Feb. 2/2023: I’ve been waiting since the 1990s, when I developed a crush of sorts on Isabelle Autissier, for a woman to win an around-the-world solo sailing race. A tantalizing prospect! This is the toughest, most extreme sport there is, but it is also that great rarity—a sport where women and men compete against each...
Feb.28/2021: I sure hope you guys followed my advice from last month, about paying attention to the end of the Vendée Globe. No records were broken in terms of elapsed time over the course. By that simplistic metric, this was a slow race, six days off the last edition’s record 74 days. But in every...
While dropping in occasionally at Maine Yacht Center over the winter to keep tabs on my own boat, I always had half an eyeball on Rich Wilson's new IMOCA Open 60, Great American IV (ex-Mirabaud), which was undergoing a refit for Wilson's 2016 Vendee Globe bid. Recently, MYC general manager Brian Harris (see photo up...
I stopped by Maine Yacht Center in Portland earlier this week for a quick visit with Rich Wilson aboard his new Open 60 Great American IV, ex-Mirabaud. Rich, you may recall, became only the second American ever to finish the Vendee Globe back in 2009, at age 58 no less, and is now preparing to...
BARRING THE UNFORSEEN, this is the face of the next winner of the Vendee Globe, Francois Gabart, who should reach Les Sables d'Olonne aboard MACIF very early Sunday morning, thus setting a new race record of 77 days, give or take a few hours. I hope you've been following this one, as it's really been...
Women have long complained about how the world is dominated by men. To most men, meanwhile, it is perfectly obvious that modern civilization is little more than a plot to make women comfortable. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle. If it were true, as men aver, that it is women who rule...
