The Sydney Hobart is open to all racers who can satisfy the safety requirements for boat and crew, and includes many amateurs in addition to well-heeled entrepreneurs running boats that sport the latest in maritime technology. The fleet has, at times, included 30-foot wooden sloops and 30-meter maxis – even some of the Volvo Open 70s.
VOLVO OCEAN RACEPuma's Il Mostro Demonstrates Required Stability.TRANSPAC
http://www.transpacificyc.org/
The Transpac is most well-known for its biennial Los Angeles-to-Honolulu race, although for several years, the race's sponsor, the Transpacific Yacht Club, has run a race to Tahiti in the alternate years.
This year's race to Tahiti established a new time record as Doug Baker's 4-year-old Magnitude 80 speedster ripped about 3 1/2 days off Kathmandu's 1994 elapsed time record. Magnitude 80's time was 11 days, 10 hours, 13 minutes and 18 seconds, and its average speed was 13 knots.
The most recent LA-Honolulu run, in 2007, was the 44th race to Hawaii and included 73 boats. According to the Transpacifoc Yacht Club, the competition had the youngest crew ever (aboard Edge of Destiny, where the average age was 19.8 years), and the oldest crew of two (aboard Tango, each 70-years-old), and the oldest boat (Alsumar at 73 years).
One of the most famous regulars in the Transpac is Roy E. Disney's Pyewacket, which is now actually owned by the Orange Coast College School of Sailing and Seamanship. Disney chartered it back from the school and his crew posted the fastest elapsed time by a monohull (7 days, 1 hour, 11 minutes and 56 seconds). The last boat to finish was Mysteré, a Swan 42, which got a six-day headstart on Pyewacket but finished seven days later.
The Transpac includes an "Aloha Class" for pure cruising boats and many families and dedicated amateurs sail in the race. There was also a team of young sailors recruited and trained for the race while a film production crew recorded their every move and sound to make a documentary about it. "Morning Light" is scheduled to be in theaters October 17.
VOLVO OCEAN RACEThe Volvo Ocean Race can be a Tough Ride.NEWPORT-BERMUDA
The biennial Newport-Bermuda Race is one of the best-known races in the sailing world, perhaps because of Newport's status as the East Coast's ocean sailing capital. Or maybe it is that the race attracts both amateurs and seasoned professionals equally, the former testing their skills in a serious, open-ocean race and the latter testing new boats and tuning up crews for the big global races. The 2008 race had 194 boats, the most since the centennial running in 2006, which had 286 entries.
The Cruising Club of America and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club are the co-organizers of the race, which was founded in 1906 as the first ocean race for "amateur sailors in normal boats." The race takes its participants across 635 miles of open ocean and crosses a stretch of the Atlantic Ocean known for challenging weather, especially in the Gulf Stream, where strong currents must be negotiated with skill to achieve the best tactical advantage. The fleet has five divisions to allow boats and sailors of many sizes and skill levels to participate. Typically, 90 percent of the boats have amateur crews comprised of friends and family members.
The Newport-Bermuda Race is part of a larger race series known as the Onion Patch. The Onion Patch starts out with the high-level competition of the New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta, with a focus on fast-paced round-the-buoys sailing. The Series then moves on to the historic ocean racing of the Newport Bermuda Race, complete with the challenges of the Gulf Stream and the joys of "Happy Valley" in the approach to Bermuda. Finally, as a fitting reward, the Onion Patch concludes with racing in sub-tropical conditions on Great Sound off Hamilton, Bermuda, with the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club's Anniversary Regatta.
To become an Onion Patch winner, the yacht and her crew must demonstrate a broad range of skills, and do consistently well through a variety of conditions and challenges. Ultimately, the Onion Patch rewards strong, capable all-around performance, a true demonstration of a yacht's depth of performance, a crew's seamanship, and of superiority in boat handling.
