“The world becomes a different place”

Many people find comfort in the familiar. Not Christian Zugel, who spent his youth in landlocked southern Germany, but discovered, late in life, a passion for blue-water ocean racing.

On June 18, as part of an epic Atlantic tour to celebrate turning 65, Zugel will launch his Volvo 70 Tschüss 2 off the starting line from Newport, RI for the Transatlantic Race 2025, his eyes set firmly on a line-honors win at the finish off Cowes, England.

“A moonlight sky at night is amazing, there’s no other way of describing it,” says Zugel. “To me, it’s just being offshore, so far out there’s really nothing around you. Your thoughts go in completely different directions; the world becomes a different place.”

Zugel sailed in his youth, 420s and then later windsurfers, and was an active catamaran sailor when work took him to Singapore. But it wasn’t until middle age that he started sailing bigger boats, eventually buying a Ker 40+ that he sailed on the Solent in Great Britain and in the Caribbean. During one of the Caribbean regattas, he mused to one of his crew about going offshore.

Before he knew it, Zugel was chatting with fellow New York Yacht Club members Peter and David Askew—who sailed the Volvo 70 Wizard in the Transatlantic Race 2019—and then the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Foundation, to which the Askews had donated the ocean-racing thoroughbred. Zugel bought the boat and rechristened it Tschüss 2, a cheeky take on a German salutation.

“I said to the guys that I want to walk before we run,” he recalls. “We did the Around the Isle of Wight race and Cowes to St. Malo, where we set a course record. We did the Gotland Runt in Sweden, which is an amazing, fun event [setting another course record].

“Then from there we did the Baltic 600 [and yet another course record]. After we did well, we found we liked the boat and we were comfortable with it, I said ‘I’m turning 65 this year, so this is the year to give it one final push’.”

Part 1 of that “final push” was the RORC Transatlantic Race and RORC Caribbean 600 in early 2025. Both resulted in overall wins under IRC. Part 2 will feature the Transatlantic Race 2025 and the Rolex Fastnet Race this coming summer.

“Everyone says the northern route is more challenging than the one coming over [in January’s RORC Transatlantic Race from Lanzarote, Spain, to Grenada],” says Zugel. “Hopefully we don’t hit too many storms. But if you hit a storm in a Volvo 70 that’s well maintained, I wouldn’t want to say it’s without any danger, but it’s very safe.”

Of the 14 entries in the upcoming west-to-east Transatlantic Race 2025, Tschuss 2 is the unquestioned favorite for line honors. The boat is blazing fast, very well maintained, and with more than a decade of hard oceans miles under its belt, extremely refined.

“You can steer this boat like a dinghy,” he says. “We have had days where we would go 14 knots, and you can take your hand of the wheel and she goes straight. She’s so finely balanced.”

Should his team falter anywhere across the North Atlantic, there are a few entries that could steal line honors; the Volvo 65 Sisi and the 82-foot Ikigai come to mind. But Zugel is hoping for a more relaxed race than the RORC Transatlantic Race when his crew aggressively stalked the 88-foot Lucky, which took line honors, in search of the overall win on corrected time.

“We did a lot of jibing going over from Lanzarote to Grenada; I think we did a total of 49 jibes,” says Zugel. “I’m hoping on this race we’re going to do a little bit less maneuvers and let people take a little bit longer rest. We want to be in a position to win the 2025 Rolex Fastnet Race, so we can’t break anything.”

The jump from a Ker 40 to the Volvo 70 was a big one, Zugel says, but it’s been a remarkably fulfilling journey, and a successful one as well. Of course, nothing is perfect.

“There are things I dislike [about the Volvo 70], the bunks are not comfortable at all,” he says with a laugh. “And the fact that it’s a carbon boat, certain winches, like when you adjust the runner, they make a noise like you’re near a construction site and they’re hammering up the street. It’s a challenge to stay focused and find your sleeping rhythm.”

Event information – Race details – Entry list

Transatlantic Race 2025 starts June 18 from depart Newport, RI. A virtual gate off Lizard Point will enable teams to challenge the course record for this historic passage, but the official finish will take place off the Royal Yacht Squadron’s waterfront castle in Cowes, England.

Oganized every few years, competitors will cover a distance of approximately 3,000 miles with IRC handicap scoring to determine the winners in each division. The 2025 edition will be the 32nd Transatlantic sailing competition organized by the New York Yacht Club.

Source: NYYC