Glorious conditions as Hong Kong to Vietnam Race starts
A beautiful day in Hong Kong harbour with blue skies and a north easterly breeze of 10kts for the start of IRC Racer 0 and 1 in the Volvo Hong Kong to Vietnam Race. 10 boats were on the start…
Offshore
News, race results plus editorial coverage from the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, Vendée Globe, The Ocean Race, ARC, Fastnet, Transpac, Ocean Globe Race, Global Solo Challenge and Offshore Yachting from around the world.
Lucas Chapman's insights into preparation for the Volvo Ocean Race
Lucas Chapman is a Newcastle boy who is about to fulfill his lifetime ambition – to become a Volvo Ocean Race sailor. With five Sydney Hobarts under his belt, he's no stranger to offshore sailing. As he embarks on his…
Mini Transat first leg – only three retirements with the rest now in port
With the arrival of Julien Mizrachi (UNAPEI), 78 racers have now made it safely into the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Of the 81 competitors at the start, just three solo sailors are no longer officially racing: Matteo…
Light airs hinder the Clipper fleet's progress to Cape Town
With less than two days before the fleet is scheduled to start descending upon the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, light wind conditions are bringing last minute frustrations for the majority of the fleet, with leader board positions still very…
Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race: A mighty challenge
The Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race is undoubtedly one of the toughest of all yacht races. First organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) in 1995, the 1,805nm course is reputedly tougher than a transatlantic race as it…
Beautiful start forecast for big race to Russell
Aucklanders will be in for a treat on Friday morning when more than 150 yachts entered in the PIC Coastal Classic gather off North Head for a colourful mass spinnaker start. For lovers of yachting the forecast south-westerly breezes will mean a show…
Brad Jackson to lead team AkzoNobel in the Volvo Ocean Race
Monday, October 16, 2017: Three-time Volvo Ocean Race winner Brad Jackson has been announced as skipper of the Dutch Volvo Ocean Race entry team AkzoNobel for the 2017-18 edition of the 83,000-kilometer around the world race. The forty-nine-year-old from Auckland,…
Greenings and Dare To Lead set the pace in Clipper Race
Despite having raced close to 3,000 nautical miles across the South Atlantic Ocean, most positions remain up for grabs in the final days of Race 2: Stormhoek Race to the Cape of Storms, with little separating the bulk of the…
Debut win for Ichi Ban in CYCA’s Blue Water Pointscore Race 3
SYDNEY. On only its fourth outing to sea and its first in competition, Matt Allen’s new Botin 52, Ichi Ban, ruled supreme in Race 3 of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Blue Water Pointscore, the 200nm Newcastle Bass Island…
New Ichi Ban benchmark for Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race
SYDNEY. A double win in her opening race has Matt Allen’s brand new Ichi Ban firming up as a favourite for the upcoming Rolex Sydney Hobart when the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s 628 nautical mile race starts on Boxing…
MAPFRE draws first blood in Volvo Ocean Race
The local heroes on Xabi Fernández's MAPFRE were a popular winner in the first point scoring race of the Volvo Ocean Race. Fernández and his team made a bold call at the start to duck behind the entire fleet in…
Clipper Round the World – Elliot Brown Ocean Sprint commences
After another exhilarating day of surfing down South Atlantic waves for the Clipper Race fleet, focus on board has very much turned to the Race 2 Elliot Brown Ocean Sprint. Just before it was due to become the first Clipper…
Clipper Round the World Race: Shaking out the reefs
Following fast and furious conditions over the last 24 hours, which served up dramatic downpours and wind speeds gusting 60 knots, the Clipper Race fleet is busy shaking out the reefs in order to make the most of more settled…
Now it counts: Volvo Ocean Race teams to face first test in Saturday’s In-Port Race
The first official racing of the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race will take place on Saturday afternoon with the MAPFRE In-Port Race Alicante, marking the first point-scoring competition of the event. The starting gun will fire at 14:00 local time (12:00…
CYCA's Blue Water Pointscore returns for Race 3 – Newcastle Bass Island
SYDNEY. A strong southerly, forecast for Saturday morning, is set to be a major feature of Race 3 of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Blue Water Pointscore, the Newcastle Bass Island Race. The 200nm challenge, used by some competitors…
Fast and furious for Clipper fleet in the South Atlantic
Many of the teams in the Clipper Race fleet have been setting their own boat speed records during some fast and furious sailing on Day 8 of the Stormhoek Race to the Cape of Storms. Leader of Race 2, Greenings,…
Volvo Ocean Race – 45,000 nm on one set of sails
With the Alicante in-port race kicking off this weekend and the start of Leg 1 fast approaching, the Volvo Ocean Race’s Boatyard Sail Loft manager Nathan Quirk and Neil Cox, head of the Boatyard, explain how North Sails 3Di technology…
Lipinski first to finish leg one of the Mini Transat
Ultimately there was very little separating the top two sailors with their radically different temperaments and track records at the end of this first leg. The former had the status of defender in this race and was constantly calling himself…
MAPFRE edges Team Brunel to win abbreviated Prologue Leg
The Spanish MAPFRE team won the Volvo Ocean Race Prologue Leg on Wednesday, holding off a late charge from Team Brunel after Race Management shortened the course, converting the compulsory gate at Cabo de Gata into the finishing line. For…
Silk Cut back for the Volvo Legends Race
Gothenburg – 11 October 2017: Record-holder Silk Cut is the fourth boat entered in the Legends Race next year. She was originally skippered by Britain’s Lawrie Smith. Silk Cut started the 1997-98 Whitbread Round the World Race as the pre-race…
CQS pulls out of Rolex Sydney Hobart Race
Ludde Ingvall’s super maxi CQS is to cross the Atlantic Ocean, instead of returning to Sydney for this year’s Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race. A change to shipping schedule meant that the boat could not get back to Australia in…
MAPFRE and Team Brunel lead the charge to Alicante
Skipper Xabi Fernández's MAPFRE crew is leading the charge into the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday afternoon. The Spanish team made a jump on the rest of the fleet by heading further inshore in search of favourable sea breezes following Sunday's…
Qingdao first through the scoring gate for the second time
All eyes have been firmly fixed on the Race Viewer during the sixth day of racing as the twelve Clipper Race teams battled it out to reach the Scoring Gate. Following a fierce battle with Liverpool 2018 and Visit Seattle,…
Ping pong for Mini Transat skippers as east and west fortunes fluctuate
To you, to me… It’s hard to know who’s got the ball in their court in the extremely variable conditions currently dominating play in the Atlantic. The wind seems to have picked up again to the south-east pretty generally. The…
Alive is eyeing off Hong Kong to Vietnam Race
The 2017 Volvo China Coast Race Week (CCRW) comprises the Volvo China Coast Regatta 2017, sailed over three days in the waters south and east of Hong Kong Island, and the Volvo Hong Kong to Vietnam Race 2017, an Offshore…
Mini Transat – Madeira, the lollipop lady
As the sea takes on the look of a millpond, the skippers competing in the Mini-Transat La Boulangère are getting increasingly worried. Between the latitude of Madeira and that of the Canaries, the wind is dying and the average speeds…
High pressure system frustrates the Clipper fleet
After an intense and action-packed few days since leaving Punta del Este, Uruguay, a high-pressure system has affected many of the teams in the fleet, frustrating their progress in the Stormhoek Race to the Cape of Storms. Dare To Lead…
Volvo Ocean Race fleet heading for start port of Alicante as Prologue is underway
The Prologue Leg of the Volvo Ocean Race began on Sunday afternoon, after the start was delayed by just over 2 hours and moved nearly 20 miles south in order to find better racing conditions. The Prologue is a non-scoring…
Atlantic yo-yo for Mini Transat leaders
The light airs are making the sailors’ nerves jangle. They’re all very much aware that it’s not far to the Canaries now and that today’s lucrative placement on the Atlantic roulette wheel may well set them up for big losses…
RORC Caribbean 600 – business as usual
The 10th edition of the RORC Caribbean 600 will start as scheduled in Antigua on 19th February 2018. Bolstered by a record entry for the RORC Transatlantic Race, a strong Racing Division for the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, and determined…
The Mini Transat shake-up
In both prototype and production boat categories, the situation is becoming clearer at the head of the Mini Transat race, with Ian Lipinski (Griffon.fr) and Arthur Léopold-Léger (Antal XPO) going it alone at the front of the leading pack, whilst…
Clipper Round the World – close-fought battle continues
PSP Logistics safely arrived into Piriapolis, Uruguay, yesterday afternoon, local time, to repair rudder damage, as the rest of the fleet continued in a closely-fought contest towards Cape Town. Less than 10 nautical miles separate the top five teams, but…
MAPFRE ready and prepared for Volvo Ocean Race Prologue
On Sunday at 14:00hrs local time (13:00h UTC), the start of the Prologue Leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2017-18 will start from Lisbon when the fleet will sail from the Portuguese capital to the start port of the round-the-world…
Mini Transat – breathless Atlantic
In cruising terms, conditions could best be described as relaxing – sunny climes, seas becoming increasingly calm, light to moderate breeze, perfect conditions for idling about, however, the distinctive feature of offshore racers is that they always want to go…
Prologue Leg offers final tune-up ahead of Volvo Ocean Race start
On Sunday afternoon at 1400 local time in Lisbon (1300 UTC), the seven Volvo Ocean Race skippers will lead their teams off the start line of the Prologue Leg, a non-scoring race to the host city and start port of…
Clipper Round the World – early front runners emerge
It’s been an action-packed second day of Leg 2: The Stormhoek Race to the Cape of Storms – and in the past 24 hours one team was forced to suspend racing while the rest of the fleet continued its fast…
Mini Transat sailors handling breakages and problems on board
Whilst making the most of the last puffs of downwind breeze and continuing to make headway towards the goal without losing sight of the potential options to come, the solo sailors will now have to switch from intuitive to cerebral…
Thompson, Lunven add experience to Turn the Tide on Plastic roster
Turn the Tide on Plastic have added British offshore legend Brian Thompson and the renowned French solo sailor Nicolas Lunven to their roster ahead of the Prologue Leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, which starts on Sunday. Skipper Dee Caffari…
Clipper fleet leaves Uruguay in Race 2
The Clipper Race fleet has enjoyed its first night of sailing in Race 2: The Stormhoek Race to the Cape of Storms, though the teams remain tightly bunched on the leader board after a windy and wild start to the…
2018 Golden Globe Race to start from Les Sables d'Olonne, France
Dateline: Les Sables d'Olonne, 4th October 2017. The 2018 Golden Globe Race, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the original event back in 1968/9 which led to the first solo non-stop circumnavigation, will now start from Les Sables d’Olonne France on Sunday…
