THEY’RE ALL GOOD
In her latest book, Passages: Cape Horn and Beyond, Lin Pardey describes a storm that she and her husband, Larry, weathered a er rounding the Horn “the wrong way” in their 29-foot wooden, engineless cutter, Taleisin. ey and the boat are handling the seas and wind well until suddenly, “the boat seemed to levitate, almost as if she was suspended in mid-air. en she fell and appeared to keep falling. She landed with a crashing jolt I was sure must have fractured her planking.”
Larry raced for the oorboards to check the bilge and, “looked up and, in a voice lled with amazement, stated, ‘Not a drop of water. She’s tight. Are you OK?’ ” (You can read an excerpt of Lin’s new book, as well as a review, in the October issue of SAIL.)
Lin and Larry built the Lyle Hess-designed Taleisin of black locust, teak, and oak, and sailed her around the world and then some. Nearly 40 years later, 29-yearold Cole Brauer also circled the world, engineless and singlehanded, on the Class40 called First Light, designed by Owen Clarke Designs and built by the UK’S Composite Creations. Racing in the inaugural Global Solo Challenge, she too had her shocking moments—most notably when First Light was violently knocked down and she was hurled across the cabin, slamming into the boat’s side. First Light shook it o and so did Cole, going on to nish second—becoming the rst American woman to race solo and nonstop around the world.
e two sailors—lin and Cole—couldn’t be more opposite in many ways, nor could their boats. Yet it’s that diversity of purpose, design, and construction that came to mind when we gathered the reviews for this latest issue of New Boats & Gear and examined how designers and builders are approaching the sport and pastime of sailing.
I have heard, walking the docks at boat shows, that “all the new boats look the same,” or some variation on that theme. And while there’s some truth to this argument— lots of beam carried forward, lots of chines to accomplish this, lots of self-tacking jibs, lots of max interior volume and wide cockpits with all the entertaining amenities—there’s also lots of subtlety that gets swept away in this kind of generalization.
In our reviews of these boats, we study the big picture, but we also try to look for the nuances, the innovations small and large, that each builder brings to their design. If a builder is trying to shoehorn the performance and features of a 50-footer into a boat 10 feet shorter that more people can a ord to maintain and sail, how well are they accomplishing that? If they’re putting an emphasis on energy autonomy at anchor or more sustainable sailing and boatbuilding, what new technologies or systems engineering are they using to do that?
We also appreciate how, even in what can at rst glance seem like a rather homogenous set of choices when walking the docks, there’s always much more than meets the eye if you care to expand your view. Whether the new build is an energizing combination of traditional lines, carbon rig, and leading-edge composite construction (the new Tartan 335, for example), or is pushing the performance and energy autonomy envelope (the HH 42 and 52, for instance), or is using a clever new thought process to get more people on the water (the Hopyacht 30 lands in this area), there is plenty of diversity to go around.
And basically, that’s because we all sail for di erent reasons, with di erent goals and requirements. ere is no wrong boat. ey’re all good—whether that’s a hand-built wooden cutter or a tricked out composite one-design.
Incidentally, if you want to learn more about those two boats— Taleisin and First Light— and the remarkable sailors who helmed them, here’s your chance. Lin and Cole are sharing the stage at a SAIL event during the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis in October. Learn more and get tickets at www.sailmagazine.com/rockstarsandlegends.