I found some interesting sailing stories while randomly surfing this month.
The most interesting one for me personally is that Derick Hatfield has sailed "Active House" across the Atlantic and has made it to the start of the Velux 5 oceans race. This time he even has funds to get some new gear and give the boat some TLC before the race. Check out this link at: http://spiritofcanada.net/wordpress2/
I also saw a story about the 470 Canadians, http://www.sailing.ca/news/470_canadians/ on the CYA website. That was interesting to me because The Learning Facilitator I took my first level of dinghy instructor from was in the event. While I was there I read an interesting race report from the medal race of the paralympic 2.4mr class. The event was won by Canadian, Paul Tingley. http://www.sailing.ca/features/2010_24_world_championships/
The major sailing news story of the month is the boat selection for the 34th America's cup. The defender, BMW oracle, has chosen large multi hull with a rigid wing sail. This is good because the boats are much faster and can race closer to shore, making the event more spectator friendly. The bad part is they have chosen a boat that none of the other teams except for themselves have any experience sailing. This could be an entirely self centered decision designed to ensure they keep the cup for as long as possible in the same way the American teams manipulated the rules to ensure they kept the cup through the 80's. It still remains to be seen if the other teams buy in to the format and choose to pay the entry fee to play. This time the fee is bloody steep, but it includes a 40 foot version of the boat that teams will compete in for the first year of the preliminary competitions. Should be interesting to see how it works out. Here's the official site: http://www.americascup.com/
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