January-February 2024

Probably executing the most Made for Instagram around the world passage ever, Long Island native Cole Brauer is lighting it up in the Global Solo Challenge. If you have not seen Cole’s excellent Instagram posts, I encourage you to follow her right now. By the time you read this, she will be about a month out from the finish line in Spain, completing her lap around the world and likely finishing second. I first heard of Cole…

Newport Bermuda Race 2024 will be scored using a Forecast Time Correction Factor How often have you thought the other boat experienced ‘lucky’ weather? The Bermuda Race Organizing Committee (BROC) is proud to announce that the 2024 edition will be the first ocean race to use Forecast – Time Correction Factor (F-TCF) as a scoring model. The intention to use F-TCF scoring was communicated in the 2024 NOR published in June (now amended) and we are sharing additional…

Submitted by Boris Badenov As a fly on the wall attending the recent 82nd annual Moosehead Awards Luncheon, it admittedly has been quite a while since my wife, Natasha and I laughed so much. As almost everyone in our region knows, the mission of the Mooseheads is to poke fun – in a good-natured way – at the foibles and fumbles of Race Committees. Poking fun is one way to put it … but “roasting” is probably more like it. To start, host…

Keelboat racing was the original form of intercollegiate sailing. From the McMillan Cup, first sailed in 1928 and formalized in 1930 as a quasi-national championship for college big boat crews, sprung a small number of spinoff events like the Kennedy Cup. Focused on the larger offshore keelboat fleets of the service academies, this form of intercollegiate big boat sailing was mega one-design competition. In the 1970s, that offshore schedule expanded with events like the Corinthians, rebranded in…

By Tom McKeon October 7, 2023 was the 30th Anniversary of the Peconic Bay Sailing Association’s Whitebread Race. The race had all the hype and anticipation of a Super Bowl, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Taking place on Long Island’s Peconic Bays, the race’s name is a play on the significantly more arduous Whitbread Round the World Race. The wrath of Hurricane Ian played havoc with Whitebread 29 last October. Fog, Southeast winds from 18-30 knots, current…

Using a line “sight” or “range” at the start is a tried-and-true method for making sure you are as close to the starting line as possible at the gun (but not OCS). I always use a line sight whenever I can find one, and this has helped me get some great starts. But there is one thing I do a little differently than many sailors. The standard way to get a line sight is by sailing outside…

Photos by Manon le Geun Regular readers will know that Peter Gibbons-Neff recently arrived back in Annapolis after completing the 2023 Mini Transat. Finishing the race after losing a day to repair a broken rudder, his placing was not what we had all hoped for, but in such races merely finishing is a massive feat on its own. I spoke with Peter via Zoom in early January.   Coop: Peter, welcome back mate. Sorry about the placing….

At the end of a cul-de-sac, wrapped in a gallery of trees, the only sound you could hear on winter weekends was the scratching of skate blades carving into the surface of the frozen lake. It was here, gliding along this stretch of ice beside her aunt’s house in Ridgefield, CT, that Denise Stranko’s connection to nature was set. “You can’t imagine a more picturesque setting,” she said. It seems fitting that Denise’s journey, like most that…

Here’s how the story goes. In the dead of winter, two duck hunters and their trusty hunting dog drive their brand-new Range Rover out on to the ice of (choose: [a] Long Island Sound, [b] Moriches Bay, [c] Shinnecock Bay, [d] Great South Bay, [e] body of water of your choice) and, seeing that there were no open leads to entice migratory birds to land, take out a stick of dynamite, light it and throw it as…

A Lesson Learned   By Michael J. Tougias Excerpted from the latest book by Michael J. Tougias, The Power of Positive Fishing: A Story of Friendship and a Quest for Happiness, co-authored with his fishing friend Adam Gamble.   On our hunt for striped bass my fishing partner Adam and I usually took his boat, but every now and then I’d insist we take the kayaks out instead. I liked the stealth a kayak provided for approaching…