by Michelle Slade, Marin Independent Journal
At 72, Aidan Collins is the first to admit he is not getting any younger. Nonetheless, he remains active on the local San Francisco sailing scene, racing regularly with the Singlehanded Sailing Society as well as club racing through the Tiburon and Marin yacht clubs…
by Tom Cunliffe, SAIL
Here in Europe, the general feeling about green energy from offshore wind turbines has moved on after an initial surge of general skepticism. Concerns raised over cost, threats to seabirds, wind interference and the rest have to some extent been answered, and it’s hard to argue with the bottom line.
Take the London Array as an example. This, the world’s largest offshore wind farm of 175 turbines, spreads its wings far out to sea off the Thames estuary. Its average delivery is around 1 gigawatt per day, and in a good breeze it can shove out 1.5 gigawatts, powering half a million homes across southeast England. In its first winter, it saved the equivalent of 1.3 million tons of CO2 from conventional power plants…
The Polish DN championship took place last weekend in the best ice conditions. Poland has been the leading ice sailing nation for years, not least thanks to 12-time world champion and former Americas Cup helmsman Karol Jablonski POL. What a race looks like from a sailors perspective is shown in a well-edited 10-minute onboard video.
The notoriety of Cape Horn is well established in sailing history. Once a required shipping route, its southern latitude remains frigid with fierce winds and correspondingly large waves. Tragedy and triumph are well recorded at this turn of round the world races…
It’s back to the future for the 36th America’s Cup presented by PRADA in just 12 day’s time. Emirates Team New Zealand congratulates Luna Rossa on a resounding win in the Prada Cup final against INEOS TEAM UK and look forward to a rematch from the 2000 America’s Cup here in Auckland 21 years ago.
“We have been waiting and watching each of the Challengers for the past few years and now we finally know who we will be racing and who we need to beat to successfully defend the America’s Cup. We have always known Luna Rossa will be passionate, creative and strong across the board, a few of their guys were teammates last time, so we know them well and they know us.” said Emirates Team New Zealand’s Peter Burling
“It is now just 12 days until the first race, we have been waiting years for this opportunity to race, so we are incredibly excited about the start of racing on March 6. Already you can sense the intensity has risen yet another notch internally now we know we will be racing Luna Rossa and our complete and utter focus is now zeroed in knowing that we need to be better than them across the board.”
Our respect should also be acknowledged towards INEOS TEAM UK and American Magic who both contributed a huge amount to this America’s Cup. They both proved to be brave and determined teams that will only continue to gain in strength.
The 9th and final race of the Australian 18-footer championship came to an end yesterday in Sydney. In shifty winds of around 15 knots, the duel for the title was already decided at the start in favour of tech2 (Jack Macartney/Charlie Wyatt/Lewis Brake AUS) after their last remaining opponent smeg (Michael Coxon AUS) made a premature start. —– With the successful defence of their title, tech2 moved on top of the list of favourites for the unofficial 18-Footer World Championship, starting in two weeks from now. The New Zealanders, JJ Giltinan Trophy winners in the past two years, will not be at the start due to the Corona restrictions. Besides tech2 and smeg, Winning Group (John Winning jr/Seve Jarvin/Sam Newton AUS), first-ranked yesterday, can also fancy their chances of grasping the JJ Giltinan Trophy. —– For now, racing continues next Friday with the Super Cup, featuring past World Champions, Olympic medallists, Americas Cup and Ocean Race veterans. —– The report and the video replay of yesterdays race.