In This Issue
• Rolex World Sailor of the Year
• IMOCA: Northerners On The Move
• Fox's Marina & Boatyard - Yacht Refit & Repair Specialists
• The 54th ORC Congress: New products and services in 2024
• Christmas Coffee Table Books - The J Class
• Sunday's Big Final 18 Skiff Showdown
• ORC DH World Championship
• 2025 ORC European Championship
• Vale Stuart Jardine
• Letters to the Editor
• Featured Charter: J122 El Ocaso
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Volvo Ocean 65 - AMBERSAIL 2
• • Swan 48-250 Scintilla
• • 2008 KER 39 - Tiger 3
• The Last Word: H. L. Mencken

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to

Slingsby and Neuschafer crowned 2023 Rolex World Sailor of the Year
The 2023 Rolex World Sailor of the Year awards were presented to Tom Slingsby and Kirsten Neuschäfer, in a contest decided by an expert panel and a public vote. Slingsby was separated from his nearest competitor by fewer than 20 votes.

The Magenta Project won the 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award. The AC40 was named Boat of the Year, 11th Hour Racing won Team of the Year, Dick Rose was presented with the Beppe Croce Trophy and the Andrew Simpson Foundation won the President's Development Award.

Tom Slingsby was named male 2023 Rolex World Sailor of the Year for the third time at the World Sailing Awards 2023 after guiding his Australia SailGP to a third consecutive title, ensuring he is still the only skipper to have won the SailGP trophy. He was also skipper of American Magic, winner of the inaugural event of the 2024 America's Cup.

South African Kirsten Neuschäfer was named female 2023 Rolex World Sailor of the Year after writing her name into the history books by becoming the first woman to finish first in the solo Golden Globe Race, a journey around the world reliant on no modern technology. She also came to the rescue of a fellow sailor during the course of the event.

sailing.org

IMOCA: Northerners On The Move
The bleeding continues for Teamwork (Mettraux-Villion) which is still sailing 7 to 10 knots slower on the route than the proponents of the South option in which For People (Ruyant-Lagraviere) has just stolen the place in the gybe game at Paprec Arkea (Richomme-Elies). The northern leader only has a lead of around forty miles and is about to experience twelve difficult hours.

The ideal routing takes them almost to the center of the nasty depression which crosses the Atlantic. Will they seek to protect themselves a little in its South?

The passage of this front could also interest latecomers from the Southern group who don't have much to hope for in pure speed if they follow the leaders. For the moment, V and B Monbana Mayenne (Sorel-Pratt) seems to want to cover L'Occitane en Provence (Crémer-Roberts), but these two could benefit from seeking a new shift in their North to break away from the six leaders who are cruising at more than 20 knots averaging 120 miles on their front.

Top five IMOCA
1. For People - Thomas Ruyant / Morgan Lagraviere, 1643.1nm to finish
2. Teamwork.Net - Justine Mettraux / Julien Villio, 19.6nm to leader
3. Paprec Arkea - Yoann Richomme / Yann Elies, 43.8nm
4. For The Planet - Sam Goodchild / Antoine Koch, 94.9nm
5. Charal - Jeremie Beyou / Franck Cammas, 99.2nm

Top five Class 40
1. Alla Grande Pirelli - Ambrogio Beccaria / Nicolas Andrieu, 1 876.6 nm to finish
2. SNEF Group - Xavier Macaire / Pierre Leboucher, 0.3 nm to leader
3. IBSA - Alberto Bona / Pablo Santurde Del Arco, 7 nm
4. Project Rescue Ocean - Axel Tréhin / Gwenael Riou, 32.2 nm
5. Amarris - Achille Nebout / Gildas Mahe, 34.4 nm

Full rankings: transatjacquesvabre.org/en/ranking

Fox's Marina & Boatyard - Yacht Refit & Repair Specialists
Fox's Marina and Boatyard has established itself as one of the UK's leading yacht refit and repair facilities. Based on the East Coast, the 15-acre boatyard offers complete in-house services for racing and cruising yachts, with teams of skilled engineers and craftsmen, boat handlers, riggers, electricians and fabricators.

Fox's is well known and respected globally, largely due to years of experience and highly knowledgeable staff, offering bespoke refit projects for yachts up to 25m LOA. Services range from composite repair and modification, through to detailed classic yacht restoration, supported by related services:

- Extensive undercover heated workshops
- Spray shop and hull finishing
- Deck hardware & system upgrades
- Spars, rigging, ropes and splicing
- Marine electronics and engineering
- Stainless & alloy fabrication
- Teak decking and joinery
- Pre-purchase & race preparation advice and support
- Large on-site chandlery

If you are considering a refit or repair project contact the Fox's team today Email , call +44 (0)1473 689111 or visit foxsmarina.com

The 54th ORC Congress: New products and services in 2024
The 54th meeting of the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) concluded today with a summary of the results of this year's hard work of the ORC's Committee members and Staff, along with descriptions of new initiatives and innovations in technical and support services for offshore sailing.

or 2024 ITC has proposed that improvements in how Gear weight, de-powering of Headsails and Headsails set Flying will produce more accurate ratings, yet the whole fleet's change in All-Purpose Handicap (APH) ratings will change very little - for most boats < 0.25% (see above plot).

A major innovation from ITC is the development of weather routing scoring, where a boat's time allowance against her competitors will be calculated using a predicted elapsed time based on weather routing each boat around the course. Using weather routing scoring gives the competitors the full benefit of the ORC system to give scoring that reflects the boat and the race conditions.

"This is a game-changing development in the sport," said Bruno Finzi, Chairman of ORC. "We will continue to develop this system in 2024, but this represents a tremendous step forward to allow boats of different sizes and speeds to be finally rated and scored fairly based on the predicted weather they encounter on the race course. The goal will be to make this system widely available for the entire offshore community in 2025."

Reports from other Committees indicated changes in rules and policies in topics ranging from measurements, rating and certificate processing, future ORC championship events, promotional activities and developments, and innovations in race management.

The Minutes of these committee meetings are posted at the ORC website: orc.org/agm-2023-submissions

Christmas Coffee Table Books - J Class
Click on image to right for more images.

Rare deluxe book & folio set from Yachting Heritage - J Class by Francois Chevalier & Jacques Taglang. Signed by the authors. This was a limited edition, hand-numbered #820/2900. Book is in excellent condition, rarely removed from the slipcase. Also includes a folio of additional images. Published in 2002.

In French and English. Illustrated with a watercolor by Marin-Marie and black and white drawings, sail and yacht plans, photographs, Decorative endpapers. Oblong folio. Linen-covered boards with blue J within a wreath on cover

Book is in excellent condition, rarely removed from the slipcase.

$400 USD plus shipping. Contact

Sunday's Big Final 18 Skiff Showdown
Balmain, one of the chances to take out the title. Photo by SailMedia. Click on image for photo gallery.

Can the young team beat the defending champions?

Next Sunday's final race of the Australian 18 Footers League's 2023-24 Spring Championship on Sydney Harbour is expected to go right down to the final leg of the course with just four points separating the leading three teams on the point score table.

Adding to the drama of the contest, the two leaders going into Sunday's race are the same two teams that finished at the top of the 2022-23 championship.

Yandoo's team of John 'Woody' Winning, Fang Warren and Josh Porebski is the same crew which was successful last year, but this time the very experienced team goes in three points behind the leading team - The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines.

The Oak's team is one of the youngest in the fleet, led by 16-year-old Jacob Marks, who has sailed only six races in the 18s since graduating from the International 29er class in October.

Given the present scores, the leading six teams going into the final race are realistically the only ones with the chance of overall victory. The teams, their points and individual race placings so far are:

24 - The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines - Jacob Marks, Alex Marinelli, Matt Doyle - 10, 4, 2, 3, 5
27 - Yandoo - John 'Woody' Winning, Fang Warren, Josh Porebski - 2, 8, 6, 4, 7
28 - Fisher & Paykel - Jordan Girdis, Josh Feldmann, Jacob Broome - 9, 5, 4, 6, 4
31 - Smeg - Nathan McNamara, Jed Cruikshank, Jack Taylor - 8, 3, 7, 12, 1
31 - Balmain - Henry Larkings, Fynn Sprott, Flynn Twomey - 3, 13, 3, 2, 10
32 - Shaw and Partners Financial Services - Emma Rankin, Cam McDonald, Tom Quigley - 4, 6, 10, 9, 3

The early forecast for Sunday afternoon is a 17-18 knots ENE breeze with a tide starting to run out. -- Frank Quealey, Australian 18 Footers League Ltd.

The racing will be livestreamed on YouTube

18footers.com

ORC DH World Championship
Oslo, Norway: The Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) and the Royal Norwegian Yacht Club (KNS) are pleased to announce the entry process is open for the 2024 ORC Double-Handed World Championship in Norway. This 3rd edition of the annual DH event will be held over 8-16 June 2024 with the start in Oslo and finish in the historic town of Tonsberg.

Building on the success of the last year's ORC European Championship for full-crewed boats hosted by KNS at Hanko, this World Championship aims to be a must-attend event for double-handed sailors. Already 28 teams have completed the pre-registration process.

The course is based on the historical route of the Skaw Cup, a regatta that began in 1953 as a collaboration between the royal Clubs in Scandinavia: the Royal Swedish YC, the Royal Gothenburg YC, the Royal Ocean Club and the Royal Norwegian YC. This challenging and prestigious race laid the foundation for a new type of offshore sailing in Scandinavia.

Another innovation for the 2024 ORC DH Worlds is the use of weather routing scoring. The boat's time allowance against her competitors will be calculated using a predicted elapsed time based on weather routing each boat around the course. Using weather routing scoring gives the competitors the full benefit of the ORC system to give scoring that reflects the boat and the race conditions.

dhworlds24.com

Copa del Rey MAPFRE to host 2025 ORC European Championship
The Offshore Racing Council (ORC) announced today that the Real Club Nautico de Palma, has been awarded the organization of the 2025 ORC European Championship.

The competition, which expects the participation of the largest number of fleets in the international yacht racing circuits ever gathered in the Bay of Palma, will be part of the sporting programme for the 43rd edition of the Copa del Rey MAPFRE.

Last weekend, a delegation from the Real Club Nautico de Palma, headed by their director, Manuel Fraga, defended their candidacy to the Offshore Classes and Events Committee, in the city of Malaga. The RCNP presented the club's vast infrastructure, the different race areas available on the Bay of Palma and along the Balearic coastline, as well as the city of Palma's logistics capacity; including extensive hotel and restaurant options and the numerous destinations served by Palma airport both to Europe and the rest of the world.

Following the presentation, the Offshore Racing Council informed that the final deliberation would be made on Tuesday, and as such today has, "awarded the RCN of Palma the organization of the 2025 ORC European Championship as part of the 43rd edition of the Copa del Rey MAPFRE."

regatacopadelrey.com

Vale Stuart Jardine
One of the best known and most highly respected sailors in the UK has passed away at the age of 90. Lt Col. Stuart Jardine OBE won championships over a remarkable eight decades, representing Great Britain at both the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Games in the Star class, and winning titles in a wide range of dinghy & keelboat classes.

In 1956 he won his first XOD Captain's Cup, sailing with his twin brother Ado and Jane Pitt-Pitts. In 1959 he purchased his first Flying Dutchman, winning the French Olympic Regatta in La Baule, France. In 1960 he finished 2nd in the Flying Dutchman UK Championship, and was selected as reserve for the 1960 Rome Olympics, where the sailing was held in Naples.

On 28th July 1962, Stuart married Mary-Ann, who travelled the world with Stuart during his Army career, having three children together, before settling down in Milford-on-Sea in 1982, where they made their home for 40 years. They say that behind every great man is a great woman, and Mary-Ann supported Stuart throughout his career, and occasionally crewed herself, during countless sailing events.

Having been posted to Germany in 1965, Stuart purchased his first Star class sailboat called 'SNAFU' (a well-known acronym used in the Army) in 1967, and was selected for the 1968 Olympic Games held at Acapulco, Mexico, where he finished 10th with crew James Ramus.

He continued to sail the XOD until the Covid pandemic hit, and won his final major championship at the 2018 Royal Solent Yacht Club's Tattinger Regatta at the age of 84 in a fleet of 42 boats.

He passed away peacefully on Tuesday 7th November at Lymington Hospital, having received superb care from the team there.

Stuart is survived by loving wife Mary-Ann, sons Lewis, Robert and Mark, as well as grandchildren Jamie, Arabella, Sean, Sam and Philippa. He will be sorely missed and leaves a huge legacy in sailing and amongst all who knew him.

Funeral and memorial details will be announced in due course.

yachtsandyachting.com

Featured Charter
J122 El Ocaso. Located in Caribbean 2023/2024.

‘El Ocaso is a 40-foot J/122, beautifully presented and one of the most successful IRC racers of her generation. Quick and responsive, powerful and stable, the J122 is easy to handle and delivers all round performance. Available for charter in the Caribbean.

See listing details in Seahorse Charters

Contact
Lucy Jackson - LV Yachting
Call: +44 (0) 20 3920 6261
Email:
http://lvyachting.com

See the the Seahorse charter collection

Featured Brokerage
2013 Volvo Ocean 65 - AMBERSAIL 2. 695000 EUR. Located in Torrevieja, Spain.

Volvo Ocean 65 AMBERSAIL is the only Volvo 65 to have completed only one lap of the planet. She is in great condition and has been used for coastal racing since the fleet refit. She comes with a spare rig and is ripe for optimization.

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
Ben Cooper
Berthon UK
Tel: 0044 (0)1590 679 222
E-Mail:

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Swan 48-250 Scintilla. 1,350,000 EUR Ex VAT. Located in Henan, Sweden.

Swan 48 ‘Scintilla’ is at the top end of the specifications for the Swan 48. The interiors combine modern design and classic elegance, featuring sumptuous woodwork, high-quality fittings, and spacious living areas that offer both comfort and functionality for extended journeys on the water.

See listing details in Nautor Swan Brokerage

Contact
Giorgio Passarella

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2008 KER 39 - Tiger 3. POA.

Tiger 3 was the last of the very successful Ker 39 design, built. She was finished as a bespoke project by the owner with no expense spared and considered by many to be the finest example of the design

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact
Chris Noble:

See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/

The Last Word
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H. L. Mencken

Editorial and letter submissions to

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