When retirement came for Brian Rutter all he wanted to do was sail, all year long. This meant summers in Toronto and winters in the Caribbean - a dream come true for many sailors. When it came close to time when he was looking at retiring, Brian decided to pull the trigger and see his life long dream of wintering in the Caribbean come true. Not a huge winter sports guy, this made sense for the next chapter of his life. He shares his journey to year round sailing, owning a Beneteau 36.7 plus a Beneteau 44.7, and helping grow the local sailing scene on the lake.
How did you go about picking a boat and figuring out where to keep it? What's involved in that?
I've always been used to sailing a relatively good performing boat, so I didn't want to buy the typical clunker. I wanted to do the trip south, so I bought the boat from RCR in Buffalo. We bought it in the winter, so sort of February, four years ago now. So then started to get familiar with the boat and then left in September. We sailed it from Buffalo down to Norfolk, Virginia through the Oswego canal. Then the coast down to Norfolk. We left it there for about two weeks until the end of hurricane season. On November 1st, we went straight from Norfolk to the BVIs, which was a 1,500 mile passage. It was a 'get to know yourself' voyage; it was a beast the whole way in about 25-knots of breeze.
Tell us about how you pick where you'll go every winter.
We spent the first winter down there in the BVIs and then hauled out there. We launched it the following January and went to Antigua. Following that, we spent our time in Grenada.
What's been your favorite Caribbean event so far?
You know, they all are quite different. The BVIs is the easiest in that there's lots of places to go. Antigua is really neat and has more superyachts racing. We've done basically the whole chain of events now because we've been to most of the islands. The boat's in Puerto Rico right now as we sailed it North from Grenada. We'd like to do the Bahamas at some point. We'll likely tackle that in another year or so, but we're going to do the St. Thomas and the BVI's this year.
It's always blowing down there in the trades. 15 knots is a normal day!
What's different about living aboard your race boat in the Caribbean?
It's a little bit unsettling at first because it blows 24-hours a day. So the boat is dancing around on the anchor constantly. You hear the wind humming through the rigging all the time.
Tell us about your involvement as fleet captain at Mimico Cruising Club & how you maintain your large start line for weeknight racing.
It's a huge time commitment that while I was working, it wasn't possible so when I stopped working, it was sort of time to pay back. When you do have the time that you can put into it, it's rewarding to give it back.
, I wouldn't want to say by accident or anything, but it just kept growing and growing in the Spinnaker fleet with a relatively narrow performance range. So most of the boats are not that far apart from each other. It just sort of snowballed is that we had a fair number of people who came from other clubs to see what kind of a start line we have. They quit their club and join ours. I think this year we had 18 teams registered in the Spinnaker division. I think the least we ever had was maybe 14.
What would be your best advice for people who are thinking about getting into racing and for other clubs that are trying to figure out how to grow their racing?
Just do whatever you can to make it fun. Larger starts make it fun with more boats on the line. I think it's better than dividing up the fleet into a whole bunch of divisions , where some divisions will only start with five boats. Even if they're separate divisions for scoring, start them together. We try to make it a lot of fun coming back to the club afterwards to share a beer and wait for results, which brings everyone together too.
How do you attribute or do you even attribute your inventory to part of your success on the water?
I guess I've been a big fan of the North product. I think you could see from my records from a long time ago and just they seem to fit what I want. There's no question the sails have been getting better and better. Not only from a shape performance standpoint but with the new 3Di product, things last much longer. I guess for the 36.7 this will be my third mainsail from North. The first 3DL sort of had a couple of seasons on it. I think that was about five or six years and just way superior to the first one. The main that I have right now, there's nothing wrong with the shape or anything, even thought its 3DL. The strings are fine, it's just the mylar is disappearing. The shape holding ability with all of North's products is terrific.
Brian has a new 3Di RAW mainsail for the upcoming 2020 season.
Ellie Driver first competed in the Rolex Fastnet course in 2019, 18 years old and fresh from a 420 campaign – a multiday offshore race was a very different concept. She knew she could drive a boat around a race course fast, but could she drive her Sunfast 3300 fast in one of the world’s most famous offshore races for four-plus days non-stop?
Since her first Rolex Fastnet, Ellie has chalked up an impressive victory list, including;
⭐ Women’s EUROSAF Double-Handed Offshore European Champion (2023)
⭐ Vice Mixed Double-Handed World Sailing Offshore World Champion (2023)
⭐ Yachts & Yachting ‘Sailor of the Year’ (2022)
⭐ Youngest Skipper to Compete in the SEVENSTAR Round Britain and Ireland Race (2022)
⭐ Second Place in Défi Paprec (2024)
Ellie Driver
Ellie raced the Rolex Fastnet again in 2023 double-handed with her father, an 8 times race veteran at that point. Ellie will admit that in her first Rolex Fastnet, “she sailed the course”—soaking up all the hard-won knowledge her father had to give her. In 2023, they were back, and this time, Ellie said she “raced the course, even with the full-on weather”, finishing 10th Double Handed Boat and Ellie the 2nd Female Skipper and the 2nd Youth Skipper overall.
The 2023 Rolex Fastnet start was brutal, with the fleet setting off from the Solent into a south-westerly gale. And conditions didn’t improve greatly, with Ellie and her father experiencing “sailing through three squalls and a shutdown—it was 4 days of misery”. But Ellie and Jim didn’t retire, and that experience informs her five top tips to teams competing in this year’s 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race: “aside from a catastrophic boat failure, boats need to retire because either the boat or the crew is not ready to tackle the conditions.
ELLIE’S FIVE TOP TIPS
Don’t delay any maintenance job on your boat; start now. Get all the servicing done. Work bow to stern, replacing anything that is showing signs of wear. Do this now, and then do it again in the month prior to the race. I’m constantly checking my boat over, ensuring nothing avoidable will fail during the race.
Plan your spares; based on your inspections over these 4 months, if one area shows deterioration quicker than expected, carry those spares.
It is just as important to build personal fitness as well as maintaining your boat. The stronger you are, the less likely you are to injure yourself and the more energy you’ll have throughout the race. Crucially, it means that you’ll also approach every task with 100% of your strength – making manoeuvres faster – minimizing chances of damage to the boat, lost or torn sails, and fewer personal injuries as tasks in dicey conditions are completed faster. Get swimming, get running, get to the gym – prioritize the fitness of the whole crew in this build-up phase.
Pre-race watch planning: absolutely vital when racing double-handed but also essential with larger crews with varying capabilities. 7-days out from the race, start looking at the course, look at the weather fronts coming through, and align your watch plan to these. Start planning when it will be calmer so the crew can rest, when it will be all hands on deck, and when you’ll need the more experienced drivers on the helm. Keep reviewing the plan alongside the weather updates up until the race start.
My last tip: sing! Despite the best planning, there will be moments when you’re exhausted but need to keep pushing – it’s at these moments my Dad and I sing to keep us awake and morale up. ABBA tunes are a boat favorite!
Following Ellie’s advice to ensure crews who are entered into this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race are adequately prepared, we caught up with Steve Coles, Royal Ocean Racing Club Race Manager.
Steve Coles, Royal Ocean Racing Club Race Manager.
We asked him what the boats with their race places confirmed should be prioritising over the next four months, and he advised:
APRIL
Make sure that the boat details on your entry are correct; you can start to add crew to your crew locker on www.sailracehq.com. Your crew will need an account to fill in all of their details. Add your t-shirt size!
Submit your mileage proposal. At least 50% of the boat’s crew (but not less than 2), including the person in charge, must have completed 300 nautical miles of RORC offshore racing on the boat entered into the race. The qualifying miles must be completed within 12 months prior to the start of the Rolex Fastnet Race.
We will accept mileage qualification proposals from races other than RORC races, but typically, they should be at least 150 miles and include one night at sea. Races can be combined to get to the 300-mile requirement.
The RFR is a Category 2 race; you must complete your checklist on the entry portal and complete the Category 3 checklist before the system will let you complete Category 2. Boats may be inspected for OSR compliance before the race starts.
MAY
Check whether you need a plan review - A monohull with a series date after 2009 of less than 24 m (78’-9”) LH shall have been designed, built, and maintained in accordance with the requirements of ISO 12215 Category A and have a World Sailing/ISAF building plan review certificate issued from an organization recognized by World Sailing.
Order your tracker; trackers are mandatory for the RFR and all RORC races. A subsidy is available upon application to racing@rorc.org.
JUNE
If you have completed your mileage qualification, please let RORC know now
Training—the days are getting longer; use the long daylight days as perfect training days
JULY
Submit the final crew onto the race portal.
All non-UK boats will need to complete the C1331 form before arriving, which can be done online here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/submit-a-pleasure-craft-report#submit-your-report-online.
Ensure the rating is applied for; the deadline is the 4th of July.
Read through Sailing Instructions!
Order your Customised Team Gear for the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race Today
A POSTCARD FROM ST BARTHS: NORTH SAILS AT THE 2025 BUCKET REGATTA
The 2025 Bucket Regatta delivered everything you'd expect—breathtaking scenery, tight competition, and a fleet of phenomenal superyachts pushing their light air performance to the limit.
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