.’” And then sailing condition became racing condition, and slowly the plan was hatched to get Bluebottle back on the water where she belonged. At the front of the world’s Dragon fleets. 📸 Tom Körber 📸 Tom Körber Sadly, the passing of the Duke of Edinburgh in April 2021 meant that he never got to see his beautifully restored Dragon, but the loss of the Duke didn’t change the plan. Bailey and his wife Julia were asked by the Palace to race her – to take the Duke of Edinburgh’s boat to the Edinburgh Cup in Edinburgh. “She was last raced in 1961, it was a full 60 years until she crossed a start line ,” explained Bailey, after they came third at the event last summer. It was such a success that the team decided to go to the Worlds. “Rory kindly agreed to come with us… he’s about the hottest property in Dragon racing at the moment,” said Bailey. “He’s just won the Europeans and has had stunning successes whatever he’s done.” “We’d never sailed together as a team or at all, or on that boat… and no one had a clue how we would go,” explained Scott. “We opened with a 22nd or something like that, and then from that point on, all our results were top ten.” “I can’t understate Rory’s contribution to getting her rolling,” said Bailey. “The first couple of races, we weren’t really able to hold a lane… but we fiddled about for a couple of days, and then all of a sudden, we started hitting some sweet spots.” “We put all our standard sails on it,” said Scott. “We have a light, a medium, and a heavy genoa, our latest R5 Spinnaker, and they already had a mainsail, which was the A7. We offer two designs, a deeper one (A7) and a flatter one (A14). And this was the deeper one, which suited that boat very well because the mast was pretty soft. “We managed to get in a position where we were one of five boats going into the last race that was capable of winning. And as it was, it didn’t go our way,” added Scott. They got a black flag in the final race. “At least we were pushing to do our best,” he concluded. “It was a pretty cool experience, to be asked and to be involved.” Finishing fifth, Bluebottle’s result – at the grand old age of 74 – was the icing on the cake, with North Sails powering the top three overall. There is little doubt that Bluebottle is a very special Dragon. “We were packing the boat up and an elderly gentleman turns up on his bike. He’s cycled from the next village because he’d been reading in the newspapers about Bluebottle and he wanted to see her himself,” recalled Bailey. “She’s got her own charisma.” 📸 Tom Körber READ MORE

#NSVICTORYLIST: VENDÉE ARCTIQUE Familiar Faces Crowd the Podium After 1200 NM Cold Weather Course Dalin, Beyou, Ruyant. By now, these names are likely familiar to you, and if not, don’t fret; North Sails will help get you up to speed. The top three boats completed the 1200 nm Vendée Arctique course a short four days after they first departed on June 12th. Dalin’s Apivia was first to finish, a trend that’s becoming a habit for the solo skipper. If you remember, Dalin was also the first boat to complete the grueling 2020-21 Vendee Globe and then followed it up with a first-place finish in the 2021 Rolex Fastnet Race. Charal’s Jérémie Beyou and LinkedOut’s Thomas Ruyant closely followed Dalin, with the top three Vendée Arctique finishers arriving into Les Sable d’ Olonne within seven hours of each other. The Vendée Arctique is the first of five qualifying races for the 2024 Vendée Globe. The planned course is a demanding loop course that takes competitors on an unprecedented sailing adventure into an arctic environment. The skippers set off single-handed and non-stop towards the Arctic Circle, expected to sail around Iceland and navigate through the weather systems in the rough seas of the far north before returning to the race’s home port in France. But the weather conditions proved more challenging than expected for the 2022 edition. Race officials determined a strong low-pressure system in the North Atlantic near Iceland was churning to be more dangerous than first forecasted. As a result, the race was shortened and the finish moved to the Iceland Gate – to the east of Iceland. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Vendée Arctique (@vendeearctique) Of the 25 skippers participating in the 2022 race, 16 are Vendée Globe veterans, and they’ve chosen North Sails to help them deliver the results they and their sponsors expect. The North Sails team knows that sailors have a choice among sailmakers. Our market share within the IMOCA class is a result of the best people paired with the best product and a competitive spirit that never quits. “Innovation and going beyond is the North Sails DNA,” remarked Gautier Segrent, Head of North Sails France. “Our presence in the IMOCA class is because of years of intensive development that translates into three main elements; our investment in the creation of innovative products such as 3Di and Helix Structured Luff; our strong involvement and North Design Suite software available to the design teams from the very first drafts; and finally, our hands-on support for custom projects to best meet the expectations of the teams.” A longtime collaborator with the individual teams, North Sails stepped up their support and signed on as an official supplier for the 2022 Vendée Arctique. North Sails France Managing Director Philippe Touet commented: “The North Sails involvement as an official supplier of the Vendée Arctique is closely linked to our relationship with the racers of the Vendée Arctique and the Vendée Globe; the two major offshore races organized by the Vendée SAEM. These events are both the playground and a testing ground for North Sails. So partnering with the Vendée SAEM in the second edition of this race was an obvious choice.” The next edition of the Vendée Globe commences in November 2024. These next two years will see sailors putting their boats through the paces and testing their equipment to its limits. Their onboard experiences will provide critical feedback for the North Sails design team to continually tweak and optimize the IMOCA sail inventories. They often say you win races before you even reach the start line, and with the first event completed, the race is on. READ MORE

#NSVICTORYLIST: SUPERYACHT CUP PALMA North-Powered Superyachts Sweep Podium & Ganesha Claims Winner Overall With all but one of the participating superyachts outfitted with North Sails, we knew the Superyacht Cup Palma would bring a handful of new entries to the #NSVictoryList, but in what combination? The event came down to the last race of the regatta, and in the end, Ganesha claimed Overall victory in addition to her Class B win. J Class Svea won the J Class division while Kiboko Tres took the top spot amongst the A Class. “It was a bit of a surprise win, and we certainly weren’t expecting it, either the class or the overall,” commented Ganesha skipper Alex Pamment. “It was very, very close. Yesterday we came second by one second, but today the weather gods were with us, and we were able to get a result. The tacticians had it tough, but we were able to make the right calls.” The Superyacht Cup Palma is one of the most anticipated regattas on the superyacht summer calendar. This year’s event saw eleven yachts competing across three classes with nine North Sails experts onboard throughout the fleet. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Superyacht Cup Palma (@thesuperyachtcuppalma) Superyacht Sales Leader Jens Christensen and Palma-based Mark Salder sailed on Ganesha. North Sails Palma Service Manager Tom Webb stepped off the loft floor to join the Savannah crew, who claimed second in Class B. The J Class Svea bolstered their race crew with recent North addition Bouwe Bekking, Grand Prix Sales Leader Paul Westlake, and Superyacht Leader Quinny Houry. The Superyacht Cup is Svea’s first regatta under a new ownership group, and the rumor on the dock is that they trained hard in the days leading up to the event. “We are thrilled, delighted to have won our class – we are over the moon,” said Svea co-owner Niklas Zennström. “We came to this event having put in a training week before to get to know it, as many of us have never sailed a J Class before. To win the class is very special, much more than we expected as this was going to be a learning regatta.” 📸 Sailing Energy Also scattered across the J Class division, Heine Sorensen, sailmaker to Topaz, was on board to see his work in action and was joined by North colleague Eckard Kaller. Meanwhile, Tom Dodson from North Sails New Zealand assumed his established race crew position with Velsheda. North Sails is a longtime sponsor of the Superyacht Cup Palma. Whether onboard with clients or dockside with the Palma-based service team, this is an all-hands-on-deck event. Additionally, our sister-companies Southern Spars and North Actionsports, joined us to support the regatta. North Sails teamed up with Southern to host the post-racing social event on Thursday, and each of the three podium positions was gifted one of the recently launched North Standup Paddleboards. A huge thank you to the event organizers who power through long days to ensure this event runs smoothly. See you in 2023. 📸 Sailing Energy READ MORE

AUSTRALIA’S JOHN BACON – FROM 5.5M SAILOR TO IRC RACER Taking on the World With North Sails World Champion yachtsman John Bacon has arranged many successful racing programs together, and his next few months of sailing is no exception. With a range of sailing projects on the go, John’s also contesting two exciting regattas in two vastly different racing yachts on two continents in the next month: the 5.5m World Championships in Hanko, Norway, and the Rolex New York Yacht Club Race Week in Rhode Island, USA on his new Dunning 44. Stepping Up in Sydney Growing up on the water, John had always sailed with his family and friends. However it wasn’t until a change of scene to Sydney’s Pittwater that gave the yachtsman a push into the racing side of the sport, and after crewing on various yachts, he realized it was about time to pull together his own team. “I enjoyed crewing, but I really liked steering – and I thought the only way I’d do any steering is to buy a boat. So, I started with a little boat and began to upgrade and work my way up through a series of different boats and ended up at the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club (RPA). I was happy doing keel boat handicap racing and had a pretty nice Sydney 39 and it was a pretty good IRC boat where we did really well in that. That’s where I started to get involved with North Sails, with getting better sails and crew with that boat. I’ve used North Sails from the get go in all my campaigns, and now, it’s never a question of using anything else.” Jumping into One Design racing with a McConaghy 38, John knew the next step was to assemble a competitive program to race against the best. “I got to know David Sampson and Cameron Miles, and although we knew each other already, we got to form a really tight-knit team together at RPA, and just loved it! We’ve had a great relationship with Norths through the MC38 program and it was never a question of using anything else. We sailed that boat for 10 years everywhere! We did every regatta, and I think we won one nationals and came second a few times.” The Challenge of 5.5m Sailing The 5.5m development class all race on the same start line, however the fleet is scored in three divisions according to their age, as Classics, Evolutions, and Moderns. The Evolution is where John saw his next pursuit as the world championships were coming to his home waters in Australia. “As my time started to free up I was doing less work, I got interested in the 5.5m. I really loved the concept of 5.5ms and was really drawn into it. The boats are all different, it’s all in a box rule. They’ve got different designers, different sail plans, as one boat may be good on a Swiss Lake, whereas another one is really good at the Baltic. They’ve all got this character of their own.” “We bought an old Evolution boat in Europe, in the 1973 to 1993 division, and we thought we’d go sail it and do the German Open Regatta, but the poor boat was a wreck, so I got a mate of mine over in Europe to completely restore it for the worlds in 2019 in Helsinki as a bit of a practice. Terry Wetton, James Mayjor and I formed this really nice team, and we ended up winning both regattas, it was just amazing.” “After the 2019 worlds, we brought the boat back to Australia, and RPA was hosting the worlds in January 2020, so instead of trying to win it at our home club we had to defend our title. And we did! From Evolution to Modern John’s decided to level up and compete in the main Modern division for the upcoming 2022 5.5 metre World Championship in Hanko, but the change in division is all the same racing for him and his team. “Everyone’s on the same start line. You’ve got boats that could be up to 70 years old on the line with new modern styles. So within the fleet, it’s actually a really interesting strategic point of view among the divisions, as the speed differential between the divisions is not that much. With 5.5ms it’s actually about the equipment.” When discussing the North Sails inventory, John’s vision for the development of his team includes tweaking and recutting the North Sails designs to suit the racing conditions he expects. “We’ve done some fantastic work with Darren Jones, our coach, working with Alby Pratt and the designers on coming up with some really nice sails. We’ve gone away a little from the One Design sails, and we’ve got a full wardrobe of 3Di sails. But we’ve looked at some light air paneled sails as well as an option, which is a work in progress that we’re going to look at in Hanko.” When asked about how quickly the class progresses, John’s passion for the project shines through. “There are a couple of new sails turning up for us, and the good thing about 5.5m is that it’s a development class. You get to push the development of the class further each time you make a change, and I really like that. It’s good and when you turn up with something a bit different and it works for you, it’s fantastic!” Where John has spent the most time developing are with his spinnakers, optimizing the inventory for the class minimum and maximum wind speeds for racing, between 4 and 25 knots, allowing him to extend the crossover of the larger spinnaker and remove the smaller spinnaker completely from the boat. “North Sails has been amazing and we’ve got a great relationship. It’s fundamental to what we’re doing with the program, so we’ve got some nice new sails meeting us when we get over there and we’re looking forward to getting out there on the water.” New Project for Race Week in Newport Racing his Dunning 44 at 2022 Rolex New York Yacht Club Race Week fits perfectly into the packed schedule John has planned for this year, but he hasn’t yet seen the boat he plans to race with his international crew of mates looking to have fun. “We had an opportunity to buy a Dunning 44 in Newport, Rhode Island, called The Edge. And I love it there. We haven’t travelled for the last couple of years, and the Rolex New York Yacht Club Race Week regatta is on in July this year, originally we didn’t think we could fit it in, but it fits perfectly as it’s the week after.” “It’s going to be a bit of a scramble, and somewhere we talked Ken Read into doing tactics for us, and Suzy Leech is navigating too. So I’m going to be surrounded by all these absolute legends. And then we look at the entry list, and it’s the who’s who of big boat racing.” “I am where I am in sailing because of the relationships I’ve got with people, and I really respect that and am really grateful for it. And I am a North Sails customer, but you get more than the sails, you get everything. The development, the help with that development, the backup, the support, and you know if we blow a spinnaker up in Norway, I guarantee you we can get it fixed.” “So we’re working with the North Sails loft in Newport for the Dunning 44. The boat’s brand new, it’s only done two regattas. The sails that are coming with the boat are okay, but we want to keep moving, so we’ve ordered another North Sails spinnaker and a medium jib, and we’re doing a recut of the main to a more specific design that Ken Read has been part of. The boat’s got lots of potential but it’s going to be another massive challenge to sail against some of the competition we’re up against, but we’ll see!” Offshore Sailing on the Horizon John also played an integral part in the launch of the first Farr X2, owning the first of the newly designed short handed yachts to Australia to help get the project underway. “The Farr X2 is going well. We recently sailed it from Sydney Harbour up to RPAYC in Pittwater. For me, I really love the projects, and I got involved with Bret Perry and the guys, and I thought this was a project that needed to start happening.” However, John isn’t planning on sailing the Farr X2 himself in the short term, as he’s given it to two young female sailors to launch their double handed offshore racing campaign. “I’d done a two handed campaign with David Sampson before, and then Alice Tarnawski came to me and said she wanted to do some two-handed female sailing, and the timing for the Farr X2 to be built worked out well. It was something that was a really cool project to do, and Alice and Clare Costanzo have teamed up and are one hundred percent into it!” “I’ve got a lot on myself so I’ve kind of said to the girls it’s their project, and they’re going to race it in the Sydney to Gold Coast race, so we’re doing everything we can to get them to Hobart. In the meantime I’m looking forward to doing a bit of offshore sailing in it for sure, but the main program is to get Alice and Clare to Southport and then get them on the start line to Hobart on Boxing Day.” READ MORE

#NSVICTORYLIST: 2022 ROLEX GIRAGLIA North Sails Clients Dominate at the 69th Edition of this Classic Event 📸 ROLEX / Carlo Borlenghi Founded in 1953, to help unite the French and Italian sailing communities post World War 2, the Giraglia has retained a distinct Franco-Italian spirit, while attracting an international fleet with typically over 200 yachts from more than 25 countries. The headline act at the Rolex Giraglia is the 241-nautical mile (446km) offshore race from Saint-Tropez to Genoa, Italy, via the Giraglia rock located approximately 1 nm (2km) off the northern tip of Corsica. In keeping with a number of great races, the Giraglia rock is used as a symbolic turning mark. Sanremo to Saint-Tropez Race: The first North Sails victory was in the first racing scheduled, where the 56 yachts competed in the Sanremo – Saint-Tropez distance race, with a midnight start. After 15 hours of slow sailing, the Felci 71 Itacentodue, owned by Adriano Calvini, crossed the finish line in Saint-Tropez to claim line honors. All the boats in the top spots of the first act of the Giraglia carried a full North Sails sail inventory. Saint-Tropez Inshore Races: Following the first event, the Gulf of Saint-Tropez once again lived up to its reputation as a fantastic regatta venue, with excellent weather conditions allowing the event’s 3-day inshore racing to take place without a hitch. While the maxi yachts competed on windward-leeward courses off the beaches of Pampelonne, the rest of the boats battled on coastal routes. Wind conditions were consistent throughout the regatta, with an initial easterly breeze of 6 knots increasing over the course of the event, and fairly flat seas. #NSVictoryList: Final results from the Maxi race course in Pampelonne after 4 races are: IRC0: Jethou, owned by Peter Ogden, dominated in the IRC0 class. (1,1,1,1); IRC2: Capricorno, owned by Alessandro Del Bono (1,1,1,1); ORC0: Leaps & Bounds 2, owned by Jean Philippe Blanpain (1,1,1,1). For the ORC and IRC groups, the results after 3 inshore races are as follows: IRC 1: Daguet 3 – Ker 46 owned by Frederic Puzin (12,2,2); ORC 1: From Now On – Swan 45 owned by Fernando Chain (4,1,1) 📸 ROLEX / Carlo Borlenghi Saint-Tropez to Genoa Offshore Race: June 15th was the start of the iconic offshore race, the headline act at the Rolex Giraglia. The forecast, which called for light winds, prompted the race committee to shorten the regular 241-nautical mile (446km) course by 35-nm. A decision which afforded the majority of the fleet a greater opportunity to finish the race ahead of the Saturday morning cut-off time. 105 of the competing boats were able to complete the race in the allotted time. In the spirit that has always defined the Rolex Giraglia, these predominantly Corinthian crews demonstrated their ability to confront the challenge with patience and skill. Setting blistering speeds is often the prerogative of the maxi yachts competing at this event. The frontrunners included three former line honors winners, ARCA SGR (triumphant in 2021 and with North Sail designer Michele Malandra among the crew), Magic Carpet Cubed (2013 and 2016) and Tango (2018). Their hopes of overturning the race record set in 2012 (just under 15 hours) were immediately thwarted by the forecast. Ultimately, the 69th edition produced the slowest line honors time since 2009. Although a thrilling tactical battle did ensue between some of the world’s most experienced and skilled navigators. The tempo of the race provided the opportunity for more considered tactical discussions across teams and an emphasis on maximizing every wind gust. The light breeze was not the only hurdle faced in this year’s edition, the last stretch to the finish line in Genoa is notoriously difficult to negotiate. Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones and his Magic Carpet Cubed team (with North Sails expert Gigio Russo and recent hire Ian Walker onboard) have experienced its highs and lows. Just a few nautical miles from the finish line and having trailed ARCA SGR from the race’s emblematic turning point, the Giraglia rock, the Magic Carpet Cubed crew mustered their considerable race pedigree, positioning themselves at the better wind angle to propel themselves into first place. The Wallycento completed the course in an elapsed time of 34 hours, seven minutes and 17 seconds. ARCA SGR navigator Malandra commented, “After rounding the Giraglia islet 9 seconds behind MC3 and having led most of the regatta, the Giraglia proved that it is never predictable. We have always sailed very well, even with a boat designed for other wind conditions, but after the refit by Shaun Carkeek, she proved to be reborn. Thanks to our new North sail inventory and the 5-meter taller mast, we have considerably increased the sail area of the boat. However, we missed the two landings (in Giraglia and Genoa) of which the second is fundamental! But we are satisfied to have sailed fast and to honor the winners.” 📸 ROLEX / Carlo Borlenghi READ MORE

DARK ’N’ STORMY’S ALL ROUND From Dinghy Sailing to Roaring Around The Solent on a GP42 Photo © Paul Wyeth Fresh from his triple triumph at this year's Round the Island Race taking Monohull Line Honours, winning IRC Zero and the race overall we caught up with Ian Atkins, owner of GP42 Dark ’N’ Stormy, long standing North Sails customer and sailing enthusiast. From learning to sail in a Mirror dinghy from Hamble River Sailing Club in the 60’s to roaring around the Solent on GP42 Dark ’N’ Stormy (ex Jean Genie) in 2022; Ian has had quite the sailing career. Born and brought up in Hamble, England, Ian sparked his love for sailing as a kid on the Hamble River with dinghies. His love for sailing morphed into his career when he joined the North Sails team in the early 80’s. After a few years at North and making some great connections, Ian joined and subsequently ran yacht sales company Ancasta. He spent the next 10-15 years in the sales business whilst also sailing professionally both inshore and offshore on various race boats. Ian was also heavily involved with Beneteau race boats as they came onto the scene. Off the water, in 2000 Ian was one of the founders of online marketplace, boats.com. On the water he was campaigning a series of small one design boats. With stints in a 1720, J80 and J70 Ian built up a series of good results with his own teams. Several J80 and J70 Nationals wins and a fourth at the J70 World Championships in 2015 were the highlights for the team. After 2 years out of the game, while selling his business, Ian came back wondering what his next steps were. Fast forward to 2019, Ian put his sights towards the new IC37 One-Design. Along with Nick Griffifths and Ancasta, they purchased the first IC37 with the goal of it being promoted as a One Design class. Whilst racing around in the IC37 having a great time, they kept being overtaken by Fast 40s, which sparked the idea of the Fast 40. Ian reflected, “if I’m going to go big boat sailing I need one of those” so he bought Peter Morton’s Jean Genie in October 2021. He renamed her Dark ’N’ Stormy after his team’s favorite post race tipple. Whilst Ian explained that 2022 is about “getting to know the boat, and learning how to sail it,” the team has already been getting some top results. From literally taking home the chocolates at the Royal Ocean Racing Club Easter Challenge (the prizes being chocolate easter eggs) to being runner up to Niklas Zennström’s Ran at the 2022 IRC National Championships, it’s fair to say that the team has gotten to know the boat pretty well. With the recent Round the Island victory to top it off the only way is up for Ian and his crew. Dark 'N' Stormy crew after their Round the Island Race Victory. North Sails team members Ruaridh Wright (right), Ian Walker (second from left), Jono Macbeth (third from the left). Photo © Paul Wyeth Ian has accredited the developments behind this success to boat Captain Nick Bonner, Ian Walker and Ruaridh Wright at North Sails, “I’m delighted to have got Ian Walker to come sailing with us and even more delighted that he committed to the whole season with us. Knowing that his new North Sails career will probably take him all over the planet, we're lucky to have the opportunity whilst it was available. Ruaridh Wright is our upwind trimmer and crew boss - he does a great job of making the boat go fast too. We are lucky in having the North expertise we have on board.” The next key event for the team is Cowes Week where Ian will be adding two new Helix Jibs and a spinnaker to his current full North Sails inventory. The team also hopes to be on the start line at the IRC Europeans in Holland later this year. North Sails is proud to have been a part of both Ian’s career and his sailing campaigns over the years and looks forward to following his progress in the future. To speak with Sail Expert Ruaridh Wright about maximizing your sail inventory, get in touch today. Photo © Paul Wyeth READ MORE

NORTH SAILS CONTINUES SUPPORT OF J CUP REGATTA Key Yachting J Cup Regatta Outlook Davanti Tyres, J112 - Landsail Tyres J-Cup - photo © Paul Wyeth The 2022 J Cup Regatta is taking place from 30th June - 2nd July. Hosted by Key Yachting and the Royal Ocean Racing Club, the J-Cup is an annual regatta exclusively organized for racing yachts of the J/Boats brand, and all J/Boat models are invited to compete. North Sails is thrilled to be supporting the event and competitors by providing on the water coaching with North Sail experts Ben Saxton; accompanied by drone footage from Shaun Roster. The North Sails loft in Cowes Yacht Haven will also be offering regatta repair service after sailing on Thursday and Friday. Connect with North Sails service expert James Hobson for all your service needs during the event. Wayne Palmer, Owner of Key Yachting shares, “We are grateful for the ongoing support from North Sails with the J Cup Regatta and thrilled with the technical support they are providing.” The regatta entails three days of exciting and competitive racing and incorporates the J/70, J/109 and J/111 National Championships. The program is coupled with a daily prize giving and lively shore-side entertainment to make the J-Cup a must for many of our owners and clients. 'The J-Cup is a highlight event in the J-Boat racing calendar every year. North Sails is delighted to continue supporting the regatta in 2022 and beyond, and we can't wait to see you all there'' said Ben Saxton. The North Sails team will be scattered throughout the fleet with Jeremy Smart racing on McFly and Charlie Cumbley on Eat Sleep J Repeat. Ben Saxton, Pete Redmond and Ruaridh Wright will be in the coach boat over the weekend. Stay tuned for updates over the weekend and keep an eye on results here and here. Standfast, J70 - Landsail Tyres J-Cup - photo © Paul Wyeth READ MORE