It is the dark ugly secret of classic and modern-classic racing. That yes, designers of some of the most classic of classic vessels had the audacity to separate the keel from the rudder on their designs. We know! Hide the kids, but it is true! Since about the middle of 20th century, it was increasingly common for even the most traditional looking yachts to quietly move away from full keel underbodies and separate the main fin keel from the rudder in the underwater sections of their boats. The original Swan 36 was probably the most famous example of such a […]

That dumb old smartphone of yours is about to get a whole lot cleverer about organizing and managing classic and modern-classic regattas. Earlier this year, we got a private demonstration of a new mobile race management app from the Sailing Yacht Research Foundation, the Warwick, Rhode Island-based sailing technology incubator. The app is called the Race Tracker and Analyzer, or RTA, and it attempts to scrub out the hassle and complexity of organizing, tracking, and racing in a regatta. “The current race tracking experience is too complicated and costly,” says McKenzie Wilson, executive director of the Sailing Yacht Research Foundation, […]

Though we planned our full preview coverage for the 2019 Camden Classics Cup in the spring, we wanted to give the Spirit-of-Tradition community an important heads up: Early registration has begun. The demand has broken all previous records. An unprecedented dozen or so vessels have entered the online registration process in the first week. And indications are, that all facets of the event including sponsorship, local housing and marina resources will be at a premium for 2019. Only about 18 dockage slots remain. So if you are at all interested in experiencing the Camden Classics Cup as it should be […]

Camden Classics Cup, July 26-28: It was a good few days for traditional and modern sailboat racing in Penobscot Bay, Maine. The third running of the Camden Classics Cup continued to build on the success of the first two events. We counted 68 yachts on the scratch sheet. Or about double the 30 boats that shaped up to race, year before last. We’re shameless promoters of the Camden Classics. We are sponsors of the regatta. We serve on committees to improve the rules for it. And our boats, and our selves, race in the event. And even discounting for all […]

Let’s begin with the disclosures: We didn’t just spend two weeks racing Vintage, Classic and Spirit-of-Tradition yachts. We spent a lot of time during those races thinking about racing: How to organize these modern-classic events more effectively; how to class boats more fairly; how to handicap the yachts more properly and how to make these events more inclusive, rather than more exclusive. This brainwork was part of a reasonably rigorous market survey we are conducting of the Vintage, Classic and Spirit-of-Tradition racing fleets. The full report is due out later this year. But even now, we are finding solid lessons […]

Speaking of racing, we’ve been following the current round-the-world Golden Globe Race, with a kind of lurid fascination. That’s the race where 14, mostly amateur, racers sail 35,000 miles around the world’s great capes, in throwback, full-keel vessels, alone and unassisted. Some boats are from the 1960’s, but none carry modern electronics, navigation or watermakers. And the weekly satellite phone calls of these single-handers is mostly about old men struggling with broken wind vanes, getting lost trying to navigate just with sextants and getting excited about sailing 90 whole miles in a 24-hour period. Oh boy. That got us to thinking: […]