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  VOR, Caribbean and PNW racing—Sailing news from the U.S. and beyond
 | | Charlie Enright (left) and Mark Towill (right) © Amory Ross / Team Alvimedica |
Fans of offshore sailing, the time has officially come to raise a glass to Charlie Enright (32) and Mark Towill (28) and the rest of the yet-to-be-named Team Vestas 11th Hour Racing, who will be flying both American and Danish flags as they race around the world as part of the 2017/2018 Volvo Ocean Race, which starts on October 22, 2017 in Alicante, Spain, and which is set to conclude in late June of 2018 in The Hague. As of this writing, Team Vestas 11th Hour Racing is the only entrant that will be flying the Stars and Stripes, and they are joining Team AkzoNobel (NED), Dongfeng Race Team (FRA), and Mapfre (ESP) as the four officially named race entrants.
A little backstory for anyone who didn't follow the 2014/2015 Volvo Ocean Race (VOR): Americans Charlie Enright and Mark Towill first crossed tacks in 2006 during Disney's Morning Light project and have been close mates ever since. Both sailors attended Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, and both sailors were active on Oakcliff Sailing's All-American Offshore Team before landing the Turkish medical-technologies company Alvimedica as title sponsor for their 2014/2015 VOR adventure, where the team finished in fifth place out of a total of seven teams.
 | | Onboard Team Alvimedica – Watch partners Mark Towill (driving) and Alberto Bolzan (sitting) sailing downwind near sunset - Volvo Ocean Race 2015 © Amory Ross / Team Alvimedica |
Now, two years later, Enright and Towill are back in the VOR hunt with a new team and new horizons. While Team Vestas 11th Hour Racing has yet to name their afterguard or the rest of their crew, odds are good that the cast of characters will include some of North America's best offshore sailors.
Under the new VOR rules, a team can sail with seven men, or they can sail with seven men and one or two females; additionally, teams could opt to sail with five men and five women, or an all-female team of eleven women can enter, and Enright made clear at the team's March 21, 2017 press conference that the team is considering all crew options and is interested in drafting the best talent, irrespective of sex.
 | | April 22,2015. Leg 6 to Newport onboard Team Alvimedica. Day 03. Dave Swete,Alberto Bolzan,Mark Towill,and Charlie Enright sit in the cockpit as night approaches,shielded by the sail stack during naggingly wet upwind sailing conditions. Conditions remain largely the same for the third consecutive day of upwind sailing east and away from a chasing cold front. © Amory Ross / Team Alvimedica |
Team Vestas 11th Hour Racing has announced that they will be taking charge of their rebranded steed and sailing her home to Newport from Lisbon, Portugal, in April, and will be using Newport as a training base for a few weeks before they crisscross the Pond again prior to the VOR's October 22, 2017 starting date. [N.B., Newport, Rhode Island is an official VOR stopover, with the fleet set to arrive in early May of 2018.)
While Enright and Towill are quick to say that they cut their teeth on VOR sailing during their previous “lap”, they are even faster to say that this time, one of their prime objectives is to be highly competitive and, ideally, to win this storied race. Another of the campaign's key objectives is to help spread the gospel of sustainable energy. (N.B., Vestas builds wind turbines, and 11th Hour Racing is a Schmidt Family Foundation [Ed note: no relation to your humble scribe] program aimed at promoting “systemic change for the health of our marine environment”.)
 | | Skipper Charlie Enright - June 19, 2015. Arrivals to the Pitstop in The Hague during Leg 9 to Gothenburg; Team Alvimedica Victor Fraile/Volvo Ocean Race © |
Stay tuned to this space for more on Team Vestas 11th Hour Racing, as it becomes known.
Meanwhile, for anyone whose idea of great sailing involves tradewinds conditions, crystal-clear, bathtub-warm water and killer onshore parties, rather than dodging icebergs in the Southern Ocean while sailing at night at 25 knots, don't miss our coverage of the recently concluded St. Thomas International Regatta (March 24-26), as well as the upcoming BVI Spring Regatta (March 27-April 2).
 | | St. Thomas International Regatta St Thomas Int Regatta/Ingrid Abery |
Here in Seattle, however, we have long since learned to swap-out our palm-tree dreams for the reality of temperate rainforests and old-growth trees, Orcas and wild-caught salmon, not to mention “sometimes-chilly” conditions (read: habitually cold), and we're rather proud of our year-round sailing calendar. Sure, we regularly see rain, frost, occasional outbursts of snow and my personal (least) favorite meteorological condition, “snain” (read: Pacific Northwest snow meets rain; trust me when I describe it as misery incarnate), but we get after it while boats in other regions of the country lay dormant.
 | | Puget-Sound - U.S. Editorial 30 December 2012 David Schmidt |
Last weekend's Three Tree Point race marked the final (of three) of the Corinthian Yacht Club's Center Sound Series races, and next weekend marks the Sloop Tavern's annual Blakely Rock Benefit Race (proceeds go to The Sailing Foundation). True, our big-boat fleet will be transitioning to cruising mode come the summer months when the rest of the country enjoys reliable summer breezes, but we'll take a break from the rain, even if it does make for some “cerebral” Wednesday night racing on evenings when the anemometer fails to crack ten knots.
But did I mention that it (probably) won't be raining come July?
May the four winds blow you safely home,
David Schmidt, Sail-World USA Editor
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