Chris Museler

Ocean racing is something I revisited in my life when I began freelancing in 2004/05 when I raced in the Rolex Transatlantic Race aboard an 84′ yawl from 1939. Since then I have been able to experience some amazing pieces of water around the Atlantic theater. Offshore courses were chosen for many different reasons over the decades but I would have to say that even though the location and timing is less convenient than most of the major races, the historic Pineapple Cup from Ft. Lauderdale to Montego Bay is by far the best stretch of water any sailor can race upon.

I was fortunate to sail in this race last week aboard Michael Hennessy’s Owen&Clarke Class40 Dragon. We sailed with five crew which is quite crowded for a doublehanded boat with water ballast. I won’t bore you with too many details, but first and foremost, the perfect analogy for this race is doing a never ending windsurf or kitesurf downwinder in the Gorge, or off the Molokai Channel or any other long stretch of perfect ocean you have seen from the plane: pure, perfect angle, at speed, with warm water and sunshine for as long as you feel like it.

The icing on the cake with this event is the ridiculous history you join when you participate for the first time. When the Southern Ocean Racing Conference was the king of coastal racing circuits in the 1970s and ’80s, this race became the stuff of legends. One fifth generation Jamaican told me, “A young man named Ted Turner laid on his back at the end of that dock right there, looked up at the stars and said, ‘One day we’ll be transmitting everything from up there,’” predicting an eventual communications and TV empire.

There’s more of course including the chapter of Jim Kilroy’s new book KIALOA US-1: Dare to Win about the battles between his maxi and Windward Passage when that class was the pinnacle of all yacht racing. The images of two giants rounding Guantanamo Bay with clouds of sail in the firing trade winds are what made dreams for generations of now top sailors.

Unfortunately the other winter events in the Caribbean are more than 1,000 miles upwind from Jamaica. And the rising popularity of the heavily marketed RORC 600 in Antigua and others in the Eastern Caribbean have made the Pineapple Cup fall off the radar, with 10 starters this year. If you are interested, however, in just simply sailing a perfect course in a significant part of the world (beam reach down the entire Bahamaian chain, round Cuba and slide through the Windward Passage the “right” way), than join the history of this race, it was truly the most special and enjoyable ocean race of my life. Even the small, ice-cold bottle of Red Stripe I was handed at the Montego Bay Yacht Club tasted like champagne, perfect!

Enjoy this video of our trip!

A story I wrote this week for The New York Times highlights the fascinating path of Spaniard Javier “Bubi” Sanso in the current Vendee Globe. Bubi’s boat, sponsored by renewable energy company Acciona, is the first in the history of the race to eliminate the need for diesel fuel. In effect, and he is proving this now, the boat can go on indefinitely.

Why did it take so long for what would be considered one of the “greenest” of sports to pull off the grid? The answer is simple, nobody had gotten to it yet. It is easy to stick with the known diesel generator to charge batteries and focus on developing their foils and sails. The designers at Owen Clarke Design designed Acciona 100% Ecopowered considering the renewable energy sources from the start with, for example, solar panels laid into the beveled rails on both sides of the hull.

Acciona marketing chief Pio Cabanillas put it like this, “It’s like throwing a newspaper on the street when you’re finished instead of looking for, or thinking where a trash bin would be. You just have to think about it.”

This is an exciting project and Bubi is a fascinating and excitable guy. He is not alone. I met with 70-something year-old Stanley Paris in Newport aboard is Farr-designed, Lyman Morse-built eco-powered boat Kiwi Spirit, while he was training in Newport this fall. He is headed to the Caribbean and will begin a solo-non-stop, unassisted circumnavigation of the globe, while not using a drop of diesel as Sanso is doing.

This is great to see and I hope it inspires us all to take a look at the different, though expensive now, ways of conserving and generating energy. For now, here are a few paragraphs from the Times piece that didn’t make the cut. Enjoy!

“Wind generators have been used since the Vendee Globe began in 1989 and solar panels soon followed. But wind generators work on apparent wind and are inefficient in the predominantly downwind conditions of the Southern Ocean. Solar panels also take up valuable deck space and there must be enough to capture the sun from a proper angle.”

“Today only three of the 20 starters are using wind generators and six are using solar panels.”

“Sanso’s boat is one of the newest in the fleet, designed by British naval architects Owen and Clarke Yacht Design. It is the 15 batteries, weighing a total of 1,700 pounds, which have slowed the potential of Acciona. The other boats started the race with a power generation system 500 pounds lighter than Sanso’s and will be lighter as they use their engines to charge batteries.”

“The fact that renewable energy sources are “in vogue,” has Cabanillas hoping people will be inspired by this project to look at a new way of doing things. “There is no doubt that all of this can be a solution for a house in the middle of the mountains,” he said referring to the idea of creating residential energy independence.”

“According to Cabanillas and Sanso, the boat has worked flawlessly so far. “I haven’t had to make many adjustments. It’s self-sufficient,” said Sanso. “It’s pretty scary, it just works. I have software to monitor temperature and charges, not much else.””

“It is not unusual, according to Horeau, for skippers to finish starving for fuel and food. Armel Le Cleac’h, who has been vying for the lead since the Equator, finished the last Vendee Globe emaciated, after five days without food. In 2004, Jean Pierre Dick arrived back in Les Sables d’Olonne rationing water from his rescue supplies.”

“Seven boats have retired from the race so far, getting close to the statistic that shows about only half the fleet finishes each race. Sanso retired from the 2000-2001 race. For Stamm and Thomson who both dropped out of the 2008-2009 Vendee Globe, relying so heavily on diesel may be their undoing.”

And a Note from Patrick Boutonnet this week:

Hi Chris,

Thank you very much for this interesting article published on the New York Times. Good progress are being made in this field of sailing green.

We can also remember that Francis Joyon has been at the forefront of eco-power by sailing solo, non-stop around the world in 57 days in 2008 without a drop a fossil fuel, he actually did not have any engine. On IDEC2 he has a wind turbine, 10 solar panels and a fuel cell for backup.

http://www.ynovex.com/eco_power/

Regards,

Patrick

You don’t have to be a journalist digging deeply into the infrastructure of the world’s great yacht races and regattas to recognize the incredible metamorphosis the sport of sailing has gone through. We knew the America’s Cup and it’s switch to catamarans would have a sweeping effect on the sport and all sailors. The reality is, the organizers, and Russell Coutts and Larry Ellison, didn’t know how it would play out but knew whatever it was, it would be exciting. And it has been. If the “new” Cup has taught us anything, it is that the machine of social media and visual creativity has few bounds and sending anything into the world today requires a certain leap of faith.

Some events and articles from 2012

All the major events, the Volvo which finished this year, the Vendee Globe which started this year, the ongoing Extreme Sailing series, and new events including the MOD 70 World Tour, are all trying to capitalize on the platform today’s technology offers. At the same time, all the major news outlets in the world are trying to harness the same wild horse that is contemporary media. Now we see events finding, curating and producing the stories, something the news outlets had previously done. This forces journalists to dig deeper into the events for different stories which is good and bad. Bad because in an esoteric sport, how do you explain the minutia to a general audience?

I have had the privilege of racing on a variety of boats this year and have covered some exciting events. I sailed more than 2,000 miles doublehanded in Class40s to understand the world of shorthanded sailors; I raced aboard an AC 45 in the AC World Series with my old friend Terry Hutchinson; Aboard the MOD 70 Group Edmond de Rothschild, I raced to NYC with Sebbe Joss and his outrageously talented crew and there was a lot more from classics to dinghies.

As we pore over the videos and reports we get daily from all these events, it’s easy to become excited for the sport. There is more than ever to get your sailing “fix.” But I believe the “effect” the modern racing scene has on the sport as a whole and particularly the young sailors within it, is the most important change to observe, and possibly act upon.

There is a greater pipeline than ever before for young sailors to dream about, then become a professional sailor. A concern is that the love and pleasure many middle-aged and older sailors experience with the sport may be lost to a segment of the sailing population going forward. And when the market becomes over saturated with professional events and the path from childhood to adulthood becomes intense, the fun and passion for the sport could become rare.

The sport certainly isn’t in jeopardy of extinction. No matter what people say about “saving sailing,” it will always exist as long as there is wind and water. It’s just the profile of the sport, and its size, may not be, at some points, where some people may like it.

The good thing is that sailing can be enjoyed anyway you want. And that is why the most fun I have had in the sport has been racing Beetle Cats with my children over the past two falls. The format has been simple, a group of exceptionally talented and successful sailors take their kids racing and daysailing in the offseason in simple little boats with a BBQ on the shore. If the children want to pull over and play on shore, that is given, if they want to steer, that too. It’s easy and empowering and fun. We believe we’re giving these young sailors a gift with the goal of making this a lifelong sport, not with the goal of creating little racers. That will likely come, albeit hopefully with a broader base of sailing experience and appreciation.

All the kids we sailed with in Rhode Island this fall went to see the AC World Series and knew enough to know what was going on.  They also have so much at their  fingertips now to really learn more about the sport and its diversity online with all I mentioned above. They have choice. I had to flip through stacks of Yacht Racing and Cruising magazine, my six-year-old daughter get’s to send a message to Mike Golding in the middle of the Southern Ocean.

Change is amazing, and like the sailing events I cover, we are all attempting to harness the good parts and share our experiences. My hope this year is to utilize the growing number of technological tools at our disposal to share the changing sailing experiences around the world to inspire us all to enjoy our sport, anyway we’d like.

More and more we expect our news and features to be delivered to us online and in the form of video reports/clips. The technology exists to present all stories immediately and visually from the most remote locations on the planet. So if it exists, we want to see it and hear it!

Unfortunately in the push to present almost all news in video format, the information is often not vetted or “curated” properly, enough, or at all. Also, as reporters are new to almost everything they cover, they may miss several sources to fully flush out details and educate the reader on the completeness of a story. (It is far easier to call several sources and include them in a written piece than it is to get all those relevant sources on camera in a timely fashion.)

I am not a videographer or a producer but one thing I am endeavoring to do is occasionally capture just one angle of a story and present it in a video so the viewer can come away learning one fascinating or interesting fact or angle to a story that is accurate!

I tried to do this while covering the Krys Ocean Race this summer where I attempt to give the viewer a sense of the flow aboard these sleek trimarans during an overnight race and the smooth body movements these French sailors make after tens of thousands of miles sailing the same boat just about 24/7 a year. I also wanted to allow the viewer to learn what inspires one of these sailors to reach the top level in this discipline, since after all, we learn from people, not boats.

I also had the pleasure this summer of sailing in the New York Yacht Club Vanguard 15 Team Race. After a five-year absence, I crewed for multiple national Team Race champ Karl Ziegler, my former helmsman, and our teammates were freshmen last year on the college sailing scene. Regardless of having a combined age greater than all four other sailors combined on our team, we got right back into our old routine and this is where video learning can be a useful excercise for storytelling as well.

I filmed a race from start to finish from a GoPro camera on my head and the visuals combined with the audio illustrate clearly I hope a useful dialogue that helps avoid mistakes in a race and keep focused on the next move. We;re not perfect, but hopefully this simple video exercise will illustrate how we can learn simple ideas effectively in videos.

Evening briefing, SAIL 2011 Flotilla in BVIs

It is pretty hard to make a five year plan as a journalist. Sure there are the goals of writing for different mainstream publications, adapting/advancing pure journalistic approaches in new media platforms and even making new business alliances. But one thing I have always been suprised by is the diversity in stories and new angles on seemingly straightforward ideas.

SAIL Magazine BVI Flotilla 2011

Here’s an example. This fall I was invited by Sail magazine to be a guest expert on an adventure flotilla through the BVIs with Sunsail. In addition to assisting the other eight boats with their navigation, sail trim and generally enabling them to find their own cruising cadence and confidence, I realized that the flotilla concept was a very new thing to Americans. Though there were some foreigners on the trip, the itinerary was looser than the European model which has a more ducks-in-a-row approach.

There is a lot to be learned from bareboat chartering in groups and some online articles, videos and print features will be helpful to the vast majority of sailors who would like to be more adventurous in their sailing but need a slight safety net and even a nudge to get going.

I began reporting on non-racing yachting events with my coverage of the 2011 World ARC, a fantastic around the world cruise-in-company if you will. I was with the group in Grenada and wrote about it for Sail. Then I covered the more entry level offshore event associated with the World ARC which is the Caribbean 1500, bringing sailors from Hampton Virginia this fall to either the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands. What a fascinating angle to our sport. These rallies are growing in numbers each year and there is a lot of inspiration to be found for sailors and non-sailors.

PUMA recovering mast in first leg of 2011 Volvo Ocean Race

On the racing front, I have been challenged to be covering the America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race again, both I have written about in the New York Times in 2011. The new format of the AC has put a sginificant amount of emphasis on the “show” being a main component of competition. The new challenge is to educate readers on the exciting nature of the game while drawing them in through the people. A feat yet to be done, in my estimation, by any media yet. The same holds true with the Volvo. Though most coverage in the mainstream comes from breakdowns and disaster, it is time to use new media to our benefit to show the mainstream audiences all the pieces of what is inherently a very compelling event.

There has to be a way to give mainstream and even sailing-saavy audiences a taste for the robust and far-reaching connections both ends of the sport have in common: a thirst for adventure in a very pure sense, one found in very few experiences.

Early 1980s US Sailing Team Poster: Perry and Ullman included

It has been quite some time since I have posted, but fortunately that time has been filled with travel and assignments that I hope we all will be reading throughout this fall and winter. From researching green home design for an article to interviewing filmmakers and boatbuilders, my writing has taken me through some diverse concepts this year. It was the National Sailing Hall of Fame‘s induction ceremony last week, however, that captured my imagination and passions.

Now in its sixth year, the Hall finally had it’s inaugural induction putting it, and the sport, on the map along with the mainstream sports that have their own meccas for worshiping fans. I have been writing about the Hall since it’s inception and am in regular contact with Lee Tawney, one of the masterminds behind the facility in Annapolis. Watching clips of the ceremony held at San Diego Yacht Club brought back memories of flipping through Yacht Racing and Cruising magazine, seeing Buddy Melges in a Star, Dennis Conner driving a blue-hulled (and blue-decked) Williwaw with a blooper flying, Ted Hood in a sail ad and of course Ted Turner in his train engineers hat.

The striking take away from all these legends of our sport who are now officially recognized is their entrepreneurial spirit. Whether it is the traits they have developed as a sailor that have allowed each and every one of them to knock-it-out of the park in their businesses or their business saavy that has helped them become successful in sailing, or both, who knows?

Think about it, most of the major brands in sailing are the last names of famous yachtsmen. Just take sailmaking alone: North, Ullman, Hood are all enormous companies internationally. In boats, one stands out, too: Hobie Cat. Hobie Alter was also inducted last week.

I gained some insight into this phenomenon while sailing in the US Match Racing Championships in Newport Beach two weeks ago. I had the pleasure of racing with Dave Perry, our country’s most notable rules expert and one of the most recognized sailors in our sport, and stayed with Dave and Linda Ullman. What a treat that was. Ullman, among other accolades, is a three-time 470 world champion. He sailed in the late 1970s and early ’80s with fellow Californian Tom Linskey whom I worked with when I was an intern at Sail magazine.

I asked Ullman why there are so many top sailors who also have started and run successful businesses. He delivered his answer with a chuckle and then a hint of anxiety: “I had a kid on the way, so I had to do something!” Like many top sailors of that time, before sponsorship was truly in play, Ullman had to create his own career that also supported his goals of winning championships and going to the Olympic Games. “For me it was not as emotional, it was a job,” he said one morning at breakfast, in between trading stories of crazy sailors and regattas of the past. “My family understood that I was at work. Sailing and winning was part of my business.”

Dave Perry (l) and Dave Ullman, Newport Beach, CA

More than three decades later, Ullman Sails is an international brand, well known and respected. Ullman was in the process of opening another European loft while I was in Newport Beach. I look forward to learning more about the path of legends like Ullman and Lowell North that took them through sailing and business success. They basically hung up a shingle outside a garage with their name on it and that’s how it began.

I believe there is a lot we can all learn from them and we can certainly all relate as sailors. For the young sailors today who just want to sail and see school or work as a burden, the stories of Ullman and the crop of Hall of Fame inductees this year could be the spark needed make those critical connections all successful people make where everything starts to make sense, and you can earn a living off of your passion.