THE FUTURE OF YACHT RACING

As a navigator, making predictions for what the weather and sea state will look like in a few hours or days is something I’m comfortable with. Making predictions for what our sport will look like in five or 10 years is not my area of expertise. In fact, despite a lifetime at sea I am only really experienced in a small sub-set of yacht racing. Nonetheless, I thought I would take advantage of that and use my experience to make some calls on where we as a sport might be headed in the future.

I wrote the following ideas before the world changed and the Covid-19 pandemic shattered so much of what we thought lay ahead. As I write now, there are still personal and global issues at stake. Within our bubble of sailing, it seems that much of the 2020 racing season has been written off. We are slowly getting afloat now and can only remain hopeful that at some appropriate time before long we’ll be back under starter’s orders again, no doubt savouring our racing more than ever before. Looking forward to that time, for sailing and for the wider world, I hope you enjoy the following predictions.

1. FOILING AND RECORD-BREAKING

It was only six years ago that I attended a debate at the Yacht Racing Forum where people were discussing whether or not foiling would be possible other than occasionally on a reach, and whether it would be effective in a windward/ leeward race. It’s interesting to see how much easier foiling turned out to