Building the next generation

A community sailing center in Massachusetts is building the next generation of offshore racers—one passage at a time. Story by Adam Cove for Soundings:

The sun had not yet set on the first day of racing, and Crazy Horse had already put 90 miles behind her. It was a downwind sled ride. She was blasting along at double-digit speeds with a red A3 spinnaker. Kites had been tearing around her, and boats were rounding up. The crew was hot on the heels of modern race sleds—a Reichel-Pugh 66, a Kernan 47, a Class40, and a Judel/Vrolijk 66—but they weren’t about to strike any canvas.

They worked each wave to keep Crazy Horse on her feet and the bow pointing eastward at 16 knots of boat speed. Then they hit 17 while surfing down another wave. On board, the competition became heated: Who could hit the next top speed? And then, there it was—20 knots.

This was the 2025 Marblehead to Halifax Race, a 363-mile offshore run across the Gulf of Maine and along the coast of Nova Scotia. Crazy Horse, a 1990 Baltic 50, was crewed by the youth offshore team from the Community Boating Center of New Bedford, Massachusetts. For all but the coaches and one crewmember, this was the farthest offshore the group had ever been. – Full report